[Closed] Garmin Edge 530

Just got one but I've been using it on my road bike so far, I really like it. I did have to send the first one back due to dodgy buttons mind.

I've been really enjoying the live segments to make me try a bit harder on climbs.

Regarding mounting and protection, I bought a rubber case and a glass screen protector off Amazon and I think I'm gonna get one of these for the MTB when they are back in stock to mount it on the top tube: https://www.76projects.com/shop/enduromount

Ive had one for about 6 months. i use it on road and mtb and it has been a revelation compared to my old garmin 25. Its frozen once and took about 5 mins of frantic button pushing to unfreeze. I use it to download routes and follow workouts with power and cadence sensors - workouts can be in or outside. For me it has been perfect and I chose it over the 1030 because of the stories of touch screen issues with older models, but i think the 1030 is fine. battery life is also good and it is very easy to customise the screens.

Had one for 12 months, since it came out. Very pleased, had the odd freeze but seems v stable on latest software. Use it all the time to find new routes. Seems plenty tough enough!

I got one a month or so back as was fed up with my 130 battery life. Have used on road and gravel only and not much navigation as riding from home on routes I know. Simple pairing with HR and Cadence sensors over a few bikes, good screens, great battery life.

Cool how it tells you that there are tight bends ahead etc !

I got one about six weeks ago to replace a 520 I lost. Been very happy with mine so far (though the cost smarted a bit).

I've mostly used it for road riding...only got a couple of mountain bike rides on it. No idea what grit and flow are about...seems like bollocks to me. I thought the 'jump' feature might be good but riding my road bikes over speed bumps triggers it so it seems like it's more bollocks. I guess more MTB rides over the same trails may make this more relevant.
For road riding, it's great though I do have a power meter and Di2 and HRM so lots of metrics to capture and geek out on!

Can any owners say how easy it is to pan and zoom on the map screen? I've got an 820 and barring the crap touch screen, find it a very useful feature.

Maps are a bit clunky - you're pressing a lot of buttons to move the map about a pretty small screen. I normally get the phone out when I want to have a browse. The touchscreen version might be better if you're looking to interact with the maps (but that's more ££).

Battery life is the big winner for me. It seems to go on for ever.

I changed from an 820 to a 530, mainly for the increased battery life.

I really miss the touch screen of the 820 and find using the map of the 530 a real pain. Using all the buttons during winter with thick gloves on its also harder than just swiping the screen. I also find the 530 overly complicated with all the extra features that I very rarely use/need. Like air time and it's rad and gnarr ratings.

On the plus side it has been fairly stable since I got it, battery life is good and it had its own WiFi so uploads /downloads are a lot better.

It's great: the functionality all works (and there's lots of it), I find it easier to use than previous generations, with less convoluted menu structures etc, it's pretty stable (mine has crashed, but only once), the battery life is brilliant, the screen is easy to read.

BUT I am still not sure I made the right decision choosing the 530 over the 830. I don't care about the extra nav functions. But I wonder if I should have gone touchscreen. Interacting with it during a ride is just a bit bit clunky - not just the map zoom and pan, but generally pressing buttons on one side without accidentally pressing those opposite seeking leverage. And when winter comes, I fear I won't easily distinguish between adjacent buttons through my gloves. It's a big price gap for a touch screen. But after some time with the 530 I'd think about paying it.

Have had the 530 since release, a smidge before release as wiggle have some exclusive rights to sell even before Garmin themselves apparently. The early models apparently (later models were supposedly better) had issues with the buttons sticking which mine has had since day 1 and I finally got annoyed enough after two battery drains because the power button stuck to get it replaced under warranty not long ago. Yes it's a lot better but IMO they're still not brilliant but it's more of a slight stick now than needing to press it again to unstick it.

At first the jump feature amused me, just because it was fun to hear it beep away everytime I got off the ground but once the humerous novelty wore off I've not bothered with it. It's mildly entertaining still to try to be smooth enough on a MTB to trick it into thinking you were in the air though.

