Garmin has released its public beta of the Edge 1050 features for the Edge 540/840/1040 units.
This means that for those who would like to report that angry dog down the street as a ‘road hazard’ (or Dairy Queen as an obstacle), you can now do so. All non-hardware features of the Edge 1050 were released last night in the public beta for the Edge 540, 840, 1040. The Edge Explore 2 public beta hasn’t quite released yet.
I just want to briefly acknowledge that I think this is the first time Garmin has released both a new device and beta firmware for existing devices on the *same day*. Historically, the gap between new features on older devices has been from weeks to ‘never’. When I met the Edge team earlier this month, they said their goal was to release it on the same day as the Edge 1050. I smiled and said, “That’s great!”, as I said in my head: “Uh-huh…sure. You’ll be picking up the Legos on the floor just like my kids.” So kudos to them for actually making it happen.
I rightly think that, from a brand perception point of view, it makes a difference when companies do that. It has become a bit more popular in recent years, but it is still a bit rare to do such things on the same day.
Anyway, on to the details!
The new features:
If you’d like to see the full release notes, you can find the September 23 public beta data here:
– Garmin Edge 540/840 public beta
– Garmin Edge 1040 public beta
As a reminder, Garmin long ago switched to WiFi downloads (so you don’t have to manually copy files back and forth), so all you need to do is enable the beta option for your device on Garmin Connect:
Anyway, let’s take a look at the big ticket features (there are more listed in the release notes above, these are small things or fixes). I’ve included screenshots of what it looks like on the Edge 1050, although the functionality is the same on the Edge 540/840/1040.
GroupRide prizes and climbing competitions added: This includes both the mid-ride climbing challenges/competitions and the post-ride prizes. Here is the climbing price during the ride:
And then after the ride, with my wife recently on the Edge 840 beta, and myself on the Edge 1050:
Added GroupRide incident detection: If you crash during a GroupRide, others in your group will be notified, with a very loud and overbearing warning. Your friends won’t miss it, even if they miss you.
Added support for traffic hazards: This allows you to report road hazards (dangerous animals, obstacles, potholes, slippery roads and general hazards) as well as see them. You can then confirm/deny the perceived hazards. Here’s what an upcoming hazard looks like, first the little red block and if you tap on it you’ll see more details:
Added surface type support, including on the map: This includes upcoming warnings for unpaved roads during the trip and road surface types in the overview after the trip. Here is an example of the upcoming surface warning:
Added Wi-Fi map download support (840/1040 only): This eliminates the need to connect a computer to download maps for other regions or update your existing maps. This will now happen via WiFi. The Edge 540 is not supported due to memory overhead issues.
Garmin Share added: This allows you to transfer courses, locations and training directly to other Garmin devices, without the need for an internet connection. This is a bit like the transfer capabilities of old, but completely revamped and designed to become the new standard for Garmin cycling devices, wearables and other devices (you’ll see it in the next public betas of the Garmin Fenix 7/Epix -series).
New Course Creator added (840/1040 only): This allows you to create multi-point courses directly on the device, unlike the previous round-trip and one-way courses.
Added wind and endurance adjustments to Power Guide: Essentially, PowerGuide now takes into account cases where your endurance is decreasing too quickly or wind conditions have changed.
Updated number algorithm to be much more responsive: I outlined this in my review, but in short this ensures that the gradient responsiveness, for example when you have a short/steep section that quickly changes from 0% to 10%, is almost instantaneous. It is now on par with or better than Hammerhead and Wahoo in my testing.
Final thoughts:
As always, remember that this is a (public) beta. As such, there will likely be quirky things and things that need to be resolved. I have been using the Edge 1050 software versions for a while and they are very stable. But I haven’t spent much time on the Edge 540/840/1040 public betas. However, my wife has taken a few rides with the Edge 840 beta, and so far she has survived. Still, some features, like Garmin Share between the Edge 840 beta and Edge 1050, seemed a bit… beta (worked fine for me, Edge 1050 to Edge 1050). But then again, that’s the point of beta.
As for the other features, you won’t see things like the bike bell or a completely revamped user interface design style, as both require new hardware found on the Edge 1050. In the case of the bicycle bell, that requires new speaker hardware that can reproduce spoken words and more (as opposed to a simple beeper on the Edge 540/840/1040). And then the new user interface requires a significantly faster processor, found in the dual-core processor of the new Edge 1050.
But otherwise almost every other function has been taken over. Garmin says they see the Edge 1040/1040 Solar as a core part of the lineup for those who want longer battery life, and that it will continue to get feature updates like the Edge 1050. Hopefully that will remain the case for a long time.
With that – thanks for reading!
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