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MTB - false U-turns, GPS drops / straight lines, Rain/sweat device disconnects, Loaded route changes stats

Former Member over 4 years ago

I've been using the 830 for about a year in dry weather, WITHOUT using navigation without issues. I went to Pisgah and everyone I was with (who I was convincing to buy an Edge device) are now completely turned off to the idea. I'm running 5.5 firmware. Has anyone else seen this?

1. During MTB NAVIGATION using trailforks maps, the device would randomly tell me to make a U-turn when possible...it would tell me OVER, and OVER and OVER. I would stop to check the Garmin and I was ALWAYS on the correct path for the loaded route without any reason to make a U-turn. Once I'd get toward the end of that particular trail it would stop with the false u-turn warnings. It seemed to only happen on certain trails. This would usually be paired with a huge white (turn marking line) that was marking entire trails at a time (instead of just a turn). Very stressful when navigating a huge trail network with extreme elevation changes, having to stop and look at this. This was in the DuPont forest in North Carolina.

2. In one instance (not sure if it started with a drop of sweat hitting the screen) - an entire section of my ride turned into a straight line from 3/4 of the way through my ride until the end-point. I never disabled the GPS. My phone recording shows the correct lines when overlaying them in strava. I've never seen this since the days of the Edge 1000 (which did this constantly). I had the correct distance because I used a wheel sensor.

3. I am assuming this is due to the screen protector I used. I'll try removing it, unless people are seeing this without a protector. (Brotect Airglass protector). During a ride when rain hit, the Edge went completely haywire. It was beeping several times per second and I couldn't tell what the screen was doing. I locked the screen and wiped it clean to see that all devices had disconnected and reconnected. Later some sweat dripped down and caused this and an hour later I realized my HRM and Power meter did not reconnect (I had to manually do this).

4. I loaded a recommended route from the Trailforks app and followed it. My average watts from my power meter were around 130 for the ride. However I got some type of stat update after the ride congratulating me on a 20 minute - 540 watt stat update??? Are my stats changing from loading a 3rd party route to follow? I'm pretty sure the route was made on someone's computer as the virtual partner finished in 1/3 the time I did it in.

0 looigi over 4 years ago

1. Most likely due to issues with the map data on the device. I've found the data for trails to be less robust than that for roads, though on rare occasions, problems crop up navigating roads too. I've found trail data to be highly variable area to area. In areas with dense trails and possible map data issues, I don't navigate the course but just display it on the screen and follow it. In less dense trails with good map data, I do successfully use navigation.

2. I've had this happen when I accidentally hit the start/stop button on the lower right edge of the device. Latest was a ride last Fri. I saw the timer wasn't counting and realized I had accidently hit the button so hit it again to start recording. I got a straight line for ~1.3 mile of the ride.

3. I don't use a screen protector. I have seen moisture on the screen cause issues, though not usually dropping sensors. There are issues dropping sensor unrelated to wet screens so look at other threads on the topic. I haven't ever used a screen protector on any Garmin since 2010 or any phone, or anything else.

4. Not sure what happened but stats are computed from ride data, not nav data or course. You can ride with/without navigation going and it affects stats the same.

0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to looigi

All in all I think it might be a good idea like you said to just overlay the route and not 'navigate' it. Although I REALLY enjoyed having the climb pro graphs pop up for certain mountains...really helped plan out the efforts on the fly. I thought maybe it was due to the trails not being properly connected in Trailforks...but toward the intersections the device would correctly tell me when to turn. Hopefully a firmware update can fix this if Garmin happens to be aware of which map data issues that ultimately cause the behavior.

Good point on hitting stop/start - however in my case it still recorded the speed, distance, cadence, HR, power....but the location on the map stayed in one place, and suddenly jumped out toward the end of the ride and started logging location again. I think after I swiped screens and let the zoom level go back to default. I've never had it do that before.

I'll probably ditch the screen protector...as much as I hate to do it. I found a thread in the 1030 forum with the EXACT same behavior - device goes crazy in the rain and stopped doing it after they removed the protector. I guess minor scratches don't really show up once the device is on anyway, and I'm not sure if tempered protectors would "really" help prevent a cracked screen in a crash.