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820 Touchscreen issues

Former Member
Former Member over 8 years ago
"Let's talk about the Touch Screen on the Garmin 820"
It seems like this topic deserves a dedicated thread.

Got a brand new unit, FW 5.10, 5 rides on it and I am puzzled.
The touch screen sometimes works just fine, sometimes not at all.

I had one ride in the rain, with no issues (but it wasn't too cold), then a couple of dry rides with lot's of issues.
Completely unresponsive screen, or completely erratic behavior, with the screen selecting, opening/closing menus etc.

The unit seems to work just fine while sitting on the couch (and clearly that is the only way that the lazy Garmin engineers are testing their product).

What have I tried so far:
Change the "Touch sensitivity" option; Medium seems to work best, High goes crazy, Low is ver unresponsive (at least this setting seems to do something)
Disable BLE and WiFi (maybe some sort of interference/coexistence problem. No real difference.
Factory reset, refresh firmware: no change

My questions to other users.

Does your 820 touch screen behaves erratically?
Ever? Sometimes? All the times?
Are there people with no issues whatsoever?
Is the 520 different? (I had one for a week , then returned it for other problems)
What have you tried to mitigate the issues?

Have you had your unit replaced and been happy ever since?
Was the touch screen ok on previous firmwares?
How can Garmin ignore this macroscopic issue?

At the end of my ride I could not confirm to save the ride. I selected Save and the unit for Discard.
Had to restart the ride a few times before I was able to Save it....


Discuss.

https://youtu.be/ulLgY0xoB3o
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    I've been following the GPLAMA YouTube videos, glad he is making them. It seems that he has an issue where the unit is pretty much unresponsive across all screens and buttons.

    Is it me, or do most of us feel that simply swiping from screen to screen is the biggest issue? If I swipe on the screen its 50/50 whether it changes, I'm then required to try again but do it 'just so'. Pretty uncool when you have to keep your head on the Garmin and hand off the bars, swiping over and over again just to change a screen...

    What about this fix anyway? Nothing has changed. :confused:


    I agree that this is one of the biggest issues. I live in SoCal where it never rains or I suspect the rain on the screen problem would be a major issue. I gave up and bought the remote. That eliminates the swipe problem but forced me to spend another $49.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    I haven't noticed any difference either. I'm trying not to be cynical, but the fact that they included a seemingly superfluous 'TOUCHSCREEN SOFTWARE UPDATED' message (again) after the update makes me fear that they are hoping this has a placebo effect more than any real functional difference in behaviour..


    That's why I work on data, not emotion or 'feeling'. 0's and 1's here. Mostly. ;)

    Looks like Monday is the next day here that'll be hot enough to replicate the conditions outside with the 820 I've had issues with. As always, stay tuned! :)
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    waited a few days after the update to give me time to test a little, and here's my verdict: as far as I'm concerned, the touch screen now works reasonably enough! I can discard notifications while riding with my winter gloves (tested between 0 and 4°C so far, the gloves are well padded, almost like ski gloves and not touch screen compatible!), I push some buttons every now and then and can select items with enough precision... didn't try swiping from screen to another with gloves (bought a remote in the meanwhile and got used to it!:P ) but it works without gloves.

    it took several months, but the 820's touch screen is now about as useful as the one I have on the edge touring (not perfect -imo only physical buttons can work flawlessly- but works well enough for every day use)... finally!

    I think it's only fair to report when something eventually works too!

    thanks dev team!

    ... now hopefully they are working on turning the 820's backlight on when the varia radar detects a car... right now the screen remains dark, making the radar quite useless when riding at night (sorry: can't help complaining) :p

    EDIT: just noticed the backlight on when radar detects something has been fixed too (don't understand how I missed that!) took 4 months but quite happy with the 820 now !
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    The screen still is not very responsive, but in a different way, let me explain.


