About 10/12 years I bought and fooled around with a Garmin 60 unit and at various points over the past few years have tried and was always frustrated with the software bundled by Garmin. Nothing ever seemed to work as it should, lots of bugs, sometimes the device wasn’t recognised etc. etc.

Yesterday I bought a new Garmin device. It’s 2019 I thought, so things must have really improved. It will all run like clockwork…. ummm…. well…. same old shit. Really astonishing.

By the look of it, they don’t adhere to good process and design principles in their business. Blame their CTO and development management chain 🙂

Because cycling is a tiny part of their global market – they’re big in marine and aviation so that’s where the money goes.

Also, they’ve tried to cram in far too much “performance” bollocks into the system to the expense of things like battery life and navigation.

Had my vivoactive hr for 3 years now, it never misses a beat. Looking around for a replacement, just cos I fancy something newer with some more particular features, and I’m only looking at Garmin.

Brilliantly simple bit of kit.

I think my next gps unit will be a wahoo element bolt  When my 810 fails or annoys me enough to change.

Every ride I change the bottom right of my Garmin to display temperature, and next time I use it, it will always have been changed back to “calories”.

It doesn’t even know how much I weigh or how windy it is, so how can it even calculate this number I’m not interested in?

Next GPS will be from someone else.

Every ride I change the bottom right of my Garmin to display temperature, and next time I use it, it will always have been changed back to “calories”.

Mine will periodically reset itself to the “default” settings display which includes calories and other completely useless info. Very annoying.

I have a Vivoactive 3 and a Samsung phone. If I have the GPS on I have a notification complaining that location services are on so the watch can’t talk to my phone. If I turn the GPS off I get a notification complaining that weather services won’t work as the GPS is off.

I don’t use weather services and don’t want to. I can’t turn off notifications as that blocks all notifications including email and texts.

When I complained to Garmin they told me it was Samsung’s fault and I should expect them to modify the entire Galaxy range so it works with their crappy watch.

And don’t get me started about my Edge 810 which has been Crashy McCrashface from new.

I dread every update of Garmin Connect as it has in the past meant my watch doesn’t work for weeks.

To balance out nobeer’s review, my Vivoactive HR frequently crashes and loses any unsynced activities (and the time, which is a bit of a flaw in what’s supposed to be a watch). It also seemed to get very confused by summer time and is now confused about which day it is.

Ultimately, I know Garmin is awful but I still bought a new 820 to replace my 200 because, even taking into account the software, they’ve got the best price/performance mix.

Others have a different view – my friend’s cycle club have pretty much switched en-mass to Wahoo because reliability is more important to them than the colour mapping.

Weird, there were 6 or 7 of us at work all got them at the same time, the only issues have been water related, garmin replaced both within 3 days, despite being out of warranty.

I don’t even wear it in the shower now tbh.

As a contrast, I’ve had almost no issues at all with Garmin software. The Lunge household is currently on 5 devises, 2 running watches, a fitness tracker and 2 bike computers, and we think it all works well.
Every now and again a devise won’t connect to the app but closing and reopening the app again seems to fix almost all the problems.
There are much worse systems out there in my opinion.

I always have to laugh at the fact it’s called Garmin Connect app- half the time it won’t flipping connect!

Instinct and 130 here, they both work flawlessly and sync to Connect and Strava without any issues.

Others have a different view – my friend’s cycle club have pretty much switched en-mass to Wahoo because reliability is more important to them than the colour mapping.

I find the Elemnt really effective. Just does what it’s supposed to do with minimal fuss.

Edge 750. Now 10 years old. Hasn’t missed a beat.

Geko 301. Long since superceded. Didn’t let me down in all the years I had it.

Dakota. Would have been perfect but the screen was a bit small for viewing maps and it would slow down if I didn’t clear out the old tracks every year or so.

Oregon 600. Faultless. I’d love to have an excuse to upgrade it to the 700 for Wi-Fi connectivity but really can’t find a good one.

Forerunner 35. Simple, each to use. Connects easily via Garmin Connect, then to Strava and to Relive.

Basecamp on PC. Just about the most powerful route planning and editing system. Bit of a start-up curve but once gained it’ll do just about anything you need.

