Garmin 800 / 810

BlueEyedGirl

I'm trying to choose between the Garmin 800 and the 810. There's quite a big price difference without much to show for it, at least, not for those if us who don't use Facebook.

But, I've never used a bike computer / nav system before and my concern is that my eyesight isn't great and I may not be able to see detail on the screen. Given that in-ride, I'll be wanting navigation, HR, cadence, elevation and speed, but mostly at separate times, I'm wondering if the side-swipe feature of the 810 would allow me to set up nice big text screens for each and slide between them while cycling.

My local cycling shop cannot show me one of these things lit up, let alone answer that question. Can anyone advise?

Louisa

Dorset_Boy

You can set up multiple screens on the 800 too, and can customize how much data you want showing on each screen.

The main difference is that with the 800 you have to manually upload your ride to Garmin Connect / Strava etc, whereas the 810 can be set to do this automatically.

slowbike

The 800 and 810 have the same screen size/resolution and the same data display screens. Both can use side-swipe to swap between screens - so in that respect there is no difference.

If you're not interested in the bluetooth communication capability of the 810 or split power function (with the vector pedals) then the 800 would be fine - but neither screen is big - perhaps find a screenshot of either and view it at lifesize on your monitor - that'll show if you can read it ok or not.

neal1984

I had this dilema. On the one hand I wanted the bluetooth conectivity to upload to Strava without plugging in but what sold me the 800 is the realiability issues that plague the 810, that and the £100 price diffrence.

lef

the 800 has split power - at least percentage of the split. I have it set up on mine for a rotor Power. You will need the latest firmware though.

Does the 810 show actual left right balance in watts?

bushpixy

Although you can connect your garmin to your phone I think Strava have removed the ability to upload directly.

I know with my Edge 510 it'll upload to Garmin Connect over 3G/wifi, but not to strava. I still have to connect via USB to do that.

You could probably export the .GPX off Garmin Connect and upload it to Strava though.

BlueEyedGirl

Power is a stage too far for me, so the 800 would appear to be the choice. But before I commit, is there anything else out there worth looking at, esp. anything with a bigger screen?

socistep

bushpixy wrote:

Although you can connect your garmin to your phone I think Strava have removed the ability to upload directly.

I know with my Edge 510 it'll upload to Garmin Connect over 3G/wifi, but not to strava. I still have to connect via USB to do that.

You could probably export the .GPX off Garmin Connect and upload it to Strava though.

Have you tried looking at garminsync? I use that, it works so that 810 automatically transfers to garmin connect and then garminsync automatically sends it on to strava for upload, generally it works pretty well and transfers quite quickly. It doesn't work for any rides without gps data, e.g. turbo rides so they still need to be transferred by USB

Grill

BlueEyedGirl wrote:

Power is a stage too far for me, so the 800 would appear to be the choice. But before I commit, is there anything else out there worth looking at, esp. anything with a bigger screen?

You could look at the Garmin eTrex 30. QUite a few audaxers use them with good success.

Realistically the 800 is still the best choice as the only reason to buy the 810 is because it uses GLONASS as well as GPS.

bernithebiker

Get the 800. I'm staying in Nice next week, any good rides round La Colle sur Loup?

BlueEyedGirl

bernithebiker wrote:

Get the 800. I'm staying in Nice next week, any good rides round La Colle sur Loup?

Up the Loup valley to Greolieres, then a circuit Andon, Caille, Greolieres Les Neiges, and back. Or extend to take in Gourdon, on either leg. Or reverse the Greolieres route to get a grdae 2 climb out of Greolieres.

Or do La Colle, Pont sur Loup, Tourrettes sur Loup, Vence, Col de Vence, Greolieres, Pont sur Loup, La Colle.

The other way from Nice lies Col d'Eze, of course.

Could meet up at some stage if you want. My usual range: weekdays (when I should be at work!) 50k, weekends, 50 to 100k, 1200m climb.

bernithebiker

BlueEyedGirl wrote:

bernithebiker wrote:

Get the 800. I'm staying in Nice next week, any good rides round La Colle sur Loup?

