Had enough of Garmin - recommend me something simple

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eaglejackson
Posts: 259
Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2014 5:26 am
Location: PNW

by eaglejackson

Frankie - B wrote:
sanrensho wrote:I would buy a Bryton in a heartbeat if I knew it was more accurate than the Edge 500. (The Bryton 310 does not have GLONASS.)
Did you ever compare the accuracy of the Bryton units?


Since I found myself wondering what the heck GLONASS was i looked it up. ГЛОНАСС: ГЛОбальная НАвигационная Спутниковая Система
Glonass is as GPS a Russian positioning system that uses satellites, ground stations and a handheld device for cross-reference of a position. (in short)
Enabling Glonass next to GPS will suck the life out of the battery a bit faster (10%), but on the other hand it effectively almost doubles the accuracy of your location and the bread crumb trail we leave when we are recording our rides on our devices. Be it Garmin, Bryton, bio etc. Whatever floats your boat.

This sparks another thought with me, do we really need that accuracy? are we trying to build a bridge over a channel, starting from both sides, and would it look odd if we missed each other in the center point by a meter?

We are cycling and having fun, segments are meant for fun as well, if you loose sleep over missing a segment there are easier ways to fix that. SNAP Strava Needs A Polish.
The OP asked for something simple and somehow I found myself diving into the wold of GLONASS at 5am. Please keep things simple, get a unit that you like, is easily readable and that can record your ride.

The Bryton rider 530 has a battery life of 33 hours, uses a highly sensitive GPS chip (marketing blurb, probably a strong antenna) and hooks up to your wifi so you can upload your ride once you get home.

simple.

The advantage to me of Glonass is that when I turn the Garmin on, it finds satellites now in seconds. Whereas on the 500 without Glonass (GPS only), it would often take minutes or 10 minutes or longer or even never lock on to the satellites. In the PNW where I live, there is lots of tree cover and also it's known to be cloudy and even rainy, which hurts GPS reception.

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Leviathan
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by Leviathan

Surprised the Cateye Strada range hasnt come up, Ive one and it works pretty well, the computer interface is like something from early "Atari" software but apart from that Im pretty happy with it.

by Weenie


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stoney
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Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2011 11:26 am

by stoney

I do a lot of MTBing on single track. The GPS + GLONASS really helps reception and tracking when the trees are full of leaves in the woods.

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reknop
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Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2015 10:15 am

by reknop

nemeseri wrote:It sounds weird, but my Pioneer SGX-CA500 has grown on me. It has wifi which is a big plus, but it doesn't have glonass so the accuracy is not the best. The touch screen sucks, but after the initial setup you rarely have to use it. Simple, small, good battery life, wifi auto upload makes it a good option if you are not into garmin.


I came from a Garmin Edge 510 and switched to the Pioneer SGX-CA500 in combination with the Pioneer SGY-left-only power meter. The initial set-up of the Pioneer SGX-CA500 might take you some time. I'm using the Pioneer combination for about 7 months now, in various weather conditions. It's a very robust system in my opinion.
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reknop
Posts: 313
Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2015 10:15 am

by reknop

nemeseri wrote:It sounds weird, but my Pioneer SGX-CA500 has grown on me. It has wifi which is a big plus, but it doesn't have glonass so the accuracy is not the best. The touch screen sucks, but after the initial setup you rarely have to use it. Simple, small, good battery life, wifi auto upload makes it a good option if you are not into garmin.


... and when combined to a Pioneer Power Meter you will get the HD Power Metrics. A huge plus is that you can manually set the left/right balance when using a single power meter system.

But I might look into the Bryton Rider 530 as well, I have a question pending with them. The Giant Sunweb team seems to be using this season ... :)
Last edited by reknop on Wed Mar 29, 2017 9:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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saeie1
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Mar 23, 2017 8:51 am

by saeie1

As an alternative, the GARMIN edge 25 is a small, lightweight,
cycling computer that shows speed,
cadence and heart rate monitors.

gtinut
Posts: 134
Joined: Wed Dec 30, 2015 4:04 pm

by gtinut

i like my Lezyne.

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mpulsiv
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by mpulsiv

As many have mentioned Edge 500 is a solid unit. I haven't had a single problem in last 4 years and I'm not itching to replace it anytime soon. Wahoo Element BOLT review looks promising www.dcrainmaker.com/2017/03/wahoo-elemn ... eview.html
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JackRussellRacing
Posts: 243
Joined: Thu Nov 03, 2016 4:32 pm
Location: USA

by JackRussellRacing

I ordered a BOLT this morning. I think they ship in about a week or two.

I have two Garmin 1000 units, and while I like them just fine, the battery life is not ideal and the touchscreen kinda drives me crazy when it gets wet with rain or sweat.

russianbear
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Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2012 3:40 am

by russianbear

Lezyne Mini GPS looks good. Like a basic computer in size but has GPS functionality.

raven14
Posts: 52
Joined: Sun Oct 18, 2009 7:27 pm

by raven14

I've got the Bolt now since a couple of days. I love the simplicity of the user interface combined with the setup possibilities thru the companion app. Great product and so far 100% stable.

3Pio
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Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2016 7:13 pm

by 3Pio

Used Garmin Edge 500 for 3 years, no problems at all. I still have this device and my gf use it now. I switched to Edge 520, and very satisfied as well.

I decide to switch from 500 to 520 for things like Live Segment integration, better mapping (often im riding routes not known to me, so this is important), bluetooth connection with phone for uploading the rides, seeing who is calling me or txt me while i ride, and Connect IQ (for example i can see the route on the phone, download and send to Edge 520 on the way without need of computer).

There is small bugs like if i get a call, and dont use ENTER button, next calls im not seeing at all (if i use ENTER all the time, no problems).

Also sometimes can freeze when i try to start course which i downloaded, but overall im satisfied a lot. In saturday im riding first ride more then 160 km using EDGE 520 (actually it will be 200 km), so i'll report battery life. Average until now is 10% per hour (so aproximatly about 10 hours of riding should last without problems).

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kgt
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Location: Athens, Greece

by kgt

+1 on Garmin 500
It really offers you all you need

TimW
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Joined: Sat May 09, 2009 1:52 pm
Location: England, UK

by TimW

I'm done with Garmin units too. Way to many problems with the 520 and the interface is ui/operation is clunky. I'm trying a Bolt too as soon as available.

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3Pio
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by 3Pio

TimW wrote:I'm done with Garmin units too. Way to many problems with the 520 and the interface is ui/operation is clunky. I'm trying a Bolt too as soon as available.

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What kind of problems u have with 520? Can u please be more detailed?

I realized the OpenStreet Map i had cover my country and surruoding country's as well, so i have big map. I just downloaded just part that im riding this days (half size of what i had until now), so will test this days if the routing problems i had was because of too big map file

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