I ride my road bike with the Edge and absolutely love it. Love having routes loaded on it and love it just generally. It's really fantastic. Should have done it years ago.
The Garmin Edge computers are second to none. They just work. The only complaint is the fragility of the locking tabs. Even given this weak point, this is still my bike computer of choice.
I bought this Garmin 530 thinking i was going too have routes created so not to get bored riding the same routes doesnt work too great twice I got lost with this. What did wirk great was the emergency contact sos it sends your exact location out too whoever your emergency contacts are that was pin point location of where I needed to get picked up. I do like the drunk and eat alert vert nice feature as well.
The 530 is nice provides alot if cycling stats depending on what you really want info on.
I do like it though its a little quarks though.
Test it out in short distance and experience it for yourself
Also when directions say cycleway that means sidewalk or bike trail that can be very confusing and annoying.
Experiment with it set up you ER accounts and good luck
Safe riding
It's been 10 years since I upgraded our bike computers. Our purchase of the 830 started with a separate purchase of the Varia taillight, which works with it's own sensor or pairs with the 830 and other Garmin devices. The radar capabilities of the taillight led us to the 830. The features of the 830 are awesome, and the ability to swipe between fields is super easy. It's pricey but well worth it. It has all of the features we'll need for many years to come!
I had first purchased 530 and used for the summer and was happy with it very much. But did not like the pushing buttons so much while riding. So went ahead and upgraded to the touchscreen 830 and have been very happy that I did a big improvement and to me worth the money. Even in cold weather riding with gloves screen was easy to use.
My Garmin 820 battery has lost its ability to hold a charge for more than two hours. So I ordered an 830 as a replacement.
I am very pleased so far. I love how it switched from my data screen to the map screen to warn me of an upcoming turn in my course. After the turn the 830 returned to the data screen. That feature is really helpful.
Setup was a little easier than my 820 but still took about an hour to pair my existing sensors and customize the data screens. No where in the manual did it tell me how to change the front and rear gear values but I did finally figured it out. (I have Etap so the 830 will display current gears and battery life).
I use the Edge 530 on every ride and upload to Connect afterwards to track my progress. My Edge 520 battery was worn down and could only last about 45 min, also had 45% powermeter dropouts. This 530 is much improved over the 520 in my experience. Look for it on sale and get out and ride.
Physically not much larger than Garmin 520.
Better Battery life, map on the device, clarity and size of characters, Speed of booting up, ease of use. Setup - connected my 530 to Garmin Connect and it sucked down most of my screen settings, saving setup time.
meh Track of where i've been on the map is very hard to see on the map.. maybe a setting somewhere? 520 map is black and white.. so pretty easy, though the map itself on the 530 is much better than on the 520.
If you have a bit more money, buy the 830 .. map is the same, but touch screen helps navigate the map itself, slide left and right, etc..
I have been a garmin user for a long time. Started with the Edge 305, then the Edge 800 and now upgraded to the Edge 830. I have to say that I am quite impressed with the new features that this unit provides. In addition to the bluetooth functionality, the maps and directions are much better, plus the feature that you get a warning when there is a sharp curve or bend in the road approximately 400 feet prior to reaching it, which is very handy when riding in unfamiliar areas. Turn warnings happen earlier than with the 800 unit, I also like the climbing feature which lets you know how much of the climb remains and gives you a graphic to show the distance and number of feet yet to climb, which can be quite useful in gauging your effort. I frequently stop at coffee shops on my rides, so the bike alarm feature is a nice little addition to alert you if your bike is moved. Lastly, the feature sends out a notification to pre-selected contacts in the event of a crash or emergency is a great safety feature. On the downside it seems that the satellite connection is not as good as the previous models, if you even go under a short, open bridge the satellite connection is lost. I have even encountered this issue on tree lined streets, which is a bit annoying to see your connection lost and your speed drop to about 3 or 4 mph no matter how fast you are riding. If you are really concerned about this I would suggest getting a speed sensor with this unit. I have also had the unit freeze in the middle of a ride. It froze at 17 mph. I did a little investigative work and found that this is an issue encountered by many Garmin Edge 830 owners and seems to be a firmware issue. It is easily resolved if you hold in the power button for 10 seconds and the ride is saved, but if you are in the middle of a ride, it is once again annoying. Overall the the unit is great and I love it. I am glad I got it, but wish all the little annoying bugs had been worked out first.
