I can at least share my experience as I used my Garmin 705 and Edge 1000 quite a bit for navigation. 1. It is important to get a good quality gpx file to start with. I used to build the routes on Strava pretty detailed, which takes a lot of time. A good alternative is brouter.de/brouter-web/ you just click the points where you want to go and you can adjust the route to avoid a few areas you don't like and select a profile like "fast-bike" which sorts out the crappy roads. Only downside if you download the gpx file they give the track a generic name. So you have to open it in notepad and change the track name, so you find it on your head-unit. 2. If you want "fast" calculation and the map only view is enough turn off turn guidance. The track will simply display on the map and on my garmin it takes 2 seconds for a 65km route. 3. If you want to use turn guidance calculation speed is 2min for 65km on my edge 1000 4. With turn guidance to enjoy the ride without staring at the map put the data field "Dist. to next" on your data screen. It shows the distance to the next turn and 150m before the turn the "turn guidance" pops up automatically. This is my prefered mode as you can see that you can simply follow the road for several km without worrying and just enjoying the ride 5. If you want to go back on the Garmin and do not need turn guidance just go into the map view and it shows your already ridden path with a blue line and you can just follow that home. No mapping needed and if your route was not perfect on the way there you can always change it by yourself without any head-unit warnings 6. Always make sure that route recalculation when taking a wrong turn is off or at least the head-unit will ask if you want to recalculate. Auto recalc. is just the worst 7. If you want to take a short cut or something and you get the warning "off-course" make sure to touch the screen at least once as long as the warning is there the map does not refresh on my edge 1000 which left me confused for the first few times. So in summary once you have a good gpx source and know a few hints at least I can have a pretty good experience with it where you enjoy the ride and not always are worried about getting lost.
Great to have met you at ZHQ yesterday, Shane. I, too, struggle with head units and utilizing them for navigation as it is far too cumbersome to plan out a route, upload it, set the screen correctly, etc. I have used Edge 500, 510 and 520, none of which have presented a viable navigation interface.
Shane - thanks for your review and comments. Agree that there remains a huge unmet need in the market for simple, easy-to-use navi bike computer. I guess I'll just keep persevering with my old Garmin 800 ...
Yep..." The all in one tool!?'🙂⁉️...AND WITH "GOOGLE GOD!? LOOKING AFTER YOU YOU CANT GO WRONG.......😔⁉️SAD I'M A GARMIN FAN... But with the emergence of smartphone...the price of both of these unit just not justified 😕⁉️ phones do what these unit do and more...with a battery bank underneath my cellphone and strap to my bike handlebars . I'm good.
I am exactly with the same view as you Shane. It's unbelievable that manufacturers can charge a premium for poor, unintuitive, unresponsive navigation head units. They are using nothing more than dated tech and I suppose we are the fools for buy it. The units are great for stats but nothing else. My Garmin 810 I bought for the purpose of navigation is awful. For rides I need to navigate, I have to clamp my Galaxy S7 to my bar to get decent navigation. The whole purpose of buying the garmin in the first place was to do away with a large phone attached to the bar and have the benefit of better battery life. I wish a phone manufacture would bring out a compact phone with great battery life and is themed around activities. This would shake up or kill off companies who charge ridiculous prices, for as I said, old and inadequate tech priced at a premium.
That's what Sony did with the Xperia Active back in 2011. I believe it was one of the first smartphones with ANT+ support. Now there are quite a few of them: www.thisisant.com/directory/filter/~/60/~/
Darren: That's why i bought the Garmin Edge 1000 head unit in the first place. With all the sensors (cadence, speed and heart rate) i gave about 500 Euros. The Edge 1000 is far superior to the 810 or the newer 820. But still FAR FAR FAR away from my Galaxy S4 on a good stem mount. I honestly consider buying a Galaxy Note 4 that still has a removable back, replacable battery and a memory card slot to combine it with an extended XL battery with a matching back cover. www.amazon.com/Zerolemon-10000mah-Extended-ZeroShock-Versions/dp/B00Q7C6FTA Just add a screen protection foil on it to make it somewhat water resistant and you're good to go. Sure, its a heavy brick but superior in navigation, map, responsiveness and has the option of a plethora of additional apps. And who would belive .... you can call home with it :-D
Hi - thanks for this video, Shane. I found it while searching for information on the subject. I'm out to buy "something" but the market seems very confusing and there's a lot of potential to spend subsantial money on incompatible or unusable components. I've looked at many videos and other reviews in the web but your video is the best direct comparison I've seen. Today I don't have even a basic bike computer. I use only the Strava app on my Android phone, which resides in my jersey pocket. If I'm not sure of the way, I have to stop and pull out the phone. I'm looking for a setup that I can use outdoors but also for a budget Zwift zPower setup on the turbo trainer, such as you nicely demonstrated in another video. I would like to have in-ride navigation to handle my frequent, spontaneous detours while still getting me to my destination. I definitely demand Strava compatibility but I also need indoor speed sensing. The Strava app cannot hook up to speed sensors, it's totally GPS dependent and they don't plan to change that. You've cleared up some confusion for me with your honest comments... both devices, with their quite different underlying philosophies, fall short in some major way: with the Edge it's the navigation, with the Wahoo it s the intuitiveness of the user interface. The main message that I take away from this video is that a buyer has to decide whether a bike computer or an in-ride satnav is their first priority. No device combines both functions adequately. The ELEMNT seems to be a solid bike computer with "back office" support from the phone app, which I think is an interesting way to exploit the advantages of both. The Edges seem to be downgraded automotive satnavs with a bit of bike computer and a good deal of gimmickry thrown in. (I've used the same little Garmin Nüvi in my car for almost 10 years, the maps are always up to date and although it's slow to find the satellites and calculate a route, it's perfectly adequate for those occasional longer journeys into unfamiliar parts and looks remarkably like an Edge.) The second point I get from your video is that navigation software for cyclists is lagging way behind automotive navigation, which is hardly surprising given that the market is probably 100x or 1000x larger for automotive users, depending on country. These automotive-derived algorithms seem to have an inbuilt tendency to prefer main roads over cycle paths and to get easily lost, but more on that later. The third point, mainly from the comments on this video and on Strava, is that any bar-mounted device has to cope with extreme vibration and shock and I'm sure that I don't want to subject my expensive smartphone to that. The reliabilty of electronic devices is linked mathematically to their internal component count. Everything that I've read and heard about the Garmin Edge series tells me that these devices are derivatives of automotive satnavs and cannot take the beating on the bars. A simple, robust head unit coupled to a phone in the jersey pocket is going to live longer. The fourth point is that live navigation requires large memory, significant processing power, a lot of battery and a colour display whereas cycling computer functions and long battery life point to a two-tone LCD or electronic ink display. The fifth point - and this is also true for using your phone - is that touch screen displays are pretty, but pretty useless while you're riding, don't work when wet (rain, sweat) or when overheated from the sun, don't work when you have gloves on (yes, I ride in winter). Chunky side buttons are required, but inevitably these give less functionality. The sixth point is that although a smartphone can be anything that the app makes it, a phone is overkill as a bar-mounted bike computer and the permanently-on display will drain the battery in a couple of hours. In any case, on long tours I don't want to see the kilometres slowly counting away, it demoralises me. But I'd like to have Strava "live segments" egg me on during a ride and to see my speed and cadence. So back to navigation... I've read and heard a lot about preparing a route pre-ride on this or that map service, some of which you can't try before you buy, then uploading the route to the head unit. Strava's route planner (only on the computer, not included in the app) can do a good job for routes under 200km, with the ability to edit waypoints interactively to suit your preferences. I've not yet found any another route planner which allows me to plan a route interactively using OSM, adding my own preferences to take in interesting features along the way - but no doubt another commenter will know of some. The Strava app doesn't set out to offer live navigation. You can follow your progress on the display along a stored route at the cost of short battery life and it doesn't have audio output to give directions when the screen is off, but it has a useful "get you home" button that seems to choose sensible routes, whereas Google Maps doesn't. I've not found any way to interactively tune a Google Maps route. What I have found with GM on my phone is that it makes bizarre choices when initially calculating a route and when recalculating the route after an in-ride detour. Yes, it is in cycle mode, but it gets utterly confused. It doesn't clearly distinguish between roads, cycle paths, forest footpaths and deer trails. It will send you off-road in very strange ways along the least suitable, even invisible tracks and yet it also tends to get itself "glued" to main roads when there are more obviously suitable (often signposted) cycling alternatives. At times it's shouting left, right, left, right in a continuous babble of senseless instructions. But then again... signposted cycle routes are often not the shortest, more often than not they're indirect "scenic" or traffic-calmed routes and round here at least they're often only suitable for wide tyres, so you frequently find the satnav and the signposts pointing opposite ways. Most detestable is GM's ability to send you down cobbled streets when there are asphalt alternatives... do they think we actually enjoy pavé? Then it's good to have an old fashioned 1:50000 paper map in your jersey pocket to gain an overview, something not even a large tablet display can give you. So I conclude that GM is pretty useless for cycling, but I haven't yet found any other in-ride navigation tool that is try-before-you-buy. So that's the rub. You can prepare a hand-optimised route at home, upload it to your head unit, then slavishly follow it during your ride with no detours to take in interesting things that you spot along the way. Or you can buy an expensive satnav device (at high risk of being disappointed) to get poor-quality in-ride navigation and be subjected to its strange choices, low performance and mechanical fragility. It seems that nobody offers a reliable in-ride, cycling-optimised navigation. This may be partly down to the bias of automotive-based algorithms with their limited options "shortest time", "shortest distance", "least fuel"; partly down to incomplete mapping of cycle routes (with quality indicators) or partly down to the fact that there are just too many flavours of cycling routing preference for the software to cope with: commuting and shopping, gentle Sunday family touring, ambitious cross-country treks on wide tyres, long asphalt tours on the road bike. I'm still no closer to choosing what to buy!
Thank you to share your thoughts in this long and interesting message ! :-) I just find this site one to create our own GPX files : brouter.de/brouter-web/ I didn't experiment it extensively yet but it has a cool feature : "alternative" path and different cycling profiles. On two clicks it proposed me my exact best commuting track :-) I'm still using an old edge 705 as I've never been convinced by the new GPS units and alwyas postpone the purchase of a new one. I think It's gonna end with and Edge25 or a Lezyne super GPS on the handle bar + IP67 smartphone.
i had a garmin 810 nd i would use navigation all of time to ride around central london. i had no problems navigaing around and it even managed to route me through some quieter side streets/ back alleys and cycle lanes, the GPS would even locate me despite me being amonsgst skyscrapers which are notorious for messing with the signal and unlike your 820 the screen would be responsive even when wearingthick soggy waterproof gloves in winter, the only issue i had was that my maps werent up to date and being london, new buildings and roads plus new bike lanes and no entrys are constantly being built but then the owness was on me to update the maps. maybe in their quest for a lighter, smaller headunit garmin have missed out on the basics. as for wahoo, they are fairly new to the game and these are perhaps their rookie mistakes. glad you made this video as it makes me not want to upgrade to the 820 and stick with what i know.
nope, if i need to go from a to b i either put the address in manually through the "navigate to" page. or, i can use a precalculated route which i would have downloaded the gpx file from
I had an 810 and 3 times while out, it crashed mid route with over 70% battery left which resulted in me losing all of the data I had just accumulated. Garmin replaced it and the same thing happened again and again with a 3rd head unit. Ultimately they replaced it with an 820. So far so good but as Shane has demonstrated, it is quite often very slow to respond.
Head units are a joke in 2018. There are plenty of cyclists who spend top dollar on gear. Garmin has been doing maps for years and still isn't even close to getting it right. Wahoo is just trying to catch up to where Garmin pretends to be. Someone needs to step up to the plate and create a device that works (most likely android based). I've been a Garmin user for years and hate the company with a passion, it pains me to buy units from them. I beg someone to make a good device and take my money.
If it was only maps, but they can't even get basic things like phone notifications work right, and the latest Garmin Edge 820 update broke the connection between Di2 rear gear sensor and the Garmin unit, so I'm finally done with Garmin and just shopping for something new, probably Bryton. The Garmin units always were extremely sluggish and really frustrating to operate. Why does it have to turn on when I connect the charger, so that then I have to wait until it boots up, so that I can turn it off again, otherwise it will start beeping like crazy before auto turning off. I don't know if the people designing this are mentally deficient.
I can feel with you. Today I lost my Garmin Edge 810. Now I don't know what to do. I no longer want to spend more money to garmin. The edge 810 had so many bugs from the first day on they never managed to fix, altough people like me reportet them. As Software Engineer i'm really thinking about making my own device, but for that I need some piece of hardware I can work with (and no, mobile phone bullshit is not an option :-) )
Agree that it all feels frustrating that GPS units seem to be behind phones but most of the comments on this video seem to be forgetting one important fact, that phones don't have GPS chips built into them at all. They have to reverse engineer your position via cell tower triangulation + wi-fi spots in peoples houses. They do not look to the sky at all! Therefore yes in a city phones are great but if you are in the middle no where with no phone signal GPRS / 3G / 4G / 5G you may be a little screwed. Taking both is the only real answer and learning how to use the GPS unit + spending 10 mins setting it up before you set off is best. I purchased the Wahoo elemnt yesterday and yes had a few teething problems the first couple of rides but if you keep those test rides short while you learn the ropes most tech savvy people will figure them out pretty quickly.
