If you’re looking for new Garmin cycling products – there’s no bigger day than today. The company has just dropped three new products: The Edge 830 (this review), the less expensive Edge 530 (review here), and a set of new dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart Speed & Cadence sensors (review coming up momentarily). While it’d be easy to assume the two new Edge units are merely incremental updates, the reality seems to be quite different. Sure, the user interface shares a number of similarities – but under the covers there’s simply a boatload of new features.
The new units dive deep into both the road bike realm and mountain bike territory with new functions that I suspect both crowds will find useful. For mountain bikers there’s new metrics to capture everything from how well you ride a downhill trail to how far your jumps are. Meanwhile, on-road riders will likely be more inclined to take advantage of the deeper training features and functions like heat and altitude acclimation tracking. But so many of the features cross-over between both camps that it’s somewhat silly to try and definitively assign target audiences to all of them.
As always, I aim to detail the good, bad, and ugly about a given device. Note that this unit is a media loaner/test device and will very shortly go back to Garmin, like all other loaners. I do not accept any money (or even permit advertising) from any company I review. If you find this review useful, hit up the links at the end of the post to support the site.
If you’re sitting here trying to determine how many cups of coffee you’ll need to get through all three in-depth reviews, you’ll find comfort in knowing that the Edge 530 and 830 are incredibly similar, with only a couple of unique features. So you can likely read one review fully, and then just skim the other one.
What’s new:
Time to jump straight into all the newness on the Edge 830. And this time around I’ve got 18 new things on the Edge 830 (compared to the Edge 820 primarily), which outlines each of these features in as efficient a manner as I can possibly explain them – complete with pretty bike footage.
But if you’re more of a metro-textual person, then I’ve put together the below list of words. Note that there are other tidbits that I probably haven’t accounted for here – for example in certain menus or such where tiny things may have changed, but the below consolidates everything into one cohesive list of things you care about. For this listing I’m using the Edge 820 as the baseline for what’s considered changed.
– Increased display size 13% from 2.3” to 2.6”
– Increased battery life from 15 to 20 hours, and to 48 hours in battery saver mode
– Significantly increased processor speed: Results in much faster route calculation (see videos)
– Added Garmin Heatmaps: This follows what Edge 1030 had, included in maps routing on unit
– Added ClimbPro: Automatically shows how much distance/elevation remains for each climb on route
– Added Mountain Bike Metrics: Shows Grit, Flow, and Jump details on both unit and Garmin Connect
– Added Trailforks maps to unit: Added global Trailforks data/maps to baked-in data on unit (no downloads required)
– Added ForkSight: Automatically shows mountain bike trail options when you pause at fork in trail
– Added Heat Acclimation: Will automatically take into account heat/humidity for performance/recovery metrics
– Added Altitude Acclimation: Will automatically take into account (high) elevation for performance/recovery metrics
– Added Training Plan API support: This includes a redesigned structured workout execution page
– Added Hydration/Nutrition Smart Alerts: When using a course/route, it’ll automatically figure out how much water/calories you should be taking
– Added Hydration/Nutrition Tracking: It allows you to record this data in ride summary screens and log it on Garmin Connect
– Added Edge Battery Pack Support: You can now attach the Garmin integrated battery pack to the Edge (you can still use generic USB power too)
– Added Bluetooth Smart sensor support: You can now pair Bluetooth Smart sensors like heart rate, power, and cadence
– Added Performance Power Curve: This shows you your mean maximal power over different durations/time frames (like many training sites)
– Added Bike Alarm Feature: Used for cafes/bathroom stops, emits loud alarm if bike is moved
– Added ‘Find my Edge’ feature: Automatically record exact GPS location on your phone if Edge is disconnected (in case unit pops off)
– Added Training Plan Weather/Gear Tips: Basically tells you to HTFU when it’s cold out
– Changed user interface bits: Tweaked user interface, which might take some people a few rides to get used to (or just myself)
Got all that? Good. Now usually I do include any ‘negative’ new things (such as features removed), but I haven’t found any downsides to the new unit yet, or anything that’s been removed. It’s fairly rare for Garmin to remove features from unit to unit, though sometimes we see unintended consequences of other additions. Either way, I haven’t found any of those yet in my riding (or asking lots of questions). Of course, that’s separate from GPS/Altimeter/etc accuracy, which I cover in a separate section below.
So what are the key differences to the Edge 530 you might ask (since this costs $100 more)? No problem, here ya go:
– Edge 530 doesn’t have a touchscreen
– Edge 530 can’t do address-specific routing, whereas on the Edge 830 you can enter a street address
– Edge 530 doesn’t have a searchable point of interest database (hotels/food/train stations/etc), though some of these POI’s do appear on the map (but not as many in my experience)
– Edge 530 has four additional buttons on it since it has no touchscreen
Ultimately, it really comes down to the touchscreen, and then some user interface bits in using touch screen versus buttons. Feature-wise, the biggie is that the Edge 830 can route to a specific address whereas the Edge 530 you have to drag the cursor over that point. Both support pre-planned routes/courses equally. Personally, I’d struggle to remember even 2-3 times in the last 5-8 years where I’ve routed to a specific address or POI on the Edge series. Virtually everything I do is course or point driven.
With everything new and different all outlined, let’s dive into actually using the darn thing.
Oh wait – one final thingy – a good thingy! Got an Edge 1030 already? You’ll get almost every new feature you see above via firmware update to your Edge 1030. The only notable exception being that the pre-loaded mountain bike Trailforks maps are not there, due to licensing reasons (as Garmin licenses that from Trailforks). However, Garmin says the remaining features will show up in a firmware update over the coming months.
Size & Weight Comparisons:
Before we dive into all the details (or even the basics), let’s just do a quick size check. Here’s a disastrously big lineup of mostly current bike computers, all aligned on their base to a chunk of wood:
From left to right: Garmin Edge 130, Garmin Edge 520/520Plus/820 (identical case size), Polar M460, Wahoo BOLT, Garmin 530/830 (identical case size), Wahoo ELEMNT, Wahoo ELEMNT ROAM, Hammerhead Karoo, Garmin Edge 1030, Sigma ROX 12
The same order is below as well:
And then, just to zoom in on some of the more applicable units close up. Left to right: ELEMNT BOLT, Edge 530/830, ELEMNT, ELEMNT ROAM, and Hammerhead Karoo.
What’s that? You want weights too?!? Ok, out with the trusty scale:
Ok, your Brady Bunch moment is over. Now for realz, let’s get onto using it.
(Note: This comparison section was added after the Wahoo ROAM was released.)
The Basics:
First up I’ll walk through all the basics of the device itself. If you’re familiar with a Garmin Edge already, you’ll find things haven’t changed a ton here – depending on which version you’re coming from. You’re effectively seeing much of the user interface from the Edge 1030 brought down into this smaller form factor. In fact, I mostly struggle to find any reason to get the Edge 1030 now except larger screen size (which, is a perfectly fine reason).
On the Edge 830 you’ve got two main front buttons that are used for starting/stopping, and creating a lap. That’s the only thing these buttons are used for – allowing you to always press them no matter what wonky corner of the menus you might be in.
I know that some folks would have preferred Garmin shift these buttons to the top of the unit, since some out-front mounts make it a tight fit for gloves. Unfortunately, they remain in the same place as past units. Personally, I’ve never had any issues myself with that placement – but it seems to vary a lot on which mounts your using and in some cases your bike setup as well.
Next, on the left side you’ve got a single button, which is primarily used for powering on/off the unit.
Of course, the screen itself is a full touchscreen. Garmin says they’ve learned from some of the troubles with the Edge 820 screen and that this should be improved, and indeed, I’ve had zero touch-screen specific issues on the Edge 830 (even in rain). Though, one has to keep in mind that the Edge 820 touchscreen issues were mostly manufacturing related, something Garmin solved over time (and even in earlier batches, it was unit to unit as to whether your unit was impacted). Still, with my sample size of two (which doesn’t mean much), I haven’t encountered anything in the last month (not a single instance of touch screen hell).
Back on the home menu, you’ll find things are roughly divided up into three camps: Navigation, Training, and ‘Everything else’ (pressing those three little lines).
This is one area where Garmin has spent a bit of time sorting things, but there’s still room for improvement. For example, the ‘Training’ section doesn’t contain the new ‘My Stats’ section, which in turn contains all the actual training load related bits. As the meme goes ‘You had one job!’, and in this case, it would be to put the training stats in the training section.
In any event, if you swipe down from the top you’ll get access to widgets as well as overall system status. This includes things like sensor status and GPS status. The Edge 830 joins the rest of Garmin’s 2019 devices in using Sony GPS chipsets in lieu of previous MediaTek chipsets. The reason here being to significantly increase battery life, a change almost the entire sports tech industry has made in the last 12 months (Polar, Suunto, COROS, and undoubtedly others). But more on GPS accuracy a bit later on. In Garmin’s implementation, they support both GPS+GLONASS as well as GPS+GALILEO, plus of course normal GPS. You can configure this differently on each activity profile you create/use.
Speaking of activity profiles, these are used to customize settings for a particular type of riding. For example you might have one for road riding and another for mountain biking. Or yet another for racing that’s slimmed down a bit. You can customize your various data pages in here, as well as automatic things like auto lap or alerts, plus nutrition/hydration info, Strava segment alerts, and so on. There’s no practical limit to the number of custom data pages you can have, and you can have up to 12 data fields per page. Here’s a sampler platter of some of the settings within a given activity profile (and you can make a boatload of profiles too):
I’m somewhat simplistic in that I’ve just got one for road ride, one for mountain biking, and one for racing. I never bother to delete the indoor one, but I also never use it either (it just automatically disables GPS).
As with all of Garmin’s recent devices, activity profiles don’t define sensors. Instead, those are done across the entire device and span all activity profiles. This is called the ‘sensor pool’, and basically means that you pair your sensor once to the device, and then it automatically connects to it when the sensor wakes up (such as spinning your wheel with a speed sensor on it, or spinning your crankset with a power meter on it). It works well, and continues to be the case here as well. The one major difference for the Edge 830 is that it supports Bluetooth Smart sensors (to match almost every other Garmin devices since 2017).
In total you can now pair all the following sensors on the Edge 830:
Cadence (ANT+ or Bluetooth Smart)
Edge Remote (ANT+)
eBike (ANT+)
Heart Rate (ANT+ or Bluetooth Smart)
Lights (ANT+)
Indoor Trainer (ANT+ FE-C, though paired in a different spot)
Radar (ANT+)
Power Meter (ANT+ or Bluetooth Smart)
Shifting (ANT+)
Shimano Di2 (ANT)
Speed/Cadence (ANT+ or Bluetooth Smart)
Speed (ANT+ or Bluetooth Smart)
Varia Vision (ANT+)
VIRB (ANT+)
Also, if you’ve got special sensors like aero sensors or tire pressure sensors, then individual Connect IQ apps can take care of those as well – adding even more craziness than you can log. In my case I’ve paired a blend of sensors, mostly ANT+ power meters/trainers, cadence sensors, speed sensors, and both ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart heart rate straps.
With everything all setup, you’re ready to start riding. To do so simply tap the main ‘Ride’ button on the home screen, which gets you to your data pages where you can press the start button to start the ride (recording):
If you forget to press start, don’t worry, the unit will warn you that you’re moving but not recording (since it’ll still show your data). But once it is recording you can swipe through the data pages using the touch screen (or auto-scroll if you want to do it automatically). Here’s a quick collection of some of the screens:
You can also configure Live Tracking, which will share your location with friends/family/social media networks per whoever you’ve selected:
This is also leveraged for Group Tracking, which enables you to follow friends on a given group ride, and then send quick messages to those friends mid-ride. Regrettably, I lack any friends to test this feature out.
Note that there’s also incident detection on both the Edge 530 and Edge 830, in case you crash. That doesn’t depend on Live Tracking, but does depend on authorizing certain friends/family to receive notifications in case you crash. If it does trigger, you have a number of seconds to disable the notification (in the event of a false positive). I haven’t had any false-positive events on either the Edge 530 or Edge 830 units.
To create manual laps you’ll press the lower left ‘lap’ button, which in turn marks a manual lap for both the lap summary screen as well as in the file that Garmin Connect and 3rd party apps can access later, which is ideal for doing any sort of analysis.
Finally, once done you’ll press the ‘Stop’ button on the right corner, which pauses the recording. Then press Save to save it. You’ll then get ride summary data:
Once you’ve saved the ride it’s near immediately synced via Bluetooth to your phone, as well as via WiFi if in range of WiFi networks that you’ve configured. The data is sent to Garmin Connect (online), and then onwards to any 3rd party platforms you’ve configured such as Strava, Xert or Training Peaks. You can also view the stats of your ride on the Garmin Connect Mobile app as well:
Lastly there’s Garmin’s new Bike Alarm feature. This is in addition to the ‘Find my Edge’ function that I talk about within the mountain biking section. But since we just finished a ride, I’ll explain ‘Bike Alarm’ here, which is designed primarily for post-ride café settings, as well as parking your bike outside a bathroom somewhere. The goal being that you leave your Edge device on your bike and then if someone moves/touches it, it sounds an alarm. It uses the internal accelerometers to do so.
The setup for the feature is buried super deep in the menus. But once you’ve got it set up, you don’t have to configure it each time. Instead, you’ll access it from the widget menu up top, plus a few swipes depending on which widget page you started on. Personally, I actually prefer the Edge 530 method of just long-holding the left button. In any case, here’s that menu on the Edge 830:
Once you’ve armed it, you’ll get a 5-second count-down, and then it notifies you that it’s armed. If you touch the bike, the alarm triggers, which…sounds hideous (in a good attention-drawing way).
Additionally, if your phone is within range (and it probably is), you’ll get a notification there which would also show up on any smartwatches you might have on. You’ll get a notification when you arm it, when it’s triggered, and when it’s disarmed:
I demo the whole thing as part of the video up above in the ‘What’s new’ section.
Admittedly when I first heard of the feature (without specific context on how to use it), I thought it was pretty stupid. But now that I’ve seen how it works and the exact use case, it actually makes a ton of sense. There’s been countless times in the last 3-4 months (especially on group rides) where I’ll stop at a café with my bike just barely visible. Given the goal is to enjoy being with friends, you might not always be paying attention. Between the audible alert and smartphone/watch notification – I would know immediately. Works great, I like it.
And at that point, we’ve got the basics covered and are ready to dive into all the cool newness – divided up into the various areas.
Mountain Bike Features:
It was a year ago that Garmin announced their partnership with Trailforks, primarily visible through a Connect IQ app that was preloaded on certain Garmin units. But anytime Garmin preloads Connect IQ apps on devices – it’s a sign of a much deeper partnership. And the result of that becomes more clear with the new Edge 530/830. Not only is there deeper integration with Trailforks (substantially so), but also a pile of new metrics atop that.
Specifically, here’s what’ new:
Trailforks maps are baked into the Edge 830: This includes about 130,000 mountain bike trails, alongside trail ratings Mountain Bike Dynamics: These metrics show how hard a trail was that you rode, as well as how well you rode it ForkSight: This trail chooser screen automatically appears when you pause at a trail intersection Find my Edge: While not absolute to mountain riding, this helps you find your bike computer if it flies off the mount on the trail Trail Planning: You can ask the Edge to pick a trail of a certain rating, and it’ll find you something to ride
You’ll want to keep around the previous Trailforks Connect IQ app, since that has better tie-ins with your actual Trailforks account on their platform, so you can save your routes quickly and pull them into the Edge. So that’s not going anywhere.
Let’s start by talking metrics – of which three are basically three new ones – grouped under something called ‘Mountain Bike Dynamics’:
Grit: This calculates a difficulty score for each route, using elevation and GPS data. So kinda like a trail rating. If two riders ride the same exact trail, they should get the same Grit score. The higher the number the harder the course. Flow: This is your specific rating for how well you rode the route. It’s focused on the momentum of the ride, so things like braking impact hurt your score. A lower number is a better score. Thus, two riders could ride the exact same route and get totally different Flow scores. Jumps: This will count how many jumps, and for each jump will include distance and hang time. Additionally, during the ride you’ll get jump notifications in real-time with distance/hang time.
Looking at some of these in real-time, first we’ve got the jump metric. In my case, I suck at jumping (look, I’m a road cyclist/triathlete – you’re just lucky I managed to ride a mountain bike at all). So while I got some jumps in my rides, my ability to capture those jumps while also taking a photo was not happening. So, here’s a photo from Des that shows that:
Next, there’s the Grit and Flow scores, which you can add as data fields to your unit. Further, you can also see these as per-lap fields. So for example in downhill mountain biking if you created a lap at the top of each descent, you’d be able to see how these scores compared lap after lap.
Afterwards, these scores show up on Garmin Connect (website). First, they actually show up on the map, color-coding your route – which is cool and something I wish Garmin did for other aspects of the map (like gradient % for road riding data).
Next, down below in the charts section they show up there too, also color coded:
And finally, down in the stats section you’ve got the new Mountain Bike Dynamics, including any jumps (or, lack thereof in my case):
You should be able to see these on Garmin Connect Mobile as well, though my app isn’t showing them yet due to some bug, however, others that I know are seeing them just fine. So this appears to be a me-specific bug. The story of my life.
Next, there’s the increased Trailforks integration. While Garmin hasn’t quite bought out Trailforks yet, I’d be really surprised if we just don’t see that happen. With the Edge 530/830 they’ve baked in all of the Trailforks trail data onto the unit itself. You will need to authorize that briefly the first time you use the unit, but it only takes a second. The existing Trailforks app is still there, since that takes care of better integration with Trailforks as a platform in terms of pulling your routes from your account and so-on.
The most obvious way the new Trailforks data manifests itself is a feature called ‘ForkSight’, which automatically pops up anytime you pause at an intersection of trails (or, more appropriately – a fork in the trail). It’s at this point it’ll show you the trail options and difficulty grades/distances for each one:
You can then select any of the options shown to get more information about that specific trail. It’s super cool in real-life, and helps you figure out the implications of each option you have. That said, sometimes it can be a little confusing to figure out which trail is which if they aren’t labeled at the trailhead. But for the most part you can figure it out.
Note: Above/below ForkSight photos on the Edge 530, since my Edge 830 somehow photos came out too fuzzy. It’s identical functions, except that you use your finger to tap instead of the buttons.
Next, there’s ‘Find my Edge’, while not only for mountain biking, the reality is that most people will probably use it for mountain biking. This feature will instantly and automatically mark the exact GPS location where your unit disconnects from your phone (assuming the Garmin Connect Mobile app is on in the background). Then, on your phone you’ll get an alert that allows you to open up the exact GPS coordinates with the mapping app of your choice (for example, the Google Maps app).
In addition, within the device options on Garmin Connect Mobile, it has two further options: ‘Find my Edge’ and ‘Last Known Location’. If you select ‘Last Known Location’, it’ll open up the default mapping app on your phone and then the exact GPS coordinates it last saw your Edge devices at:
Whereas if you select ‘Find my Edge’, it’ll try and connect to your Edge 830 and start an alarm sound. Which is basically just a constant beeper. It’s not crazy loud, but loud enough that you should be able to find it. And here’s what it looks like on the unit itself – saying ‘Edge found’. The fact that it’s on a map screen is just random coincidence. It’ll show on whatever page you’re on.
Note that this last little bit requires you be within Bluetooth Smart range. Outdoors that’s roughly tens of meters, whereas indoors it’s a crapshoot. Generally speaking though your GPS accuracy is within a few meters, so that gets you close enough to then use the beeper to find your Edge sitting in the bush. Roughly akin to how I found my GoPro mountain biking earlier this year..
Cool stuff, huh (especially my limited camera work)?
Oh, and as for the mountain bike bundle, in case you’re looking at that, it comes with the following:
– Edge 830
– Mountain Bike Mount
– Silicone Case
– Edge Remote
– Dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart Speed Sensor
While I’ve personally never bothered with the silicone case, if you’re looking at picking up any of the other accessories, it probably makes sense to just get the bundle price-wise at that point.
Navigation:
Like the Edge 820 before it, the Edge 830 contains a complete mapset for the region you bought it in. So if you’ve bought it in North America, then you’ll get North American maps (but not European). However, unlike the Edge 820, the Edge 830 now adds popularity routing data to that mapset. That’s basically their heat map data from Garmin Connect (and the hundreds of millions of activities there), the goal of which being to give you better routing data. most of the time, it works.
The key difference when it comes to navigation between the Edge 830 and the Edge 530 though is that the Edge 830 contains the ability to route to a specific address (I.e. 321 Main Street), whereas the Edge 530 doesn’t. Further, the Edge 830 allows you to browser points of interest around you (such as restaurants, hotels, monuments), whereas the Edge 530 only shows a subset nearest you. And lastly, given the Edge 830 contains a touchscreen, you can navigate a bit faster through the map by just swiping/moving around.
But perhaps the most important feature on the entire new Edge 530/830 units is the significantly faster processor. I, alongside the entire internet have complained how darn slow Garmin’s previous Edge series processors are. Which isn’t to say I actually care about the processor specifically, but rather the end-resultant: Route calculation time. It would previously take numerous minutes for each just a short route to calculate. That was unacceptable, and thankfully, now it’s a heck of a lot better. So much faster.
Now, there are slight differences depending on what exactly you’re doing. I’ve found loading a saved route is the fastest of the bunch. So something like some 60KM routes from Strava that I’ve loaded are taking about just a few seconds depending on the locale. Whereas picking a point a distance away and letting it come up with a brand new route takes a few more seconds (like 10-20 seconds, not minutes). That’s understandable since the first is just drawing a route, whereas the second is coming up with one. And yet it also seems to vary based on exactly where I am. Routes in Mallorca and California were silly quick (1-5 seconds), whereas here in crazy bike route density Amsterdam the routing takes a bit longer (5-15 seconds).
Now, again, there are three umbrella ways to route on the Edge 830:
1) Downloading a route (or opening a route file)
2) Routing to a specific point of interest or address
3) Just using the map to browse to a random cow field and route to it
I’ll start first with just already having a predefined route (the most common thing I do). This can be something from Garmin Connect or a 3rd party site. It could be an individual route file you’ve downloaded, or it could be from a site like Strava via the Strava Routes Connect IQ app. In my case, I’m mostly using Strava routes (since I can use them on all my devices – acting like the Switzerland of routing). So we’ll start there, grabbing that route from the pre-loaded Strava Routes CIQ app:
Next, it’ll show me the route details:
And finally, I can select to ride it. Within about 2-3 seconds, the route generation is complete and I’m ready to press start on my unit.
Now, when out on the road, I’ll get turn by turn directions as I approach any turn. I’ve found these directions timely (unlike the Edge 520 Plus and sometimes the Edge 820), and in plenty of time to take action on them. Again, there does seem to be some slight variances in responsiveness based on where in the world I am, but none of the differences affected my ability to have boatloads of time.
In addition, if I ignored a route, it’d automatically recalculate the route (including street names). Depending on the scenario, it’d either explain how to turn around and re-join the route, or in some cases cut a corner to catch-up down the road. I did however see one quirk in Amsterdam on a very short automatically generated route where it continued to try and go via some non-direct roads. After Garmin analyzed it they found a routing/mapping related bug that they say should be included in the next firmware update.
Note that the recalculation behavior is very different than that of a Wahoo BOLT/ELEMNT, which don’t have a street-level map on them. Thus, they just point you back (compass-style) to the route itself, rather than giving you turn by turn directions. For many folks, that’s perfectly fine, but I wanted to make that clear. Whereas the Garmin method matches that of Hammerhead’s Karoo and Sigma’s ROX 12 in terms of proper on-street routing data.
The next routing option is if you want to go to a specific address. You’ll enter that in starting with the country, and then from there it depends on the exact country as to which data piece it asks for next. In my case in the Netherlands it asks for postal code next (since that actually gives you the exact street name too).
Meanwhile, if you want to route to a specific point of interest you can go to the POI’s and choose something that looks interesting. Perhaps that’s a nightclub, or BBQ. Though, based on my experience here in the last year – I’ve struggled with finding any BBQ place I’d recommend eating at. Bike shops yes, BBQ…no.
No matter what you end up choosing, the routing is the same. It’ll simply calculate a route to that location and off you go. No interweb connectivity is required at any point here.
Next, what if you wanted to go somewhere unplanned? The Edge 830 can do that as well, you can simply pull open the ‘Browse Map’ option and then just stumble around using the touchscreen. You can zoom in/out, or just move the map around with your fingers. Once you’ve decided on a spot and selected it, it’ll go off and calculate a route there.
Again, the exact same as the other methods in terms of the ‘getting there’ part of routing – it all acts the same.
Finally, note that the unit in conjunction with your phone via the Garmin Connect Mobile app can also do some route planning. You can create round-trip routes whereby it goes and creates a route of a given distance for you automatically, as well as create manual routes connecting points together.
This new manual route creation bit is actually brand new – introduced in the last week or two (to everyone, not just Edge 530/830 peoples), and frankly, it sucks. I don’t know how it could be so bad, but it really is. Having come from the Easy Route app world, where I just tappity-tap my way through a route, the Garmin Connect Mobile experience is just super clunky and imprecise, crazily zooming in and out like a drunk kid with a camera for the first time. Yes, you can get the job done, but it’ll take you way longer.
Hopefully though since it’s a brand new feature it’ll improve over time – maybe once someone buys a bulk pack of 40-grit sandpaper and goes to town on it.
Still, new app option aside – the rest of routing works great (finally). The processing time is what I’d expect from a unit of this price point, and the route calculation to match it. I know some folks still want phone-like speeds, but the reality is that this device is designed to last 20 hours (with screen-on, while connected to sensors and your phone), whereas a phone isn’t. It’s just two fundamentally different use cases with different processor choices and battery drain impacts.
That said, I would like to see Garmin integrate Strava routes directly though, as I find the Strava Routes app clunky compared to Wahoo’s integrated Strava Routes capability. Also, I’d prefer to see Garmin allow easy loading of maps from other regions like Wahoo, rather than having to rely on 3rd party site downloads (or paying a bunch of cash).
Still, once you get the route/maps loaded, then Garmin’s routing engine is leagues ahead of what Wahoo has. I suppose doing it for a decade longer will get you that experience.
Finally, note that if there’s one thing I know about routing is that there are always edge cases in certain areas. In my case I’ve tested routing quite a bit in three core locations: Mallorca (Spain), Amsterdam (Netherlands), and Monterey (California, USA). This has included both on-road and off-road routes. However, there are always quirks in weird places that I might not have encountered, though for the most part the underlying mapping/routing data here should match that of the Edge 1030 – which people seem pretty happy with.
Training & Performance Metrics:
In many ways the Edge 530/830 launch has ‘equalized’ all of the training/load metrics across all of Garmin’s higher end units. Previously there was one set for the Edge 1030, another for the Edge 820, and yet another for the Edge 520 Plus. And that’s before we even factored in Fenix and Forerunner product lines. So consumers that used more than one device (like a Fenix 5 along with an Edge 820 for cycling), ended up with inconsistent experiences. That should no longer be the case (at least going forward).
The Edge 830 (and the Edge 530) come with a slew of training and performance-related metrics, virtually all of which are new to this Edge price point (or in some cases Garmin products in general). And we’re going to start with ClimbPro, which is hands-down my favorite feature on the Edge 530/830.
This feature automatically slices and dices your planned routes climbs, and generates detailed climb charts for each climb as you ride them. The feature actually originated from the Fenix 5 Plus wearables last year, but really shines here on the larger screen of the Edge series as a cycling focused function. It requires that you have some route/course loaded, so it knows where you’re going. Once you’ve got that, you can see the list of climbs within the ClimbPro summary screen on the route planning page:
Then while you’re riding it’ll automatically show the ClimbPro page for each climb once you enter it. Kinda like Strava Segments for climbs, minus the racing aspect. The climb page shows the distance remaining on the climb, the ascent remaining, the average grade remaining, and then two customizable fields at the bottom. By default, these are heading and elevation, but you can change them as you see fit.
The Edge 830 will color-code the pain of the climb segments on the ClimbPro page based on gradient as seen above. These are bucketed into:
0-3%: Green
3-6%: Yellow
6-9%: Orange
9-12%: Red
12%+: Please make it stop dark red
Having ridden with this feature last month on Mallorca it was super cool. Not only for major climbs like Sa Calobra, but actually for some of the smaller ones before and after it. For example, after you finish the famed Sa Calobra and continue out of that area you’ve actually still got another minor climb to do before you descend one of a few routes back to the remainder of the island. Having ClimbPro on my screen was super handy to know how much suck was left, since mentally you sorta forgot about these minor climbs you’ve still gotta do in comparison to the big one you just knocked out.
Even on the hills around Sea Otter two weeks ago while mountain biking it was handy for some of the shorter but also painful routes. And again, what’s cool is that this will show up anytime you load up a course or trail, automatically (no interwebs required).
Garmin notes that they expect to tweak the definition of a climb based on feedback over the next month or two. Specifically, whether or not something triggers a climb on ClimbPro (since this is calculated on the unit itself when a route is loaded). Obviously, there’s no international definition when it comes to what’s a cycling climb and what’s not. Still, the definition they’re using as of today is as follows:
Total value must be 3,500 or higher where: Distance of climb in meters (min 500 meters) * Gradient (min average 3%)
So, doing some samples here to help understand:
Climb A: 1,000 meters long at 4% = 1,000*4 = 4,000: Yes, qualifies as a climb
Climb B: 5,000 meters long at 2% = 5,000*2 = 10,000: No, doesn’t meet 3% threshold
Climb C: 500 meters long at 8% = 500*8 = 4,000: Yes, qualifies as a climb
Make sense? Again, simply calculate distance in meters by incline/gradient and see if it’s above 3,500. Also, ensure average gradient is 3%. As I said above – I think it’s probably the coolest feature on the Edge 530/830.
Next, speaking of elevation, there’s two new features coupled together – heat and altitude acclimation. Both of these are actually quietly present on the Garmin MARQ series as well. The goal behind both of these are post-workout calculations tied to figuring out whether or not you’re acclimated to a given temperature or altitude. Obviously, both can significantly impact performance. Starting with heat acclimation, the function leverages nearby weather stations. So your unit has to have connected to Garmin Connect Mobile within 3 hours of starting your ride in order to receive that weather data (it doesn’t use on-device temperature).
Then, for heat acclimation it applies a heat correction factor for rides above 71°F/22°C, using a percentage based amount from published studies (humidity is also factored into this as well). This is then shown in the training status widget. Garmin says they assume full acclimation takes a minimum of 4 days, and acclimation/adaptation to a given high temperature will automatically decay after 3 days of skipped training within that heat levels.
Altitude acclimation/adaption is roughly similar (also seen above). The minimum threshold is at altitudes above 850m/2,788ft, and tops out at 4,000m/13,123ft (Garmin doesn’t calculate above that for cycling, sorry folks). Garmin says that they divide up training vs living altitudes, just as typical studies would. The company says that adaptation algorithms within the Edge 530/830 assume total adaptation after 21 days, and that adaptation is faster at the beginning of altitude exposure. Additionally, adaptation will decay within 21-28 days depending on acclimation level. Because I haven’t had any high altitude rides lately, I’m deferring you to Mr. DesFit, who has, and kindly lent me his high altitude shot:
What the feature shows is your current altitude adaptation level. In other words, if I go from living at sea level (as I do) to moving to the French Alps, each day it’ll show what my body has acclimated to. This essentially automates/charts the exact same process that many elite athletes take when preparing for races. In fact, a pro triathlete friend of mine wrote a guest post here on that very topic some 8 years ago. For the rest of us, we can just use this as a post-ride pub excuse for why we climbed so poorly on our week-long vacation in the Alps. Obviously, we weren’t acclimated.
Also of note is that if the Edge 530/830 are put into ‘sleep’ mode (as opposed to powered full off), it’ll actually do a check each night at midnight of where it is altitude wise, and account for that – just like the MARQ series watch does every night at midnight. Effectively giving you credit for sleeping at high altitude.
Next, there’s new hydration/nutrition alerts and record keeping. These alerts will appear mid-ride anytime you’ve loaded a pre-planned course/route into the Edge, and are based on your profile (gender/weight). Effectively, it’s trying to help you remember to eat and drink – a chronic problem for most longer-distance cyclists and triathletes. Or, at least me. These alerts automatically show up seemingly based on caloric intake variables, and will give you Garmin’s recommendations for fluid and calories, impacted by the current temperature/humidity as well. Garmin did note that these are capped though to account for maximum hydration intake limits of the human body.
In other words, they know that in some super hot/humid scenarios you could lose more hydration than you could possibly consume/absorb in the same timeframe, so they shouldn’t be giving you crazy recommendations like drinking three full bottles per hour. I haven’t hit that kinda weather yet, so it’s hard to tell for sure.
