Which Garmin?

Hopelessone1

Hello all.
Hoping to do some long spins this year and possibly a few audax events. Have a Garmin 520 and battery is not lasting as long as it used to ( not much more than 100k now) what would be a good upgrade in yere minds ? Should i stay with Garmin or consider other makes. I want to be able to upload to Strava and see segments etc. ps. The 1030 is a bit out of my price range 😟Thanks for reading!

CantGetNoSleep

Anyone I hear who has changed to Wahoo seems to speak highly of it.

I have the Edge 820 - has a useful battery saving mode where the screen only comes on as you approach a turn. Touchscreen only ok though - if I ever get really lost I take out the phone and Google Maps

lissard

100k sounds very poor for a Garmin. Have you got all the bells and whistles enabled on the 520? If you disable bluetooth the battery should go way further, by that I mean 10+ hours.

Borderfox

Powerpack to charge it while you are on the go? I have a Raveman 1200 light that has a usb out to charge other devices.

wirelessdude01

That isn't right at all. How long have you got the unit? I'd be into Garmin support(which I have found excellent).

ratracer

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

That isn't right at all. How long have you got the unit? I'd be into Garmin support(which I have found excellent).

^^^ This ^^^
Garmin support are very good.

Have you changed any settings that have shortened the battery duration? Worst case scenario would be get a new battery, still cheaper than a new unit.

Hopelessone1

I have unit I’d say about 4 years in present settings it used to do over 160 with no issues. Don’t really know how long it lasted as never had the need to get to end of it. Yesterday I did 92 k and 21% battery left. I have backlight to 0 % and at shortest settings. Don’t really want to be messing with power packs. Am happy enough to upgrade just not sure what to get ðŸ‘

brownian

If you do change, the Wahoo Elemnt Bolt is super. Basemaps of everywhere, pre-loaded. Simple to get the routes onto the device, easy to follow on the screen. Battery lasts all day. Downsides: no colour. Maps are not very detailed (no topography). But overall great.

The Bryton Rider 530 gets good write ups and has a massive battery life.

nordicb

I've noticed on Garmin Edge 500, if I leave it plugged in while the charger or PC is off, it will drain the battery to nil overnight. Next morning, ready to ride and Garmin is dead.

Just need to make sure the Garmin is not plugged into an offline charging device. Perhaps same could be happening to 520?

Otherwise, the battery on 500 is plenty, I haven't seen it complaining even after W200.

The Ging and I

Another option is contact Garmin support and tell them your battery is not holding the charge. They will replace yours with a revamped one after you send them your old one plus 80/90 euro. Im on my 3rd one and seriously considering a Wahoo.

Has anyone tried the Lezyne GPS computers?

brownian

Aegir wrote: »

Has anyone tried the Lezyne GPS computers?

My wife has hte mini mini one. Works ok. Needs charging a lot. No nav. Decent option if all you want is tracking and speed.

sashimi

+1 for wahoo elemnt bolt. The mobile app in particular is excellent. Much more convenient than using Garmin connect

alan_mur

I have the mini. It has been great for the last 18 months. The biggest pain has being having to plug in to upload but the newer version has sorted that out. The battery is down to 3 hours now so the long rides might suffer.
There seems to be a good offer on amazon for the Macro plus heart rate monitor and cadence for £125 and also Wiggle has the colour micro watch (with handle bard adapter) and heart rate monitor for £100