At last Garmin gets something right.

[Big Dan]

50/50 at best.
I deserve an apology from the dude the called me out.

[unterhausen]

Originally Posted by zzy

I cannot believe in 2019 we're stuck with godawful software that's barely any better than the earliest car GPS units and the computational horsepower of a TI-83.

I really don't think it's all that easy to do GPS software. I'm curious how much money Google had to throw at just the navigation problem to get it to work. Garmin certainly has that figured out for the most part. The issues I have problems with are usually related to stupid memory management schemes that really do seem they should be easy to fix. Or at least, they are important enough that they should be fixed.

I am pretty sure the crashing is related to the fact they can't do memory management. And they recognize that the most important part of any gps is keeping track of ride data, because we are all stravaholes. I have often thought that I would be happy if they didn't save any data at all from my ride. I like to have the data, but there are a lot of times I would lose that if it meant that the navigation was 100 percent reliable. The data collection clearly is where all the bugs are, and probably why google is so much more reliable. Google just doesn't do it.

Having said all that, the Ride with GPS app navigation works fine, their data collection works fine. Too bad it kills the battery on my phone. And I can't hear the cues.

[Alaska Mike]

Originally Posted by happycampyer

I have two Edge 500s that are around the same age and haven’t had any issues with batteries, etc.—maybe I should start buying lottery tickets with kramnnim. I recently purchased the 530 so that I could have maps (for D2R2). If I hadn’t owned the 500, the setup would have been torture, and in retrospect I wish I had gotten the 830. The touchscreen would make the process much easier. The only device I connect to my Garmins is a heart rate monitor, and I download data via a cable, etc., so I’m the opposite of a power user.

I hate the touchscreen. I much prefer buttons for accessing functions. Then again, I’m not much for mapping and that sort of stuff. Getting lost is half the fun.

[dem]

Originally Posted by unterhausen

Having said all that, the Ride with GPS app navigation works fine, their data collection works fine. Too bad it kills the battery on my phone. And I can't hear the cues.

This is one of the reasons I love the ELEMNT/Bolt - it is actually "dumb" navigation, it just uses ridewithgps cues. No dynamic routing. Draw your route on RWGPS, and it follows it exactly.

The new Wahoo Roam attempts to do real nav, I have not used it, but that is definitely a much harder technical challenge (and frankly falls under the "if you really need that, you're stuck with garmin" category)

[madsciencenow]

I’d be interested in how the Roam does navigation. The lack of a robust navigation feature is why I went back to Garmin.

I actually prefer the touch screen. It feels more intuitive to me but maybe it’s just what I’ve gotten used to.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[fkelly]

I used a Garmin 800 for 8 years. Still going strong but I've switched to using my Samsung S8 phone with Android with the Ride with GPS Android app. It recognizes my Bluetooth HR monitor (Garmin model) and Garmin speed sensor (again you need Bluetooth version or rather the Dual one) and my Stages power meter.

If I want it to, it will give turn by turn instructions for a course downloaded from rwgps. You can run it in handlebar mode so the screen and map stay on (uses about 40% of battery in 2 hours) or auto turn off the screen (it will still wake to give directions) and use maybe 20% of battery in 2 hours. I suspect that if I was an ultra rider I could get an external battery to extend the battery life ... but I'm not: 2 to 4 hour rides are all I manage.

A couple of times lately I've had GPS signal crap out during a ride and I'm tweaking some settings at rwgps suggestion to minimize that.

When I get home from a ride I give the ride a name and click save. It's on the web site before I can get up to my computer on the second floor.

Phones and battery life are only going to get better and better. The screen and maps are already way better than Garmin.

[weaponsgrade]

I had a Garmin 800 and recently bought a 530. I took a hard look at Wahoo. The most important criteria for me was mtb navigation. And for that, it seemed like Garmin came out on top. The Garmin setup UI sucks. Setup requires navigating through a ton of menus and submenus and clicking lots of different buttons. At least it's just a one-time thing. Getting the device to pair with my iphone sometimes requires closing and restarting the app. I can't seem to find a way to associate a bike with an activity profile. I'd like to be able to track the miles I put on my mtn bike, gravel bike, and road bike. In order to do this, the only way seems to be going into an activity after it's already been uploaded and changing the gear (bike) from the default.

