Garmin Edge 500 => Edge 530

I recently purchased a Garmin Edge 530 biking computer to upgrade from my Edge 500. It had served me well for over ten years, but the battery was no longer holding a charge reliably and wouldn’t last longer than 3 or 4 hours maximum. I also wanted to be able to store routes so that I was no longer the only annoying guy in the group who had no idea where I was going when we left familiar territory.

I got the 530 because it’s compact and doesn’t have a touch-screen.

I’m still trying to figure out how to turn off the “sharp corner warnings” when I’m not navigating. It makes no sense to announce turns that I might be taking—but usually am not taking.

Note to Garmin: here in Switzerland, we have traffic circles. Like, a LOT of traffic circles. You may have heard of them? No, I don’t think you have, because your silly gadget warns me about every single one as a “sharp U-Turn” even though it has NO IDEA which exit I’m planning to take because I’m not riding a route.

Also, while I am navigating, the “upcoming turn” warnings are great, of course. But … only when you’re actually moving at speed. Otherwise, they dominate your device for up to a minute as you crawl your way up a 12% grade toward that “dangerous, sharp corner” that you’re likely to fly off of at 10km/hr. I think I’ve figured out how to have it show those hints only when I’m actually looking at the map, but I haven’t tested yet whether that’s better (next up: I’ll be complaining about missing turns on my route).

Note to Garmin: here in Switzerland, we have hills and mountains and passes. Like, a LOT of hills. You may have heard of them? No, I don’t think you have, because your silly gadget warns me about “upcoming turns” for 45 seconds before I get to them because I’m GOING UPHILL. I’m fascinated to see that you’ve been working on these devices for decades and still haven’t figured out how to adjust the lead time for a turn warning based on vehicle speed.

Fortunately, it pays to complain loudly about things because my friend patiently wrote back that,

“On the Garmin 530 it’s located under “Settings” / “Activity Profiles” − select the profile you want to change, then scroll down to “Navigation”. You’ll now see the Sharp Bend feature and by default it’s “on.”

Doh!

I was on that page. I turned the other option to Text only so that it stops switching to the map on me. I somehow did not see the Sharp Bend option that WAS RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF MY FACE.

Complaining loudly in a semi-public forum FTW! 🎉