Are they all absolute rubbish or is it just me?

First one I had was a 800, which stopped picking up any ant signal. Out of warrenty so bought mysef an 810, have used it about 15 times and same thing has happened.

Its not the devices I’m trying to pair to as my powermeter is picked up by other head units, and it doesn’t pick up my heart rate monitor either.

Tried updating the software but that doesn’t work either..are they just rubbish, or have I been unlucky?

thanks

I have noticed my Edge 510 is less accurate than my phone, especially in trees although that may be the settings on the Edge to be honest.

I have an 820, using cadence, speed and HR monitors, its been flawless for 6 months. Could it be the battery in the sensor? I replaced the cadence battery after about 1000 miles as it stopped getting picked up.

My 500 works OK, but the software is buggy or just plain doesn’t work & one of the switches failed after not a long period of ownership, which I put up with for ages before finally getting it repaired (arranged this myself).

When my 500 finally dies, I will be looking for another brand (Bryton or Lezyne, perhaps…)

My 500 died last year after being glitchy for a few months. I haven’t bought another one although I do keep thinking of buying a 520 as I miss a computer.

But they do seem a bit shit.

The power meter gets picked up by other devices and my any plus dongle for trainer road, so its definitely the head unit.

Out of warrenty so bought mysef an 810, have used it about 15 times and same thing has happened.

£75 would’ve got Garmin to sort it if you just wanted a working unit.

My experience is that I’ve had an 810 for 3(ish) years with no issues, and a 25 for a year with no problems. However, I’d never call them ‘good’, adequate at best

the HR straps are notorious at not being picked up once you change the battery or they get a little old. there is a procedure to swapping the battery that must be followed.
Never had a problem with my 500 or 25 connecting to anything.

The only problem I’ve had is that the screws on the HR strap seized, even a jeweller couldn’t sort them out. Had to buy a new strap. Quite why they don’t use a coin sized slot like they do for the cadence and other sensors.

My 510 has been fine since I got it shortly after that model was released.

Had a 705 for years, sold it on, still working. Had a 1000 for 3 years now, also still perfect.

Had a 200, 800 and now 820 and they’ve all been faultless. Often wondered whether I’ve just been lucky as you do hear a lot of complaints (although I suppose people rarely tend to post when stuff is working properly!)

I find a new software bug on my 820 every ride. As of last week the battery save feature no longer works, need to do another factory reset. Last time I tried navigating the screen kept freezing and I had to keep resetting it mid ride. Worst product I’ve bought in a long time.

Thought my 800 had died out of warranty they offered me a replacement for £65 quid if a factory reset didn’t fix it, but it did and I sold it on still working months later.

Got an 810 over 2 years ago, no issues with that.

Agree with them not being super sorted, but they’re as good if not better than the alternatives.

I’ve had a 500, which worked well, an 800 which kept crashing and now a 1000 which is generally good, but occasionally crashes.

Just had an edge 25 replaced after 4 months as the battery refused to charge up. On the new one, you can follow a course fine, but the ‘countdown’ function for distance remaining doesn’t currently work (although that might well just be a temporary software issue, I haven’t used it for a few days). Not a great product.

power meter not a stages is it? known issues with them and out front mounts

Have an Edge 1000. It’s gone through ups and downs, but right now it’s rock-solid stable. Battery lasts well (all day, for the majority of normal riding) and the feature-set suits me perfectly. Mine’s over two years old now.

There’s a few features that I thought I would love, but don’t (live Strava segments, virtual rider) and a few that have been added since I bought it that are absolutely brilliant (Live Tracking in particular).

As a note, Live Tracking was a bag of spanners until I read that turning off the wifi on both garmin and phone *before* you start it resolves 99% of problems and so it has for me. I can even pause the garmin and turn it off (e.g. at lunchtime) and it will pick up where it left off afterwards. As an often-solo rider, this functionality would mean that if I broke it, I’d immediately get purchase approval from the wife for another.

Reminder: Strava Premium subscribers get free device insurance now. I posted up about it last week 🙂

I’ve got a 500, a few years old now. For what it cost it’s crap IMO.

