Open Letter to Garmin
Dear Garmin,
It's been painfully obvious to even the most casual observer that the fitness end of your business model is far from a primary concern to your executives. Between continually pushing back your “revolutionary” Vector power meter, firmware that is loaded with bugs, devices that crash frequently and expensive, limited use mapping cards.
But perhaps the most egregious infraction, at least in my mind, is the crappy quality sensor that you bundle with your cycling GPS units. For something with supposedly so much research in it, how in the hell can you build such a shoddy product? First of all, the design of the speed sensor arm lends it to being caught up in the spokes any time it should shift even a small amount. Secondly, the quality of the Reed switch in the speed sensor arm is utter crap.
I've been through five speed/cadence sensors in the past year (including two in the past WEEK!) Each and every time the Reed switch has gone bad, either from a small shock or just random cessation of existence. Seriously…there has got to be a way for you to make a decent quality sensor without losing money on it (although you seem to be fine with losing money, what with the Vector program purchase and subsequent failure….)
So while you're busy ironing out the Vector trainwreck, I implore you, on behalf of all the useless speed sensors out there, USE MORE ROBUST ELECTRONICS!
Since this request will probably fall upon deaf ears, perhaps there is a way to attach a more robust sensor to the existing Garmin unit, even if it's not a pretty solution. I'll try that in the future and post results of how it works out.