Mine replaced an element bolt which was controlled purely from your mobile phone but the off road navigation on the bolt is awful and so that was my main reason for swapping. I have to say I preferred the control it from your phone thing and the easy ability to therefore send routes to it. However, the garmin is far superior in terms of the off road navigation. Although if you want to scroll and move around the map, honestly dont bother! One button to choose between +/-,up n down, left n right and then another button to then go in those directions. Its rubbish and time consuming and just utter tosh. Just wait and see where it takes you or get your phone out and hope you have internet signal to use google maps.

Other things I love about the garmin 530 is the climb profile/segment. It tells you how many climbs there are in your route and how far you are from them. Once you're close to one a colour coded profile displays so you can get an idea of how much it's going to hurt, when you can rest and how long it is then once you're in it says GO and the cursor moves through the climb so you can see how far you are from the top to keep pushing and can warn other people riding with you that it's going to hurt a lot.

I also love the fact it's clever enough to work with the newly upgraded di2 on my bike which now has fully scynchronised gears so the garmin warns me when I'm one change off changing the front too so that I can alter my pedal stroke to not mash gears and give it chance to change. It also means that my spare left hand shifter can now control the garmin.

In terms of MTBing use its brilliant to use it with trailforks which I did lots around Whistler and around the tweed valley where people actually add and upload all the worthwhile segments. It made finding my way round soooooo easy and you can grab peoples routes from trail forks and so long as you're connected to wifi you can download the route you've made on trailforks.

It depends really on your use and your riding as to whether the good bits are bits you want or not really worthy of the upgrade!

Can any owners say how easy it is to pan and zoom on the map screen?

I bought one when they first came out and pretty quickly sent it back because the button interface drove me absolutely insane. (Not just the inevitable fact that buttons mean a different way of interacting, but the way in which Garmin have implemented those interactions and the terribly inconsistent feel of the buttons themselves; though perhaps that last point may have been fixed in later models).

Anyone got any real world experience of the incident detection feature?

Commuting home tonight (i have a few good singletrack options) i found a guy who had obviously had a tree jump out on him. Another fella had already called an ambulance (gashed forehead, not getting on his feet anytime soon, conscious and in pain).

It made me think that it would be useful to have incident detection or something similar. I've got mobile reception most of the places i ride, but if I'd come off in one of the other locations i'd ridden through it's likely i'd be there for the night before anyone found me.

I’ve got an old 800 which I’ve really liked and still like.

Just fancy an update

How’s the 530 compare??

Following routes on 1:50 OS maps is the thing I use the 800 for the most.

Thanks to those who replied, I'll avoid the 530 as and when I change the 820, which has the screen halo for the third time and go for the 830.

This is quite a big deal for Garmin owners:

Strava and Komoot sync for Garmin

no more faffing with download gpx, upload to connect

If you follow this link to the Garmin store you can get the 530 for £172.49 at the moment which is a cracking price.

My active discounts

Hat tip to HotUKDeals

You can also get the Edge 530 for £172.49 through Lifeworks if you've signed up through your place of work.

Thanks so much for the link - Treated myself to an 830. Absolute bargain 🙂

Thanks for the link. 530 ordered. Decided, winter + gloves + touch screen + rain probably wouldn’t work! Hence I went for the 530.

Guessing the 540/840 are on their way then.....

just taken delivery of one of those 530's moving from a 500. Keen to get out if i link to strava will it pick up hill sections for the hill climb feature or do I have to have a route loaded in and be following that route with the hill in it?

Rode for the first time with the edge 530 last night in a road loop. I noticed it warning me about sharp corners coming up in the road, but I didn’t notice any warnings / details on hill climbs coming up. But then I didn’t upload a route - I was just riding a route I mostly new but was just mixing up a bit.

On Sunday (weather allowing) I’m planning a longer route that I’ve done before but can’t remember the way round. I just need to work out how I can get it plugged in as a route for directions - I’ve got the route on Garmin Connect and Strava so hopefully I can get that set as a course and edit the route to join it as I met with a triathlon club a few miles from the house.

