Garmin Time and Date

meanredspider

Fired up the Tacx Neo for the first time this winter and decided to try the feature of riding a course on my Garmin 1000 (Rapha Prestige Limburg).

All went well (the weather in my house was better than in the real ride...though I'd prefer to have been doing that). Uploaded it to Strava and then couldn't find it (though my mileage for the year had incremented)

Anyhow, it transpires that the time and date was wrong and, in fact, the device had just started "the clock" from about the time I last turned the device off.

Does the Garmin not have an internal clock? Or just take the time from GPS? How's that then meant to work with its "indoor trainer" feature? Or (most likely) is it just a bug on my device?

rolf_f

I think it is just a glitch. As far as I can tell the Garmin takes its time from the GPS and then only changes it if there is a change to the clock time (ie BST, GMT or travelling to a foreign country) - so it should use the local time, irrespective of whether it is indoors or outdoors, as long as it has seen a local satellite.

I've got a ride from Norway last year that sits at the top of my list of todays rides because it has a time stamp of 2019 or suchlike. I've had some show up as 2100s as well! Not very common though and easy enough to test.

ben-----

> I've got a ride from Norway last year that sits at the top of my list of todays rides because it has a time stamp of 2019 or suchlike. I've had some show up as 2100s as well! Not very common though and easy enough to test.

You could fix that, in Strava, by downloading the ride as gpx, in a text editor do a find and replace all for the date, save, then upload that file. Don't think that'll work with an indoor ride though as there's no route so gpx doesn't apply.

rolf_f

Yep - have done that. But of course, that only works well if the actual time of day is correct. If there is an offset then it would require a bit more ingenuity to fully correct it.

ben-----

Rolf F wrote:

Yep - have done that. But of course, that only works well if the actual time of day is correct. If there is an offset then it would require a bit more ingenuity to fully correct it.

Oh yup, good point.

meanredspider

There is a FIT file editing site that the Strava guy sent me a link for in order to resolve time and date issues

https://www.fitfiletools.com/#/adjuster%23view

compuwiz_uk

if its a common thing caused by the lack of GPS signal correcting the time on the device due to no gps signal indoors.

could you not do something simple like switch on the garmin & leave it on the window ledge while you prep the trainer - switch everything on / prep your laptop-music selection-training video / water bottle etc & then last thing bung the garmin on your bike & it should have the GPS & have the correct time/date as its had a gps signal connection etc.

never needed to use mine in anger indoors but have occasionally left mine like above so that its got a signal when i have taken the bike outdoors ( normally after i aint used it for a while, normally quick to pick up a signal if used frequently but can take ages if not used often ( got 3 garmins over various bikes to cut down on the swapping & changing so can sometimes be a while between uses depending on the needs of the ride etc. )

meanredspider

Yes - of course I could get a GPS signal - I just don't get why it doesn't have an internal clock - especially as it has an indoor trainer feature. Worse case, it should warn that it hasn't found a signal and can't update time and date. But that would be good design and therefore counts Garmin out.

mamba80

meanredspider wrote:

Yes - of course I could get a GPS signal - I just don't get why it doesn't have an internal clock - especially as it has an indoor trainer feature. Worse case, it should warn that it hasn't found a signal and can't update time and date. But that would be good design and therefore counts Garmin out.

this is the same on the 520, the indoor profile switches off the GPS function and the time reverts to what ever it was when it last had a GPS signal.
uploading in TP or GC makes no real difference, but it does look like Garmin have dropped a clanger on this into Strava if it needs accurate T and D.
a firmware update cant add a clock in real time......

ben-----

> a firmware update cant add a clock in real time......

It could add appropriate behaviour (like what MRS described "Worse case, it should warn that it hasn't found a signal and can't update time and date", and in that situation allow the user to supply the starting date time for the ride). But that would require Garmin to, first, care about usability, user experience etc. How costly, in terms of size/weight/cost/battery consumption etc., would it have been to put a clock inside in the first place? It wouldn't have had to be that accurate/good a clock as every time the device gets a GPS signal it could then correct the internal clock.

meanredspider

ben----- wrote:

But that would require Garmin to, first, care about usability, user experience etc.

And this is at the core of the problem. In other news, I have a problem with my Garmin car SatNav reversing camera. I think we're into the 4th month of them investigating it with a "3rd party". 4 months? I don't suppose they spent that long developing the product before throwing it at their customers (crash test dummies) to test it....

Nick Payne

Rolf F wrote:

I've got a ride from Norway last year that sits at the top of my list of todays rides because it has a time stamp of 2019 or suchlike. I've had some show up as 2100s as well! Not very common though and easy enough to test.

If you look at the Garmin support forums, getting rides dated 2019 seems to be a known bug. e.g. https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?361070-2019-bug-in-v9-20