Warning: Minor rant!

I'm new to the Garmin ecosystem. As a cyclist training for multiple hilly gran fondos this summer I went all in and purchased an Edge 1040 and Forerunner 955 to keep track of training and recovery.

I am surprised by the lack of consistency in certain aspects of Garmin Connect being able to produce meaningful insights to leverage - even if purely informational.

For example, some flagrant consistency issues exist with the way calories are counted in the Calories In/Out widget. I have been around the block with support on this, and no one has provided a good reason why ACTIVE calories from the Edge recorded cycling rides/workouts don't properly track in Connect widget. Active calories show up in the widget from generally daily activity from the watch but not from the Edge. I get accurate calories in My FitnessPal but not in the widget. The calories are there in the ride but not in the widget. I've done Physio TrueUp on/off etc and no resolution.

Other gaps are in the training load predictor and VO2 Max readings (and yes, I get that these are consumer devices, but the reason why we buy this tech is to get some level of guidance from the devices, right?).

And then what also grinds my gears, is that rides recorded with Zwift get accurately recorded for each ride but will not "count" toward Intensity Minutes and Training Effect. The data is there and Garmin could use it to create a calculation. This surprise gap in the way these rides get reported has forced me to record my ride both on Zwift and in the Edge. I moved to Garmin completely so I didn't have to record twice.

Finally, what's the deal with the Edge 1040 not being able to turn off ERG mode for indoor training? This is ridiculous.

For all of these issues, I have been very underwhelmed with the product knowledge of Garmin support as guidance and answers have been inconsistent at best.

Happy to hear from others on how you've overcome such gaps in the product (or maybe I'm just too new to understand the way these expensive devices are "supposed" to work).