Garmin Megathread-Ask your questions here-See post 1 on how to search thread

JosDel

Anybody know why garmin connect is down and when it will be back ?

Hopefully they are restoring google maps...bet not

Krusty_Clown

JosDel wrote: »

Anybody know why garmin connect is down and when it will be back ?

Hopefully they are restoring google maps...bet not

I fixed it. I had to turn the server off and back on again, and wiggle the mouse a little.

*Edit*: Actually, uploads are still broken. I'll jiggle the mouse a little bit more.

Patrick_K

Is anybody else having a lot more issues than normal uploading to Garmin Connect with a 405 recently ?
Has been going on for a couple of weeks now.
I can't upload a run from yesterday this morning, it's returning 'Connect failed due to server error'.
Usually I can get around it by recording a new training activity - i.e. go into training and do start and stop after a few seconds, it wil pick up the new event and upload the previous one too but that's not working today either.
Is it just me .... ?

Krusty_Clown

Patrick_K wrote: »

Is anybody else having a lot more issues than normal uploading to Garmin Connect with a 405 recently ?
Has been going on for a couple of weeks now.
I can't upload a run from yesterday this morning, it's returning 'Connect failed due to server error'.
Usually I can get around it by recording a new training activity - i.e. go into training and do start and stop after a few seconds, it wil pick up the new event and upload the previous one too but that's not working today either.
Is it just me .... ?

Mine has been fine, apart from the outage that JosDel mentioned above. Changes could be afoot (which usually causes problems for a few days).

I noticed that they have switched back to NavTeq maps (via Ms Bing). Maps seem to be slightly better than the TeleAtlas maps they were using (via Bing).

c montgomery

If your looking for a 405 and you know someone in the UK who might be good enough to buy it for ya and post it over you wont find one cheaper than this

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/garmin-forerunner-405-fitness-watch-02417843-pdt.html

£110 but its store pick up only.

Krusty_Clown

c montgomery wrote: »

If your looking for a 405 and you know someone in the UK who might be good enough to buy it for ya and post it over you wont find one cheaper than this

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/garmin-forerunner-405-fitness-watch-02417843-pdt.html

£110 but its store pick up only.

Sorry! This item is not in stock at any of our stores near you.
Please try another postcode or select home delivery if possible.

pistol_75

Hi guys,

I tried to upload my 2 recent workouts from the 405. Got a message on the ANT agent that the upload failed.

How do I trigger them to be uploaded now? ANT agent is only searching for new files now?

I have tried manual upload but there is no history information.

Krusty_Clown

Do you know if it's the upload to the computer or the upload to Garmin Connect that failed?
Do you have Training Centre installed?
Have you tried going to the Garmin Connect webpage and doing a manual upload?

pistol_75

It's the upload to the computer that failed.

Krusty_Clown

What was the error message?
Check the folder: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\GARMIN\Devices\<DeviceNumber>\History\year-month-date-time.TCX
(substitute the <> for your own settings).

Also, you can try a forced upload from the watch:
Menu/Settings/ANT+Sport/Computer/Force Send/Yes.

Murraythree

Krusty if you don’t mind another question re 305/405. Re alerts - 405 gives mile time and wondering can I set the 305 to do the same. I can set it to alert mile/km but not show time taken to run the distance. Many thanks in advance.

Krusty_Clown

Murraythree wrote: »

Krusty if you don’t mind another question re 305/405. Re alerts - 405 gives mile time and wondering can I set the 305 to do the same. I can set it to alert mile/km but not show time taken to run the distance. Many thanks in advance.

The alerts on a 405 are actually based on lap times, and the alert that displays includes the time to complete the previous lap. Does this not show on the 305?

If not, you could add [Time - Lap] as a data field, and check it out at the end of every lap..

Murraythree

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

The alerts on a 405 are actually based on lap times, and the alert that displays includes the time to complete the previous lap. Does this not show on the 305?

If not, you could add [Time - Lap] as a data field, and check it out at the end of every lap..

Thank you. Think this is feature of 405 and not of 305...will see and try your suggestion.
Are you a Garmin employee!? If not they should be paying commission to you.

ronnie085

Murraythree wrote: »

Thank you. Think this is feature of 405 and not of 305...will see and try your suggestion.
Are you a Garmin employee!? If not they should be paying commission to you.

Hey Murrythree, have a 305 myself and have it set to give mile time with alert, go into training-training options-auto lap- then set distance. Hope that does the trick for what your looking for

Krusty_Clown

Murraythree wrote: »

Thank you. Think this is feature of 405 and not of 305...will see and try your suggestion.
Are you a Garmin employee!? If not they should be paying commission to you.