@@RichardBransonuk What kind of phone are you using? I don't know any modern phone, even a basic one, that doesn't have a GPS chip. Quite a lot phones have both GPS and GLONASS (russian navigation system) chips, sometimes even BeiDou (chinese navigation system) and Galileo (european system).
Used to do the Cape Solander ride from Maroubra all the time. You have to get on the road, not the bike paths and join a group of people riding to Kurnell. Forget the Garmin, join a bunch and chat. I had no idea where I was going, but people explain. Best bit was my number 1 memory of Sydney. Non stop aircraft noise. What a hole!
Never mind, you found the setting! Companion app now has a reroute to start function, as well as a dynamic address/POI search function which will create maps and zap them to the Elemnt head unit on the fly. Really useful.
I think all GPS devices are still pretty much not up to scratch. But you have showed that clearly with these two particular units. Thanks for the effort! :)
Thank you so much for this video. I would like to take it as an opportunity to share my experiences with my Garmin 820. Good things first. There are lots of functions on the device and it is extremely customizeable. Not to forget the Garmin app store to even extend these. There are widgets like accu weather with rain forecast or data fields like strava suffer score. For those casual riders pedaling without watt meters meters you can estimate virtual power. Lots of graphs or dashboards make it fun or very effective using one of the 10 screens. The device is of perfect size for me and well readable at any time. Battery lasts good 6 hours when using it intensively A nice tip: put a file startup.txt in the root folder of the device with some lines of plain text content and you will be able to display e.g. some device owner infos at startup. This worked for the 800 and also for the 820 now. Now negative issues: Garmin released the 820 and promised to improve the touch screen issues and the calculation times for routing. After several firware updates I have to sum up that the changes were marginal. 4 to 8 min to calculate your route for a 30k to 100k ride is much to long. If you miss a turn you will be informed quickly about you riding off course but recalculating takes very long again. When heading for a target address entered on the device I often face that problem because Garmin's route is not always optimal so I correct it a bit while riding. The update time of the map is a second thing. Regardless of the display options (level of detail) it takes a bit of too much time. I.would like to have it more responsive for turns and even smoother scrolling on the straights. Touch screen is really bad. Using it indoor is no problem. Everything works fine. I point this out as my experience is that when using maps the device performance goes down. Sometimes I am not able to change the training screen at all. Switching the display off and on again helps a little bit. But what does Garmin think - look not so pro when challenging a strava segment and tapping and swiping on the screen like a maniac. The device should support me enjoying my sport. Best way to do so would be to do that perfectly without noticing any malfunctions. Using apps and or custom data fields from Garmin IQ Connect store seems to enhance the problems. Very very sad about that. Older models or the Edge 1000 seem to work way better. What is the sense of an open developer community when their work is not useable on the device. Garmin please help. The hardward should deal with the requirements. Edge 5*, older 8* and the 1000 show less problems, so I hope for a software side improvement. There is so much potential in this device please don't let it die for touch screen and performance issues. Last thing to mention is that read some comments about the touchscreen easily cracking when the device is dropped. As to my experience this is not the case. I dropped it driving about 25kmh (holding in hand) and it smashed on a comcrete wall without much of scratch. The issues I have with my 820 exist since the day I bought it in october 2016. Any comments or helpful advices are welcome.
Great video Shane. You have confirmed what I have already suspected. Why not avoid the expensive dedicated head unit debacle altogether and just use one of your old iphones as a head unit (we all have one or two older iphones laying around). It's an instant and free head unit. Just open your favorite companion app, pair your sensors and your done. Has anyone out there done this?
Iphones are massive on the bike... One of the cheaper garmin units is a way better option. The edge 20 or 25 will have battery lives far superior to the phone. My Garmin 500 battery lasts all day, your phone will be out of juice after an hour or so... Get a bike gps without maps and pull up google offline maps on your phone if you need to check where you are.
I am (or was) about to sell my garmin 235 and buy a brand new wahoo element bolt or a garmin 520. After this video, I am happy with 235 and so dissapointed from the other two. Thank you very much for the information about those "features". I dont want them in my life. Not for 350$. Thanx again!
Thx for your brillant review. Had a Garmin 1000 edge, was o.k but too high-priced and got stolen. Then got the Lezyne Super GPS, first look o.k., but then it rejected to pair to any BT-device. I will now keep my Samsung Galaxy note3 with built-in ant+-support and go for a powerbank for the long sessions!
so glad you made this, my 810 frustrates me no end, im constantly giving up and using my phone. i really dont know why its so hard for them to get this right.
you are so right... the standard of bike navigation is so yesterday! Finally I use wahoo for my data and the iPhone with a extra battery for navigation....
Oh my, glad i’m not the only one struggling with the intuitivity of bicycle computers. I’m using the edge 820 for a year now... can’t believe companies are proud of launching this kind of experience in this age. You can better buy an apple watch with the same money imo
Thanks for your feedback. I feel a bit relieved. I will unbox it and play around with it a bit this holiday weekend. So the first things I'm in for are firmware updates for it to work right?
I am running with the QuodLoad and the new App from PowerTap, collecting all the data I need to push to Strava, Perfect.. The PowerTap App, just need a bit more work to get some Zones and other Tracking Nav feature running.. Would be Perfect ( you can join any Bluetooth enables device to the App) Here me go, problems solved.. UNLOCKED AU Edition Alcatel Pixi 4 OT-4017X 3.5" Android 5.1 $55 Aussie Dollars, Wow, makes that Garmin seem very over $$$ priced.. When all you need is a good App, (Sorry no Quodlock support :(
So the phone is still better? I am actually considering getting one of these as I cant stand using the phone for navigation. But it seemed you repeatedly needed to sync with your phone and use it as a fallback map anyway right?
Shane Miller, check out some riding around Sydney's north-west. Train or drive to Hornsby and ride north or west from there. There're some nice climbs and scenic areas.
Elemnt is awesome. Been using one for 6 months. Once its set up there is no need to use your phone. Today (15th Nov) updated to use Route back home and route to anywhere.
Thx man. I had a 820 Edge in mind but after seeing this I think I'm gonna go with the Mio 605 HC. Biggest reason for the 820 is the size. The Mio 605 is a big 4" device and weighs 100gr more.
I've had 2 Garmin's ..... the newest I purchased because it was in color, touch screen and the ability to upload many maps in my region. I've had no issues. I think Garmin is the the best choice!
Agreed. I spent $600 (US) on the Garmin 1000. After seeing how un-intuitive it was, I returned it. To me it wasn't worth it. The computers should be much further ahead than what they are giving us.
I like to buy new and early.... and try to battle through the struggles and learn to love the units. I want to believe in Garmin and other tech companies.... and support them... but I agree. They should be so much better. I live in hope.... hope of the next firmware update fixing things! :)
First, thank you for that real world of recent GPS bike computer video, I can not more agree. I get almost a heart attack every time my 510 fails to upload (may work 1 out of 5 times if lucky) out of or complains or simply hangs/crashes. It's latest feat is I can not keep any routes on it any more, copy one on it and it works the very first time after that and turning on. Then after the next power cycle it's gone, no routes at all. And not even talk about that barely working touch screen. The last Garmin working just fine is (and still works! Only it's slow as outdated) my old 705, it even can navigating to a address (if non free maps are provided) by itself, sure no wireless, no strava, etc.. and need to plug in to get the data, but that simply works. So now I am looking at the Wahoo Bolt. Seams it does a good job, even not perfect in all aspects. I care about all day use for simple recording, that should just work and a trouble free automatic upload/phone connect -- any where. And basic navigation -- follow a plain track, with map background at minimum. Auto rerouting/avoid "missing bridge" or such would be great... I agree, the "North Up" is good and important for orientation, not for riding/following and it should have a simple button/option on the head unit to toggle this.
Thanks Shane. After using my iPhone & Strava Live on a QuadLock for the last 3 years I thought I'd move back to a Garmin (had a 305 from 2007-2011) now that Apple iOS 11 means my battery can't last a training ride let alone a 160K sportive. Was hesitating between 520 & 820 or a Wahoo as recommended by bikeshop guy. Your vid has convinced me to stick to the 520 and use iPhone for nav if needed. Plus battery pack of course. Or maybe back to paper maps... Paul. UK.
Thank you for covering this, I've been struggling to find a solution for navigating and now I know I need to keep looking! I tried various quick and dirty techniques this summer including a breadcrumb trail on an Edge 500, various Android apps and Google Maps. Google works the best but it is far from ideal.
Your first line had me laughing.... I like covering things that provide answers and solutions for people.... I think a Google Pixel Bike GPS would be a killer product everyone would love.
I have a Garmin Edge 520 and have absolutely no need for navigation with it. If I need navigation I will put my Iphone on the quadlock and use Google Maps. Also happy with the buttons on the 520 compared to the touch screen. Every time I hit the buttons it works!
The Garmin 820 "Explorer" has navigation settings offering various road options. One of the options is to avoid highways. The Garmin 820 (non explorer) which is what you have is designed more for fitness training and may not have navigation options for different roads.
just found your video, i have both units as well, and agree with your frustration on the navigation function on both being really user unfriendly. as someone who picks up on tech pretty fast and is usually asked for advice, it it pretty convoluted.
When travelling away from home I plan a route on Strava then export to my Garmin. This is the basic idea of the route I want to take but always use the phone for more fine navigation and route changes. I just embrace the adventure.
Shane, I'm so glad you made this video. The frustrations I've had with my Polar V650 are such that I ride with both it and an iPhone (6+ ridiculous large screen). The phone fails too though and the battery will not survive a 3+ hour ride with the screen on. My race teammates are constantly ribbing me (I'm known as Mr Television). I have been looking longingly at both the 820 and the Element... My bank account is very relieved to see now that they all suck in some way :( Because somebody else asked, the V650 is not nearly as good as their glossy marketing. If the navigation/mapping stuff is important to you, then keep looking. It's useless. My other frustrations are mainly with BT sensor pairing, mid ride drops, etc "tears"... but in fairness to Polar, I did send them a nasty-gram with a lengthy list of complaints and suggestions and some things are getting better. Finally, as a developer, if anybody made a headunit with open source firmware, I would be all over it. It's truly maddening dealing with stupid bugs that could be easily fixed.
Great film there! I have an old 800 and am frustrated by it's occasional lock ups as well as the time taken to get a new route loaded up. The shame of it is despite being decidedly old school and superseded as the top of the range, the current better model offering from the arguable market leader hasn't moved on when it comes to ability to carry out the same functions :-( Looks like I can put off upgrading and not miss out while hoping the unit does not pack up and force the issue!
One of the major selling points of the Elemnt, is that you do most of the configuration through the companion app. This allows you to navigate the options in a familiar iOS/Android UI, without having horrible nested menus like the Garmin. It is lacking a "take me home" option. Syncing routes from Strava and following them works really well, though.
This appears to be the general consensus given my experience with these two things. They're great for data collection, general GPS, and following a blue line back home (Garmin)... they just don't live up to my explications out of the box.
Shane thanks for the videos. Good to see the sunshine and blue waters. Here is cold in the UK with frost on the ground. i only have the wahoo elemnt. I was watching your video and trying to help you with the change the north setting you have to go in your phone to change. This was on one of the software updates. Great your found it in the end. i know using the wahoo elemnt for mapping that i have gone out on a ride. then i can use the map to see where i have been. it is blacked out on the route so i can follow the route back looking on the maps and following the black line. i agree with you that the software could be updated more. i thought the wahoo elemnt would have more features. i thought it would be more cutting edge. i have found it more reliable than my colleagues with the garmins. Mine has only locked up once but that was on a older software. Others have had theirs crash and loose data which mine has not. I tend to delete all the old rides off mine so maybe that helps. I did find as I bought the wahoo from them direct in the USA a pain. As when I had problems and it would not boot up. The engineer asked me to post it back. The cost of this is so expensive I have mentioned to others if you buy the elemnt make sure it is in country with a good dealer and customer care that can ship for you. looking forward to watching your trainer videos as i am trying to decide which one to buy for zwift. regards Vincenzo
Recent updates to the Elemnt remedy most of his issues...with the one particular design shift vs. the Garmin units that you primarily set it up and do any input interactions on your phone. Personally, I like this better than the confusing Garmin menu systems. Now, if you want to route to start, you whip out your phone, pull up the app, and in the Routes you can Retrace Back To Start and it synchs it up with your head unit. Another cool option is that you can search for address, poi, or categories and get the real-time routing without a computer or forethought. You likely wouldn't want to be changing settings or searching for routing options while cruising down the road anyways, so a quick stop to easily punch stuff in your phone shouldn't be an issue.