Also going to try and setup my 645 music as a heart rate sensor for it so I can get that data in so I can look at zones afterwards (in Connect - seeing as I’m not a Strava subscriber and they’ve now made it all or nothing).

Also going to try and setup my 645 music as a heart rate sensor for it

It's better than nothing, but if you can afford it I'd get a proper HR sensor on a chest strap, it'll be far more accurate. A quick search on Amazon shows up loads for less than 30GBP.

@karnali you need to be following a route for the climb feature to work.

It’s better than nothing, but if you can afford it I’d get a proper HR sensor on a chest strap, it’ll be far more accurate. A quick search on Amazon shows up loads for less than 30GBP.

Ok - I mean I’ve only had hr at all on the bike since I got the 645 in December. Finding it interesting to see how hard I’m working on certain rides. Find I rarely touch zone 5 cycling - but spend quite a long time on it whilst out running. I think I’m reasonably strong but my weight really counts against me when running (5’9 and 12 stone 8) more so than on the bike. Except steep / long climbs obviously when lighter riders tend to fly away from me a bit.

Edit - are the hr monitors you refer to just cheap deals on Garmin or some other make?

are the hr monitors you refer to just cheap deals on Garmin or some other make?

Any other make, as long as it's ANT+ compatible it'll be fine. There are more expensive models that also broadcast bluetooth which might be of interest if you want to connect to your phone.

Following routes on 1:50 OS maps is the thing I use the 800 for the most.

This is an interesting one. I've never found OS maps on Garmins to be that useful, for a couple of reasons:

1) They're a bit too cluttered for "on the bike" nav (although clearly excellent for when you're stopped and need to work out where you are). On a limited resolution Garmin screen they can turn into pixel-soup.
2) They're raster not vector, so don't adjust detail with zoom
3) They're slooooow (at least on older devices)
4) Expensive and the licenses have been inflexible

TalkyToaster does some excellent OSM-derived maps that have much of the look and feel of OS 1:50k maps, but as they are vector source, they support dynamic detail adjustment with zoom and are routable too. I can recommend them.

(As a note: I use the talkytoaster maps on a Garmin 830, but I do have OS 1:50k and 1:25k maps loaded on my phone with Viewranger too as there's nowt better for when you're lost!)

Decided, winter + gloves + touch screen + rain probably wouldn’t work!

Ah, you haven't used Garmin's most recent touchscreens. They work with all of the above, I'm very impressed by them. (The old ones like the one on the 820 were awful, and the resistive ones on the 800/810/etc were obviously just a different kettle of fish.)

TalkyToaster does some excellent OSM-derived maps that have much of the look and feel of OS 1:50k maps, but as they are vector source, they support dynamic detail adjustment with zoom and are routable too. I can recommend them.

To be fair, Garmin's OS mapping is routable. But yes, the raster nature of it obviously has inherent issues.

The issue with OSM-derived maps is that you don't get the same information as OS; for instance near me there are a lot of bridleways which aren't marked as cycling allowed (to be fair I'm using some slightly out-of-date data but the principle always applies) so it's pretty hard to produce a map which distinguishes them reliably.

I've been building some nice clear mapping for primarily road use, but I think that inability to accurately classify trails would hinder a good set of decluttered maps for off-road use.

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I've been bimbling around recently finding some new bridleways to connect roads, for which I've been using the Explore on the bars and fishing the phone out my pocket to check OS maps on Outside. But yesterday I realised I've also got an 810 and an OS maps card so I've fished them out of the drawer and I've now got the best of both worlds without having to stop and fiddle with a phone 🙂

Someone above asked about ClimbPro. The Edge 530 and 830 have recently (this week!) received a major software update and there's new documentation on the changes to ClimbPro here:

FORUMS.GARMIN.COM "https://forums.garmin.com/cfs-file/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/403/Understanding-ClimbPro-on-the-Edge-V1.9.pdf"

FWIW, the new firmware is greatly improved - LiveTrack actually works now, for example!