Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

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cjrich
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Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby cjrich » Tue Apr 19, 2016 8:37 am

Hi all.
Firstly, apologies for another “bike computer” thread.
I have some birthday funds and looking at upgrading my Edge 500, I like the new features on more modern units.
My Edge 500 is working OK “at the moment” but has had reliability issues in the past and I’ve lost confidence in it.

I really like the feature of the Edge 520, but only if it’s stable. Reading some forums they are not perfect, but I guess users only post problems on forums. Other option is the new Wahoo Elemnt, but also seems to have some teething problems, and is considerably more expensive. Wahoo do seem to be more proactive than Garmin on bug fixes, I but don’t want to wait another 6 months + for a reliable unit.

Seeking some feedback from Edge 520 users on its reliability and whether they would recommend it or would buy again.

Thanks
CJ
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A_P
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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby A_P » Tue Apr 19, 2016 10:07 am

Hi,
I have had mine for a little over 6 months now.
Coming from a Edge 800 i missed the touch screen a little at first.
Battery life is good, GPS accuracy is excellent, even in the forest.
The sensors are easy to swap between bikes.
You can load up open source maps ( see DC Rainmaker)
Its nice and small and the tether is a good idea.
No stability issues at all
I wouldnt hesitate buying another one.
AP.

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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby nickdos » Tue Apr 19, 2016 10:15 am

cjrich wrote:Hi all.
Seeking some feedback from Edge 520 users on its reliability and whether they would recommend it or would buy again.
Thanks
I've had my 520 for about 6 months, after upgrading from the 500. I've been totally happy with the 520, I find it more reliable than the 500 in terms of accuracy in tracking. It has more features (Bluetooth syncing!) and a better screen and it gets a GPS lock much faster. The only negative would be the battery life, which is less than the 500. I find I have to charge the 520 roughly weekly and have almost run out of battery on a few rides (it provides plenty of low battery warnings though). Whereas the 500 was always charged due to having to tether the unit to get the rides into Garmin connect/Strava.

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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby macca33 » Tue Apr 19, 2016 11:40 am

I recently (3-4 months ago) went from an Edge500 to the Edge520 - would never look back - it is a fantastic bit of kit. I don't use the Strava Segments / Live Segments feature, or the phone alerts, but do use the auto-upload to Garmin Connect via my Bluetooth and it works as advertised. The screen is good, clear and readable day or night and the menu navigation is fairly intuitive.

cheers
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DG1984
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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby DG1984 » Tue Apr 19, 2016 11:49 am

No issues with mine, though I've only had it for a few weeks so hard to tell. DC Rainmaker had it as the pick of the year which is why I got mine.

Strava live segments aren't that great - 20 of the "top segments" of your city (which for Sydney could be anywhere), otherwise you have to star 1,001 in Strava to be any benefit.

Bluetooth notifications are cool if you are meeting up with someone - you'll know when they get get there or if they are running late without needing to pull your phone out. I keep this off mostly though as I don't like the distraction.
nickdos wrote: I find I have to charge the 520 roughly weekly and have almost run out of battery on a few rides (it provides plenty of low battery warnings though). Whereas the 500 was always charged due to having to tether the unit to get the rides into Garmin connect/Strava.
How long does it last, first time I used mine it dropped 35-40% over the course of about 5 hours which seemed pretty good. I've got Endure for a Cure coming up (12 hours), as we've got a garage and power this isn't really an issue but for L'Etape and Fitz's later in the year I was a bit worried it may not last long enough.

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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby RhapsodyX » Tue Apr 19, 2016 11:54 am

I bought mine last October. After a software upgrade a couple of months back (to fix Bluetooth drop-outs?), I noticed it reboot in the middle of a seven hour ride and lost about two minutes of data while it reloaded. I've read elsewhere that others have had reboots and lost the ride completely. It's only happened for me the once, I've done multiple 5+ hour rides in the last few months, so I'll excuse it for the one-off glitch. I have noticed it reconnecting with Bluetooth often - usually when stopped at lights, possibly the sensor loop interfering?

I'm running power & cadence, speed, HR and Di2-Fly - no issues with the multiple sensors which was supposedly a big issue with the 500.

No issue with battery life - close to the advertised 15 hours, about 6 -7 % per hour of riding, and recharges quickly.

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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby MichaelB » Tue Apr 19, 2016 12:51 pm

Went from the 500 to 520. The key feature for me was the call notification. Most of the other features are nice, but don't use them.

Readout is much clearer and screen bigger, so that's good.

Some things I don't like, but they are minor. Happy with mine.

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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby cjrich » Tue Apr 19, 2016 1:30 pm

Thanks for the feedback guys, some useful info there.
Just need to decide whether to fork out the extra $95 on the full 520 kit and sell my 500 as a kit, or just buy the 520 head unit and utilize my existing HRM and GSC10 sensors. Need to factor in I use a different rear wheel on my trainer.
Cheers
CJ
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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby JetRangerMike » Wed Apr 20, 2016 9:09 pm

I'm reasonably happy with my 520.