It does seem that the whole Edge series has suffered from bouts of flakiness. The “outdoors” Etrex, Oregon etc seem to be much more stable.

It does seem that the whole Edge series has suffered from bouts of flakiness. The “outdoors” Etrex, Oregon etc seem to be much more stable.

I think it’s the user interface that people find problematic rather than the hardware. It’s just not very intuitive ime. That said, if you use anything enough, you get used to the quirks. It’s always felt to me as if Garmin’s software’s been designed by people who’ve never actually used the units for real. Mad stuff like having to go to a completely different menu screen just to reset a trip meter on one of the outdoor models for example.

The hardware’s mostly been decent I think, but as Crazylegs said further up the thread, Garmin’s core marekt is automotive and aquatic, outdoor and biking stuff’s a bit of an afterthought.

Ive had an edge 800, 810, vivoactive hr and vivoactive 3 music.

All have been good albeit with a few niggles. I swapped the HR for an apple watch at Christmas, but Ive already replaced that with another Garmin, the Garmin niggles are similar to the apple watch ones, but the overall Garmin performance is better.

It constantly says it’s disconnected from my phone, but it never is it just needs the connect app reopening. That’s an iPhone problem, had no issues when I briefly swapped to a galaxy s8.

The 810 I’ve had for ages, battery is getting a bit tired on it now, but I’ll no doubt replace it with another similar one.

Prawny, how did you like the 3 compared to the hr?

I have an Edge 200 solely for logging distance covered on local rides and a new Explore for long distance navigation – both are brilliant for what I use them for.
Having said that a number of the guys have 500/800’s and have complained about there function and battery life so is the issue just with those two models?

Bleurgh…

Vowed never to get a Garmin after the utter piece of crap that is my Edge 500.

Hung onto it for far longer than I wanted as there was no viable alternative.

Cue Wahoo! Thank the lord. Now own an Element Bolt and love it.

It’s largely similar, sleep tracking is better and the ability to store music on the watch is something I liked about the apple watch so to me that’s a big improvement. Biggest bonus is that it isn’t horrific to look at.

Aye, I may go for the music version, mainly for podcasts, although I pretty much always take my phone running and cycling.

Hmmm…

I’ve a 520 and it’s been good and I’ve had no issues with it. The fact that I have to set everything up navigating dozens of button pushes on it rather than on my phone or pc when they are connected to it is frankly ridiculous.

they’re big in marine and aviation

Their marine kit is full of bugs too, they just release software too soon and full of bugs, but despite this they’re still the best.

I always take my phone on my bike and used to take it on runs, but it’s liberating not having to take it running. The non music one is slightly better looking though, and cheaper. Amazon were pumping them out at £135 the other week.

It’s also the shocking number of bits of software they seem to spew out. Base camp, Garmin Express, Web Updater, Map Manager. Not surprised they can’t keep up with their own stuff.

What do you mean by bundled software?

For a Pc?

I think the are just designed to be more standalone devices now, like mobile phones.

Lezyne micro is better than my older Garmin’s & easier software

Also vivoactive is the least accurate tracker by a mile (well several actually)

https://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2019/04/unreliable-marathon-fitness-trackers/

Ok it was a treadmill test, maybe it took off 😉

No, it Was the vivosmart.

Seen that on the beeb yesterday, anyone who expected a fitness tracker with no GPS to be accurate wants their head read. 🤣

I had a 510 from just after they came out until earlier this year when it crashed at the end of a ride and then wouldn’t work – it wouldn’t remember my settings such as preferred units or weight & height – I was a 4018 pound, 4’2″ high eight year old apparently, no wonder Americans have a health problem if that’s the default! I think the memory chip had developed problems.

I replaced it with an Edge 520 and that’s been fine so far.

Like Colin I’ve also got an Oregon 600, had it at least two years, possibly three. Again it’s been fine. There was one instance when riding in the Peak I thought the mapping had broken, it turned out I’d zoomed out so far that the Earth was a small circle hiding behind the location cursor! Can’t blame Garmin for that one.