Then, afterwards you’ve got new hydration/nutrition tracking These pages are shown for any rides longer than 90 minutes, where it’ll ask you how much you drank and ate. It’s here over the last few months that I’ve realized the answer is always ‘not enough’.
This data is then shown on Garmin Connect (but oddly not Garmin Connect Mobile):
In addition to the post-ride nutrition stats, there’s your total training status stats. These stats are a step above what you’ve historically gotten on the Edge series, and are in line to match that of MARQ (and a step above the Fenix 5 Plus). Note that some of these stats require a power meter (like FTP). Here’s the overview ‘My Stats’ page (though, much of this is also shown post-ride on the summary screens):
First, there’s Training Status, which is showing you Training Load over the last 7 days. Note that this includes non-riding activities as well, if they’ve synced from other Garmin wearable devices.
Next, there’s Training Load Focus, which is showing you the breakouts of your training types over the last four weeks. It then shows you in the dotted line the optimal (aka balanced) training load bucketing. Obviously, I ignore anything that’s optimal or balanced.
Then there’s Recovery Time, which is load-based and includes time from other devices as well. This is telling you how many hours you should wait until your next hard workout:
After that there’s VO2Max and FTP, both of which are calculated (FTP calculation requires a power meter). And finally, one of the newer metrics not seen on any other Garmin device is Power Curve. This is basically just a mean-max power graph, and loosely mirrors what we’ve had on various training platforms for more than a decade.
The time duration is selectable as three choices – one month, three months, and twelve months. It does appear to pull in data from Garmin Connect as well, which is a good thing and shows tighter integration there than we’ve previously seen for Personal Records on other Garmin devices. On the downside, if you’ve got bad power meter data mixed in there (as I do apparently), it skews some of the numbers.
Last but not least, there’s on-device training plans. You could previously see all of this on Garmin Connect, but it wasn’t super visible on the Edge itself. Now, if you’ve got a training plan loaded (including those from TrainingPeaks and soon also TrainerRoad), those will appear here. This also applies to the host of free training plans that Garmin has on Garmin Connect.
Once you load a workout up, you’ll get similar step by step instructions on the Edge as before, but now with a bit better overview metrics and showing exactly how that workout should look:
Additionally, there’s now a new ‘Gear’ and ‘Weather’ option. The weather simply shows the weather for that day of the week that the workout is scheduled. Whereas the gear option aims to give you tips on what kind of gear you should have that day (for example, if it’s cold and miserable to bring gloves). Garmin says that they’re trying to provide tips for cyclists that may not be as experienced. The rest of us know that it’s simply better to stay indoors and Zwift instead.
As usual, once you’ve completed these workouts, they’ll sync up to Garmin Connect and the various 3rd party platforms they might have come from.
Ultimately, the goal behind all these metrics is that they’re across the board with your other Garmin devices. So if you’ve got a Garmin wearable that supports these metrics (or some portion of them), then everything should match. Understanding that I’m a bit of an edge case due to how many Garmin devices I’m using at once for testing, that concept roughly pans out – though there’s still some cracks here and there where physiological data from one device doesn’t match another. Still, for the normal person that doesn’t ride with 12 devices at once, it’s nice to see some of this glue finally hardening.
GPS & Elevation Accuracy:
There’s likely no topic that stirs as much discussion and passion as GPS accuracy. A watch could fall apart and give you dire electrical shocks while doing so, but if it shows you on the wrong side of the road? Oh hell no, bring on the fury of the internet!
GPS accuracy can be looked at in a number of different ways, but I prefer to look at it using a number of devices in real-world scenarios across a vast number of activities. I use 2-6 other devices at once, trying to get a clear picture of how a given set of devices handles conditions on a certain day. Conditions include everything from tree/building cover to weather.
Over the years I’ve continued to tweak my GPS testing methodology. For example, for watches I try to not place two units next to each other on my wrists, as that can impact signal. If I do so, I’ll put a thin fabric spacer of about 1”/3cm between them (I didn’t do that for any workouts here). But often I’ll simply carry other units by the straps, or attach them to the shoulder straps of my hydration backpack. Plus, wearing multiple watches on the same wrist is well known to impact optical HR accuracy. For cycling units, I arrange them on my handlebars using standard mounts – usually one on either side of the step, often a bit separated from each other.
Next, as noted, I use just my daily training routes. Using a single route over and over again isn’t really indicative of real-world conditions, it’s just indicative of one trail. The workouts you see here are just my normal daily workouts. I’ve had a fair bit of variety of terrain within the time period of testing Garmin Edge units. This has included workouts in: Amsterdam (city, countryside) and Mallorca (mountains, ocean, countryside), California (off-road, hills, forests, seaside).
We’re gonna look at a few different rides in different parts of the world. First, we’ll start with the famed Sa Calobra in Mallorca. I rode this nearly a month ago, so while this firmware was slightly older, it still shows pretty solid GPS performance. Here is the data set compared to the Garmin MARQ watch and the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active.
This super twisty-turny route is incredibly difficult from a GPS performance standpoint. There are rock tunnels, huge cliffs next to you, and plenty of GPS-blocking goodness to hose up units (as we see the Samsung illustrate).
I’m going to zoom into one of the more difficult points here:
Of course, with the trees it’s hard to see what’s going on. But I just wanted to show you first the density of trees. In fact, you can see the Samsung straight-up gave up on life half-way through this and just cut the corner entirely. So we’ll ignore it.
The other units tracks are actually very close. There’s a few bottles of the Garmin MARQ at one point where the cave is (the green text you see). That’s this thing:
But most importantly, the two Edge 530/830 units tracked through that just fine and dandy. Perhaps by skill, or perhaps by dumb luck. They did it both directions though.
Now I had a quick lunch at the bottom before heading up. GPS-wise, units were fine here. I left them recording on my bike while I ate.
Though I did see some elevation issues here were it showed me quite a bit higher in elevation than I really was (300ft higher than the sea I was sitting next to). Garmin isn’t super clear on why this happened, though I haven’t seen it happen again. And again, that was a month ago on older firmware.
And in fact, if we look at route elevation for the next day, you’ll see the two Edge 530/830 units nail the elevation without any issues, super clean and consistent. The Samsung…is…well…yeah.
Next we’ve got a ride in Monterey, California from two weeks ago. This was a nice coastal ride that also went through some gigantic tree forests. Plus it had a couple of rollers and a solid climb mid-way through. For this, I’ve got both Edge 530/830 units, as well as the Garmin MARQ watch and the Polar Vantage V GPS watch. Here’s the high-level overview of the GPS from that set:
We’ll go ahead and zoom into some sections, starting with early on. It’s here we see the Edge 530 is a bit offset from the rest. Why you ask? It was in my back jersey pocket. I needed to photograph the Edge 830 solo-cup:
However, once we turned the corner I then got it on my handlebars and it was clean sailing:
I know, it’s hard to see the lines above. But how could I not go to satellite view with scenery like that? Ok, I’ll go back to boring map view for the next ones.
Oh, back in the pocket it went for a climb to get other photos. Why bother including this you ask? Well two reason. First, in case you’re browsing the files and wondering why it went all sideways, and second, because I actually see a surprising number of people that stick GPS devices in their back pockets. This shows you what can happen.
This is back in the forests and back on the handlebars:
It was at least pretty consistent in that when it went into my pocket it went a bit sideways. This ride unfortunately had a lot of that, as we were filming other videos for things that were published prior to this review (and thus prior to this embargo). Though interestingly the Edge 830 seemed to handle the pocketing better than the Edge 530 on this ride. No idea why.
Here’s another section with all of them out – nice and clean. And this is actually in the trees a fair bit alongside a highway.
As for altitude? Pretty similar overall, however the Edge 830 did seem offset about 18 meters throughout the entire ride. I suspect it got a weird initial fix which is used to then calibrate the barometer.
As for the couple of spikes in there – I haven’t seen those on any other rides, and thus I suspect that’s due to the pocketing. I didn’t see it on numerous rides in Mallorca on legit climbs, nor any mountain bike rides elsewhere in California.
Next, we’ve got a ride I did this past weekend from Amsterdam one-way, down south through the Tulip fields. For this ride I’ve got it compared against the Polar Vantage V GPS watch, as well as actually also have the new magnetless speed sensor in fully standalone mode (meaning, it was just recording to itself). You won’t see a GPS track from the standalone sensor, but it does show us speed and distance. Here’s what things looked like in that data set:
Ok, at a high level that’s pretty boring. Nobody does anything stupid, so all the tracks look fine from 30,000ft. Let’s zoom in a bunch to some corners and such. Note that all of these units are recording at 1-second intervals.
Here’s a crossing of a bridge and the lead-up to it. You’ll see that the Polar Vantage V overshoots the turn the most (heading into an ice cream shop, which I suppose is a good idea), though once on the other side of the water, all of them are quite close together near the path. Note that where it says ‘Real Estate Agency’ you might think that the units cut the corner of the roadway, but in reality, that’s where the bike path goes.
The thing with analyzing road bike GPS files, is that they very rarely fail. Seriously, super rarely do units screw it up. That said, time and time again I found the Polar Vantage V off in the water, as seen here. Mind you, this is the exact same GPS chipset between these three units (all Sony, and all likely using the same chipset).
The difference though is in the modes and power delivery. In this case I’ve got both Edge units configured for GPS+Galileo, a mode the Polar Vantage V doesn’t support. Not only that, but the Edge can deliver far more power to the Sony chipset and has more space for the antenna than a wearable.
It’s hard to find many Edge 530/830 screw-ups in this file. The closest we get is this intersection where I turn, and we see the Edge 530/830 separate a bit on their plotted tracks, about one lane difference while crossing the bridge. There was a tall building to the right there, but that’s it.
The second mistake is on this bend in the road, all three units undercut the corner – the Garmin’s more so than the Polar. Though again, if you scroll through the actual data set, you’ll find that the Polar cuts every corner.
Oh, and altitude on this one? Pay attention to the scale, it’s only a shift of about 10 meters for any given file over the course of the ride. The green is the Polar Vantage V, brown the Edge 830, and purple the Edge 530. It looks like we see a bit of a variation around the 90-minute marker going over a small bridge, but again, keep in mind we’re really only talking a variance of about 5 meters at that moment. Welcome to the Netherlands.
In any event, overall, from a GPS accuracy standpoint I’m not yet seeing anything of concern. Even in off-road conditions the tracks are essentially the same that I’ve seen from past Garmin Edge devices. While I’ve had concern about the new Sony chipset based on the implementations by other companies, those concerns don’t seem to be carrying over to the Garmin line. Or at least, the Edge lineup specifically. Again as I noted earlier this is likely more to do with the fact that Garmin has enabled additional GPS modes (Galileo), as well as simply has more power it can throw at the GPS chipset than a wearable can. Plus, bike computers have much more room for better antenna design.
(Note: All of the charts in these accuracy portions were created using the DCR Analyzer tool. It allows you to compare power meters/trainers, heart rate, cadence, speed/pace, GPS tracks and plenty more. You can use it as well for your own gadget comparisons, more details here.)
Product Comparison:
I’ve added the Edge 830 (as well as Edge 530) into the product comparison calculator so you can see how it compares to other units on the market. To keep things simple for below, I’ve compared it against the Edge 820 (previous generation), Wahoo BOLT, and Edge 530. Of course, there are plenty more units in the product comparison calculator, so you can make your own charts here as well. In the meantime, here’s how things line-up below:
The Edge 830 is a solid little unit, it works well and the touchscreen also works equally as well. It’s probably what the Edge 820 should have been, though, hindsight is always 20/20. The new features on the Edge 830, especially ClimbPro, are legit useful. And heck, if nothing else I can now use the altitude and heat acclimation features to justify my slow performance.
The challenge for the Edge 830 isn’t that there’s anything wrong with it. It’s that the Edge 530 is so good, yet $100 less. The only features missing on the Edge 530 are address-specific navigation, round-trip routing (which you can send from Garmin Connect Mobile instantly anyway), and POI routing (which I rarely if ever use). Of course, you don’t get the touchscreen on the Edge 530 – though I’ve never found that a deal-breaker for me. So it’s not that I’ve got anything meaningfully negative to say about the Edge 830 – it’s just that Edge 530 is such a good deal (comparatively or otherwise).
What I do think you’re seeing with the Edge 830 though is Garmin telling all other mostly new bike computer companies that keep trying to attack the $399 price point, to take a flying leap. It’s going to be incredibly hard to compete at not just $399, but now even $299. Wahoo stirred the hornet’s nest two years ago with their Wahoo BOLT, and now we’re seeing Garmin’s development engine really kicking into gear. Whether or not Garmin has any stumbles as production expands though remains to be seen over time.
In the meantime, if you’re looking at either of the new units released today, you won’t go wrong.
Found This Post Useful? Support The Site!
Hopefully you found this review/post useful. At the end of the day, I’m an athlete just like you looking for the most detail possible on a new purchase – so my review is written from the standpoint of how I used the device. The reviews generally take a lot of hours to put together, so it’s a fair bit of work (and labor of love). As you probably noticed by looking below, I also take time to answer all the questions posted in the comments – and there’s quite a bit of detail in there as well.
If you're shopping for the Garmin Edge 830 or any other accessory items, please consider using the affiliate links below! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but your purchases help support this website a lot.
And finally, here’s a handy list of accessories that work well with this unit (and some that I showed in the review). Given the unit pairs with ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart sensors, you can use just about anything though.
The Edge remote allows you to control functions (like data pages/screens, and laps) wirelessly right from your handlebars/drops. Plus, with the Edge 1050, it can now control the bike bell feature!
If you need to go *REALLY* long with a Garmin Edge device, this snap-on/under weatherproof battery pack basically gets you double your battery life. It snaps under your existing Edge with an included mount. It can also be used as a standard USB battery back too (for your phone/etc...).
This wifi-connected scale will track your weight and related metrics both on the scale display and in Garmin Connect (plus 3rd party apps like TrainingPeaks). It'll also then sync your weight to your watch/bike computer, to ensure accurate calorie data.
This magnetless Garmin Cadence Sensor attached to your crank arm and transmits cadence over both ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart to apps, watches, or bike computers.
The Garmin Varia radar alerts you to cars coming up behind you, well before you see them. It's awesome for quieter roads (country roads/mountains), especially on longer rides. It's less useful for city riding.
The HRM-PRO Plus is Garmin's top-end chest strap. It transmits dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart, but also transmits Running Dynamics & Running Pace/Distance metrics, stores HR data during a swim, and can be used without a watch for other sports. Also, it can transmit XC Skiing Dynamics as well.
And of course – you can always sign-up to be a DCR Supporter! That gets you an ad-free DCR, access to the DCR Quarantine Corner video series packed with behind the scenes tidbits...and it also makes you awesome. And being awesome is what it’s all about!
Thanks for reading! And as always, feel free to post comments or questions in the comments section below, I’ll be happy to try and answer them as quickly as possible. And lastly, if you felt this review was useful – I always appreciate feedback in the comments below. Thanks!
Two days ago i made a small ride for about 1:15 hour and after 10 minutes i lost the connection with the HR strap. It is with bluetooth, a Polar H7. Trying to reconnect in the Garmin was no problem and it worked for the rest of the ride. Yesterday i made a ride for about 1:45 hour a and the connection with the HR sensor, speedsensor and cadensesensor was no problem. The only problem was the connection with my Samsung S9+. There was no connection anymore. Trying to reconnect with the Garmin doesn’t help. I had to disable the bleutooth on the phone and enable it again. Then it worked and the ride was uploading with no problem.
When i am not on my bike i always use a Galaxy Watch and the connection is alwas there. While riding i let the watch at home.
Two questions:
1). Once you’ve started riding, how do you navigate to pull up a course? Here’s the scenario: I ride from my house to meet people, and the course start is from the meeting point. So I don’t want to start the course until I’m at the meeting point.
2). Is there a quick way to get to power meter calibration / sensor screen instead of going: > Settings > Sensors?
I’m Hoping it’s similar to the 1030, so here’s how I’d do it on the 1030.
1. Start timer, start riding to the meeting point,
2. Once at meeting point, tap anywhere on the screen and
3. tap again on “home”, that takes to the “start” screen without pausing the timer,
4. Tap on “navigate” and set your course,
5. Tap again on the “road” to return to timing data screens.
(Alternatively, you can tap on navigate at the start, select the course and have 830 navigate to the meeting point to start the actual course)
Again, assuming the menu is similar to 1030,
1. Swipe down,
2. Swipe left/right to “controls” page,
3. Tap “calibrate”
It also asks to calibrate as soon as it detects/connects to a power meter though (usually before I’m on the bike). It might be in the power meter sensor settings if yours doesn’t ask for calibration.
Just finished a ride, and the 830 says I set a new FTP of 700W or 10W/kg.
Why cant Garmin spend more time getting the existing features right and not spend time on fancy things that most user wont use.
Generally speaking we don’t see issues with the FTP module (it’s been around a long time). Instead, what you wanna look at there is any crazy power spikes. The data purely comes from your power meter on this metric. So if that data is wrong (no matter who is at fault), FTP will be off too.
Actually, no, I’ve had power spikes on my Quarq Dzero from time to time, and as a result my Strava data has some ridiculous number showing up in my power curve. There’s no way to correct the Strava data without deleting the ride from it, too. I just gave up on looking at what Strava said about my power, there’s other sites/analysis tools that are better for that.
I cut my own screen protector for the 830, and it’s working perfectly. It’s the flexible (non glass) wet-application type by Zagg, where you spray the device & protector with water, then squeegee and let dry.
Are there any reported issues with the 830 freezing? It’s happened to me twice now in the few weeks I’ve had my unit. Yesterday it froze 11 miles into a 100 mile race, and it wasn’t until I plugged it into a pc and restarted that it started working again.
Some people have seen issues on the first firmware version that came on the unit in the box, updating that to the most recent firmware has resolved the vast majority of issues for those people (not all issues, but most issues in most cases).
Thanks Ray. Unfortunately I am already on the latest firmware, I updated it straight out of the box. It’s strange because on both occasions the freeze started with my power numbers only and it then shortly spread to the whole device. I’m pretty sure it’s not the power meter as it was working fine on my Edge 1000.
I’ve been using my 830 everyday for several weeks and so far no freezes. I also use a PM (Quarq).
My only problem with the 830 is the unit won’t connect to GC and upload my rides automatically. To upload my rides I have to open up the GC app. on my iPhone 6. If I don’t open GC the 830 will say ‘searching’ phone but never find it.
Rob- just curious. What type of connection do you have with your PM (BLE vs. ANT+). I’m on ANT+ and no freeze issues. So if you are on BLE you can try ‘forget’ sensor and reconnect your PM using ANT+. It’s worth a try.
Have you connected the 830 directly to WIFI? Otherwise I think maybe you do need to connect to the GC app to upload.
I am using the new Quarq power meter that comes with the new Red AXS eTap. It has both BLE and ANT+ although I have only been using ANT+. I’m assuming I am anyway as I don’t remember it offering me an option either way.
Mine froze 2 miles from the end on Friday, so that was my first data loss. Yesterday and today it worked flawlessly for longer rides, navigating so I could use ClimbPro (its choice of what is a climb still seems very weird). I solved my problem with disappearing maps by turning off the Trailforks overlay.
Just to clarify, when it froze – did you legit lose data or a ride? It should have either saved the file, or allowed you to resume the file when you turned it back on again.
I have the same issue. I don’t recall this being a problem with my Edge 1000. With the 830, Garmin Connect seems to need to be running to get an auto upload or for the Live Track to work. If I start the Garmin Connect App before my ride and leave it running, all is good. If I forget, I don’t get Live Track or the auto upload.
Is there a setting I’m missing on my Iphone X or the 830?
I’m wanting to replace my ELEMNT, but the Roam doesn’t seem worth it. I love the fact that my Wahoo was 99.5 percent reliable and easy to use. However it has started to give me bad data. It time to replace. I am wanting the Edge 830, but all the issues I’m reading about has me worried. It’s still showing 2 to 3 weeks delivery. Did they announce and start shipping way before it was ready? I’m postponing my 830 or Roam purchase until one of them is proven reliable.
Is there any easy and quickest to calibrate the power meter using the 830? In my home screen “the one with sensors, phone etc…” It doesn’t appear the direct link “calibrate” as it did in my old 520.
Now I need to go inside the power meter and click calibrate…no direct link. Can anyone confirm this?
Hi,
I have different experience. A) 830 prompts me to calibrate (you have to turn this on in sensor/PM settings) and B) on controls screen there is a menu “Calibrate” as soon as PM is connected.
Cheers
Wow!! this is interesting, in my Garmin there is no “calibrate” link, even though I have the power meter detected. Im using Favero Assioma _I dont know if may be soemthing related to this powermeter (I dont think so) or anything Im missing….
A) Setup automatic calibration prompts like Marek notes
B) Swipe down from the top menu to access the widgets, and you’ll see the ‘Calibrate’ option right below the sensors. You need to have the sensor actively on (so pedal a few times).
C) Do the same as ‘B’, except tap into sensors, choose your sensor, and then press calibrate
D) You can just go straight to the settings > sensors menu, then choose your power meter and then choose calibrate
I’ve tested it on the Favero Assioma, and it works fine there.
Hi Ray, thanks for answering, then is definitely something strange on my unit. Im using a 830 with the latest firmware and using Favero assioma, Im attacchhing u a picture of the widgets screen where u can see there is no “calibrate direct link”
P.S. I hace both assioma detected and connected to the sensors pool
Odd. And to confirm, the power meter icon is on (and not blinking)? Also, if you click that sensors button, then select your Assioma pedals, and then do you get a calibrate button?
If not, does it show connected via ANT+ or Bluetooth Smart? And finally, if via BT, go ahead and remove the pairing and re-search/pair for the ANT+ side, the easiest way to see the difference is the ANT side will be a simple bummer (45, 7872, etc…).
Do you have a “Controls” menu when you swipe left/right of the screen you attached to your post? The link should be under “controls” page of the swipe down menu.
Alternatively, click on sensors, select Assioma, check its settings and turn automatic calibration on.
Hi all, thanks for your replies, but this is rather weird hehehe:
1- the power meter icon is on (and not blinking)?: YES, is not blinking and I got the garmin notification of “powermeter detected”
2-if you click that sensors button, then select your Assioma pedals, and then do you get a calibrate button?—YES. This way I can do it perfectly. but i was looking a quicker way.
3- Im not sure how to identify wether is BT or ANT+. Currently I have 2 powermeters detected 489XX and another longer with letters and numbers. I thought it was both pedals, but it may be both kind of connections…
4- Do you have a “Controls” menu when you swipe left/right of the screen you attached to your post? The link should be under “controls” page of the swipe down menu.—-YES, I have attached it, but there I cant find anything related to powerrmeters ;-)
Yeah, so the numbers/letters one is the Bluetooth variant. Go ahead and delete that out. You just want/need the ANT+ one, especially since once Favero releases the cycling dynamics update, that’ll only be ANT+.
wop, not even deleting both and just accepting the ANT+ is giving me the cnace of “calibrating” directly on this screen.
Would any of you make me the favour os posting a screenshot of that screen where I can see the calibrate option (830 please)
I reaallyyyy appreciate it!
As always-thank you for taking the time to complete such wonderful reviews and follow up with answers for users. Mine is showing that it will be delivered today. I’m upgrading from an Edge 520 and I’m looking forward to having a touch screen again, the faster processing, and new metrics.
Question: Is it still ‘safe’ to simply grab the ‘settings’, ‘sports’, ‘locations’, and ‘courses’ files straight off the 520 and move them to the 830 to get the screens, locations, etc all setup quickly for me on the new unit? I’d like to ‘grab and go’ to use the new unit for my workout today right after it arrives without wasting a whole lot of time.
Or has something changed with the new interface of the newest units that makes that process ‘not stable’ any more?
Has anyone found out how to use Connect IQ data fields? I knew how to do this on the 1000, but on the 830 there isn’t a visible option for this, and the manual is no help at all.
i’m having issues with the 830’s gps accuracy. exact same route, verified mileage:
garmin edge 510: 9.08 miles
polar vantage V : 9.08 miles
garmin edge 830: 8.32 miles
i’m finding on just about every ride the 830 is underreporting miles by 0.5 to 1.5 miles. using GPS+GLONASS with the current latest fw. i’m going to try reinstalling the maps tonight and switching to GALILEO, but i have no idea what would cause these issues
Apologies if anyone else has already asked this but I am having issues with the climb pro feature on the 830. When I load a route I can see the page where it has identified the climbs m. When I approach one of these climbs the 830 seems to strangely flicker across some random screens, it then pops up “GO” but that’s it. The ClimbPro screen I’ve seen on all the promotional material is nowhere to be found?
similar problem on the 530. On my last run it even crashed to restart (and lost some tracking data) at the beginning of each “climb pro”.
Had elevation screen turned off. So I will try this hint on my next trip to see if this can workaround. (Even so the elevation screen seem useless I would like the Climb Pro to work)
Two questions related to the 1030 vs 830:
1. Do you expect Garmin to release a new 10xx with better processor or other upgrades in order to differentiate from the 830/530 releases?
2. Regardless of #1, is the 1030 processor meaningfully slower than the newer processors in the 530/830?
Asking because my 800 is finally falling apart (rubber on/off button disintegrated and now have bare opening to the on/off mechanism)
Thanks, George
1) Nope. The 530/830 are all designed to match the naming scheme of the 130 and 1030. They’re seen as a complete product ‘series’, if you will.
2) I don’t think the 1030 processor is meaningfully slow in most scenarios. It’s slightly slower in routing (one of these days I’ll put all the units side by side), but not enough that it’s mattered to me. I know if you compare the CIQ app benchmark test times side by side it is slower by a fair bit, but that’s not real life. It’s just a fictional thing of potential that’s never used.
Ray, thanks for the VERY quick response. I guess I just need to go to my nearest Garmin retailer and look at screen size and think about my 70 year old eyes and what they can manage. :-). The $100 rebate suggests to me that they recognize their 530/830 pricing has made the original extra cost of the slightly larger screen not worth the price difference, which was one of the reasons I was wondering whether we’d see a “1040” or similar newer model coming out soon, given the two year old status of the 1030. PS – I already subscribe to the weekly newsletter and really enjoy both the summary details and the family/activity updates.
I’ve used an Edge 1000 for the last 4 years and I was concerned about the smaller screen of the 830. I’m quite happy with the change. I don’t have any problem with the slightly smaller screen size. It seems to be brighter and sharper. I’m not 70 yet but getting there at a young 65. :-) And I do need glasses but I’m not blind.
Louis – thanks for the feedback. I have a friend with a 530 which is the same screen as best I can tell. It looked OK to me, but then I wasn’t trying to read it while riding, so your input is helpful.
Hi,
First of all, thanks for you clear review regarding this device. I have a question regarding live Strava segments. Currently I have a edge 820, and as far as I know there is no possibility to see your starred Strava segments when navigating a course. I almost always navigate a course… So I almost never see the live segment on my device. Now my question is if the edge 830 does support this feature during a course? Other devices such as a wahoo have this feature. Thanks for in advance for checking my question!
Hi everyone. I have purchased successive Garmin edges…the latest being the 830. What is going on with the LiveTracking feature? Garmin heavily promotes it but Live Track has not been working for over a year!! I’ve downloaded, deleted the app numerous times, paired, unpaired the phone hundreds of times. NOTHING!!!!! It won’t even send out the Strava Beacon…let alone Auto Start The message I keep getting is “Cannot send invites at this time. Try again later.” This should be the EASIEST function for Garmin to get right being in the GPS business and all. Can someone finally get to the bottom of this. New 830, new IPhone….same old problem. Second, the sync function works only half the time….why does the Edge 830 have two different Bluetooth connections?
Hi dudes, I wrote last week since I have a 830 updated to the latest firmware and I can’t get the “calibrate” direct link in the “controls” page. I have seen some screenshots from the 530 where u have the calibrate link there but none in the 830. I have tried everything (ant+, blte..) but no way, I never get the link.
Can anyone post a picture or confirm me that he/she can see this calibrate link under the home screen? Using a 830!!!
Hi together, does anyone know if it is possible to add a waypoint or a nearby POI to a currently active route? If I try to do so, the currently active route will be replaced with a new one instead of just adding a the new waypoint to the currently active route. :/
How does ClimbPro work in the woods? I am an enduro rider and one of my regular courses is a 600 foot / 1-mile climb that takes me around 15 minutes. I currently race against the live segment, but would prefer the ClimbPro metric if possible. Is it only for complete routes? Or does it work on segments as well? (Routes don’t work very well in the woods, unfortunately.)
You have to be navigating, but there’s no requirement that the route is a loop so far as I know. You could always set up a route that consists entirely of up the climb and begin navigating at the bottom and see what happens. It needs to know where you’re going so it can use the DEM to identify upcoming climbs. I’ve only done complete routes myself (and the climbs it identifies can be strange).
No loop requirement. I did some in-woods ClimbPro segments in California. Worked just like out on the road. But it must be on a route of some sorts.
Paul nailed the one option you could have in just creating a route that roughly covers that climb. Something short – like 1.5mi or so. Then simply load up that route on the fly as you approach it. Once you do it a few times (the loading on the fly), it’ll become quick.
I suspect Garmin is hearing the feedback on having ClimbPro act more like Strava Segments, in that they just ‘happen’ as you ride through. It’s a Gen1 feature, so just like they’re wanting to hear peoples feedback on what triggers a climb in terms of length/height, I suspect they’re taking in feedback on other elements too.
Doesn’t it work that way (sort of) on the watches? I remember my Epix changing color or something and putting up some kind of climbing screen when I was skiing up a climb.
As far as ClimbPro on the 830 goes, the improvements I’d like to see are 1) upcoming climbs screen disappears when there aren’t any more. 2) descents aren’t included in climbs. Last weekend I did a ride with 4 identified climbs. The first was one I do a lot so I’ve seen this weirdness before. It identifies a climb of 5+ miles, starting about 3/4 mile away from home with a gentle 2-3% up, followed by a right turn onto 8% for about 1/10 mile, then a descent of 3/4 mile, followed by gradual (few %) uphill until with about 2 miles to go you reach what I consider the actual climb, which averages about 7% but has ramps that go higher (there’s only a little relief near the beginning in a hairpin turn). The next two were climbs according to it and according to me. The last was marked at about 3 miles, about a mile up a “road” consisting of rocks and runoff channels where you had to pick out a line for a mile (6-8%) followed by a long, gradual descent (about 100 ft over 1 mile), and then another actual climb, 3/4 miles at about 7%. I would have split that into two climbs. The other thing I’ve noticed is that it seems to reach back so it can lie about the average grade of a climb. There’s one I do frequently which is identified at about 1 1/2 miles at 3%, which is fine, except the the last 1/3 mile is at 10+%. Seeing an average 3% is a little misleading. Oh, and 3) the ClimbPro screen should show the entire climb, no matter how long it is, so you can see what’s coming.
I have a question that i don’t seem to be able to find the answer to, having just received my 830;
I use my existing Garmin on two bikes, my road bike and my TT bike. Each has its own speed sensor but i swap my powertap P1 pedals between each bike.
Crucially, the bikes both run different crank lengths. On my existing 810, that’s fine as each bike has it’s own profile, but clearly i can’t do this on the 830?
Do set up a new profile for each bike along the lines of ‘Road’, ‘Indoor’ etc and just create one for each bike? Or is there another way?
Unfortunately it’s tied to the sensor ID, so that stays the same. It’s the same for all other companies. To be fair, this isn’t entirely a Garmin thing. It’s because the ANT+ & BLE specs for crank length set it on the sensor, so it’s read back from the sensor itself as well.
I also have different bikes with different crank lengths, switching Vector 3s between the two, which worked well on my previous 810. Would the solution be to forget/remove the Vector 3s on the 830 each time I switch bikes and then re-pair with the correct crank length?
I presume correct crank length is still crucial to accurate power readings on the new 830?
After using a pair of 800s for many years (darn five bike profile limit!), I just made the move to an 830.
While the 800 kept track of each bike’s accumulated mileage on the device, the 830 does not appear to. And there doesn’t seem to be a way to migrate that data, either automatically, or manually, to the 830 or connect.garmin.com directly.
I didn’t want to lose the accumulated mileage for each bike, and found that this approach below worked for me:
Enter manual activity on Garmin Connect App
Select Gear for which you want to make mileage adjustment
Edit activity on connect.garmin.com, changing the mileage to whatever you want the base to be, and changing the date of that manual activity to some long past date.
The data for that month/quarter/year will be incorrect, but if it’s long enough in the past you shouldn’t care.
Now both the Garmin Connect app and connect.garmin.com have the “correct” mileage for each bike. And 2001 appears to have been a huge year for me! :)
I cannot find how to add TSS as a data field on 830. Got it on 1030 but just doesn’t seem to be an option on 830. Kind of useful on the ride figure if you base your weekly training load on a TSS figure to know where you stand on the ride you are now doing? What am I missing or is this no longer an option?
