Garmin 520 battery life poor….. what to replace with

The battery on Garmin 520 is getting progressively worse, even with GLONAS turned off and backlight / brightness down to zero, with my HRM connected I get the low battery warning at around 7 hours. It used to do 12hrs easily.

What GPS unit would you replace it with?

I don’t really use navigation much, but it’s handy, just connect HRM & Cadence sensors. But I do like big rides and have a penchant for racing 24hr – I accept an email sterna battery is required for this, but I’m not into the unit going flat after  7-8 hours

Can’t you just replace the battery? I did this with an Edge 705 and it was as good as new.

I just bought the 520 plus partially because it’s reckoned to have considerably better battery life than the 520.

Not used it yet though.

Lezyne Super GPS – I’ve had 22 hrs with battery left.

If battery life is your main concern then the Lezyne Mega units should knock everything else into a cocked hat. I’m not personally sure how well they work with sensors etc, but if you don’t care much about navigation, their disadvantages probably won’t be major issues.

Unfortunately I’ve yet to meet a Garmin Edge unit that lives up to its battery life claims. (But wish me luck, I’m off out at lunch to buy an Edge Explore.)

Wahoo Element Bolt?

My battery lasts ages; I don’t do epic rides but it’s definitely lasted at least 12 hours over 3 or 4 rides without being charged. Navigation is good if simple, but it just works properly and syncs with sensors and phones. Uploading routes is really easy.

The Bolt that I had seemed to consistently look like it’ll do around 15 hours, and there’s a lot to like about it, but IME the (main) price you pay with a Wahoo unit is annihilation of your phone battery instead. YMMV; given that many people give them glowing reviews I assume not everyone suffers the same issues.

Does the Wahoo have to be paired or is that only for navigation?

not that easy to replace it… i may have looked it into myself!

Does the Wahoo have to be paired or is that only for navigation?

It it needs to be paired for setup and configuration, route download, ride upload, SMS notifications, live update, etc.

Once you’ve loaded a route onto the unit you can unpair and it will navigate fine, but that’s obviously a silly bit of faff that shouldn’t be necessary.

Besides, IME the main two battery issues are none of the above: they’re the constant syncing with RWGPS (which eats battery like mad) and the fact that the app uses battery even when your Elemnt is switched off and you’re not using the app (which doesn’t eat battery quickly, but shouldn’t even be eating battery at all).

Like I say, though: YMMV, this is all just IME (albeit with multiple phones and multiple Elemnts).

I think I’ve only connected my Elemnt Bolt to my phone a few times since buying it & one of those times was to set it up.

If you create a route using ridewithgps on your laptop (for example), you can then sync the ride over wi-fi using the Bolt directly before leaving the house & the route will appear – no need to connect it to the phone first.

Yeah, you need to connect the app if you want SMS etc. but when I go out for a ride I don’t want to be disturbed so the less chance of that happening, the better.

Next time I go out with the Bolt, I will try to remember to connect the phone & leave it connected to see how much of a hit it actually has on the phone battery.

Garmin Foretrex 601. 48 hours on a pair of AAAs. It can connect to heart rate/cadence sensors.

Six hour ride with a Wahoo Element Bolt doing live tracking used about half an iPhone 7 battery, but only about 35 or 40% of the Wahoo battery.

Heh. I remember back a few years ago when I was using MyTrails and Tasker on a tiny Android phone to do live tracking updates to a homemade service as well as recording my route and displaying mapping so I could navigate. Battery life for that was around 24 hours. How far we’ve come 😀

Can you do a “crash” replacement? You may be able to get a brand new unit from garmin for c£60.

I’d be interested if that ^ were the case.  It was over 90 I think when I did my 705 quite a few years ago.

Battery lasts just 4 or 5 hours for me now, but it’s also got a cracked screen and water’s leaked in so it doesn’t record altitude now.  Was thinking of a Bryton, but if a refurb is only 60 I’ll have another.

Went and bought a Bolt, my mate has one and recommends it and the way I look at it, it can’t be worse than a 520