If you map your route with Ride with GPS Elemnt will give you turn by turn directions. The other option with the Elemnt is just turn around and follow the track you used on the way home, since it remains on the map in the device. Once I added Ride with GPS it was pretty easy to manage. You can import GPX routes to it, and once you have ridden a route and synced it with Ride with GPS it's already there. As for on the go routing Elemnt is not a good device.
I sold my frustrating Garmin too and have the Wahoo now. I have not tested the following yet, but it should work: Set up a route back home in the Apps from Strava, Ride with GPS or Komoot and sync it with the Elemnt. If it will not work through Bluetooth, set up a WLAN hotspot on the iPhone and let the Elemnt go online. This workaround should get us home. But: have not tried yet.
I use Ride with GPS with my iphone which is powered by a small powerbank. Other data comes from my Garmin 955 watch which I use for other activities. I do not see a reason to spend any money on head unit when I can have better substitutes
I didn't have any problem using a Mio/Magellan Cyclo 505 with latest firmware to navigate on an unfamiliar track, but the GPX file source was solid. I was helping out a few riders who had small Garmin units.
Yes I have same frustration with Garmin 820, It has some excellent features for data recording and has been very reliable so far, but you'll spend more time trying to navigate than actually riding to the destination! The map is usually very accurate, but planning a route takes ages even if loaded from Garmin Connect prior to the ride. Then not sure if this is just me but if you happen to go off course it won't recalculate your route to get you back on course, which is what i thought the whole idea was about.
Hello. You can use "Always rotate map" - you will be always heading towards the top of dispaly. Enable it in settings on Elemnt phone app. Oh, got it in 4:42 :)
Clicked your review from Simon's unboxing. I have an 820 that uses real buttons or touch screen.flawlessly worked until recently. Touch screen has locked up o twice and I had to reset which resulted in factory reset.
I like your test. You make very good points regarding the usability of the devices. My thoughts: Sounds like the 820 needs to use heat maps or bicycle routes as a setting when mapping the route home. Look and see if there is a setting for this on the device. Considering the unit is searching for a route using your phone as Internet and either the phone or the head unit is processing the route, 5 minutes is not bad. I wonder if you may get better response time if you go to a cafe and join the WiFi? As a comparison RWGPS takes about 15 seconds on my PC at home 40Mbps Internet connection. Might be worth a test 2. Good work, UX is fun.
Garmin 820 user here. I fell exactly the same as you, Shane. Record activity data is fine most of the times; Navigation so slow and unreliable. Always putting me on high speed roads/motorway. Worst than that is: doesn't consider narrow paths along the way. Looks like it was built for vehicles not bikes. One thing that worked for me was change the "touchscreen sensitivity" to high. It reduced a lot my frustration with unit's touchscreen. Maybe it may help you. I simple can't believe Garmin/Wahoo/whatever can't build anything like Google Maps navigation with a better hardware (better CPU, memory and touchscreen). It's simple unbelievable. This market has yet a space for a really good competitor.
Shane, if you weren't already aware a recent firmware update on the 820 now has a sensitivity setting for the touch (check out 'display settings' -> 'touch sensitivity'). Then you have the options of low / medium / high. I set mine on high to get a decent response, although in the rain I had to back it down as the rain drops activated the screen. I had the same frustrating response time (or lack thereof) after the update so hopefully this helps.
Shane Miller yeah Garmin just clutching with straws. Their touch screens are mainly a hardware issue. Though, their UI needs a massive makeover too. One day we'll see a super high res, responsive and intuitive bike computer with google maps and 4gx SIM card support!
I'm currently looking for a navigation device for CX, mtb and on the road. Rugged phone (ie. CAT S40) with map app (ie. Locus Maps) VS. Garmin Edge 1000. This was very good video. I am turning for a smart phone with good map app!
The issue with headunits is definitely an eternal one. I've had numerous bugs within my Edge 1000 and after chatting with Garmin it sounded like that have received similar frustrated and disappointed feedback in the past. To have units that cost hundreds of dollars that don't function properly, on a regular occurrence, suggests that their products aren't thoroughly tested. Touch screens not working? Non existent intuativeness? 'dumb' navigation? Critical errors that result in constant hard resets? They all have them, according to my communities experience. One suggestion in regards to navigation: why can't they link up a head unit that runs google maps? Link it with Bluetooth and enjoy the vast database of Google. Cheers Lama, doing a great job
Cheers mate. Filming this one made me pretty uneasy at the state of things... but... it was my true and honest experience that I'm hearing from others as well. RE: Google Maps. I suspect there's some difficult licensing issues to work though. Strava moved away from Google Maps, Relive.cc don't use them (or can't offer export due to licensing issues). That's just business I guess. All while it's 2016 and we the customer expect a whole lot more.
I'm a bike messenger in NYC. I use my phone on a Topeak phone mount with provided Topeak phone waterproof case, 10,000mah power bank, strava, and Google maps bike directions to get around the city 10 hours a day 300 days a year. it works flawlessly. I don't know why people still use bike computers when our phones are more powerful and versatile computers. These bike computers are using 8 year old technology.
I am a UK user of the 820, pros - small, light, water resistant, records rides and can upload via Blue Tooth which is great, mapping is great (has even tiny lanes across Europe on my model), colour screen is good (albeit small) - ability to load up and follow a route, ability to re route (albeit along sometimes bizarre lanes?) amazing list of features, phone pairing for text messages oh and I have not experienced the poor battery life many have complained of (I only pair with BT and don't have other sensors though which may make a difference. Cons, very expensive, screen is a bit too small (price paid for small and light piece of kit so an unfair complaint) screen is unresponsive to the point of frustration. Set up through all Garmins is odd and unintuitive. Once set up and going its fine but getting there is so very very slow (as clearly seen in your video). Best advice, set up routes in advanced (TCX gives best routing) then set off and follow them. Overall I continue to use it but do get frustrated with it as its so nearly a very good product.
Thank you. I was looking into getting a new head unit to replace my Edge 800 with Open Street Maps on an SD card, but I see that nothing has improved. I think Quadlock may be the way to go.
Fully Agree Shane, I have a Garmin 520 and also just bought the Wahoo Elemnt, the Elemnt is by far an improvement on the 520 although its still not what you'd expect for something that cost me $599. I also found using my iPhone to do stuff very annoying on the Elemnt. I found the best way to use it is with 'MapmyRide' and then upload the course.
I'm using the Elemnt for the past year, pretty much without issue. If you do an out and back, where you came from will show in black, or you can download a route, which also will then show in black. I think that the routes I have downloaded are from Ride with GPS, which I am using without cost. I did have trouble setting it up originally as I had to download app from Play Store. The other issue is that the map, at times has a cross section of blank, and sometimes arrow does not match with road. I expect all of these things could be better, and like computers, the best tech out there (light years ahead) are not out yet. By the way, I'm approaching both age 70, and 200,000 miles, so no big deals left. Best wishes-Mike
cheers Shane I was about to purchase one of these head units.. the wahoo.. is out the window and the jury is out for the garmin.. I was predominantly wanting one of these units for maps.. was looking at the garmin 1000. not at the moment me thinks : )
I have the Edge 1000 and also sometimes have issues "Routing error" when trying to calculate a new route and stuff like that. Most annoying is the fact, that you still can't create a route on your phone and send it via BT to the device as it takes a hideous amount of clicks to do it manually on the Edge 1000.
Timely Post Lama.. Thanks.. I've been researching as I have been wanting to update my Garmin 500. Yesterday I used the 500 to ride a 80km loop which I created on Strava and then loaded up to the G500. It did fine and for those times that I wanted to double check I simply took out the iPhone and used google maps. I guess for me the verdict is pretty clear. Neither Garmin or Wahoo will be getting my money.
I've got an edge 1000 and its routing functionality is mostly great. It has a bit of a problem choosing the best roads if you choose most direct route, but if you choose along the same route, it does just that. I just rode from the Saguaro national park to our hotel and it got me here with minimal fuss. The routing, while relatively simple, took about 15 seconds to compute. I wonder if your responsiveness issue relates to the relative computing power of the 820?
Shane that's one of the best videos I have seen explaining in lay man terms the problems I find these devices very frustrating when trying to perform a simple function and end up using google maps . trying to put a simple address into a garmin 800 is impossible
I never understood why people buy such expansive devices which won't do a quarter of what mobile apps will. Well, the only reasons would be 1- keeping the mobile free for other usage, 2- longer battery life ? (but you can use external batteries with your mobile)... BTW I don't know if you already did it, but a review of the different navigation apps for cyclists would be nice. My preferred one is RideWithGPS (only the navigation part), next would be Osmand if only they could get rid of some serious bugs... Would like to know if there are other, maybe better, alternatives !?
Khem Wanglee I like the Wahoo Fitness app, perfect for live logging and sending to several websites (Strava, RideWithGPS, TrainingPeaks, etc.). I'll try IPBike anyway, thanks.
I_don't_give_a_care That's their selling argument, but in reality they don't work any better than phones: less flexibility, less power, bad screens, bad touch control, bad interface controls (buttons). My phone connects to all my sensors (HR, powermeter with cadence, smart trainer), and I have a lot of choices of applications to get what I want on my screen, the way I want, when I want. I can even use several apps at the same time...
We wanted a device with built in maps so that we have use of maps in places where we don't have a data connection (ie rural Scotland and other countries we don't have data plans for).
Shane seems to be missing the point that a common complaint with Garmin units is the endless/convoluted settings menus on these units. Using the phone for this purpose dramatically simplifies device configuration. Wahoo aimed to keep the on-unit controls that you use while riding very simple and straightforward. This is what they're doing differently. It's the reason for the device. How often are you going to change your mind about how you prefer to see your maps?
You're talking like I'm not here. It's kind of awkward. :) Hats off to Wahoo for making it 'simple'... but even that is a learning curve. I wanted to try these features 'raw' and stumble my way though working it out. Most tech these days is designed for just this. This video is a few months old now and I'm coming to terms with the complexity of how 'easy' things are. Still a way to go though..... and no good navigational system to get us all there! ;)
I get the whole blind trial concept. It's just that the "control settings via app" was literally a headline-level product launch feature. While I agree that no product is perfect, I think Wahoo has made an incremental improvement in many areas. But if you look at the comments on this page, you'll find many people came away from this video with "oh well, now I know they're all unusable garbage--guess I'll keep using my ____." Quality autonomous routing is hardly a perfected tech, even on a smartphone or computer--especially when cyclists' special needs are taken into consideration.
Same here, tbh i dont mind me having to put new maps on when I'm riding at another place thats about 100km away (because thats more or less the radius of map data the 48MB Chip can store). I like looking at the profile of a ride before i do it anyway and look for some challenging segments :D
Even if you could put 1GB of maps in the 520, it still wouldn't make a difference seeing as it doesn't have the ability to route or give turn-by-turn directions.
Enjoy the blogs mate, will be setting up a Swift in the garage next year, loved the Wahoo and Garmin Comparison - Still prefer Garmin based on size - Wahoo doesn't offer anything dramatically different or better than Garmin... Agree, would figure Nav Aids should be better given Garmin is a Navigation company...
Greg, just an fyi -- today I ran across a new Wahoo ELEMNT model called the Bolt. It's about the size of a Garmin 8xx, maybe smaller. I've been using a Cyclo 505 for a while, but the size is also clunky for me and I'm in the market for a new hu.
Agree 100% with your comments Shane. I got a Garmin 820 and it's been nothing but tears since day 1. The navigation is simply not worth your time. Rather than taking you down logical straight routes, it will route you down a maze of side streets to your destination. Coupled with randomly freezing and turning off and sluggish performance. They aren't worth the money!
The 800, 520, and 820 all froze/rebooted on me with their earlier firmware. I'm always checking for updates to give them the best chance at fixing things.
When using the maps on Garmin 810 I just ride along the blue line to return to start(blue line is where I have been already). I used this in Japan even when I didn't have maps for that region. To get where I needed I just head in the direction, such as head east from Melbourne to get to Warburton. Never used any of the preloaded navigation functions.
Blue Line Navigation - Exactly what I used today returning home solo from a bunch ride north of Sydney. This needs more discussion, it is an underrated feature. So much better than the navigation functions. Did you head up Donna Buang once you got to Warby? Such a great climb (after Cement Creek anyway)
Some of the comment were helpful and I have the same issues with the 510, 810, 1000. Since I'm not a racer and worry about weight ... when I need to navigate I use "RidewithGPS" and carry a Ravapower compact 6700maAh battery for my stem mounted iPhone 6S. I just use the Garmin for data, every time I use it for mapping turn by turn ... it locks up or just doesn't play nice, especially when you go off course. I agree where are we with these headunits considering technology today.
after horrid experiences with Magellan and Garmin higher end units I just ended up switching to a Vivoactive. data logging only (saves battery on the phone) and I can use it as a watch in between as a bonus feature! odd that garmins bike gps stuff sucks so badly when their hiking (etrex etc) seem to work so well.