Slow to attain satellite, battery not lasting long, battery now says 100% when it can’t possibly, moisture in the case, random lost sections of ride or not accurate

The TomTom running GPS watch I have was a fraction of the cost and better in every way.

Reminder: Strava Premium subscribers get free device insurance now. I posted up about it last week

ta, missed that! Also the £30 taxi fare home if you break your bike! Must admit I took a squizz at the Premium perks, saw everything was in $ and assumed they were all US only!

Nope, definitely UK, but you must click through to activate it. Go for it 🙂

FunkyDunc – Member

….battery now says 100% when it can’t possibly

To be fair, the battery performance on mine still seems OK.
But, mine also shows only 100% battery now.
Doesn’t matter how much it’s used; 100% battery all the time…. 😀

As a counterpoint to my “rosy” 510, my wife’s 800 has needed a couple of hard resets, one of which fubarred the SD card so her maps became unusable.

Strava insurance has an excess bigger than the garmin out of warranty replacement. ie pointless

I have had:
Garmin 305 – still working but too big to use
Garmin 305edge working great till lost in floods
Garmin 500 – still going strong
– needs to have all ant+ sensors connected before zeroing power meter
– curiously the battery value has started to say something other than 100%,
-faster connection of satellites would be nice
Garmin 520 – being delivered tommorow new @ £199
Garmin Vivoactive – very happy until I broke screen
Garmin 235 – to replace vivoactive – bit chunky

The only thing that plain did not work was the garmin scales that would not connect to my WiFi so now have withings scale

the hardware is good but the software could be so much better

N

Strava insurance has an excess bigger than the garmin out of warranty replacement. ie pointless

Would they replace a broken Edge 1000 for £50…?

Software is crap but hardware has been reliable on our 705, 200, 200 and Touring.

200 really doesn’t like it if you start moving before it’s got a satellite lock, and it takes a long time.

I have noticed my Edge 510 is less accurate than my phone, especially in trees although that may be the settings on the Edge to be honest.

it’ll be the phone using mobile masts to triangulate when satellite reception is poor.

Original firmware on my 510 was terrible with many bugs that included the ability to trash ride data on pausing or switching off the device.

They’ve fixed that though and is better, but Garmin have a habit of releasing new firmware that makes things worse, so I never use Garmin Express which tries to update firmware automatically. I wait until it’s absolutely confirmed a good version, or just stick with the version I’ve got if it’s working anyway.

it’ll be the phone using mobile masts to triangulate when satellite reception is poor.

Depends on the phone and the cell towers in the area. In some cases a reasonable triangulation can be achieved. In many it will get more of a rough location and in remote areas it may only get the nearest cell tower as the location. Some phones can only do basic location also.

Phones do use mobile data however to get a fix quicker using Assisted GPS. All that does is download the satellite positions for an initial fix. Without A-GPS the device has to wait until a satellite has broadcast the positions which is a slow data feed. In some cases people set off with a Garmin without it having acquired a good fix yet and it’s not going to be very accurate. Sometimes it fails to get a lock when moving or only has a limited number of satellites acquired. There’s an accuracy indicator on some Garmins which tells you how good the fix is.

If comparing phone and Garmin, the location of them makes a difference. e.g. on the bike with clear view of the sky, in a pocket, or buried deep inside a backpack.

Will garmin fix / refurb headunits? The usb connector on my 810 (secondhand) is pretty corroded and struggles to connect to a PC on the odd occasion I want to put a route on there.

My 810’s been great by and large – just persistently throws up minor bugs for no apparent reason, like a PC operating system from 10 years ago. Also refuses to bluetooth to my phone without wifi.

My 500 was great until it wasn’t but I went through 3 810 units failing for various reasons (albeit the last one being mechanical rather than software). Even when the 810s were working the ANT+ and bluetooth would sometimes be sketchy – needing a switchy-on-and-off again. Not that often, but enough for me to give up and go with something else when the last one broke.

