Garmin Edge 1040 Solar - Ride time gained is negligible

How is the backlight configured on the display. That can be is the biggest power drain. Is it set to auto?

Solar intensity that early isn't going to be very high. I did almost 5 hours today and started early like that and gained 42 minutes time, primarily in the second half of the ride. Also keep in mind that if your body is shading the 1040, even if it is sunny, the 1040 is not seeing it (obviously).

If you install and pay for WindField, you can assign one of the fields inside of windfield to Garmin's Solar Intensity number, that is different from the actual graph (that you should also run to see if it is getting any sun)

I learned today that if I give in to the borg...er...garmin...AND capitulate, that if I set my backlight to true 'auto' and just deal with the dullness, AND if I set the gps to the most basic setting, that on a 54 minute test ride with a measly 18% solar average, I gained 3.26 of battery.  I left the house with 97% battery, rode nearly an hour with a t-storm looming and not very bright at all, and came back with 97% battery.  So it 'can' be done, this long battery life.  You just have to be willing to trade off some things

It's bright here at 6:30 AM and there is a distinct difference between over 40 minutes and 9 minutes. The device is getting sun.

I have my device set to auto brightness. Sacrifices or not, this is not advertised performance. It's interesting that people go directly to user error. Even at max brightness, to think that 2 minutes per hour is normal is rather absurd. Garmin is processing an exchange. 

It is set at auto. Regardless, that should have no bearing on solar performance. It should only impact the rate of drain  

Wormscribbles said:

It's bright here at 6:30 AM

I mean...does solar intensity need to be explained to you

The power usage affects the solar gain value being reported.

What the solar gain is reporting is the gain you achieved against the current drain. The lower the drain the higher the gain. The higher the drain the lower the gain. Under the same lighting conditions.

The value report being reported is relative to usage. It is not the input value, but rather the gain achieved when comparing input to output.

I have placed my Edge in sunlight today for two hours. I turned GPS, backlight and Bluetooth off, and I had No battery gain. Why?

No idea as to your situation but I often leave my 1040 Solar on a sunny window sill angled towards the sun and find it can very quickly get too warm and so charging gets disabled (which makes sense as we all want our batteries to last/survive).

I do think the Garmin temp sensors read somewhat high and if there is a factory numeric stop on charging based on this sensor reading then it might be that charging is cutting out early e.g. (using made-up numbers to illustrate)actual temp 25℃, 1040 ready 31℃ but charging disabled at 30℃ so actual temp is below threshold (noting that I have no idea what temp charging is disabled).

That said, I'd rather solar charging be disabled too early and that the battery is protected than too late and the battery damaged and ends-up with shorter life ...