The Climbpro feature seemed like a really neat thing. The idea is to show you in real-time the profile and grade of a climb and distance to the top. Unfortunately, it only seems available if you're following a pre-loaded course. The device also doesn't seem to handle deviations and re-routing from a pre-loaded course very well. I went mtn biking yesterday at a place I know well with a pre-loaded course that covered about 90% of the trails I was planning to ride. I kept getting a message to make a u-turn even after I had rejoined the course. Eventually, the u-turn message went away but it was annoying.

The one saving grace are those trail maps. I've gone mtn biking in some new to me places and it's awesome to be able to look at the map, see the trails with their names, and your location.

[joosttx]

Originally Posted by dem

I've owned:
Forerunner 305, 910XT, 920XT, Edge 500, Edge 510, Edge 520, Zumo 665, Zumo 595LM - so roughly $4000 of Garmin product, all purchased new.

I've reported dozens of bugs, issues, etc. None have ever been fixed. Every firmware release was worse than the previous - maybe fixing 1 thing, introducing 5 more. This is exactly DC Rainmaker's experience too.

In the end, Garmin's "support" offers the only solution they have which is "send you a new one" - they are worse than useless. They will, however, send you a shiny refurb (which sucks if your unit is brand new) to resell when you're sick of it.

Here's my Wahoo support experience:
Report a bug related to 3 second power display that only happens with my Powertap (not my other 3 power meters)
They remotely enable logging on my device, I do a ride and send them logs
3 weeks later - new firmware comes out to fix my bug

Just called Garmin Support because my 530 will not connect with my phone. "Hold time greater than 1 hour". POS product POS support from my experience.

[robertbb]

I'm still happily using an Edge 500. They do absolutely everything I need and nothing I don't. They are reliable and the only real issue with them is the battery life (but batteries can be replaced fairly easily and cheaply). I have two units, both in silicone cases, on rotation.

The 130 is not a true successor as it doesn't show TSS/NP/IF which are key metrics worth knowing about if you want to know how hard you went (or have gone thus far) on a ride.

Surprised nobody mentioned Bryton computers. Their new Rider 420 (due to drop on the next few weeks) looks to be a modern take on the Edge 500...

[R3awak3n]

Originally Posted by joosttx

Just called Garmin Support because my 530 will not connect with my phone. "Hold time greater than 1 hour". POS product POS support from my experience.

what phone?

[joosttx]

Originally Posted by R3awak3n

what phone?

iphone 7. I finally got it to work. After it sync my ride this morning, I found out that I had no power and had a consistent 91bmp for my entire ride up and down Tam.

I think what made garmin connect recognize the 530 was when another Bluetooth device became discoverable along with the 530. Basically, I am doing electronic voodoo to make this thing sync.

[kramnnim]

Originally Posted by joosttx

Just called Garmin Support because my 530 will not connect with my phone. "Hold time greater than 1 hour". POS product POS support from my experience.

Didn't they offer to call you back when it was your turn in the queue? Still a long time to wait but at least you don't have to sit listening to hold music.

[joosttx]

Originally Posted by kramnnim

Didn't they offer to call you back when it was your turn in the queue? Still a long time to wait but at least you don't have to sit listening to hold music.

Nope. When I got the recorded voice saing it was over and hour I just waited on hold for 2 minutes before hanging up. Also, the chat was not operational due to high volume.

[Mr. Pink]

I am reminded of this:

Everything is amazing and nobody is happy.

https://youtu.be/nUBtKNzoKZ4

[unterhausen]

it's true that the most frustrating thing about my edge 800 was that the potential to be an amazing device was obvious, and it was great most of the time. It was just that it would crap out when I really needed it. If all you do is 20-45 mile loops and want to record your ride, it's wonderful.