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Has 820 been abandoned?

I am looking back on the forum and seeing post from over 7 months ago acknowledging the Bluetooth connectivity issue. With so many independent posts, this is clearly a very widespread issue. My brother and I both are experiencing this after the update earlier this year.

I am no software engineer so my criticisms are without much weight usually, but I cannot understand at least 7 months later why this has not been fixed. It seems like this device has been completely abandoned after the new device was released earlier this summer. The most recent update was very minor and did not address this issue.

I want to stay within the Garmin ecosystem when I am ready to upgrade this device, but this issue is a big red flag to me. Non-functioning Bluetooth severely limits a large portion of the functionality such as live track, weather, uploading after your ride, and group track. Most of us are unlikely going to ride with our Wi-Fi hotspot enabled on our phone.

If you are looking at the new device as a fix for this, please consider this issue has been unresolved for at least 7 months and very well could appear on the new device too. 

  • I agree, it is incredibly frustrating that Garmin initially acknowledged the problem and then promptly did sweet FA about it. 

    BTW you forgot to mention Incident Detection as a feature that is affected by this defect, and so this is a safety issue, but Garmin still do nothing about it. 

  • I know others continue to have BT connection problems.  I did for over 2 years. All the usual; it would work, then needed to start GCM, then needed to have GCM on top, then have to tap Edge icon, then stopped working at all, then forget connections and reinstall GCM, loop through all that again every 1/2 dozen rides.  But, mysteriously, a couple of months ago it started working correctly.  The BT connection is there every time as soon as the Edge boots up without GCM open on the phone.  I tried it just now and it worked. After being so conditioned to it not working,  I'm amazed every time it does.  Livetrack works too!

    It didn't happen coincident with an Edge firmware update, and IDK if it's something Garmin did with GCM or Android did (Galaxy S8), but I didn't do anything like reinstall GCM and go through the BT setup again.  It just happened.

    Not making any excuses for Garmin.  The firmware on their Edge devices has been an abomination since I started using them beginning with an Edge 705 ten years ago.  Each new Edge I got was always a new can of worms.  And of all the different Edges I've had, I always wound up running some down rev version as the final versions broke more things than they fixed.

    I think the 830 is supplanting the 820 so I was surprised to see the recent 12.1 release, which I haven't tried yet. The 830 is still exhibiting BT issues for many so it doesn't look like Garmin has it figured out yet.

  • It's curious how hit and miss it is. BT connectivity is certainly not "just working" for me, with Edge 820 12.10 firmware, Nokia 8 phone with Android Pie and October security update, latest GCM.

    I've been using the Garmin eco system ever since the Forerunner 201 came out, back in around 2004 or 2005. With the possible exception of an old Edge 305, every Edge and Forerunner device I have owned since then (and there have been quite a few!) has been a nightmare in terms of bugginess. I must be mad.