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Whose idea was it?

Antares
over 3 years ago

In the latest firmware upgrade Garmin has changed the DI2 Battery level field from a numeric percentage to a battery icon which loses black bars as the battery weakens. Who decided that this was a good idea? From what I can see, there are spaces for 5 black bars inside this icon. In the image attached, it looks like my DI2 battery level is at 80%, but I know that before my last ride, it was below 60%. And what's the point of the wheel icon? Another instance of fixing something that didn't need to be fixed. If you were going to mess around with it, it should have been changed to percentage increments of 5% as opposed to the set 10%.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Could not agree more.  Stop messing with stuff that works well and fix things that don't work!

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to DRUNK_WOMBAT

    The gear indicates the equipment type, there are other icons for SRAM levers, front and rear mechs.  Multiple can be shown depending on the groupset installed.  I guess they compromised to support all the options/combinations.   I’d prefer the old percentage back but you can still go to the sensor details to see the detail I believe.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    I also agree - this was an unfortunate change. Hopefully they don't decide to move to icons for things like power, speed, and heart rate!

    Garmin - here's how you can make lemonade out of the lemon you just created. You now have code for showing battery status as an icon and a percentage. All you need to do is give us the option to choose which one we like. You can default to the icon (although you really need to increase the size), and then give us the option when adding the data field to the screen to choose the percentage. It's a simple fix that will give everyone what they want. 

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    It is not just Garmin who is trying to retreat from the battery percentage approach, see eg. 

    You can propose rounding of the percentage to the next 5, or converting to range of tens like between 70-80%, they dont care. 

    Either they give 4 or 5 sticks to show the battery status. Basic company give 4, the most developed give 5. LOL
  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to zuccheroch

    Or they could take it a step further and I'd be OK with this switch. Let it be a data field that can be color coded. Green denotes 75% - 100% battery power, Yellow denotes 50% - 74%, Orange denotes 25% - 49% and Red for battery level below 24%. So at least you'd know what percentage is left.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Antares

    My DI2 battery lasts months between charges, I recharge when it gets to 40%.  Does the Garmin put up a warning when it gets really low like for other sensors?

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Antares

    10% of males are color blind

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to L.Rouge

    Yes the Edge units gives a low battery warning when the Di2 battery gets below a certain level. 

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to aweatherall

    This is an absolutely infuriating STUPID change.  Garmin has shoved their head into a very dark hole in the rear mid-section of their body with this one.  Another example of how aweful their User Experience designer is.  They took a perfectly good piece of information provided by Shimano and neutered it to make it less useful.  

    I was at 40% before this change, next I see after the change is 2 tiny bars that my aging eyes can't resolve and it looks like I'm immeniantly going to run out of Di2 battery.  What was wrong with the percentage.  Yes, we know the percentage provided by Shimano is not exact, but let that be Shimano's issue, not Garmin's to address by rounding to less useful information.  

    Great they give a low battery warning, when?  How low?  Does anyone even know?

    I wish I was a Connect IQ developer, I'd create a Di2 battery level data field that shows percentage just as it is provided by Shimano.  Anyone capable of writing one of these?

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    A bar system is useless when it comes to a detailed accuracy. Basically if you have a 5 bar display, it has an error of up to 20%, a 4 bar display, has an error of 25%, simply because you do not know how much battery life is remaining in the top bar.

    If you have 3 bars displayed on a 5 bar system, you have somewhere between 40% to 60% battery life which is a big difference if your going out for a long ride the only thing you really know is, you have 40% battery life remaining, the 3rd bar could just disappear soon as you start riding,

    My car has a similar system, 8 bars to show how much petrol is in the tank. Many a time it has displayed 2 bars, I presume I have enough petrol for a 60 mile round trip, but shortly after I set off, I am down to one bar and I then know I cannot make my trip unless I find a petrol station on route