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First experience with Garmin Edge 820 - Sooooooooooo disappointed

Former Member over 8 years ago

Dear Garmin,

I will certainly repeat what was 100' times written in this forum but... I am so frustrated that I just cannot refrain.

Being cyclist enthusiast I purchased the Edge 820 for Christmas. I spent 5 years with the VDO 1.0 Wireless cycle computer, displaying altitude, pedaling frequency and speed. The basics. Although it did well and was rock solid, I wanted to go to the next step and offer me what I was said being the Rolls in cycling computer : Garmin. I put there a quite consistent bunch of money - this set my expectations adequately.

I now come to the point. I was impressed, while configuring, by all the features offered by your tool. A lot of clever ideas with what I believe is a brilliant piece of hardware.

BUT... as a physics engineer, there are few questions banging in my head, that I could not answer. And while reading all comments on various forums, I started to doubt about your customer service as the point was raised since this summer 2016.

Very simple question. I calibrated the altitude given the GPS location point, using tool like Google Maps. Say that I initialized my home location at 203m. I live in an absolutely flat region. Over 15 km, you loose gradually 10m.
I would like to understand which fancy algorithms your engineers developed to provide me a gradient between -1 and -3%, when the altitude remains perfectly stable. I should have seen between 0/-0.1% while riding "down", and 0/+0.1% driving "up". Not almost alway -3/-4%. Really curious to know your equation...

At the end I just cannot understand. The outcome is that the gradient you display is just rubbish.

Really frustrating, when my VDO was so reliable in this respect. Given the $ amount you request for your device, this is kind of insane. Your tool should be, at least for the key features, stable, debugged and at the end fully reliable.

I am still in time to return it and stay on the second option I also evaluated, which sounds more serious with basics of altitude and gradient computation. Sigma Rox 11.0 for me.

Features I also dislike :
- Battery life
- Losy touchscreen sensitivity
- Garmin connect : no way to duplicate a course (feature asked since many years by users community)

Features I like :
- MEMs sensors (speed, pedaling freq)
- Integrated I/F

Time for me to complete the evaluation of the Sigma Rox 11.0... then, unless I see something moving, I will recover the large amount of money I put in your device and practice with something more reliable.

Thanks for reading,
Bruno

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

To be totally fair, I want to acknowledge that the competition I mentioned does not provide as advanced features as Garmin. But... very sadly, I would eventually prefer to restrict feature list but to keep with a device properly behaving.

Debugging a cycle computer while exercising is not a nice experience, Garmin.

0 cheracogoff over 8 years ago

User to user forum

This is a user to user forum. Your post is more directed to Garmin and you should get in touch with the Garmin tech support for your answers.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

Very simple question. I calibrated the altitude given the GPS location point, using tool like Google Maps. Say that I initialized my home location at 203m. I live in an absolutely flat region. Over 15 km, you loose gradually 10m.
I would like to understand which fancy algorithms your engineers developed to provide me a gradient between -1 and -3%, when the altitude remains perfectly stable. I should have seen between 0/-0.1% while riding "down", and 0/+0.1% driving "up". Not almost alway -3/-4%. Really curious to know your equation...

At the end I just cannot understand. The outcome is that the gradient you display is just rubbish.

For some reason the 820 appears to have problems with the GPS setting for elevation and with the gradient readout. I have a 520 which came out before the 820 and have been very happy with the elevation data and gradient readout. It does have more lag in the gradient readout that previous models but it is reasonably accurate once stabilized. Unfortunately the very recent 520 firmware release for the 520 has an improvement for gradient and it is horrible. It responds much more quickly but is totally unreliable and mostly settles on the wrong gradient often times showing 0 in grades of 6 to 11%. I’m wondering if it is an unsuccessful attempt to use the accelerometer.

I had a VDO years ago and liked it a lot but the added features of the Edge make it a much better option. I’ve tried a ROX and think the Edge is much better. If it wasn’t for latest firmware I would recommend looking at the 520. Although a little messed up you could still consider the 520 with a reversion to the prior firmware.