GPS reliability

Is Garmin integrated with ridewithgps these days? I find that feature invaluable on my elemnt.

I ditched Garmin for Wahoo Elemnt. It so much easier to setup, alter settings and integrate with Strava or live linking. All settings are done from mobile phone. You can either connect phone at start of ride and have tracking, live Strava and messages/calls notification from phone or run separately, once home the Elemnt connect to home WiFi and upload your ride. I usually have phone connection, but not all the time

Wahoo Elemnt has worked perfectly for last 2 years.

A friend who does long audaxes switched from Garmin and is also much happier with it than his old Edge 520.

Another Edge touring user of 3 years - it has never given me any major problems. I’ve used a couple of the extra free apps for different data screens and navigation has always been faultless ie my mistake when I take a wrong turn. 

Battery life is an issue over 100 miles - last cut out on Dragon Ride at 135 miles. 

I’ve always thought it odd the Garmins have such a rep - perhaps inherited like the Grauniad for bad spelling?

We guide with Edge Tourings and think they are very good. Turn off, turn x turn directions and turn off recalculate route and all you have to do is follow a pink line on top of a base map. 

Only a sample of one... have had an Edge 1000 for 4 years. Some bugs with the early software versions but it has been rock solid ever since. It has never crashed mid-ride or failed to record a ride. Navigation "just works". Perhaps not a widely held opinion, but very happy with it.

I'll echo drinfinity's comments on the Edge 800. Garbage default maps but that's easily fixed with open street maps, and instability encountered when using the SD card. I now save my rides to the "internal" storage and just keep map files on the SD, and that's worked 100% since.

I've only one other observation about this old model, which might leak into later versions. Cycling up to the local high point with its barber-pole comms tower atop it seems to upset the stability of the unit,  so it might be susceptible to RFI. The display freezes but more often than not, the GPS recording seems unaffected.

Garmin's expensive "soft" HRM strap that came with it is a POS and not fit for purpose, ceasing to work after a few months (original and replacement).

I have had a garmin 500 for about 6 years. It works just fine all the time.  It has buttons, not a touch screen and is small and simple. It has limited use as a navigation aid, but as a training aid (HR, Power, Altitiude etc) it is really excellent. The altimeter (barometer run) is ridiculously accurate. I have no idea how they do it.

This sort of thing is why I steered clear of touchscreens and went with the physical buttons on the Edge 130. They're responsive and easy to access, even with gloves on (obvs not tried full winter gloves yet). It does most of what the bigger Garmins do so seemed to be the sweet spot.

Undoubted upgrade in usability and reliability over the RFLKT+ and I get decent enough battery life for my use case.

I was all set to get one of the ELEMNTs and wary of the Garmin but the 25 I got for my son convinced me to go with Garmin this time. Hopefully a long-term user of the 130 as it does all I need and am ever likely to need.

My Garmin Edge 20 has been faultless for 3 years. Limited functionality, but always worked perfectly

I have a garmin 520. Gives me 15 hours run time.
Pre installed maps are rubbish.
Has worked flawlessly since I bought it 15 months ago.

Have had a Garmin Edge 810 for almost four years now. Early on had the screen freeze issues and the turning off issues. Last firmware update seems to have fixed this and it is very reliable now. Also have an Edge 200 which has never missed a beat - no maps of course. As you have discovered, they all have their foibles...

I had an Elemnt Bolt that lasted just 2 and half months before the screen went blank. I ordered a new one and got a refund from Wiggle for the faulty one, so I hope the new one lasts longer.

I've had a Garmin edge 820 explore for about two years and really hate it. The touchscreen cannot distinguish between raindrops and fingers, so on my recent tour of Scotland (where it rained every day), the screen was going nuts and thinking the heavy rain was my fingers pressing the screen.

the battery life is about 4 hours with navigation (no sensors and quite awful for a device marketed as 'explore') and the battery save mode often doesn't work. The preinstalled maps are rubbish, but DC rainmaker has a good guide on installing better maps.

The screen is slow and often takes a few attempts to move between screens. You have to spend ages setting up the data fields, only for Garmin to reset them when a software update comes in. The unit also sometimes freezes midway through a ride, so you need to reset it. This doesn't affect the ride recording but does waste a lot of time and battery. 

If I were buying again, I would not get a computer with a touchscreen (nor would I get a Garmin) an Elemnt Bolt is on order. 

I'm a long term Wahoo user - original bike case plus sensors and lately a RFLKT + - neither were particularly reliable on Android and recently I just ended up with constant dropped rides.
I've now got an Edge 25 & Edge 130 - zero issues over the last two months. Even Garmin Connect plays nice on both ios and Android. There's a review of the Edge 130 coming soon I believe - personally it's the most reliable easy to use device I've ever owned. Pairing is very quick, as is GPS connection.

Ditto the Elemnt.

More than 2 years now and faultless.

I have two Garmin 800, the oldest of which is at least 5 years old. It still works fine, and the Garmin software seems to be less infuriating than it was. The second one did freeze on me a few times, but that turned out to be corrupted SD card. When I reformatted the card and put it back in, it was all fine again. 

Reason for two - lost the first one on a walk up Old Man of Coniston, and replaced it. Someone found it, contacted Garmin with the serial number, and Garmin mailed me. Very happy day!

Purely anecdotal but... I'm only one person but i had a Garmin Edge Touring Plus that was absolute garbage - froze, lost rides, reset mid-ride etc. I now have a Wahoo Elemnt Bolt that hasn't put a foot wrong in the year and a bit I've had it.