I run the Magellan (Mio) Cyclo 505 and it's perfect for me in terms of navigation, recording and all the goodness you expect from a bike computer. Quite cheap but sometimes it gets laggy and unresponsive much like the Garmin you tested - perhaps a memory issue. As others have also mentioned in the comments, another downside of the 505 is the battery.
Shane, I am having some similar issues with the 820 head unit as far as responsiveness. I think a lot of it has to do with the detail level of your map. I have mine set for road to less, however the gripe of that is if I was in an area that I did not know, like yourself, I would want a lot more detail for stops or landmarks etc. I sold my edge 1000 explore for this unit and right now I am not too confident, I do a lot of gravel racing with cue sheets and use maps. The 1000 was alright for this, battery life was terrible on the unit though. I could barely get through a gran fondo before it would be ready to die. I hope Garmin is working on a new update for this device, in its current state a 100 mile middle of nowhere gravel ride is lukewarm with me.
LOL I thought I was alone with these problems. No matter how many time I posted I could not get a response from anybody. You are the first person to event hint at any problem with these units as far as I have seen. !. they don't navigate properly eg shortest distance etc. They will send you on a D shaped rout even if the destination is a straight road. 2. The electronics in these things seems to be from the 80s 3 My Samsung phone always has to take up the slack. They appear adequate at courses , speed, power etc but o the whole very unsophisticated.. Even my phone can detect ant+ and bluetooth, play hifi music, alter my central heating, enable me to speak to some one on the other side of the world, tell me which way is north, the realtime location of planets, detect my sleeping pattern. Play call of duty, watch a complete box set a the walking dead. I could go on
Thanks for the reply. I'll have a look at these forums. I'm liking my 520 at the moment. Seems to work well. I'm liking it mostly because it's non touch. I am constantly touching my 1000 when I'm down and centred on the bars. Great videos thanks
James Thanks for helping me decide which way to go. (no pun intended😱) I'm ramping up my cycling efforts for Olympic/iron man distance triathlons and need to record/display data. (opposed to just training without data) After reviewing these types of vids and considering the MASSIVE $500+ newer gps enabled units...I'll buy gear that will work with my iPhone 6s SE (smaller 5 size chassis) so I can navigate/stream music/answer important calls/upload ride data/live stream rides etc...for the cost of ant +/blue tooth gear. Any gear that costs more than $300 (new) should be able to do all of those without question. Smartphones have been around since '07...c'mon guys!!!
Via the wahoo elemnt app you can navigate via Google maps without having to sign up for ride with GPS. I moved from South Africa to Spain and obviously needed to be able to move around and train. It's been really wonderful in that regard. However I do agree with the facts in your video. Some settings need to be on the unit. I struggled with the navigation screen also where it wasn't facing upwards. Thank you for the video
The Tech for HeadUnits is very outdated, very.. Its appalling what they are charging for that Sh#t, we are buying pre-iPhone 1 Tech with a HeadUnits.. A more interesting test would be to pitch a $80 smartphone (With good battery Life) with a App and see how it holds up (New PowerTap App, suggestion).. I was always wondering how the Wahoo HeadUnit stacks up agains the Garmin, now i kinda now.....!
Yeah, absolutely disgusting what the charge for that crap. I use my phone with an out-front mount and the app Locus map, and it does a pretty good job. But it's kind of a general-purpose app, and doesn't support power meters, or interval training. I'm thinking about making an app that is able to compete with top-end dedicated cycling computers, but that requires quite a bit of free time that I don't have
False information on so many levels. How is any of this technology outdated? As for price, bike computers are outdoor equipment. Look how expensive are outdoor phones. If you want to have a long battery life with always on display, built in GPS chip, barometric altimeter, ANT+ capability, readability on direct sunlight, and size that's suitable for handlebars, you're absolutely not going to get a $80 pricetag. Phones in this pricerange have mediocre displays that are hard to read outside, let alone on direct sunlight, no actual GPS chip, very poor battery life, very poor stability and the phone itself will be abysmally slow. And above all, the first time you ride in rainy weather will be the last time.
Could it be that the water proofness are making the touch screens so slow to react? Now you had warmth, but I've noticed that when I ride in sub zero (this Friday as of last) the screen gets slower to react to input. REALLY envious of your riding weather, -6 and 40cm snow (good thing I like snow and to ski) in the last two days here in Sweden but we keep pushing on still.
Terrible is an understatement. I have an 810 and the thing is great as long as you don't want to use it for any GPS or navigation purposes. You know the only reason you would ever buy one. I am afraid to load courses into my garmin because everytime I'm riding with one and I either veer off course because I missed a turn or god forbid I come up to a roundabout the thing simply crashes and turns off. All my recorded data is gone. I've opened numerous tickets with Garmin on this subject and they simply have no idea how to fix it. It is beyond pathetic that a GPS company which does nothing but navigation can't even get a pre-determined course I put into the device to route me to where I want to go without crashing. I'm considering going to a newer head unit but I feel like I'll simply get burned yet again. The second I can have my cell phone last 10 hours + recording data and displaying it with either BT or ANT+ I'm dropping head units for good. I'll keep spare battery cases in my backpack and use them with a phone instead because these "Flagship head units are a joke."
Thanks for the video Shane. Erick - I also have an 810 and the same issues, I am cycle shop owner so I was able to eventually speak to a Garmin tech support person. I was told by Garmin to remove any imported files and factory reset it because gpx files that are not produced from Garmin software may corrupt the unit. I had imported routes from Strava and now only import files from a Garmin source. If you need to import from another source, use Garmin Basecamp to sanitise the file. I did this and the next time I wanted help to navigate home it froze again.
Mike Riley I finally went to a Wahoo ELEMNT and I love it. A few quirks here and there but nothing like my old Garmin. The interface is super slick and until now I never realized just how bad touchscreen interfaces suck. Is it perfect no but 1000% better than my old Garmin.
Erick McKitterick i owned a zumo 590 for the motorbike. It was a 600 euro complicated piece if shit. They have no clue at all on how to make a device intuitive and functional. Strictly speaking it did what it said in the box ....but it was so painful to use that it was simply not worth the effort. I felt conned. I vowed to never buy a garmin product again....it is that bad.
I have the 820 for about 3 weeks now, I have to say that the touchscreen does have a delay, but my navigation works great. I live in Long Island, NY. Do you think that it would have anything to do with satellite signal, being so close to NYC.. I would think they would have more signal for different areas. I also notice a lot of comments were people saying with other devices they have already downloaded rides and followed it on there device. Is that really considered navigation. I thought what makes theses devices different is the ability to enter any address right on device itself and it will take you there. Not downloading it first.
Hi Shane, what are your generel thougts on the ELMNT. I have noticed that both you and the maven are harsh on the garmin edge, so what would you recommend. Keep up the good vlogging
My quick 2c on the Elemnt - On looks, the Elemnt is akin to a Kindle. That's not a bad thing though. The upside is reportedly better battery life. The unit itself is larger and flatter than a Garmin 520/820 form factor. The unit is very extensible, so it'll have a lot of life in it as services come on board (ie. existing ones are RideWithGPS, BestBikeSplit)... maybe more I can't recall. The setup takes a little learning.... configuring things with your phone first, and having third party services set up. Once this is done though, I've heard a lot of people people say good things about the unit. So that's a bonus. Global maps on the unit too... that's a huge tick for functionality. Ummmm.. I still need to spend more time using it. I'm waiting for the follow up firmware for ANT+ FE-C support so I can use it indoors with my Kickr.
Thank you for the quick reply. This was just the kind of input I needed. I have been the owner of the rflkt+ for A couple of years, and the only greivance i've had is that the either freezes up or that battery dies rapidly during the winter season herre in Denmark, and although I have never got on garmin-train I have been tempted many times :-)
Shane Miller ha ha interesting is a good word for it. I want to say something positive, but I have had it replaced two times on warranty. Best advice DON'T UPGRADE TO LATEST FIRMWARE 😎
Shane. thanks for the review. and for the great comments below. I was thinking of spending the $400 for the 820. no way now. my phone works great except for battery life. Samsung Note 4 has dried up and died on many rides. I will invest in some external batteries and a cable to connect them. $25?
Thanks for watching and the comments. That's not what Garmin want to read, but I guess it's exactly what they need to be reading if the experience I had has been echoed in the comments as well. Let's hope they can address the issues/niggles and improve things. They're great devices for the most part... but... they need to make great devices that work as expected for ALL parts.
As a former Garmin user the Wahoo Elemnt is superior for navigation. Screen is higher contrast and much easier to read in sunlight. The Elemnt takes a different approach to colour screen and detailed street names used by Garmin. This is useless in practice because all you want to know if whether to turn-left, turn-right or continue straight. The Garmin just provides clutter. RideWithGPS is easy to use to produce routes and these are wirelessly synched to the Elemnt with turn-by-turn directions. The phone app makes it much easier to change settings and data pages, etc. than the Garmin's convoluted menu system. It doesn't appear that the reviewer used RideWithGPS to produce a route for the Elemnt.
G'day. I'm 'the reviewer'. As explained a the end, I didn't have time to mess around with a third party app to perform the function of navigating me back to the start. I naively assumed it was something I could do from the unit itself.... much like the map orientation setting. I was wrong. That's fine. And I'm glad there's a process to resolve both issues here.... 1) Pulling out my phone to pair to the Elemnt and flick the switch on the orientation. And 2) The RideWithGPS integration..... but... I just wanted to ride home at the time. I didn't really want to sign up to a third party service, link it up, download a route to the unit.... I wanted to ride home. So it's great it the Elemnt is extensible in that way. I see they're talking a lot about BestBikeSplit too. Yet... it doesn't support ANT+ FE-C pairing to the Kickr for speed/power (it will only pair as a smart-trainer). That's whole other topic at this point...... I'm told support is coming in a future firmware.
I can at least share my experience as I used my Garmin 705 and Edge 1000 quite a bit for navigation.
1. It is important to get a good quality gpx file to start with. I used to build the routes on Strava pretty detailed, which takes a lot of time. A good alternative is brouter.de/brouter-web/ you just click the points where you want to go and you can adjust the route to avoid a few areas you don't like and select a profile like "fast-bike" which sorts out the crappy roads. Only downside if you download the gpx file they give the track a generic name. So you have to open it in notepad and change the track name, so you find it on your head-unit.
2. If you want "fast" calculation and the map only view is enough turn off turn guidance. The track will simply display on the map and on my garmin it takes 2 seconds for a 65km route.
3. If you want to use turn guidance calculation speed is 2min for 65km on my edge 1000
4. With turn guidance to enjoy the ride without staring at the map put the data field "Dist. to next" on your data screen. It shows the distance to the next turn and 150m before the turn the "turn guidance" pops up automatically. This is my prefered mode as you can see that you can simply follow the road for several km without worrying and just enjoying the ride
5. If you want to go back on the Garmin and do not need turn guidance just go into the map view and it shows your already ridden path with a blue line and you can just follow that home. No mapping needed and if your route was not perfect on the way there you can always change it by yourself without any head-unit warnings
6. Always make sure that route recalculation when taking a wrong turn is off or at least the head-unit will ask if you want to recalculate. Auto recalc. is just the worst
7. If you want to take a short cut or something and you get the warning "off-course" make sure to touch the screen at least once as long as the warning is there the map does not refresh on my edge 1000 which left me confused for the first few times.
So in summary once you have a good gpx source and know a few hints at least I can have a pretty good experience with it where you enjoy the ride and not always are worried about getting lost.
Thanks for taking the time to post the details Freddy, that's a lot of good tips. Much appreciated.
Freddy3792 All that is way to complicated though. It's 2017 everything should be easy and fluid like an iPhone.
Great to have met you at ZHQ yesterday, Shane. I, too, struggle with head units and utilizing them for navigation as it is far too cumbersome to plan out a route, upload it, set the screen correctly, etc. I have used Edge 500, 510 and 520, none of which have presented a viable navigation interface.
Shane - thanks for your review and comments. Agree that there remains a huge unmet need in the market for simple, easy-to-use navi bike computer. I guess I'll just keep persevering with my old Garmin 800 ...
Thanks for this review. I was just about to splurge on a Garmin unit, but, now I think I'll use my phone. ;)
Moral of the story! Never forget your phone. 😂
Haha! Good one.
Moral is they sell overpriced shit. Phone can help you out if you are lost.
Yep..." The all in one tool!?'🙂⁉️...AND WITH "GOOGLE GOD!? LOOKING AFTER YOU YOU CANT GO WRONG.......😔⁉️SAD I'M A GARMIN FAN... But with the emergence of smartphone...the price of both of these unit just not justified 😕⁉️ phones do what these unit do and more...with a battery bank underneath my cellphone and strap to my bike handlebars . I'm good.
