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I know it was cold yesterday but my fully charged 130 didn't last a 5 hour ride yesterday. It's about 2 years old but that's really poor. WTF did they not make the battery larger?
1/10 rant over
Funny, I have an Edge 130 and used it yesterday for just over 4 hours recording and following a course and it died.
I have charged it and checked I am using GPS and Galileo, I assume this uses more battery? What tracking choice are you using?
EDIT: Forgot the Garmin forums are a good source of info, yes combining networks will reduce battery life
What have you got linked to it? Mine was fine on its own, but add in a HR strap, a Varia radar and a power meter and I'd be lucky to get more than 4 hours out of it.
I sold mine a few months back for pretty much this reason. Was out with my 530 yesterday for about 3 hrs - it was connected to chest HR strap, and crank cadence sensor - I started with 87% and finished with 70%, temperature was 2 degrees..
I had an 810 and the battery was fantastic. I upgraded to a 820 as it has a few more bells and whistles.
The battery life is terrible. Connected to my phone, cadence sensor and hr monitor which I've now removed.
When I'm on the mtb I run it in power saving mode and press the screen to see the information.
My frienda wahoo's seem to last for days.
On longer rides I carry a cache battery and lead to charge it.
It will be replaced eventually with a wahoo
GPS only, backlight off (10seconds). Not navigating.
Bluetooth to phone the only link.
Probably depends on age of the battery, I had a small Garmin, that the battery started to degrade, wouldn't last more that 4 hours or so in the end, upgraded to a 520 that is a few years old now and is going the same way, in summer I would have about 60-70% battery left after my usual 4.5 hour ride, on Sunday down to 40%. I also found if you are following a route on it, that tends shortens to the battery time.
It would be good if you could easily replace the batteries.
It would be good if you could easily replace the batteries.
It would be good if Garmin put decent sized batteries in them in the first place. Would be great to get a full two long summer days out of a device - a genuine 20 hours with everything switched on and in use. Not the '15 hours' claimed for the 130 that never seemed to be more than 10 even with everything disabled. Impact on size/weight and even cost would have been minimal.
An already Short battery life was one of the notable issues when the 130 was released, I honestly reckon the old edge 500 is/was a better proposition than the 130 as it started with something like 18hrs claimed battery life and did most of the same things. pretty much all Garmin devices seem to lose a good 25-30% within the first few years.
I get about equivalent life to the OP from my Edge 25 (maybe a tad less?) which is a very basic device with a far smaller battery (and screen) and that is a much older device.
(I don't use any navigation, turn of Bluetooth and Glonass (Galileo isn't an option), but I do connect ANT+ sensors)...
I did pick up a cheap, used Bryton 'Rider 330' a while back as the claimed battery life is ridiculous (30ish hrs), and it is a pretty full featured device (on paper), the battery life was impressive, but setup and operation are very unintuitive, which I would put up with if the interfacing app/Bryton back end wasn't such utter bobbins.
It illustrated that it's entirely possible to make a GPS device with better battery performance than Garmin seem to offer, but you do get used to their interface and using Garmin connect.
You can of course get replacement batteries for Garmin devices, or pay Garmin to do a refurb, but these are often marginal options when compared with the price of a new device (IMO)...
Edit: Having looked at the old DC rainmaker comparison tables are you sure you've not got the '130 plus' rather than the physically smaller '130' as there's a +3hr benefit on (claimed) battery life for the plain 130 (Bigger screens are not always better).
Garmin have developed a bad habit of re-releasing the same device ~18-24 months after initial release with the "Plus" suffix, and a slightly bigger screen, but no uprated battery...
I bought iainc's 130 😉
have it connected to a HRM, but also live tracker (so my wife knows I'm not in a ditch). Out for 3+ hours the other day and though it said I was near zero at the 2.5h mark, it lasted until I got home. That's all I need it for generally, so it's OK (though I've asked for a newer one for Christmas...)
No, it's the 130 not he plus. Katie has a 25 and it does last a bit longer (but has a worse interface and custom charging cable).
I've settled for a 'refurb' at £85! (half the 'list' price, but only £15 cheaper than the best price for one new). eBay has a load of listings for '130 rear case and battery' from china but they appear to be used - I'm guessing maybe removed from returned devices with broken screens?