When does the 1040 Solar actually solar charge? Only when moving?

Just bought the 1040 Solar.  After my ride, I set my unit on the window sill to charge.  When I turned it off the battery was 40%.  When I work up I was hoping to see more than 40% but to my surprise the unit was dead.  It must have turned itself back on like it does when you plug it in to charge.  Has this happened to anyone else?  Thank you for your time

zivadaddy said:

Tips for Using the Edge 1040 Solar Device Solar charging is designed to optimize and extend the battery life of the device. Solar charging occurs even when the device is in sleep mode or turned off

I've tried this many times, and not once has it proven to be true. Maybe in the arctic it does.

Basically they are making false claims so admit it and change the wording on the device and In connect.

They hoodwinked me for sure 

Katie Kookaburra has done a great real use review of this head unit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnVidr0V4K0

Great insight to what is possible. I love how people think solar is meant to replace actually charging the unit via mains. It's a supplementary power source.

Ok, I just bought my 1040 Edge Solar and was having some concerns so I did my own test out in the back yard on a bench (starting charge 57%. Unit off, 1 hour, 0 solar charge. Unit standby, 1 hour, 0 solar charge. Unit on, 1 hour, 0 solar charge. Unit running (started as if I’m riding), 1 hour, 9:48 min. solar charge at 77% intensity. 
So basically, the only way the solar charging feature works is while actively riding. Garmin needs to update their manual and marketing. 

Well, here's the thing. Mine says it gets solar charge whilst in standby. Several hours if long enough. Always zero battery percentage gain though. Maybe yours is reading correctly then. 

I ride 3:05 and gained 58 minutes solar power 

LukeFarrugia said:

I'm genuinely surprised. That's a great epic fail for a piece of equipment if so. There's other reviews I've read that state that it does charge in sleep mode. So arguably something is going on with your unit perhaps.

Every post from anyone with the 1040 solar says the same thing. Doesn't charge while sleeping or off. I tested mine too, no dice. It would be cool if it did, so it isn't a show stopper for me. But I thought it would, the documentation says it does. But it does not. Only when an activity is in progress.

Hey all, I've been in communication with Garmin about this. I'm pretty sure they know their devices don't work as advertised/as the instructions indicate they do. They're trying really hard not to say that they all don't work properly, but I think it’s pretty hard pretend like a situation is one thing when it’s another.

A summary of my experience

1. Original unit doesn't charge while off or in sleep mode so I talk to a chat rep. That reps says that's not how it's supposed to work, we'll send you a replacement.
2. Replacement unit doesn't work as it’s supposed to. I talk to a new chat rep who is skeptical that I’m describing my testing accurately. (Real nice customer service guys... Imply your customers are lying or inept.) I go to do more testing and still no charging while off or in sleep mode.
3. Next I call support and the rep on the line gives me a straight answer. He tells me he and everyone he knows who has tried it has had the same experience as me. The device only charges when an activity is running. He reports the engineers are “working on it”.
4. I submit feedback using the feedback form on the Garmin site requesting they get back to me about my and tons of other people’s experience with their product not working as advertised, but I don’t hear anything back after about a week
5. I call them out on twitter where a person promptly asks me to dm them my email address so they can look into it. This person reports that the “1040 solar definitely should be gaining solar charge while powered off”. He says the first defective device (from step 1) is being investigated. It seems to me he’s made it sound like this is not a wide spread problem. So I then ask him what they’re going to do about my currently improperly working device. To this he says he requests time for their team to find a solution that can be applied to existing edge 1040 units. I don’t know about you, but it sounds to me now like my issue isn’t a one off issue that would certainly be fixed by sending a replacement unit. Instead they’re trying to figure out how to fix EVERYONE’s defective products.

Side note: What I don’t understand is how DC rainmaker reported he and desfit (of YouTube fame) gained a bunch of ride time while their units were off for 50something minutes.

To the people who argue that we shouldn’t expect to see the battery go up from solar charging, some rough math:

If I rode ~2 hours (120 minutes) with 64% sunlight intensity and the unit says it gained 20 minutes of battery and the battery drained about 3 percent from the level I started at. This suggests that you get about 100 minutes (120-20) of operation when you spend 3 percent battery. Let’s say that that means for every 1 percent battery, you get about 30 minutes of operation. If you can gain 20 minutes of operation at 64% intensity for two hours of charge time, that means that if you charge at 100% intensity for two hours, you should get about ~31 minutes of ride time worth of charge or about 1%. This math suggest less charge than Garmin who said it was possible to get back about 70% or your usage time back if you had excellent conditions (if I remember from dc rainmaker's review), but let’s go with our anecdotal number, this is rough math after all. Using 31 minutes of ride time, charging the unit while off in 100% intensity sun light for 5 hours should increase your battery life by about 76 ride minutes which would show up in the battery as 2-3% more charge.

Anyway, I hope you all speak up about this with them too. I have a feeling I’m not alone in the solar charging being a huge part of how you justified the ridiculous price of this thing.