I am exactly with the same view as you Shane. It's unbelievable that manufacturers can charge a premium for poor, unintuitive, unresponsive navigation head units. They are using nothing more than dated tech and I suppose we are the fools for buy it. The units are great for stats but nothing else.
My Garmin 810 I bought for the purpose of navigation is awful. For rides I need to navigate, I have to clamp my Galaxy S7 to my bar to get decent navigation. The whole purpose of buying the garmin in the first place was to do away with a large phone attached to the bar and have the benefit of better battery life.
I wish a phone manufacture would bring out a compact phone with great battery life and is themed around activities. This would shake up or kill off companies who charge ridiculous prices, for as I said, old and inadequate tech priced at a premium.
That's what Sony did with the Xperia Active back in 2011. I believe it was one of the first smartphones with ANT+ support.
Now there are quite a few of them: www.thisisant.com/directory/filter/~/60/~/
Good point.
Darren:
That's why i bought the Garmin Edge 1000 head unit in the first place. With all the sensors (cadence, speed and heart rate) i gave about 500 Euros.
The Edge 1000 is far superior to the 810 or the newer 820. But still FAR FAR FAR away from my Galaxy S4 on a good stem mount.
I honestly consider buying a Galaxy Note 4 that still has a removable back, replacable battery and a memory card slot to combine it with an extended XL battery with a matching back cover.
www.amazon.com/Zerolemon-10000mah-Extended-ZeroShock-Versions/dp/B00Q7C6FTA
Just add a screen protection foil on it to make it somewhat water resistant and you're good to go.
Sure, its a heavy brick but superior in navigation, map, responsiveness and has the option of a plethora of additional apps. And who would belive .... you can call home with it :-D
Buy yourself a powerbank and you won't have to think about battery life again.
Hi - thanks for this video, Shane. I found it while searching for information on the subject. I'm out to buy "something" but the market seems very confusing and there's a lot of potential to spend subsantial money on incompatible or unusable components. I've looked at many videos and other reviews in the web but your video is the best direct comparison I've seen. Today I don't have even a basic bike computer. I use only the Strava app on my Android phone, which resides in my jersey pocket. If I'm not sure of the way, I have to stop and pull out the phone. I'm looking for a setup that I can use outdoors but also for a budget Zwift zPower setup on the turbo trainer, such as you nicely demonstrated in another video. I would like to have in-ride navigation to handle my frequent, spontaneous detours while still getting me to my destination. I definitely demand Strava compatibility but I also need indoor speed sensing. The Strava app cannot hook up to speed sensors, it's totally GPS dependent and they don't plan to change that.
You've cleared up some confusion for me with your honest comments... both devices, with their quite different underlying philosophies, fall short in some major way: with the Edge it's the navigation, with the Wahoo it s the intuitiveness of the user interface.
The main message that I take away from this video is that a buyer has to decide whether a bike computer or an in-ride satnav is their first priority. No device combines both functions adequately. The ELEMNT seems to be a solid bike computer with "back office" support from the phone app, which I think is an interesting way to exploit the advantages of both. The Edges seem to be downgraded automotive satnavs with a bit of bike computer and a good deal of gimmickry thrown in. (I've used the same little Garmin Nüvi in my car for almost 10 years, the maps are always up to date and although it's slow to find the satellites and calculate a route, it's perfectly adequate for those occasional longer journeys into unfamiliar parts and looks remarkably like an Edge.)
The second point I get from your video is that navigation software for cyclists is lagging way behind automotive navigation, which is hardly surprising given that the market is probably 100x or 1000x larger for automotive users, depending on country. These automotive-derived algorithms seem to have an inbuilt tendency to prefer main roads over cycle paths and to get easily lost, but more on that later.
The third point, mainly from the comments on this video and on Strava, is that any bar-mounted device has to cope with extreme vibration and shock and I'm sure that I don't want to subject my expensive smartphone to that. The reliabilty of electronic devices is linked mathematically to their internal component count. Everything that I've read and heard about the Garmin Edge series tells me that these devices are derivatives of automotive satnavs and cannot take the beating on the bars. A simple, robust head unit coupled to a phone in the jersey pocket is going to live longer.
The fourth point is that live navigation requires large memory, significant processing power, a lot of battery and a colour display whereas cycling computer functions and long battery life point to a two-tone LCD or electronic ink display.
The fifth point - and this is also true for using your phone - is that touch screen displays are pretty, but pretty useless while you're riding, don't work when wet (rain, sweat) or when overheated from the sun, don't work when you have gloves on (yes, I ride in winter). Chunky side buttons are required, but inevitably these give less functionality.
The sixth point is that although a smartphone can be anything that the app makes it, a phone is overkill as a bar-mounted bike computer and the permanently-on display will drain the battery in a couple of hours. In any case, on long tours I don't want to see the kilometres slowly counting away, it demoralises me. But I'd like to have Strava "live segments" egg me on during a ride and to see my speed and cadence.
So back to navigation... I've read and heard a lot about preparing a route pre-ride on this or that map service, some of which you can't try before you buy, then uploading the route to the head unit. Strava's route planner (only on the computer, not included in the app) can do a good job for routes under 200km, with the ability to edit waypoints interactively to suit your preferences. I've not yet found any another route planner which allows me to plan a route interactively using OSM, adding my own preferences to take in interesting features along the way - but no doubt another commenter will know of some. The Strava app doesn't set out to offer live navigation. You can follow your progress on the display along a stored route at the cost of short battery life and it doesn't have audio output to give directions when the screen is off, but it has a useful "get you home" button that seems to choose sensible routes, whereas Google Maps doesn't. I've not found any way to interactively tune a Google Maps route. What I have found with GM on my phone is that it makes bizarre choices when initially calculating a route and when recalculating the route after an in-ride detour. Yes, it is in cycle mode, but it gets utterly confused. It doesn't clearly distinguish between roads, cycle paths, forest footpaths and deer trails. It will send you off-road in very strange ways along the least suitable, even invisible tracks and yet it also tends to get itself "glued" to main roads when there are more obviously suitable (often signposted) cycling alternatives. At times it's shouting left, right, left, right in a continuous babble of senseless instructions. But then again... signposted cycle routes are often not the shortest, more often than not they're indirect "scenic" or traffic-calmed routes and round here at least they're often only suitable for wide tyres, so you frequently find the satnav and the signposts pointing opposite ways. Most detestable is GM's ability to send you down cobbled streets when there are asphalt alternatives... do they think we actually enjoy pavé? Then it's good to have an old fashioned 1:50000 paper map in your jersey pocket to gain an overview, something not even a large tablet display can give you. So I conclude that GM is pretty useless for cycling, but I haven't yet found any other in-ride navigation tool that is try-before-you-buy.
So that's the rub. You can prepare a hand-optimised route at home, upload it to your head unit, then slavishly follow it during your ride with no detours to take in interesting things that you spot along the way. Or you can buy an expensive satnav device (at high risk of being disappointed) to get poor-quality in-ride navigation and be subjected to its strange choices, low performance and mechanical fragility. It seems that nobody offers a reliable in-ride, cycling-optimised navigation. This may be partly down to the bias of automotive-based algorithms with their limited options "shortest time", "shortest distance", "least fuel"; partly down to incomplete mapping of cycle routes (with quality indicators) or partly down to the fact that there are just too many flavours of cycling routing preference for the software to cope with: commuting and shopping, gentle Sunday family touring, ambitious cross-country treks on wide tyres, long asphalt tours on the road bike.
I'm still no closer to choosing what to buy!
+Nick Cory Great comments there Nick. 👍🏼 Let me know what you eventually end up going with.
Thank you to share your thoughts in this long and interesting message ! :-)
I just find this site one to create our own GPX files : brouter.de/brouter-web/
I didn't experiment it extensively yet but it has a cool feature : "alternative" path and different cycling profiles.
On two clicks it proposed me my exact best commuting track :-)
I'm still using an old edge 705 as I've never been convinced by the new GPS units and alwyas postpone the purchase of a new one.
I think It's gonna end with and Edge25 or a Lezyne super GPS on the handle bar + IP67 smartphone.
i had a garmin 810 nd i would use navigation all of time to ride around central london. i had no problems navigaing around and it even managed to route me through some quieter side streets/ back alleys and cycle lanes, the GPS would even locate me despite me being amonsgst skyscrapers which are notorious for messing with the signal and unlike your 820 the screen would be responsive even when wearingthick soggy waterproof gloves in winter, the only issue i had was that my maps werent up to date and being london, new buildings and roads plus new bike lanes and no entrys are constantly being built but then the owness was on me to update the maps. maybe in their quest for a lighter, smaller headunit garmin have missed out on the basics. as for wahoo, they are fairly new to the game and these are perhaps their rookie mistakes. glad you made this video as it makes me not want to upgrade to the 820 and stick with what i know.
nope, if i need to go from a to b i either put the address in manually through the "navigate to" page. or, i can use a precalculated route which i would have downloaded the gpx file from
I had an 810 and 3 times while out, it crashed mid route with over 70% battery left which resulted in me losing all of the data I had just accumulated. Garmin replaced it and the same thing happened again and again with a 3rd head unit. Ultimately they replaced it with an 820. So far so good but as Shane has demonstrated, it is quite often very slow to respond.
Head units are a joke in 2018. There are plenty of cyclists who spend top dollar on gear. Garmin has been doing maps for years and still isn't even close to getting it right. Wahoo is just trying to catch up to where Garmin pretends to be. Someone needs to step up to the plate and create a device that works (most likely android based). I've been a Garmin user for years and hate the company with a passion, it pains me to buy units from them. I beg someone to make a good device and take my money.
If it was only maps, but they can't even get basic things like phone notifications work right, and the latest Garmin Edge 820 update broke the connection between Di2 rear gear sensor and the Garmin unit, so I'm finally done with Garmin and just shopping for something new, probably Bryton. The Garmin units always were extremely sluggish and really frustrating to operate. Why does it have to turn on when I connect the charger, so that then I have to wait until it boots up, so that I can turn it off again, otherwise it will start beeping like crazy before auto turning off. I don't know if the people designing this are mentally deficient.
theyre doin worse and worse, my 2008 garmin edge 305 works a charm, its very basic to map but atleast it works
I can feel with you. Today I lost my Garmin Edge 810. Now I don't know what to do. I no longer want to spend more money to garmin. The edge 810 had so many bugs from the first day on they never managed to fix, altough people like me reportet them. As Software Engineer i'm really thinking about making my own device, but for that I need some piece of hardware I can work with (and no, mobile phone bullshit is not an option :-) )
Agree that it all feels frustrating that GPS units seem to be behind phones but most of the comments on this video seem to be forgetting one important fact, that phones don't have GPS chips built into them at all. They have to reverse engineer your position via cell tower triangulation + wi-fi spots in peoples houses. They do not look to the sky at all! Therefore yes in a city phones are great but if you are in the middle no where with no phone signal GPRS / 3G / 4G / 5G you may be a little screwed. Taking both is the only real answer and learning how to use the GPS unit + spending 10 mins setting it up before you set off is best. I purchased the Wahoo elemnt yesterday and yes had a few teething problems the first couple of rides but if you keep those test rides short while you learn the ropes most tech savvy people will figure them out pretty quickly.
@@RichardBransonuk What kind of phone are you using? I don't know any modern phone, even a basic one, that doesn't have a GPS chip. Quite a lot phones have both GPS and GLONASS (russian navigation system) chips, sometimes even BeiDou (chinese navigation system) and Galileo (european system).
Used to do the Cape Solander ride from Maroubra all the time. You have to get on the road, not the bike paths and join a group of people riding to Kurnell. Forget the Garmin, join a bunch and chat. I had no idea where I was going, but people explain. Best bit was my number 1 memory of Sydney. Non stop aircraft noise. What a hole!
Never mind, you found the setting! Companion app now has a reroute to start function, as well as a dynamic address/POI search function which will create maps and zap them to the Elemnt head unit on the fly. Really useful.
I think all GPS devices are still pretty much not up to scratch. But you have showed that clearly with these two particular units.
Thanks for the effort! :)
Thank you so much for this video. I would like to take it as an opportunity to share my experiences with my Garmin 820. Good things first. There are lots of functions on the device and it is extremely customizeable. Not to forget the Garmin app store to even extend these. There are widgets like accu weather with rain forecast or data fields like strava suffer score. For those casual riders pedaling without watt meters meters you can estimate virtual power. Lots of graphs or dashboards make it fun or very effective using one of the 10 screens.
The device is of perfect size for me and well readable at any time. Battery lasts good 6 hours when using it intensively
A nice tip: put a file startup.txt in the root folder of the device with some lines of plain text content and you will be able to display e.g. some device owner infos at startup. This worked for the 800 and also for the 820 now.
