How do Garmin manage to make their software so shitty and unreliable?

Tracklog created on a Garmin Device. Synced with Garmin Connect.

Send to another Garmin device? That’s got to be easy right?

Send to device, choose device, connect to Garmin Express.
Fails on sync every time I’ve tried it.

Strava shows how badly Garmin software sucks. Garmin dominated the hardware market, which meant everyone had a Garmin account. They got that people wanted to record data, and even got that there was a social network potential, but it was so poorly developed and exploited they left a gaping hole in the market.

Does anyone actually view anything on their Connect account now?

Connect? Yes. Just dump from 800 every so often and go back if I want to re do a route and I am too lazy to rebuild it. Wtf would I use strava for that?

I do agree its not brilliant. The. Old connect was better. Can’t see what the point of express is.

When talking about Strava and Garmin I thought you’d have been mentioning the Garmin bonus seconds.

Just save a GPX or TCX file for the route, then copy it onto the Garmin device. Why bother with the Garmin Express software?

Wtf would I use strava for that

which is why I deliberately wrote “view” not “use”. If you’re vaguely interested in the data that you’ve captured then Strava is capable of displaying far more information, which is a ball-drop by Garmin given they acquired all that data for you in the first place. I’m not a Strava w*nker or fanboi, I only signed up to it maybe 18 months ago, but that was because I’d seen how much it offered over Connect both in terms of functionality and reliability.

Just gone back to Garmin (using a 820 for road biking), after years of using Satmap. The Garmin is okay and does the job, now I’ve got to grips with it, but overall I’d say the hardware and software are both pretty poor. They don’t deserve the position they have in the market. Should be much better.

Sporttracks is where it’s at. Locally installed, local data, no sharing with silly wannabees… Perfect. In fact, just like old TrainingCentre that stopped receiving new data for no apparent reason just this week 😉 I suspect I’ve reached a database limit somewhere but as it’s been out of support for yonks, can’t find anything anywhere…

The Garmin is okay and does the job, now I’ve got to grips with it, but overall I’d say the hardware and software are both pretty poor. They don’t deserve the position they have in the market. Should be much better.

The hardware is actually very good.
The software is woeful. Bug-ridden, overly complicated and too much focus on crap like live segments and syncing to the phone for text messages and weather alerts.

True about Strava as well, Garmin lost out big time and now they’re trying to hang onto its coat-tails (linking Garmin account to Strava for example) or come up with exactly the same concept on their own platform.

Just make the basic nav software work first!

What always summed up the Garmin interface for me was that on the old Oregon models, I think they were, if you wanted to re-set the trip computer display, you couldn’t hit a button on the trip computer screen, which would have been the intuitive thing to do.

Instead you had to exit the trip computer display screen, go to the main menu then through two sub-menus to access a ‘reset’ menu, where you could finally reset the trip gubbins. It took about six additional clicks for no good reason.

By coincidence, I met some Garmin guys at an event and talked to them about it, showed them how complicated it all was and they said it was really easy to change and quickly. Three years later, it was still exactly the same.

Basically whoever designs their software and user interface has never actually used it for real. It’s a bit like those bike lights with huge, bright illuminated displays shining in your face – yes Exposure, I mean you. The only things worse than Garmins for intuitive use are microwave ovens, which is saying something.

I feel oddly better for that 🙂

Totally agree. Hardware is top class. Software on devices just a joke. And signing onto connect this week, asked me to change my password…new one needs one lower case, one upper case, one number…bla bla bla, totally devoid of user friendlyness and poor security to boot.

Having said all that, they have been like it always. Since day one. So what surprises me more, is that nobody has done a sufficiently better job to wipe the floor with them.

Basically whoever designs their software and user interface has never actually used it for real.

A bit like their 200 model, you can’t get the actual time to show on any of the displays (you need to press-hold a button).

Basically whoever designs their software and user interface has never actually used it for real.

I know some one who worked for Garmin for a bit, although on sailing side. The impression I got was that it was all about long hours and banging it out quickly (and presumably cheaply). To me that sounds like a false economy when your the market leader

Garmin Oregon:

When on the Trip Meter screen, there’s a 3-bar menu bottom right.
Tap that and there’s a list of menu options.
The top one is Reset.

😀

Has anyone that thinks Garmin hardware is ‘very good’ used the touch screen on a 820? It’s not, it’s shite!

Garmin connect software now doesn’t seem to have a manual upload facility on it, so I can’t plug my Edge 500 into my tablet and upload the latest rides….
Can’t seem to do it on the app either.

Strava still lets me do it.

When I finally have the money to replace my Garmin, I think I’ll try a Bryton or Lezyne who seem to be developing decent GPS computers.
Software on the Edge 500 is an utter joke…

Garmin Connect, only actually connects (and confirms the connection) about 25% of the time, I try not to use it! Half of the time it says ‘no sync’ but is actually transferring data. Rubbish.

Hoping br comes back to see this.

A bit like their 200 model, you can’t get the actual time to show on any of the displays (you need to press-hold a button).

Please elaborate, it’s one of the two things missing from the 200 imho. (The other one is OS grid references, but I realise that’s not really very practical).

You hold down the bottom left (page) button to get back to the ‘menu’ screen. Time is displayed (small and difficult to read) top left.

Would be much more useful to have it as one of the fields you can select at the bottom of the screen.

Garmin connect software now doesn’t seem to have a manual upload facility on it, so I can’t plug my Edge 500 into my tablet and upload the latest rides….

Not very obvious, but you can click on the blue plus symbol in the top right of the page, then pick import data.

Thanks simons. I heartily agree about it being one of the selectable fields, over the calorie measure every time.

I have wondered in the past if it would be very had to change as you can see all the firmware files when plugged into a computer.

CraigW – Member

Not very obvious, but you can click on the blue plus symbol in the top right of the page, then pick import data.

Cool. Cheers….

Agree, Garmin connect is not a pleasurable experience!

seems as good a place as any to re-post

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2013/08/display-number-garmin.html

yes it’s probably in the manual, but nobody reads them do they, and there’s plenty of Garmin lost/found threads pop up.

Another disappointed user here. A simple but effective user interface would be great, ideally where you could setup the device from the UI then blow the updates into the device.

They also need to make the updates quicker. Just bought a brand new 30x and so far it’s been going close on 3 hours!

Garmin Oregon:

When on the Trip Meter screen, there’s a 3-bar menu bottom right.
Tap that and there’s a list of menu options.
The top one is Reset.

Six years late…