Bryton Aero 60

£199.99 A good-value GPS with issues

Set-up is easy using Bryton’s Active app (iOS and Android). It’s a simple case of turning on, pairing to the app and your phone, establishing links to any software you want to use the unit with, and then pairing to sensors (BLE and Ant+). Set-up is best on WiFi; you can do it without, but navigating using the buttons on the unit is clumsy and time consuming.

The Aero 60 has more than 78 functions, most are bike/nav centred but it does have additional functions too, such as notifications from your phone displayed on the screen.

Routing with the planner in Bryton’s app is intuitive – you can specify road or mountain for a fully detailed OpenStreetMap. Highlight points on your route (via your smartphone’s touchscreen) and the software creates a track, save that and upload to the Aero 60 via WiFi.

The app itself is one of the best around, and the routing offers structured workouts within the app too. You can have up to 10 data fields per screen, plus two different bike settings. It works well with the sensors included in the package (speed, cadence, HRM strap) and we had no trouble finding our wrist-based HRM and Wahoo Tickr strap.

The operating speed and GPS pick-up was between one minute six seconds and one minute 20 seconds over multiple rides. The map loading times are around the same as the GPS signal finding, so pre-ride delays are reasonable.

Navigation with the Aero is decent. The turn instructions are good, informing you of upcoming turns and counting down the distance. Where it falls down, however, is that if you deviate from your planned route, the Aero 60 won’t reroute you back on track. And because the map screen doesn’t scroll, you have to rely on zooming in and out to find your way back. Another frustration is the lack of an obvious sign that the unit is recording. The button layout can be a little confusing too.

Battery life is a claimed 32 hours. Connected to gearing, power, HRM and navigating we were getting in excess of 20 hours, so 32 could be achievable if using it as a bare-bones recorder.

At £200 the Aero 60 is decent value but it’s not the easiest to use and it can be ‘buggy’. Hopefully, firmware updates will cure some of its issues.