Does anyone bike with child + trailer? I think the stats will be influenced (meaning training effect, calories, …) and are not really correct. How do you do it? Are you increasing your weigth for this ride by 30kg (or whatever)? Great would be if Garmin implements a trailer activity profile ;).
Is there a max file size for TCX / GPX routes? I’ve been told Garmins struggle to deal with long routes. Does anyone have any experience of loading a 1000km route onto a garmin (830) and being able to follow it?
Received my 830 yesterday, because its BT enable etc I decided to pair my sensors using BT only. Paired my Wahoo Tickr X no problem, paired my Quarq DZero crank no problem (even showed up as Quarq XXXX) so thought all is good, im set up for my ride tomorrow morning at sparrows fart.
Woke up this morning, all sensors paired, calibrated quarq and off I went. Except, I wasn’t getting any power readings from the Quarq? Had to stop and pair the Quarq using ANT+ and carry on. Have you had an opportunity to pair using BT only and get readings?
I have tried googling the issue but can’t find anything. I’m not sure if its a Quarq issue or a Garmin issue?
With firmware 3.20, I saw this all the time using BLE for sensors, the device was unusable. Switching to ANT+ worked around it. I’m sure Garmin is working on a fix.
Where can you switch between BLE and Ant+?
Ik was searching to link my cadence and speed sensor by Ant+ but it onlusten showde me one result to select. (Even when I checked, search more option)
Still on 3.20 the 3.50 hasn’t arrived in SA yet, switched off iPhone wifi and BT but kept wifi on, on the Garmin 830, de-activated all the ANT+ sensors and only kept the BT for HR and Power Meter (Power2Max) active.
Went for my ride this morning, the Garmin did not prompt to calibrate obviously but it connected to the sensors no problem at all and did not drop out once the entire ride, worked flawlessly.
I think the problem / solution is the following, and I don’t think it is necessary a Garmin issue / fault. The BT power meters all have their brand apps on your phone, BT only connects to one device at a time so…I think what is happening is, if your phones BT is on, when you wake the BT Power meter, its connecting to the phone first, then to the Garmin BUT THEN, when you start riding, for some reason its probably connecting back to the phone and forgetting the Garmin completely.
Solution, for me at least using FW 3.20…switch your phone BT off! But yes, we shouldn’t be having this problem and that’s not how it was designed to work etc.
That’s how Bluetooth was designed to work, a sensor can only pair to one device, although that’s supposed to change Real Soon Now.
The release notes for 3.50 say that Garmin recommends always using ANT+ if possible. And somewhere I saw that Garmin is using phased rollouts for 3.50 and it was at 20% yesterday when I saw that.
Does anyone cycle with a child and bicycle trailer and use the 830? How do you adjust it so that the values fit more accurately (calories and training status, for example)? Garmin could implement a “bicycle trailer” mode :)
Happy 830 owner, update from my 520. The screen is much butter and I alsso like the touchscreen alot. Much better then buttons.
Only a question about the navigation sounds. Can you disable the turn alerts?
I know you can turn of all sounds in the menu but then you don’t get a sound for start a registration (if you forgot after taking a coffee break) or the hydratation reminder, I really like this on long rides.
Thanks
I find it hard to believe that you experienced no false-positives with the incident detection; in my expresience there is a false-positive like every 50km. This happens when braking quite hard and stopping completely. I wish it would be possible to tune down the sensitivity because like this it is a quite annoying feature.
As noted, I’ve seen false positives on the watches but not on the Edge 530/830. Maybe I just brake in a more controlled manner when approaching a stop. ?
For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen one either. Then again, I usually see the “Incident Detection Enabled” message only after I’ve finished a ride (if then), so I have no idea if it’s actually doing what it’s supposed to do.
I’ve had the 830 for about a month and this past weekend had it trigger an emergency notification. I very slowly rolled to a stop and unclipped, then bent over to adjust my RD. Alarms started going off on both my phone and the 830. Once I realized what it was I immediately hit “cancel” on the 830 screen well before the countdown ended but it still sent the message. In addition, it gave me another message that the message could not be sent due to some connection error with my phone. That was wrong because my wife did immediately receive the message and began to panic until she heard from me that it was a false alarm. The “feature” is a nice idea but unacceptable to be sending false alarms. And if I disable it, the damn thing beeps and flashes a message at me incessantly.
I had a similar thing happen: I laid my bike down at a stop (though I can’t remember how quickly I laid it down) and it sent a message to my wife before I could cancel the notification. She immediately called me, understandably nervous. I subsequently disabled the emergency notification function as I thought it was too sensitive and would generate too many false positives. I think the sensitivity should be dialed back a bit to make it a practical feature for me.
I really appreciate your reviews Ray. They are the most in depth out there.
Two road rides in from my upgrade from the Edge 810 and I have two questions.
1) How do I dis-able Virtual Partner? I never use this feature and i don’t want any notifications or displays from this feature. It was easy on the 810…I just turned VP off in the settings for each course that i loaded.
2) My main screen has six data fields. I prefer the 810 format of two large fields on top and 4 small fields on the bottom of the screen. This is not an option on the 830. Is there an IQ app that allows more customization of the screen?
I received and have been using my 830 now for a couple weeks and am very pleased with the unit overall (upgraded from a 520). It really seems to be pretty well refined for a ‘Garmin’ and has loads of very nice features.
Question: I’m about to get a Fenix 5X for general activity tracking and it provides metrics that the Edge doesn’t (activity points for instance). If I record activities onto both devices, does Garmin connect have a way of merging the data together so I don’t get double entries for the activity? In other words, if I go ride a 42 mile route and record on both devices, I don’t want to have TrainingPeaks to see double the distance, TSS, etc and get messed up simply because I uploaded the same activity from two devices. I also don’t want my yearly training record to get artificially ‘inflated’ by double uploads-yet I like some of the additional information that the Fenix provides (but the Edge 830 provides more-for cycling-that the Fenix doesn’t have either).
I plan to use the Fenix 5X for general activity tracking, sleep, stress, and for activities like hiking, XC skiing, and walking (I don’t do the ‘R–‘ word, LOL).
No. I own an 830 and a 5+. There is some cross talk between them via Connect, but if you record a ride on both, it will show up as two activities. The easiest way to avoid that is to simply not record rides on your 5X. My 5+ knows (or will know at some point) that the last activity I did was a 20 mile ride recorded on my 830. (the Garmin market-speak for this is “Physio TrueUp” or something like that). But rides will be double counted if they’re recorded on both.
fantastic review and upgraded to Edge 830. I have different bikes with different crank lengths, switching Vector 3s between the two, which worked well on my previous Edge 810 by having different bike profiles with different crank lengths. However, I cannot find how to set different crank profiles on the Edge 830. Can you advise if this is still possible? I presume correct crank length is still crucial to accurate power readings on the new 830?
If not , would the only solution be to forget/remove the Vector 3s on the 830 each time I switch bikes and then re-pair with the correct crank length?
Has anyone had issues charging 830 or 530 through a USB-C to USB adapter on a MAC? Both the 530 and 830 have gotten corrupted beyond repair and other than the possibility of receiving two bad units that’s the only thing I can suspect
Yikes, Bill. That sounds like a hot mess. Looks like mine finally shipped yesterday, and I’ll be syncing through a Mac, too. Will check in if I have any issues. Thanks for bringing this up.
I plugged my 830 in to a powered usb hub last night whilst the pc was off and noticed a strange boot loop where the garmin seemed to think it was connected to a pc, start a boot, then power off and repeat in around a 5-10 second interval. Maybe leaving the device plugged in to this kind of port (rather than a wall wart, or a powered on pc) might have done some damage by constant rebooting for hours without actually loading the system properly each time?
When I saw it, I unplugged it straight away and charged via a normal wall plug. No issues so far!
Do you know of any current issues with the 830 freezing?
My father bought a Unit right before the Maratona (which we ride tomorrow) and he’s noticing the unit going fully unresponsive to the point where he has to power it down (holding the power button for ~10 seconds). So far he has had the live tracking enabled each ride which he will try and not have going tomorrow to see if that does anything…
He is running the latest firmware but understandably is pretty annoyed with it not functioning as it should, having made the switch from Garmin to Wahoo myself a few years ago because I was annoyed with the level of their software I can understand his frustration….
Anything you’ve heard before around your ‘scene’ or should he just contact Garmin support in the hopes they will actually do an adequate job of fixing/replacing his unit?
That’s a total bummer. Good luck tomrorrow! Many times when that has happened to me in the past (this is for all previous units I’ve owned), it’s been usually because of a corrupt/bad .gpx/.tcx/route/course file. If you clean them all off and re-push (or find another version…I recommend this) I’ve had success.
Anyone know how to turn off virtual partner? I got rid of the screen for it but it still starts off when I start a route and that thing is faster than me so every ride I get a God damn notification to say it has beat me! Quite deflating.
Also, anyone else still having trouble syncing it? After rides I have to disconnect it from my phone, then turn wifi auto sync off and on again. Quite a pain. I have a 935 which is always connected via Bluetooth so I wonder if that gets in the way of it? Also, why don’t they just sync via wifi as a preference if it’s in range? Why even have it as a feature if the default is never to use it?
Other than these minor gripes I enjoy it, but they add unnecessary annoyance.
Oh, final thing – the true up between my 935 and 830 don’t match. They have different values and sometimes have me in different training status. Plus the 830 has some extra physio metrics compared to 935 so they show up weirdly in Garmin Connect. I have to switch back and forward between them and go to different time views to get it to work. Garmin really need to sort that out because it’s not at all coherent or useful.
Hi Ray
Don’t suppose you have seen any issues with displaying cycling dynamics from V3s? Purchased 830 and V3s but despite latest software and reset I cannot get Dynamics page to show data – pedals display power on 830 screens but Dynamis screen is empty and dispite manual stating you can select CD in the Sensor set-up page that selection is not showing?
Vector 3S pedals are not capable of outputting the cycling dynamics that would normally display on the data screen. The cycling dynamics include Seated/Standing Position, Power Phase (PP), Platform Center Offset (PCO), Right/Left Balance and all require a two sided Vector system to calculate.
The Vector 3s single sided pedals are not capable of calculating the Cycling Dynamics that would normally display on this page. Cycling Dynamics include: Seated/Standing Position, Power Phase (PP), Platform Center Offset (PCO), Right/Left Balance and all require a two sided Vector 3 system to calculate.
I’ve been using the fenix 5+ a my bike Computer for a year now and i like it quite well. Only Problem ist that I need more datafields per page.
So I recently bought the edge 830 and I’m suprized:
I can not select more than two datafields on the ‘map’-page. WTF??!
Did I miss something or is there going to be a firmwareupdate allowing more flexible Layouts? This is truely a dealbreaker for me and I’m going to return that thing.
Is it possible to Show more than 2 datafields+elevation-graph on the edge 130?
No, it’s been that way for a long time on Edges. But, like the 5+, you can have more than one data page, and on non-map pages you can have a lot of fields. Personally I have no fields on my 830 map page at all, since I came from the larger screen of the 1000 and I don’t want to lose any map area to data fields that I can just display on other pages.
Paul S, thank you for the information. The Point is that I need more Datapages particulary on the Map-page.
@ Ray: Is there any possibility to ask Garmin to make the Map-Page more flexible? Also for the Fenix 5+’s Map Page! Why don’t they simply replicate the two bottom-Fields on the Top of the Fenix’ Map-screen??! That would be PERFECT! I don’t understand why the do not give the user that flexibility… If they tell that it’s difficult to read 4 Data-fields on themap-screen on the fenix 5, at least let the user decide for themselves if they like it. I definitely would!
Any update on the features coming to the 1030? Garmin said this when I asked when they were coming:
Sorry, Eli, but I haven’t heard anything on that. Please send feature requests directly to our design team for review at the following link: link to garmin.com
^DK
You mean the turn prompt screen that shows up when you’re near a turn? In addition to a close up map, it shows “time to point” (almost always wrong, since I think it uses an average speed to calculate it) and “distance to point”, and I don’t know if you can change that. Or do you mean the map page that’s there even when a turn isn’t coming up, or when you’re not navigating a route? I by choice have no fields on mine but so far as I know that’s just the normal map page, and you can put up to two fields of your choice on it. It might get a little crowded since when you are following a route there’s a navigation prompt on top basically telling you what’s next and how far away it is, but I think you can turn that off.
You can customize what fields display on the map view. You can have up to 2 fields on the map screen. I put distance to destination and distance covered on there, but you could put speed on there, or anything else your heart desires.
I was specifically referring to the map page that can be displayed all the time, whether or not you’re approaching a turn. That’s the view I would want to use most of the time.
Hi. Does the 830 (or the 530) speak turn-by-turn directions aloud? If so, does it do so through its own speaker, or does it need to be paired with a Bluetooth speaker?
Also, if I load a route from Ride with GPS, for example, will it speak my custom cues as entered into Ride with GPS, or will it replace them with the generic turn cues that are generated by the Garmin? (For example, if I have a custom cue on a RwGPS route for a rest stop, will the Garmin announce the rest stop aloud when I get there?)
Yes, it can, but not through its own speaker. The directions come out of the paired phone, and it needs to be enabled in the Connect app. I tried it for a few rides and then turned it off because I found it too annoying. No idea about the RwGPS question.
Thanks, Paul. Does anybody else know about how the Edge 830 handles Ride with GPS custom cues? Does it speak them aloud as typed in Ride with GPS, or does it replace them with standardized turn cues that it generates itself based on the route?
The review above is very informative, but I’d like to see more information about the navigation and guidance capabilities of the unit, including turn-by-turn directions and integration with non-Strava platforms like RwGPS, as that’s mostly what I would be using it for. Thanks again!
I’ve used the audio a couple of times now. Because my phone is in my back jersey pocket, it is more useful (or distracting) to the person behind me. Volume from the phone just isn’t loud enough. Now if I had the phone in front of me, it might be more useful. It does at least call my attention to the fact that a turn is coming but I need to look at my Garmin to see what it is.
Thanks, Louis. Volume isn’t a concern for me because I have a Bluetooth speaker.
Now, does anybody else know about how the Edge 830 handles Ride with GPS custom cues? Does it speak them aloud as typed in Ride with GPS, or does it replace them with standardized turn cues that it generates itself based on the route?
I’ve just started using the 830 this week. I love it except for one thing – the calorie count is absurd. I don’t use a heart rate monitor, so I understand the accuracy is lower, but still, the calories burned are almost double any other measure I’ve used. For instance, for a 25 mile ride I did yesterday:
Garmin – 1600 calories burned
Strava – 900 calories burned
Back of napkin 40 calories/mile calculation – 1000 calories burned
Garmin’s number is ridiculous. Any way to adjust/fix this without using a heartrate monitor? Thanks!
Any calorie calculation that does not use calculated power output will be at best a WAG, including calculations that rely on heartrate info. There are many Connect IQ fields that purport to calculate calorie burn in various ways, but it’s a highly individualized number, so I’d doubt they’d be accurate except by luck.
Followed an 85 mile route that I created today and I intermittently experienced extremely poor navigation. To monitor nav performance, I had “Distance to Next” and “Next point Location” data fields displayed on my screen. I have software version 3.50 on my 830.
1) Occasionally after passing a turn point the “Distance to Next” would remain at ZERO sometimes as long as a half mile past the turn.
2) One time when this happened I looked at my map screen and my position was incorrect…it was back at the previous turn point. This was an error of over 1/4 mile.
3) Turns were missed because of this failure of the navigator to maintain the correct current position. There were no GPS signal obstructions when this happened.
4) As I rounded a turn (fifth turn from the end of the route – approx 3 miles to go), my “Distance to Next” was 0.12 miles. “Distance to Next” remained at 0.12 miles for the next 1/2 block.
Very disappointing Garmin. My old 810 does a better job.
I also have noticed that when I go off-course that the unit keeps telling me to make a U-turn even when a shorter route would be to tun on a parallel street.
Garmin got this right with car nav years ago – surely they can get it right on a bike computer.
Different route, same turn. “Distance to go” froze at 435ft until I got to the next turn.
The “Climb” function needs an improved algorithm. On a road ride I was on a street with some ups and downs. To my surprise “Climb” said I had a climb with an average of 7% grade. As this was ups and downs the average was closer to 1%. No single bump came close to 7%. On an MTB ride today I got two more strange “Climb” notifications. Both times I immediately did a short descent. Garmin really needs to do their homework here. Other online routers carsh designate climbs and tell you the category of the climb. The technology exists Garmin.
Also today we got to an intersection of two trails. The 830 did NOT provide a turn prompt, but the trusty 810 did pop-up with a prompt. Come on Garmin, the 830 is allegedly an improved unit.
Our MTB route today was roughly a figure 8. We climbed up a hill, descended down the backside, then climbed back up. When we got back up both the 810 and 830 wanted us to repeat the loop on the backside of the mountain. At this point we were 18 miles in to a 22 mile route. The Garmins informed us that we still had 17 miles to go. WTF? While not strictly an 830 issue, this is a pretty basic programming error. The computers knew which turns we completed, so it should have known which turns we still had to go. Basic math should have helped them figure out that we didn’t need to drop down the backside at that point. To make matters worse, we kept getting “Off Course” warnings as we continued the right way.
1. When I touch the screen, a black overlay appears on many screens. Why? How can I turn that off?
2. What is the Geocode Map and the DEM Map? What is covered by the EU Cycle Map NE +SW
Thinking about upgrading from my Edge 810 to Edge 830. But what about my purchased maps on sd-cards? I have two sd-cards with maps (TOPO Czech Republic and TransAlpine TOPO PRO). As Edge 830 has no sd-card slot, is it any way to continue using maps from these official garmin sd-cards also in 830 unit, i.e. is any official way to transfer them to 830’s internal memory? Garmin maps are quite expensive and I don’t want to pay for same maps again.
If they’re typical Garmin maps, then no, you can’t use them, since they’re tied to the card. You’ll need to get a 1030 to continue using them. But before you make that decision, find a way to check the maps that come with the 830 (I don’t know if those exact maps are online somewhere, but they’re based on Open Street Map which are online). So far I’ve felt no need to add any additional maps. The Garmin Cycle Maps have all of the roads/trails/etc. that I know of in my area of Central Pennsylvania, and TrailForks only helps. So the maps that come with the 830 in Europe might be all you need.
Thanks for reply. I have communicated with Garmin yesterday and it is unfortunately true, that the map license is not movable to device with no sd-card slot. It is big disappointment for me and from my point of view the buying of maps from Garmin was big mistake. So either I will have to use the preinstalled map in Edge 830 you mentioned (but I think that its level of detail will not sufficient for me) or I will add some of free maps based on Open Street project to Edge 830.
Can you disable the virtual partner that pops up when following a saved course?
The navigation page is not that big so I would like to remove is so I can see the upcoming turnster better.
Ray, Thanks for the review. After years on Wahoo I made the jump back to Garmin after all the amazing reviews for the 830. But it’s been nothing short of a disaster. I have all the connectivity issues you mention that require me to reset the device after every ride, which I thought was resolved in FW3.5. My device is FW2.7, but Garmin Connect and Garmin Express don’t recognise the need to update the firmware, they list 2.7 as the latest. HUH? And then when I do the manual install (copy update file to /garmin), the device doesn’t recognise an update file is there. Garmin support can’t figure it out, and I’m at the point I want to send it back. Has anyone seen this, or seen it resolved?
I’m trying find out how much capacity there is on the device available for additional maps seeing as there is no SD card slot available. Does anyone know please?
I had a Garmin 820 connected to Campy eps v 3 and used mode buttons set up as Edge Remote to change screens (right side) and set lap (left side)
My 830 does not recognize Campy as a remote. Any thoughts.
Fairly general and maybe dumb question for you folks: can I simultaneously connect a power meter via ANT+ (Favero Assioma) and HR monitor via Bluetooth (Polar) to the Garmin (830 or 530)? Thanks in advance for your comments
I’m considering an upgrade from 520 Plus to 830 for battery, better navigation (I am doing more and more unknown rides), and Bluetooth Smart.
Will the 830 report to Garmin Connect intensity minutes + heart rate (w/ heart rate strap) after an activity? I’m using a 520 Plus and my 935 simultaneously because I am a numbers nerd and HATE that the heart rate and such don’t register in GCM. If I do a ride only w/ the 520P, it looks like my heart rate has no data for however long the activity was, even though it was all captured under the activity (annoying).
I don’t know what intensity minutes are, but it certainly reports heart rate. It also reports or computes other metrics (training effect, something called “exercise load”), which Ray talks about above. I’m surprised the 520+ doesn’t.
Edge 830 with 357Beta and can’t figure out how to ride a course in reverse direction. Connected iPhone without cell service didn’t even help. No way to send course from Edge to Phone for editing.
4.10 is out. Judging from the release notes and the release date, it’s probably just 3.57, although I did see a “Touchscreen software updating” (or something like that) when I installed it, which I don’t remember seeing when I installed 3.57 yesterday.
Can’t really say since I don’t care about or pay much attention to Bluetooth connectivity. I’ve seen notifications from my phone on my 830 while riding, but I don’t know whether it’s reliably been connecting all the time.
Today i made a ride in Austria with a couple of for rest trails. The most of the time the routing was to late and the ride was sometimes 15 til 20 meters of the track. This was with GPS +Glonas. Is Gallileo reliable at the moment? I have had also an update Today that i have instal but not tried yet. The ride Today was with the latest bèta version. I think 3.57.
I’ve noticed similar behavior in the US with the GPS tracking. I don’t recall seeing this with my older Edge 1000. Is there a problem with GPS tracking on the 530/830? While it hasn’t made any real difference that I can tell, it is a bit annoying. I expect the GPS tracking to be at least as accurate as the 1000.
I idd get the latest update from Garmin and tried a ride with Galileo. It is better then with Glonass but in the woods with a lot of leafs it is not perfect but it is ok.
I have a Edge 520 and in the sensor menu it appears the option for detection of smart trainer and smart scale. In my Edge 830 it doesn’t.
It only detects the Tacx Flux S as a powermeter and a speed/cadence sensor ?
Are your 830 detecting your smart trainers like they should do?
Yeah, FE-C trainers are paired in a different spot now. I think it was actually that way on the Edge 520 Plus too. In any case, go to: Menu > Training > Indoor Trainer, and then pair it there.
great reveiw – as usual. ;-)
Would you mind to get in contact with Garmin to get some response for the GPS issues seen in the woods/valleys?
There are a lot of complains throughout several forums even Garmins own. But no response.
Looks to be a real dealbreaker for Gravel or Mountainbike.
I ride in the mountains (central Pennsylvania, so heavily wooded) a lot and have no such issues. In my experience no GPS track bears really close examination, but the tracks from my 830 look acceptable. (Haven’t seriously looked at distances, since I use speed sensors.) Don’t exactly follow the roads/trails/etc. on the map, but then you have to wonder how accurate the map is. So it’s not a dealbreaker for me.
I do not mind and talking about distances – using speed sensor as well.
You can check the track against several maps. A good number of people having the issue simple compared with their older devices on the same map. And further they did several rounds for the same track. To see inaccurracy there do not need any map.
Some pointing that to the new Sony GPS chipset used. That is used in the Suunto 9 as well and showing similar issues.
All I can say is that mine is no better or worse than any other GPS device I’ve used for cycling (various Edges, a 60CSx handheld). But then, I don’t care that much about the accuracy of the track. If it’s close enough, it’s fine, and it almost always is. But I took the path I took no matter what the track says. The area I live in isn’t the most challenging for GPS, but it isn’t the best, either.
(Now my Fenix 5+ when walking the dog, that shows some ratty tracks.)
I’ve see that some people have TrailForks map version 2019.10. I have 2018.20 on my 830. I checked around and can’t find info on how to update. Can someone please tell me how I can update my TF map?
Great review as always.
My 820 has just died and I am undecided between 830 and 530 . Tempted by 530 due to price difference and fact that I don’t often use maps/navigation. On my 820 I had the “hidden” hood buttons on Di2 shifters set up to scroll the screens, so during the ride I never had to use the touchscreen. A touchscreen is not essential for me. Assume that this is possible on the 530 and 830? Apologies if this was covered in the review – I didn’t see it..
Unless you want to be a Garmin Beta Tester I’d recommend you look at other manufacturers devices. The 830 is definitely not living up to the hype and the software is not ready for release as it’s still buggy.
Thanks. Appreciate your reply. I have subsequently read some other reviews basically saying what you have. It was the claimed battery life that was tempting me. I am currently looking at other options.
If people reading through Garmin Theads or the vendor forums I am more known as a Garmin basher using clear wording.
But the 830 launch doesn’t look to be that bad. The software getting to be more and more a feature monster supporting all the new electronic stuff on the bike. And ALL complex software has some bugs.
From Garmin basher – the launch of the 530/830 isn’t that bad.
Wait for somebody else responding to your question, or join the vendor forum to ask there.
I’ve had my 830 since launch. Some minor issues in the first week or two but rock solid since. I don’t know what all this complaining is about. And I absolutely love ClimbPro and the new performance metrics. Very happy with my upgrade from an Edge 1000.
As usual – there are complains and they are valid. You can check more on Garmin forums.
But they do not affect everybody for 2 reasons
– not everybody need everything
– Some only affecting some people
i.e. you find complains about loosing connections to phone and sensors.
Meanwhile I did several rides and that never happens to me. Even I put my phone i a backpack beneath a hydration pack and using 2 Wahoo and only one Garmin sensor.
But I never would say the guys having probs just stupid or doing something wrong.
I may occur due to specific combination of settings.
But as already stated the 830 launch is far better then 1030 and 130.
In addition we need to keep in mind features increasing massively.
Whoa! Seriously? You say the 830 is a buggy device. I just ordered one and it should be here any day now. I hope the functions I want to use work at least.
My first use of my 830 was May 16, and since then I’m probably closing in on 100 activities if not already past it (it’s surprisingly hard to quickly find out, since Physio True Up pulled months of data onto it from my Edge 1000 from before I started using the 830). I’ve lost exactly 2 miles of data on a 20 mile ride when it froze on me. One day a few weeks ago I took it out to the garage and tried to turn in on and it wouldn’t. Took it back inside and plugged it in and the battery was at 0%. Left it plugged in and used my 1000 for that ride. Once it froze when computing a route before I started out, but I just restarted it and it worked fine during the route. Those are the only problems I’ve had with it. GPS is about the same as any other Edge I’ve used, I don’t care about Bluetooth or Live Tracking, ClimbPro is neat if a little weird (why does it choose those climbs?). It, like all recent Garmin devices I’ve used, displays one altitude and records another, but the difference is tiny. Navigation works fine if a little weird as well (why does it prompt some turns where there’s no chance whatsoever of going wrong but is silent at intersections?), but it handles the out-and-backs and the loops that I had trouble with with previous Edges. The MTB metrics are a little weird (why kilo-grits, why not just define the grit so you get a hundred or so?), and I’m 65 so I don’t jump (although it’s recorded 2 jumps, one of which I know why and one of which I don’t). But I’m very happy with my move from the 1000.
This is Garmin’s 4th generation in the series. I expect them to have learned from the previous 3 generations and to release a more mature product. Yes s/w will always have bugs that need to be fixed, but it seems like Garmin has not learned from the previous generations in this series. Sure, maybe the new modes – like ClimbPro, need tweaking, but that does not explain why the most basic navigation functions are worse than the first generation of car GPS units from 20 years ago.
In what way? Car GPS units from 10 years ago (about when I started using one) were all point to point, and that very definitely showed in the early Garmin cycling units. My Edge 705 would most of the time try to send me around loops again after I completed one in the middle of the ride, ignoring the rest of the route. With my 800, I had to start navigation after I started the ride since the end point and the beginning point were the same. If I started navigation when I started the ride, then it often figured that it’s job was done since I had reached the end point and frantically attempted to get me to do U-turns back to the start. My Edge 1000 fixed most of that, but leaving the course had it frantically attempt to make me go back to exactly where I’d left the course, which wasn’t always possible. The 830 has displayed none of these problems, and because of ClimbPro I navigate a lot more than I used to. I’ve already written above about the quirks I find a little odd, but it’s much better than my previous three Edges. The Edge 830 is the best cycling navigation device I’ve used to date.
My 2016 Honda Pilot has a Garmin built into the dash and we had (until my wife left it in Florida) a Nuvi 2599. Both of them have the odd quirk of when I get off an interstate to stop for some reason, they want me to drive along secondary roads to the next intersection rather than get back on the one I just got off. And forget about loops or out-and-back sections, they just aren’t designed for that. They do what most drivers want them to do, direct from one point to another (and are aware of traffic and potential problems ahead), but sometimes you just have to ignore what they’re telling you. They do a pretty good job of recovering and redirecting you if you have to deviate from their advice.
I’m replacing an Edge 820 as the power connector has failed. Hopefully this one last longer.
Is there a place where we can make suggestions to Garmin? For example, the lights menu needs a setting for daytime and night time modes when in auto. The defaults selected by the device is just not correct, and fiddling with the menu to change the light settings is combersome. And why can’t the foot pod work as a cadence sensor? Wahoo makes a cadence device like this and many ebikes do not have the setup that allows a peddle crank mount to work.
The review text states:
“But perhaps the most important feature on the entire new Edge 530/830 units is the significantly faster processor.”
Is this realy true?
I designed a 275km distance route and uploaded it to my old Edge 800. It takes years before the process is finished and the device is ready to start guiding me. Let’s translated the “years” into measured time: 11min 54 sec. I would call it inacceptable.
A comparison with calculating the same route on a Edge 830 resulted in 7min 17 sec. I wouldn’t call it significantly faster. And that is not compared to the previous generation, but to an almost 10 year old device.
My illisuon to invest in a new device which offers me real improvements and not just features I don’t need (air time etc) is distroyed.
The siginicantly faster processor is not faster at all,or Garmin is not able to improve their algorithms accordingly.
Unfortunatley I don’t have the option to perform comparison tests on other devices, but I would be highly interesed in getting such results.
I actually listed very specific examples in the review on load times for lesser routes.
However, I’d argue that a 275KM is far beyond the ordinary. There’s likely things Garmin could do to improve that, but if it takes 7 minutes to load it all – keep in mind you don’t have to wait for it to finish. Garmin loads courses in order of the ride, so you could head out and it’ll catch up.
Also, even if you did wait for 7 minutes, I presume it’d going to take you more than a dozen hours to ride that – I’m not sure waiting 7 minutes is a huge issue per se.
Thanks for your comment / answer. And you are right, compared to the required riding time it is just a fraction. At least as long as you don’t need to recalculate the route during your journey due to whatever reasons (system crash, lost sensor connection, deviation, etc…).
Hence, discussing what is acceptable and what is disappointing is a subjective metric.
The measured time is a different subject. It reflects the system performance (processor and algorithms) and is objective, even knowing that it is not a complete metric to assess the system performance. However, I would just expect more after 10 years. Garmin would charge me 350 bugs for updating my hardware. And if I don’t care about most of the new features, but about the performance, they need to provide more to convince me.
Unfortunately I don’t have a new device in my hands to test it under real driving conditions during a ride. Hence, I will wait for the next generation and continue to read your reviews.
Hi, I pre-ordered my 830 so was one of the first to receive it. It worked well from the start and I am very happy with it however in the last few weeks or so I have problems:
The elevation is completely wrong even when it automatically gets the correct start elevation or I manually calibrate. My usual local 1000m road climb is showing 800m, planned routes are not correct and I arrive back at the start point with it showing a higher elevation. I ride all over the Jura and Alpes mountain roads and the 830 is now out every time. It wasn’t when I first used it. The gradients are well out and lag. 11% local climb showing much less and flat rides showing – 10/15%. I have to use the elevation correction option in Garmin Connect and Strava after every ride now and this makes it true. Has anyone else got these problems and solved it please??
I forgot another bug that started around the same time as the elevation. The 830 warns me that my Garmin cadence sensor battery is low every time turn the Edge on. I have now changed the battery twice for brand new ones and it still gives a warning. Once dismissed it doesn’t come back until the 830 is restarted.
The 830 went back to Garmin Switzerland yesterday for a replacement. (Garmin Switzerland were very good) I tried loads of things to get the elevation correct but I am consistently losing around 200m for every 1000m. Last Saturday I did a Swiss mountain 3 col loop (Nufen-Gotthard-Furka) which is around 3300-3400m total and it was showing 2700/2800m. My ride buddies with 530 and 520 all had better if not accurate readings. Hopefully it was a buggy sensor as manual using the correction in Connection then Strava is just a pain on a phone browser as it can’t be done via the apps.
Les escribo con la finalidad de si serían tan amables de poder resolver la siguiente incidencia.
