Perhaps it’s only me, but I have had the most miserable of times starting out with the Garmin Edge 800 GPS system. Something about the way Garmin write their user manuals just does not sit well with me. After a few weeks of ownership I am still fumbling my way towards being comfortable with the Edge on my Apple Mac. These lessons hard learned, may be useful:
- The Apple Mac does not always seem to ‘see’ the Garmin device. For more reliable performance follow this procedure. Turn the Garmin off. Hold down the Lap/Reset button for 10 seconds while you attach the USB cable to the Garmin, or until you see the computer image appear on the Garmin screen and the disk image icon appear on the Apple Mac. This forces the Garmin into, ‘mass storage mode’ and ensures communication between the Apple and the Garmin.
- I have had more success using the upload file facility from a third party site (I use, ‘Map my Fitness/Ride/Run’) than from the Garmin sites.
- Likewise, Map my Fitness gives much better control over the mapping tools for creating routes than the Garmin site tools do.
- When exporting a GPX file to the Garmin (connected as above) you have to save the file to the ‘New Files’ folder on the Garmin navigating to it via the Garmin disk image icon on the Apple Mac. Disconnect the Garmin only after,’unmounting’ the Garmin by dragging the icon into the waste basket and waiting a second or two.
- Once disconnected, if you start the Garmin you will find the new route listed under the ‘Courses’ icon on the Garmin menu page.
- If you rename the GPX file for neatness, make sure you don’t add any odd characters or spaces. If you do, the Garmin will not ‘see’ the file.
These lessons were learned only after many frustrating hours reading the manual and searching through the various Garmin forums. I really cannot understand how a company as big as Garmin can produce such shoddy user documentation and software.
Update: It turns out I am far from alone! This Garmin 800 Blog by Frank Kinlan seems to be attracting quite a bit of attention from equally frustrated users.
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