[rola643]

I'm just gonna piss a bunch of people off first thing this fine Sunday morning. Soooo, I broke out my ol Garmin 520 for a MTB ride today and simply wanted a .gpx file as I'm going somewhere I've never ridden. First...what a PITA Garmin made that vs the Wahoo. Not that it's really that hard but dad gone compared to the Wahoo, just to many hoops to jump through.

Once you get in the Garmin ( in the right folder or it will never work ) finding it is another nightmare. I'll grant you if I used this everyday I could have probably gone staright to it. Again so much more straightforward and intuitive in the Wahoo.

I should just sell the Garmin but I keep it for the MTB because I'm not worried about hurting it if...errrr when I crash on my MTB

I'm sooooooooo glad I made the switch to the Wahoo, so much more functional and the ease of use doesn't even compare and I was reminded of that again today

Oh and by the way I stole the name of this thread from Kenny Wallace and a recent twitter post, it was fun! I don't really want to argue with you

 

[lectrichead]

You'll get no argument from me. I've had a love/hate relationship with Garmin stuff for about 5 or so years now. I keep buying them, am impressed with many of the things about them but ultimately live with the crappy side - lack of durability and bad design choices for durability, buggy firmware updates, sometimes bad support, limiting features just so they can convince you to buy the next best model next year, crappy software in general that requires factory resets sometimes, etc.

Right now I am dealing with a firmware update for my Edge 520 Plus - sensors connections have always worked flawlessly. Now all of a sudden they are not connecting or dropping out and never coming back, requiring me to delete all sensors and resync them before every other ride. WTF. Next time it happens will have to do a full factory reset - which brings me to another annoyance; no ability to save settings for the options on Garmin devices when doing a reset or replacement.

I'm almost done - though I have been for years and have said it many times.

 

[lectrichead]

BTW - ha ha, after my agreement rant - GPX import is actually fairly easy using Garmin Connect Courses or one of the Connect IQ apps or the Connect app (usually I have GPX files associated with Garmin Connect so I can just just a file manager and it imports right into it.)

 

[rola643]

BTW - ha ha, after my agreement rant - GPX import is actually fairly easy using Garmin Connect Courses or one of the Connect IQ apps or the Connect app (usually I have GPX files associated with Garmin Connect so I can just just a file manager and it imports right into it.)

Well there we go then I don't even have to jump through that hoop with my Wahoo. As long as it's in RWGPS, for example, when I turn my Wahoo on it syncs with my phone and it's automatically on my Wahoo.

Not so much on the Garmin, at least not that I've ever been able to figure out. It require that physical connection like you described to make the transfer. Come on Garmin, it's 2020 after all

 

[rola643]

You'll get no argument from me. I've had a love/hate relationship with Garmin stuff for about 5 or so years now. I keep buying them, am impressed with many of the things about them but ultimately live with the crappy side - lack of durability and bad design choices for durability, buggy firmware updates, sometimes bad support, limiting features just so they can convince you to buy the next best model next year, crappy software in general that requires factory resets sometimes, etc.

Right now I am dealing with a firmware update for my Edge 520 Plus - sensors connections have always worked flawlessly. Now all of a sudden they are not connecting or dropping out and never coming back, requiring me to delete all sensors and resync them before every other ride. WTF. Next time it happens will have to do a full factory reset - which brings me to another annoyance; no ability to save settings for the options on Garmin devices when doing a reset or replacement.

I'm almost done - though I have been for years and have said it many times.

You're a hanger on hoping it will get better COme on over to the Wahoo side. Wahoo is for winners !

 

[lectrichead]

All in all, I'm happy enough with the 520 and wouldn't want to take a loss and buy a Wahoo right at the moment. I'm cheap.

As long as this sensor connect problem is cleared up, anyway, as that would obviously be a deal-breaker.

One of my biggest issues with the 520, which doesn't bother me so much now as I've learned the ins and outs of it - is that the software interface is clunky and out of date (in reference to modern usability) and hard to navigate around.

In general with Garmin; as well as other large successful companies like Google Android, Apple IOS, Microsoft Windows 10, etc - I believe that the three big issues are pushing innovation without properly debugging/testing the software and OS when it comes to new features, and on the opposite side but many times on the same device; stagnation ('resting on their laurels' as they say) in other areas of the device's OS and then usability especially when it comes to people doing stupid things as well as things deemed 'out of the ordinary'.

I wrestle with these things in my web design biz myself.

Wahoo, being a fairly new and without the overhead of too many years of previous versions of the OS on their devices and such doesn't suffer from this. I think they're a good company, definitely considered a couple models when I bought the 520.

The only thing they can't compete with is the Connect IQ system, which I think is a tremendous innovation across the Garmin ecosystem, though some may not use it, but for me personally I am always trying new widgets, apps, and data fields and finding interesting new things to do with it and ways to customize it.

 

[John_V]

Another extremely satisfied Wahoo fan, here! My riding buddies and teammates that have Garmin units are always pi$$ing and moaning about something wrong with their Garmin, especially after a firmware update. When my RFLKT died and I was looking at GPS units, I went with the Bolt and I'm not sorry I did. It's been rock solid and just works. Most issues they have had with firmware seems to be with power meters and since I don't have any, I've never noticed an issue. They did break one issue with a firmware update but after a few messages on their Google forum, it was corrected within a few days and a new firmware was released. The other nice thing I like about the Bolt is that you don't need to be connected to your phone to do a firmware update. Simply turn it on when it's within your WiFi range and check for updates. If there's one available, it downloads and installs it. Done!

 

[fpl1]

Denise and I both have the Bolt. Love it. She finally converted a couple of weeks ago after her 520 kept dying on rides. 2 votes for Wahoo from us.

 

[Dos_Ruedas]

Over the Christmas holiday, I came a frog’s hair from ordering a Hammerhead. For many reasons but one was their onboard maps.
Now they’re sold out and have a waiting list.
Has anyone tried one or have a friend that’s used one?

 

[John_V]

From another forum that I belong to, I’ve heard good things about the Hammerheads mapping features but they also say that they have a lot of other problems.

BTW, the Wahoo units have onboard maps of almost every country on earth. Except for the Roam, they’re not in color and they don’t have street names. But when it comes down to it, do you really need to know the name of the street six blocks away when you’re following a predetermined route? I can’t think of one time that I was following a route where I needed to know surrounding street names.

 

[lectrichead]

I didn't realized that Wahoos don't show street names on their maps.

Many times I am not following a route but I am not using my Edge as a map and assist in creating my own navigation on the fly, and calculating how far I want to ride, etc from how far the next road goes or turns.