Customer Reviews

Garmin Edge 500 Cycling GPS with Speed/Cadence Sensor and Digital Heart Rate Monitor

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I got this unit to upgrade the tracking of my workouts and to start using a heart rate monitor to get more out of the time I was spending exercising.

I was wary of plunking out the bucks for this because there are plenty of stories of the unit not working very well. It seemed from reviews it was great or it was worthless depending on the luck of the draw. So I made sure to buy it from a place with a very liberal return policy.

Overview
This is the first GPS enabled unit that I've seen that was small enough for me to mount on my bike and not have it mistaken for a PDA or Smart Phone. It is optimized for biking.

The overall construction seems pretty good. The unit seems well sealed, has a large screen and a nice backlight.

There are 4 control buttons, two on each side. The buttons on the left generally activate or conform menu items, the buttons on the right are used for navigation. The buttons require a firm press and have a muted click, you won't be hitting them accidentally. Actually trying to hit them while riding is a tad difficult.

Underneath at the bottom of the unit there is a rubber stopper that plugs a mini-usb port. This port is used for data transfer as well as charging.

The mount is simple and awesome. There is a base piece with a formed rubber pad that goes beneath it. There are four hooks on the mount and you get a bag full of elastomeric gasket seal like rubber bands. You simply put the base piece where you want it and hook the band to one hook, stretch it around your bar/stem and hook it to the hook on the other side. Two bands and your done. Clicking the unit in is easy, press it in and rotate 90 degrees. The mount is secure, flexible and easy, I can't believe that more bike items don't use this mount, it really allows me to put it places I could never think of. On one of my bikes the handlebars were taken up with lights but I am able to put this mount ON TOP OF a Bike Planet safety light which is cylinder shaped. Clamps on with no problem. On my other bike I have it attached to the basket mounting bracket, good luck at doing that with any other mount. If only all mounts were this good. The unit comes with two complete mounts standard.

The battery is an integral Li-ion unit that is not user accessible or replaceable. Its supposedly good for up to 18 hours and has a charge % listed. I ran it for 2.5 hours with occasional backlight use and it went from 100% to 87%. The battery can be charged with the included adaptor or from a computer USB port.

Some people criticize the unit for not having a replaceable battery. I don't think that's such a big deal, the life is long, the battery will last for years before needing replacement. When you consider how much power these units usually use if ran on CR-2032's or other similar batteries you'd rack up quite a battery bill over the life of the unit and it wouldn't be nearly as well sealed. The size of the unit would rule out AA or AAA's without making it much bigger.

Features
The unit has a lot of features, it records more data than you know what to do with. It has support for external heart monitor and cadence sensor. You can read the specs to see all the stuff it records.

What is really nice is that you have three possible screens to look at. Each screen can be configured with whatever information you want. You can select to display anywhere between 1 and 8 pieces of information. 5 seems to be optimal in that you can get a large amount of screen space for your single most important info and then 4 smaller bits in other boxes. Each time you switch screens the backlight comes on which is great at night (this can be turned off).

The process for choosing info is not exactly intuitive or friendly but it works after you figure it out (hint>Bike settings>Data fields).

To get more accurate calorie count you will need to enter some data about yourself (height, weight, age etc). Don't forget your bike information, the weight of your bike probably affects it as well.

Use

Using the unit on the ride is easy enough. Turn it on, it boots up in a few seconds and has your satellites locked shortly thereafter. Usually less than 10 seconds. Being GPS based you don't need to program in wheel size or mess with sensors. Its easy to transfer from bike to bike and can hold 3 bike profiles.

I have the auto pause turned on so I hit start and then ride without worry. At the end of the ride I hit stop. You won't "accidentally" clear your data because you have to press and hold the clear button for 3 seconds and it shows you a countdown.

Computer Interface
One of the big features of a unit like this is the ability to download and examine your exercise data. The unit doesn't ship with any software but Garmin provides two utilities for free. There is the Garmin Training Center Software free to download from their website. It serves as a basic organizer downloader/uploader. It doesn't have all the analysis tools and its Maps are pretty anemic at best. The nice part however is you can transfer your data to Google Earth (if installed) which displays your data on a Google earth map. You can "play" your animation as well as look at each of your data points. If you right click on the path and choose Elevation Profile you get additional options for examining elevation and grade.