Now negative issues:
Garmin released the 820 and promised to improve the touch screen issues and the calculation times for routing. After several firware updates I have to sum up that the changes were marginal. 4 to 8 min to calculate your route for a 30k to 100k ride is much to long. If you miss a turn you will be informed quickly about you riding off course but recalculating takes very long again. When heading for a target address entered on the device I often face that problem because Garmin's route is not always optimal so I correct it a bit while riding. The update time of the map is a second thing. Regardless of the display options (level of detail) it takes a bit of too much time. I.would like to have it more responsive for turns and even smoother scrolling on the straights.
Touch screen is really bad. Using it indoor is no problem. Everything works fine. I point this out as my experience is that when using maps the device performance goes down. Sometimes I am not able to change the training screen at all. Switching the display off and on again helps a little bit. But what does Garmin think - look not so pro when challenging a strava segment and tapping and swiping on the screen like a maniac. The device should support me enjoying my sport. Best way to do so would be to do that perfectly without noticing any malfunctions. Using apps and or custom data fields from Garmin IQ Connect store seems to enhance the problems. Very very sad about that. Older models or the Edge 1000 seem to work way better. What is the sense of an open developer community when their work is not useable on the device. Garmin please help. The hardward should deal with the requirements. Edge 5*, older 8* and the 1000 show less problems, so I hope for a software side improvement. There is so much potential in this device please don't let it die for touch screen and performance issues.
Last thing to mention is that read some comments about the touchscreen easily cracking when the device is dropped. As to my experience this is not the case. I dropped it driving about 25kmh (holding in hand) and it smashed on a comcrete wall without much of scratch. The issues I have with my 820 exist since the day I bought it in october 2016.
Any comments or helpful advices are welcome.
tl;dr. "Garmin app store" edge 820 looks like needs ram more than it needs apps
Great video Shane. You have confirmed what I have already suspected. Why not avoid the expensive dedicated head unit debacle altogether and just use one of your old iphones as a head unit (we all have one or two older iphones laying around). It's an instant and free head unit. Just open your favorite companion app, pair your sensors and your done. Has anyone out there done this?
Iphones are massive on the bike... One of the cheaper garmin units is a way better option. The edge 20 or 25 will have battery lives far superior to the phone. My Garmin 500 battery lasts all day, your phone will be out of juice after an hour or so... Get a bike gps without maps and pull up google offline maps on your phone if you need to check where you are.
I am (or was) about to sell my garmin 235 and buy a brand new wahoo element bolt or a garmin 520. After this video, I am happy with 235 and so dissapointed from the other two. Thank you very much for the information about those "features". I dont want them in my life. Not for 350$. Thanx again!
Thx for your brillant review. Had a Garmin 1000 edge, was o.k but too high-priced and got stolen. Then got the Lezyne Super GPS, first look o.k., but then it rejected to pair to any BT-device.
I will now keep my Samsung Galaxy note3 with built-in ant+-support and go for a powerbank for the long sessions!
so glad you made this, my 810 frustrates me no end, im constantly giving up and using my phone. i really dont know why its so hard for them to get this right.
you are so right... the standard of bike navigation is so yesterday! Finally I use wahoo for my data and the iPhone with a extra battery for navigation....
Oh my, glad i’m not the only one struggling with the intuitivity of bicycle computers. I’m using the edge 820 for a year now... can’t believe companies are proud of launching this kind of experience in this age. You can better buy an apple watch with the same money imo
Have a Wahoo Elemnt Bolt. Very pleased with it.
Shane the new Element Bolt is a colour screen. Haven’t used it yet got it for Christmas and we live in a snowy area so will have to wait until spring.
Thanks for your feedback. I feel a bit relieved. I will unbox it and play around with it a bit this holiday weekend. So the first things I'm in for are firmware updates for it to work right?
So in the battle of Elemnt vs 820....Quadlock wins.
HHAHAHHAHA!!!! I didn't even mention that in the video.. Yes. I whacked the iPhone on the stem for most of this ride.
I am running with the QuodLoad and the new App from PowerTap, collecting all the data I need to push to Strava, Perfect.. The PowerTap App, just need a bit more work to get some Zones and other Tracking Nav feature running.. Would be Perfect ( you can join any Bluetooth enables device to the App) Here me go, problems solved.. UNLOCKED AU Edition Alcatel Pixi 4 OT-4017X 3.5" Android 5.1 $55 Aussie Dollars, Wow, makes that Garmin seem very over $$$ priced.. When all you need is a good App, (Sorry no Quodlock support :(
can you tell me how did you mount gopro to garmin? 1:35
www.amazon.co.uk/OUT-FRONT-MOUNT-GARMIN-GOPRO-x/dp/B019H81QZS
So the phone is still better? I am actually considering getting one of these as I cant stand using the phone for navigation. But it seemed you repeatedly needed to sync with your phone and use it as a fallback map anyway right?
Shane Miller, check out some riding around Sydney's north-west. Train or drive to Hornsby and ride north or west from there. There're some nice climbs and scenic areas.
Elemnt is awesome. Been using one for 6 months. Once its set up there is no need to use your phone. Today (15th Nov) updated to use Route back home and route to anywhere.
I just signed up to RideWithGPS and can't do much with it until I pay their monthly fee.... However, firmware updated... time for a ride!
Shane Miller I use the free version. You can create routes as well as upload gpx files without paying.
Thx man. I had a 820 Edge in mind but after seeing this I think I'm gonna go with the Mio 605 HC. Biggest reason for the 820 is the size. The Mio 605 is a big 4" device and weighs 100gr more.
Oh no. I have just ordered an Element.... I guess I will have to join Ride with GPS as well. Thanks Lama for the help
Thank you Shane for consumer friendly reviews!
great reviews Shane Ive just bought my Wahoo Elemnt looking forward to all this stuff
I've had 2 Garmin's ..... the newest I purchased because it was in color, touch screen and the ability to upload many maps in my region. I've had no issues. I think Garmin is the the best choice!
Agreed. I spent $600 (US) on the Garmin 1000. After seeing how un-intuitive it was, I returned it. To me it wasn't worth it. The computers should be much further ahead than what they are giving us.
I like to buy new and early.... and try to battle through the struggles and learn to love the units. I want to believe in Garmin and other tech companies.... and support them... but I agree. They should be so much better. I live in hope.... hope of the next firmware update fixing things! :)
First, thank you for that real world of recent GPS bike computer video, I can not more agree. I get almost a heart attack every time my 510 fails to upload (may work 1 out of 5 times if lucky) out of or complains or simply hangs/crashes. It's latest feat is I can not keep any routes on it any more, copy one on it and it works the very first time after that and turning on. Then after the next power cycle it's gone, no routes at all. And not even talk about that barely working touch screen. The last Garmin working just fine is (and still works! Only it's slow as outdated) my old 705, it even can navigating to a address (if non free maps are provided) by itself, sure no wireless, no strava, etc.. and need to plug in to get the data, but that simply works. So now I am looking at the Wahoo Bolt. Seams it does a good job, even not perfect in all aspects. I care about all day use for simple recording, that should just work and a trouble free automatic upload/phone connect -- any where. And basic navigation -- follow a plain track, with map background at minimum. Auto rerouting/avoid "missing bridge" or such would be great... I agree, the "North Up" is good and important for orientation, not for riding/following and it should have a simple button/option on the head unit to toggle this.
Thanks Shane. After using my iPhone & Strava Live on a QuadLock for the last 3 years I thought I'd move back to a Garmin (had a 305 from 2007-2011) now that Apple iOS 11 means my battery can't last a training ride let alone a 160K sportive. Was hesitating between 520 & 820 or a Wahoo as recommended by bikeshop guy. Your vid has convinced me to stick to the 520 and use iPhone for nav if needed. Plus battery pack of course. Or maybe back to paper maps... Paul. UK.
Agree with you the touch screen on the 820 is shocking!
Thank you for covering this, I've been struggling to find a solution for navigating and now I know I need to keep looking!
I tried various quick and dirty techniques this summer including a breadcrumb trail on an Edge 500, various Android apps and Google Maps. Google works the best but it is far from ideal.
Your first line had me laughing.... I like covering things that provide answers and solutions for people.... I think a Google Pixel Bike GPS would be a killer product everyone would love.
Shane Miller At the moment I'm seriously considering getting a Polar V650 and putting a standard android rom on it.
Waooooohh... let me know if you do.
I have a Garmin Edge 520 and have absolutely no need for navigation with it. If I need navigation I will put my Iphone on the quadlock and use Google Maps. Also happy with the buttons on the 520 compared to the touch screen. Every time I hit the buttons it works!
I have a Garmin 500... I plan the routes before and if I get lost at all I just pull out my phone and check google offline maps...
Yeah but gps uses up battery life on the phone and that’s frustrating as well.
Sigma Rox 11 now has me interested, due to your Vlog. Keep up the great work with the videos.
The Garmin 820 "Explorer" has navigation settings offering various road options. One of the options is to avoid highways. The Garmin 820 (non explorer) which is what you have is designed more for fitness training and may not have navigation options for different roads.
just found your video, i have both units as well, and agree with your frustration on the navigation function on both being really user unfriendly. as someone who picks up on tech pretty fast and is usually asked for advice, it it pretty convoluted.
When travelling away from home I plan a route on Strava then export to my Garmin. This is the basic idea of the route I want to take but always use the phone for more fine navigation and route changes. I just embrace the adventure.
Shane, I'm so glad you made this video. The frustrations I've had with my Polar V650 are such that I ride with both it and an iPhone (6+ ridiculous large screen). The phone fails too though and the battery will not survive a 3+ hour ride with the screen on. My race teammates are constantly ribbing me (I'm known as Mr Television). I have been looking longingly at both the 820 and the Element... My bank account is very relieved to see now that they all suck in some way :(
Because somebody else asked, the V650 is not nearly as good as their glossy marketing. If the navigation/mapping stuff is important to you, then keep looking. It's useless. My other frustrations are mainly with BT sensor pairing, mid ride drops, etc "tears"... but in fairness to Polar, I did send them a nasty-gram with a lengthy list of complaints and suggestions and some things are getting better.
Finally, as a developer, if anybody made a headunit with open source firmware, I would be all over it. It's truly maddening dealing with stupid bugs that could be easily fixed.
Great film there! I have an old 800 and am frustrated by it's occasional lock ups as well as the time taken to get a new route loaded up.
The shame of it is despite being decidedly old school and superseded as the top of the range, the current better model offering from the arguable market leader hasn't moved on when it comes to ability to carry out the same functions :-(
Looks like I can put off upgrading and not miss out while hoping the unit does not pack up and force the issue!
One of the major selling points of the Elemnt, is that you do most of the configuration through the companion app. This allows you to navigate the options in a familiar iOS/Android UI, without having horrible nested menus like the Garmin. It is lacking a "take me home" option. Syncing routes from Strava and following them works really well, though.
Yep, I figured that out 1/2 way into the ride. I'm old-school and expected it as an option on the unit itself.
Shane the yerm you are looking for is "to orientate the map" so that the top of the map is pointing in the direction of travel. Cheers
Thanks lama! You just saved me 500 bucks. I'll stick with my edge 25 and keep using my ph for navigating.
This appears to be the general consensus given my experience with these two things. They're great for data collection, general GPS, and following a blue line back home (Garmin)... they just don't live up to my explications out of the box.
Shane thanks for the videos. Good to see the sunshine and blue waters. Here is cold in the UK with frost on the ground. i only have the wahoo elemnt. I was watching your video and trying to help you with the change the north setting you have to go in your phone to change. This was on one of the software updates. Great your found it in the end.
i know using the wahoo elemnt for mapping that i have gone out on a ride. then i can use the map to see where i have been. it is blacked out on the route so i can follow the route back looking on the maps and following the black line.
i agree with you that the software could be updated more. i thought the wahoo elemnt would have more features. i thought it would be more cutting edge. i have found it more reliable than my colleagues with the garmins. Mine has only locked up once but that was on a older software.
Others have had theirs crash and loose data which mine has not. I tend to delete all the old rides off mine so maybe that helps. I did find as I bought the wahoo from them direct in the USA a pain. As when I had problems and it would not boot up. The engineer asked me to post it back. The cost of this is so expensive I have mentioned to others if you buy the elemnt make sure it is in country with a good dealer and customer care that can ship for you.
looking forward to watching your trainer videos as i am trying to decide which one to buy for zwift.
regards Vincenzo
Recent updates to the Elemnt remedy most of his issues...with the one particular design shift vs. the Garmin units that you primarily set it up and do any input interactions on your phone. Personally, I like this better than the confusing Garmin menu systems. Now, if you want to route to start, you whip out your phone, pull up the app, and in the Routes you can Retrace Back To Start and it synchs it up with your head unit. Another cool option is that you can search for address, poi, or categories and get the real-time routing without a computer or forethought.
You likely wouldn't want to be changing settings or searching for routing options while cruising down the road anyways, so a quick stop to easily punch stuff in your phone shouldn't be an issue.
