Garmin Edge 830

Overview

Garmin GPS for bicycling

I've been using my Garmin GPSMap 62 up until now, I splurged and got this. I am hoping it will work better for me than the GPSMap for bike rides. The GPSMap is almost perfect for hikes and geocaching.

Features:

• Compact with reasonably big color touch screen and a good handlebar mounting system
• GPS and GLONASS receiver
• WiFi, Bluetooth
• ANT+

It has 16GB of storage space, on my new device about 1/2 is available.

Regarding my personal use cases

I ride as a recreation these days, so I want to go in a big loop. The GPSMap had a real problem with that. When I set up a route and loaded it and it would immediately say "you're there!" and "turn around, you're almost there" until I screamed at it and shut off routing.

I learned that I could transfer a "track" to it instead of a "route" but then it would not do any re-calculation if I chose a different turn while riding. Still, it worked okay this way.

Apparently Garmin's marketing team is intent on selling the Edge devices to testosterone junkies intent punishing athletic events. With the Edge, Garmin seems intent on directing me to use "Garmin Connect". "Garmin Connect" seems like a muddled mess of fitness / athletic garbage of little interest to me.

At the moment all I want to do is:

1. design a GPX route, preferably in http://ridewithgps.com/
2. send the route to the Edge without dancing through several other web sites and apps
3. do the ride and record it
4. send the journey back up to RideWithGPS.

I don't want to track my weight, calories burned, fitness level, VO2 max, how much water I drank, yadayadayada. My fitbit does fitness things and that's all automatic. I don't want to "compete" with other Connect users.

At some point I might actually go on another extended bike tour but at this point I am thinking the GPSmap is a better choice for that use case.

But hey, this is just my first impressions! I have not even taken the thing for a ride yet, just a few walks around town. Let's be fair. I will update this page as I learn.

Actual Workflows

Go for a bike ride

1. Design route in http://ridewithgps.com/
2. Save it with a recognizable but short name (about 15 characters show up in the Edge.)
3. Download it as a FIT file.
4. Connect the Edge with the USB cable that works.
5. Copy the FIT file from Downloads to /Volume/GARMIN/Garmin/Courses/
6. Eject the Edge
7. Start the Edge
8. Confirm the route actually shows up as a course and that you can view it.

I also exported it as a GPX file and put it on my phone, just in case!

Maps

There are a bunch of preloaded maps, you can turn them on or off for a given "Activity Profile". I kept two profiles, Road and Tour. To edit a map set, from the screen with a profile on it, hit the hamburger stack and select "Activity Profiles." Pick the profile ("Tour" for instance) and scroll down and pick "Navigation" -> "Map" -> "Map Information (Select Map)".

The maps and what I have set currently

1. AMR Standard Basemap, NR -- disabled this is the useless global basemap that came up when cheaped out and did not purchase any maps on old Garmins .
2. Garmin Cycle Map Amer, North 2019.10 enabled this is the openstreetmap derived map that we see on the screen
3. Garmin DEM Map North America 2019.10 enabled not really a map, this is elevation data used to show you profiles
4. Garmin Geocode Map North America 2019.10 enabled this is address data and maybe Garmin's POIs?? how do I search on this thing anyway???
5. Garmin Cycle Map Amer, Central 2019.10 enabled probably for Central America? Does not hurt to have it on.

Search

Not that I need it, but it's lame. It allows searching for Cities, Addresses, Intersections, and Coordinates. That's it. I must say, it's fast compared to the GPSMap 62.

It's not a Nuvi. There are no POIs, no cafes or rest stops or grocery stores or campgrounds. So, not very good for bike touring.

Transferring files

Works like most other Garmin GPS receivers, plug in USB cable to PC and it appears as a storage device. Use the right cable I keep finding out some of my cables are charge-only, when I do, I throw them away. The one that came in the box works!

Basecamp can talk to the Edge when it's on a USB connection and it will translate files between FIT and GPX formats.

