GPS Accuracy

I’ve noticed the GPS accuracy is lacking as well. I hope they will improve it through updates like they did on the Garmin 935. It now is rock solid with GPS plus Galileo. Not so much on the 530. However it is working well enough for me but I use a calibrated speed sensor to accumulate speed and distance. Also you might compare against the satellite map if your road is visible on it, sometimes the drawn roads are not quite correct  

SA

I too find the Edge 530 is far behind other units, especially when riding under three cover (as in MTB in my part of the world) It losses several kms compared to my Phenix 5X, and cut a lots of corners as well (even with the beta chipset).

On the road in open land it tracks as expected, but with all the "MTB Dynamics" it is disapointing, that it doesn't track better, when doing a MTB ride....

What GPS version do you have? Did you install the GPS beta release 2.42. This is different to the unit software that is at 3.50.

Alan,

Do you recommend using the GPS update together with 3.50 or just wait for it not to be Beta?

Morten

I would recommend going to it now, especially if you wish to use Galileo.

Definitely issues with the 530 MTB'ing. I think the road is pretty accurate. Recently did a MTB race and it registered 5 miles per loop with the 530, the official course distance was ~7 miles. Checking with others around me using other GPS devices (watches and even older edge's), there stats were also much closer if not spot on to the 7 mile mark it should have been. I would have wrote it off if it was just a little bit but think of it this way, I did 4 loops of what should have been a total of 28 miles, but since my Edge 530 only registered 5 miles, it actually told me I had only gone 20 miles... 8 miles difference!!! that's an enormous error!

So I called support, and the support rep told me they changed GPS chips or something and that in heavily wooded areas I can expect some loss... I get that, but no way THAT much, that's crap. But per his recommendation, I changed the GPS logging timing from 'Smart' to 1 second, and also changed from 'GPS' to 'GPS + Galileo',,, it made no difference.

However here's what I did notice, I took it out for a Road Ride with my Garmin 935 which has always been pretty damn accurate and it registered nearly spot on with the watch except I occasionally got "Satelite lost" beeps\warning.. Understand this is open, rural, North Carolina roads, I was not under any cover, shade, building, trees, etc.. WIDE open road and blue clear skies.

So I thought, well thats weird, let me take both the 935 and the 530 for an easy MTB ride just for the purpose of comparing.. Here's what I got, the Blue is the 935 while the orange is the 530 (3.50 Firmware):

Here's the data broken down, this is low distance, over time, the margin of error would be huge, that's completely BS.

Version 3.50.0.0 with beta 2.42 chipset beta release.

(GPS+Galileo was maybe even worse than GPS alone.... )

And along what M1K3W2002 mentions below, it looses signal l just passing under a minor bridge ! I've havn't seen this with my previous models (305,705,800,520 And the Phenix)

That is, errr, poor.

What GPS version are you using? 2.42 is the latest.

just installed 2.42 tonight, riding roads tomorrow. Hopefully the "satellite lost" error doesn't occur. Will try to get a MTB ride in later in the week.

I can confirm that the 2.42 GPS upgrade was much more accurate and did not lose GPS signal on a road ride. 40 mile ride and between the Garmin 935 and Edge 530 with GPS + Galileo, it was nearly identical. I'll try to get out on a MTB ride this week, hoping I get the same results.