Yes, I wrote the code for Garmin Connect (sorry!), wrote the firmware for the watches (sorry again!!), and manufacture the watches in a cupboard under the stairs of my house. It's been pretty profitable so far, but the elves are threatening industrial action unless they get a pay rise to 7.5 cent an hour, in line with recent minimum wage changes. Don't tell the sneaky barstads it's €7.50 an hour.

hot to trot

Sincerest apologies oh wise one if this has come up before. I couldnt find it.
HOw long can one expect a garmin 405 battery to hold its charge? I have this one since about April and it cant be guaranteed to last past 21 miles on a marathon. Now I know im not the fastest in the world but surely 3 hours is a bit skimpy.
I used it also as my daytime watch and charged it everynight. Often it was in the last few % of charge anyway so i wasnt always just topping it up. I have since bought a swatch and am going to just reserve it for running to see if I can prolong its life a bit .
I had to send back my first one as it froze and I couldnt get it going again. This freezes too but at least it responds to "reset".

Krusty_Clown

hot to trot wrote: »

Sincerest apologies oh wise one if this has come up before. I couldnt find it.
HOw long can one expect a garmin 405 battery to hold its charge? I have this one since about April and it cant be guaranteed to last past 21 miles on a marathon. Now I know im not the fastest in the world but surely 3 hours is a bit skimpy.
I used it also as my daytime watch and charged it everynight. Often it was in the last few % of charge anyway so i wasnt always just topping it up. I have since bought a swatch and am going to just reserve it for running to see if I can prolong its life a bit .
I had to send back my first one as it froze and I couldnt get it going again. This freezes too but at least it responds to "reset".

Hi hot to trot, I reckon a reasonable/average amount of time is 6-7 hours. If you're not getting that, (e.g. 3 hours) I would send it back to Garmin. It's fckin useless if it doesn't even last as long as your marathon.

hot to trot

Thanks I will do that. I found them prompt before so I might get it back for my next marathon next month.
Cheers

PS - for the person who has thin wrists... the soft strap is brill. YOU get a large soft strap as well . Just put a message on the boards and you can get a swop with a bigger person so that you both have a spare.

Murraythree

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Yes, I wrote the code for Garmin Connect (sorry!), wrote the firmware for the watches (sorry again!!), and manufacture the watches in a cupboard under the stairs of my house. It's been pretty profitable so far, but the elves are threatening industrial action unless they get a pay rise to 7.5 cent an hour, in line with recent minimum wage changes. Don't tell the sneaky barstads it's €7.50 an hour.

Hi there oh wise garmin making elves! Have solved previously posted 305 question. Had not set Auto lap for distance! Reckon you boys should go on strike.....

Mr Freeze

Hi Hi,

I know the Garmin connect website has been updated recently, but I don't know if the issue I have is related to that or is just a setting on my watch.

I have the 305 and a cadence sensor on my bike and I use it on a turbo trainer.

Anyways, when I upload to GC, it used to look like this, but now its like this , as you can see, there is a lot less detail under timings, max cadence is missing, and charts are blank.

Every thing I upload is like that now.

Any ideas? Have they changed something or is there a setting on the watch wrong?

Thanks
CK

Krusty_Clown

CKWPORT wrote: »

Hi Hi,

I exported it, and the file is tiny, so it only seems to contain lap info, rather than real-time trackpoints. Check to see if your watch memory is full. Try clearing out old activities.

mithril

Maybe a topic for a separate thread, but do you see a long term future for a dedicated runner's watch other than for the hard core?

I have been really disappointed by Garmin's failure to innovate over the last few years - the improvements since the 305 have been largely cosmetic.

There is a real risk that the Apple Nano could steal the majority of Garmin's customer base from it, particularly if a future version incorporated a GPS chipset - a much cheaper and more viable option by the day. The ability to offer a MP3 player and accurate distance measurement in a single device would be a strong proposition, and Apples' brand, partnership with Nike and capability of developing a huge online community would be hard to compete against.

Krusty_Clown

mithril wrote: »

Maybe a topic for a separate thread, but do you see a long term future for a dedicated runner's watch other than for the hard core?

I have been really disappointed by Garmin's failure to innovate over the last few years - the improvements since the 305 have been largely cosmetic.