I went from using an iPhone with the Cyclemeter app to the 520 - what i found disappointing was some of Garmin's quality control. Love the live Strava segments when they work ... hate that they don't work when you are following Courses. You get used to the idiosyncrasies ...

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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby Tim » Thu Apr 21, 2016 3:42 pm

Does anyone know if it is possible to manually reset and/or alter the odometer reading/s on the 520.
I know the 520 is not equipped with the old style Bike Profile function and now relies on the Activity Profile function to differentiate between up to 10 bikes.
On my older 800 unit I can set or alter the odometer manually on each of the applicable Bike Profiles.
This doesn't appear to be so on the 520 from what I can glean.
Maybe I'm wrong?
I would like to be able to set up a (potentially) new unit with each bike's current odo reading, rather than start at zero for each bike.

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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby DG1984 » Thu Apr 21, 2016 5:09 pm

Tim wrote:Does anyone know if it is possible to manually reset and/or alter the odometer reading/s on the 520.
I know the 520 is not equipped with the old style Bike Profile function and now relies on the Activity Profile function to differentiate between up to 10 bikes.
On my older 800 unit I can set or alter the odometer manually on each of the applicable Bike Profiles.
This doesn't appear to be so on the 520 from what I can glean.
Maybe I'm wrong?
I would like to be able to set up a (potentially) new unit with each bike's current odo reading, rather than start at zero for each bike.
You may need to alter the ride in Garmin Connect to state which bike you were using - this will then reflect in the odometer reading for that bike.

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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby nickdos » Thu Apr 21, 2016 9:21 pm

DG1984 wrote:
Tim wrote:Does anyone know if it is possible to manually reset and/or alter the odometer reading/s on the 520.
I know the 520 is not equipped with the old style Bike Profile function and now relies on the Activity Profile function to differentiate between up to 10 bikes.
On my older 800 unit I can set or alter the odometer manually on each of the applicable Bike Profiles.
This doesn't appear to be so on the 520 from what I can glean.
Maybe I'm wrong?
I would like to be able to set up a (potentially) new unit with each bike's current odo reading, rather than start at zero for each bike.
You may need to alter the ride in Garmin Connect to state which bike you were using - this will then reflect in the odometer reading for that bike.
I don't think the 520 has any concept of different bikes' odometer and as DG1984 suggests, you can do this on both Garmin Connect and Strava.

Back when we only had a bike computer and didn't download rides, it made sense they tracked odometer but now that all the data is in the cloud and on your computer the head unit doesn't need to show this anymore as its not really useful while riding.

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Tim
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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby Tim » Fri Apr 22, 2016 7:37 am

nickdos wrote:I don't think the 520 has any concept of different bikes' odometer and as DG1984 suggests, you can do this on both Garmin Connect and Strava.
How?
Garmin Connect doesn't keep track of total mileage for anything more than one bike on their Gear Tracking function.
Yes, I know you can add extra bikes to the Gear Tracker but Garmin Connect has no way of identifying which bike a ride/activity is being downloaded from.
All I want to do is simply keep a track of total mileage for each of several bikes for maintenance and interest sake.
It seems the 520 combined with Garmin Connect can't do this.

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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby DG1984 » Fri Apr 22, 2016 7:52 am

Tim wrote:
nickdos wrote:I don't think the 520 has any concept of different bikes' odometer and as DG1984 suggests, you can do this on both Garmin Connect and Strava.
How?
Garmin Connect doesn't keep track of total mileage for anything more than one bike on their Gear Tracking function.
Yes, I know you can add extra bikes to the Gear Tracker but Garmin Connect has no way of identifying which bike a ride/activity is being downloaded from.
They both keep track of mileage, and both for multiple bikes and pairs of shoes. To change which bike gets the mileage you change the gear for that particular activity after uploading it, or set the bike to default before you go on the ride.

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Tim
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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby Tim » Fri Apr 22, 2016 8:05 am

Ah, I see, sort of.
So a manual adjustment can be made to each downloaded ride.
Surely it wouldn't be that hard for GC to identify a downloaded ride from an individual bike profile.
But I realise that Garmin in their infinite wisdom has dropped the Bike Profile function from the new head units.
Do you know if the odometer reading on the 520 changes if the Gear total is manually changed? I still would like to have a real odometer reading on the unit from scratch, rather than one that starts from zero when the unit is first used.

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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby aive » Sat Apr 23, 2016 10:20 am

I just took the plunge and ordered a 520 with sensor pack from Pushys.

I was hesitant about buying it given all the negative reviews on Amazon, and reported issues in Garmin's own forums (not unique to Garmin, seems as though all cycle computers suck) - but went ahead with it based on the positivity in this thread (that's my excuse anyways).

