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Does your 520 Plus shut down randomly? And how's the battery life?

Some time next week I hope to receive my third Edge 520 Plus under warranty. Hard to tell when exactly because the online 'Check Order/Return' feature doesn't think my RMA number is valid (it is). Anyway, both of my first two 520 Pluses would just shut themselves off mid-ride. The first one did it a lot, the second one less frequently. I didn't have the first one long enough to really test the battery life, but the second one was nowhere near the claimed 15+ hours. With no phone or sensors connected, back light set to zero, and using GPS only it would barely make it over 10 hours. It crapped out on me during the Death Ride in Markleeville. Frustrating? Oh. ***. Yes.

Does anyone in this community have a 520 Plus that works reliably and has battery life close to 15 hours? Or is this product yet another poorly tested, badly made, and overpriced P.O.S.?

Side note: Garmin does offer a whopping 20% discount on a new product if you trade in an old one. After spending the last eight months as an involuntary and unpaid beta tester for Garmin on the 520 Plus, the chances of me handing them more money for anything is basically zero. Too bad, as I have a Varia Vision and RLT510 that work fine, but if this third 520 Plus has one single problem I'm switching to Wahoo and eBay'ing everything I won that says 'Garmin' on it...

/rant off

0 ianmiles over 5 years ago

I'd say you've been very unlucky. My 520+ had been very reliable since soon after release and battery life as expected,even with Vector, all sensors ,and phone connected. Hope you have better success from now on, whatever you choose ...

0 mcalista over 5 years ago

I had some pretty major problems with my 520+ in April - pretty much as you describe (poor battery life, sensor drop-outs and shutdowns). I contacted Garmin support, and they had me reinstall the firmware via Webupdater, and it's been pretty solid since. Unfortunately I can't remember what the exact procedure was.

0 Peter454 over 5 years ago

520 plus works pretty flawlessly for me. HR, powermeter and remote connected. No sensor drops ever.

Following gpx tracks withoiut any issues. Battery life > 8h.

0 Thomas over 5 years ago in reply to ianmiles

Glad to hear that at least some 502 Plus units work as advertised. Hopefully my third one will be one of the 'good ones'.

0 Thomas over 5 years ago in reply to mcalista

Thanks for the tip. I would hope the replacement unit would come with the latest & greatest firmware, but if the old problems recurr I'll figure out how to do the re-install. Didn't know about Webupdater, so thanks for that.

0 Thomas over 5 years ago in reply to Peter454

I'd gotten just under eight hours with sensors & phone connected, just under 10 without. Claimed life is 15+, which is one of the reasons I picked the 520 Plus. <10 is not close enough to 15 for me to give Garmin a pass on that one...

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

Mine has been pretty reliable. I haven't tried using it for 15 hours with GPS, but doing indoor training rides I charge it every couple of weeks. I used Extended Display mode for my 70.3 and left it on for the whole 8 hours and still had battery. I did change it to only GPS and not Galileo or Glonass for when I do normal outdoor rides.

I haven't had random restarts. I did have an issue where it was dropping my smart trainer power sensor for a while, but I removed all of my sensors and re-added them and it has been stable since.

The only issue I've had is trying to push workouts to it. I tend to use the same workouts and tweak the repeats, but sometimes I have to sync 5 times before the changes show up on the 520+. I've also had to delete the workouts from the device and re-add them. Annoying but eventually they always show up.

0 Thomas over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

Thanks for the feedback. Weird that you've had none of the issues I've had, while syncing and transferring workouts has worked fine on both of my first two units. Just got the third one today, so I'll set it up & see what new problems this one has.

0 Pops35 over 5 years ago

My 520 plus dropped me twice in one short 30 mile ride. The battery life will only make four and maybe five hours if I’m lucky. This is a very disappointing investment.