I use this computer when I ride during the weekdays. I like that it does not have a touch screen, as my 830 has. Sometimes on my 830 I accidentally touch the screen and I can not get back to the original screen. What I do not like about the 530 is that when initially entering data, it is more difficult to enter and save data without a touch screen. Since my 530 was a replacement for my 820, I wish I could have transferred the data from my 820 to my 530.
I love that Garmin tracks everything from swimming to cross-country skiing to running to water intake. Working from home, it's great to have that reminder buzz to get up and take a walk around the block or at least look away from the screen and stretch. I find the components easy to navigate and really am enjoying the fact that playlists and podcasts can be downloaded directly to the device. After a couple months, I still find this download process a bit clunkier than I'd like to update playlists and remove listened-to downloads, but it's still refreshing to be able to head out on a run without my phone. I think the tracking is pretty accurate and it's easy to review trends in the Connect app. As a bonus, it looks great (I have the rose gold/sand version) and the face is small enough on my wrist (I'm a short, small human) that it doesn't look overwhelmingly clunky.
Over all it's pretty good. I bought because I wanted the heart rate monitor belt bundle . The HR monitor works great and I love seeing it displayed on the unit. The unit itself is pretty small. The directions for use are not that easy to figure out. I bought the varia light and it syncs with the light but the light comes on randomly at times and I cannot figure out how to take the light integration off. Also I frequently have trouble getting the computer to sync with the garmin app. Today is the 3rd time I had to restart the unit twice . Today I also had to restart my phone as well. It's safe to say i buyers remorse. But it will do for now!
I got almost a year out of the HRM Dual, and it worked well for most of that time. I would wash the strap every 6-10 rides after removing the hrm node, hang dry, etc. Started to see dropouts a month or two ago, so I replaced the battery figuring it may be that. It wasn't. Researching it, there are seemingly a few things that go wrong with these, but my strap didn't have any cracks in the contact patches, the battery cavity doesn't have any corrosion, from what I can tell, all the internal cabling was in tact between contacts and connection point, and even after a battery change and vigilant washing to avoid any salt buildup, it would only last the first 10-15 minutes of a ride, then drop out completely. I'd adjust the fit and it would show up on the head unit again, but at a criminally low HR (like 65HR while climbing over FTP). I even tried shaving the chest hair, to no avail. I noticed that one of the contacts on the nodule itself seemed to have some rust underneath the plastic covering the unit on the backside (around one of the circular metal bases attached to the contacts that snap into the strap). This was something I couldn't find examples of online, so I was a little leary of buying and trying another strap, thinking it might be something to do with this corrosion/rust which would mean my HRM unit was toast and a new strap wouldn't remedy the problem.
I opted to buy a new HRM entirely and just anticipate needing to do so once a year or hopefully get a couple years out of these things moving forward, as they're not cheap.
