Garmin vs shearwater

[Pavao]

You ever read the Garmin Edge forums? My experience is not that unusual.

Ever read ANY product which does not have any problems?

 

[L13]

Fair play.

You're right that there is a workaround and other commenters above are correct that other companies have similar policies. My beef is with this quote from the subsurface website "Based on a specific request from Garmin, we will not be able to support BLE downloads on any platform." Subsurface Divelog It's petty to make (I think) the most expensive dive computers then deliberately inconvenience the customer with silly workarounds. (Workarounds that probably only exist thanks to EU law, so a tip of the hat to me pro-consumer friends across the Atlantic.)

Now I have three options:
1. Import all Garmin dives into subsurface using the csv list, which will shed a bunch of detail but will be quick for me.
2. Import Garmin dives one at a time into subsurface using the .fit conversion which only sheds a bit of detail that isn't too onerous to manually reenter -- a fine solution if I had done this every few dives over the years, but a huge pain if I move all the dives over now.
3. Accept that I didn't keep up with my log and let Garmin store the only copy forever.

Frankly, my plan was #3 until they started introducing/expanding subscriptions all over the ecosystem. Now I wish that I regularly transferred to subsurface from day 1 so that I can more conveniently walk if they take the paywall game too far. I'll just start porting them over a few at a time when I have nothing better to do. It's an annoying and inconvenient chore, but you're absolutely right in stating that "It's really not that difficult."

You forgot option 4. Use the USB cable. That is what I do and it works perfectly on windows and linux (I haven't personally tested it on apple).

 

[brsnow]

You ever read the Garmin Edge forums? My experience is not that unusual.

You ever read the teric issues or replacement thread on here? Internet is an interesting place.

 

[Belzelbub]

Fair play.

You're right that there is a workaround and other commenters above are correct that other companies have similar policies. My beef is with this quote from the subsurface website "Based on a specific request from Garmin, we will not be able to support BLE downloads on any platform." Subsurface Divelog It's petty to make (I think) the most expensive dive computers then deliberately inconvenience the customer with silly workarounds. (Workarounds that probably only exist thanks to EU law, so a tip of the hat to me pro-consumer friends across the Atlantic.)

Yeah, I get it. However, I'm not sure I agree with the reason for the workaround. I'd have to dig through the forums to find the quote, probably from a thread where the MK1 was first introduced. As I recall Dirk, or one of the other Subsurface developers stated that Garmin was actually pretty cooperative with getting them info for being able to download from the watch. They did stipulate that they did not want other apps to use the BLE protocol.

However, if Garmin really wanted to prevent downloading to other apps, they could have done it pretty easily. The fact that they allow export via Connect tells me they are OK with that info being elsewhere.

Yes, BLE is an easier method, but the method I use is really not difficult at all.

 

[Nineline]

You ever read the Garmin Edge forums? My experience is not that unusual.

The Edge biking line of products have been especially buggy the past few years. But the Descent products generally have not. That's why they come out approx 2 years after their corresponding Fenix products, as Garmin knows critical life support equipment shouldn't be unreliable, and that gives them a chance to iron out glitches via firmware updates before releasing it to the masses.

That said, my brand new x50i and it's replacement both have touchscreen issues (buttons work fine) so I suppose I am experiencing my first Descent line bugs being an early adopter of a new model.

 

[Todd999]

I love my Perdix but I did get a Garmin Mk3i as my backup / daily wear watch and as a dive computer its just as good as the perdix. I looked at the teric but it just doesn't compare to the Garmin MK3i in battery lifer or features. However the perdix supports direct bluetooth download so its still what I download into my MacDive Log.

We are lucky to have such great choices!

 

[coldwaterglutton]

So my son and I swapped computers (and regulators/transmitters) on a recent dive trip to the Spiegel Grove. My impression after using his x50i is that the operation is very similar, but the four control buttons on the Garmin (vs. the two on my Shearwater) are marginally better for using the interface. At least while out of the water.

And the mapping and communications features were intriguing but I am too old and too much of a luddite to figure those out on the fly.

Underwater I found the x50i to be pretty similar to the Peregrine Tx. My other son has the Mk3i and I still think the rectangular shape of the x50i and Shearwater gives more and more accessible data than the circular shape.

 

[icyz_]

Thanks for the clarification on that.

But, in practical terms, that doesn't really make it any better - to ME. I can't sync my dives (outside of Garmin) via Bluetooth? I need a cable to sync directly from the dive computer? Can I even do that if I'm trying to sync to my phone or tablet?

Probably not, at least if we're talking about syncing to Subsurface. I suspect the Subsurface-mobile app will only sync using Bluetooth. You could definitely do it used a cable on a laptop/desktop computer.

Regardless needing a proprietary (I assume) cable to sync to something outside of Garmin is some serious 20th Century Weaksauce...

The closest thing that can happen is probably Garmin Activity API, like what Strava did. And that's about it. It's pretty common in computer manufacturers.