There is also the Garmin Connect Website that lets you upload your data to Garmins website. They have better graph and analysis tools. In addition to having your data stored online you can also send the link to others to share your data which is nice.

Accuracy & Reliability
Horror stories about the accuracy (or lack their off) and the unit freezing up or flaking out were pretty scary. One thing that I did before I ever used the device was fully charge the battery and then get the latest firmware update from the Garmin Website. There were a LOT of issues that we fixed. If you look at the revision history its wonder they let the thing out the door with that many issues. Installing the firmware involves downloading a program which then loads info into the unit. After that when you turn the unit on it compiles the new firmware into it over the period of a few minutes and then is ready to go.

I'm happy with the results. It's as accurate as most consumer grade GPS units. Accuracy of course varies with time and location. If I look at my track on Google Maps sometimes I can see what side of the road I was going down and how I zigged and zagged going up a large hill. Other times it has me biking through everyone's front yard. I'd say its off by 20 feet in one direction at worst which is not bad when your riding miles.

Elevation is a bit spotier, largely because the variance is much less. Plus or minus 20 feet on 20 miles is nothing, plus or minus 20 feet on 200 ft elevation is a lot. I've seen elevation swings as much as 50 feet at any one point but it averages out of a lot of data points. If you want to know what the exact elevation is at any one point you may be disappointed until you take multiple samples. But if you are looking for a pretty good record of the changes in your overall miles long ride it is sufficient. Also in my experience this varience in elevation is not unique to this unit. Every GPS unit I've used has had similar issues.

Temperature is another area of questionable accuracy. If you hold the unit for any length of time over 30 seconds its going to heat up. Same if exposed to direct sunlight. It doesn't seem to refresh the temperature that often. Seems to heat up fast, cool off slow.

Other Uses
While this is technically a Bike Computer with its ability to sync with Heart Rate Monitors there really isn't a reason you couldn't use it for other outdoor sports as well. You'd just have to make sure you have a place to hold it that it can receive signal.

To Recap

Pro's
Excellent Mount
Very Flexible in utility
Long Battery life
Very configurable
Lots of information

Cons
Not Very Friendly Interface
Buttons Hard to Push
Doesn't seem to have a indicator if you are going below, at or above average.
Associated Software is lacking
Bit of a learning curve to figure out all the quirks.

Conclusion-
An excellent device that takes the concept of a bike computer to a new level. Provides all sorts of information before and after the ride that you can find useful. If you've got the cash I'd recommend it.

UPDATE - Heart Rate monitor
I got the Garmin Comfort Strap Heart Rate monitor. After going back and telling the unit that I had a HRM it picked the monitor up almost instantly and has worked great. The only Gotcha (aside from having to reconfigure you screens to include HRM data) is that having the HRM active does drain the battery. I don't have any solid numbers but 2x as fast would be a reasonable estimate.

UPDATE - 10/26/11
Unit still works great and I've found other uses as well. Keeping track of where you go on vacation.

Sure its not the intended use but what you've got is a cool little tracking device. The battery is good enough to last all day long (14+ hours). The reception is good enough as long as your not in a building. Its small enough to fit in a pocket without noticing.

I recently spent a month in China. I would start it up when I left the hotel in the morning and turn it off when I got back. I had the entire days wanderings recorded. If you remember its on you and want to tag a specific point just push the lap button.

When I got home I loaded the information onto the computer and brought it up in Google Earth and was able to see everywhere I went. The entire trip used up less than 10% of the available memory.

This is a great bike computer with tons of amazing features. My only complaint about the unit itself is that the screen quality could be improved. It is not clear and easy to read - especially when you just want to glance down and see information. You really need to take your eyes off of the road for a moment or two to figure out what fields you are viewing and what they say.

I have not had any problems at all with the function of the unit. It easily found satelites and is pretty obvious how to configure. I really like the ability to connect this to my computer after rides and keep a detailed log of my rides. I gave the software three stars because it is very buggy and still quite rough around the edges.

I purchased the Garmin Heart Rate Monitorseparately. I do not have the Garmin GSC 10 Speed/Cadence Bike Sensor- it seems unnecessary for me. I don't really have a need to monitor my cadence and the speed measurements from the gps are very accurate - even on trails under pretty heavy foliage. I don't use this on a trainer.