If you map your route with Ride with GPS Elemnt will give you turn by turn directions. The other option with the Elemnt is just turn around and follow the track you used on the way home, since it remains on the map in the device. Once I added Ride with GPS it was pretty easy to manage. You can import GPX routes to it, and once you have ridden a route and synced it with Ride with GPS it's already there. As for on the go routing Elemnt is not a good device.
I sold my frustrating Garmin too and have the Wahoo now. I have not tested the following yet, but it should work:
Set up a route back home in the Apps from Strava, Ride with GPS or Komoot and sync it with the Elemnt.
If it will not work through Bluetooth, set up a WLAN hotspot on the iPhone and let the Elemnt go online.
This workaround should get us home.
But: have not tried yet.
I use Ride with GPS with my iphone which is powered by a small powerbank. Other data comes from my Garmin 955 watch which I use for other activities. I do not see a reason to spend any money on head unit when I can have better substitutes
I didn't have any problem using a Mio/Magellan Cyclo 505 with latest firmware to navigate on an unfamiliar track, but the GPX file source was solid. I was helping out a few riders who had small Garmin units.
Yes I have same frustration with Garmin 820, It has some excellent features for data recording and has been very reliable so far, but you'll spend more time trying to navigate than actually riding to the destination!
The map is usually very accurate, but planning a route takes ages even if loaded from Garmin Connect prior to the ride. Then not sure if this is just me but if you happen to go off course it won't recalculate your route to get you back on course, which is what i thought the whole idea was about.
Hello. You can use "Always rotate map" - you will be always heading towards the top of dispaly.
Enable it in settings on Elemnt phone app.
Oh, got it in 4:42 :)
Clicked your review from Simon's unboxing. I have an 820 that uses real buttons or touch screen.flawlessly worked until recently. Touch screen has locked up o twice and I had to reset which resulted in factory reset.
Would love to see some comparisons with phone app accuracy vs garmins
I like your test. You make very good points regarding the usability of the devices. My thoughts: Sounds like the 820 needs to use heat maps or bicycle routes as a setting when mapping the route home. Look and see if there is a setting for this on the device. Considering the unit is searching for a route using your phone as Internet and either the phone or the head unit is processing the route, 5 minutes is not bad. I wonder if you may get better response time if you go to a cafe and join the WiFi? As a comparison RWGPS takes about 15 seconds on my PC at home 40Mbps Internet connection. Might be worth a test 2. Good work, UX is fun.
Garmin 820 user here. I fell exactly the same as you, Shane. Record activity data is fine most of the times;
Navigation so slow and unreliable. Always putting me on high speed roads/motorway. Worst than that is: doesn't consider narrow paths along the way.
Looks like it was built for vehicles not bikes.
One thing that worked for me was change the "touchscreen sensitivity" to high. It reduced a lot my frustration with unit's touchscreen. Maybe it may help you.
I simple can't believe Garmin/Wahoo/whatever can't build anything like Google Maps navigation with a better hardware (better CPU, memory and touchscreen). It's simple unbelievable. This market has yet a space for a really good competitor.
Shane, if you weren't already aware a recent firmware update on the 820 now has a sensitivity setting for the touch (check out 'display settings' -> 'touch sensitivity'). Then you have the options of low / medium / high. I set mine on high to get a decent response, although in the rain I had to back it down as the rain drops activated the screen. I had the same frustrating response time (or lack thereof) after the update so hopefully this helps.
Already updated to 4.10 when it came out a few weeks back. No notable improvement in the responsiveness.
Shane Miller yeah Garmin just clutching with straws. Their touch screens are mainly a hardware issue. Though, their UI needs a massive makeover too.
One day we'll see a super high res, responsive and intuitive bike computer with google maps and 4gx SIM card support!
I like to use my 5000:1 scale map, although I haven't found a good enough mount for it yet.
I bet it is noisy on windy days, and possibly blocks your vision when going to fast ;)
I'm currently looking for a navigation device for CX, mtb and on the road. Rugged phone (ie. CAT S40) with map app (ie. Locus Maps) VS. Garmin Edge 1000. This was very good video. I am turning for a smart phone with good map app!
The issue with headunits is definitely an eternal one. I've had numerous bugs within my Edge 1000 and after chatting with Garmin it sounded like that have received similar frustrated and disappointed feedback in the past. To have units that cost hundreds of dollars that don't function properly, on a regular occurrence, suggests that their products aren't thoroughly tested.
Touch screens not working? Non existent intuativeness? 'dumb' navigation? Critical errors that result in constant hard resets? They all have them, according to my communities experience.
One suggestion in regards to navigation: why can't they link up a head unit that runs google maps? Link it with Bluetooth and enjoy the vast database of Google.
Cheers Lama, doing a great job
Cheers mate. Filming this one made me pretty uneasy at the state of things... but... it was my true and honest experience that I'm hearing from others as well. RE: Google Maps. I suspect there's some difficult licensing issues to work though. Strava moved away from Google Maps, Relive.cc don't use them (or can't offer export due to licensing issues). That's just business I guess. All while it's 2016 and we the customer expect a whole lot more.
I'm a bike messenger in NYC. I use my phone on a Topeak phone mount with provided Topeak phone waterproof case, 10,000mah power bank, strava, and Google maps bike directions to get around the city 10 hours a day 300 days a year. it works flawlessly.
I don't know why people still use bike computers when our phones are more powerful and versatile computers. These bike computers are using 8 year old technology.
I am a UK user of the 820, pros - small, light, water resistant, records rides and can upload via Blue Tooth which is great, mapping is great (has even tiny lanes across Europe on my model), colour screen is good (albeit small) - ability to load up and follow a route, ability to re route (albeit along sometimes bizarre lanes?) amazing list of features, phone pairing for text messages oh and I have not experienced the poor battery life many have complained of (I only pair with BT and don't have other sensors though which may make a difference. Cons, very expensive, screen is a bit too small (price paid for small and light piece of kit so an unfair complaint) screen is unresponsive to the point of frustration. Set up through all Garmins is odd and unintuitive. Once set up and going its fine but getting there is so very very slow (as clearly seen in your video). Best advice, set up routes in advanced (TCX gives best routing) then set off and follow them. Overall I continue to use it but do get frustrated with it as its so nearly a very good product.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks color is a good thing.
why does he have so few subscribers? I don't get it. This is a brilliant review! keep up the good work :)
Me? 21k is more than I could have imagined in 8 months or so.
Yes, but still to few imho :)
Thank you. I was looking into getting a new head unit to replace my Edge 800 with Open Street Maps on an SD card, but I see that nothing has improved. I think Quadlock may be the way to go.
Things have improved a lot since this video was made. The 1030 is a good navigator, most of the time.
Fully Agree Shane, I have a Garmin 520 and also just bought the Wahoo Elemnt, the Elemnt is by far an improvement on the 520 although its still not what you'd expect for something that cost me $599. I also found using my iPhone to do stuff very annoying on the Elemnt. I found the best way to use it is with 'MapmyRide' and then upload the course.
I'm using the Elemnt for the past year, pretty much without issue. If you do an out and back, where you came from will show in black, or you can download a route, which also will then show in black. I think that the routes I have downloaded are from Ride with GPS, which I am using without cost. I did have trouble setting it up originally as I had to download app from Play Store. The other issue is that the map, at times has a cross section of blank, and sometimes arrow does not match with road. I expect all of these things could be better, and like computers, the best tech out there (light years ahead) are not out yet. By the way, I'm approaching both age 70, and 200,000 miles, so no big deals left. Best wishes-Mike
Wow. So glad I had invested in the Magellan Cyclo units. It's a shame they didn't get the local support Garmin received.
cheers Shane I was about to purchase one of these head units.. the wahoo.. is out the window and the jury is out for the garmin.. I was predominantly wanting one of these units for maps.. was looking at the garmin 1000. not at the moment me thinks : )
I have the Edge 1000 and also sometimes have issues "Routing error" when trying to calculate a new route and stuff like that. Most annoying is the fact, that you still can't create a route on your phone and send it via BT to the device as it takes a hideous amount of clicks to do it manually on the Edge 1000.
Timely Post Lama.. Thanks.. I've been researching as I have been wanting to update my Garmin 500. Yesterday I used the 500 to ride a 80km loop which I created on Strava and then loaded up to the G500. It did fine and for those times that I wanted to double check I simply took out the iPhone and used google maps.
I guess for me the verdict is pretty clear. Neither Garmin or Wahoo will be getting my money.
Ta for this Shane; I think i'll save my money and just buy a phone mount :-)
Keep up this type of on the fly reviews
Great vid - it's what I wanted to see - real world use. Stopped me in my tracks upgrading my 810 which is equally useless with navigation.
I've got an edge 1000 and its routing functionality is mostly great. It has a bit of a problem choosing the best roads if you choose most direct route, but if you choose along the same route, it does just that. I just rode from the Saguaro national park to our hotel and it got me here with minimal fuss. The routing, while relatively simple, took about 15 seconds to compute.
I wonder if your responsiveness issue relates to the relative computing power of the 820?
I completely agree. I am struggling with the usability of the Edge 1000. It's not intuitive at all.
Shane that's one of the best videos I have seen explaining in lay man terms the problems I find these devices very frustrating when trying to perform a simple function and end up using google maps . trying to put a simple address into a garmin 800 is impossible
Cheers. We're six months on from this video... so I'll have to revisit it to see if there's been any improvements from Wahoo & Garmin for these units.
its the box arrow that I'm confused with and the small arrow whch is always in top left corner
I never understood why people buy such expansive devices which won't do a quarter of what mobile apps will. Well, the only reasons would be 1- keeping the mobile free for other usage, 2- longer battery life ? (but you can use external batteries with your mobile)...
BTW I don't know if you already did it, but a review of the different navigation apps for cyclists would be nice. My preferred one is RideWithGPS (only the navigation part), next would be Osmand if only they could get rid of some serious bugs... Would like to know if there are other, maybe better, alternatives !?
GoustiFruit if you are using android try "ipbike" it even better than bike computer if you use with power meter
Khem Wanglee I like the Wahoo Fitness app, perfect for live logging and sending to several websites (Strava, RideWithGPS, TrainingPeaks, etc.). I'll try IPBike anyway, thanks.
I_don't_give_a_care
That's their selling argument, but in reality they don't work any better than phones: less flexibility, less power, bad screens, bad touch control, bad interface controls (buttons). My phone connects to all my sensors (HR, powermeter with cadence, smart trainer), and I have a lot of choices of applications to get what I want on my screen, the way I want, when I want. I can even use several apps at the same time...
We wanted a device with built in maps so that we have use of maps in places where we don't have a data connection (ie rural Scotland and other countries we don't have data plans for).
I use RideWithGPS for offline maps with directions. Best navigation system for cyclists !
Shane seems to be missing the point that a common complaint with Garmin units is the endless/convoluted settings menus on these units. Using the phone for this purpose dramatically simplifies device configuration. Wahoo aimed to keep the on-unit controls that you use while riding very simple and straightforward. This is what they're doing differently. It's the reason for the device. How often are you going to change your mind about how you prefer to see your maps?
You're talking like I'm not here. It's kind of awkward. :) Hats off to Wahoo for making it 'simple'... but even that is a learning curve. I wanted to try these features 'raw' and stumble my way though working it out. Most tech these days is designed for just this. This video is a few months old now and I'm coming to terms with the complexity of how 'easy' things are. Still a way to go though..... and no good navigational system to get us all there! ;)
I get the whole blind trial concept. It's just that the "control settings via app" was literally a headline-level product launch feature. While I agree that no product is perfect, I think Wahoo has made an incremental improvement in many areas. But if you look at the comments on this page, you'll find many people came away from this video with "oh well, now I know they're all unusable garbage--guess I'll keep using my ____." Quality autonomous routing is hardly a perfected tech, even on a smartphone or computer--especially when cyclists' special needs are taken into consideration.
I'm fine with my 520.
I just wish it had navigation.
Same here, tbh i dont mind me having to put new maps on when I'm riding at another place thats about 100km away (because thats more or less the radius of map data the 48MB Chip can store). I like looking at the profile of a ride before i do it anyway and look for some challenging segments :D
Even if you could put 1GB of maps in the 520, it still wouldn't make a difference seeing as it doesn't have the ability to route or give turn-by-turn directions.
I always look at some map before driving a completely foreign route and u still have the old fashioned road signs ;)
Sometimes I wonder if I should have bought 520 instead of 820.
Jude B yeah I reckon 520 is king had a few drop outs with hr but the power reading is 99 percent reliable 👍👍⚡️⚡️🚴🚴 brilliant for training and racing
Enjoy the blogs mate, will be setting up a Swift in the garage next year, loved the Wahoo and Garmin Comparison - Still prefer Garmin based on size - Wahoo doesn't offer anything dramatically different or better than Garmin... Agree, would figure Nav Aids should be better given Garmin is a Navigation company...
Greg, just an fyi -- today I ran across a new Wahoo ELEMNT model called the Bolt. It's about the size of a Garmin 8xx, maybe smaller. I've been using a Cyclo 505 for a while, but the size is also clunky for me and I'm in the market for a new hu.