Desde hace unos días, he apreciado que tengo problemas para que se me vuelquen los tracks descargados en mi Garmin 820 Edge
Como primera opción, llevaba el track descargado a la carpeta de New files del Gps en formato gpx y lo apagaba. Al encenderlo, autómaticamente lo trasladaba a la carpetas courses en formato fit. Esto ahora no lo realiza.
No se observa en la carpeta courses el track que se habia cargado en la carpeta NEw Files ¿?
Como seguna opción, mediante la app de garmin Connet del ordenador y del movil, descargaba el track en entrenamientos / trayectos lo importaba y lo enviaba al movil o como al ordenador. La incidencia en si es la misma puesto que el track esta descargado en el movil , pero a la hora de sincronizar , observo que no se vuelca al Gps ¿?.
He ido a configuración /sistema/restablecimiento del dispositivo y hay 2 opciones:
1. Rest configuracion predeterminada
2. Borrar datos y restauracion conf.
He optado x la primera opción para mantener las actividades y tracks bajados con resultado negativo.
Si que observé hace unas 2-3 semanas que en el apartado de los tracks bajados , cuando iba por cada uno de los tracks bajados , cuando hacia visualización del track, el mapa del track estaba corrompido y eliminaba el track y apartir de ahi si que podia bajar los siguientes. Pero ahora observo que no esta solucionado. No sé si sería problema de sowtware. He pasado antivirus y todo ok
Have you used this successfully for mountain bike navigation, where it tells you which turn to take when you get to a fork? All reviews and illustration I’ve found are for road navigation, but this device is touted as the best Garmin device for mountain biking so far. I can’t seem to make mine to reliably tell where to turn (I have turn guidance on for my course).
My answer to that would be a qualified yes. Navigation is pretty good, but by no means perfect, and often times just weird. It prompts places where there’s no doubt what to do, but gives no guidance (aside from the course line on the map) at places where you’d expect it to give some guidance. I navigate a lot more that I did with my previous Edges because of ClimbPro, so maybe I’m just noticing problems because I’m using it a lot more. Most of the time now I use it to navigate routes I’ve done hundreds of times before, so there’s never any possibility of getting lost or off course, but I wish it worked a little more rationally so far as turn guidance went. (The choice of climbs in ClimbPro is also a little weird.) Of course, navigation depends on the quality of the maps, and they’ll vary depending on your location.
I made the jump from the 1000 to the 830 when the 830 came out. Your choice depends on how you feel about screen size and whether you need the microSD card slot (the 830 definitely does not have one). If you want the larger screen (bigger than the 1000, I believe) or you need the slot, your choice is the 1030. I actually like the smaller size of the 830, but the one concession I’ve made to the smaller screen is that I no longer have any data fields on my map page.
Last I looked I had about 7 out of 16 Gb left. I haven’t added any maps, so it has North America, Trailforks, the DEM (worldwide, I think), and whatever else Garmin adds (I think rudimentary mostly useless maps of the rest of the planet). So there’s plenty of space left for my purposes.
Price-wise I’d say go for Edge 830.
I’ve just switched from old Edge 1000 (still works but quite often can’t find GLONASS satellites and also lost power button) to Edge 830.
At the moment I had only one ride, but 830 (updated to 4.10) feels inferior to 1000, so now I’m kinda wishing I’d bought Wahoo instead. Let’s hope future updates will fix issues I’m experiencing.
+ The battery on 830 is awesome
+- Screen on 830 is small, but acceptable
+ Data Screens management is hugely improved, it’s way easier to add/move/etc data fields and widgets
– 830 calculates my GPX Route way longer (I’d say around 2 times longer) than Edge 1000 even though it is, at least should be, more powerful
— Sometimes touchscreen becomes unresponsive, I can’t switch between data screens even if I remove my gloves (Edge 1000 doesn’t have this problem)
— While riding my GPX Route Edge 830 has managed to show total nonsense, ie, it was showing I’m riding my route while in reality I was riding parallel trail to the right (and the distance was way more than 200 meters) and eventually 830 totally froze so I had to hold power button until it rebooted.
I remember Edge 1000 also had lots of bugs just after launch, so it seems Garmin do not learn from their mistakes.
Anyone knows how why auto start/stop doesn’t work in Workout mode, and whether there’s a different setting than the regular one to make it work? I ride outside in Workout mode with structures time intervals but if I got a red lightning, the device doesn’t auto pause.
Newbie using GPS, I lost my routable cycle map EU SW from my brand new EDGE830 … Must have deleted it without thinking. Any way to get it back on the device ?!
Thanks for your great reviews!
I would suggest you install Garmin Express on a PC / Mac then use a cable to connect your 830. You should see the option to install the maps. Good luck.
I’m a little frustrated with my new edge 830.. in a couple Very noticable ways it’s worse than my edge 810.
1. To adjust the backlight timeout settings i have to tap and scroll through several setting menu Pages.. on the edge 810 the backlight timeout was accessible in just 2 taps and i would constantly be changing this setting depending on my usage.. eg during intervals in lower light i would want the backlight always on. And any other time i want the backlight to time off after 30s.
2. The touch screen is incredibly hard to use with gloves. The edge 810 was incredibly accurate to use with gloves..
back light intensity can be adjusted by swiping down from the top. Backlight timeout cannot be adjusted except by going to display settings.
thanks for the info about touch tip type globes.. my gloves are gloves that actually keep my finger tips warm in the fall/winter. I find that touch tip gloves never have warm fingers due to the need to conduct the static charge.
But maybe there are good gloves out there for this?
You can also get to the settings from the the “Drop Down” menu
The 810 used a resistive touch screen, whereas the 830 is capacitive so it requires no pressure just the static charge from a finger or touch tip glove.
“So consumers that used more than one device (like a Fenix 5 along with an Edge 820 for cycling), ended up with incontinent experiences.”
???
I want to say you meant ‘inconsistent’ – but, hey, art is art……
So add to the benefits of the Edge830 significant cost savings on Depends adult diapers. Why hasn’t anyone else highlighted this? I hate cycling-computer-induced-incontinence.
Widgets for my Edge 830 won’t work now with a new iPhone 11 I just bought. They worked well with the S8 Android phone but not with this new phone. Garmin need to do some updates I think.
This is probably not Garmin’s fault. Have you updated iOS yet? I had lots of Bluetooth problems, including to my Apple Watch 5, until the latest iOS update. I finally managed to fully pair my Edge 830 with my iPhone 11 Pro only in the last week.
I believe I had some fumbling around to get the phone paired but it did pair up and my activities are uploading to Ride with GPS. The only things I can’t get working again are the messages alerts and the weather IQ apps. I really don’t know which company is responsible to fix the connecting problems.
Today I went out on the bike and I used the 830. It works pretty good until the end of the ride when it won’t sync the recorded activity. I sat in the parking lot at the park for 30 minutes trying to get the iPhone 11 to pair to my 830. It ain’t working. I got home and connected a USB cable to my computer to get my activity into Ride with GPS and Garmin Connect. It’s the same way I use to do it with the Edge 705. Maybe I should have just kept the 705 and not bought another bike computer from Garmin. I’d submit a support ticket but I don’t think Garmin will respond.
Any chance this was the first ride post iOS13? iOS 13 and Bluetooth devices across the board have been a mess to get everything working again (and this is definitely not limited to Garmin).
Yeah. So the easiest path to success is simply re-pair it from Garmin Connect Mobile. That tells iOS to re-pair the connection.
In theory iOS asked you at some point to re-authenticate it, but it may have done so at a weird time, and you were like ‘Huh?” and then dismissed it. In which case you just have to wait for it to magically ask again (and that could be hours or days later with a product like the Edge). So just re-pairing the two together is the quickest thing.
I had the same thing happen earlier this week on my Edge 830 since I hadn’t used it with my phone since the update (was going lazy-style via WiFi).
In my phone settings under Bluetooth, it shows two 830 devices now. One says connected and when I click on the info icon I have an option to disconnect or forget the device. The other 830 in my devices shows it’s not connected and when I click on the info icon it says Share System Notifications and I have a On/Off button. Can you tell me what that sheot is all about? I really don’t know if the 830 is paired and will work properly now or not unless I go out for a ride and record something to share.
Finally! Finally,finally,finally. I had to turn off Wifi in the 830. This time the 830 loaded the full Garmin software and sync’d everything which it wasn’t doing before. I also got the widgets working, now I can get my notifications that idiots are trying to contact me, and I get the weather app that I liked using in my 830. I’m happy now. It only took a week.
Another day, another failed pairing. Last night everything was paired and working. Today, went for another ride. The ride showed up in Garmin Connect but not in Ride with GPS. I’m looking for the fix because maybe something is turned off, nope! The 830 is not paired to the phone again and it won’t pair. I give up. I will just save my rides and connect via a cable when I get home. And forget about the widgets. Very sad.
After reading this review I have decided to sell my 2 year old element Bolt and try the edge 830. I also use a fenix 3 Watch for years which I’m very happy with. However the change towards garmin edge is in my experience a total disaster. 1st there are the frustrating phone connection issues. Connects to my android phone (google pixel 2xl) 20% of the time. The other 80% of the time it takes +- 30 min to connect after restarting the unit and phone several times. It’s very annoying when I’m ready to go for a ride and have to spend 30 min trying to connect the gps to my phone… not really what I expected after spending 460 Swiss francs on it. My other concerns are a 10 second lag in grade%. I live in the alps and most of my rides are uphill. The grade response is 10 seconds off pretty much every time. The elevation profile is also unreadable. It never shows the whole ride on the screen during a ride. It’s just useless. What i can’t understand is when I sync a ride from Komoot, the elevation profile preview is fine. That is to say you can clearly see the elevation profile for the entire ride. When I start the ride it goes offscreen making it useless. Why? The climb pro is just as annoying as it is useful. What I mean is it pops up automatically a few hundred meters before a climb and takes over your screen. This is not good when you rely on your map to see an upcoming turn (fast descent) or certain parameters when on a Strava segment. There is no way to make climb pro start in the background… why? Then there are all the menus you have to go through to change something and all the clicks you have to make to get back to your ride screen. At least a shortcut button to get back to your ride would be nice. I feel as if the developers don’t actually use the device while riding outdoors. And if they read this review they should try out a wahoo gps computer. I’m frustrated to have spent so much cash on a device that is more frustrating to use than useful.
– Removed the ClimbPro page from the timer loop if there are no climbs left in the ride.
(I hate being told “No upcoming climbs” just as I’m starting the last climb)
– Added directional arrows for round trip courses.
(I’ll have to navigate tomorrow and see what that does and how the changes to ClimbPro look.)
And
– Improved the y-scaling on the elevation profile.
– Added pressure filter in order to improve elevation recording.
Thanks for the great and detailed review (as always ;-) ). I still have a question regarding Navigation: is it possible to select a place on the map and to get there (like with Google Maps)? I mean just a point on the map that is not a specific address nor a specific point of interest.
And if this is possible, is this only possible with the 830 or is that also possible with the 530?
Additionally, do you know if the European version includes Canary Islands (and more particularly Lanzarote)?
To add to my earlier comment regarding latest firmware version 5.0:
“Made ClimbPro available for navigation to a location”…
I tested this on a recent ride and it DOES NOT WORK – Climb Pro didn’t show up on substantial climbs.
The first was navigating to a pin drop (Mt Vision, 1300′ climb) and the second was navigating to a town over a pass that always shows up in Climb Pro when part of a preset route.
I thought this new function might be too good to be true, and apparently it is. ;-)
Another issue I have is that when Daylight Saving Time recently ended, my 830 is still showing one hour ahead, and no amount of synching or resetting will change it. I’ve scoured the web for info to no avail. Anyone else have this issue and know of a fix? Apparently there’s no way to adjust the time on the unit, it appears to be set by GPS. My old 520 reflects the correct time, FWIW.
Yeah, the “Upcoming Climbs” page doesn’t disappear at the start of the last climb, and I haven’t seen any directional arrows of any kind, either. The y scaling of the altitude profile has changed though, and I’m not sure I like it, but there doesn’t seem to be anything you can do about it.
As far as the time zone stuff, sounds like your time zone map is hosed. Check to see that there’s a “gmaptz.img” in the Garmin folder. The one on my 830 is dated Nov 1. Of course, being in the Eastern Time zone in a state that doesn’t do anything funny about Daylight Savings must make it pretty easy. It flipped on Nov 3 as expected and has been showing the proper time ever since.
Just one person’s opinion here. I love mine. I’m coming from an original 800 and this is the one that checks all the boxes for me. Very responsive. Maps are easy to read. IMO touch screen is a must. Related to that, I was confused by the big green start icon on the screen. I kept pushing the screen to start–nothing. I lost that ride and then watched DCR video. You have to hit the start button (huh?). Ultimately, I just set up my profile to have it autostart when mph > 0. Good luck with your decision.
Agree with @Michael – I’ve had the 810, 820 and now the 830. The first two were beset with problems, random reboots and drop-outs. The 830 finally ticks the boxes as a solid touring device. ANT+ and bluetooth still has some wrinkles to iron out but I don’t use any other hardware so not an issue for me.
Just got my 830 and am super happy with it in the first ride today, its a massive improvement over the 820, but I cant find the option to enable the sound alerts when approaching a turning when navigating. Is anyone able to advise where this is?
Hi Grant,
I had my 830 in front of me so I figured I would see if I could help.
-Click on the settings (3 bars on the main screen)
-Go to activity profiles
-Select the profile you want to add the bend/turn warnings
-Go to navigation
-Make sure the toggle is on for the sharp bend warning.
I hope that helps. And it looks like you have to set it for every profile you use.
Does anyone know if there is a way to have the backlight come on at a certain speed? I ride a lot at night and thought it would be nice if it came on at a predetermined speed. Touching the screen to get it to come on is not an option at that point.
Also is there a way to have it not go to the home screen when I touch it at night to get the backlight to come on. I always have to tap it twice to get it to go back to the data screen.
What I miss, is when you import a gpx from somewhere with an itenary that you can start your trip from anywhere on the itenary so that you don’t have to navigate to the starting position, maybe it is there but couldn’t get that to work
Thanks Ray for all the work that you’ve shared with us over the years. I really enjoy the articles/information. Now if I could only win one of those prizes.
I’m hoping someone can verify an observation I think I have seen with course names. It appears that if you try to add a new course to the Edge and the name matches the first 15 letters of a course already on the Edge, the new course is not added. If memory serves me, that seems like a regression from earlier behavior. The routes were added, all had the same name, but you had to figure out which was which. Can anyone confirm that?
FYI, I use RWGPS and my course names contain starting point/ending point as an easy way to sort my course library. Hence the name collision. If that is a restriction, then I will adapt.
I currently own a 820 edge which is now almost 4 yers old. I was thinking that a great upgrade could be 830, but at the same time see many cyclists simply going for Wahoo Bolt basically because it works. What I hear the most is that is less fancy, but better value for money and doesn’t give headaches as Garmins.
Just want your opinion between 830 and Wahoo ones as I am a current user of 820 edge.
I had a similar dilemma about 6 months ago. Had an 800! I decided to go with 830 as there was a 30 day return. I love it. Wished I had upgraded sooner. Loads fast. Navigation is great though I typically follow preloaded courses and rarely need to reroute. Colors are wonderful. Just wish there was an easy way to download a course wirelessly at the start rather than off the desktop. I think there’s an IQ app for that. I just haven’t investigated it completely. The way I use it, I think they hit it out of the park. Obviously I kept it. Good luck with your choice. Let me know what you decide
I haven’t made my mind yet and I am still using my Edge 820, but regarding download routes more easily, after I found this tool https://dynamic.watch , I can’t complain about uploading routes to Garmin anymore as you just need to copy route from another source and paste in their website and click import. It automatically creates through the IQ App into your Garmin in the correct format. No more UBS or converting files for me after that. I recommend you try it.
I may do the same. Buy thinking on a 30 day trial and see it…
I’m looking to buy my first cyling computer since using komoot on smartphone. This works really well (large screen, can navigate easily, …) only downsides: not 100% reliable mount, battery only 3h and rain is a no go.
Elemnt BOLT: good device, very reliable but only limited functions (training etc.) + quite old & small bw screen (navigation not so clear?). For me that’s a step down after using smartphone on screen quality.
Element ROAM: small upgrade from BOLT for 100€ with live re-routing & some color. For this price not a lot of functions + older/slower software?
Garmin: I see mixed things. Lot’s of functions but reliability seems to be a big issue. According to some experiences I’ve read: Automatically zooming out/in stops, navigation stops, menus not logical, trouble with uploading routes, …
I just want to make a route on my PC and get it to my device in 5minutes. Also when i’m riding i don’t want any issues along the way. Garmin seems to be a bit risky for this matter?
A nice plus would be color screen and rerouting (if there are for example road works, which i encouter quite often).
Analyses of data/training schedules would also be nice, but not really that important.
Are there more balanced devices/brands on the market for this purpose? Budget is not really that important, I want a good price/quality device that I can use for many years to come.
With the recent price drop and update to the Garmin 1030, would you recommend purchasing the 830 or going with the older but updated 1030. I do both road and mountain riding. Thanks for your time!!
Ray likely can’t reply so I’ll give my 2 cents. I don’t have any insider info, but looking at past releases and combining that with the discount it likely means garmin is released a new 1030 this year. Corona may have altered the timeline there. So if you can wait to see what the new model offers before deciding that would be my advice, then you can decide if it’s worth it or not.
I’ve just started using the new 530 edge.
Really good. New Sony processor is way faster than my edge 820.
Battery life is really good. I’ve done 250 kms this month so far with only one charge and all sensors connected + Bluetooth. The best battery life I’ve seen from any garmin so far.
Really happy with my new garmin and it has been working without any bugs as previous versions.
Thank you for the great review. One question i couldn’t find an answer to:
Is there is % of Route Complete, kind of the like the Climb Pro feature. It would be great for pacing a downloaded route (from Strava), because it would show you how many miles or how much elevation is left.
Great review Ray. Thanks. Quick question. I’ve moved up from a 510 to 830 this year. After 10 rides, my 830 seems to lag by about 10-15 seconds for speed, cadence ans especially slope, the later giving me an 8% read when I’m easily 50-60 meters at the top. What may be the cause? Thanks for looking into this.
Hello
I used my 830 during the winter and temperatures reading were pretty accurate, but lately with temperatures rising i noticed that temperatures are quite higher than real, does someone have the higher reading?
Have had my Edge 830 for a while now. During a regular ride (not saved course), on the map screen, used to see what road was coming up next (Yonge St. up ahead). Now, for some reason, it’s only showing me what road I am currently on (Riding on Center St.). Is that something that I can change or was it changed during the latest update to the device? Thanks.
On my 800 it shows the street you are riding on if there is an unnamed road (such as an alley) between your current position and the next road. When I get past the alley it shows the name of the road ahead. In some situations depending on layout of roads / alleys it means I rarely see the upcoming road name because an alley crosses the road one 1 house before the next road. Between the update lag and my focus being on the intersection, I’m usually not looking at the screen to notice the name.
Something to consider. I am considering the Elemnt Roam or Garmin 830. The Roam specs out a Gorilla glass screen which is great. I have been trying to find out if the Edge 830 has Gorilla glass on the screen or not. I do not see it specified anywhere so I contacted Garmin. They basically told me that it is a proprietary chemically treated glass. This does not lend me confidence that it is durable especially since it is a screen that will be touched and swiped a lot.
I am a road bike rider only. What are people’s experience with the screen durability for road use?
By the way, I am new to DCR (thanks for the awesome reviews – best I have found!) and relatively new to cycling ~3yrs.
I’ve had mine since it was released, and there’s no marks on my screen. I took a quick look at my 705, 800, and 1000 and only the 800 has anything that can remotely be called a scratch. (I ride in the mountains a lot, so dust and mud get on my devices.)
As for your choice, if you care about navigation there is none. I’ve yet to see a picture of the Roam where the maps provide any context (street names, POI’s, business/park names) at all. The 830 works well for navigation, and ClimbPro is a plus.
Right, I just ordered one after doubting between the Wahoo ROAM and this model. If it is as reliable and lasts as long as my truster Forerunner 310XT (purchased in 2009 and still works fine, has a battery life of 15hrs+!), it will be the best purchase I can make.
I have the problem, that my iPhone battery will be drained by 10-15% per hour, as soon as I switch on the Edge 830. Per hour I can see 40 minutes background activity of the Garmin Connect app. So after a longer ride the battery is almost empty, without actively using the phone.
(the percentage of the battery drain depends on the iPhone model, more exactly on the capacity of the built in battery. A friend of mine has an iPhone with a larger battery and the power consumption is less, but the behaviour is the same)
I suspect “Find my Edge” behind that, because in the app logs you can find a lot of communication between the Edge and the app ongoing – 95% of it location updates from the Edge to the phone.
Is there a way to disable “Find my Edge”? I already disabled location services for the app, that doesn’t affect the problem at all.
The support of Garmin is terrible by the way. I wrote to them and for three weeks now we are in a loop of “make sure you are using the current firmware / app version” and “reset your edge”. I sent them already the app’s diagnostic data, but it feels, they don’t even go through it.
Hell, I’m I wrong or was the last update in October? Either, Garmin nailed it back then or they no longer support the 830. Your guess is as good as theirs.
Last update was in May. Current version is 5.50. 5.51 beta was released a couple of days ago (nothing compelling, I think I’ll pass). It’s still being supported.
I though I’d save some money and get a NOS 820 instead of an 830. I was shocked to see how much slower manipulating the map was than on my 800, the 800 was easily 4x faster at drawing the map after zooming. I can’t believe Garmin would put something that under powered on the market. Its like HQ said, “here’s your hardware specs, here’s the feature list” and completely skipped the part about performance standards. So I packed it up and sent it back without even going for a ride.
I probably use the map display a lot more than the typical user, playing a variety of map gps games with custom overlays.
I’m going to give the 830 a try. At least from the review video the map panning performance appears to be on par with the 800 now. Still disappointing the unit is incapable of having areas you pan to pre-drawn instead of just pulling in blank screen.
I really wanted to like this, but the start/stop button keeps not working and the unit resets it self, wiping out all my custom screens and settings about twice a week. Garmin support was useless. They just told me to reset it again
Hello Ray,
Thank you for the revues you write, your site is my reference when it comes to learn about the new devices. I am considering bying an Edge 530 or 830 for my girlfriend but I would like to be able to personaly use sometimes (I use my fenix 3 all the time and upload my workouts to garmin connect). So I would like to know if these units support multi user ? I realize that means ability to use as many accounts for Garmin connect … so not as trivial feature as it seems.
Regards.
Stéphane.
Hi all,
Yesterday I drop my edge 830 on the garage floor, as a result the screen at the bottom right corner is cracked. Is there a way to repair that?
Thanks
Not yourself, but Garmin support can. I’ve found that if you’re honest with them (and nice), they’ll often help folks out get things sorted at no to low cost (especially within the warranty period).
Coming from Wahoo but looking for something with better re-routing & nav this seems to be good. But how do you sync routes planned on something like Komoot to the device? Do they have automatic sync now there is wifi or is it still the ridiculous plug your device into the computer and drag and drop like it’s the late 90s malarkey?
Question about the DCR Analyzer: In the Garmin Edge 830 manual, it says “If no speed and cadence sensors are paired with the device, GPS data is used to calculate the speed and distance.” But on the Speed graph, it doesn’t say name of the sensor (for now Unlisted=Tacx, since the Tacx T2015 Speed & Cadence sensor used in the second set isn’t listed, sent mail on this), just name of the file? The Powertap Hub should also send Ant+ speed data, it is not listed in speed graph either. Does this mean the 520 Plus and 830 record speed from GPS and not the data from the sensors? In that case, is there a setting to choose this on the devices?
Also, why aren’t the names of the devices listed in the graphs where the data came from internal sensors, instead of the file name? Is it because of missing Ant+ ID, so the Analyzer doesn’t know whether it came from an internal or Bluetooth sensor (for the Edge 830, the 520+ doesn’t even support Bluetooth sensors as far as I know)?
I also use a Garmin Fenix 6S Pro to track other activities – this is setup as the primary device on my Garmin Connect app. Will the Garmin Connect app display Performance metrics from the Garmin Edge 830 ?
I already noticed sometimes the gps signal was dropping when riding under trees.
GPS + Galileo mode.
Till now no big thing although i thought the unit should just continue working because the trees were not that many.
Last week i did a test when riding on the MTB in the woods (many trees).
The Edge registered 45km and my Fenix 6s 46. I think that is a big difference.
My conclusion is that the gps in the Fenix is (much) better.
Any same experiences here?
Funny thing was that the alimeters were only 3m difference (598 vs 601 height meters).
Anyone got an issue where the unit stops an activity by itself after 1-1.5 hours? Saves it and everything so no data lost but an issue if in the middle of a structured workout. Happened to me twice in the last two weeks.
I have red green color blindness, and have quite a bit of trouble following routes on the map. Can anyone else with a similar deficiency comment on whether you have optimized or customized the map to be more readable?
It would be great if design engineers provided a colorblind mode. To be fair, this is not unique to this device. I have trouble reading manual maps, or interacting with a page that has lots of colors with little contrast.
I also have an edge 130, and find that map extremely easy to follow. Of course, it is just a bread crumb trail, but I may end up doing that on the 830.
I’m about to pull the trigger on the Edge 830 MTB bundle however, concerned that a new 840 etc. might be released within the next 3-6 months. What is your take on this?
I must confess I didn’t read all the comments so if you answered this question already here or over FB I would appreciate if you could just guide me to it :)
Question: I was just wondering if you have any info wether Garamin will release a Edge 830 plus version soon? I’m considering a purchase and would be a bit dissapointed if they released a new version January 1st :)
Hi, a question on the Garmin 530 / 830 navigation. When I’m doing a workout session then I have a screen of numbers – power, heart rate, cadence, lap time and I’m using that to measure my effort. If I had this screen whilst following a loaded route, would the Garmin inform / warn me of any upcoming turns or do I need to have the map display screen up the whole time to get directions ?
Thanks
No, you don’t need the map page up the whole time. It’s been about a month since I last used my 830 to navigate, and I use auto scroll, so my data/map/altitude pages are going to scroll by eventually. But if I remember right, there’s a banner that appears above (most?) pages that tells you what your next maneuver is and how far to go, and when you get close there’s a special map page that takes over that shows you a close up of the imminent change in direction, and that stays up until you’re through the intersection/curve/etc. (Sometimes it takes a screen tap to make it go away.)
It’s been a long time I tried (and I’ve never tried in an 830). But I know that it was impossible to follow a route and a workout at the same time. (I last tried this on a 500).
Yeah, that may well be true. I’ve never tried both at the same time, and have no real reason to since the only time I run a workout is indoors on the trainer.
I wonder if there’s a way to switch the num of fields mid-ride in the data screen? Have that on the wahoo which I find useful as for example commuting to meetup point I would want to see time, but once I am in a bunch ride, there are a few data I no longer want to see.
Yes
That is possible.
I think out of my head
Settings->Profile->Datascreens->Modify what you want.
Possibly to much during the ride.
Changing one datafield is very simple. Just tab and hold that field till you see you can edit it.
Good luck!
Why don’t you add another days screen, so one has the data elements you want for commute and the other for group rides. Simply swipe to change what you’re looking at.
Switching Data Fields on-the-fly & adding special purpose Data Screens works fine.
I tend to copy Activity Profiles and customize the screens within each for specific types of rides. The downside is you have to pick the correct Activity Profile before you start, with the upside of the uploaded activating having a different title. Many different options.
Hi. Thanks for an excellent review. I have a Garmin 810, purchased after reading your review some years ago, my question is simple. Is the 830 so much better than the 810 that it’s worth buying the newer model??
Look at “What’s new” above to see if any of the new capabilities are useful to you. I’ve had an 830 since it came out, so coming up on 2 years. It replaced a 1000. It’s faster than the 1000, and because of that lots of things work a little better. ClimbPro is very useful to me, the mountain bike metrics aren’t, TrailForks is useful, hydration/nutrition isn’t. Navigation seems to work better. But you’re the only person that can really answer whether the 830 would be better for you than your 810. You might just want to wait, because since the 830 is almost 2 years old, maybe something else in its form factor is coming along this year (who knows given COVID). The 1030+ came out last year, I think, so Garmin doesn’t need to rush something out, but the 1030+ is bigger than the 810 while the 830 is about the same size.
If your 810 is working for you I would not buy an 830. The GPS chip set on the 810 is superior to the chip set used in the 830. Navigation algorithms have not been improved by Garmin since long before the 810. Virtual Partner cannot be turned off on the 830 like it can on the 810.
The best thing about the 830 is the improved battery life. However, if your 810 battery has lost capacity and you’re happy with the 810 I’d just get a replacement battery.
I have a 830 and came from a 810.
Happy with it.
It is much faster, the display more clear and the features are also nice.
The 810 was also working fine but was also a bit outdated.
Depends also on the budget you have and if you are mostly happy with new toys :-)
Thank you for the advice guys. The 810 that I have is a great piece of kit but is now a little dated I am a bit of a tech and gadget fan although budget restricts that to eBay purchases and essential stuff only, frustrating! The Hillclimb gadget sounds interesting and I would make use of that, as well as the Trailforks although I’m not sure that I will ever use the gadget of measuring my airtime! I’m following one on eBay and think I will take the plunge and see what it’s like. There may be an 810 appearing on eBay soon… :-)
This model is due for a refresh. I predict that they will offer discount, within the next 3 months, and have an 830 plus, out by the month of May or June 2021. Same form as the current, same dimensions, but with the processor in the 1030 plus….
Hi everyone,
I recently purchased a Garmin Edge 830 – first purchase of a Garmin product. My display seems blur, in particular the the large text/characters in the main menu with white background.
Annoying, a bit uncomfortable but not dramatic.
I
don’t know if this is a defect or if I am used to better screen in general (i.e. iPhone / laptop).
How do you reverse a saved course?
Yesterday I rode a course in reverse direction, and the 830 of course kept signalling to make a u-turn and reverse.
I know there is no such option on the 830 itself (major disappointment). I want to be able to do it without a PC. On phone is OK but without any paid 3rd party apps. I think it is possible with garmin connect, but only the PC version (not the phone app)? Some people advise Komoot, didn’t try it but does it work? I’d rather not use basecamp pre-ride and make a second course, one for CW and one for CCW, but just on the fly.
[rant mode]
How hard is it to program it such that after ignoring several u-turns, but staying on the couse, it prompts to ask if you want to ride the course in reverse?
I’ve seen many posts asking a reverse feature for years now, but no response from Garmin as far as I know.
That seems rather arrogant for such a basic feature.
Hya Richard. You can in Garmin Connect. Select the route that you want to ride in reverse, edit, then hit the 3dots and select reverse direction then save. Simple as that.
Happy riding, Nelly.
Hi Nelly, thanks for your time. However the solution you mention seems only possible with the desktop version of Garmin connect, not with the phone app. Might go to Garmin connect website then via browser when out and about. All in all, it is rather cumbersome. Competitors just have a function on the device itself such as the sigma Rox 12.
In Garmin Connect you revers youre ride, also on the phone app. I just tried it on a Android phone.
Create a new course in GC. From A to B. Save this.
Press at the top right on the 3 dots, then press on “change”
You now see the route and at the bottom is the total distance and altitude. There are also 3 dots here. Press that. Now you can choose “reverse route”.
You can also drag the bottom text up to see the details of the route.
Depends also on where the course is created.
When it is created on strava and automatically uploaded to Garmin Connect this option is not available.
Anyway it actually should be an option on the Edge itself.
I can confirm what Ric mentioned. Reversing the route with phone GC app is not possible when you created it initially with Strava. Also not with the 3 dots at the bottom. Bummer since I mostly create my routes with Strava.
I’m thinking of getting the 830. Given how long it’s been out and Garmin’s history of releasing a “Plus” model, should I hold off a few months to see if they release a 830 Plus?
the grade is inaccurate… I can’t seem to get it to work even though I have synched, updated it and rebooted. No answer for how to fix this on the forums either. help!
That’s true, but that’s inevitable. They have a measure of altitude from the barometer (with errors) and a measure of distance from GPS or a speed sensor (with errors). How do you propose they accurately determine grade? It’s always going to lag, since all they can do is (change in altitude)/(change in distance). There must be digital inclinometers that could fit in an Edge, but you’d probably have to calibrate it every time at the beginning of a ride.
Is it possible to see the map and a data field of your choice in the same screen? I would like to see the map and my heartrate/training zone in one view.
Greetings! has anyone else had issues with using a strava created route, working flawlessly with the “next point location” and “distance to next” displays, and then suddenly not working, stating constantly “map not routable in this area” ? my 830 OS is 7.10. The 830 will tell me when to turn, and the map shows up with 0.1mi before the turn, but the text data isn’t there anymore. Maybe I toggled something in some setting somewhere?