I would strongy suggest that anyone who is considering this purchase make sure they visit the Garmin Edge 500 Forum on the Garmin website. You will learn more there than you ever wanted to know about the device. The DC Rainmaker blog also has an excellent detailed write-up.

As far as size, it is roughly the same size as my old Planet Bike Protege 9.0 9-Function Bike Computer with 4-Line Display and Temperature. The mount couldn't be easier. It uses two rubber bands to attach the base to the handlebars or stem. The unit locks into the base with a 90 degree twist - very easy and secure. It comes with tons of extra bands and I threw an extra set in my seat bag - just in case.

The Garmin Edge 500 is just what I expected it to be. I think it was the most anticipated GPS/cycle computer from Garmin. It's small and pretty does the all the things (and some more) that you expect a cycle computer to do. To begin with the size of the computer was a little larger that what I expected it to be, but having said that, it fits perfectly fine on my handle bar stem and note I have a short stem (80 mm). I did my first ride with it a while ago and it was pretty much ready to go from the box it arrived it in. It did not have any difficulties acquiring sattelites, and easily paired with the Garmin Heart Rate monitor and the Bontrager Duotrap cadence/speed sensor. Did not see any drops in signal during my ride, something that I would see with the previous Garmin that I had. You have three screens which you can 8 fields of data per screen. So you can monitor 24 data sets real time during your ride. There are far more options than I can list here, just to keep it short it's a plenty.

I personally am upgrading from a Forerunner 50 and I think this is just great! I think that everyone will be pleasantly surprised by the capabilities of this device except for the Edge 705 owners who will feel it is a downgrade for the lack of maps (which it is).

This is a great bike computer if you use the cadence sensor with it. The Edge 500 uses the wheel sensor to supplement the GPS if the GPS signal is lost under tree cover. Without the wheel sensor it can read as much as 20% low on mileage if you ride in tree cover. With the wheel sensor its spot on no matter what.

The elevation data is not very accurate either. If you turn on "Elevation Correction" in the [...] software then its much better but still not great. If I ride the same route several times I notice that the peak elevations are off by 10's of feet sometimes even with elevation correction "on". With that said, its still good to give you a rough idea of how much elevation change you experienced.

This little GPS system takes all the best elements of a bicycle computer and puts it into one small, easy-to-use device. It's basically ready to go once you get it out of the box and put it on your handle bars, and it being a GPS system is much more accurate than any bicycle computer. Plus it allows you to use garminconnect where you can store all your data and previous routes and rides, as well as see your routes on google earth. This is an excellent way to analyze your progress and reach higher goals since you can set goals on the website where it'll give you a percentage of your goals completed.
Any information you would like to know while on your ride is equipped on this device (traveling time, distance, time of day, speed, average speed, cadence, HR, elevation, percent grade, temperature, calories, elevation gained, elevation lost, vertical climb speed, and a couple dozen more), and it's fully customizable to allow you to place on the screen what information you want to see during your ride. This is what bicycle computers were supposed to be like all along.

I've had an EDGE 500 for 6 months. I bicycle at least 200 miles per week, with at least half of that on longer rides on the weekends.

When the Edge works it's great: it provides lots of data. The problem is that the EDGE 500 usually doesn't work.

I've lost track of the number of times where I had to re-download the same version of Garmin's Web Updater software that I had previously downloaded in order to get my computer to recognize the Edge. On three of those occasions, re-downloading the same old software didn't work, so I had to contact Garmin support. They told me I had to press this and that button simultaneously while the unit was off, plug in the USB cable while still holding the buttons in, wait for the magic word to appear on the screen, click my heels three times and say I want to go home ... you get the drill.

Garmin support's fixes worked at first. But then, like the town drunk who swears up and down that he's gonna quit drinking and turn over a new leaf but only holds out a couple of days before someone discovers him curled up in an alley in a drunken stupor, there goes the Edge.

The latest example: a 72 mile bike ride I went on today that was seemingly fully recorded by the Edge (that is, the timer recorded & displayed speed, mileage, elevation and heart rate for the entire ride). When I got home from the ride, I turned off the Edge, left it on my bike, took a shower and a short nap and went out with some friends. I came home eager to see the data on my ride. But, lo and behold, I discovered that, after the annoyingly familiar ritual of having to re-download the same version of Web Updater software to my computer that I had downloaded 3 days ago to get my computer to recognize the Edge, today's ride had vanished, with not even a poof of smoke. This despite there being 75% of battery life left per the Edge. And I swear to G*d, I didn't touch the Edge except to turn it off after my ride.