I've had a edge 500 for a long time, and it was finally falling apart. I was hesitant going forward because the 500 worked so well, and I was concerned that a non LCD screen would wash out in bright sunlight while I was wearing my polarized riding glasses. But the 500 case finally started to disintegrate (literally, I could see the circuit board inside), so it was time.
The details
1. Unit finds the satellites much faster and can hold them when under tree cover better than the 500.
2. Wireless syncing works great. I don't even have to wake the unit up, just throw it on the shelf in the garage with my other riding gear after a ride and it automatically syncs. Now if it could only automatically charge too......
3. The screen is quite readable in bright sunlight, even with the sunglasses.
4. Metrics like 'grade' seem much more stable (the 500 wouldn't do well on very steep grades...15%....probably because I was not moving fast enough).
5. The new metrics, like 'load' and 'grit' and level of aerobic and anaerobic effort are kinda fun. Not sure if they are accurate, but they seem fairly stable (ie, rides of similar effort give similar numbers). Are they needed....no.... but it's fun. There is a 'flow' metric that seems useless to me so far but maybe that will change over time.
So far I have found nothing that is significantly worse on the 530 relative to the 500. It does take a bit more time to learn (more buttons) and customize, but once you are past that it is an upgrade.
I'm a long time Garmin user (started with the 700) and have not always been thrilled with Garmin software or hardware durability. The software has gotten better of late, so wWhen my 510 died, I looked around, held my nose, and made the expensive upgrade to the 830.
I love this computer! While the form factor is nearly identical, the display is FINALLY super readable in bright sunlight and nearly as responsive as my iphone. The text notifications on the Garmin are slick and unobtrusive. There are many small features that make this feel like a modern cycling computer.
The ONE thing Garmin still need to do is provide phonecomputer setup rather than relying on the clunky setup interface on the device.
I bought this wanting a solid GPS for mountain biking. There's lots of options out there but Garmin has a long history and reputation. I Iike the quick startup and customizable screens. I thought I'd want to see my cell phone notifications, which this one offers but I actually find them an annoyance. It can upload 3rd party maps for turn by turn directions but I wouldn't use it for mountain biking as often there just aren't really many turn options. It was a little challenging to get it connected to my phone consistently as well as a 3rd party heart rate monitor, but it eventually settled down. I have an iPhone X so iOS upgrades might have disrupted the settings connections. I really like the app and it offers some of the measurement features that one must pay for.
Higher models do not bring an additional benefit and I am no fan of the touchscreens anyways. Navigation, etc. is handled through the smartphone anyways. It works great with speed and cadence sensors.
I love it.
The 830 is by far the most disappointing Garmin Edge that I have owned. Ive had the 305, 705, 500, and 810 previously, and while all of them had occasional glitches, I found them to be largely reliable. Not so with the 830. First, pairing it and uploading activities to Garmin Connect is a manual activity. Every. Time. Ive paired and repaired it multiple times. On the iPhone Bluetooth connections page, it always shows 2 830s... one connected and one not. So after every ride, I have to open the Garmin app, hope it wakes up the connection and manually sync. But at least half the time, it requires turning Bluetooth off and on, and turning the Garmin off an on one or more times. In addition, the elevation profiles on the Garmin are totally stairstepped. My other Garmins showed the climbs as relatively smoothaccurate lines, but the elevation profile on the 830 has completely flat sections followed by completely verticals sections. It also always shows me an 18th of a mile farther up the climb than I am. Separately, the climb pro feature sounds good until you use it. Its way too zoomed out so that you cant see what elevation features are coming up. Itll say the average remaining climb is something like 8% as an example, but it doesnt give you any visibility to the 20% kicker coming up. So I dont use it. Finally, it also froze on me mid-ride, although Id give it a pass on that because Ive never had a Garmin that didnt do that. But this was in the first 6 weeks of using it. In summary, I wish Id stuck with my 810.
