[Closed] Why are there no serious Garmin alternatives?

Pretty sure the large wahoo does lose detail when zoomed out, the question is whether a Garmin zoomed out the same with blurry is maps is anymore helpful?

One slight niggle regarding wahoo nav is that while the "create me a route on the phone" is super quick and convenient the routes chosen include anything you can ride down legally. So you might get 40k of great quiet back roads and then it tries to send you down a Somme like bridleway. That's probably as much the fault of UK inconsistency and Sustrans idea of what a nice cycle path is though.

I have the edge 25 and to honest i rarely use the breadcrumb trail but when i have its been ok. As for garmin connect well thats what lets down all garmins, it is just a rubbish platform that needs the worse virus imaginable to take it out of our existsnce forever. I cant do routes on mine because it doesnt recognise any of the roads around my house so goes straight across farmers fields instead (i live in Leeds so hardly rural).
Somebody mentioned that they can now get connect to auto upload to strava,is that possible? I thought they had stopped that but if somebody could point me in the right direction that would be great as i hate using tapirik to do it.

I've a Fenix 3 which I can preload routes on to and ViewRanger on my phone. Between the two I can find my way round New places pretty easily. Paper mapping off Bing OS is handy too.
My Fenix has been incredibly reliable and in other applications (Aviation and Marine) I've used Garmin they've been superb too.

Perhaps some are expecting more from the devices than it was designed for?

What about a satmap?

Brilliant for walking and general use with excellent screen and a far more intuitive user interface than any Garmin I've used, but not ideal for moving use on the bike ime. Best unit I've found for displaying Ordnance Survey mapping bar ViewRanger on an iPhone, but you have to load the mapping on an SD card.

I'm intrigued by the [url= http://beeline.co ]Beeline[/url] gizmo now that you can upload a GPX to it. It's just a direction arrow on your bars that's linked to a smartphone app and points you towards the next waypoint. Not remotely sophisticated, but has the potential to let you follow pre-loaded routes without loads of stopping and faffing around.

As to why Garmin seems to have a stranglehold on the bike market - combination of decent hardware, strong marketing and inertia. People keep recommending them because they've not used anything better - Wahoo looks promising - and because, charitably, the human brain can eventually adapt to even the most awful, clunky interface with repeated use.

The downside of Garmin being so huge is that bike and outdoor GPS unit development is just a small part of the business, so development seems to be low priority. Compare and contrast with Wahoo or Satmap. Anyway...

Pretty sure the large wahoo does lose detail when zoomed out, the question is whether a Garmin zoomed out the same with blurry is maps is anymore helpful?

For me it is. As per the linked article, I tend to frequently find myself having to take a small detour from a planned route, either because a road that looked viable at the planning stage turns out to be private property or unsurfaced, or because there's some sort of closure. The Garmin provides enough information to let you freestyle a detour to somewhere downstream on your route but the Wahoo is no help at all in this scenario. This and the consumption of my phone battery were the two main reasons for me to go back to Garmin, at least temporarily.

And (with a bit of effort) you can customise the maps to improve clarity; see my post here: http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/garmin-edge-mapping-off-road#post-8736646

Brilliant for walking and general use with excellent screen and a far more intuitive user interface than any Garmin I've used, but not ideal for moving use on the bike ime.

the only problem I had with a satmap was its size and the mount puts it high, so it is clunky. With an outfront type mount you can put it forward and lower, so that is better.

For moving it was fine/good. 1/25k map and zoom down to about 1/3k res and switch to the 'rotate map to direction of travel' mode and it was easy to follow the route and to see when upcoming turns were coming up, so ride at normal speed.

Could take normal batteries if needed, although not sure about the new version - which I might buy.

I don’t rate the Edge Touring for navigation. Stop for lunch. On restart asked if I want to save or discard data then do I want to navigate to the start of the route. WTF. No I want to restart the timer and continue on my preplanned route. How hard can it be to get that right?

Operator error - Just press 'start' and timer (and route) resumes...you'd did read the manual right? 😉

For Navigation and general route following (both on and offroad) I've been quite impressed with the Edge Touring. If it had better battery life* and a slightly less reflective screen it'd be better, but for £150 it's pretty damn good even if it's not perfect.

*Cache battery or Dynamo solves the power issue but still...

