Anybody else having trouble seeing Garmin 530 display?

[PaulSB]

Garmin Explore is 3”

I'm not sure of the relevance of this. My point was the Elemnt and 530 are almost the same size. I find a black and white screen of the same size easier to read. My 810 with colour screen was 2.6" so I feel it a fair comparison.

 

[PaulSB]

The Elemnt started having a colour screen a long time ago - but doesn't over-use colour.

It uses I think 4 colours on the map, and it uses colours to show the gradient (after a firmware update a few months ago). But all the main fields are black and white, with good contrast, as you say, and with a glare-free screen.

I wear contact lenses for distance vision and need reading glasses for close vision, but surprisingly, in daylight I can see all the relevant numbers on mine even with the main screen set to 11 fields. I need to drop it to 9 at night. And I can't read the labels when it is on 11 fields, I have to know which field is which.

That's very interesting to know. Thanks. I have an original Elemnt with a black and white dispay. Like you I need reading glasses but can read 11 fields on the Wahoo screen. I had imagined everything would be in colour.

This is good to know as it means I could use the Roam should my current Elemnt pack up, get damaged, lost etc.

👍

 

[Dogtrousers]

When I bought my 530 I was choosing between it and the equivalent Wahoo (I forget which) and I took a look at both. My opinion at the time was that the Wahoo had the edge for readability.

(The reasons I eventually went for the Garmin are for another thread which would inevitably degenerate into a shouting match)

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I'm not sure of the relevance of this. My point was the Elemnt and 530 are almost the same size. I find a black and white screen of the same size easier to read. My 810 with colour screen was 2.6" so I feel it a fair comparison.

Point is screen size was no reason to pick a Wahoo

 

[PaulSB]

Point is screen size was no reason to pick a Wahoo

Ah, I see. I probably wasn't clear enough. I made a choice to buy Wahoo over Garmin as I feel the Wahoo is a superior bit of kit. The screen size of the Elemnt v Elemnt Bolt was the deciding factor to choose the Elemnt. As I went on to say the Wahoo is black and white with very good contrast and this coupled with the larger screen size of the Elemnt was key to my choice.

The current sizes may have changed, I don't know as I'm not in the market but from memory when I moved to Wahoo only two models were available.

 

[geocycle]

Can you customise the screen of the 830? Wahoo let’s you choose what fields to display and zoom in to your preferred ones. A cycling mate who needs glasses for reading found that helpful. Personally I find the Garmin maps clearer but the monochrome wahoo ones are fine for most purposes. I do sometimes find myself looking at a line and not being sure if it is water or road. I’ll try a colour model next time I need to change.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Can you customise the screen of the 830? Wahoo let’s you choose what fields to display and zoom in to your preferred ones. A cycling mate who needs glasses for reading found that helpful. Personally I find the Garmin maps clearer but the monochrome wahoo ones are fine for most purposes. I do sometimes find myself looking at a line and not being sure if it is water or road. I’ll try a colour model next time I need to change.

You can customise the fields and layout and have multiple data screens on the Garmin’s. I seem to have settled on 3, 4 or 5 fields per data screen and 3 data screens for my Garmin. Most rides I’ll often leave on one data screen but if I’m doing some specific training during a ride I’ll switch to the other screens.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I just have those sticky plastic lenses inside my cycling sunglasses for reading the display. It works great for me but I don't need any distance glasses.

I have a pair of sunglasses to which I applied stick on lenses, and they're a fairly cheap way to solve the problem - if indeed they work for you. But in the years since I got them my distance vision has worsened so they've been consigned to a junk box somewhere.

I also have a pair of varifocal cycling glasses from Optilabs, but most of the time I just ride in my regular varifocal glasses. Yes, I do get eye-watering problems, especially in the cold but I just put up with it. I don't particularly like wearing sunglasses anyway, and never wear them when not cycling.

 

[freiston]

I find the data fields on the Garmin 530 to be perfectly legible when in the riding position and wearing spectacles designed for that distance (in my case bifocals). Nothing wrong with the font or the size. I started off with 7 fields per screen but that made the size of the fields too small to see at a glance - and I don't want to be fixed on my screen when moving, so now I use 4 data fields (layout 4A) per screen for screens that I want to use on the move and anything that I'm only interested in when stopped , I will use a screen with more data fields. Reading the smaller data field labels is not so easy but manageable when I know what the options are, so to speak.