There is a real risk that the Apple Nano could steal the majority of Garmin's customer base from it, particularly if a future version incorporated a GPS chipset - a much cheaper and more viable option by the day. The ability to offer a MP3 player and accurate distance measurement in a single device would be a strong proposition, and Apples' brand, partnership with Nike and capability of developing a huge online community would be hard to compete against.

It's a good point. Apple could most certainly clean-up if they headed in the right direction, but their forays into the market so far have been a bit of a disaster (Nike+ etc). Perhaps the fitness market just isn't large enough for them to target a market specific device (no point selling a GPS enabled Nano to someone who just wants to listen to music). Selling this functionality as a plug-in peripheral for a Nano is probably significantly cheaper (though not as effective a solution).

I agree with you on the cosmetic changes (in fact I feel that Garmin have gone backwards in many respects). Question is: what innovations would you expect to see? Longer battery life? Real-time delivery of activity data to a web-based server? More ways to analyze your activity data?

Mr Freeze

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I exported it, and the file is tiny, so it only seems to contain lap info, rather than real-time trackpoints. Check to see if your watch memory is full. Try clearing out old activities.

Cheers, have deleted all the history as I couldn't find if there was a memory percentage used thing anywhere.

Will try record something on it one of the days now and hopefully that does the trick.

mithril

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Question is: what innovations would you expect to see?

Reliable HR monitoring.
I have gone through multiple combinations of 3 different watches and 3 different HR straps and I never managed to get accurate HR readings from Garmin. Too many spikes of 220 when doing an easy warm-up. I abandoned the effort in the end and now run off perceived effort using the Pace value on the watch as indicator. I realize some of this might due to be my own limitations, rather than the watch, but it appears to be a persistent complaint on boards and a web scan indicates that Polar devices are regarded as much more reliable for HR monitoring. This is basic bread and butter for a device targeted at athletes so no excuse for not doing a better job.

Elevation
Provide accurate elevation in the device by adding a barometer if necessary.

Swimming.
Capture distance while swimming.

Mapping.
Display O/S co-ordinates as field on Garmin watch.
Easy way of downloading routes from Bing or Google Maps and navigating them turn by turn on the watch

Community
A lot more could be done in building up a community such as virtual challenges e.g. a number of users compete to be first to log 1000KM with graphical progress towards target displayed.

Media.
Integration with running POD Casts on the web site.
Streaming of events.

Krusty_Clown

Accurate Heart rate data? You'll be looking for accurate distance covered data next. Bloody loon.
These all seem like perfectly reasonable requests. Sadly, despite many comments to the contrary, I don't have a hotline (batphone) to Garmin.

Maybe you should suggest these features on their forum?

mithril

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Maybe you should suggest these features on their forum?

I think I wanted to vent rather than be constructive. These are so obvious that I am sure they are aware of them already.

I suspect Garmin's priority at the moment is to keep their core automotive market alive as it faces fierce competition from mapping software running on Smartphones and tablet devices. I think they have an uphill battle to survive.

neilc

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I agree with you on the cosmetic changes (in fact I feel that Garmin have gone backwards in many respects). Question is: what innovations would you expect to see? Longer battery life? Real-time delivery of activity data to a web-based server? More ways to analyze your activity data?

Hi,
Before I got my 405 I used the Runkeeper app on the iphone. Have to say it is a really great app and pretty much has all the features you suggest above, my wife used to be even able to track my run on the computer at home while I was out running. They have a good online community also where you can have what they called street team mates, a cool way of keeping track of your friends progress. One downside was it didn't have a HRM but I see MapMyRun now have a small device that plugs into the bottom of the phone which does HRMing so that problem seems to be now solved. In the end I ditched it because the iphone was just a bit to cumbersome to carry around (for me). I reckon if they could bundle that technology into a nano sized device with the added bonus of the mp3 player for podcasts while you run they'd be onto a real winner.
Neil.

Rawhead

Hello All,
Just got my new 405cx from santa. There is a half marathon schedule on RW that I want to upload but don't understand how.RW Half-Marathon Schedules For Your Garmin - Racing - Runner's World.
Anyone able to help?
Happy Christmas to all.

Fluorescence

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope Santa was good :P

Myself, I got plenty of money for christmas (my favourite :P), so I'm thinking I might buy myself a gps watch; I'm considering it an investment and yet another incentive to get my arse out the door to run :pac:. Haven't a clue where to start though... Thoughts?

EDIT: Both the Garmin 205 and Garmin 305 are super cheap on Amazon at the moment. Don't particularly need a HRM or multi-sport functionality from a watch, so I'm thinking the 205 might be perfect for me at the mo.