    Now, when you click on a "go back to the previous screen " icon, for instance, the icon will lit itself but it won't actually show the previous screen. So you need to double press it. This has happened to me multiple times on the 5.20.

    So, again, not perfect or anywhere near it. I am not using gloves.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    I'm still very new to the 820. The first firmware that I used on it was 5.10. It was really bad. No matter what sensitivity I set the computer to, it was awful. Low was virtually unusable and took forever to get back to the screen where I could even restore the setting. Medium was barely more sensitive. High was lousy, but with many repeated touches, I could get the computer to recognize that I'd try to do something.

    5.20 is an improvement. It's not huge, but it's definitely better. Far fewer repeated screen taps are required to get things done.

    One weird annoyance that existed with 5.10 and persists with 5.20 is that when I press the power button to turn the 820 off, then press Power Off, it frequently starts recording a new ride (as though I had pressed the Start/Stop button) instead of powering down. This is really annoying and often takes 3 or 4 attempts to power off to get it to actually power off.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    One weird annoyance that existed with 5.10 and persists with 5.20 is that when I press the power button to turn the 820 off, then press Power Off, it frequently starts recording a new ride (as though I had pressed the Start/Stop button) instead of powering down. This is really annoying and often takes 3 or 4 attempts to power off to get it to actually power off.


    Interesting... I noticed that every now and then too... always thought it was because the power button is quite sensitive (maybe a long press to switch on could fix the issue) and also because I have auto start on (sometimes an activity starts even if I'm not moving, but I guess it's because of a bad GPS fix or signal quality) but it might be something different in your case...
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    Same issue with 5.2 software - and it's losing sensors too

    I was reluctant to be a debugger for Garmin by buying the 820 within only 4 months of release. IT started loosing my sensors too. When I go to the sensor and hit connect, it just spins and spins and no connection. Unless i remove it, get it to shut down, restart (worked without a full factory reset this last time) and pair to the sensor. This issues with teh touchscreen and sensors seems to be that the software is in some loop somewhere and is too slow to process the normal signals for the touchscreen and now sensors. Really sad they put their customers through this.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    Really sad they put their customers through this.


    Some but not all, I'm using my 820 with my phone, HRM, speed sensor, cadence sensor, Varia Radar, Varia Headlight, Edge Remote and Garmin Temp.
    The only one that gives me problems is the Headlight the connection is very flakey to say the least.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    820 Dropping all my sensors too now

    Besides the laggy screen, it is now dropping ALL OF MY SENSORS - Powertap, Ticker HR, Garmin Cadence and Speed. Agnostic to brand, age of battery etc. I can go in an try to connect and it just keeps spinning on the connecting screen until you hit cancel and then the responsive is impossibly laggy. Eventually through holding buttons etc, I can get it to shut down. If I plug it in to charge, it reboots and connects to all my sensors. Fix this $500 useless device. Garmin has a history of pushing out buggy software to beta test to it's customers. Now regretting I didn't buy another brand.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    Sunscreen poisons touchscreen

    Just did a big ride (11 days) using a Garmin 820 to follow a course (India Pacific Wheel Race - Adelaide to Canberra).
    Big improvement on 810, Just Battery saver is a feature worth the upgrade, it was going most of my long days without top-up.
    But any sunscsreen on your fingers and that's it. Even if you've washed with soap, you see smears and it stops responding completely to touch.
    Infuriating. Try re-booting, there's an activity in progress. Press the stop button, Do you want to save? Yes, YES, YEEES! FFS!
    They will have to re-design the user interface so you can do it with buttons, the screen gets so bad.
    Found the answer in the next chemist, alcohol swabs. Wash the screen, dry it carefully and it's back to full sensitivity.
    (It's not going to improve the reputation of cycling that I leave a trail of pre-injection swabs in hotel rooms)
    Details: Garmin Edge 820 firmware 5.10, sunscreen Nivea Ultra Sheer face. Totally incompatible!