I have the Edge 830 for 2 years. After year 1, was replaced for what I thought was a malfunction. Two problems were: 1. Elevation was always wrong and 2. Lock screen did not lock the screen. It did lock out the ability to save the ride. The replaced unit had the exact same problems – terribly wrong elevation and non-locking screen. Sweat drops changed the screen, every time. Screen was often wet from sweat. If the screen was unlocked, couldn’t change the screen without wiping the sweat off – with a sweaty hand. This is the worst performing Garmin product I’ve ever used! Elevation was compared to Fenix 6 Pro as well as the Elevation Correction within the Connect site. It’s not even close! (image compares the same ride – started the Fenix about 4 minutes in)
Yeah, that looks like a broken barometer. I’ve had my 830 for a little over 2 years now, and it’s been next to flawless. It suffers from the “display one altitude, record another in the FIT file” that I’ve seen on some other Garmin devices, but it’s a very minor difference. I use waypoint calibration, and I often see the altitude jump up immediately after calibration, but again it’s a minor flaw. What you’re showing shouldn’t happen. (Unless somehow you’ve blocked the little hole that allow outside air to reach the internal pressure sensor, but that’s not easy to do.)
Living in the Netherlands affords me plenty of rain. No major issues with rain or sweaty fingers. For the most part more casual rain and water pooling on the screen isn’t an issue. Every once in a while I’ll get some really angry rain that might trip up the screen, but you can simply lock the screen if it’s a problem.
But it’s not something that enters in my mind when using it in the rain.
Hi
I do not have big issues but my old 810 could handle water better than the 830.
Sometimes it does react when it is wet. Than wife it and it works fine again.
Do you see any issues with the altimeter in the rain? I’ve seen others with this issue in forums. I’m still using an 810 and before started using the silicon case it also had issues when raining. However, I’ve considered upgrading and this is important to me as I like being able to view grades/altitudes when going up long climbs.
If there is a problem has anyone figured out a fix (besides trying to clear the hole by blowing in it as that’s a pain to do if clogging with water constantly during a ride)?
Also on 8.20. After the update I’m off by about a 1000 feet per ride. I have to correct the elevation each time. I set my elevation manually so I’ll see if that makes a difference.
The total elevation gain is off at the end of (how many?) miles, or the elevation at any time is always off by 1000 ft? Are you calibrating the altimeter before each ride? For me being 40 ft off during a ride is common, having the total gain vary for a given identical ride by about 100 ft is common, but I’ve never seen 1000 ft error of either kind on my 830. You may have a failing barometer.
Ok, calibrated it prior to ride and (482′) and at the end of the ride I had 600′ of climbing. Everyone else had 1150′. I cleaned the port and re-calibrated it and I’m watching slowly drop……… Set it to 731′ where I’m at and within 5 minutes it’s down to 585′. Set it again to 731 and it just starts dropping.
Calibrating the Altitude is really just setting it to a known value. It shouldn’t change how it records altitude. On my 810 I’ve had the altitude go negative, but still have the correct gains. One thing I will also say is sometimes the displayed alt gain at the end of my rides will be wrong. Once I download, and with no altitude corrections enabled on the site, the altitude gain will be correct. Not sure why it sometimes seems to get “stuck” while riding.
Also, your altitude decreasing like that on a ride could be due to several things. The sensors can be sensitive to temp. If your indoor to outdoor temps are widely different you could be seeing issues due to that.
Sounds like the barometer is failing to me. 150ft in 5 minutes sitting still? That shouldn’t happen. Neither should being short so much on the cumulative gain during a ride, and that doesn’t depend on the calibration.
I don’t think the 530 or the 830 can handle elevation correctly. There are two options: either get an earlier version such as the 520+ or get the 1030/1030+ OR get a different vendor all together. I’m certain I did not get 3 units from Garmin with barometer issues. I received 2 830’s (lock screen not locked as sweat changed screens and I could also swipe screens while it was “locked” for both of those units ). The 530 works for everything EXCEPT elevation much like the 830. I’ve done the correction but the problems persist. Don’t waste your money…spend a little more or little less. You won’t be sorry. I love Garmin but these units are not up to snuff when it comes to elevation.
I have a Edge 530 and I face no issues with elevation.
There are some variances that sometimes happens on long rides which are about 5%.
Yesterday I did a 100km ride which the device shown 824 elevation in total, but if I check the route and use Strava Elevation Corrector, it goes to 835, which is not a big deal… for me at least.
Will the 830 work in a car and/or as a handheld while hiking? I do so much variety of activity that I really just want something with decent size screen and good maps.
Define “work”. Yes, it will certainly get GPS lock and be able to give directions and show location on the map. For hiking there’s the problem of where to keep it. It comes with a tether, so you could use that as a wrist strap I suppose; alternatively maybe someone somewhere makes quarter turn wrist or belt mounts. In the car, the screen is smaller than the alternative that almost all of us have, a phone, and an Edge will not get real time traffic information over the internet like a phone or a Garmin auto GPS will (the ones I’ve used get traffic info from FM carriers). The Edge is also designed for cycling, so you’ll have to deal with the minimum speed problem. An Edge will assume you’re not moving if you drop below a certain speed (settable, so this can be dealt with), which is a problem for hiking if you’re not aware of it.
There’s a reason that Garmin makes separate devices for cycling, hiking (watches or handhelds), and car navigation.
Thanks for the info. I really only want a good GPS mapping unit that can be as flexible as my activities. I’m retired, don’t commute, don’t care about watts or HR monitors. Just like to always have a unit with a good map set so that I can follow whatever road I feel like and always have a good sense of where I’m headed and, in a pinch, how to get back. Same for hiking. Even better if I can get a suction mount to put it on the dash in the car when on road trips.
For the car I would advice using your phone with Google Maps if you have a current iPhone or Android. The Garmin 8xx/5xx series of course have these roads on maps, but they are too small for use in a car when you need to have a quick look at it driving at higher speed than on your bike.
If you don’t need the WATTs, training programs, etc, you might want to have a look at the Garmin Edge Explore. Big display, good route navigation, much cheaper than 830.
I agree with that. You are much, much better off using your phone for navigation in a car, and if the car has Apple CarPlay or the Google equivalent it’s a no brainer. Just to give a few advantages, your phone (or a Garmin car navigation device) will show you lane guidance (which lane should I be in for this?), and give audible voice directions (including the lane guidance) so you don’t have to be staring at a screen while you’re driving. The display is also much more suited for driving; typically they show (or can show) a simulation of what you’re actually seeing ahead, including signs at the turn points, on a much larger screen. And, as I said, real time traffic information is very useful.
Edges are designed for cycling, and I wouldn’t even consider using my 830 in the car, where I have better options. Instead of an Edge, you might want to look at Garmin’s outdoor handhelds, which can be used for cycling and are more jack-of-all-trades devices. (Even so, I wouldn’t use a handheld in my car where I have both my iPhone and the built in Garmin navigation device to choose from.)
having to buy a new heart rate monitor and a new sensor by selling my 1030 I could buy the 830 bundle version with the usual money. do you think the 830 has improvements that justify the transition from the old 1030?
I joined the 830 family after losing my (non plus) 1030 and although I did once or twice miss the screen real estate, the smaller form factor and increased responsiveness and navigation calculation is awesome.
It might perhaps also just be a placebo effect but the quality of the display also seems to be better whilst rhe frequent software updates means that most if not all of the 1030 functionality becomes available as well.
All and all very happy with the 830 and wouldn’t go back to a (non plus) 1030 for as long as this epic 830 is around and supported.
This is a well designed object that is a joy to use when everything goes according to plan. In other less ideal circumstances, the navigation simply drives me nuts.
The unit constantly decides that the correct route is one that is passing nearby in parallel from the route I traced in Komoot. It also sometimes sees mini loops in the route and tries to send me into U-Turns. It’s not just my unit, a friend who uses Ride With GPS routes on a 530 has the same issues. So, it spends most of the ride telling me to turn or U-turn. This is where the unit automatically switching from the dashboard to the map when a turn is approaching goes from being a cool feature to being a pain as I have to fight with it to get to the data I want to see.
When I deviate from the planned route, it calculates new routes that seldom make any sense. Sometimes, it is so busy calculating new routes and trying to tell me where to go that it takes minutes to realise that we are back on the originally planned route.
This navigation is the perfect example of trying to do too much and failing miserably.
Your reviews are excellent. Thank you.
As an old fart, new to using mapping and navigation Ive had a couple of issues
1) when you load a route, It wont run until I go to exact start point and spends ages telling me to turn around without recalculating – A particular issue if like in my case the start point is at the other end of a tidal causway at high tide. Is there something i am missing like “navigate to closest part of route” or a ” recalculate and continue route from next available point” setting I am missing. I realise as of today I can alter the route to avoid those problems when sat at home creating it which is excellent but I may not know I cannot do something until im there.
2) Being new it never occurred to me a route would be directional! Once out on plot ready to start can you click reverse route anyway on the actual head unit if low sun or high winds give you a good reason to ride in reverse?
3) If I make a conscious decision to take a path rather than a road it wont recalculate and keeps bleeping to turn around – is there a reroute and rejoin instead of those annoying beeps or anyway to increase the speed of a recalculation but in the direction you are already heading? OR a way to set the unit to stop telling you to turn around and for it then automatically to start giving directions again the instant you are back on the route itself?
1) It should ask you when you start whether you want to navigate to the beginning of the route. Just say no. If it isn’t asking, then there might be a setting, but it’s been so long since I set up my 830 that I’ve forgotten. Then you just ride as you wanted, and it should eventually stop with the U-turns.
2) Routes are always directional. There’s no way on the 830 to have it reverse a route, but there are any number of course builders that allow you to with one click, for example, Strava’s. I have several courses like that on my 830, one for each direction around.
3) That is the biggest problem I have with Garmin’s navigation. There’s no UI to tell it “I can’t go that way, show me another way” or “I’ve changed my mind, I want to try this”. A couple of weeks ago I traveled to a place (southwestern Ohio) where I’ve ridden many times before. I took a bike (the gravel bike, the paved roads are awful), and I managed to get two rides in while I was there. I navigated both. I was starting at a slightly different point than I had previously, so I had to tell it to not navigate to the start, and on both rides I came across road closures that I had to find a way around. The constant “U-turn” prompting after I had to alter my route was annoying, but it eventually stopped and showed me a way back to the course both times. (Since southwestern Ohio was laid out in the Midwestern grid originally, there’s always a parallel road just a mile away if not a newer road that’s closer, so it wasn’t much of a problem even though I hadn’t ridden there in a couple of years.). But it should stop annoying you about U-turns eventually as you close in on the original course again and start navigating you back to it.
Can someone assist on how to send a tcx (or other) file from an email, to my Edge 830 without having to connect via a cord to computer.
Thanking you in advance
Since a while my Garmin 830 loses connection multiple times with my Scosche Rhythm 24. I thought is was the heart rate device that caused it and I bought a new Rhythm+ 2.0.
Unfortunately, that new heart rate monitor also loses connection with the Garmin 830.
It actually loses connection (gaps in the recorded numbers) or it just tells you it does? For the past several versions of firmware, my 830 has occasionally been telling me that it has lost connections or reacquired connections, but so far as I can tell after the fact it never actually happened. For example, it’ll tell me that it’s lost connection to my Varia radar while it’s at the same time accurately showing me approaching vehicles. The only time it actually loses connections is occasionally indoors on the trainer. I have a Rhythm 24 that I use rarely for cycling, but I don’t remember it giving me any more trouble when I do with the Edge than any of my other HR devices.
The other interesting thing that’s started recently is that my 830 no longer syncs through the phone or over WiFi or through Garmin Express. I always need to manually upload to Garmin Connect. Since I always plug it into my desktop anyway it’s more of an annoyance than a real problem, and I haven’t spent much time trying to diagnose it yet.
It doesn’t say yhat the connection is lost. But on a 70km workout, there are about 35 times of no recording of the heart rate. On the display of the 830, there is no heart rate displayed.
Rarely (once every 10 workouts) the connection with the Varia Radar is lost and that is shown as connection lost.
That sounds like the exact opposite of what’s happening to me. I assume that there’s nothing in between the Scosche and the Edge, that there’s a direct line of sight connection (you’re not wearing it on the outside where your arm gets in the way)? One thing to check is how the Scosche is connected to the Edge. Both have ANT+ and Bluetooth, and I’ve read that the Bluetooth connection can be flaky, and that you should always ensure that the connection is ANT+.
When I make a course in strava it will be uploaded to Garmin Connect.
That works fine.
When it is a running course I think it should not be uploaded to my Edge but only to my Fenix.
Anyone solution for this?
You know, it’s weird, I had this randomly happen this week too. I suspect someone made a mistake, and those of us that created courses within the window showed up that way.
Hello,
Thank you for this super detailed review !
I would like to upgrade my Edge 520 plus.
One thing that interest me a lot is the recovery side (and training status/load too), I have some question on these functionalities :
-Do you know if recovery data are displayed on Garmin connect and interact with other garmin devices* ?
Same question about training status
-Do you need powermeter ?
Anybody having isssues with 830 recoriding inaccurate ascent ? Climbed 1299 metres today and Edge only shows 830 m. My fenix 6 also shows around 1300m. Did a hills session yesterday where 830 showed a 1000m but Fenix 6 around 1200 m. Is this a known issue ?
The 830 uses a barometric altimeter, so one thing to check is whether the little port that lets outside air in to the pressure sensor might be obstructed. (And I’ve never been able to locate that port on my 830, but it has to be there.). A quick check shows that Garmin has a support article: link to support.garmin.com
Pressure sensors do fail, but the readings when it happens (it happened on my Edge 800) tend to be pretty wild. What you’re describing doesn’t look ridiculously bad (yet).
I’ve commented about this over the past year or so on this same forum. I had 2 different 830s and even swapped the 830 out with a refurbished 530 thinking it would help. Nope! Inaccurate compared to fellow riders and my Fenix 6…and even Strava. So – I’m not sure what the deal is. Some say to clean the hole but mine is clean. I changed the angle of the computer thinking that air was somehow affecting the hole (where the measurement takes place) but I got the same inaccurate results.
The maps that Garmin uses these days and that come with the 830 are based on OSM. Between the Garmin maps and the included Trailforks maps, I’ve never felt the need to put third party maps on my 830, although there is room for them. I used to use OSM maps (most recently from openmtbmap.org) a lot on my 800 and then 1000. So far as I know the usual procedure still works, but I’ve never tried on my 830.
Has anyone seen issues with speed sensors? I am using a bontrager duo speed/cadence sensor and find that the speed reading jumps a lot. I thought it was just the visualisation but the average speed is definitely impacted. I have been removing the speed magnet to just rely on the gps but do hit quite a few covered areas with no gps signal so i am looking for a solution. Any ideas other than pairing/unpairing?
I have my 830 paired to my Wahoo Kickr Core. When I select Free Ride (or any other option) my 830 gives me an automatic data page with fields that I cannot seem to change. Is there a way to change this data page? Thanks.
Does someone know what to do when you are experiencing (many) drop-outs of speed/cadance/powermeter with your Edge 830?
Since i am using Rally RS200 powermeter-pedals i am aware of these drop outs. At first i thought that it was due to the new pedals. Garmin checked them and they consider them functioning correctly.
While in absence of my pedals I noticed drop outs also occured using my Edge with NEO 2T (cadance/power) or Neobike (speed).
Further there are insanely high speeds during low powers (43.3km/h at 141W 95rpm) using the Edge.
Using Garmin trainer app on my iPhone speeds are reasonable with respect to power (29.1km/h at 141W 95rpm) and no drop outs were noticed, neither with the Neobike nor the Neo 2T.
To me the problems lay within the Edge 830.
Anyone having or had the same issues? Thoughts/Recommendations? Is there a hardware problem of which i am unaware of? Any advise how to solve these problems?
I am about to ride a granfondo which i want to track/record properly.
Yes, the problem is in the 830. A few years ago, four or five, Garmin introduced to bug into the 830 that causes sensors to drop periodically. Garmin does not have the ability to fix this bug.
Thanks, but…
are you saying that every Edge 830 will have that same problem and replacing a disfunctional one (warranty) is a futile exercise? Or is it just bad luck? 🤞🏼
I don’t do track racing and the LAP Button is no use to me. It would be very useful if it could be reconfigured for some other functionality e.g. bring up the Navigation menu; but I haven’t been able to find any way to do this (IQ store?)
I swim, bike and run. Then, I come here and write about my adventures. It’s as simple as that. Most of the time. If you’re new around these parts, here’s the long version of my story.
You'll support the site, and get ad-free DCR! Plus, you'll be more awesome. Click above for all the details. Oh, and you can sign-up for the newsletter here!
Here’s how to save!
Wanna save some cash and support the site? These companies help support the site! With Backcountry.com or Competitive Cyclist with either the coupon code DCRAINMAKER for first time users saving 15% on applicable products.
You can also pick-up tons of gear at REI via these links, which is a long-time supporter as well:
Alternatively, for everything else on the planet, simply buy your goods from Amazon via the link below and I get a tiny bit back as an Amazon Associate. No cost to you, easy as pie!
You can use the above link for any Amazon country and it (should) automatically redirect to your local Amazon site.
Want to compare the features of each product, down to the nitty-gritty? No problem, the product comparison data is constantly updated with new products and new features added to old products!
Wanna create comparison chart graphs just like I do for GPS, heart rate, power meters and more? No problem, here's the platform I use - you can too!
Think my written reviews are deep? You should check out my videos. I take things to a whole new level of interactive depth!
Smart Trainers Buyers Guide: Looking at a smart trainer this winter? I cover all the units to buy (and avoid) for indoor training. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Check out
my weekly podcast - with DesFit, which is packed with both gadget and non-gadget goodness!
Get all your awesome DC Rainmaker gear here!
FAQ’s
I have built an extensive list of my most frequently asked questions. Below are the most popular.
You probably stumbled upon here looking for a review of a sports gadget. If you’re trying to decide which unit to buy – check out my in-depth reviews section. Some reviews are over 60 pages long when printed out, with hundreds of photos! I aim to leave no stone unturned.
I travel a fair bit, both for work and for fun. Here’s a bunch of random trip reports and daily trip-logs that I’ve put together and posted. I’ve sorted it all by world geography, in an attempt to make it easy to figure out where I’ve been.
The most common question I receive outside of the “what’s the best GPS watch for me” variant, are photography-esq based. So in efforts to combat the amount of emails I need to sort through on a daily basis, I’ve complied this “My Photography Gear” post for your curious minds (including drones & action cams!)! It’s a nice break from the day-to-day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2024 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s Gear Guide too.
![image_thumb[32]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb32-1.png "image_thumb[32]")
![image_thumb[35]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb35-1.png "image_thumb[35]")
![image_thumb[36]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb36-1.png "image_thumb[36]")
![image_thumb[38]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb38-1.png "image_thumb[38]")
![image_thumb[40]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb40-1.png "image_thumb[40]")
![image_thumb[17]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb17-1.png "image_thumb[17]")
![image_thumb[19]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb19-1.png "image_thumb[19]")
![image_thumb[21]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb21-1.png "image_thumb[21]")
![image_thumb[23]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb23-1.png "image_thumb[23]")
![image_thumb[26]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb26-1.png "image_thumb[26]")
![image_thumb[28]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb28-1.png "image_thumb[28]")
![image_thumb[30]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb30-1.png "image_thumb[30]")
![image_thumb[1]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb1-1.png "image_thumb[1]")
![image_thumb[5]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb5-1.png "image_thumb[5]")
![image_thumb[7]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb7-1.png "image_thumb[7]")
![image_thumb[9]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb9-1.png "image_thumb[9]")
![image_thumb[11]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb11-1.png "image_thumb[11]")
![image_thumb[13]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb13-1.png "image_thumb[13]")
![image_thumb[15]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/04/image_thumb15-1.png "image_thumb[15]")
Two days ago i made a small ride for about 1:15 hour and after 10 minutes i lost the connection with the HR strap. It is with bluetooth, a Polar H7. Trying to reconnect in the Garmin was no problem and it worked for the rest of the ride. Yesterday i made a ride for about 1:45 hour a and the connection with the HR sensor, speedsensor and cadensesensor was no problem. The only problem was the connection with my Samsung S9+. There was no connection anymore. Trying to reconnect with the Garmin doesn’t help. I had to disable the bleutooth on the phone and enable it again. Then it worked and the ride was uploading with no problem.
When i am not on my bike i always use a Galaxy Watch and the connection is alwas there. While riding i let the watch at home.
hallo
my eddge 830 fw3.2 and update latest garmin maps 2019.10
white map (screen) ///all layers map enabled /deffault
..reinstal fw and map — dont work
Factory reset = garmin screen 8 hours.. manual off
thanks
Ray,
Two questions:
1). Once you’ve started riding, how do you navigate to pull up a course? Here’s the scenario: I ride from my house to meet people, and the course start is from the meeting point. So I don’t want to start the course until I’m at the meeting point.
2). Is there a quick way to get to power meter calibration / sensor screen instead of going: > Settings > Sensors?
I’m Hoping it’s similar to the 1030, so here’s how I’d do it on the 1030.
1. Start timer, start riding to the meeting point,
2. Once at meeting point, tap anywhere on the screen and
3. tap again on “home”, that takes to the “start” screen without pausing the timer,
4. Tap on “navigate” and set your course,
5. Tap again on the “road” to return to timing data screens.
(Alternatively, you can tap on navigate at the start, select the course and have 830 navigate to the meeting point to start the actual course)
Again, assuming the menu is similar to 1030,
1. Swipe down,
2. Swipe left/right to “controls” page,
3. Tap “calibrate”
It also asks to calibrate as soon as it detects/connects to a power meter though (usually before I’m on the bike). It might be in the power meter sensor settings if yours doesn’t ask for calibration.
Ihsan,
Thanks. That worked
Just finished a ride, and the 830 says I set a new FTP of 700W or 10W/kg.
Why cant Garmin spend more time getting the existing features right and not spend time on fancy things that most user wont use.
Generally speaking we don’t see issues with the FTP module (it’s been around a long time). Instead, what you wanna look at there is any crazy power spikes. The data purely comes from your power meter on this metric. So if that data is wrong (no matter who is at fault), FTP will be off too.
The are no spikes in the power data uploaded to Strava. It does show the sensor dropout though.
What about on Garmin Connect though? Strava (smartly), like filters those out. My guess is there’s a 30-40,000w spike in there somewhere.
The data looks fine on connect as well.
Huh. Weird. If you want to shoot me the .fit file I can peak and see what might have contributed to it. Ray at my domain.
Actually, no, I’ve had power spikes on my Quarq Dzero from time to time, and as a result my Strava data has some ridiculous number showing up in my power curve. There’s no way to correct the Strava data without deleting the ride from it, too. I just gave up on looking at what Strava said about my power, there’s other sites/analysis tools that are better for that.
I cut my own screen protector for the 830, and it’s working perfectly. It’s the flexible (non glass) wet-application type by Zagg, where you spray the device & protector with water, then squeegee and let dry.
Are there any reported issues with the 830 freezing? It’s happened to me twice now in the few weeks I’ve had my unit. Yesterday it froze 11 miles into a 100 mile race, and it wasn’t until I plugged it into a pc and restarted that it started working again.
After 5 rides with my 530 (not the 830!!) I’ve had one spontaneous reboot. Cadans and spedometer connected.
Some people have seen issues on the first firmware version that came on the unit in the box, updating that to the most recent firmware has resolved the vast majority of issues for those people (not all issues, but most issues in most cases).
Thanks Ray. Unfortunately I am already on the latest firmware, I updated it straight out of the box. It’s strange because on both occasions the freeze started with my power numbers only and it then shortly spread to the whole device. I’m pretty sure it’s not the power meter as it was working fine on my Edge 1000.
I’ve been using my 830 everyday for several weeks and so far no freezes. I also use a PM (Quarq).
My only problem with the 830 is the unit won’t connect to GC and upload my rides automatically. To upload my rides I have to open up the GC app. on my iPhone 6. If I don’t open GC the 830 will say ‘searching’ phone but never find it.
Rob- just curious. What type of connection do you have with your PM (BLE vs. ANT+). I’m on ANT+ and no freeze issues. So if you are on BLE you can try ‘forget’ sensor and reconnect your PM using ANT+. It’s worth a try.
Have you connected the 830 directly to WIFI? Otherwise I think maybe you do need to connect to the GC app to upload.
I am using the new Quarq power meter that comes with the new Red AXS eTap. It has both BLE and ANT+ although I have only been using ANT+. I’m assuming I am anyway as I don’t remember it offering me an option either way.
Hi, yesterday by 830 froze twice, had to reset it both times. Going to try it again today, I hope is not a defective unit just a bug.
Mine froze 2 miles from the end on Friday, so that was my first data loss. Yesterday and today it worked flawlessly for longer rides, navigating so I could use ClimbPro (its choice of what is a climb still seems very weird). I solved my problem with disappearing maps by turning off the Trailforks overlay.
Just to clarify, when it froze – did you legit lose data or a ride? It should have either saved the file, or allowed you to resume the file when you turned it back on again.
(Just trying to understand the degree of suck)
No, sorry, I should have made that clear. I lost only the last two miles, since it wasn’t recording (or doing anything else) then.
Cant achive Uplading via wifi also. Via usb to pc ok.
Jonathan and Ray,
I have the same issue. I don’t recall this being a problem with my Edge 1000. With the 830, Garmin Connect seems to need to be running to get an auto upload or for the Live Track to work. If I start the Garmin Connect App before my ride and leave it running, all is good. If I forget, I don’t get Live Track or the auto upload.
Is there a setting I’m missing on my Iphone X or the 830?
Louis
I’m wanting to replace my ELEMNT, but the Roam doesn’t seem worth it. I love the fact that my Wahoo was 99.5 percent reliable and easy to use. However it has started to give me bad data. It time to replace. I am wanting the Edge 830, but all the issues I’m reading about has me worried. It’s still showing 2 to 3 weeks delivery. Did they announce and start shipping way before it was ready? I’m postponing my 830 or Roam purchase until one of them is proven reliable.
Hi DCR
Thanks for the review – appreciated
Why oh why doesn’t Garmin provide (a) export/import of settings and/or (b) settings setup via Garmin Connect in a convenient web page.
Please DCR get Garmin to add this feature
Yeah, the import/export thing is annoying and something and I others have brought up for a long time. Same goes for smartphone setup.
Is there any easy and quickest to calibrate the power meter using the 830? In my home screen “the one with sensors, phone etc…” It doesn’t appear the direct link “calibrate” as it did in my old 520.
Now I need to go inside the power meter and click calibrate…no direct link. Can anyone confirm this?
Hi,
I have different experience. A) 830 prompts me to calibrate (you have to turn this on in sensor/PM settings) and B) on controls screen there is a menu “Calibrate” as soon as PM is connected.
Cheers
Wow!! this is interesting, in my Garmin there is no “calibrate” link, even though I have the power meter detected. Im using Favero Assioma _I dont know if may be soemthing related to this powermeter (I dont think so) or anything Im missing….
To get to calibrate you’ve got a few options:
A) Setup automatic calibration prompts like Marek notes
B) Swipe down from the top menu to access the widgets, and you’ll see the ‘Calibrate’ option right below the sensors. You need to have the sensor actively on (so pedal a few times).
C) Do the same as ‘B’, except tap into sensors, choose your sensor, and then press calibrate
D) You can just go straight to the settings > sensors menu, then choose your power meter and then choose calibrate
I’ve tested it on the Favero Assioma, and it works fine there.
Hi Ray, thanks for answering, then is definitely something strange on my unit. Im using a 830 with the latest firmware and using Favero assioma, Im attacchhing u a picture of the widgets screen where u can see there is no “calibrate direct link”
P.S. I hace both assioma detected and connected to the sensors pool
Odd. And to confirm, the power meter icon is on (and not blinking)? Also, if you click that sensors button, then select your Assioma pedals, and then do you get a calibrate button?
If not, does it show connected via ANT+ or Bluetooth Smart? And finally, if via BT, go ahead and remove the pairing and re-search/pair for the ANT+ side, the easiest way to see the difference is the ANT side will be a simple bummer (45, 7872, etc…).
Do you have a “Controls” menu when you swipe left/right of the screen you attached to your post? The link should be under “controls” page of the swipe down menu.
Alternatively, click on sensors, select Assioma, check its settings and turn automatic calibration on.
Hi all, thanks for your replies, but this is rather weird hehehe:
1- the power meter icon is on (and not blinking)?: YES, is not blinking and I got the garmin notification of “powermeter detected”
2-if you click that sensors button, then select your Assioma pedals, and then do you get a calibrate button?—YES. This way I can do it perfectly. but i was looking a quicker way.
3- Im not sure how to identify wether is BT or ANT+. Currently I have 2 powermeters detected 489XX and another longer with letters and numbers. I thought it was both pedals, but it may be both kind of connections…
4- Do you have a “Controls” menu when you swipe left/right of the screen you attached to your post? The link should be under “controls” page of the swipe down menu.—-YES, I have attached it, but there I cant find anything related to powerrmeters ;-)
THANKS everyone involved!!!
Yeah, so the numbers/letters one is the Bluetooth variant. Go ahead and delete that out. You just want/need the ANT+ one, especially since once Favero releases the cycling dynamics update, that’ll only be ANT+.
Speaking of Favero Cycling Dynamics, ;).. do we know how soon is “very very soon”? :D
Thanks
wop, not even deleting both and just accepting the ANT+ is giving me the cnace of “calibrating” directly on this screen.
Would any of you make me the favour os posting a screenshot of that screen where I can see the calibrate option (830 please)
I reaallyyyy appreciate it!
Antonio, did you solve your problem? Its the same with me, no direct calibration. If you ve got a solution please share.
Ray,
As always-thank you for taking the time to complete such wonderful reviews and follow up with answers for users. Mine is showing that it will be delivered today. I’m upgrading from an Edge 520 and I’m looking forward to having a touch screen again, the faster processing, and new metrics.
Question: Is it still ‘safe’ to simply grab the ‘settings’, ‘sports’, ‘locations’, and ‘courses’ files straight off the 520 and move them to the 830 to get the screens, locations, etc all setup quickly for me on the new unit? I’d like to ‘grab and go’ to use the new unit for my workout today right after it arrives without wasting a whole lot of time.
Or has something changed with the new interface of the newest units that makes that process ‘not stable’ any more?
Thanks,
Sean
Has anyone found out how to use Connect IQ data fields? I knew how to do this on the 1000, but on the 830 there isn’t a visible option for this, and the manual is no help at all.
Whoops, posted too quickly. (Embarrassed emoji)
i’m having issues with the 830’s gps accuracy. exact same route, verified mileage:
garmin edge 510: 9.08 miles
polar vantage V : 9.08 miles
garmin edge 830: 8.32 miles
i’m finding on just about every ride the 830 is underreporting miles by 0.5 to 1.5 miles. using GPS+GLONASS with the current latest fw. i’m going to try reinstalling the maps tonight and switching to GALILEO, but i have no idea what would cause these issues
Any chance you have a track overlay comparison (such as with the Analyzer or something else)? link to dcrainmaker.com
That makes it easier to see where the two tracks differ. I wouldn’t expect any map changes to matter. :-/
And also, any chance there’s a speed sensor involved somewhere?
Hi Ray,
Apologies if anyone else has already asked this but I am having issues with the climb pro feature on the 830. When I load a route I can see the page where it has identified the climbs m. When I approach one of these climbs the 830 seems to strangely flicker across some random screens, it then pops up “GO” but that’s it. The ClimbPro screen I’ve seen on all the promotional material is nowhere to be found?
Rob
I saw the same thing until I added the elevation screen to the activity, then it worked.
Hi,
similar problem on the 530. On my last run it even crashed to restart (and lost some tracking data) at the beginning of each “climb pro”.
Had elevation screen turned off. So I will try this hint on my next trip to see if this can workaround. (Even so the elevation screen seem useless I would like the Climb Pro to work)
Thx
Michael
Two questions related to the 1030 vs 830:
1. Do you expect Garmin to release a new 10xx with better processor or other upgrades in order to differentiate from the 830/530 releases?
2. Regardless of #1, is the 1030 processor meaningfully slower than the newer processors in the 530/830?
Asking because my 800 is finally falling apart (rubber on/off button disintegrated and now have bare opening to the on/off mechanism)
Thanks, George
1) Nope. The 530/830 are all designed to match the naming scheme of the 130 and 1030. They’re seen as a complete product ‘series’, if you will.
