Garmin Edge 840 & 540 Released

Equipment
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A quick observation: This is my first bike computer. I specifically picked the Garmin because of 1. the battery life and 2. Integration with Trailforks for MTB navigation.

But the user interface is severely lacking vs. what we have all gotten used to with smartphones. If it wasn’t for the companion Connect app, I’d be driven bonkers trying to work things on the device itself. And even the Connect app needs work.

If Hammerhead can address their battery longevity issues, and add MTB trails on the next gen of the Karoo, that’ll be significantly more appealing to a first generation user like me who isnt anchored on legacy devices/interfaces.

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The good thing is that once you have it figured out, set up, and tweaked I think you are really going to like it. The 840 is a really nice head unit and the battery life crazy good. The multiband GPS is really fantastic when you go off road and under the tree canopy.

One day in the future if you upgrade to a new unit, your settings will transfer, so that helps a lot with the pain of the initial set up.

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The UI is fine once you get used to it. We’ve rented cars a handful of times in last year+, most recently was given a free upgrade to a 2023 Mercedes SUV and the car nav/radio/etc UI was mind boggling and unlike a smartphone. Eventually got used to it, after a day or two. Same when I went down to visit relatives and ride BWR AZ, had a Nissan something and that UI was completely different and also took some adjusting. But once you get used to it, pretty easy to navigate.

last night I played around some more with Garmin and my own custom screens. Just throwing out some ideas and these screen shots are somewhat stream of consciousness until the end:

Stamina screen with real-time power graph and real-time workout comparison:

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Think this came with the 840 and I modified it:

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This is what I’ve been using on the 530 when a workout is not loaded:

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Default workout screen - you need this screen to swipe up and rewind a workout step:

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Two right-to-left swipes from default:

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This is a right-to-left swipe after the default workout screen, I played around with this one a bit:

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variation with gears:

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variation with real-time power graph on top row:

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just disabled that warning.

swapping gears and power graph (really quick and easy while riding):

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840 screen is a little cramped when Varia radar goes off:

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real-time HR graph top row, time-to-go bottom left:

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swapping HR graph and time-to-go, again this is fast&easy while riding:

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By the end of ride, settled on this variant:

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Going to try that for awhile.

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127

Yep, I imagine I’ll get used to it. Small things like - not being able to see waypoints I added to a course until I’m in navigation mode on that course - I’ll get comfortable with over time.

This combination doesn’t seem like it goes well together :laughing:

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These devices are a balance of durability, battery life, and performance while riding a bike in multiple conditions.

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indeed!
:rofl:

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Is anyone else having a hard time getting their hands on one of these units? I’ve been waiting for the 840 (non-solar) and it’s still not available at any of my local bike shops, or even on Amazon. Garmin’s own Website says the 840 is “available to ship in 7-10 days”. It seems like Garmin released a very limited number of units.

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In Australia there seems to be plenty of stock of both the non-solar and solar version directly from Garmin

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I had to search around to find availability. Bought here (still shows availability as of time of this post).

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Anyone having issues with 840 connecting ANT+ sensors? Mine is loosing connectivity all the time, I’ve done 3 rides with it so far and each time it’s been a pain.

At first when it imported all the sensors from Connect I was in awe, turns out it didn’t see any. I removed all sensors, tried to find them again - it worked with 4iiii HR strap but it did not with Varia and Stages. Stages worked on one ride only, yesterday I managed to reconnect it via Bluetooth but ant+ should have worked. I’m quite frustrated at the moment.

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Have not seen this, all connections work well here for me. (Stages and Rotor PMs, Polar, Tacx Trainer) Maybe try a full reset, even if it‘s painful?

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Varia Radar. And the blue edit square appears briefly (and then disappears) when you swipe to a new page.

Notice how the blue edit square (upper right) and thin screen# indicator at very bottom disappear after a second or so:

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So if you are stopped, or take a screen shot, its easy to know the screen # position if you have made a bunch of custom screens. Its also easy to edit the screen after swapping to it.

I’m coming from a 530, the 840 nav is great and touchscreen fantastic (sorry @DaveWh I think the 840 is way better than 540).

On Sunday I had a simple out-n-back course. Near the end made a small detour here and took the quiet Village Center Dr instead of busy Green Vally Rd:

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as I’m going down the steep hill, I look down and the 840 wants me to do a U-turn. Yeah, right. Went close to a mile and it was still insisting on a U-turn. Coming from the 530 it was super easy to cancel the route, and then re-route. I didn’t take any screenshots, but it was easy to figure out. The re-route to beginning options were “most direct” or “way I came” - and I chose “way I came” which somewhat annoyingly wanted to put me on the bike path that parallels the road and I made the mistake of taking at the start of the ride. So not perfect, but so much better than 530 and so much easier to tap the screen with my finger and quickly re-route without taking my eyes off the road for more than a few seconds.

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The 1030 will eventually reroute automatically if you ignore it long enough, I wouldn’t be surprised if the 840 does that a wee bit faster.

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Yeah, I was impatient and figured it would reroute eventually. But I wanted to explore the features, so I cancelled the route to see how to recover and get routing back to the start.

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I like having distance to next turn on a frequently used screen. Don’t have to page over to the map or nav screen to see how long I’m on the current road.

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How are you guys taking screenshots of your computers? Is that a feature of the 5/840?

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it was a feature on the 530 too, you have to enable it. Search your manual for “screen capture” - on the 840 its under Settings > System > Display.

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You can also setup Di2 buttons to take screen shots :smiley:

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I love the way the Edge shows proximity and number of vehicles approaching. Previously, I had just been using the Varia app and getting audible alerts. The Edge solution is so much better.

I’m riding a MTB race this weekend. I have the course loaded. It will be interesting to see what useful information the Edge is able to provide off-road. I haven’t had a chance to test before this race, and the trails here are still snow covered.

The UI navigation is still frustrating. It’s easy to accidentally press the wrong button (and sometimes not know what wrong button you pressed) and then it’s trial and error to get back to where I want. I’ll get used to it eventually, but have been spoiled by the clean navigation on most iPhone apps for the past 10 years.

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The 530 buttons were acceptable but took trial&error to learn. The 840 UI/UX is soooo much better, because you can use it somewhat like an iPhone but also use the buttons.