For me all the Garmin devices are too complicated. I use an etrex for navigating on long routes and it is accurate with OS mapping but it is clunky. All I want is OS mapping and speed and distance with ability to reliably upload gpx files. Forget all the other crap.

I have a Matt screen protector on my Oregon. Is there no equivalent for the Edge Touring?

Operator error - Just press 'start' and timer (and route) resumes...you'd did read the manual right?

To be fair, this sort of thing is an annoyance that I have with Garmins. Very often I'll set off from a stop and then an hour later I'll notice that it's not updating anything.

And, speaking as a user experience designer: that's not operator error, it's designer error 😉

*Cache battery or Dynamo solves the power issue but still...

IME a dynamo doesn't. Well, it does, but it introduces the issue that Garmins hate fluctuating power sources and gradually go completely hatstand, rendering the maps wrongly and having various weird tantrums.

I did come up with a neat solution for a USB battery, though. I'll see if I can get a picture of it sometime…

and allowed me to get routes on there wirelessly from a phone.

Thought you could now? You can definitely get Strava routes onto a Garmin from your phone (edge 520 upwards anyway)
edit: tried this? https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/b7efc9ca-5446-4e1c-bc53-474e97f376ac#0

Simon, I love you now more than ever.

That app is ace!

To be fair, this sort of thing is an annoyance that I have with Garmins. Very often I've set off from a pause and then an hour later I'll notice that it's not updating anything.

Now all I need is a better little bluetooth earpiece thingy. I really like having a little voice giving me navigation cues. My Edge 820 does it just fine, but the little earpiece thingy that I have was only about £5 on eBay, and it's quite flakey. Shame, because it doesn't block out sounds at all, stays put nicely and the battery lasts forever. I'd quite like bone conduction doodahs like on the Coros Linx helmet, but I don't want to buy an expensive new helmet (that might not even fit very well).

I have a Matt screen protector on my Oregon. Is there no equivalent for the Edge Touring?

possibly, I will have to look into it.

speaking as a user experience designer: that's not operator error, it's designer error

Tend to agree, hence the winky smiley but the OP's issue isn't actually an unsolvable issue... if the interface is explained properly or learned by reading the manual or experimenting (or intuitive enough that it doesn't need explaining.)

Just highlighting the difference between "my device won't do X" and "I don't know how to do X on my device" 😉

I've got round the dynamo power variation issue by using the dynamo to charge the battery, and then the battery to run the GPS. But I believe there are widgets that run a cache battery inline to allow you to have it all plugged in not have the issue.

Some cache batteries allow charging and discharging at the same time.

Ah, that'll be one of the widgets I've heard about about then, I need to look into this more as I'm currently just 'making do' rather than having a proper 'power on the go' strategy for longer rides.

Search for "passthrough" when you're looking at batteries. Most mass-market batteries don't support it, but some do:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01HFGQ4EC

But then even a basic 2600MAh cigar battery should be good for two full recharges of an 800/Touring, which should see you good for over 24 hours in the saddle, up to around 32 if you're mainly on the data screen. If you're needing to passthrough-charge a 5200MAh cell then chapeau 🙂

I have a Matt screen protector on my Oregon. Is there no equivalent for the Edge Touring?

I have this, seems pretty good :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01BOTRQ1Q/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It's the thing that confuses me most about switching between the Edge models and the recreational models like the Dakota/Oregon. The latter can be set to record always whereas the former need recording to be started.

Downside is typified by more than one occasion that I’ve ended up with a track with large jumps through hyperspace between days if I’ve been riding in different places without uploading.

The walking type units are determined to make anything they can into a multi day activity in my experience. Garmin’s legendary manuals don’t exactly help matters either.

So with the OP, the market is clearly ripe for an off-road mtb GPS done right, but no one wants to steal Garmin’s lunch ...

[quote=vincienup ]

It's the thing that confuses me most about switching between the Edge models and the recreational models like the Dakota/Oregon. The latter can be set to record always whereas the former need recording to be started.

So with the OP, the market is clearly ripe for an off-road mtb GPS done right, but no one wants to steal Garmin’s lunch ...

I like the look of that Beeline thing. I've used a variety of Garmins, and always found their UI pretty unintuitive, whereas almost any navigation app on my phone works fine. Never ever felt comfortable strapping my iPhone onto my bars though. I guess this bridges that gap?

