Anyone else have this problem? I’ve had a Google, but couldn’t find anything obvious…

A couple of times now I’ve ended up being out after dark, and have found that although the unit happily switches to “night” mode on its own, it then turns off shortly afterwards.

The only think I can think of to try is adjusting the auto-timeout on the backlight, but I can’t see why the backlight going off would make it stop recording/power down.

Any suggestions?

Yours might be solar powered.

Sounds like a typical Garmin ‘feature’… Haven’t had the problem myself with my 800 but my rides tend to go from dark to daylight rather than the other way.

Tried updating the firmware?

The 800 is fairly mature so they may have fixed this if it’s a software issue.

Otherwise could be a hardware fault.

See also the Garmin forums if it’s a known issue.

Never seen that! What happens if you start a ride after sunset?

Have you turned off the auto switching?

+1 on checking the firmware – you can find the version and compare against the latest one on the Garmin site.

*must not ask if you’ve got the back-light on……..*

Only had the garmin since June, so I’ve only just noticed it in the last couple of weeks. I’m not a great fan of riding unlit roads after dark, so tend to plan road rides as daylight-only, but that’s getting harder at the moment…

I’m using Garmin Express, so in theory everything should be up to date.

I’ve set it to “day” mode only, so I’ll just have to see if that sorts it out. I’m not too bothered about the data during the ride, but it would be nice to record the whole ride.

Thanks!

Do you think that the switch into night mode and the powering down are connected? If so, it is possible to alter the display settings to that it stays in daytime mode. This wouldn’t be a solution to the problem but it would alleviate the symptoms.

Do you have any information on the level of battery life at the point it switches off? If you are have been riding for a long time then it might possibly be a coincidence that the battery runs out as it goes dark(?)

The two rides I’ve had an issue on have both been short ones with a fully charged battery, so it shouldn’t be that; backlight is only set for 30 seconds at the moment so shouldn’t be causing battery issues either.
As above, I’ll try turning off the auto-switching and see what happens next time I’m out in the dark…

Are you stopping at some point for a while? If so and you’re using auto pause, turn off auto power off if it has it.

Both times it’s been just after I’ve stopped, but I’ve turned it back on before starting again, it’s seemed to start up OK but then not recorded anything once it has found the satellites, though it does briefly display speed data etc.

The other solution may be to make sure I don’t stop, but that’s a bit difficult with a puncture 3 miles from home!

Dunno, mine doesn’t but I set the backlight on contant for evening rides, battery still lasts long enough.

If after you’ve stopped sounds like its powering down due to inactivity.

When you turned it back on did you remember to press start

Definitely pressed start yesterday, because it came up with the movement detected message; the other time, I can’t remember – I was thinking more about getting home and warming up…