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Edge 830 - My current list of trials and tribulations

Daern
over 5 years ago

I'll be honest. I'm a bit disappointed with the Edge 830. It's a good device and, finally, the battery life is where it needs to be and I don't need to worry about leaving the map up on a long ride.

But (and it's a big but), it's got a list of software bugs that drive you to distraction. My current hit list are:

  • Phone connectivity sucks. I've not got a sneaky suspicion that GC on Android is as much responsible as the 830 itself, but as I can't actually engage support on the issue, I'm really none the wiser. The device simply will not stay connected to my phone for any extended period during a ride.
  • When you drop off a course, the distance to go seems to go beserk, oscillating between "0.25 miles" to "40 miles", only settling on a sensible number once the course is rejoined. My old Edge 1000 would simply freeze it at the last known value, which was much more useful. I suspect that this is because of...
  • Terrible navigation routing. Go off course and you might as well stop and ask for directions from the lampposts, because their advice is likely to be as good as the rerouting on the Edge 830. Even when the course is 0.25 miles ahead up a straight road, it will persist in telling you to "U turn", making a bit of a mockery of the feature
  • Increasingly, I'm finding that the GPS signal is poor in tree coverage, or other areas without a 100% clean line of sight of the sky. This is most noticeable in the speed reading, which starts to bounce all over until you return to open sky. Even a modest amount of foliage causes very erratic readings
  • ClimbPro is mostly good, but I still can't help thinking that the detection algorithm isn't quite there, occasionally missing off sections of hills, or including miles of relatively flat trails between two larger climbs. I won't be overly critical here, as I do think this is one of the better, new features on the device.
  • Inconsistent zoom levels on the map, which refuse to stay "stuck" when changed to a non-default value. Really irritating, but discussed in several other threads.
  • My latest one was not being able to copy a GPX file to the device until I emptied the existing fit files from "courses". Suspiciously, I had exactly ten existing course files in there, so is this really the maximum limit of courses on the 830?
  • GC update killing localhost phone connections for IQ apps. Gimporter/gexporter filled an important hole in your software and killing them, even inadvertently, has been painful. I notice that. even now, this hasn't been properly fixed even two months after being broken.

Out of all of these issues, it's the phone connectivity that really sucks. Not being able to download GPX files from my phone (thanks for killing Gimporter / Gexporter) is one thing, but the more or less complete unreliability of LiveTrack and the incident detection and reporting negate two of the big reasons that I bought this device and are making me seriously consider sending it back until such time as the firmware is sorted.

I'd consider offering myself to be a member of a beta program, but being brutally honest, I think I already am... :-/

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    I feel your frustration.  The Edge 830 is my first Garmin cycling computer after using Polar for the past 10 or so years.  I really wanted to love this device but maybe I had too high of expectations.

    I (luckily) have not experienced phone connectivity drops.  I use an iPhone 8.  I do however often have issues connecting initially.  Usually (but not always) I have to close and restart the GC app and it will then connect.  Sometimes though, even though connected, the 830 will tell me "LiveTrack failed" meaning it never even started.  This happened once at the start of a 100-mile MTB race where I needed my wife to be able to track my progress, after it worked perfectly during my warm-up.  

    I also have the same experience with re-routing telling me nothing other than "make a U-turn," which I essentially ignore and figure out my own route by panning around on the map.

    I find the navigation for mountain biking through Trailforks to be a disappointment.  I've never been able to get it to work as desired.  I will diligently create detailed routes on the Trailforks website, download them onto my Garmin, and then find myself mystified trying to figure out what it's telling me to do.  I'm never quite sure which trail I'm on, where I've been or where to make turns.  The zoom has a mind of its own.  The Trailforks map hides details (including trails!) that the other map sets include. It completely ruins my flow and I end up stopping the navigation and just riding.  Forksight has never worked either.  

    I don't trust the GPS for speed/distance and instead use a wheel sensor (manually entering the wheel circumference), for the exact reason you mentioned.

    I know that support forums are typically mostly full of people having problems, but in my experience, I don't know how ANYONE could have had a positive experience with this thing out of the box, especially if you are not very tech-savvy.  It's just too buggy, and the user manual lacks necessary detail.  I really hope it gets better.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to lytleric

    Hi lyrleric, has your 830 experience improved?

    I'm really in two minds about getting the 830 for it's compactness and less $$, Or just go the 1030 plus for it's bigger screen and some added functionality for re-route options, if it works hahah?

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to John Douglas

    Actually, it has gotten better from a stability standpoint.  I haven't had any complete lock-ups in a while (which used to happen frequently).  And LiveTrack starts reliably maybe 90% of the time.  The bugs with the zoom also have been resolved, other than autozoom zooming out to 300 ft after every turn, regardless of what the zoom level was set to before entering the turn.  (Garmin has told me that is by design, which is stupid.  Therefore, I no longer use autozoom.)  Navigation is acceptable, but does not reroute when you leave your course--it only tries to return you back to where you left by suggesting a U-turn.  And mountain bike/Trailforks navigation is completely useless.  I never use planned routes on the trail, only on the road.

    All in all, I am satisfied enough at this point, but the 830 has never lived up to expectations of what it is intended to do.  My biggest gripe is not being able to turn off the Virtual Partner; it is ridiculous that that "feature" is forced upon the user.

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to John Douglas

    Thank you!  I can't believe I've never tried this.  Every time I've ever used navigation on road and 10x worse OFF road, I had to disable routes because it turns every ride into an enraging curse-fest.  I can't wait to try this and use off-road trail nav without it beeping 1/3 of the ride non-stop telling me to make a U-Turn when it makes NO sense to do so.  Hopefully the off-course warning isn't a non-stop beep because Edge units still don't do proper trailforks navigation.  I've been going through my entire state and fixing line-snaps in trailforks (hoping this fixes it) but 6 months later the changes still haven't made it over to Garmin.  I was going to switch to Karoo and sideload Trailforks but I know someone who tried and the unit doesn't grant GPS access to the app, so Garmin is still the only viable mountain bike solution.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

    The off course warning is just one beep and a message on screen which you can clear by tapping the screen.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Wongataa

    That’s generally true for the off course message.  But the make a u-turn message that he’s talking about pops up continuously unless they fixed this since last season. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to DuaneHebert

    It doesn't for me after I clear it the first time.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Wongataa

    I’ll have to try it again.  I turned off recalculate because this was so annoying. 

    I do see a setting now for turn around alerts that’s off.