As others have said - this is not an issue with the Garmin but an issue with eyesight. The Garmin's font style and display size (especially at 4 data fields or fewer per screen) are quite clear to anyone not needing spectacles or wearing spectacles that correct for the distance. If I'm not wearing the right glasses for the distance I'm looking at, then I ain't going to be able to see well, whether that's my Garmin, my computer screen, my phone , my TV or the moon.

My eyesight is not brilliant - I have bifocals for distance and near and I have a third prescription (second pair of specs) for a bit further than near - such as and specifically for computer screens. One eye is "fixed" at far sighted due to cataract surgery. The other is very short sighted and deteriorating due to another cataract - to the extent that my distance lenses now give it clarity at about a foot and not much further whilst the near lens gives clarity at about 8". Despite this, the other eye can focus satisfactorily with glasses and I can still see my Garmin display (as well as the road ahead etc.). I have some prescription sunglasses for distance only; I can ride perfectly well with them on but reading the Garmin, my phone or my watch is difficult and I usually have to change glasses to do this.

 

[Dadam]

As others have said - this is not an issue with the Garmin but an issue with eyesight. The Garmin's font style and display size (especially at 4 data fields or fewer per screen) are quite clear to anyone not needing spectacles or wearing spectacles that correct for the distance. If I'm not wearing the right glasses for the distance I'm looking at, then I ain't going to be able to see well, whether that's my Garmin, my computer screen, my phone , my TV or the moon.

I agree up to a point, but not entirely. I did a commute today just wearing my regular varifocals and could see it just fine, so the underlying issue is obviously eyesight. I did suffer from watering eyes on the fast downhill bit though so wearing these isn't the total solution.

However I do still think the fonts and the configurability could be improved for accessibility. The single (unchangeable) font is tall and narrow but the verticals are quite fat. There are many more readable fonts around that would take up the same space. The only customisation option you have for font size is choosing the number of slots and what fields you assign to them. There is a lot of whitespace in some fields that could be better used in some cases. In addition labels take up a lot of the space in some fields, and it would be helpful if there was an option to turn some off allowing the font size to increase to take up some of this space.

The state of the art in (especially) mobile app and website design has really come on leaps and bounds in the last ten years but it seems to me these devices have not kept pace. A little more focus on UX rather than cramming in features would in my professional opinion reap rewards.

 

[Dadam]

Just been thinking this is exactly the sort of thing that could be fixable with a 3rd party app, so I started perusing Connect IQ. Not seen a suitable candidate yet. Garmin also use a proprietary, locked-down OS. A fully open source android or embedded linux OS would be great.

However I found the Garmin Connect IQ developer documentation and it looks like it's free to build on-device apps. Unlike the full Garmin device integration APIs which you need to be a business to sign up, Connect IQ is free for Joe Bloggs. So I'm going to have a read, might be an interesting evening project to build a couple of higher visibility screens to my requirements.

 

[T4tomo]

@Dadam if you wear glasses most the time, stop messing around with prescription inserts, which are always a compromise due to small lens size (and your current ones aren't even varifocal) , and just get varifocal cycling / sports glasses with a reactive / transition lens so you are Ok on dull days as well as bright days.

 

[Dadam]

Sounds like a good plan to be fair. Any recommendations as to brand?

 

[vickster]

Sounds like a good plan to be fair. Any recommendations as to brand?

Could look at Optilabs, RxSport, extreme eyewear. For direct glaze varifocal transitions, expect to spend some way north of £200 if not £300 (my last pair of single vision Oakleys were the latter).
Spex4less also have a sale at the mo on
Sports glasses
https://www.spex4less.com/sports-glasses/cycling-glasses (code sports15 for 15% off)

 

[T4tomo]

Sounds like a good plan to be fair. Any recommendations as to brand?

https://sportsglasses.online/

I got mine from here, he had a stand at a cycling show. He's not the quickest at making them up, but the lens / vision quality was excellent.