But yet no one has. Maybe coz it's hard?

Well, they have, and it's not that hard. Phone + any one of a number of apps will give you significantly better navigation.

Problem is people get hung up about an expensive phone on their bars, and solve it with an almost equally expensive Garmin.

Problem is people get hung up about an expensive phone on their bars, and solve it with an almost equally expensive Garmin.

Hardly comparable. For a start you can roll a Garmin* down the road at speed and it'll generally be fine bar a scuff or two, whereas a phone will have a smashed screen at best. (And if you break a Garmin your phone works as a backup; not so the other way round.)

Plus phones have rubbish battery life when used for navigation, and very few are waterproof so they're not much use most days of the year. And even if you have a waterproof one the touchscreen won't work in the wet so it's not much use then either.

Phones are quite appealing from the point of view of having lots of apps to choose from, but in practice, unless you have a fairly tightly constrained set of requirements, they're a pretty poor tool for the job.

* the older ones anyway, the newer ones look a little more fragile

I'm not sure i agree with your premise that there aren't serious alternatives.

Pre-smart phone then Garmin was the [i]only [/i]option and they knew it. That's why every model was £300+ and very few people had them.

Then along came smartphones and Strava and Garmin realised they were being left behind, no-one even needed a Garmin anymore nevermind paying through the nose for a clunky model. It's called competition.

So they upped their game and prices came down. Of course you can still get the top of the range stuff at similar price points to old but now you get much more of a range of models from cheap to expensive.

Well, I have a Mio 505 unit.
I like It, I certainly like the Mio customer service - when my original version stopped picking up a GPS signal after the warranty had run out they replaced it with the upgraded full Euro map model!
The website is basic, and the track creating tool is irritating in that you can only do it in small 15km (I think) steps, but I understand Garmin is similar?
WiFi uploading of stored rides & downloading created tracks to the device.
Ability to link to Strava & other sites.
Battery life is pretty good-easily enough power to track & record a 200km Audax.
Ability to link it to your phone for music, or Bluetooth audio turn by turn directions if that's your bag.
TBH I don't use enough of the functions but it's a great bit of kit.
Not cheap though, think the Euro map model with HR strap & cadence counter was £350.

I like the look of that Beeline thing. I've used a variety of Garmins, and always found their UI pretty unintuitive, whereas almost any navigation app on my phone works fine. Never ever felt comfortable strapping my iPhone onto my bars though. I guess this bridges that gap?

It has potential to do that, I think. It started off simply as a basic compass - the idea was that you set your ultimate destination then just followed the arrow through whatever maze of urban chaos you selected until you reached it. I suspect it wouldn't play well with one-way systems...

Then, as I understand it, people started asking if they could use it to follow a GPX file so they added the capability to the app quite recently. In theory it should work pretty well as long as the waypoints are sensibly spaced and line up along actual tracks and junctions, so yes, it ought to let you use your phone for the mechanics, but without exposing it on a bar-mount. Not sure if it has an 'off course' alarm, which would make sense.

The original Garmin Fenix does something quite similar if you can make it recognise a GPX file as a route and not a track, I think and battle your way through Garmin's interface. Anyway, I'm seriously considering getting one and will report back if I do 🙂

The GPX import feature looked interesting, though I wonder how well it works given that they say that once you're within 100m of a waypoint it will jump to the next: seems like that might cause some issues with a densely-waypointed track, which it wasn't originally designed for. I'd also be curious to know how well it works with figure-of-eight routes.

And one of the key issues for me would be just how much it drains the phone battery… The 30 hour battery life is appealing, but if the phone can't even remotely keep up then that just means less recharging between urban pootles rather than an additional ability to do a big ride.

Interesting - might try the Beeline again. Bought one on the original Kickstarter but neither Katie nor I found it very useful. The idea seemed really sound but we both found it wasn't any better than our existing knowledge of the city/general sense of direction when you were a long way from the destination and not that helpful when you got close (you ended up needing to get your phone out for the last section anyway).

Bez - figure of 8 routes - have you worked out how to get the Edge to follow them? I'm sure it didn't use to be a problem with the old B&W eTrex but I've never managed it with an Edge.