To make it worse, this is Sunday. That being the case, I can't speak with Garmin support, because Garmin support isn't open on weekends or holidays when the vast majority of people actually travel, ride their bikes, hike, run, etc... and need their Garmins.

So, I just sent Garmin an e-mail (which they say they'll answer within 3 days) demanding my $250 back. I'll let you know how that goes....

I was looking for a reliable, water resistant, bike computer that has no wires and actually works. I have used a variety of wireless units in the past with mixed results. I bought two of these to put on a new, high-end, tandem. We didn't want wires hanging on the bike. The functionality of a GPS can be difficult for many. I understand that. If you want maps and route guidance and such, you might want the 605 or 705. I have some experience with the Garmin screen technology on those units. I cannot see the screen well enough. For me the software is intuitive, but I hate to say it will be easy for anyone else. I have been using hand held and automotive GPS units for years. This is just another evolution. In the end this one is the right size and gives me the features I want. I got the one without the cadence sensor and without the heartrate. I just need a few basic functions. This one does it without too much bulk.

I really thought this was going to be the perfect compromise in GPS computers: reasonable price, lots of features, etc. Unfortunately there were several problems, and I had to return the unit. First, there was so much screen glare from the highly reflective screen that the device was more distracting than informative. An anti glare screen protector film is a must have option. Second, the contrast was very poor under many lighting conditions, and the screen size just way too small for showing 8 data fields without taking my eyes off the road too long - maybe 3-4 fields per page max. Third, the GPS absolutely refused to show the correct altitude when starting off, always 100+ feet off from any other web site reference point, and always corrected by Garmin's data web site by at least 100+ feet on each ride - and entering the known elevation reference made absolutely no difference, the GPS ignored the reference number. Finally, it kept shutting itself off on rides. No particular pattern, sometimes shut off and didn't restart after a rest room break, and sometimes shut down while moving. Not just failure to auto restart after a pause, actually physically powering down. (battery had been charged before first use as per directions, and charged before each ride - typically showed over 60-70% remaining after restarting post failure.)

OK, maybe I got a bad unit - but the 500 has been out long enough that these type of problems - at this price point - shouldn't exist. A $20 Cateye doesn't shut itself off randomly, why is it acceptable in an expensive GPS. The new 800 appears to solve many of the screen size, reflectivity, and contrast complaints, but the GPS accuracy issue and power shut downs make me leary of spending that much money for something that is 4 times the price of a Garmin car GPS. A $40 polar heart watch, $20 Cateye speedometer, and $125 Garmin car GPS are still less than 1/2 the price, and maybe more reliable? Going to wait and see on the reliability feedback on the 800 before I spend that kind of money on a new model. The 500 should be acceptable for those with better close up vision or who don't mind the screen glare, (or don't mind wearing breading glasses while riding) and it is a nice size with many decent features, but it just didn't work for me, and didn't work reliably either.

I really like my new Garmin Edge 500. It was very easy to install and the mounting system, on the stem rather than handlebars, is a big plus. Its very easy to customize the three viewing screens with the data you want to see. You can choose from one to five data fields per page. My recommendation is 3 or fewer. When using the auto scroll feature the Edge will change screens about every four seconds and that is not long enough to find data if the screen is too busy. I also recently had a crash on my bike (broken clavical for me) but the Garmin did not come loose from its dock and perhaps because of its stem mount location, escaped unscathed. Highly recommended from a 20+ season cycling veteran.

I purchased the Garmin Edge 500 about 3 months ago and was using it 4 or 5 days a week during my training rides. On weekends I would do longer rides and often I would download a course to follow. Well, quite often the unit would 'freeze' while following a course resulting in me having to do a master reset (press all 4 buttons at once) and also resulting in data loss for my ride. Garmin Support is useless in this matter and judging by all the complaints on the Garmin forum, I'm not the only one having this problem. Do your research before purchasing - check out forums.garmin.com!

Overall the Edge works adequately for altitude/speed/cadence/distance, but I bought it for the GPS course feature. I would give this unit 4 stars if I didn't need the course feature.