All units have their foibles, the Oregon won’t handle external batteries in a sane way for example, but if you take time to set them up then they generally work.

No problem with Edge 800, Mac, Basecamp, Garmin Map Installer and Garmin Express here.

The key for me I think is plugging the Edge in and waiting until it appears on the desktop before trying to do anything. Once this has happened, it’s all good.

Garmin Connect is almost dangerously bad for route planning, I have in the past found that moving one waypoint will cause it to randomly modify other portions of the route, something I only discovered when I was slavishly following the route on my Edge 25 and ended up benighted somewhere above Cumbernauld…

It also updates more than bloody Windows and I never know what new quirks to expect after each update. Half a commute to find GPS signal was the most recent one…

Basecamp on PC. Just about the most powerful route planning and editing system.

Off-road, for yourself, possibly. For anyone preparing routes for a group to use, or where you want to navigate at street level, it’s the most abysmal, ill-conceived, buggy, illogical heap of poo ever assembled for the public to use. “Oh I want to send this route to a mate, but no I can’t cos I need his actual motorbike’s GPS on my desk right here, right now plugged in because some halfwit decided the concept of offline maps might allow people to easily share information across platforms.”

Tyre or MyRoute-app with off-road capability would be stunning. Especially with the ability MyRoute-app has to use different processor platforms – you can then see exactly what a TomTom, Garmin, Oregon thinks the track joining the waypoints should look like.

Forerunner 235 for me is effortless. I use it with iPad and Android phone plus Mac and it just works, even uploading every activity to Straava when complete..
For the iPad I also run ConnectStats for a different look at the numbers.

I generally don’t have a big issue with Garmin software-as long as everything is kept up to date it all seems to work fine. I do wonder if they’re in a bit of a no-mans land though between a hardware and software vendor. They can’t compete with software specialists like Strava – Garmin Connect was heading in the right direction but is just a poor imitation of Strava with limited reach, being Garmin only.

I feel like they should just focus on hardware and just enough software offload the data out to other apps.

I sort of know where you are coming from, my old 800 drives me nuts, Garmin connect on the pc is clunky. Garmin express sometimes updates Strava, sometimes decides not to, and the 800 often changes some of the display information to sometimes completely random like average temperature if not used regularly. That said I have a Fenix 5x that connects to my phone and it is faultless, and the Garmin app on the phone does exactly what it says on the tin.

Have been using the Edge 1000 for several years and found it almost faultless. The software was always a bit clunky in my experience, but “worked”. Prefer other systems for looking at my data, or plotting routes – so by “worked” I guess I mean efficiently uploading to Strava etc.

The power on/off button the on the 1000 broke off a month or two back, and so I picked up an 820 to replace it as the new 830 was due and 820’s were on sale.
Works just like the 1000, but the gradient of a hill goes nuts sometimes and just reads zero when I know it’s easily over 10% or whatever… but can put up with that if it’s the only fault.

Edge 1000 – I swear and curse at it every time it’s on my bars. It works ok, (well. except when it just decides to stop following where you are), but it’s just so non-intuitive. The maps are great, but when you just want something to easily follow a route, or record a route, the software on the device stinks.

I feel like they should just focus on hardware and just enough software offload the data out to other apps.

Pretty much what Wahoo has done with the Elemnt. Seamless synching. Connects direct to your wifi network and uploads to Strava automatically when you get home. Synchs with Komoot so you just create or upload your routes to there then follow then with turn-by-turn on the road. The screen is monochrome, but easy to read. Shows your starred Strava segments live if you like that sort of thing. Will show alerts from your smartphone if you want it to. Button-operated control so no touchscreen issues in the wet or with heavy gloves. Straightforward user-interface. It just works a lot more smoothly than anything from Garmin I’ve tried.

I’ve had a Garmin 810 for 2.5 years now. Due to “issues” uploading routes, I’ve only recently started using it anger. Those issues were courses overwriting themselves on upload, so after adding 5 new files only one would appear. A silly amount of time spent working out how to make it work, including some Garmin forum posts from 7+ years ago.
I also tried to buy a new watch from them recently – after 7 weeks it still hadn’t turned up so cancelled it. Quite glad now, will look at alternatives.