Up the Loup valley to Greolieres, then a circuit Andon, Caille, Greolieres Les Neiges, and back. Or extend to take in Gourdon, on either leg. Or reverse the Greolieres route to get a grdae 2 climb out of Greolieres.

Or do La Colle, Pont sur Loup, Tourrettes sur Loup, Vence, Col de Vence, Greolieres, Pont sur Loup, La Colle.

The other way from Nice lies Col d'Eze, of course.

Could meet up at some stage if you want. My usual range: weekdays (when I should be at work!) 50k, weekends, 50 to 100k, 1200m climb.

Excellent, thanks, I don't really know the area very well, so that will be useful. We're actually in Villefranche-sur-mer.

diy

800 is a good bit of kit, you can save a bit on maps by going open source:

http://talkytoaster.info/ukmaps.htm

Just need a 5 quid micro sd card to load it on to.

Cadence and HR are worth the extra and you can sell them on ebay standalone for the extra cost if you end up not using them.

Grill

lef wrote:

the 800 has split power - at least percentage of the split. I have it set up on mine for a rotor Power. You will need the latest firmware though.

Does the 810 show actual left right balance in watts?

L/R balance/power/smoothness is a function of the PM. Only the Rotor, Stages, Pedal based systems have strain gauges on both cranks. The ability to display these functions is in the Garmin firmware which is regularly updated.

StillGoing

Neal1984 wrote:

I had this dilema. On the one hand I wanted the bluetooth conectivity to upload to Strava without plugging in but what sold me the 800 is the realiability issues that plague the 810, that and the £100 price diffrence.

What reliability issues? Problems with Garmin devices almost certainly are user errors. Yes, Garmin do suffer with gremlins whenever they seem to do a firmware update without thorough testing, but these are few and far between. I've had two 705s; one died at 12 months and Garmin replaced it immediately without question, an initial 810 that I thought did have a software issue but turned out to be a windows issue, and another 810 that has been perfect.

The advantage of the 810 isn't just the bluetooth connectivity allowing you to upload to Strava. The bluetooth allows you to download routes directly to the device and upload rides to Garmin Connect. You can also use Live Tracking that allows others you select to follow your ride especially useful for family to keep them assured you are still moving and not lying in a ditch. As for the screen size; yes it is small, but how much of the map do you want to see? I just want to know when a turn is coming up which way I'm supposed to go. Most of the time I have the device screen on the readouts of cadence, HR, etc and check the map screen when it beeps to let me know a turn is approaching.

diy

USB connector is easily water damaged.
Device can switch itself off
Satellites can go off-line fixed with a power off/on
device can hang on lap/reset
corrupt FIT files on long rides (10 hr)

just some of the gremlins I've had., still a good unit though. I can live without connect, just upload activities from the sd card.

Mikey23

My riding bud has a new 810 and it seems to be over reading altitude by some distance, was when he rides with me and still is. He is doing a charity distance challenge and yesterday the four of them who upload to strava did 90 plus miles. His three mates were logged as doing 3500 or thereabouts and all within reasonable parameters but his shows 5500 which is a huge difference. Has anyone else noticed this?

BlueEyedGirl

I am now the happy owner of a Garmin 800. Well, the slightly happy owner, because so far, it's just a very expensive speedo and elevation counter. This device is NOT plug'n'play, by any means.

Can anyone tell me how to load maps into it? I have a CD with a .img file, which could be converted to a .iso, but I can see nothing in the owner's manual about how to upload it, or where in the file structure to place it.

Frustrated.... want to use it for route-finding tomorrow with a good gap in the weather, and it looks like I'll have to take a paper print-out instead.

freezing77

BlueEyedGirl wrote:

I am now the happy owner of a Garmin 800. Well, the slightly happy owner, because so far, it's just a very expensive speedo and elevation counter. This device is NOT plug'n'play, by any means.

Can anyone tell me how to load maps into it? I have a CD with a .img file, which could be converted to a .iso, but I can see nothing in the owner's manual about how to upload it, or where in the file structure to place it.

