For me, it’s direct sunlight. So any ride around midday. Which is almost all of my outdoor riding. It turns into a mirror and I literally can’t read it at all. GP Lama has a video showing it. It was a really good device otherwise (apart from the battery), but just wasn’t working for me with the screen.
Funny I have not had issues with the 1040 in direct sunlight - maybe due to the angle of my head unit? I have had it catch like a mirror from time to time like a mirror at lower sun angles in the evening, but that’s not been a big issue for me.
Battery life is awesome - I charged mine once when I got it (30/07/2022), have ridden 34 hours (moving, will be more inc stopped time) with it, 25.5 in battery saver, the other 8.5 in normal/full accuracy GPS mode, and it still has 50%
I’m talking about the HH Karoo 2. My 1040 hasn’t those problems.
Oh sorry, not reading properly 
This is it 
So if I am abroad doing a training camp or whatever, I want to start the computer, head into the app and have the full list of routes and workouts, pick both, then just press start on the Wahoo and I am on my way.
Feels like there is a lot more prepping/menu hunting to do on the Garmin.
Maybe its just different workflows, we shall see if I throw it off a cliff on Mallorca in August 
I have gone from Garmin edge 500 (2009 release date) to a wahoo Elemnt, and now to a edge 530. Going to the 530 was a big step back in usability, and the interface is quite reminiscent of the 500. For people who have had Garmins before and are familiar with their (archaic) interface, they aren’t so bad. I think most people getting their first garmin now will have a similar reaction to you.
Maybe you were just reading in direct sunlight? 
I have already put up an ad to sell it…
I was riding with it yesterday, and honestly, how can people say that its navigation is good? Its abysmal.
- The arrow showing where I am is literally 2mm big, and in a baby blue colour. I spend a dangerous amount of time looking at the map trying to see where I was, when the next turn was.
- The color of the route disappears on the map of everything else, there were times where I had to stop and look to see which line was the line I was meant to follow. The chevrons made it a little bit easier though.
- What the hell is that grey arrow that is larger than my current location. Oh, thats some kind of weird “riding partner” function that you cannot turn off. So not only do I need to differentiate between two arrows on the screen, the one that actually matters is smaller.
Other things that I realsed Wahoo does amazingly well, small things of course:
- During a workout, I can see all the data already in the app. So if I stop at a cafe mid ride, I can open the app and see where we are, what is left of the route, other riders with Wahoo, see all my laps etc.
- I can actually just glance at the Wahoo to see where I am going. What more do you need? The only way it would be better is if they would adopt H2s way of doing it, which is pretty much only a high res version of the Wahoo one.
I mean, this is a good example of the screen during course riding, how on earth am I supposed to safely look down on that and quickly see where I am going, so I can focus on the road and traffic?
And here, there are 4 lines, in 4 different colors. And they pick the darkest one for me to follow, in dark purple? What does the green one mean? Why are all other lines thicker and easier to see?
And don’t even get me started again on that grey arrow.
And then just a quick comparison to the Wahoo…
Yes, its more basic, it doesn’t have all street names and whatnot, but it takes one glance at it to know if I am on the right path or not.
Next thing, not having physical button to zoom in and out is borderline dangerous. Every interaction with the Garmin requires you to stop the bike to safely see what’s going on. How am I in 20mph supposed to be able to safely touch 2 small zoom buttons on a touch screen…
Whereas on the Wahoo, I can focus on the road, zoom with the buttons without looking, glance at it quickly to see whatever I needed to zoom in for, then zoom back out with the fingers without losing concentration of the road.
Food and drink reminder, would be wonder if such a simple thing works… but no, it comes on, and the second that the computer wants to tell you something else, its gone. So lets say I am riding, I head a beep but its not safe to look down right now, then hear another beep, look down then, its a turn.
No, you actually just missed your food reminder. And since there was a turn coming up, the computer removes the food and water reminder from the screen completely, so the reminder becomes useless.
And again, what does Wahoo do? Well it gives you the option to have to manually remove the reminder each time, or have it go away automatically. So if you ride, you see the reminder, you eat or drink, then remove it until next one comes. Perfect!
this are the things that are totally good on Hammerhead 2 too, the HH Display is much better for me then the Edge 1040, but the Battery on HH is horrible if you ride longer.
Garmin Developers need rides with HH or Wahoo to see how intelligent they made the UI!
I mean, it sounds like you’ve already made up your mind without giving it a shot or learning how to use the device. Most of the things you’re complaining about can be changed to your preference, sounds like to just need to learn how to use it. But I guess it’s easier to complain.
