Garmin Edge 820

vinnymarsden

Can someone help me here, because quite frankly the Garmin forum/customer support is about as much use as a one legged man in an ar se kicking contest!!!

I have bought the 820(not the explore) and like the 1000 I got rid of, it allegedly has ambient light sensor..in as much that if you go somewhere darker than your surroundings, like a tunnel, heavily wooded section of road, the light is meant to come on, just a quick heads up, and you can actually set how long it stays on for.
NO WAY on gods green earth will mine work, it never has, I'm beginning to think I have bought a bit of a pup, the 1000 wasn't perfect, and ended up being too big for my other limited handlebar space/other items like lights etc, so I sold it, and moved to its smaller, allegedly as capable twin.Thus far not the case, as well as the ambient light I find the touch screen VERY temperamental and the GPS/Glonass sensors not as "locked on" as the 1000.
So if anyone can help I would very much appreciate, maybe i'm just missing a simple setting, but as far as I can work out the ambient is just meant to happen!! Or not!!

StillGoing

Have you gone on the Garmin forum? Within the 820 section there, someone will have the answer for you. I have the 820 having got rid of my 810, but haven't noticed the ambient lighting issue. I use Connect IQ screens rather than the standard screens (for my long sightedness), so whether that makes any difference I don't know?

buckmulligan

Are you saying that you can't find the setting for it, or it's set on but not doing the job?

If it's the former, then it's pretty easy to find under the settings menu. I don't have mine here but it's something like "Settings -> System -> Display -> Brightness" and then check the toggle, which should remove the ability to set screen brightness manually.

If it's the latter then you could always contact Garmin support for a laugh

vinnymarsden

Garmin forums, totally useless, reluctantly unit returned. Think I will go back to the 1000

grenw

philthy3 wrote:

Have you gone on the Garmin forum? Within the 820 section there, someone will have the answer for you. I have the 820 having got rid of my 810, but haven't noticed the ambient lighting issue. I use Connect IQ screens rather than the standard screens (for my long sightedness), so whether that makes any difference I don't know?

How's the 820 behaving itself after your 810 woes?

StillGoing

News Flash!

Garmin customer returns unit blaming Garmin instead of reading instructions or bothering with forum where the answer lies and instead lambasts Garmin on another forum.

vinnymarsden

Philty 3...
Im not going to play your silly games..I am more than tech savvy with stuff like this..its gone back because I think it's faulty... The forums offer little in way of assistance.. thanks though for your insight.

buckmulligan

Did you try my suggestion?

kingstongraham

Is that how it is supposed to work? I thought it adjusted the brightness (and whether it displays in night mode) to match the ambient light, not just flick a backlight on for a few seconds.

buckmulligan

Yeah, I think that's what Vinny means, but it's hard to tell because his OP is a bit of a ramble/rant.

Mine seems to work fine, it'd be nice to have a "Brightness Offset" like my smartphone, so that you can essentially set the level of brightness AND THEN have it auto-adjust from that baseline, based on ambient light intensity. Unfortunately with the 820 your options are just auto-adjustment at Garmin's pre-defined levels or manual adjustment.

vinnymarsden

Hi Buck,

Sorry for the ramble..I did go on a bit...lol
You are right, the ambient light just works, when it works...but in my case it simply doesnt..
I have had the edge 1000 and it worked fine , no rain issues etc.I just think I might have got a late Friday afternoon unit (you know, when they are rushing to go home!!)
Cheers

Vinny

StillGoing

VinnyMarsden wrote:

Philty 3...
Im not going to play your silly games..I am more than tech savvy with stuff like this..its gone back because I think it's faulty... The forums offer little in way of assistance.. thanks though for your insight.

Nothing silly about it. You came on here asking about how to solve a problem. You were given advice. You chose to ignore it and instead posted another rant about Garmin. How very mature. :roll:

chris_bass

i thought the light sensor was meant to dim the display when it gets darker and make it brighter when the surrounding is brighter? to help you read the display, like a phone screen

Jerry185

Try DC Rainmaker site: explains in every detail the workings - which the manual sadly doesn't. As far as I recall, if you need to adjust the light, push the only button on the left once, then toggle the buttons (sorry can't remember which ones) for brightness.
From there, I know that max brightness will decrease battery life to about six hours.

vinnymarsden

Thanks for the advice guys, I have tried every combination, used DC Rainmakers site a lot, I have already returned it, I think its basically a faulty unit.