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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby cjrich » Sat Apr 23, 2016 8:36 pm

Yeah, I took a punt and ordered the 520 bundle from Pushys a couple of days ago, also got the Hide My Bell out front mount. Figure I'll sell my old 500 bundle to help finance the 520.
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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby peterlip » Sun Apr 24, 2016 10:50 am

Tim wrote:Ah, I see, sort of.
So a manual adjustment can be made to each downloaded ride.
Surely it wouldn't be that hard for GC to identify a downloaded ride from an individual bike profile.
But I realise that Garmin in their infinite wisdom has dropped the Bike Profile function from the new head units.
Do you know if the odometer reading on the 520 changes if the Gear total is manually changed? I still would like to have a real odometer reading on the unit from scratch, rather than one that starts from zero when the unit is first used.
I spent a long time fiddling with the odo on the 520, trying to make it work for multiple bikes. No such concept anymore. The odo is for the 520 itself.
However. Each profile has a total. Default profiles are "race", "training", etc. I've created a profile for each bike. Over on the Garmin forums there are discussions about this, and how to manually set your total for each profile. It's a bit fiddly to set up, but it does the job.

Aside from that, I think the 520 is great.

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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby Tim » Sun Apr 24, 2016 11:24 am

Thanks peterlip.
So it is possible to manually set an odometer reading for each bike.
I did read on the Garmin Forums a complicated method of extracting and then altering files from within the Settings (or similar) folder of the 520 directory.
For someone with limited computer skills such as me this all sounded a bit daunting, and risky. Not sure I'd be prepared to mess with system settings that could throw the entire unit out.
Any chance you could basically describe how you were able to do it?

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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby cjrich » Sun May 01, 2016 7:13 am

So I got my new Edge 520, was hoping for its maiden run this morning but it's bucketing down outside. Anyway I have a question on the speed sensor. How durable are the bands? I'll be changing the sensor between my road wheel and indoor trainer wheel regularly. Was thinking of securing it with a thin strip of Velcro around it when on the road wheel.
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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby queequeg » Wed May 04, 2016 12:19 pm

Pretty happy with mine after a few months usage. The firmware updates have been coming thick and fast, and version 6.00 went in yesterday. Garmin seems to have decided that small jumps in version numbers is not happening anymore, as we have gone from 2.x to 3, 4, 5.20 and now 6.00 over 6 months.

At least one of the recent firmware updates fixed the biggest issue I had, and that was with the Activity Profiles not working properly. I have profile set for Commuting, Crit Racing, Training etc, showing different screens. I had an issue where if you started a ride with any profile, and happened to stop during the ride for an extended period, the Activity Profile would revert to the Default profile, but would still show the colour for the one you were using. The screen preferences would revert to the default, so in the middle of a ride it would change and I would have no way of changing it back without stopping the activity and starting a new one, as you can't change a profile on a ride that is "In Progress".
I believe this was fixed in the 4.x update as it has not happened again.
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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby MichaelB » Wed May 04, 2016 12:52 pm

Haven't updated mine in a while as I haven't had issues. If the latest one seems stable, may need to do it ...

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queequeg
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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby queequeg » Wed May 04, 2016 3:20 pm

MichaelB wrote:Haven't updated mine in a while as I haven't had issues. If the latest one seems stable, may need to do it ...
I had a few random reboots of the device while riding with the earlier firmware, and on at least one occasion the firmware actually started an upgrade in the middle of a ride! However, since my Activity Profile issues were resolved, I have found the device to be very stable.

Much better than the Edge 500 that it replaced (due to the Edge 500 giving up on me). The Strava Live Segments is a nice to have, but it is not very accurate. The biggest plus for me is call and text notifications on the head unit.
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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby BugsBunny » Thu May 05, 2016 4:43 pm

I'm "happy" with the 520.

Few observations. This interface is really not that intuitive in conjunction with the 7 (yes 7!) physical buttons. Some things I find are not "smart"...but it may not have to do with the 520 per se - more how Garmin program the OS. For example, I ride both day and night. At night I would like the backlight to be on permanently. You need to go through a number of screens to do this.

I've had it freeze on me once or two in the last 5 months. (You can just do a reset which takes 10 seconds - but the first time it happend, I thought the thing has died).

The Strava live segments can be good and bad. If you ride a segment (in a loop fashion) and all you want to do is ride it, then every time you pass it, it will start the segment. Which then changes the screens. And to stop it you need to got through a few screens. Every time you loop past it again, it will once again start the segment. Can be annoying.

PS - I've not used a bike computer before this, just Garmin Forerunner 205.

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Re: Garmin Edge 520 - Are you happy with yours?

Postby MichaelB » Fri May 06, 2016 9:31 am

BugsBunny wrote: .... I ride both day and night. At night I would like the backlight to be on permanently. You need to go through a number of screens to do this.

....
So, am I understanding it right, that you can now have the backlight on for night riding and it's a setting you can choose ?

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