Moving from iphone to Garmin with Strava

littledove44

I have been using my iphone on the bike. it has worked great with the Strava app.

Problem is, I have an iphone 4 which has the old bluetooth so adding a heart rate monitor and cadence and getting it all to integrate looks like a bit of a problem.

I am not that keen on upgrading my phone as i have a very expensive waterproof case for it and that wont work with an iphone 5. Could get a 4S I suppose, but i am thinking of a different approach.

If I got an Edge 500 or 800 with cadence and heart rate bundled I am hoping it will still all work with Strava. I assume I would have to upload the data via USB to my Mac.

Is this correct? No wireless?

Is this a bad plan?

Not that fussed about the money - birthday coming up so someone else's problem.

Thanks.

jomoj

that's correct, 500 and 800 use USB for connection and ant+ for HRM cadence etc.. The 500 is all you need unless you're desperate for bells and whistles.

bagz3

Only problem i found, is i'm too busy looking at the thing and not looking out for pot holes :oops:

bigmat

You'll find a sudden reduction in KOM's. Almost every time somebody takes one of mine with a dodgy data ride, it turns out to have been recorded on an iPhone.

nort757

^^yup what he said,if kom's bother you use the strava app there is big differences in the iphone strava app to that of my garmin 800

cattytown

The 510/810 can upload to garmin connect via your mobile wirelessly, then something like garminsynch can update from there to Strava.

Your decision if that saving of a couple of mins with a USB cable is worth the extra cost.

Paul.

sloppyschleckonds

Has anyone suggested buying a Powermeter?

cougie

BigMat wrote:

You'll find a sudden reduction in KOM's. Almost every time somebody takes one of mine with a dodgy data ride, it turns out to have been recorded on an iPhone.

I did a little run last night with strava running on my iphone and also my Garmin 500 running - just to see if there was much difference. Mileage was 4.8 v 4.69 - so pretty close - but the actual GPS tracks on the Garmin was way off. If I'd not already got the garmin I'd be sticking with the iphone. I'm a bit surprised as all the garmin has to do is be a GPS. The smartphone has to do so much more - but in this test - its a much better GPS than the GPS !?

Father Faff

My Galaxy S3 with Strava is much more accurate than my admittidely very old Garmin and the Galaxy also gets a GPS lock much, much quicker. Not sure what new Garmins are like.

slowbike

I don't have an issue with accuracy on my Garmin800 - I don't ride with both that and the strava app running though.

Worth checking what points the Garmin is saving? iirc, mine is set to record 1 point per second.
I've had issues with the 800 when I've set off before it's found a position - but that usually results in straight line from the start point (actually it was the lap point) to the place where it sorted out it's position. Only other time I've had position issues is where theres been poor GPS signal.

One quick thought - last night was high CME activity - it may have affected signal from satellites?

cougie

Wouldnt the CME stuff affect the iphone the same amount ?

Not sure about what frequency it is recording - I dont think I've changed anything out of the box. I wouldnt have noticed any difference in mileage without having strava on, and the route is definitely wonky.

Exporting my GPX data into Strava has also given me some PR's - and that won't have been the case.

I'll look into the recording interval. Ta.

bobones

USB cable and manually browsing to the file in the Garmin activities folder is the quickest way to upload to Strava. You charge your Garmin too this way.

I'm having a go using CopyMySports.com to sync from GarminConnect, but the weak link seems to be the GarminConnect Mobile app which is flakey to say the least. In theory, the 510/810 will upload to the GC App on your phone via bluetooth and then upload to the GC website via internet connection. CopyMySports will then copy the activity over to Strava at some indeterminate future time - usually within an hour.

NeXXus

bobones wrote:

USB cable and manually browsing to the file in the Garmin activities folder is the quickest way to upload to Strava. You charge your Garmin too this way.

Uh? Mine does it pretty much automatically after clicking Upload Activity :roll:

defride

Picked up an 800 the other day and went out the first two rides running both it and Strava via my Android ph. Today I left the ph off and uploaded from the Garmin for the first time. Logged in to Strava, hit upload, it found the device, a couple of options and it was done. Quick and easy.

OfficerDigby

cougie wrote:

BigMat wrote:

You'll find a sudden reduction in KOM's. Almost every time somebody takes one of mine with a dodgy data ride, it turns out to have been recorded on an iPhone.

I did a little run last night with strava running on my iphone and also my Garmin 500 running - just to see if there was much difference. Mileage was 4.8 v 4.69 - so pretty close - but the actual GPS tracks on the Garmin was way off. If I'd not already got the garmin I'd be sticking with the iphone. I'm a bit surprised as all the garmin has to do is be a GPS. The smartphone has to do so much more - but in this test - its a much better GPS than the GPS !?

Iphone uses mobile signal triangulation to augment GPS. So it's better under cover (trees etc), which happens more often on runs, maybe?

bobones

NeXXus wrote:

bobones wrote:

USB cable and manually browsing to the file in the Garmin activities folder is the quickest way to upload to Strava. You charge your Garmin too this way.

Uh? Mine does it pretty much automatically after clicking Upload Activity :roll:

Still quicker to browse than wait for the plugin to complete.