2) I don’t think the 1030 processor is meaningfully slow in most scenarios. It’s slightly slower in routing (one of these days I’ll put all the units side by side), but not enough that it’s mattered to me. I know if you compare the CIQ app benchmark test times side by side it is slower by a fair bit, but that’s not real life. It’s just a fictional thing of potential that’s never used.
Ray, thanks for the VERY quick response. I guess I just need to go to my nearest Garmin retailer and look at screen size and think about my 70 year old eyes and what they can manage. :-). The $100 rebate suggests to me that they recognize their 530/830 pricing has made the original extra cost of the slightly larger screen not worth the price difference, which was one of the reasons I was wondering whether we’d see a “1040” or similar newer model coming out soon, given the two year old status of the 1030. PS – I already subscribe to the weekly newsletter and really enjoy both the summary details and the family/activity updates.
George,
I’ve used an Edge 1000 for the last 4 years and I was concerned about the smaller screen of the 830. I’m quite happy with the change. I don’t have any problem with the slightly smaller screen size. It seems to be brighter and sharper. I’m not 70 yet but getting there at a young 65. :-) And I do need glasses but I’m not blind.
Louis
Louis – thanks for the feedback. I have a friend with a 530 which is the same screen as best I can tell. It looked OK to me, but then I wasn’t trying to read it while riding, so your input is helpful.
George
Hi,
First of all, thanks for you clear review regarding this device. I have a question regarding live Strava segments. Currently I have a edge 820, and as far as I know there is no possibility to see your starred Strava segments when navigating a course. I almost always navigate a course… So I almost never see the live segment on my device. Now my question is if the edge 830 does support this feature during a course? Other devices such as a wahoo have this feature. Thanks for in advance for checking my question!
Hi everyone. I have purchased successive Garmin edges…the latest being the 830. What is going on with the LiveTracking feature? Garmin heavily promotes it but Live Track has not been working for over a year!! I’ve downloaded, deleted the app numerous times, paired, unpaired the phone hundreds of times. NOTHING!!!!! It won’t even send out the Strava Beacon…let alone Auto Start The message I keep getting is “Cannot send invites at this time. Try again later.” This should be the EASIEST function for Garmin to get right being in the GPS business and all. Can someone finally get to the bottom of this. New 830, new IPhone….same old problem. Second, the sync function works only half the time….why does the Edge 830 have two different Bluetooth connections?
Hi dudes, I wrote last week since I have a 830 updated to the latest firmware and I can’t get the “calibrate” direct link in the “controls” page. I have seen some screenshots from the 530 where u have the calibrate link there but none in the 830. I have tried everything (ant+, blte..) but no way, I never get the link.
Can anyone post a picture or confirm me that he/she can see this calibrate link under the home screen? Using a 830!!!
Thanks everyone
Hi Antonio….I think this is the screenshot you’re looking for on an 830.
@Garrett: Where is that screen? I can’t find it in my 830.
Hi together, does anyone know if it is possible to add a waypoint or a nearby POI to a currently active route? If I try to do so, the currently active route will be replaced with a new one instead of just adding a the new waypoint to the currently active route. :/
How does ClimbPro work in the woods? I am an enduro rider and one of my regular courses is a 600 foot / 1-mile climb that takes me around 15 minutes. I currently race against the live segment, but would prefer the ClimbPro metric if possible. Is it only for complete routes? Or does it work on segments as well? (Routes don’t work very well in the woods, unfortunately.)
Another great review as always.
You have to be navigating, but there’s no requirement that the route is a loop so far as I know. You could always set up a route that consists entirely of up the climb and begin navigating at the bottom and see what happens. It needs to know where you’re going so it can use the DEM to identify upcoming climbs. I’ve only done complete routes myself (and the climbs it identifies can be strange).
No loop requirement. I did some in-woods ClimbPro segments in California. Worked just like out on the road. But it must be on a route of some sorts.
Paul nailed the one option you could have in just creating a route that roughly covers that climb. Something short – like 1.5mi or so. Then simply load up that route on the fly as you approach it. Once you do it a few times (the loading on the fly), it’ll become quick.
I suspect Garmin is hearing the feedback on having ClimbPro act more like Strava Segments, in that they just ‘happen’ as you ride through. It’s a Gen1 feature, so just like they’re wanting to hear peoples feedback on what triggers a climb in terms of length/height, I suspect they’re taking in feedback on other elements too.
Doesn’t it work that way (sort of) on the watches? I remember my Epix changing color or something and putting up some kind of climbing screen when I was skiing up a climb.
As far as ClimbPro on the 830 goes, the improvements I’d like to see are 1) upcoming climbs screen disappears when there aren’t any more. 2) descents aren’t included in climbs. Last weekend I did a ride with 4 identified climbs. The first was one I do a lot so I’ve seen this weirdness before. It identifies a climb of 5+ miles, starting about 3/4 mile away from home with a gentle 2-3% up, followed by a right turn onto 8% for about 1/10 mile, then a descent of 3/4 mile, followed by gradual (few %) uphill until with about 2 miles to go you reach what I consider the actual climb, which averages about 7% but has ramps that go higher (there’s only a little relief near the beginning in a hairpin turn). The next two were climbs according to it and according to me. The last was marked at about 3 miles, about a mile up a “road” consisting of rocks and runoff channels where you had to pick out a line for a mile (6-8%) followed by a long, gradual descent (about 100 ft over 1 mile), and then another actual climb, 3/4 miles at about 7%. I would have split that into two climbs. The other thing I’ve noticed is that it seems to reach back so it can lie about the average grade of a climb. There’s one I do frequently which is identified at about 1 1/2 miles at 3%, which is fine, except the the last 1/3 mile is at 10+%. Seeing an average 3% is a little misleading. Oh, and 3) the ClimbPro screen should show the entire climb, no matter how long it is, so you can see what’s coming.
I have a question that i don’t seem to be able to find the answer to, having just received my 830;
I use my existing Garmin on two bikes, my road bike and my TT bike. Each has its own speed sensor but i swap my powertap P1 pedals between each bike.
Crucially, the bikes both run different crank lengths. On my existing 810, that’s fine as each bike has it’s own profile, but clearly i can’t do this on the 830?
Do set up a new profile for each bike along the lines of ‘Road’, ‘Indoor’ etc and just create one for each bike? Or is there another way?
Thanks
Unfortunately it’s tied to the sensor ID, so that stays the same. It’s the same for all other companies. To be fair, this isn’t entirely a Garmin thing. It’s because the ANT+ & BLE specs for crank length set it on the sensor, so it’s read back from the sensor itself as well.
Thanks Ray
That’s a shame and pretty frustrating. Seems a backwards step for a pretty simple function.
I also have different bikes with different crank lengths, switching Vector 3s between the two, which worked well on my previous 810. Would the solution be to forget/remove the Vector 3s on the 830 each time I switch bikes and then re-pair with the correct crank length?
I presume correct crank length is still crucial to accurate power readings on the new 830?
Ray,
Thanks for all that you do!
After using a pair of 800s for many years (darn five bike profile limit!), I just made the move to an 830.
While the 800 kept track of each bike’s accumulated mileage on the device, the 830 does not appear to. And there doesn’t seem to be a way to migrate that data, either automatically, or manually, to the 830 or connect.garmin.com directly.
I didn’t want to lose the accumulated mileage for each bike, and found that this approach below worked for me:
Enter manual activity on Garmin Connect App
Select Gear for which you want to make mileage adjustment
Edit activity on connect.garmin.com, changing the mileage to whatever you want the base to be, and changing the date of that manual activity to some long past date.
The data for that month/quarter/year will be incorrect, but if it’s long enough in the past you shouldn’t care.
Now both the Garmin Connect app and connect.garmin.com have the “correct” mileage for each bike. And 2001 appears to have been a huge year for me! :)
I cannot find how to add TSS as a data field on 830. Got it on 1030 but just doesn’t seem to be an option on 830. Kind of useful on the ride figure if you base your weekly training load on a TSS figure to know where you stand on the ride you are now doing? What am I missing or is this no longer an option?
5th from the bottom under the power data field menu…right at the bottom, even past the time in power zones
Does anyone bike with child + trailer? I think the stats will be influenced (meaning training effect, calories, …) and are not really correct. How do you do it? Are you increasing your weigth for this ride by 30kg (or whatever)? Great would be if Garmin implements a trailer activity profile ;).
Is there a max file size for TCX / GPX routes? I’ve been told Garmins struggle to deal with long routes. Does anyone have any experience of loading a 1000km route onto a garmin (830) and being able to follow it?
Hi Ray,
Received my 830 yesterday, because its BT enable etc I decided to pair my sensors using BT only. Paired my Wahoo Tickr X no problem, paired my Quarq DZero crank no problem (even showed up as Quarq XXXX) so thought all is good, im set up for my ride tomorrow morning at sparrows fart.
Woke up this morning, all sensors paired, calibrated quarq and off I went. Except, I wasn’t getting any power readings from the Quarq? Had to stop and pair the Quarq using ANT+ and carry on. Have you had an opportunity to pair using BT only and get readings?
I have tried googling the issue but can’t find anything. I’m not sure if its a Quarq issue or a Garmin issue?
Kind regards,
Dwaine
With firmware 3.20, I saw this all the time using BLE for sensors, the device was unusable. Switching to ANT+ worked around it. I’m sure Garmin is working on a fix.
Where can you switch between BLE and Ant+?
Ik was searching to link my cadence and speed sensor by Ant+ but it onlusten showde me one result to select. (Even when I checked, search more option)
3.50 came out today
So update:
Still on 3.20 the 3.50 hasn’t arrived in SA yet, switched off iPhone wifi and BT but kept wifi on, on the Garmin 830, de-activated all the ANT+ sensors and only kept the BT for HR and Power Meter (Power2Max) active.
Went for my ride this morning, the Garmin did not prompt to calibrate obviously but it connected to the sensors no problem at all and did not drop out once the entire ride, worked flawlessly.
I think the problem / solution is the following, and I don’t think it is necessary a Garmin issue / fault. The BT power meters all have their brand apps on your phone, BT only connects to one device at a time so…I think what is happening is, if your phones BT is on, when you wake the BT Power meter, its connecting to the phone first, then to the Garmin BUT THEN, when you start riding, for some reason its probably connecting back to the phone and forgetting the Garmin completely.
Solution, for me at least using FW 3.20…switch your phone BT off! But yes, we shouldn’t be having this problem and that’s not how it was designed to work etc.
That’s how Bluetooth was designed to work, a sensor can only pair to one device, although that’s supposed to change Real Soon Now.
The release notes for 3.50 say that Garmin recommends always using ANT+ if possible. And somewhere I saw that Garmin is using phased rollouts for 3.50 and it was at 20% yesterday when I saw that.
Does anyone cycle with a child and bicycle trailer and use the 830? How do you adjust it so that the values fit more accurately (calories and training status, for example)? Garmin could implement a “bicycle trailer” mode :)
Happy 830 owner, update from my 520. The screen is much butter and I alsso like the touchscreen alot. Much better then buttons.
Only a question about the navigation sounds. Can you disable the turn alerts?
I know you can turn of all sounds in the menu but then you don’t get a sound for start a registration (if you forgot after taking a coffee break) or the hydratation reminder, I really like this on long rides.
Thanks
I find it hard to believe that you experienced no false-positives with the incident detection; in my expresience there is a false-positive like every 50km. This happens when braking quite hard and stopping completely. I wish it would be possible to tune down the sensitivity because like this it is a quite annoying feature.
As noted, I’ve seen false positives on the watches but not on the Edge 530/830. Maybe I just brake in a more controlled manner when approaching a stop. ?
For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen one either. Then again, I usually see the “Incident Detection Enabled” message only after I’ve finished a ride (if then), so I have no idea if it’s actually doing what it’s supposed to do.
Several hundred miles now and I’ve yet to get a false positive with the incident detection.
I have the 1030 since a year ago and had to disable the “feature” due to the same issue.
I’ve had the 830 for about a month and this past weekend had it trigger an emergency notification. I very slowly rolled to a stop and unclipped, then bent over to adjust my RD. Alarms started going off on both my phone and the 830. Once I realized what it was I immediately hit “cancel” on the 830 screen well before the countdown ended but it still sent the message. In addition, it gave me another message that the message could not be sent due to some connection error with my phone. That was wrong because my wife did immediately receive the message and began to panic until she heard from me that it was a false alarm. The “feature” is a nice idea but unacceptable to be sending false alarms. And if I disable it, the damn thing beeps and flashes a message at me incessantly.
I had a similar thing happen: I laid my bike down at a stop (though I can’t remember how quickly I laid it down) and it sent a message to my wife before I could cancel the notification. She immediately called me, understandably nervous. I subsequently disabled the emergency notification function as I thought it was too sensitive and would generate too many false positives. I think the sensitivity should be dialed back a bit to make it a practical feature for me.
I really appreciate your reviews Ray. They are the most in depth out there.
Two road rides in from my upgrade from the Edge 810 and I have two questions.
1) How do I dis-able Virtual Partner? I never use this feature and i don’t want any notifications or displays from this feature. It was easy on the 810…I just turned VP off in the settings for each course that i loaded.
2) My main screen has six data fields. I prefer the 810 format of two large fields on top and 4 small fields on the bottom of the screen. This is not an option on the 830. Is there an IQ app that allows more customization of the screen?
I received and have been using my 830 now for a couple weeks and am very pleased with the unit overall (upgraded from a 520). It really seems to be pretty well refined for a ‘Garmin’ and has loads of very nice features.
Question: I’m about to get a Fenix 5X for general activity tracking and it provides metrics that the Edge doesn’t (activity points for instance). If I record activities onto both devices, does Garmin connect have a way of merging the data together so I don’t get double entries for the activity? In other words, if I go ride a 42 mile route and record on both devices, I don’t want to have TrainingPeaks to see double the distance, TSS, etc and get messed up simply because I uploaded the same activity from two devices. I also don’t want my yearly training record to get artificially ‘inflated’ by double uploads-yet I like some of the additional information that the Fenix provides (but the Edge 830 provides more-for cycling-that the Fenix doesn’t have either).
I plan to use the Fenix 5X for general activity tracking, sleep, stress, and for activities like hiking, XC skiing, and walking (I don’t do the ‘R–‘ word, LOL).
Thanks,
Sean
No. I own an 830 and a 5+. There is some cross talk between them via Connect, but if you record a ride on both, it will show up as two activities. The easiest way to avoid that is to simply not record rides on your 5X. My 5+ knows (or will know at some point) that the last activity I did was a 20 mile ride recorded on my 830. (the Garmin market-speak for this is “Physio TrueUp” or something like that). But rides will be double counted if they’re recorded on both.
Hi Ray
fantastic review and upgraded to Edge 830. I have different bikes with different crank lengths, switching Vector 3s between the two, which worked well on my previous Edge 810 by having different bike profiles with different crank lengths. However, I cannot find how to set different crank profiles on the Edge 830. Can you advise if this is still possible? I presume correct crank length is still crucial to accurate power readings on the new 830?
If not , would the only solution be to forget/remove the Vector 3s on the 830 each time I switch bikes and then re-pair with the correct crank length?
Has anyone had issues charging 830 or 530 through a USB-C to USB adapter on a MAC? Both the 530 and 830 have gotten corrupted beyond repair and other than the possibility of receiving two bad units that’s the only thing I can suspect
Yikes, Bill. That sounds like a hot mess. Looks like mine finally shipped yesterday, and I’ll be syncing through a Mac, too. Will check in if I have any issues. Thanks for bringing this up.
I plugged my 830 in to a powered usb hub last night whilst the pc was off and noticed a strange boot loop where the garmin seemed to think it was connected to a pc, start a boot, then power off and repeat in around a 5-10 second interval. Maybe leaving the device plugged in to this kind of port (rather than a wall wart, or a powered on pc) might have done some damage by constant rebooting for hours without actually loading the system properly each time?
When I saw it, I unplugged it straight away and charged via a normal wall plug. No issues so far!
Hey Ray,
Do you know of any current issues with the 830 freezing?
My father bought a Unit right before the Maratona (which we ride tomorrow) and he’s noticing the unit going fully unresponsive to the point where he has to power it down (holding the power button for ~10 seconds). So far he has had the live tracking enabled each ride which he will try and not have going tomorrow to see if that does anything…
He is running the latest firmware but understandably is pretty annoyed with it not functioning as it should, having made the switch from Garmin to Wahoo myself a few years ago because I was annoyed with the level of their software I can understand his frustration….
Anything you’ve heard before around your ‘scene’ or should he just contact Garmin support in the hopes they will actually do an adequate job of fixing/replacing his unit?
Greetings,
Folkert
That’s a total bummer. Good luck tomrorrow! Many times when that has happened to me in the past (this is for all previous units I’ve owned), it’s been usually because of a corrupt/bad .gpx/.tcx/route/course file. If you clean them all off and re-push (or find another version…I recommend this) I’ve had success.
Anyone know how to turn off virtual partner? I got rid of the screen for it but it still starts off when I start a route and that thing is faster than me so every ride I get a God damn notification to say it has beat me! Quite deflating.
Also, anyone else still having trouble syncing it? After rides I have to disconnect it from my phone, then turn wifi auto sync off and on again. Quite a pain. I have a 935 which is always connected via Bluetooth so I wonder if that gets in the way of it? Also, why don’t they just sync via wifi as a preference if it’s in range? Why even have it as a feature if the default is never to use it?
Other than these minor gripes I enjoy it, but they add unnecessary annoyance.
Oh, final thing – the true up between my 935 and 830 don’t match. They have different values and sometimes have me in different training status. Plus the 830 has some extra physio metrics compared to 935 so they show up weirdly in Garmin Connect. I have to switch back and forward between them and go to different time views to get it to work. Garmin really need to sort that out because it’s not at all coherent or useful.
same here: trueup not in sync between 830 and 935. Disappointing.
How do I load a new set of maps onto garmin 830? Do I put them in the location with all the other maps on the device? Thanks!
Hi Ray
Don’t suppose you have seen any issues with displaying cycling dynamics from V3s? Purchased 830 and V3s but despite latest software and reset I cannot get Dynamics page to show data – pedals display power on 830 screens but Dynamis screen is empty and dispite manual stating you can select CD in the Sensor set-up page that selection is not showing?
Vector 3S pedals are not capable of outputting the cycling dynamics that would normally display on the data screen. The cycling dynamics include Seated/Standing Position, Power Phase (PP), Platform Center Offset (PCO), Right/Left Balance and all require a two sided Vector system to calculate.
The Vector 3s single sided pedals are not capable of calculating the Cycling Dynamics that would normally display on this page. Cycling Dynamics include: Seated/Standing Position, Power Phase (PP), Platform Center Offset (PCO), Right/Left Balance and all require a two sided Vector 3 system to calculate.
Ray, thanks for the review.
Stock on clevertraining.co.uk still shows “early June” … any guess when it will be in stock?
Dear Ray and Readers,
I’ve been using the fenix 5+ a my bike Computer for a year now and i like it quite well. Only Problem ist that I need more datafields per page.
So I recently bought the edge 830 and I’m suprized:
I can not select more than two datafields on the ‘map’-page. WTF??!
Did I miss something or is there going to be a firmwareupdate allowing more flexible Layouts? This is truely a dealbreaker for me and I’m going to return that thing.
Is it possible to Show more than 2 datafields+elevation-graph on the edge 130?
Thank you.
No, it’s been that way for a long time on Edges. But, like the 5+, you can have more than one data page, and on non-map pages you can have a lot of fields. Personally I have no fields on my 830 map page at all, since I came from the larger screen of the 1000 and I don’t want to lose any map area to data fields that I can just display on other pages.
Paul S, thank you for the information. The Point is that I need more Datapages particulary on the Map-page.
@ Ray: Is there any possibility to ask Garmin to make the Map-Page more flexible? Also for the Fenix 5+’s Map Page! Why don’t they simply replicate the two bottom-Fields on the Top of the Fenix’ Map-screen??! That would be PERFECT! I don’t understand why the do not give the user that flexibility… If they tell that it’s difficult to read 4 Data-fields on themap-screen on the fenix 5, at least let the user decide for themselves if they like it. I definitely would!
Thank you Ray!
Any update on the features coming to the 1030? Garmin said this when I asked when they were coming:
Sorry, Eli, but I haven’t heard anything on that. Please send feature requests directly to our design team for review at the following link: link to garmin.com
^DK
Is it correct that the 830’s navigation map screen doesn’t display speed and/or distance info? (Even my old Edge Touring can do that.)
You mean the turn prompt screen that shows up when you’re near a turn? In addition to a close up map, it shows “time to point” (almost always wrong, since I think it uses an average speed to calculate it) and “distance to point”, and I don’t know if you can change that. Or do you mean the map page that’s there even when a turn isn’t coming up, or when you’re not navigating a route? I by choice have no fields on mine but so far as I know that’s just the normal map page, and you can put up to two fields of your choice on it. It might get a little crowded since when you are following a route there’s a navigation prompt on top basically telling you what’s next and how far away it is, but I think you can turn that off.
You can customize what fields display on the map view. You can have up to 2 fields on the map screen. I put distance to destination and distance covered on there, but you could put speed on there, or anything else your heart desires.
I was specifically referring to the map page that can be displayed all the time, whether or not you’re approaching a turn. That’s the view I would want to use most of the time.
Hi. Does the 830 (or the 530) speak turn-by-turn directions aloud? If so, does it do so through its own speaker, or does it need to be paired with a Bluetooth speaker?
Also, if I load a route from Ride with GPS, for example, will it speak my custom cues as entered into Ride with GPS, or will it replace them with the generic turn cues that are generated by the Garmin? (For example, if I have a custom cue on a RwGPS route for a rest stop, will the Garmin announce the rest stop aloud when I get there?)
Yes, it can, but not through its own speaker. The directions come out of the paired phone, and it needs to be enabled in the Connect app. I tried it for a few rides and then turned it off because I found it too annoying. No idea about the RwGPS question.
Thanks, Paul. Does anybody else know about how the Edge 830 handles Ride with GPS custom cues? Does it speak them aloud as typed in Ride with GPS, or does it replace them with standardized turn cues that it generates itself based on the route?
The review above is very informative, but I’d like to see more information about the navigation and guidance capabilities of the unit, including turn-by-turn directions and integration with non-Strava platforms like RwGPS, as that’s mostly what I would be using it for. Thanks again!
I’ve used the audio a couple of times now. Because my phone is in my back jersey pocket, it is more useful (or distracting) to the person behind me. Volume from the phone just isn’t loud enough. Now if I had the phone in front of me, it might be more useful. It does at least call my attention to the fact that a turn is coming but I need to look at my Garmin to see what it is.
Thanks, Louis. Volume isn’t a concern for me because I have a Bluetooth speaker.
Now, does anybody else know about how the Edge 830 handles Ride with GPS custom cues? Does it speak them aloud as typed in Ride with GPS, or does it replace them with standardized turn cues that it generates itself based on the route?
I’ve just started using the 830 this week. I love it except for one thing – the calorie count is absurd. I don’t use a heart rate monitor, so I understand the accuracy is lower, but still, the calories burned are almost double any other measure I’ve used. For instance, for a 25 mile ride I did yesterday:
Garmin – 1600 calories burned
Strava – 900 calories burned
Back of napkin 40 calories/mile calculation – 1000 calories burned
Garmin’s number is ridiculous. Any way to adjust/fix this without using a heartrate monitor? Thanks!
Any calorie calculation that does not use calculated power output will be at best a WAG, including calculations that rely on heartrate info. There are many Connect IQ fields that purport to calculate calorie burn in various ways, but it’s a highly individualized number, so I’d doubt they’d be accurate except by luck.
Disappointing Navigation.
Followed an 85 mile route that I created today and I intermittently experienced extremely poor navigation. To monitor nav performance, I had “Distance to Next” and “Next point Location” data fields displayed on my screen. I have software version 3.50 on my 830.
1) Occasionally after passing a turn point the “Distance to Next” would remain at ZERO sometimes as long as a half mile past the turn.
2) One time when this happened I looked at my map screen and my position was incorrect…it was back at the previous turn point. This was an error of over 1/4 mile.
3) Turns were missed because of this failure of the navigator to maintain the correct current position. There were no GPS signal obstructions when this happened.
4) As I rounded a turn (fifth turn from the end of the route – approx 3 miles to go), my “Distance to Next” was 0.12 miles. “Distance to Next” remained at 0.12 miles for the next 1/2 block.
Very disappointing Garmin. My old 810 does a better job.
I also have noticed that when I go off-course that the unit keeps telling me to make a U-turn even when a shorter route would be to tun on a parallel street.
Garmin got this right with car nav years ago – surely they can get it right on a bike computer.
Different route, same turn. “Distance to go” froze at 435ft until I got to the next turn.
The “Climb” function needs an improved algorithm. On a road ride I was on a street with some ups and downs. To my surprise “Climb” said I had a climb with an average of 7% grade. As this was ups and downs the average was closer to 1%. No single bump came close to 7%. On an MTB ride today I got two more strange “Climb” notifications. Both times I immediately did a short descent. Garmin really needs to do their homework here. Other online routers carsh designate climbs and tell you the category of the climb. The technology exists Garmin.
Also today we got to an intersection of two trails. The 830 did NOT provide a turn prompt, but the trusty 810 did pop-up with a prompt. Come on Garmin, the 830 is allegedly an improved unit.
Our MTB route today was roughly a figure 8. We climbed up a hill, descended down the backside, then climbed back up. When we got back up both the 810 and 830 wanted us to repeat the loop on the backside of the mountain. At this point we were 18 miles in to a 22 mile route. The Garmins informed us that we still had 17 miles to go. WTF? While not strictly an 830 issue, this is a pretty basic programming error. The computers knew which turns we completed, so it should have known which turns we still had to go. Basic math should have helped them figure out that we didn’t need to drop down the backside at that point. To make matters worse, we kept getting “Off Course” warnings as we continued the right way.
Fwiw – Maybe worth trying out the massive beta update released for the Edge 830: link to www8.garmin.com
I’m hopeful that the update will fix some of the issues. I’m on vacation without a computer. I’ll load the beta when I get home.
I highly doubt that the beta will fix the figure-8 problem. This has been a Garmin problem for a really long time…pre-dating bike computers.
Thanks for the review Ray. Some questions:
1. When I touch the screen, a black overlay appears on many screens. Why? How can I turn that off?
2. What is the Geocode Map and the DEM Map? What is covered by the EU Cycle Map NE +SW
Thanks
Hmm, I haven’t seen the black screen – do you have a picture by chance?
Note sure on the exact map specifics of which levels of OSM they’re compiling for inclusion.
Thinking about upgrading from my Edge 810 to Edge 830. But what about my purchased maps on sd-cards? I have two sd-cards with maps (TOPO Czech Republic and TransAlpine TOPO PRO). As Edge 830 has no sd-card slot, is it any way to continue using maps from these official garmin sd-cards also in 830 unit, i.e. is any official way to transfer them to 830’s internal memory? Garmin maps are quite expensive and I don’t want to pay for same maps again.
If they’re typical Garmin maps, then no, you can’t use them, since they’re tied to the card. You’ll need to get a 1030 to continue using them. But before you make that decision, find a way to check the maps that come with the 830 (I don’t know if those exact maps are online somewhere, but they’re based on Open Street Map which are online). So far I’ve felt no need to add any additional maps. The Garmin Cycle Maps have all of the roads/trails/etc. that I know of in my area of Central Pennsylvania, and TrailForks only helps. So the maps that come with the 830 in Europe might be all you need.
Thanks for reply. I have communicated with Garmin yesterday and it is unfortunately true, that the map license is not movable to device with no sd-card slot. It is big disappointment for me and from my point of view the buying of maps from Garmin was big mistake. So either I will have to use the preinstalled map in Edge 830 you mentioned (but I think that its level of detail will not sufficient for me) or I will add some of free maps based on Open Street project to Edge 830.
Check out velomap (road) and OpenMTB (MTB :) ).
Does the Edge 830 support 5GHz WiFi? The 820 seems to be limited to 2.4GHz.
Can you disable the virtual partner that pops up when following a saved course?
The navigation page is not that big so I would like to remove is so I can see the upcoming turnster better.
Thanks
Ray, Thanks for the review. After years on Wahoo I made the jump back to Garmin after all the amazing reviews for the 830. But it’s been nothing short of a disaster. I have all the connectivity issues you mention that require me to reset the device after every ride, which I thought was resolved in FW3.5. My device is FW2.7, but Garmin Connect and Garmin Express don’t recognise the need to update the firmware, they list 2.7 as the latest. HUH? And then when I do the manual install (copy update file to /garmin), the device doesn’t recognise an update file is there. Garmin support can’t figure it out, and I’m at the point I want to send it back. Has anyone seen this, or seen it resolved?
Beta 3.55: link to www8.garmin.com
I’m trying find out how much capacity there is on the device available for additional maps seeing as there is no SD card slot available. Does anyone know please?
Having just plugged mine in, it has a 15.43 Gb capacity of which 7.31 Gb is free on my US 830.
I had a Garmin 820 connected to Campy eps v 3 and used mode buttons set up as Edge Remote to change screens (right side) and set lap (left side)
My 830 does not recognize Campy as a remote. Any thoughts.
Check this out Joseph, couple posts down on this page:
link to weightweenies.starbike.com
Fairly general and maybe dumb question for you folks: can I simultaneously connect a power meter via ANT+ (Favero Assioma) and HR monitor via Bluetooth (Polar) to the Garmin (830 or 530)? Thanks in advance for your comments
Yes. The 830 takes sensor input with both Ant+ and Bluetooth protocols simultaneously.
Thanks David!
Thank you for such great reviews. I’ve now ordered my unit with your discount code. Very grateful.
Thanks for the support, I appreciate it!
I’m considering an upgrade from 520 Plus to 830 for battery, better navigation (I am doing more and more unknown rides), and Bluetooth Smart.
Will the 830 report to Garmin Connect intensity minutes + heart rate (w/ heart rate strap) after an activity? I’m using a 520 Plus and my 935 simultaneously because I am a numbers nerd and HATE that the heart rate and such don’t register in GCM. If I do a ride only w/ the 520P, it looks like my heart rate has no data for however long the activity was, even though it was all captured under the activity (annoying).
I don’t know what intensity minutes are, but it certainly reports heart rate. It also reports or computes other metrics (training effect, something called “exercise load”), which Ray talks about above. I’m surprised the 520+ doesn’t.
My assumption is that it should. My FR935 works on my 5ghz wifi just fine.
Edge 830 with 357Beta and can’t figure out how to ride a course in reverse direction. Connected iPhone without cell service didn’t even help. No way to send course from Edge to Phone for editing.
4.10 is out. Judging from the release notes and the release date, it’s probably just 3.57, although I did see a “Touchscreen software updating” (or something like that) when I installed it, which I don’t remember seeing when I installed 3.57 yesterday.
Is connectivity finally reliable now with recent patches?
In my experience, no. I think that it’s off to Wahoo for me. I want something that works the way it should out of the box.
Can’t really say since I don’t care about or pay much attention to Bluetooth connectivity. I’ve seen notifications from my phone on my 830 while riding, but I don’t know whether it’s reliably been connecting all the time.
Today i made a ride in Austria with a couple of for rest trails. The most of the time the routing was to late and the ride was sometimes 15 til 20 meters of the track. This was with GPS +Glonas. Is Gallileo reliable at the moment? I have had also an update Today that i have instal but not tried yet. The ride Today was with the latest bèta version. I think 3.57.
I’ve noticed similar behavior in the US with the GPS tracking. I don’t recall seeing this with my older Edge 1000. Is there a problem with GPS tracking on the 530/830? While it hasn’t made any real difference that I can tell, it is a bit annoying. I expect the GPS tracking to be at least as accurate as the 1000.
I idd get the latest update from Garmin and tried a ride with Galileo. It is better then with Glonass but in the woods with a lot of leafs it is not perfect but it is ok.
I have a Edge 520 and in the sensor menu it appears the option for detection of smart trainer and smart scale. In my Edge 830 it doesn’t.
It only detects the Tacx Flux S as a powermeter and a speed/cadence sensor ?
Are your 830 detecting your smart trainers like they should do?
Yeah, FE-C trainers are paired in a different spot now. I think it was actually that way on the Edge 520 Plus too. In any case, go to: Menu > Training > Indoor Trainer, and then pair it there.
thanks for the help Ray ;)
I bought the 830 on Clevertraining.co.uk with your code
Hi Ray,
great reveiw – as usual. ;-)
Would you mind to get in contact with Garmin to get some response for the GPS issues seen in the woods/valleys?
There are a lot of complains throughout several forums even Garmins own. But no response.
Looks to be a real dealbreaker for Gravel or Mountainbike.
Thx in advance
cheers
I ride in the mountains (central Pennsylvania, so heavily wooded) a lot and have no such issues. In my experience no GPS track bears really close examination, but the tracks from my 830 look acceptable. (Haven’t seriously looked at distances, since I use speed sensors.) Don’t exactly follow the roads/trails/etc. on the map, but then you have to wonder how accurate the map is. So it’s not a dealbreaker for me.