Software

Current firmware: 3.50 as of 2019-07-04

Use Garmin Express when you are on a PC and have a real USB cable connected. It lets you

• Add and remove "ConnectIQ" apps (yes, there are apps!)
• Adjust settings
• Update installed maps (ones from Garmin anyway)

Looks like I could remove apps I don't care about including the Strava and Trailforks things.

ConnectIQ Apps

Installed:

• Notifications, Controls, Weather, Segment Explorer are all marked as Built-in Widget.
• Best Bike Split "Development Application" 127K useless for me
• Trailforks "Development Application" 71K probably useless
• Strava Routes "Development Application" 56K useless

Actually I just nuked the three apps and the Segment Explorer so I don't have to see them on the Edge anymore. I can put them back later.

I clicked on "Get More Apps" in Garmin Express and it took me here: https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/devices/edge830/apps

This is interesting -- https://dynamic.watch/

Apparently you can install simple apps that change the way data is displayed, and more complex ones that, well, do stuff. Go look at https://developer.garmin.com/ for more general Garmin Developer info and especially https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/programmers-guide/ for ConnectIQ info.

Github

Official Garmin source code: https://github.com/garmin/connectiq-apps

FIT files

FIT files: FIT stands for "Flexible and Interoperable Data Transfer" so look that up... apparently it came from ANT+; see https://www.thisisant.com/developer/ant/licensing/flexible-and-interoperable-data-transfer-fit-protocol-license

There is information on the OpenStreetMap wiki too, on the Edge devices and FIT files. check https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Garmin/Edge_series

Information contained in this page is worth looking at too. https://listoffreeware.com/best-free-fit-file-viewer-software-windows/

Hacking around

If I could read it, I bet the Garmin/GarminDevice.xml would spell out much of the following.

Map files appear to be rattling around in the Garmin/ folder.

The file format of the day appears to be "fit" files, new to me. They appear in:

• Garmin/Activities/ with date stamps
• Garmin/Courses/
• Garmin/Locations/Locations.fit is pois/waypoints including the one I created and stupid ones that Garmin put in there. (For Garmin headquarters)
• Garmin/MapThemes/Mountain.kmtf appears to be an XML style file.
• Garmin/NewFiles contains temp.gpx, which is a track file I just sent over from BaseCamp, and a fit file which a guid name.
• Garmin/Records/Records.fit ??
• Garmin/RemoteSW/CPE.BIN ??
• Garmin/Schedules/Schedules.fit ??
• Garmin/Segment_List/segment_list.fit
• Garmin/Segments/ currently empty
• Garmin/Settings/Settings.fit
• Garmin/Sports/ has a ROAD and a TOUR file, so those are probably the settings I created
• Garmin/Summary/ is empty
• Garmin/Text/*.gtt language files that I could probably just delete when I need more space. There is no English.gtt so I could delete all of them.
• Garmin/Totals/Totals.fit
• Garmin/Weight/Weight.fit
• Garmin/Workouts

Other interesting folders,

• Garmin/Debugging/ has Backup/ containing more fit files and EventLogs/ containing TXT files which are readable log files.
• Garmin/SQL/CustomMaps.db is a SQLite file

There are more uninteresting folders... :-)

Startup message

See Garmin/startup.txt, it contains

<!-- Edit this file to display a message while your unit is powering on                -->
<!-- Allow one full power cycle after editing for your message to be updated           -->

<!-- Set the display number to the minimum number of seconds your message is displayed -->
<display = 0>

<!-- Type your message on the next line -->

so I added 4 lines of text and change 0 to 10. It works!

Automatic data uploads

I just noticed under "General Settings" I can switch on/off "Auto Upload Activities".

There is a top level file called autorun.inf that looks like this:

[autorun]
shellexecute=http://connect.garmin.com/transfer/upload
icon=Garmin\Garmintriangletm.icon
action=Upload to Garmin Connect
label=Garmin Edge 830

I am guessing this means it connects to that URL and sends new data when it powers up or connects to a network. I am thinking I could spoof the URL and catch the data myself, or maybe simply change the URL. Maybe they even LET me do this, will have to check the developer guides.

History

• 2019-07-04 unpacking day
• 2019-06-30 purchased from GPS City