Garry – garmin do an out-of-warranty repair. Look here:

https://my.garmin.com/rma/en-GB/repair/repairLanding

I had a Garmin 200 for few years and it worked fine, upgraded to a Garmin 800 and it works fine too. Sometimes both were and are very slow to pick up satellite signal though which is a pain. My biggest gripe has been when i’ve tried to take a Strava route, of a friends, save it as a GPX and then load it onto Garmin Connect (which I think is pretty poor s/w). Could be user error, but why in 2017 is that so difficult!!?? 🙂

I’ve lost count of the number of times riding buddies (and people on this very thread too, to a degree) have said things along the lines of “It’s brilliant, apart from…” then they reel off tales of freezing, rides lost, pairing lost, firmware woes, UI idiosyncracies, battery issues etc etc etc.

I was a Garmin user (and still have an 800 for OS maps when walking, backed up with paper, I’m not stupid*!) of over 10 years from Edge 205 thru 1000 and jumped ship over to the Wahoo Elemnt (Bolt) about six months ago and have zero intention to go back. The big difference is that, if it does have a blip, it is sorted very very quickly by a firmware update that does work. They are responsive and actually seem to care about their users.

For balance, I am sure that there are people who never have issues (of some description) with their Garmin but I really don’t recall meeting one!

*went walking yesterday and it froze on me 😆

Have an 800(USB died in a biblical downpour – still charges though) and 810.
Mostly, they are an impressive piece of kit.
However for what they cost, they are rather plagued by random crashes and other assorted minor bugs.

They’ve had a huge advantage in that there’s been very little competition over the years, but I wouldn’t hesitate to jump to another brand offering similar features at a lower price point.

stevious – Member

Garry – garmin do an out-of-warranty repair. Look here:

https://my.garmin.com/rma/en-GB/repair/repairLanding Thks for that link Stevious.
Jinxed myself posting earlier – hill climb event this evening waiting around at the start and my garmin powers off. Turn it back on and it refuses to find my powermeter, the climb being the long and steady sort where you’d really like to ride to power. Sheeeeeiiiiittttte.

I have a forerunner watch for running and an 820 for cycling and think they’re both a pile of shit.

I’d probably be impressed if it was 1990 but I think for this day and age Garmin are peddling a load of crap. The software is awful, they never stop trying to update and they’re riddled with stupid, annoying, pointless glitches and bugs. Sometimes they’re pretty immaterial but it’s annoying constantly re-arranging things that have moved or chasing a solution to a minor problem every other day like the worlds most tedious poltergeist is inside it.

Basically I’m constantly amazed that Garmin have managed to monopolise this market- it surely can’t last.

I’m on my 3rd 800 in about 5 years. Both died through water ingres. It was raining, I wasn’t going swimming. One was the USB port and the other water got in behind the screen.

The 820 seems like a lost cause. The 1000 seems ok from people I ride with but the battery life isn’t up to a full days riding (pushing it for 8 hours) if you need the maps on.

I’d jump at the chance of a more reliable option but nothing seems to come close if you want maps. At least with Garmin they have some customer service and there are enough people that you can find answers online. Bryton, Mio I’m not so sure. Wahoo is only black and white which I can’t see working off road. Lezyne don’t have maps from what I’ve seen. The hammerhead karoo looked interesting but I’ll believe it is good when I see it in production and used in real life.

Few months into Wahoo ELEMNT Bolt ownership and it’s already a much better experience than a Garmin. Wouldn’t jump ship yet if you’re using navigation a lot (although that is improving) but for general user experience it kicks my old 810 in the nuts.

I must be lucky – had an Edge 500 for about 4 years and it’s been flawless. Similar performance from a forerunner watch.

No problems with my Garmin Edge 510 since March 9th 2015, thats 949 hours 37 minutes and 5 seconds duration, with almost 830 hours moving time, 9510 miles, over 1187 activities.

Got a 200 and an 810, had an 800 too until it got nicked.

All have been faultless apart from the 810 which crashed once while using live segments and it then thought it was 2050!! A software update sorted that.

Got an edge 800 which is 5 or 6 years old now – no faults yet and the battery seems as good as day 1.