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Garmin 530 - your thoughts

Hi

I'm considering buying Garmin 530 as the battery life is my 4 years old Garmin 520 is very poor now (approx. 3.5h), when my endurance rides are relatively long -  5h+
What are your thoughts/experience with 530 model? 
I'm using a power meter and speed sensor over ANT+ connection and obviously BT for my mobile phone.

Regards

Pete

  • I've used several different computers from three different brands (Sigma, Wahoo, Garmin, 5 devices in total), and some smart watches (Garmin, Xiaomi, four devices in total) and so far 530 was the best overall experince for cycling.

    Battery life, display and altitude functions being the major strong points. 20 hours is realistic. As a commuter, I also appreciate the sleep function and it's very short boot time. 

    The thing is that no computer is perfect. People praise Wahoo for being spotless - it isn't I've encountered a number if issues while using Wahoo Elemnt Bolt. It's battery life is nowhere near as good, especially if you're taking into account using it over multiple rides. It may last maybe 15 hours on a single ride, but it won't last 15 hours over 15 rides on 15 different days. It would usually last about a week worth of commuting, no more than 7 hours total. I did a 24 hour race but had it on a powerbank so no idea about a realistic battery time on a single ride. 
    And the Bolt took quite a long time to boot. 

    My personal opinion is that the Edge 530 and 830 are the best computers currently available on the market. It's far from perfect but I like it the most. 

  • I used the 520 before, killed it in a crash and replaced it with a 530. I am using it solely for mountain biking. From my perspective the additional features of the 530 are nice-to-have but if I still had a working 520 I would stick to it.

    What I like about the 530 is to have a full set of maps on the device, while with the 520 I had to kind of hack/upload good maps, limited to a small area due to the limited storage capacity. Also the additional information on upcoming climbs when following a course is nice.

    The mountain bike metrics are not really useful to me. Maybe they work when riding bike parks, but on natural, technical trails their output is not line with reality. The device for example often recognizes a roll over a rock as jump. And the grit score cannot really assess things like a narrow trail or technical features like rocks or roots.

    The connectivity with the phone is unfortunately as unstable as it was with the 520.

    So in your situation, I would invest in a battery upgrade and keep using the 520 for a few more years ...

  • I would guess 18-20 hours is easily achievable, and I have both Wifi and Bluetooth on, constant connected to Phone, 3 sensors (speed, cadence and Wahoo Tickr) and usually cycle 2-4 hours with auto upload. Screen brightness set to manual 20% for 15sec duration.

    Yesterday I went for a 4h 12min ride. Power on time was probably around an extra 20min. Total battery usage was 11%. 

    Battery life is amongst the best thing going for the 530 or 830. The touch screen of the 830 is vastly improved and for me in hindsight I should have bought that instead of using the fidgety buttons.

  • Thanks guys, much appreciated!

  • Just plug your 520 into a small external power bank for long rides. If you use Strava live segments at all then don't bother with a 530 the GPS in it is rubbish.

  • Granted, some users are experiencing gps issues but it's not the case with everyone. I've not experienced any accuracy issues. 

    If the unit doesn't work, return it. Should provide enough financial incentive for Garmin to produce a mature product. I don't think the GPS unit is as much an issue as Garmins inability to make solid firmware and software for their devices.

  • A few months ago I rang them up and wanted to return mine due to the GPS inaccuracy but they would not give me a refund and instead offered to "help" me work through the issue.
    I decided I didn't want to spend hours running tests for them and submitting files that take them ages to look at before they decide what hoops to have me jump through next.
    But now I have more time I might actually play that game with them.
    I find it interesting that you say not all 530s have rubbish GPS as I thought it was due to the Sony chip not the software, that's what expert reviewers said anyway.
    But if some 530s do indeed work properly then I sure want one of those instead of the crap one I have now. 

  • Yeah, I get that it is infuriating to have a device that doesn't do what its supposed to well after a return period has expired. And that spoils the whole relationship with a manufacture especially if they dismiss their customers like Garmin does.
    However, if I were dubious of whether a device would work for me and my location, there are resellers that have a solid return period that I would take advantage of. Return every device that is not performing properly, and if by the third one nothing changes then I would drop the brand completely. But the grass isn't greener on the other side, but it may be a better fit for some.

    Garmin has given a lot of users enough reason to never buy another Garmin again, but it's always difficult to be objective if one is having the issues and seeing what is reported on forums. Forums don't represent the real world very well in that people with complaints outnumber people with praise by a huge margin. 

    I suspect Garmin has made revisions to the EDGE units and it's biting them in the ass since there now many variations of the same device out there. Changes to shielding, antennas, retooling the insides, and perhaps even larger change to the electronics and the components on the boards. And sometimes I get the feeling that Garmin just doesn't have a strong team of software and hardware engineers, and an even weaker PR department.

    My EDGE 530 tracks a little better than my Forerunner 35 on a bike. Certainly better than any iPhone or iWatch I've used with Strava. I don't know any people with 530s but I know some with 830s and have not heard anyone complain about GPS accuracy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

  • I had a Wahoo BOLT but I decided to buy a 530 as I was riding ‘Paris Brest Paris’ which is a 1200km ride in 90 hours (including stops).

    With the charge pack that fits to the bottom of the mount, the battery life is really impressive. It was able to last the entire ride which is mind blowingly good.

    However - I was at times frustrated with the 530. My power meter and HR monitor wouldn’t always be detected and I had to disable/re-enable in the menus at every single stop. This soon gets very frustrating, e.g. when you’ve ridden for 60 hours with no sleep. This is still a problem for me on the newest firmware. The Strava Live segments are embarrassingly ***. The GPS accuracy on that ride was poor (but this has been improved in a recent patch). The TBT pop ups are sometimes bobbins, which was actually a problem I used to have on a Garmin 810 6-7 years ago.

    All I wanted to do was have a device that could record my sensors and told me where to go, following an already determined route (i.e. no routing decisions made by the device) reliably.

    Because of the sensor problems I’ve decided to sell my device as i shouldn’t have to keep disabling/re-enabling them in the menu. I was sick of it.

    I wouldn’t recommend one personally.

  • I concur. I made the switch from a Wahoo Bolt to a Garmin and there are things I am missing (like reliable Strava Live Segment notifications when uploading routes from komoot) and things I like (auto climbed was surprisingly useful when racing a course I wasn't able to recce prior to the race).

    If I had to sum the switching experience up then I would say that Garmin offers more features than Wahoo but Wahoos features (at least on the Bolt) work 100%, while Garmin is Garmin.