Why is navigation on Edge so complicated and poor? ‍

I do not think no navigation system would not be able to deal with it. When I plan on Komoot, I hardly get those type of errors because the algorithm knows a gravel bike should not go down a trail with a huge height difference in 1 km length. Also there are other ways to distinguish this behavior which seem to work on other platforms but not Garmin.

Do not get me wrong, I think the Edge is a nice tool and it definitely gets you home! But like on the Fenix, the SW could be improved.

What I was saying is that in the digital map, sometimes might happen that few meters of a trail are maybe not continuously connected with the following intersection. Think about a minor map "bug": the trail is there but somehow the pieces are not fully connected (like a discontinuity on a function in math terms). This happens in my area in the Alps. 

JayD said:

I do not think no navigation system would not be able to deal with it. When I plan on Komoot, I hardly get those type of errors because the algorithm knows a gravel bike should not go down a trail with a huge height difference in 1 km length

You can’t compare using a room full of computers (a bit of an exaggeration) to something you’d carry on a bike and want to run for hours on battery. 

JayD said:

Do not get me wrong, I think the Edge is a nice tool and it definitely gets you home! But like on the Fenix, the SW could be improved.

You have to have realistic expectations. The computers in the Garmin devices are very slow. Much slower than the computers in typical smartphones. The computers that things like Komoot uses are much faster still.

JayD said:

What I was saying is that in the digital map, sometimes might happen that few meters of a trail are maybe not continuously connected with the following intersection

That’s what I thought you were getting at. No navigation system would deal with this. This is a map-data problem. Seeing this as a “discontinuity” is useful because that’s exactly what it is.

If I need to plan a route I do it in Gaia on my phone, then export to gpx, upload to Connect and sync to 1040. Doing it from Garmin apps is a lot worse. Plotting on device itself is even worse. I wish there was a way to share a POI from Google Maps and then route to it... 

My solution is ridewithgps.com the free version will likely do everything you need. Garmin is useful for keeping track of where you have been and where you are headed as long as you use something else to set it up.

I agree that navigation on the Edge sucks, which is too bad since that was my main reason for buying it. I don't consider myself a cyclist, but I use my bikes a lot for fitness and exploration of my surroundings. My Bosch e-bike has a great bike computer called Nyon that I paid extra for and love. Unfortunately it is not available for the new generation Bosch smart system, nor for analog bikes, hence why I bought a bike GPS.

I want to be able to do three things: 
1) enter an address and a get a route there (preferably with a choice between a fast or a scenic route),  
2) see the map when I'm on the move and look for interesting routes, and
3) plan a route, transfer it to my bike computer and follow it reasonably easy when I'm on the bike. 

Unfortunately, the Garmin is quite bad at all three, though no 3 works reasonably well, besides the fact that the map sucks no matter the settings I try. No 1 never works as it always says "there are no routeable roads in your area" and no 2 does not work at all and is the reason no 3 sucks, the map is just bad and no interesting information is shown. The roads or trails disappear completely when zooming out just a few times. Also, the re-routing is glitchy and navigation to start of the route does not work due to the issue described above. 

I have a Garmin motorcycle GPS that does these things beautifully so I know it is not impossible for them, unless they actually don't have any cycling maps at all for Sweden. If so, what the h*ll did I pay so much money for? 

I couldn't care less about cadence and stuff as I have no sensors for that and no interest anyway. Just gimme a decent navigation device 

I have seen a situation where the Edge wasnt able to find a route, but only once. If you always get an error, it sounds like something is wrong with your maps. "The map is bad and no interesting information is shown" also sounds odd to me, the usual critique is that Garmin maps show too much detail.

Do you have the right maps installed for your area and are they up to date?

You're the man! 

I connected again to Garmin Express and actually managed to find the TopoActive map for my region and it seems as though that was the key to getting both the detailed maps as well as the navigation functionality. I did a few quick tests and now I can navigate to specific addresses, as well as to the beginning of a route 
Before I had the base map and Trailforks, which was obviously not enough. 

So maybe it was only that I don't understand how to operate this type of Garmin device. Embarrassing that it took me almost a year and an online whine, but very happy that my issues seem to be resolved! 

I've had Garmin car and motorcycle GPS devices for 20 years but never had this problem so in my defense, I didn't realise that I would need so many maps for cycling...

Navigation for cars is much easier. (Motorcycling has its own special issues but is similar to cars but tends to avoid highways.)

The base map can’t be used for routing at all. 

Trailforks is for mountain biking (and can’t be used for general routing).