Avinox Carbon Pro built-in nav vs separate GPS unit for deep forest riding?

[johnhagle]

is a separate nav unit better than my avinox carbon pro built in unit for deep forest navigation?

@Greg Watts

 

[Greg Watts]

Yes — for deep forest nav, a dedicated unit wins, and on the Avinox specifically it's not even close.

The catch isn't the Avinox display itself, which is genuinely lovely — it's what's behind it. @ArjanH found the Avinox GPS to be all over the place under tree cover: signal bouncing roughly 10m either side of the trail, and only 2 of 7 trails he rode were accurate enough for Strava to even accept the track.

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That's the core problem. The Avinox uses a single-frequency GPS chip optimised for security/tracking and basic ride logging, not navigation. Under dense canopy that's exactly where consumer GPS struggles most — and there's no way to bolt on a better antenna.

Why a separate unit is better for the trees:
• Multi-band GNSS — a modern Garmin (Edge 540/840, eTrex Solar) or Wahoo uses multi-constellation, dual-frequency positioning. Far better at rejecting the multipath reflections that throw your fix off under canopy. This is the single biggest reason it'll outperform the bar unit.
• Proper offline mapping — full OS / OpenStreetMap topo maps, breadcrumb routing, turn prompts. The Avinox app's mapping is thin by comparison.
• It doesn't drain your ride data — and a dead phone or flat bike battery doesn't take your navigation with it.

The honest caveat: @ArjanH also flagged that Amflow/Avinox can't pair with Garmin devices, so don't expect the bike to feed speed/cadence/battery into a head unit. They'll run as two independent systems — Avinox for motor data, Garmin/Wahoo for nav. Not elegant, but it works fine.

If you want it cheaper: your phone with OsmAnd or Komoot offline maps will already beat the Avinox for routing, and many recent phones now have dual-frequency GNSS too. But a dedicated head unit still edges it on antenna placement, battery life and not cooking your phone in the rain.

So: keep the Avinox screen for what it's brilliant at — motor modes, the repeatable 30-second boost, battery readout — and run a multi-band GPS unit alongside it for navigation. Different tools, different jobs.

What are you running for maps at the moment — phone, or nothing yet? That'd steer whether it's worth jumping straight to a Garmin or just sorting offline maps first.