The ridden track color can be changed in settings. The gray arrow is a virtual partner and you can change to pace. It’s been a complaint that you can’t turn it off, but you can change the speed to really slow so you’ll never see it. And do you really confuse the two? They’re different colors and sizes. You can change to text size of all the labels (street names, POIs, etc) or turn them off completely. Why would you want to pul up the app during a ride? Aren’t you riding? The maps don’t look busy to me, the Wahoo ones are way too basic, I have no clue what I’m looking at. The chevrons are huge and block the road. But if you like that, ok. And there is a button to zoom in and out. It’s pretty easy to push and never really had an issue with it. If you have to stop to be able to push the button, that’s not really a Garmin issue, that’s a bike handling ability issue. Same with the food alert.
Judging by your previous posts, you made up your mind before you even bought the device. SO I’m not sure why you even did. And even with trying it, you had your mind set and it seems like you just want to complain about its “issues” rather than actually give it a try. Go back to the Wahoo if that’s what you like. Nobody is stopping you.
As much as like my Garmin, the Virtual Partner is annoying and really needs to be turned off. Don’t understand why there’s no option for it. I could see how it would be cool in some situations, most of the time I hate it.
I definitely like the more detailed map on the Garmin. One of the reasons I moved from Wahoo was that it was too basic. But that’s personal preference. I could see how simplicity could be nice. I do also like that you can download new maps to the Garmin.
i never had probs with Virtual Partner with out of the Box Edge, what do you all (i heard it very often) different to me?
I wouldn’t say it’s a problem. At least not like the other guy. I’ve never confused the two arrows, they’re pretty different and the map centers on me so I’m not sure why you’d confuse which arrow is yours. It’s more that I don’t use it. So it’s just an extra data point on the map that I don’t need. Although the one time I do like it is when timing a ride. So I can glance down and see it and roughly calculate how long my ride is going to be depending on if I’m ahead or behind it. Which can be nice.
i don’t go back to HH but the simplicity of Routing i miss on 1040, it’s so hard for me to follow a route (I see poorly have 3 dioptres), everything is so small, i have to stop my ride too (it’s to dangerous for me to play arround on Edge during car traffic).
Is there really a setting, to see the course i follow a little bit bigger?
No, I did not spend 650 euros on something to complain about. I genuinely thought that it was going to be a step up in terms of navigation. All images in my post except the ones on the Wahoo, is from my own ride last night.
Regarding track color
And yes, you can change track color, but you need to do that on each course… and thats not a good long term solution to have to do that every ride
You are misunderstanding my complaint. I am looking at it from a user experience perspective, and you can honestly not tell me that it makes sense to have two arrows, where the smaller one is for me, in horrid contrast to the background. I design user interfaces for a living, its not that hard to make it usable in terms of contrast and whatnot.
I never have to pull up the computer while riding, I can do everything I need on the Wahoo itself while riding. My point is that before the ride, when selecting route, workout, changing settings and all that, Wahoo has nailed the user experience of being able to do it quickly and effectively. Whereas I am on Garmin forced to do it on the unit itself, with less detail, worse UI, slower, and worse touch screen.
For example, picking a route on the Wahoo is just a basic scroll, I can see all details of it, and then just send it to the unit, and its loaded in a matter of seconds.
On the Garmin, you get very little detail of the map that you want to load. So you better have all the details nailed beforehand.
This is how you select a route on Wahoo, dead simple, and I can scroll, filter, reverse them etc, all in the app. Complete overview of all my routes. I can also set it to only show those who are near me, if I am abroad for example:
On the device itself I can also change the route from a list (same list as on the phone), but here of course I don’t get the same detail, just name, distance and elevation.
There is no zoom button on the new Garmin. You have power button, lap button and stop/start button. Hence I need to use touch screen to zoom in and out if I am riding. Not convenient, not safe, and especially not easy if you’re riding gravel or anything but super smooth road.
You didn’t read my post at all it seems. The food alert disappears by itself which is issue number one, it also disappears if any other beep or notification is being communicated (like next turn), which means that the food alert is not an alert anymore, since its failed to actually let me take action on it.
I understand why some feel that way! For me, I like to look at the real world, and translate what the Wahoo is showing me into the real environment, instead of looking at the unit, need it to tell me everything. If that makes sense.
