Ald1 

Now that the weather broke and I'm back from vacation I've gotten about 5 rides in with my new 1030. Every ride I've had issues with this thing. Today I went out for a 40miler and at mile 30 my heart rate locked at 156, my cadence locked at 75 and my power locked at 116 watts. No where near the actual outputs. These stats then were uploaded for the ride and the software thinks I'm about to drop dead with very little fitness as I'm 66 with a max heart rate of 165!!! It would be funny if the thing cost 20 bucks but it did not.. Needless to say this is very frustrating. Too late to return. Is this normal? How do you correct? Any advice greatly appreciated. Another suprise is if you load a course and go off course the thing only wants you to make a u-turn. It took a short cut once and for 5 miles the Garmin simply wanted to turn me around even when getting back on course was only a few 100 feet ahead. Not anything like the car rerouting. Again normal?

Oneder

A friend of mine uses a cell phone app for directions and it seems to work well. It doesn't measure HR but you are likely better off with a dedicated HR monitor anyways.

faulker479

Try a factory reset.

joelcool

I track my rides with Strava (the free version) so no HR, power, etc. I've been looking at those techie things like Garmin / Strava Premium, getting a HR monitor, etc. because I think it could be interesting to really know what I'm doing or how I'm improving. I think at some point getting tangled up in this technology sort of removes the simplicity and purity of going for a bike ride. Reading your post kind of confirms my thinking. I'm a 55 year old bike rider and have no aspirations of racing or getting KOM status, but I do enjoy riding my bike. I completely understand those with higher aspirations than me, and the knowledge that can be gained by the additional data provided by this technology, but I don't think that's me.

raparkjr

Ald1 - I have not experienced the re-routing problem (yet), but have had numerous rides where power and heart rate have frozen. It is very frustrating and when I called Garmin they did not have an answer, but asked me to upload my files and they would send to their programers. After an hour of trying to upload file (below are instructions they provided) I gave up. I have about had it too. I am too late to return too, but I'm going to try.

Mac OS X

1. Connect the Garmin device to the computer
2. Open Finder
3. Click Go in the menu bar at the top of the screen
4. Click Computer
5. Open the Garmin drive
6. CTRL + Click on the Garmin folder
7. Select Copy "Garmin"
8. CTRL + click on the Desktop and click Paste item
9. Double-click the new Garmin folder on the Desktop
10. Drag any files with names that begin with gmap to the Trash
11. Drag the Map folder to the Trash if present
12. Close the Garmin folder window
13. CTRL + click the Garmin folder on the desktop
14. Select Compress "Garmin"
15. Attach the new Garmin.zip file on the Desktop to an e-mail reply

After the compressed folder has been attached, send the e-mail reply with any additional requested information to Product Support.

Steve B.

avole

If you use an Apple Watch with Strave it gives you heart rate and power, plus adds the info to the health app.

Ald1 

Just an update. I got a wahoo HR monitor and that has not frozen yet. I have two bikes with power meters one a stages and the other DZero and both have been playing nice with the 1030. The only issue I had was last Saturday. Had a bike ride Thursday 26 milers and the 1030 work flawlessly, battery down to only 88 percent so I left in car for Saturday's ride only to find the battery at 1 percent and an "epic ride" of 40 miles at 45.4 MPH!!!! Yea guess was left on. Keep telling team Sky I can't ride the tour this year..........

jmess

atwl77

Had this just happen to me, on my 2nd ride. Lost HR completely, while Cadence was stuck at 90 throughout the ride.
When I got home and synced to Garmin Connect, the results were as expected: the HR graph dropped sharply to zero where it lost signal, whereas Cadence was one straight line at 90 all the way.

jgwilliams

Just a note regarding this: devices that rely on wrist mounted HRMs like the Apple Watch and numerous other devices out there are nothing like as reliable as devices that use a chest strap. They work pretty well during less active times but once they start to shake around a bit they just can't track heart rate so effectively.

avole

Reference for the above?

DrIsotope

It's a Garmin. They take at the minimum a year to get the software/firmware sort of stable, so during that time you're taking your chances. I waited a full year after release to buy my Edge 520, have had it for over 2 years, and it still goes bonkers every once in awhile. It lost all sensors for about a minute not two weeks ago. I've had to use fitfilefixer about half a dozen times this year alone.

If you want to own a trouble-free Garmin, the only one that exists is the Edge 500. The firmware has been locked in since 2011. My wife has been using one for years, which was purchased refurbished, and just never has a problem. Ever.

mbw

Edge 500 has been great, but I don't have the patience for any of the newer garmins. (I am very technical, but the UX/UI response is pure ****).

I just bought a Wahoo Elemnt and I love it so far. It has everything I need including turn by turn maps, I don't need routing, I carry a phone for reroutes anyway if I need it. Live tracking for my wife. Easy to read screen, like the edge 500 its not color LCD, which I prefer in the sun.

rgconner

and:


https://www.imore.com/best-external-...nd-apple-watch

That said, you can use a Chest strap WITH the iWatch (or whatever it is called) and you get the accuracy you want in the package you want.