I do not mind and talking about distances – using speed sensor as well.
You can check the track against several maps. A good number of people having the issue simple compared with their older devices on the same map. And further they did several rounds for the same track. To see inaccurracy there do not need any map.
Some pointing that to the new Sony GPS chipset used. That is used in the Suunto 9 as well and showing similar issues.
All I can say is that mine is no better or worse than any other GPS device I’ve used for cycling (various Edges, a 60CSx handheld). But then, I don’t care that much about the accuracy of the track. If it’s close enough, it’s fine, and it almost always is. But I took the path I took no matter what the track says. The area I live in isn’t the most challenging for GPS, but it isn’t the best, either.
(Now my Fenix 5+ when walking the dog, that shows some ratty tracks.)
I’ve see that some people have TrailForks map version 2019.10. I have 2018.20 on my 830. I checked around and can’t find info on how to update. Can someone please tell me how I can update my TF map?
Thanks.
That’s odd. It should come down like any other update.
Garmin Express (PC/Mac) is the best way to double-check things like that though.
That worked. Silly me – since the 830 has WiFi I thought that I was done with Garmin Express.
Great review as always.
My 820 has just died and I am undecided between 830 and 530 . Tempted by 530 due to price difference and fact that I don’t often use maps/navigation. On my 820 I had the “hidden” hood buttons on Di2 shifters set up to scroll the screens, so during the ride I never had to use the touchscreen. A touchscreen is not essential for me. Assume that this is possible on the 530 and 830? Apologies if this was covered in the review – I didn’t see it..
Thanks
Hamish
Unless you want to be a Garmin Beta Tester I’d recommend you look at other manufacturers devices. The 830 is definitely not living up to the hype and the software is not ready for release as it’s still buggy.
Thanks. Appreciate your reply. I have subsequently read some other reviews basically saying what you have. It was the claimed battery life that was tempting me. I am currently looking at other options.
If people reading through Garmin Theads or the vendor forums I am more known as a Garmin basher using clear wording.
But the 830 launch doesn’t look to be that bad. The software getting to be more and more a feature monster supporting all the new electronic stuff on the bike. And ALL complex software has some bugs.
From Garmin basher – the launch of the 530/830 isn’t that bad.
Wait for somebody else responding to your question, or join the vendor forum to ask there.
I’ve had my 830 since launch. Some minor issues in the first week or two but rock solid since. I don’t know what all this complaining is about. And I absolutely love ClimbPro and the new performance metrics. Very happy with my upgrade from an Edge 1000.
Louis
As usual – there are complains and they are valid. You can check more on Garmin forums.
But they do not affect everybody for 2 reasons
– not everybody need everything
– Some only affecting some people
i.e. you find complains about loosing connections to phone and sensors.
Meanwhile I did several rides and that never happens to me. Even I put my phone i a backpack beneath a hydration pack and using 2 Wahoo and only one Garmin sensor.
But I never would say the guys having probs just stupid or doing something wrong.
I may occur due to specific combination of settings.
But as already stated the 830 launch is far better then 1030 and 130.
In addition we need to keep in mind features increasing massively.
Whoa! Seriously? You say the 830 is a buggy device. I just ordered one and it should be here any day now. I hope the functions I want to use work at least.
My first use of my 830 was May 16, and since then I’m probably closing in on 100 activities if not already past it (it’s surprisingly hard to quickly find out, since Physio True Up pulled months of data onto it from my Edge 1000 from before I started using the 830). I’ve lost exactly 2 miles of data on a 20 mile ride when it froze on me. One day a few weeks ago I took it out to the garage and tried to turn in on and it wouldn’t. Took it back inside and plugged it in and the battery was at 0%. Left it plugged in and used my 1000 for that ride. Once it froze when computing a route before I started out, but I just restarted it and it worked fine during the route. Those are the only problems I’ve had with it. GPS is about the same as any other Edge I’ve used, I don’t care about Bluetooth or Live Tracking, ClimbPro is neat if a little weird (why does it choose those climbs?). It, like all recent Garmin devices I’ve used, displays one altitude and records another, but the difference is tiny. Navigation works fine if a little weird as well (why does it prompt some turns where there’s no chance whatsoever of going wrong but is silent at intersections?), but it handles the out-and-backs and the loops that I had trouble with with previous Edges. The MTB metrics are a little weird (why kilo-grits, why not just define the grit so you get a hundred or so?), and I’m 65 so I don’t jump (although it’s recorded 2 jumps, one of which I know why and one of which I don’t). But I’m very happy with my move from the 1000.
This is Garmin’s 4th generation in the series. I expect them to have learned from the previous 3 generations and to release a more mature product. Yes s/w will always have bugs that need to be fixed, but it seems like Garmin has not learned from the previous generations in this series. Sure, maybe the new modes – like ClimbPro, need tweaking, but that does not explain why the most basic navigation functions are worse than the first generation of car GPS units from 20 years ago.
In what way? Car GPS units from 10 years ago (about when I started using one) were all point to point, and that very definitely showed in the early Garmin cycling units. My Edge 705 would most of the time try to send me around loops again after I completed one in the middle of the ride, ignoring the rest of the route. With my 800, I had to start navigation after I started the ride since the end point and the beginning point were the same. If I started navigation when I started the ride, then it often figured that it’s job was done since I had reached the end point and frantically attempted to get me to do U-turns back to the start. My Edge 1000 fixed most of that, but leaving the course had it frantically attempt to make me go back to exactly where I’d left the course, which wasn’t always possible. The 830 has displayed none of these problems, and because of ClimbPro I navigate a lot more than I used to. I’ve already written above about the quirks I find a little odd, but it’s much better than my previous three Edges. The Edge 830 is the best cycling navigation device I’ve used to date.
My 2016 Honda Pilot has a Garmin built into the dash and we had (until my wife left it in Florida) a Nuvi 2599. Both of them have the odd quirk of when I get off an interstate to stop for some reason, they want me to drive along secondary roads to the next intersection rather than get back on the one I just got off. And forget about loops or out-and-back sections, they just aren’t designed for that. They do what most drivers want them to do, direct from one point to another (and are aware of traffic and potential problems ahead), but sometimes you just have to ignore what they’re telling you. They do a pretty good job of recovering and redirecting you if you have to deviate from their advice.
I’m replacing an Edge 820 as the power connector has failed. Hopefully this one last longer.
Is there a place where we can make suggestions to Garmin? For example, the lights menu needs a setting for daytime and night time modes when in auto. The defaults selected by the device is just not correct, and fiddling with the menu to change the light settings is combersome. And why can’t the foot pod work as a cadence sensor? Wahoo makes a cadence device like this and many ebikes do not have the setup that allows a peddle crank mount to work.
Thanks again for your reviews.
The review text states:
“But perhaps the most important feature on the entire new Edge 530/830 units is the significantly faster processor.”
Is this realy true?
I designed a 275km distance route and uploaded it to my old Edge 800. It takes years before the process is finished and the device is ready to start guiding me. Let’s translated the “years” into measured time: 11min 54 sec. I would call it inacceptable.
A comparison with calculating the same route on a Edge 830 resulted in 7min 17 sec. I wouldn’t call it significantly faster. And that is not compared to the previous generation, but to an almost 10 year old device.
My illisuon to invest in a new device which offers me real improvements and not just features I don’t need (air time etc) is distroyed.
The siginicantly faster processor is not faster at all,or Garmin is not able to improve their algorithms accordingly.
Unfortunatley I don’t have the option to perform comparison tests on other devices, but I would be highly interesed in getting such results.
I
I actually listed very specific examples in the review on load times for lesser routes.
However, I’d argue that a 275KM is far beyond the ordinary. There’s likely things Garmin could do to improve that, but if it takes 7 minutes to load it all – keep in mind you don’t have to wait for it to finish. Garmin loads courses in order of the ride, so you could head out and it’ll catch up.
Also, even if you did wait for 7 minutes, I presume it’d going to take you more than a dozen hours to ride that – I’m not sure waiting 7 minutes is a huge issue per se.
Thanks for your comment / answer. And you are right, compared to the required riding time it is just a fraction. At least as long as you don’t need to recalculate the route during your journey due to whatever reasons (system crash, lost sensor connection, deviation, etc…).
Hence, discussing what is acceptable and what is disappointing is a subjective metric.
The measured time is a different subject. It reflects the system performance (processor and algorithms) and is objective, even knowing that it is not a complete metric to assess the system performance. However, I would just expect more after 10 years. Garmin would charge me 350 bugs for updating my hardware. And if I don’t care about most of the new features, but about the performance, they need to provide more to convince me.
Unfortunately I don’t have a new device in my hands to test it under real driving conditions during a ride. Hence, I will wait for the next generation and continue to read your reviews.
Barometer | Elevation | Gradient issues.
Hi, I pre-ordered my 830 so was one of the first to receive it. It worked well from the start and I am very happy with it however in the last few weeks or so I have problems:
The elevation is completely wrong even when it automatically gets the correct start elevation or I manually calibrate. My usual local 1000m road climb is showing 800m, planned routes are not correct and I arrive back at the start point with it showing a higher elevation. I ride all over the Jura and Alpes mountain roads and the 830 is now out every time. It wasn’t when I first used it. The gradients are well out and lag. 11% local climb showing much less and flat rides showing – 10/15%. I have to use the elevation correction option in Garmin Connect and Strava after every ride now and this makes it true. Has anyone else got these problems and solved it please??
I forgot another bug that started around the same time as the elevation. The 830 warns me that my Garmin cadence sensor battery is low every time turn the Edge on. I have now changed the battery twice for brand new ones and it still gives a warning. Once dismissed it doesn’t come back until the 830 is restarted.
The 830 went back to Garmin Switzerland yesterday for a replacement. (Garmin Switzerland were very good) I tried loads of things to get the elevation correct but I am consistently losing around 200m for every 1000m. Last Saturday I did a Swiss mountain 3 col loop (Nufen-Gotthard-Furka) which is around 3300-3400m total and it was showing 2700/2800m. My ride buddies with 530 and 520 all had better if not accurate readings. Hopefully it was a buggy sensor as manual using the correction in Connection then Strava is just a pain on a phone browser as it can’t be done via the apps.
Hola buenos días:
Les escribo con la finalidad de si serían tan amables de poder resolver la siguiente incidencia.
Desde hace unos días, he apreciado que tengo problemas para que se me vuelquen los tracks descargados en mi Garmin 820 Edge
Como primera opción, llevaba el track descargado a la carpeta de New files del Gps en formato gpx y lo apagaba. Al encenderlo, autómaticamente lo trasladaba a la carpetas courses en formato fit. Esto ahora no lo realiza.
No se observa en la carpeta courses el track que se habia cargado en la carpeta NEw Files ¿?
Como seguna opción, mediante la app de garmin Connet del ordenador y del movil, descargaba el track en entrenamientos / trayectos lo importaba y lo enviaba al movil o como al ordenador. La incidencia en si es la misma puesto que el track esta descargado en el movil , pero a la hora de sincronizar , observo que no se vuelca al Gps ¿?.
He ido a configuración /sistema/restablecimiento del dispositivo y hay 2 opciones:
1. Rest configuracion predeterminada
2. Borrar datos y restauracion conf.
He optado x la primera opción para mantener las actividades y tracks bajados con resultado negativo.
Si que observé hace unas 2-3 semanas que en el apartado de los tracks bajados , cuando iba por cada uno de los tracks bajados , cuando hacia visualización del track, el mapa del track estaba corrompido y eliminaba el track y apartir de ahi si que podia bajar los siguientes. Pero ahora observo que no esta solucionado. No sé si sería problema de sowtware. He pasado antivirus y todo ok
Have you used this successfully for mountain bike navigation, where it tells you which turn to take when you get to a fork? All reviews and illustration I’ve found are for road navigation, but this device is touted as the best Garmin device for mountain biking so far. I can’t seem to make mine to reliably tell where to turn (I have turn guidance on for my course).
My answer to that would be a qualified yes. Navigation is pretty good, but by no means perfect, and often times just weird. It prompts places where there’s no doubt what to do, but gives no guidance (aside from the course line on the map) at places where you’d expect it to give some guidance. I navigate a lot more that I did with my previous Edges because of ClimbPro, so maybe I’m just noticing problems because I’m using it a lot more. Most of the time now I use it to navigate routes I’ve done hundreds of times before, so there’s never any possibility of getting lost or off course, but I wish it worked a little more rationally so far as turn guidance went. (The choice of climbs in ClimbPro is also a little weird.) Of course, navigation depends on the quality of the maps, and they’ll vary depending on your location.
I’m currently looking to replace my old edge 1000,
wich one would you recommend to buy between the 830 and the 1030 ?
thanks.
I made the jump from the 1000 to the 830 when the 830 came out. Your choice depends on how you feel about screen size and whether you need the microSD card slot (the 830 definitely does not have one). If you want the larger screen (bigger than the 1000, I believe) or you need the slot, your choice is the 1030. I actually like the smaller size of the 830, but the one concession I’ve made to the smaller screen is that I no longer have any data fields on my map page.
Thanks, and without the microSD card you still have enough space left on the 830 ?
Last I looked I had about 7 out of 16 Gb left. I haven’t added any maps, so it has North America, Trailforks, the DEM (worldwide, I think), and whatever else Garmin adds (I think rudimentary mostly useless maps of the rest of the planet). So there’s plenty of space left for my purposes.
Price-wise I’d say go for Edge 830.
I’ve just switched from old Edge 1000 (still works but quite often can’t find GLONASS satellites and also lost power button) to Edge 830.
At the moment I had only one ride, but 830 (updated to 4.10) feels inferior to 1000, so now I’m kinda wishing I’d bought Wahoo instead. Let’s hope future updates will fix issues I’m experiencing.
+ The battery on 830 is awesome
+- Screen on 830 is small, but acceptable
+ Data Screens management is hugely improved, it’s way easier to add/move/etc data fields and widgets
– 830 calculates my GPX Route way longer (I’d say around 2 times longer) than Edge 1000 even though it is, at least should be, more powerful
— Sometimes touchscreen becomes unresponsive, I can’t switch between data screens even if I remove my gloves (Edge 1000 doesn’t have this problem)
— While riding my GPX Route Edge 830 has managed to show total nonsense, ie, it was showing I’m riding my route while in reality I was riding parallel trail to the right (and the distance was way more than 200 meters) and eventually 830 totally froze so I had to hold power button until it rebooted.
I remember Edge 1000 also had lots of bugs just after launch, so it seems Garmin do not learn from their mistakes.
Thanks!
Did you had the chance to do more rides with 830 ? do you still have those issues ?
Anyone knows how why auto start/stop doesn’t work in Workout mode, and whether there’s a different setting than the regular one to make it work? I ride outside in Workout mode with structures time intervals but if I got a red lightning, the device doesn’t auto pause.
The touch of the 830 works very bad when it rain and gets wet… even my old 810 worked better.
Hi,
Can I pair my Apple Watch Series 3 as a heart rate monitor to the Garmin Edge 830?
Thanks in advance,
Ulli
No. Apple doesn’t broadcast heart rate in the proper format. That’s on Apple, not Garmin.
Newbie using GPS, I lost my routable cycle map EU SW from my brand new EDGE830 … Must have deleted it without thinking. Any way to get it back on the device ?!
Thanks for your great reviews!
I would suggest you install Garmin Express on a PC / Mac then use a cable to connect your 830. You should see the option to install the maps. Good luck.
I’m a little frustrated with my new edge 830.. in a couple Very noticable ways it’s worse than my edge 810.
1. To adjust the backlight timeout settings i have to tap and scroll through several setting menu Pages.. on the edge 810 the backlight timeout was accessible in just 2 taps and i would constantly be changing this setting depending on my usage.. eg during intervals in lower light i would want the backlight always on. And any other time i want the backlight to time off after 30s.
2. The touch screen is incredibly hard to use with gloves. The edge 810 was incredibly accurate to use with gloves..
That’s my two cents.
I feel the same. :(
1. Back light can be adjusted by swiping down from the top.
2. Adjust touch screen sensitivity settings to low if using a touch tip type glove.
Boom!
S
back light intensity can be adjusted by swiping down from the top. Backlight timeout cannot be adjusted except by going to display settings.
thanks for the info about touch tip type globes.. my gloves are gloves that actually keep my finger tips warm in the fall/winter. I find that touch tip gloves never have warm fingers due to the need to conduct the static charge.
But maybe there are good gloves out there for this?
Where is “touch screen sensitivity settings”? I can not find it. Thanks
You can also get to the settings from the the “Drop Down” menu
The 810 used a resistive touch screen, whereas the 830 is capacitive so it requires no pressure just the static charge from a finger or touch tip glove.
S
“So consumers that used more than one device (like a Fenix 5 along with an Edge 820 for cycling), ended up with incontinent experiences.”
???
I want to say you meant ‘inconsistent’ – but, hey, art is art……
So add to the benefits of the Edge830 significant cost savings on Depends adult diapers. Why hasn’t anyone else highlighted this? I hate cycling-computer-induced-incontinence.
Where is “touch screen sensitivity settings”? I can not find it. Thanks
Widgets for my Edge 830 won’t work now with a new iPhone 11 I just bought. They worked well with the S8 Android phone but not with this new phone. Garmin need to do some updates I think.
This is probably not Garmin’s fault. Have you updated iOS yet? I had lots of Bluetooth problems, including to my Apple Watch 5, until the latest iOS update. I finally managed to fully pair my Edge 830 with my iPhone 11 Pro only in the last week.
I believe I had some fumbling around to get the phone paired but it did pair up and my activities are uploading to Ride with GPS. The only things I can’t get working again are the messages alerts and the weather IQ apps. I really don’t know which company is responsible to fix the connecting problems.
Today I went out on the bike and I used the 830. It works pretty good until the end of the ride when it won’t sync the recorded activity. I sat in the parking lot at the park for 30 minutes trying to get the iPhone 11 to pair to my 830. It ain’t working. I got home and connected a USB cable to my computer to get my activity into Ride with GPS and Garmin Connect. It’s the same way I use to do it with the Edge 705. Maybe I should have just kept the 705 and not bought another bike computer from Garmin. I’d submit a support ticket but I don’t think Garmin will respond.
Any chance this was the first ride post iOS13? iOS 13 and Bluetooth devices across the board have been a mess to get everything working again (and this is definitely not limited to Garmin).
Yup! That’s what I got.
Yeah. So the easiest path to success is simply re-pair it from Garmin Connect Mobile. That tells iOS to re-pair the connection.
In theory iOS asked you at some point to re-authenticate it, but it may have done so at a weird time, and you were like ‘Huh?” and then dismissed it. In which case you just have to wait for it to magically ask again (and that could be hours or days later with a product like the Edge). So just re-pairing the two together is the quickest thing.
I had the same thing happen earlier this week on my Edge 830 since I hadn’t used it with my phone since the update (was going lazy-style via WiFi).
In my phone settings under Bluetooth, it shows two 830 devices now. One says connected and when I click on the info icon I have an option to disconnect or forget the device. The other 830 in my devices shows it’s not connected and when I click on the info icon it says Share System Notifications and I have a On/Off button. Can you tell me what that sheot is all about? I really don’t know if the 830 is paired and will work properly now or not unless I go out for a ride and record something to share.
Finally! Finally,finally,finally. I had to turn off Wifi in the 830. This time the 830 loaded the full Garmin software and sync’d everything which it wasn’t doing before. I also got the widgets working, now I can get my notifications that idiots are trying to contact me, and I get the weather app that I liked using in my 830. I’m happy now. It only took a week.
Another day, another failed pairing. Last night everything was paired and working. Today, went for another ride. The ride showed up in Garmin Connect but not in Ride with GPS. I’m looking for the fix because maybe something is turned off, nope! The 830 is not paired to the phone again and it won’t pair. I give up. I will just save my rides and connect via a cable when I get home. And forget about the widgets. Very sad.
After reading this review I have decided to sell my 2 year old element Bolt and try the edge 830. I also use a fenix 3 Watch for years which I’m very happy with. However the change towards garmin edge is in my experience a total disaster. 1st there are the frustrating phone connection issues. Connects to my android phone (google pixel 2xl) 20% of the time. The other 80% of the time it takes +- 30 min to connect after restarting the unit and phone several times. It’s very annoying when I’m ready to go for a ride and have to spend 30 min trying to connect the gps to my phone… not really what I expected after spending 460 Swiss francs on it. My other concerns are a 10 second lag in grade%. I live in the alps and most of my rides are uphill. The grade response is 10 seconds off pretty much every time. The elevation profile is also unreadable. It never shows the whole ride on the screen during a ride. It’s just useless. What i can’t understand is when I sync a ride from Komoot, the elevation profile preview is fine. That is to say you can clearly see the elevation profile for the entire ride. When I start the ride it goes offscreen making it useless. Why? The climb pro is just as annoying as it is useful. What I mean is it pops up automatically a few hundred meters before a climb and takes over your screen. This is not good when you rely on your map to see an upcoming turn (fast descent) or certain parameters when on a Strava segment. There is no way to make climb pro start in the background… why? Then there are all the menus you have to go through to change something and all the clicks you have to make to get back to your ride screen. At least a shortcut button to get back to your ride would be nice. I feel as if the developers don’t actually use the device while riding outdoors. And if they read this review they should try out a wahoo gps computer. I’m frustrated to have spent so much cash on a device that is more frustrating to use than useful.
Just updated my 830 to software version 5.00. However, the latest software is not showing on this page:
link to www8.garmin.com
Curious what’s in the changelog.
The forums are usually the place to go for that
link to forums.garmin.com
Thanks!
These two will be especially welcome:
– Made ClimbPro available for navigation to a location
– Improved overall device stability by fixing crashes and freezes.
My favorites are
– Removed the ClimbPro page from the timer loop if there are no climbs left in the ride.
(I hate being told “No upcoming climbs” just as I’m starting the last climb)
– Added directional arrows for round trip courses.
(I’ll have to navigate tomorrow and see what that does and how the changes to ClimbPro look.)
And
– Improved the y-scaling on the elevation profile.
– Added pressure filter in order to improve elevation recording.
might be useful. Tomorrow I’ll get to see.
Thanks for the great and detailed review (as always ;-) ). I still have a question regarding Navigation: is it possible to select a place on the map and to get there (like with Google Maps)? I mean just a point on the map that is not a specific address nor a specific point of interest.
And if this is possible, is this only possible with the 830 or is that also possible with the 530?
Additionally, do you know if the European version includes Canary Islands (and more particularly Lanzarote)?
Thanks!
What are the chances of the Edge 830 or indeed 530 being discounted on Cyber Monday?
I sold my 820 on eBay already so am itching to pull the trigger at one or other
To add to my earlier comment regarding latest firmware version 5.0:
“Made ClimbPro available for navigation to a location”…
I tested this on a recent ride and it DOES NOT WORK – Climb Pro didn’t show up on substantial climbs.
The first was navigating to a pin drop (Mt Vision, 1300′ climb) and the second was navigating to a town over a pass that always shows up in Climb Pro when part of a preset route.
I thought this new function might be too good to be true, and apparently it is. ;-)
Another issue I have is that when Daylight Saving Time recently ended, my 830 is still showing one hour ahead, and no amount of synching or resetting will change it. I’ve scoured the web for info to no avail. Anyone else have this issue and know of a fix? Apparently there’s no way to adjust the time on the unit, it appears to be set by GPS. My old 520 reflects the correct time, FWIW.
Yeah, the “Upcoming Climbs” page doesn’t disappear at the start of the last climb, and I haven’t seen any directional arrows of any kind, either. The y scaling of the altitude profile has changed though, and I’m not sure I like it, but there doesn’t seem to be anything you can do about it.
As far as the time zone stuff, sounds like your time zone map is hosed. Check to see that there’s a “gmaptz.img” in the Garmin folder. The one on my 830 is dated Nov 1. Of course, being in the Eastern Time zone in a state that doesn’t do anything funny about Daylight Savings must make it pretty easy. It flipped on Nov 3 as expected and has been showing the proper time ever since.
I found a solution to the time zone issue on the Garmin forum; indeed appears to be a corrupted file:
link to forums.garmin.com
Hello guys
I am in the market for a head unit and I am considering the 830. Do you still face all the issues described below?
Thanks
I have had my 830 since July. Issue free except operator error. I went from Wahoo ELEMNT to the 830. Very happy.
Just one person’s opinion here. I love mine. I’m coming from an original 800 and this is the one that checks all the boxes for me. Very responsive. Maps are easy to read. IMO touch screen is a must. Related to that, I was confused by the big green start icon on the screen. I kept pushing the screen to start–nothing. I lost that ride and then watched DCR video. You have to hit the start button (huh?). Ultimately, I just set up my profile to have it autostart when mph > 0. Good luck with your decision.
Agree with @Michael – I’ve had the 810, 820 and now the 830. The first two were beset with problems, random reboots and drop-outs. The 830 finally ticks the boxes as a solid touring device. ANT+ and bluetooth still has some wrinkles to iron out but I don’t use any other hardware so not an issue for me.
Just got my 830 and am super happy with it in the first ride today, its a massive improvement over the 820, but I cant find the option to enable the sound alerts when approaching a turning when navigating. Is anyone able to advise where this is?
Hi Grant,
I had my 830 in front of me so I figured I would see if I could help.
-Click on the settings (3 bars on the main screen)
-Go to activity profiles
-Select the profile you want to add the bend/turn warnings
-Go to navigation
-Make sure the toggle is on for the sharp bend warning.
I hope that helps. And it looks like you have to set it for every profile you use.
Does anyone know if there is a way to have the backlight come on at a certain speed? I ride a lot at night and thought it would be nice if it came on at a predetermined speed. Touching the screen to get it to come on is not an option at that point.
Also is there a way to have it not go to the home screen when I touch it at night to get the backlight to come on. I always have to tap it twice to get it to go back to the data screen.
The alternative that comes to mind is pairing a Garmin Edge Remote and configuring the custom function button to toggle the backlight.
What I miss, is when you import a gpx from somewhere with an itenary that you can start your trip from anywhere on the itenary so that you don’t have to navigate to the starting position, maybe it is there but couldn’t get that to work
Thanks Ray for all the work that you’ve shared with us over the years. I really enjoy the articles/information. Now if I could only win one of those prizes.
I’m hoping someone can verify an observation I think I have seen with course names. It appears that if you try to add a new course to the Edge and the name matches the first 15 letters of a course already on the Edge, the new course is not added. If memory serves me, that seems like a regression from earlier behavior. The routes were added, all had the same name, but you had to figure out which was which. Can anyone confirm that?
FYI, I use RWGPS and my course names contain starting point/ending point as an easy way to sort my course library. Hence the name collision. If that is a restriction, then I will adapt.
Thanks.
Yes, same in the 530. You have to make the difference in the name in the first xx characters. Didn’t know it was 15 but I ran into the same issue.
Thanks for the confirmation Gabrie. Helpful to know I wasn’t doing something wrong.
I currently own a 820 edge which is now almost 4 yers old. I was thinking that a great upgrade could be 830, but at the same time see many cyclists simply going for Wahoo Bolt basically because it works. What I hear the most is that is less fancy, but better value for money and doesn’t give headaches as Garmins.
Just want your opinion between 830 and Wahoo ones as I am a current user of 820 edge.
Thanks in advance.
I had a similar dilemma about 6 months ago. Had an 800! I decided to go with 830 as there was a 30 day return. I love it. Wished I had upgraded sooner. Loads fast. Navigation is great though I typically follow preloaded courses and rarely need to reroute. Colors are wonderful. Just wish there was an easy way to download a course wirelessly at the start rather than off the desktop. I think there’s an IQ app for that. I just haven’t investigated it completely. The way I use it, I think they hit it out of the park. Obviously I kept it. Good luck with your choice. Let me know what you decide
I haven’t made my mind yet and I am still using my Edge 820, but regarding download routes more easily, after I found this tool https://dynamic.watch , I can’t complain about uploading routes to Garmin anymore as you just need to copy route from another source and paste in their website and click import. It automatically creates through the IQ App into your Garmin in the correct format. No more UBS or converting files for me after that. I recommend you try it.
I may do the same. Buy thinking on a 30 day trial and see it…
With the current discount on the 1030, does that mean an updated range of Edge computers are on the way? Cheers. 14MAR20
I’m looking to buy my first cyling computer since using komoot on smartphone. This works really well (large screen, can navigate easily, …) only downsides: not 100% reliable mount, battery only 3h and rain is a no go.
Elemnt BOLT: good device, very reliable but only limited functions (training etc.) + quite old & small bw screen (navigation not so clear?). For me that’s a step down after using smartphone on screen quality.
Element ROAM: small upgrade from BOLT for 100€ with live re-routing & some color. For this price not a lot of functions + older/slower software?
Garmin: I see mixed things. Lot’s of functions but reliability seems to be a big issue. According to some experiences I’ve read: Automatically zooming out/in stops, navigation stops, menus not logical, trouble with uploading routes, …
I just want to make a route on my PC and get it to my device in 5minutes. Also when i’m riding i don’t want any issues along the way. Garmin seems to be a bit risky for this matter?
A nice plus would be color screen and rerouting (if there are for example road works, which i encouter quite often).
Analyses of data/training schedules would also be nice, but not really that important.
Are there more balanced devices/brands on the market for this purpose? Budget is not really that important, I want a good price/quality device that I can use for many years to come.
With the recent price drop and update to the Garmin 1030, would you recommend purchasing the 830 or going with the older but updated 1030. I do both road and mountain riding. Thanks for your time!!
Ray likely can’t reply so I’ll give my 2 cents. I don’t have any insider info, but looking at past releases and combining that with the discount it likely means garmin is released a new 1030 this year. Corona may have altered the timeline there. So if you can wait to see what the new model offers before deciding that would be my advice, then you can decide if it’s worth it or not.
I’ve just started using the new 530 edge.
Really good. New Sony processor is way faster than my edge 820.
Battery life is really good. I’ve done 250 kms this month so far with only one charge and all sensors connected + Bluetooth. The best battery life I’ve seen from any garmin so far.
Really happy with my new garmin and it has been working without any bugs as previous versions.
Thank you for the great review. One question i couldn’t find an answer to:
Is there is % of Route Complete, kind of the like the Climb Pro feature. It would be great for pacing a downloaded route (from Strava), because it would show you how many miles or how much elevation is left.
Thanks in advance,
Great review Ray. Thanks. Quick question. I’ve moved up from a 510 to 830 this year. After 10 rides, my 830 seems to lag by about 10-15 seconds for speed, cadence ans especially slope, the later giving me an 8% read when I’m easily 50-60 meters at the top. What may be the cause? Thanks for looking into this.
Hello
I used my 830 during the winter and temperatures reading were pretty accurate, but lately with temperatures rising i noticed that temperatures are quite higher than real, does someone have the higher reading?
That’s a problem that is common to all Garmin bike computers.
There are at least two causes:
1) solar hearing
2) internal heat
Have had my Edge 830 for a while now. During a regular ride (not saved course), on the map screen, used to see what road was coming up next (Yonge St. up ahead). Now, for some reason, it’s only showing me what road I am currently on (Riding on Center St.). Is that something that I can change or was it changed during the latest update to the device? Thanks.
On my 800 it shows the street you are riding on if there is an unnamed road (such as an alley) between your current position and the next road. When I get past the alley it shows the name of the road ahead. In some situations depending on layout of roads / alleys it means I rarely see the upcoming road name because an alley crosses the road one 1 house before the next road. Between the update lag and my focus being on the intersection, I’m usually not looking at the screen to notice the name.
Something to consider. I am considering the Elemnt Roam or Garmin 830. The Roam specs out a Gorilla glass screen which is great. I have been trying to find out if the Edge 830 has Gorilla glass on the screen or not. I do not see it specified anywhere so I contacted Garmin. They basically told me that it is a proprietary chemically treated glass. This does not lend me confidence that it is durable especially since it is a screen that will be touched and swiped a lot.
I am a road bike rider only. What are people’s experience with the screen durability for road use?
By the way, I am new to DCR (thanks for the awesome reviews – best I have found!) and relatively new to cycling ~3yrs.
I’ve had mine since it was released, and there’s no marks on my screen. I took a quick look at my 705, 800, and 1000 and only the 800 has anything that can remotely be called a scratch. (I ride in the mountains a lot, so dust and mud get on my devices.)
As for your choice, if you care about navigation there is none. I’ve yet to see a picture of the Roam where the maps provide any context (street names, POI’s, business/park names) at all. The 830 works well for navigation, and ClimbPro is a plus.