Frustrated.... want to use it for route-finding tomorrow with a good gap in the weather, and it looks like I'll have to take a paper print-out instead.

The IMG file is the map(not a disk image), place this file directly into the garmin folder on your micro sd card. The garmin folder must be a top level folder.

BlueEyedGirl

Thanks, freezing, that seemed to work.

Next... I plotted the route on MapMyRide. 70km, 1000m, fine because the weather only gives me a few hours. But the 'download GPX' doesn't work on MapMyRide, it returns a server error, some forbidden tag. So, plot it on RouteYou.com, 70km, 1400m... And select 'download for Edge', '800', and no download icon comes up. Nothing to press to start the download.

Do any of these sites work???

STILL frustrated

Grill

I use bikeroutetoaster. Save the route as .tcx and drop it in the NewFiles folder.

BlueEyedGirl

Hey, you guys are great Maps and course all loaded up and ready to go Bikeroutetoaster is an easier site to use than the two I have been using.

freezing77

BlueEyedGirl wrote:

Hey, you guys are great Maps and course all loaded up and ready to go Bikeroutetoaster is an easier site to use than the two I have been using.

For each course you need to set the options, select course, select tool icon, by default turn guidance is OFF.



I have turn guidance ON, virtual partner OFF, off course warnings ON, map display OFF.

If you have map display on for all routes the screen will get rather messy. When navigating a route/course it will be displayed on screen.

With map display set to on the course will display on screen even when you are not using it for navigation.

BlueEyedGirl

Just caught this before I left, freezing, thankfully! The Garmin is more like a hobby than a sat nav, you seem to need to be a geek just to get it going. Honestly, Garmin, why send out a nav system with guidance defaulting to Off???

I have little confidence that this thing will actually perform today, so I have the route on my phone. It's all too, well, edgy...

BlueEyedGirl

Is it the systems which are flaky, or me???

Here's a quick run-down: MapMyRide lets you plot a course quite easily, but the function to download a navigation file fails.

RouteYou: the same.

OpenRunner: it just draws straight lines on the map, doesn't follow the roads.

BikeRouteToaster: plotted a good course although it's horribly clumsy to get from the whole world to your start point, and then allowed a navigation file download. But it was backwards, it tried to guide me the wrong way around the course.

The Garmin is also horribly clumsy, nothing seems logical and the instructions don't cover how to actually use it to follow a route.

I'm unimpressed. But it might be that I'm having a blonde day.....

freezing77

You may need to install the garmin communicator plug in for your browser.

http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=3607

For course creation I prefer to do it offline using garmins basecamp software and openstreetmap.

Basecamp is a free download, and gives you precise control over routing options.

Mikey23

agreed... like on my 500 when you have to make seven not very obvious button presses in order to turn the gps off for a turbo ride...

meursault

BlueEyedGirl wrote:

I am now the happy owner of a Garmin 800. Well, the slightly happy owner, because so far, it's just a very expensive speedo and elevation counter. This device is NOT plug'n'play, by any means.

Can anyone tell me how to load maps into it? I have a CD with a .img file, which could be converted to a .iso, but I can see nothing in the owner's manual about how to upload it, or where in the file structure to place it.

Frustrated.... want to use it for route-finding tomorrow with a good gap in the weather, and it looks like I'll have to take a paper print-out instead.

Here ya go

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2013/05/download-garmin-705800810.html

meursault

and

http://www.scarletfire.co.uk/2012/11/foolproof-course-navigation-on-the-garmin-edge-800/

and

http://www.forgot.co.uk/edge-800/

The 800 does seem a bit unweildy at first, but well worth getting the hang of.

BlueEyedGirl

Thank you all for your advice. But this is all way too complicated, I get frustrated with it all and no longer have any confidence that I can use it to navigate safely in the Alps.

Anyone want to buy a Garmin 800, used only once???

cattytown

Almost by definition devices like this are complicated. There is a lot of information potentially being recorded and huge choice in what and how to display.

There is quite a steep learning curve, but it is worth it.

To get the hang of navigation, try a few routes you know with navigation on.

Paul.