Agree 100% with your comments Shane. I got a Garmin 820 and it's been nothing but tears since day 1. The navigation is simply not worth your time. Rather than taking you down logical straight routes, it will route you down a maze of side streets to your destination. Coupled with randomly freezing and turning off and sluggish performance. They aren't worth the money!
The 800, 520, and 820 all froze/rebooted on me with their earlier firmware. I'm always checking for updates to give them the best chance at fixing things.
Must come north and hit Akuna Bay, West Head and Bobbo. Happy to play tour guide. Won't be disappointed!!! Ride on!!! 😜
Your username scares me! ;)
Shane Miller 😜would be great to show what Sydney can offer to peddlers from interstate. It's not all traffic. Can show you a few good vino bars too 🍷
When using the maps on Garmin 810 I just ride along the blue line to return to start(blue line is where I have been already). I used this in Japan even when I didn't have maps for that region. To get where I needed I just head in the direction, such as head east from Melbourne to get to Warburton. Never used any of the preloaded navigation functions.
Blue Line Navigation - Exactly what I used today returning home solo from a bunch ride north of Sydney. This needs more discussion, it is an underrated feature. So much better than the navigation functions. Did you head up Donna Buang once you got to Warby? Such a great climb (after Cement Creek anyway)
Yeah I did ride up Donna. The rail trail out there was awesome as well!
Some of the comment were helpful and I have the same issues with the 510, 810, 1000. Since I'm not a racer and worry about weight ... when I need to navigate I use "RidewithGPS" and carry a Ravapower compact 6700maAh battery for my stem mounted iPhone 6S. I just use the Garmin for data, every time I use it for mapping turn by turn ... it locks up or just doesn't play nice, especially when you go off course. I agree where are we with these headunits considering technology today.
Shane, will you be doing a review of the 830 Edge?
If I can get a hold of one... they're still weeks away in stores here.
after horrid experiences with Magellan and Garmin higher end units I just ended up switching to a Vivoactive. data logging only (saves battery on the phone) and I can use it as a watch in between as a bonus feature! odd that garmins bike gps stuff sucks so badly when their hiking (etrex etc) seem to work so well.
I run the Magellan (Mio) Cyclo 505 and it's perfect for me in terms of navigation, recording and all the goodness you expect from a bike computer. Quite cheap but sometimes it gets laggy and unresponsive much like the Garmin you tested - perhaps a memory issue. As others have also mentioned in the comments, another downside of the 505 is the battery.
That’s why I use the 510/520 for bike data and If i want to go somewhere else I pull out my phone and use maps or waze
Shane, I am having some similar issues with the 820 head unit as far as responsiveness. I think a lot of it has to do with the detail level of your map. I have mine set for road to less, however the gripe of that is if I was in an area that I did not know, like yourself, I would want a lot more detail for stops or landmarks etc.
I sold my edge 1000 explore for this unit and right now I am not too confident, I do a lot of gravel racing with cue sheets and use maps. The 1000 was alright for this, battery life was terrible on the unit though. I could barely get through a gran fondo before it would be ready to die.
I hope Garmin is working on a new update for this device, in its current state a 100 mile middle of nowhere gravel ride is lukewarm with me.
LOL I thought I was alone with these problems. No matter how many time I posted I could not get a response from anybody. You are the first person to event hint at any problem with these units as far as I have seen.
!. they don't navigate properly eg shortest distance etc. They will send you on a D shaped rout even if the destination is a straight road.
2. The electronics in these things seems to be from the 80s
3 My Samsung phone always has to take up the slack.
They appear adequate at courses , speed, power etc but o the whole very unsophisticated.. Even my phone can detect ant+ and bluetooth, play hifi music, alter my central heating, enable me to speak to some one on the other side of the world, tell me which way is north, the realtime location of planets, detect my sleeping pattern. Play call of duty, watch a complete box set a the walking dead. I could go on
There's a LOT of others having dramas if you read the right forums. Hopefully the team(s) behind these products are reading these too.
Thanks for the reply. I'll have a look at these forums. I'm liking my 520 at the moment. Seems to work well. I'm liking it mostly because it's non touch. I am constantly touching my 1000 when I'm down and centred on the bars. Great videos thanks
James Thanks for helping me decide which way to go. (no pun intended😱) I'm ramping up my cycling efforts for Olympic/iron man distance triathlons and need to record/display data. (opposed to just training without data) After reviewing these types of vids and considering the MASSIVE $500+ newer gps enabled units...I'll buy gear that will work with my iPhone 6s SE (smaller 5 size chassis) so I can navigate/stream music/answer important calls/upload ride data/live stream rides etc...for the cost of ant +/blue tooth gear. Any gear that costs more than $300 (new) should be able to do all of those without question. Smartphones have been around since '07...c'mon guys!!!
Garmin Edge Touring is fantastic, couldn't recommend it enough
Olly Bell except battery life
Via the wahoo elemnt app you can navigate via Google maps without having to sign up for ride with GPS. I moved from South Africa to Spain and obviously needed to be able to move around and train. It's been really wonderful in that regard. However I do agree with the facts in your video. Some settings need to be on the unit. I struggled with the navigation screen also where it wasn't facing upwards. Thank you for the video
The Tech for HeadUnits is very outdated, very.. Its appalling what they are charging for that Sh#t, we are buying pre-iPhone 1 Tech with a HeadUnits.. A more interesting test would be to pitch a $80 smartphone (With good battery Life) with a App and see how it holds up (New PowerTap App, suggestion).. I was always wondering how the Wahoo HeadUnit stacks up agains the Garmin, now i kinda now.....!
Yeah, absolutely disgusting what the charge for that crap. I use my phone with an out-front mount and the app Locus map, and it does a pretty good job. But it's kind of a general-purpose app, and doesn't support power meters, or interval training. I'm thinking about making an app that is able to compete with top-end dedicated cycling computers, but that requires quite a bit of free time that I don't have
False information on so many levels. How is any of this technology outdated? As for price, bike computers are outdoor equipment. Look how expensive are outdoor phones. If you want to have a long battery life with always on display, built in GPS chip, barometric altimeter, ANT+ capability, readability on direct sunlight, and size that's suitable for handlebars, you're absolutely not going to get a $80 pricetag. Phones in this pricerange have mediocre displays that are hard to read outside, let alone on direct sunlight, no actual GPS chip, very poor battery life, very poor stability and the phone itself will be abysmally slow. And above all, the first time you ride in rainy weather will be the last time.
Thanks for this video! Very usefull, I wanted to get one of these two systems. After seeing this vid I ordered a quadlock system for my phone :p
Could it be that the water proofness are making the touch screens so slow to react? Now you had warmth, but I've noticed that when I ride in sub zero (this Friday as of last) the screen gets slower to react to input.
REALLY envious of your riding weather, -6 and 40cm snow (good thing I like snow and to ski) in the last two days here in Sweden but we keep pushing on still.
Yep, the screens have to withstand the elements... so to speak. :) It was a great day for a roll here in Sydney today. instagram.com/gplama/
Terrible is an understatement. I have an 810 and the thing is great as long as you don't want to use it for any GPS or navigation purposes. You know the only reason you would ever buy one. I am afraid to load courses into my garmin because everytime I'm riding with one and I either veer off course because I missed a turn or god forbid I come up to a roundabout the thing simply crashes and turns off. All my recorded data is gone. I've opened numerous tickets with Garmin on this subject and they simply have no idea how to fix it. It is beyond pathetic that a GPS company which does nothing but navigation can't even get a pre-determined course I put into the device to route me to where I want to go without crashing. I'm considering going to a newer head unit but I feel like I'll simply get burned yet again. The second I can have my cell phone last 10 hours + recording data and displaying it with either BT or ANT+ I'm dropping head units for good. I'll keep spare battery cases in my backpack and use them with a phone instead because these "Flagship head units are a joke."
Thanks for the video Shane.
Erick - I also have an 810 and the same issues, I am cycle shop owner so I was able to eventually speak to a Garmin tech support person. I was told by Garmin to remove any imported files and factory reset it because gpx files that are not produced from Garmin software may corrupt the unit. I had imported routes from Strava and now only import files from a Garmin source. If you need to import from another source, use Garmin Basecamp to sanitise the file. I did this and the next time I wanted help to navigate home it froze again.
Mike Riley I finally went to a Wahoo ELEMNT and I love it. A few quirks here and there but nothing like my old Garmin. The interface is super slick and until now I never realized just how bad touchscreen interfaces suck. Is it perfect no but 1000% better than my old Garmin.
Glad to hear you found a decent unit. I have had good reports of the Polar 650 unit as well.
Erick McKitterick i owned a zumo 590 for the motorbike. It was a 600 euro complicated piece if shit. They have no clue at all on how to make a device intuitive and functional. Strictly speaking it did what it said in the box ....but it was so painful to use that it was simply not worth the effort. I felt conned. I vowed to never buy a garmin product again....it is that bad.
I have the 820 for about 3 weeks now, I have to say that the touchscreen does have a delay, but my navigation works great. I live in Long Island, NY. Do you think that it would have anything to do with satellite signal, being so close to NYC.. I would think they would have more signal for different areas. I also notice a lot of comments were people saying with other devices they have already downloaded rides and followed it on there device. Is that really considered navigation. I thought what makes theses devices different is the ability to enter any address right on device itself and it will take you there. Not downloading it first.
Hi Shane, what are your generel thougts on the ELMNT. I have noticed that both you and the maven are harsh on the garmin edge, so what would you recommend. Keep up the good vlogging
My quick 2c on the Elemnt - On looks, the Elemnt is akin to a Kindle. That's not a bad thing though. The upside is reportedly better battery life. The unit itself is larger and flatter than a Garmin 520/820 form factor. The unit is very extensible, so it'll have a lot of life in it as services come on board (ie. existing ones are RideWithGPS, BestBikeSplit)... maybe more I can't recall. The setup takes a little learning.... configuring things with your phone first, and having third party services set up. Once this is done though, I've heard a lot of people people say good things about the unit. So that's a bonus. Global maps on the unit too... that's a huge tick for functionality. Ummmm.. I still need to spend more time using it. I'm waiting for the follow up firmware for ANT+ FE-C support so I can use it indoors with my Kickr.
Thank you for the quick reply. This was just the kind of input I needed. I have been the owner of the rflkt+ for A couple of years, and the only greivance i've had is that the either freezes up or that battery dies rapidly during the winter season herre in Denmark, and although I have never got on garmin-train I have been tempted many times :-)
I have a rflkt+ sitting here too.... testing the ANT+ to Bluetooth bridging function to the iPhone/Wahoo App. Interesting little unit.
Shane Miller ha ha interesting is a good word for it. I want to say something positive, but I have had it replaced two times on warranty. Best advice DON'T UPGRADE TO LATEST FIRMWARE 😎
Hi, may I ask what cycling jersey were u wearing in the video? Looks good.
That's the kit from AthleteLab. I love their set up and use it a lot here in Sydney, so I purchased a jersey when we arrived the other day.
Shane. thanks for the review. and for the great comments below. I was thinking of spending the $400 for the 820. no way now. my phone works great except for battery life. Samsung Note 4 has dried up and died on many rides. I will invest in some external batteries and a cable to connect them. $25?
Thanks for watching and the comments. That's not what Garmin want to read, but I guess it's exactly what they need to be reading if the experience I had has been echoed in the comments as well. Let's hope they can address the issues/niggles and improve things. They're great devices for the most part... but... they need to make great devices that work as expected for ALL parts.
As a former Garmin user the Wahoo Elemnt is superior for navigation. Screen is higher contrast and much easier to read in sunlight. The Elemnt takes a different approach to colour screen and detailed street names used by Garmin. This is useless in practice because all you want to know if whether to turn-left, turn-right or continue straight. The Garmin just provides clutter.
RideWithGPS is easy to use to produce routes and these are wirelessly synched to the Elemnt with turn-by-turn directions. The phone app makes it much easier to change settings and data pages, etc. than the Garmin's convoluted menu system. It doesn't appear that the reviewer used RideWithGPS to produce a route for the Elemnt.
G'day. I'm 'the reviewer'. As explained a the end, I didn't have time to mess around with a third party app to perform the function of navigating me back to the start. I naively assumed it was something I could do from the unit itself.... much like the map orientation setting. I was wrong. That's fine. And I'm glad there's a process to resolve both issues here.... 1) Pulling out my phone to pair to the Elemnt and flick the switch on the orientation. And 2) The RideWithGPS integration..... but... I just wanted to ride home at the time. I didn't really want to sign up to a third party service, link it up, download a route to the unit.... I wanted to ride home.
So it's great it the Elemnt is extensible in that way. I see they're talking a lot about BestBikeSplit too. Yet... it doesn't support ANT+ FE-C pairing to the Kickr for speed/power (it will only pair as a smart-trainer). That's whole other topic at this point...... I'm told support is coming in a future firmware.