Ald1 

Last ride the power meter locked at 256 watts. While riding I "forgot" , removed that sensor, rediscovered it and started working fine. Did that twice during the ride. Even though I have two profiles for my two bikes, any sensor ever discovered still try to connected. In other words you cannot assign specific sensors to a profile. Going to try to remove both power meters before a ride and let it only discover the one I'm using. Maybe it's getting confused trying to hook up to sensors that are not there?

Rolling15

I just noticed a similar problem with my heart rate monitor freezing (Scosche Rhythm Plus) on my Edge 1030. Everything was working fine on the 1030 until three days ago when I upgraded the Garmin software to it's newest version (v4) and also paired a recently purchased Varia RTL510. I'm not sure if the difficulty was due to the new software, the new garmin device or some combination. My Garmin cadence sensor didn't exhibit any problems.

I think I may have remedied the problem today, but not totally sure. I removed the HR monitor from listed paired sensor devices on the 1030. I then rebooted the Scosche and had the 1030 search for new sensors. It highlighted a new device called "Heart Rate Monitor" which I confirmed. The old paired sensor was listed as Scosche Rhythm Plus. The HR monitor reported it's data flawlessly to the 1030 for the rest of today's ride which was an additional 2 hours. I'll have to see if everything works the next time I ride.

Ald1 

Today another lock up, different bike and different power meter. Sent email to Garmin support. As an "old fart" I expect a product to work as advertised or I deem it defective and it will be fixed, replaced or returned for full refund. Sorry, won't give a pass because "Garmins do that" and I won't sell it off to another person. It's rediculous all the features these folks offer but can't offer basic reliability. The other issue since this has been happening my FTP has gone up 60 watts! Not bad for a week of "training" I'd like to manually change this to more of the real number. Anyone know how to change this?

Marcus_Ti 

As well you should.

Side Note: People saying "Garmins do that" aren't exactly wrong. You're suffering early-adopter product teething pains, that basically every Garmin Edge ever sold ever suffers early in its life-cycle. It is why lots of us are cynics and refer to the first 12-24 months after Garmin releases a devices as the "public paid beta". My Edge 1000 suffered lots of crashes/restarts/bugs for the first 1-2 years after release...so did my 705....so did my 305. It is why lots of us have dumped Garmin now that there are alternatives on the market.

Some of us have been thinking/hoping Garmin would step up the QA on software development on the Edge series now that Wahoo is kicking their butt. Instead it seems they still only really seem to care about sea and aerospace GPS QA.

atwl77

Random thought... are your sensors connected via ANT+ or Bluetooth?

While I was rechecking my sensor connections I realized that I had connected to them via Bluetooth, reason being when I originally did the pairing process two devices came up for each type and I instinctively picked the named one (I didn't really figure out why it could identify the sensor as "Wahoo" until now... haha). I wonder if the connection would be stable if I had connected via ANT+ instead... but I suspect I'll only find out on my weekend rides. If you're riding during the weekdays, perhaps you can give that a try.

Ald1 

It's not a connection problem as it always stays connected but locks up on a specific number. It would be better if it simply disconnected as it screws up the metrics but I'll note the connection next time. Thinks it's always been bluetooth. Again, total agree this is unacceptable for a company so experienced for a product with that price. My son bought me one of the first car garmins many many years ago and that still works flawlessly.

jgwilliams

I assume you're referring to my post? Two references: Firstly, I saw a BBC program a year or so ago - I think it was 'Trust me I'm a Doctor' - where they did a comparison. The Apple watch came out best, from memory, but all of them were quite a way off once the wearers became active. I assume things have probably improved since then but you can't really get around the fact that a wrist attached device will be moving around which will make them less reliable. Secondly, my own experience. I've have both a Garmin Edge 705, which uses a chest strap, and a Garmin VivoSmart HR+, which is a wrist device. On my rides the VivoSmart doesn't track heart rate nearly as well. Ususally it comes out lower but occasionally it's quite a bit higher.

Ald1 

Just got this from Garmin Support:

" I would be happy to assist you with this. We are currently aware of the issue with Bluetooth sensors freezing when paired to the Edge 1030. A research case has been opened to investigate the issue and there is currently a Beta software that is being tested that will address this. I do not have a specific date of when the Beta will be released, but you should be able to obtain it via the Garmin forums once it is (forums.garmin.com).
I have added your account to the case so you will be notified once the issue is resolved. I apologize for any inconvenience."

So we shall see. Anyway to force an Ant connection?

atwl77

From what I've read, unpair the existing sensor. Then when trying to pair it again, you should see two available sensors. One of them is ANT+, the other Bluetooth. I suspect the one which is able to uncannily detect the device brand/name is Bluetooth, so pick the other one.

Ald1 

Nice tip. Will try next ride. Thanks!