Right, I just ordered one after doubting between the Wahoo ROAM and this model. If it is as reliable and lasts as long as my truster Forerunner 310XT (purchased in 2009 and still works fine, has a battery life of 15hrs+!), it will be the best purchase I can make.
Please don’t disappoint me Garmin!
Hi,
I have the problem, that my iPhone battery will be drained by 10-15% per hour, as soon as I switch on the Edge 830. Per hour I can see 40 minutes background activity of the Garmin Connect app. So after a longer ride the battery is almost empty, without actively using the phone.
(the percentage of the battery drain depends on the iPhone model, more exactly on the capacity of the built in battery. A friend of mine has an iPhone with a larger battery and the power consumption is less, but the behaviour is the same)
I suspect “Find my Edge” behind that, because in the app logs you can find a lot of communication between the Edge and the app ongoing – 95% of it location updates from the Edge to the phone.
Is there a way to disable “Find my Edge”? I already disabled location services for the app, that doesn’t affect the problem at all.
The support of Garmin is terrible by the way. I wrote to them and for three weeks now we are in a loop of “make sure you are using the current firmware / app version” and “reset your edge”. I sent them already the app’s diagnostic data, but it feels, they don’t even go through it.
Thanks for any hint!
Hell, I’m I wrong or was the last update in October? Either, Garmin nailed it back then or they no longer support the 830. Your guess is as good as theirs.
Last update was in May. Current version is 5.50. 5.51 beta was released a couple of days ago (nothing compelling, I think I’ll pass). It’s still being supported.
Thanks!
I though I’d save some money and get a NOS 820 instead of an 830. I was shocked to see how much slower manipulating the map was than on my 800, the 800 was easily 4x faster at drawing the map after zooming. I can’t believe Garmin would put something that under powered on the market. Its like HQ said, “here’s your hardware specs, here’s the feature list” and completely skipped the part about performance standards. So I packed it up and sent it back without even going for a ride.
I probably use the map display a lot more than the typical user, playing a variety of map gps games with custom overlays.
I’m going to give the 830 a try. At least from the review video the map panning performance appears to be on par with the 800 now. Still disappointing the unit is incapable of having areas you pan to pre-drawn instead of just pulling in blank screen.
I really wanted to like this, but the start/stop button keeps not working and the unit resets it self, wiping out all my custom screens and settings about twice a week. Garmin support was useless. They just told me to reset it again
Going on eBay.
Hello Ray,
Thank you for the revues you write, your site is my reference when it comes to learn about the new devices. I am considering bying an Edge 530 or 830 for my girlfriend but I would like to be able to personaly use sometimes (I use my fenix 3 all the time and upload my workouts to garmin connect). So I would like to know if these units support multi user ? I realize that means ability to use as many accounts for Garmin connect … so not as trivial feature as it seems.
Regards.
Stéphane.
Hi all,
Yesterday I drop my edge 830 on the garage floor, as a result the screen at the bottom right corner is cracked. Is there a way to repair that?
Thanks
Not yourself, but Garmin support can. I’ve found that if you’re honest with them (and nice), they’ll often help folks out get things sorted at no to low cost (especially within the warranty period).
Coming from Wahoo but looking for something with better re-routing & nav this seems to be good. But how do you sync routes planned on something like Komoot to the device? Do they have automatic sync now there is wifi or is it still the ridiculous plug your device into the computer and drag and drop like it’s the late 90s malarkey?
See here for Ray’s article on the subject. I haven’t used Komoot, but it works as advertised with Strava’s route builder.
Great detailed coverage of the 830, which I ended up purchasing.
Seems my Edge 830 GPS is slightly off, compared to my 520 Plus (both in GPS+Galileo mode):
link to analyze.dcrainmaker.com
link to analyze.dcrainmaker.com
Question about the DCR Analyzer: In the Garmin Edge 830 manual, it says “If no speed and cadence sensors are paired with the device, GPS data is used to calculate the speed and distance.” But on the Speed graph, it doesn’t say name of the sensor (for now Unlisted=Tacx, since the Tacx T2015 Speed & Cadence sensor used in the second set isn’t listed, sent mail on this), just name of the file? The Powertap Hub should also send Ant+ speed data, it is not listed in speed graph either. Does this mean the 520 Plus and 830 record speed from GPS and not the data from the sensors? In that case, is there a setting to choose this on the devices?
Also, why aren’t the names of the devices listed in the graphs where the data came from internal sensors, instead of the file name? Is it because of missing Ant+ ID, so the Analyzer doesn’t know whether it came from an internal or Bluetooth sensor (for the Edge 830, the 520+ doesn’t even support Bluetooth sensors as far as I know)?
Cheers,
Audun
Wondering what the bike icon in the indoor training mode is all about? Shows time behind and miles behind…can’t seem to find any info on this.
Sounds like the “virtual Buddy” or some such. If you look under the setting you should see something like virtual training partner option to turn off
I also use a Garmin Fenix 6S Pro to track other activities – this is setup as the primary device on my Garmin Connect app. Will the Garmin Connect app display Performance metrics from the Garmin Edge 830 ?
I already noticed sometimes the gps signal was dropping when riding under trees.
GPS + Galileo mode.
Till now no big thing although i thought the unit should just continue working because the trees were not that many.
Last week i did a test when riding on the MTB in the woods (many trees).
The Edge registered 45km and my Fenix 6s 46. I think that is a big difference.
My conclusion is that the gps in the Fenix is (much) better.
Any same experiences here?
Funny thing was that the alimeters were only 3m difference (598 vs 601 height meters).
Anyone got an issue where the unit stops an activity by itself after 1-1.5 hours? Saves it and everything so no data lost but an issue if in the middle of a structured workout. Happened to me twice in the last two weeks.
Good morning,
I have red green color blindness, and have quite a bit of trouble following routes on the map. Can anyone else with a similar deficiency comment on whether you have optimized or customized the map to be more readable?
It would be great if design engineers provided a colorblind mode. To be fair, this is not unique to this device. I have trouble reading manual maps, or interacting with a page that has lots of colors with little contrast.
I also have an edge 130, and find that map extremely easy to follow. Of course, it is just a bread crumb trail, but I may end up doing that on the 830.
Thanks in advance for anyone’s help! Jeff
To change from one screen to another on the 530, do you have to press a button or can you swipe or press an arrow on the screen like my old Edge 800
Hi Ray,
I’m about to pull the trigger on the Edge 830 MTB bundle however, concerned that a new 840 etc. might be released within the next 3-6 months. What is your take on this?
great review!
I must confess I didn’t read all the comments so if you answered this question already here or over FB I would appreciate if you could just guide me to it :)
Question: I was just wondering if you have any info wether Garamin will release a Edge 830 plus version soon? I’m considering a purchase and would be a bit dissapointed if they released a new version January 1st :)
Hi, a question on the Garmin 530 / 830 navigation. When I’m doing a workout session then I have a screen of numbers – power, heart rate, cadence, lap time and I’m using that to measure my effort. If I had this screen whilst following a loaded route, would the Garmin inform / warn me of any upcoming turns or do I need to have the map display screen up the whole time to get directions ?
Thanks
No, you don’t need the map page up the whole time. It’s been about a month since I last used my 830 to navigate, and I use auto scroll, so my data/map/altitude pages are going to scroll by eventually. But if I remember right, there’s a banner that appears above (most?) pages that tells you what your next maneuver is and how far to go, and when you get close there’s a special map page that takes over that shows you a close up of the imminent change in direction, and that stays up until you’re through the intersection/curve/etc. (Sometimes it takes a screen tap to make it go away.)
It’s been a long time I tried (and I’ve never tried in an 830). But I know that it was impossible to follow a route and a workout at the same time. (I last tried this on a 500).
Yeah, that may well be true. I’ve never tried both at the same time, and have no real reason to since the only time I run a workout is indoors on the trainer.
I wonder if there’s a way to switch the num of fields mid-ride in the data screen? Have that on the wahoo which I find useful as for example commuting to meetup point I would want to see time, but once I am in a bunch ride, there are a few data I no longer want to see.
Yes
That is possible.
I think out of my head
Settings->Profile->Datascreens->Modify what you want.
Possibly to much during the ride.
Changing one datafield is very simple. Just tab and hold that field till you see you can edit it.
Good luck!
Why don’t you add another days screen, so one has the data elements you want for commute and the other for group rides. Simply swipe to change what you’re looking at.
Switching Data Fields on-the-fly & adding special purpose Data Screens works fine.
I tend to copy Activity Profiles and customize the screens within each for specific types of rides. The downside is you have to pick the correct Activity Profile before you start, with the upside of the uploaded activating having a different title. Many different options.
Thanks all for the suggestions! Think I’ll copy some screens to swipe around, coz I was used to able to zoom in and out of less and more data fields.
Hi. Thanks for an excellent review. I have a Garmin 810, purchased after reading your review some years ago, my question is simple. Is the 830 so much better than the 810 that it’s worth buying the newer model??
Look at “What’s new” above to see if any of the new capabilities are useful to you. I’ve had an 830 since it came out, so coming up on 2 years. It replaced a 1000. It’s faster than the 1000, and because of that lots of things work a little better. ClimbPro is very useful to me, the mountain bike metrics aren’t, TrailForks is useful, hydration/nutrition isn’t. Navigation seems to work better. But you’re the only person that can really answer whether the 830 would be better for you than your 810. You might just want to wait, because since the 830 is almost 2 years old, maybe something else in its form factor is coming along this year (who knows given COVID). The 1030+ came out last year, I think, so Garmin doesn’t need to rush something out, but the 1030+ is bigger than the 810 while the 830 is about the same size.
If your 810 is working for you I would not buy an 830. The GPS chip set on the 810 is superior to the chip set used in the 830. Navigation algorithms have not been improved by Garmin since long before the 810. Virtual Partner cannot be turned off on the 830 like it can on the 810.
The best thing about the 830 is the improved battery life. However, if your 810 battery has lost capacity and you’re happy with the 810 I’d just get a replacement battery.
I have a 830 and came from a 810.
Happy with it.
It is much faster, the display more clear and the features are also nice.
The 810 was also working fine but was also a bit outdated.
Depends also on the budget you have and if you are mostly happy with new toys :-)
Thank you for the advice guys. The 810 that I have is a great piece of kit but is now a little dated I am a bit of a tech and gadget fan although budget restricts that to eBay purchases and essential stuff only, frustrating! The Hillclimb gadget sounds interesting and I would make use of that, as well as the Trailforks although I’m not sure that I will ever use the gadget of measuring my airtime! I’m following one on eBay and think I will take the plunge and see what it’s like. There may be an 810 appearing on eBay soon… :-)
This model is due for a refresh. I predict that they will offer discount, within the next 3 months, and have an 830 plus, out by the month of May or June 2021. Same form as the current, same dimensions, but with the processor in the 1030 plus….
Hi everyone,
I recently purchased a Garmin Edge 830 – first purchase of a Garmin product. My display seems blur, in particular the the large text/characters in the main menu with white background.
Annoying, a bit uncomfortable but not dramatic.
I
don’t know if this is a defect or if I am used to better screen in general (i.e. iPhone / laptop).
Are you experiencing the same? Thanks. John
Hi John, mine is not blurred, quite sharp actually. If yours is less sharp than the pictures in this review than I’d suggest to return it.
April 2021. Still no way to ignore a point on a route and navigate to the next point coming up. Jesus….
Does any bike computer support skipping portions of the route manually?
Hi all,
How do you reverse a saved course?
Yesterday I rode a course in reverse direction, and the 830 of course kept signalling to make a u-turn and reverse.
I know there is no such option on the 830 itself (major disappointment). I want to be able to do it without a PC. On phone is OK but without any paid 3rd party apps. I think it is possible with garmin connect, but only the PC version (not the phone app)? Some people advise Komoot, didn’t try it but does it work? I’d rather not use basecamp pre-ride and make a second course, one for CW and one for CCW, but just on the fly.
[rant mode]
How hard is it to program it such that after ignoring several u-turns, but staying on the couse, it prompts to ask if you want to ride the course in reverse?
I’ve seen many posts asking a reverse feature for years now, but no response from Garmin as far as I know.
That seems rather arrogant for such a basic feature.
Hya Richard. You can in Garmin Connect. Select the route that you want to ride in reverse, edit, then hit the 3dots and select reverse direction then save. Simple as that.
Happy riding, Nelly.
Hi Nelly, thanks for your time. However the solution you mention seems only possible with the desktop version of Garmin connect, not with the phone app. Might go to Garmin connect website then via browser when out and about. All in all, it is rather cumbersome. Competitors just have a function on the device itself such as the sigma Rox 12.
In Garmin Connect you revers youre ride, also on the phone app. I just tried it on a Android phone.
Create a new course in GC. From A to B. Save this.
Press at the top right on the 3 dots, then press on “change”
You now see the route and at the bottom is the total distance and altitude. There are also 3 dots here. Press that. Now you can choose “reverse route”.
You can also drag the bottom text up to see the details of the route.
Depends also on where the course is created.
When it is created on strava and automatically uploaded to Garmin Connect this option is not available.
Anyway it actually should be an option on the Edge itself.
I performed the edit on the Garmin App in my iPhone. No idea what Android would look like though. Ha my got headunit with me to try on it though.
I can confirm what Ric mentioned. Reversing the route with phone GC app is not possible when you created it initially with Strava. Also not with the 3 dots at the bottom. Bummer since I mostly create my routes with Strava.
I’m thinking of getting the 830. Given how long it’s been out and Garmin’s history of releasing a “Plus” model, should I hold off a few months to see if they release a 830 Plus?
the grade is inaccurate… I can’t seem to get it to work even though I have synched, updated it and rebooted. No answer for how to fix this on the forums either. help!
That’s true, but that’s inevitable. They have a measure of altitude from the barometer (with errors) and a measure of distance from GPS or a speed sensor (with errors). How do you propose they accurately determine grade? It’s always going to lag, since all they can do is (change in altitude)/(change in distance). There must be digital inclinometers that could fit in an Edge, but you’d probably have to calibrate it every time at the beginning of a ride.
Is it possible to see the map and a data field of your choice in the same screen? I would like to see the map and my heartrate/training zone in one view.
You can have up to two data fields on the map page.
Very good website, well done.
Greetings! has anyone else had issues with using a strava created route, working flawlessly with the “next point location” and “distance to next” displays, and then suddenly not working, stating constantly “map not routable in this area” ? my 830 OS is 7.10. The 830 will tell me when to turn, and the map shows up with 0.1mi before the turn, but the text data isn’t there anymore. Maybe I toggled something in some setting somewhere?
Maybe it’s telling you the truth? Where is this? What maps are on your 830?
I have the Edge 830 for 2 years. After year 1, was replaced for what I thought was a malfunction. Two problems were: 1. Elevation was always wrong and 2. Lock screen did not lock the screen. It did lock out the ability to save the ride. The replaced unit had the exact same problems – terribly wrong elevation and non-locking screen. Sweat drops changed the screen, every time. Screen was often wet from sweat. If the screen was unlocked, couldn’t change the screen without wiping the sweat off – with a sweaty hand. This is the worst performing Garmin product I’ve ever used! Elevation was compared to Fenix 6 Pro as well as the Elevation Correction within the Connect site. It’s not even close! (image compares the same ride – started the Fenix about 4 minutes in)
Yeah, that looks like a broken barometer. I’ve had my 830 for a little over 2 years now, and it’s been next to flawless. It suffers from the “display one altitude, record another in the FIT file” that I’ve seen on some other Garmin devices, but it’s a very minor difference. I use waypoint calibration, and I often see the altitude jump up immediately after calibration, but again it’s a minor flaw. What you’re showing shouldn’t happen. (Unless somehow you’ve blocked the little hole that allow outside air to reach the internal pressure sensor, but that’s not easy to do.)
Hi, 530 vs 830, any issues with the touchscreen on the 830 when its wet – rain or sweaty fingers (I live/ride in the tropics…)? TIA
Living in the Netherlands affords me plenty of rain. No major issues with rain or sweaty fingers. For the most part more casual rain and water pooling on the screen isn’t an issue. Every once in a while I’ll get some really angry rain that might trip up the screen, but you can simply lock the screen if it’s a problem.
But it’s not something that enters in my mind when using it in the rain.
Hi
I do not have big issues but my old 810 could handle water better than the 830.
Sometimes it does react when it is wet. Than wife it and it works fine again.
Do you see any issues with the altimeter in the rain? I’ve seen others with this issue in forums. I’m still using an 810 and before started using the silicon case it also had issues when raining. However, I’ve considered upgrading and this is important to me as I like being able to view grades/altitudes when going up long climbs.
If there is a problem has anyone figured out a fix (besides trying to clear the hole by blowing in it as that’s a pain to do if clogging with water constantly during a ride)?
Thanks.
Great review. thank you!
Ray, has the latest update from Garmin caused elevation recording issues? I have to correct every ride now.
Thanks – Ray
What kind of thing are you seeing? I’m running 8.20 and I’m not seeing anything out of the ordinary. It’s never been perfect, but it’s always close.
Also on 8.20. After the update I’m off by about a 1000 feet per ride. I have to correct the elevation each time. I set my elevation manually so I’ll see if that makes a difference.
The total elevation gain is off at the end of (how many?) miles, or the elevation at any time is always off by 1000 ft? Are you calibrating the altimeter before each ride? For me being 40 ft off during a ride is common, having the total gain vary for a given identical ride by about 100 ft is common, but I’ve never seen 1000 ft error of either kind on my 830. You may have a failing barometer.
12 miles of mtb. I wasn’t calibrating each ride. I’ll try that today. Thanks.
Ok, calibrated it prior to ride and (482′) and at the end of the ride I had 600′ of climbing. Everyone else had 1150′. I cleaned the port and re-calibrated it and I’m watching slowly drop……… Set it to 731′ where I’m at and within 5 minutes it’s down to 585′. Set it again to 731 and it just starts dropping.
Dead?
Calibrating the Altitude is really just setting it to a known value. It shouldn’t change how it records altitude. On my 810 I’ve had the altitude go negative, but still have the correct gains. One thing I will also say is sometimes the displayed alt gain at the end of my rides will be wrong. Once I download, and with no altitude corrections enabled on the site, the altitude gain will be correct. Not sure why it sometimes seems to get “stuck” while riding.
Also, your altitude decreasing like that on a ride could be due to several things. The sensors can be sensitive to temp. If your indoor to outdoor temps are widely different you could be seeing issues due to that.
Temp is pretty constant at my desk.
Going to do a reset and see if that changes anything.
Thanks
Sounds like the barometer is failing to me. 150ft in 5 minutes sitting still? That shouldn’t happen. Neither should being short so much on the cumulative gain during a ride, and that doesn’t depend on the calibration.
I don’t think the 530 or the 830 can handle elevation correctly. There are two options: either get an earlier version such as the 520+ or get the 1030/1030+ OR get a different vendor all together. I’m certain I did not get 3 units from Garmin with barometer issues. I received 2 830’s (lock screen not locked as sweat changed screens and I could also swipe screens while it was “locked” for both of those units ). The 530 works for everything EXCEPT elevation much like the 830. I’ve done the correction but the problems persist. Don’t waste your money…spend a little more or little less. You won’t be sorry. I love Garmin but these units are not up to snuff when it comes to elevation.
I have a Edge 530 and I face no issues with elevation.
There are some variances that sometimes happens on long rides which are about 5%.
Yesterday I did a 100km ride which the device shown 824 elevation in total, but if I check the route and use Strava Elevation Corrector, it goes to 835, which is not a big deal… for me at least.
Garmin is replacing it under warranty…….
Thanks for all the help.
Another Ray
Update. Correct elevation now working with replaced computer…….
Thanks all.
Will the 830 work in a car and/or as a handheld while hiking? I do so much variety of activity that I really just want something with decent size screen and good maps.
Thanks!
Tony
Define “work”. Yes, it will certainly get GPS lock and be able to give directions and show location on the map. For hiking there’s the problem of where to keep it. It comes with a tether, so you could use that as a wrist strap I suppose; alternatively maybe someone somewhere makes quarter turn wrist or belt mounts. In the car, the screen is smaller than the alternative that almost all of us have, a phone, and an Edge will not get real time traffic information over the internet like a phone or a Garmin auto GPS will (the ones I’ve used get traffic info from FM carriers). The Edge is also designed for cycling, so you’ll have to deal with the minimum speed problem. An Edge will assume you’re not moving if you drop below a certain speed (settable, so this can be dealt with), which is a problem for hiking if you’re not aware of it.
There’s a reason that Garmin makes separate devices for cycling, hiking (watches or handhelds), and car navigation.
Thanks for the info. I really only want a good GPS mapping unit that can be as flexible as my activities. I’m retired, don’t commute, don’t care about watts or HR monitors. Just like to always have a unit with a good map set so that I can follow whatever road I feel like and always have a good sense of where I’m headed and, in a pinch, how to get back. Same for hiking. Even better if I can get a suction mount to put it on the dash in the car when on road trips.
Tony
For the car I would advice using your phone with Google Maps if you have a current iPhone or Android. The Garmin 8xx/5xx series of course have these roads on maps, but they are too small for use in a car when you need to have a quick look at it driving at higher speed than on your bike.
If you don’t need the WATTs, training programs, etc, you might want to have a look at the Garmin Edge Explore. Big display, good route navigation, much cheaper than 830.
I agree with that. You are much, much better off using your phone for navigation in a car, and if the car has Apple CarPlay or the Google equivalent it’s a no brainer. Just to give a few advantages, your phone (or a Garmin car navigation device) will show you lane guidance (which lane should I be in for this?), and give audible voice directions (including the lane guidance) so you don’t have to be staring at a screen while you’re driving. The display is also much more suited for driving; typically they show (or can show) a simulation of what you’re actually seeing ahead, including signs at the turn points, on a much larger screen. And, as I said, real time traffic information is very useful.
Edges are designed for cycling, and I wouldn’t even consider using my 830 in the car, where I have better options. Instead of an Edge, you might want to look at Garmin’s outdoor handhelds, which can be used for cycling and are more jack-of-all-trades devices. (Even so, I wouldn’t use a handheld in my car where I have both my iPhone and the built in Garmin navigation device to choose from.)
having to buy a new heart rate monitor and a new sensor by selling my 1030 I could buy the 830 bundle version with the usual money. do you think the 830 has improvements that justify the transition from the old 1030?
Most definitely a great option.
I joined the 830 family after losing my (non plus) 1030 and although I did once or twice miss the screen real estate, the smaller form factor and increased responsiveness and navigation calculation is awesome.
It might perhaps also just be a placebo effect but the quality of the display also seems to be better whilst rhe frequent software updates means that most if not all of the 1030 functionality becomes available as well.
All and all very happy with the 830 and wouldn’t go back to a (non plus) 1030 for as long as this epic 830 is around and supported.
This is a well designed object that is a joy to use when everything goes according to plan. In other less ideal circumstances, the navigation simply drives me nuts.
The unit constantly decides that the correct route is one that is passing nearby in parallel from the route I traced in Komoot. It also sometimes sees mini loops in the route and tries to send me into U-Turns. It’s not just my unit, a friend who uses Ride With GPS routes on a 530 has the same issues. So, it spends most of the ride telling me to turn or U-turn. This is where the unit automatically switching from the dashboard to the map when a turn is approaching goes from being a cool feature to being a pain as I have to fight with it to get to the data I want to see.
When I deviate from the planned route, it calculates new routes that seldom make any sense. Sometimes, it is so busy calculating new routes and trying to tell me where to go that it takes minutes to realise that we are back on the originally planned route.
This navigation is the perfect example of trying to do too much and failing miserably.
Is there a way to remove the Virtual Partner from the 830 Map screen?
No. Unlike the 810 you cannot turn off the VP. I have requested Garmin to allow users to turn off VP, but that request is being ignored.
Anyone hear of an 830plus coming out?
I have the 1030p and it’s nice but I prefer a smaller version but with added features and maybe updated resolution/color depth.
Your reviews are excellent. Thank you.
As an old fart, new to using mapping and navigation Ive had a couple of issues
1) when you load a route, It wont run until I go to exact start point and spends ages telling me to turn around without recalculating – A particular issue if like in my case the start point is at the other end of a tidal causway at high tide. Is there something i am missing like “navigate to closest part of route” or a ” recalculate and continue route from next available point” setting I am missing. I realise as of today I can alter the route to avoid those problems when sat at home creating it which is excellent but I may not know I cannot do something until im there.
2) Being new it never occurred to me a route would be directional! Once out on plot ready to start can you click reverse route anyway on the actual head unit if low sun or high winds give you a good reason to ride in reverse?
3) If I make a conscious decision to take a path rather than a road it wont recalculate and keeps bleeping to turn around – is there a reroute and rejoin instead of those annoying beeps or anyway to increase the speed of a recalculation but in the direction you are already heading? OR a way to set the unit to stop telling you to turn around and for it then automatically to start giving directions again the instant you are back on the route itself?
Keep up the great work!
Gav
1) It should ask you when you start whether you want to navigate to the beginning of the route. Just say no. If it isn’t asking, then there might be a setting, but it’s been so long since I set up my 830 that I’ve forgotten. Then you just ride as you wanted, and it should eventually stop with the U-turns.
2) Routes are always directional. There’s no way on the 830 to have it reverse a route, but there are any number of course builders that allow you to with one click, for example, Strava’s. I have several courses like that on my 830, one for each direction around.
3) That is the biggest problem I have with Garmin’s navigation. There’s no UI to tell it “I can’t go that way, show me another way” or “I’ve changed my mind, I want to try this”. A couple of weeks ago I traveled to a place (southwestern Ohio) where I’ve ridden many times before. I took a bike (the gravel bike, the paved roads are awful), and I managed to get two rides in while I was there. I navigated both. I was starting at a slightly different point than I had previously, so I had to tell it to not navigate to the start, and on both rides I came across road closures that I had to find a way around. The constant “U-turn” prompting after I had to alter my route was annoying, but it eventually stopped and showed me a way back to the course both times. (Since southwestern Ohio was laid out in the Midwestern grid originally, there’s always a parallel road just a mile away if not a newer road that’s closer, so it wasn’t much of a problem even though I hadn’t ridden there in a couple of years.). But it should stop annoying you about U-turns eventually as you close in on the original course again and start navigating you back to it.
Thank you for taking the time to reply.
I will press on with a few more routes and leave the navigate to start part off plus see how I get on with its own re-routing.
Cheers
Gav
Can someone assist on how to send a tcx (or other) file from an email, to my Edge 830 without having to connect via a cord to computer.
Thanking you in advance
With iPhone …
Open the tcx with GarminConnect, save the course and synchronize to the Edge.
Since a while my Garmin 830 loses connection multiple times with my Scosche Rhythm 24. I thought is was the heart rate device that caused it and I bought a new Rhythm+ 2.0.
Unfortunately, that new heart rate monitor also loses connection with the Garmin 830.
What should I do?
It actually loses connection (gaps in the recorded numbers) or it just tells you it does? For the past several versions of firmware, my 830 has occasionally been telling me that it has lost connections or reacquired connections, but so far as I can tell after the fact it never actually happened. For example, it’ll tell me that it’s lost connection to my Varia radar while it’s at the same time accurately showing me approaching vehicles. The only time it actually loses connections is occasionally indoors on the trainer. I have a Rhythm 24 that I use rarely for cycling, but I don’t remember it giving me any more trouble when I do with the Edge than any of my other HR devices.
The other interesting thing that’s started recently is that my 830 no longer syncs through the phone or over WiFi or through Garmin Express. I always need to manually upload to Garmin Connect. Since I always plug it into my desktop anyway it’s more of an annoyance than a real problem, and I haven’t spent much time trying to diagnose it yet.
Hi,
It doesn’t say yhat the connection is lost. But on a 70km workout, there are about 35 times of no recording of the heart rate. On the display of the 830, there is no heart rate displayed.
Rarely (once every 10 workouts) the connection with the Varia Radar is lost and that is shown as connection lost.
That sounds like the exact opposite of what’s happening to me. I assume that there’s nothing in between the Scosche and the Edge, that there’s a direct line of sight connection (you’re not wearing it on the outside where your arm gets in the way)? One thing to check is how the Scosche is connected to the Edge. Both have ANT+ and Bluetooth, and I’ve read that the Bluetooth connection can be flaky, and that you should always ensure that the connection is ANT+.
When I make a course in strava it will be uploaded to Garmin Connect.
That works fine.
When it is a running course I think it should not be uploaded to my Edge but only to my Fenix.
Anyone solution for this?
Picture 2,
Picture 2 retry
GPX trail is a running course
You know, it’s weird, I had this randomly happen this week too. I suspect someone made a mistake, and those of us that created courses within the window showed up that way.
Hello,
Thank you for this super detailed review !
I would like to upgrade my Edge 520 plus.
One thing that interest me a lot is the recovery side (and training status/load too), I have some question on these functionalities :
-Do you know if recovery data are displayed on Garmin connect and interact with other garmin devices* ?
Same question about training status
-Do you need powermeter ?
*I also have a garmin vivosmart 4
thank you !
Hell of a review. Some things are changed with next updates but it shows how Garmin develop their devices.
Anybody having isssues with 830 recoriding inaccurate ascent ? Climbed 1299 metres today and Edge only shows 830 m. My fenix 6 also shows around 1300m. Did a hills session yesterday where 830 showed a 1000m but Fenix 6 around 1200 m. Is this a known issue ?
The 830 uses a barometric altimeter, so one thing to check is whether the little port that lets outside air in to the pressure sensor might be obstructed. (And I’ve never been able to locate that port on my 830, but it has to be there.). A quick check shows that Garmin has a support article: link to support.garmin.com
Pressure sensors do fail, but the readings when it happens (it happened on my Edge 800) tend to be pretty wild. What you’re describing doesn’t look ridiculously bad (yet).
I’ve commented about this over the past year or so on this same forum. I had 2 different 830s and even swapped the 830 out with a refurbished 530 thinking it would help. Nope! Inaccurate compared to fellow riders and my Fenix 6…and even Strava. So – I’m not sure what the deal is. Some say to clean the hole but mine is clean. I changed the angle of the computer thinking that air was somehow affecting the hole (where the measurement takes place) but I got the same inaccurate results.
I presently use an Edge 810 with downloaded Open Street Maps which I find very useful and zoomable.
Can OSM be loaded into the 830’s memory?
Thanks.
The maps that Garmin uses these days and that come with the 830 are based on OSM. Between the Garmin maps and the included Trailforks maps, I’ve never felt the need to put third party maps on my 830, although there is room for them. I used to use OSM maps (most recently from openmtbmap.org) a lot on my 800 and then 1000. So far as I know the usual procedure still works, but I’ve never tried on my 830.
Has anyone seen issues with speed sensors? I am using a bontrager duo speed/cadence sensor and find that the speed reading jumps a lot. I thought it was just the visualisation but the average speed is definitely impacted. I have been removing the speed magnet to just rely on the gps but do hit quite a few covered areas with no gps signal so i am looking for a solution. Any ideas other than pairing/unpairing?
Generally speaking, with a speed sensor, if it jumps a bunch, it means two things:
A- The magnet alignment isn’t quite nailed, and thus with road vibrations/bumps it gets slightly out of alignment and misses here and there.
B- The battery is going.
Will give it a try. Cheers man.
I have my 830 paired to my Wahoo Kickr Core. When I select Free Ride (or any other option) my 830 gives me an automatic data page with fields that I cannot seem to change. Is there a way to change this data page? Thanks.
Does someone know what to do when you are experiencing (many) drop-outs of speed/cadance/powermeter with your Edge 830?
Since i am using Rally RS200 powermeter-pedals i am aware of these drop outs. At first i thought that it was due to the new pedals. Garmin checked them and they consider them functioning correctly.
While in absence of my pedals I noticed drop outs also occured using my Edge with NEO 2T (cadance/power) or Neobike (speed).
Further there are insanely high speeds during low powers (43.3km/h at 141W 95rpm) using the Edge.
Using Garmin trainer app on my iPhone speeds are reasonable with respect to power (29.1km/h at 141W 95rpm) and no drop outs were noticed, neither with the Neobike nor the Neo 2T.
To me the problems lay within the Edge 830.
Anyone having or had the same issues? Thoughts/Recommendations? Is there a hardware problem of which i am unaware of? Any advise how to solve these problems?
I am about to ride a granfondo which i want to track/record properly.
Yes, the problem is in the 830. A few years ago, four or five, Garmin introduced to bug into the 830 that causes sensors to drop periodically. Garmin does not have the ability to fix this bug.
Thanks, but…
are you saying that every Edge 830 will have that same problem and replacing a disfunctional one (warranty) is a futile exercise? Or is it just bad luck? 🤞🏼
I don’t do track racing and the LAP Button is no use to me. It would be very useful if it could be reconfigured for some other functionality e.g. bring up the Navigation menu; but I haven’t been able to find any way to do this (IQ store?)