I want to glance at the Wahoo to see if I am on the right road. If I need to turn ahead, as long as I can make out which turn it is, I am happy. I don’t need to know more than that, hence this level I believe is a good level of distraction from traffic, cars etc.:
the Eat or Drink alarm is very short, it is possible you don’t see it fast enough, when i have an Alarm on HH i see it as long as a wipe it away, looks like Wahoo do it similar
First off, I’d like to apologize because I think my post came off a little dismissive and not what I had originally intended. I do think you came into the Garmin with some expectations of what you wanted and aren’t happy that it’s lacking in your mind. I think it comes down to preference. You are used to and like the Wahoo UI. It is very different than a Garmin. I like the Garmin UI better. So you came into this expecting things that you got from Wahoo and don’t get with Garmin, and are probably justifiably upset. I look at your “complaints” about the Garmin UI and think of them as benefits. I vastly prefer the Garmin map. I get more info and can see that info clearly. I’ve never confused my track with other roads or confused my arrow with the VP. You like the simple chevrons, I hate that and like the Garmin track. It’s not a matter of what’s “better” more that it’s a question of preference.
You can change the color track permanently. It’s in the settings. I’ll give you that it’s dumb that you can’t turn off VP, but I’ve never had an issue with it. The map centers on you, so I’ve never thought it was confusing to which one is you or the VP. For new users maybe, but it takes a single time to find out which is which. Again, I think it comes down to what you were used to and getting used to a new UI. Like going from PC to Mac. It just takes time to get used to the small things.
Like the food alerts. I prefer they dismiss on their own. I would actually hate if it just stayed there and made me dismiss it. To me, that’s an annoying feature.
And I won’t sit here and say Garmin does everything better. The Wahoo app looks nice and simple, but I also hardly use the Garmin app. The device itself has everything I need and I don’t find it slow or clunky at all. Again, you just need to get used to it.
The maps themselves were a big reason I prefer Garmin. There’s just more customization. I like road names, but if you don’t you can turn them off. I like more detail. You can have terrain maps that show relief if that’s your thing. You can upload new maps if you want. There’s just more there.
All in all, it comes down to what you expected and what you got. I feel like you expected a Wahoo UI and aren’t happy with the Garmin system. You perceive the Garmin UI as non-intuitive and clunky, but I’ve never felt this way. You say you develop UIs, but from this discussion you have a preference for how things should be and others don’t agree with you. Neither one is “better” it’s all preference. One of the reasons I was blunt with my first response is that you’re assuming everybody wants the UI that you think is better, but you’re failing to realize that people like Garmin. You’ve been dismissive on different ways to do things and think your preference is the right way. I’m not the only person that prefers Garmin’s UI but you come in hot saying that’s it’s horrible and make it sound like we’re idiots for liking it.
No worries, I hope I didn’t come off as rude or anything. There was some frustration on my end when I feel like companies charge a hefty price, but then skip some things that I personally think are not up to par.
Maybe we kind find a middle ground for map detail and whatnot 
Just did a quick sketch below with some design cues from Wahoo, some inspiration from H2, as well as a little bit more detailed map, and some turn arrow design cues from Garmin
So from a UX perspective here is what I mashed together from all the different computers on the market:
- Always be able to get a quick glance at battery, its one of those hygiene factors to be able to see quickly, same foes with ride time, and time of day. If those are always there it saves a lot of space for the more important stuff.
- More contrast for chevrons against background
- Arrow is large with same design as before, and dark grey line where I have just ridden
- Zoom buttons as before on the previous Wahoos
- Moved the power button a bit higher, since you might want to use the device as leverage when pressing side buttons for zoom etc, so you don’t accidentally press power button on left side.
Thats about it Wahoo has most of the stuff in place already with the app. Beef up the navigation a bit, and battery, and you have the best computer on the market
I here what you are saying. I went wahoo at first as I was sick of supporting Garmin over the years. The killer is navigation. It puked on a 1600 km trip after 3 days and I could not get it to work with my phone or any other way. I switched to a 1030, then a 130 plus and now the 1040. Navigation is amazing and I think you can customize many of your issues through the settings.
- in the activity profile change your map these to something you like. change your map detail. Turn off popularity map, Change your map detail (i use most). change your history line colour. change your zoom levels under advanced. change your text size. Turn off auto zoom.
There are so many UI options in the Garmin I would think you could customize it to meet your needs. It will just take time. But then You may prefer the wahoo. I could never go back to wahoo as Navigation is my number one priority. I just did that same 1600km trip on the 1040 in one course file. Amazing navigation. Not one issue with anything. Saved every day and reloaded the course the next day and continued. The real test will me a 700 km bikepacking backcountry race in August.
The far right looks pretty good. It’s funny how preference is a huge factor because I just am not a fan of the chevrons for tracking. Maybe have an option to pick because I like the solid line for the upcoming track, just a different color than what I’ve ridden. The chevrons just cover too much of the road for my liking. And I’d make the arrow smaller to represent me. Small things but overall looks good.
Agree 100%. And I think the new Garmins do this. And the Karoo 2 if I remember correctly. But yea, a small band at the top with time of day, elapsed time, battery life. Simple and always wanted.