There is nothing that I dont like. I use this on my road bike and it goes on and off with ease. Also comes with a rechargeable plugin cable. This computer will last for several rides before it needs to be recharged.
Got one of the first units when initially released in May, 2019.
Been in contact with Garmin customer support on several occasions. Their support has been excellent starting with a beta software release update which fixed my initial problem. One annoying flaw is that you can not set the odometer in order to carry over mileage from previous computer. There is an IQ odometer app which can be preset and incorporated into display page. Everything else is functionally complete and the touch screen is a vast improvement over menus and buttons on my previous 530.
Garmin is sending me a replacement unit which will hopefully fix my remaining issue - elevation jumps all over giving wildly erroneous readings. They already had other reports of the problem and established that it is a hardware - not software - problem hence the replacement unit. Hopefully the new unit will not have this problem.
Overall I am very satisfied with the unit, especially the route guidance feature which is essential for touring in unexplored areas.
I had an 820 and really liked it. It was 8 years old when the battery died. One of the electronics specialists at work replaced the battery for me, but he broke a connection and the top third of the touch screen no longer worked. I wish that Garmin would repair devices, it worked fine until the battery needed replacement
I had been using an Edge 520 and upgraded to the 530 as my battery life was starting to decline and the 530 has a few interesting features that the 520 didn't.
The turn notification is much nicer. The screen switches to the map and shows exactly which way the route goes. It also is notifying when and where it should. The 520 was always a little late giving the turn notices, as if it always thought I was a few seconds behind where I actually was.
The Di2 integration is better, letting me set the chainring sizes for the unconventional setup on my tandem,
I like the smart hydration notifications and I've been drinking a lot more during rides on hot days while using that feature.
I like the climb feature that shows me the distance, vertical, and average grade on a climb, but the algorithm needs some work. Some of the climbs it detects are no bigger or harder than climbs it doesn't detect. On some climbs it stops before the very top, and on others it will include a descent and then maybe 20 more feet of climbing where it would have made more sense to call the peak before the descent the end of the climb.
I've had a few unexpected reboots and glitches, but I expect that from any new Garmin product while they work out the kinks. Two issues I'm having for now First, the bluetooth just won't stay connected to my phone. I have to open the Garmin app to get it to connect. That makes the emergency notifications and SMS notifications useless. My 520 didn't have this issue, so I don't think the problem is on the phone side. Second if I turn off the computer at a rest stop while navigating it will lose the 'Distance to Course Point' and the turn-by-turn list. It will still show each turn when I get to it however. So after I leave the rest stop it will just show the distance to next course point as the distance to the finish. I have to stop the route navigation and re-start it to get it working correctly again. I generally don't turn it off now at rest stops due to this issue, and luckily the battery life is really good, so I can do 2 or 3 rides of 40 or 50 miles without recharging.
Upgraded from the Edge 25 to the Edge 250 Plus I like the longer battery life and being able to see more info on the first screen that is completely modifiable to your liking would recommend this over the Edge25 any-day it's nice to have the maps even if you can not set destination on the fly best to set some points of interest in advance
This product syncs with satellites so much faster than my previous product. Really enjoy that. Still learning all the features and it does seem pretty feature rich. A little disappointed that many Strava features require a paid subscription to Strava and Garmin Connect just doesn't have the same appeal. All that said, I found the display very easily visible in all light conditions. Hasn't dropped a signal yet. Battery life is probably better than I expected which is nice. Would definitely recommend to others.
