My trusty Garmin Fenix5 is breaking down, battery-wise, after about 37 months of daily wear (Nov 2018). If it’s below 60% it’ll just randomly drop to 5% warning and/or die, above that it seems to mostly be OK for now. I contacted Garmin and they’ll replace the battery with a 6 month warranty for ~€165…for me that’s borderline to just ‘get a new watch’ territory. I could also get an aftermarket battery of unknown quality for around €25 and try replacing it myself (I’m not great with that stuff) and risk compromising the waterproof; not high on this alternative.
I run every day for a minimum of 45 mins and the watch is crucial to that, of course. Not eager to go back to phone tracking even on a short-term basis (obviously I will if necessary). I’m not sure what’s the least bad option…what would you do? If I did get a new watch, I’d consider going to a forerunner model because I wouldn’t mind if the watch wasn’t as big.
I think 3 years is probably close to expected life. In your position, I would go with a new one.
Forerunner is an excellent choice, in my opinion. I have pretty dainty wrists for a guy, and I find my 645 to be large, but not egregious. I recommend taking a look at DC Rainmaker’s Product Comparison Calculator for feature comparisons.
Also, Best Buy is currently having a huge sale on Garmins.
I did some research with the DC Rainmaker site and went with the fenix 6 pro solar…figured something so crucial to my running and CityStriding was worth the investment, and it was about $150 off on Amazon. Could have gotten the non-solar for $75 less but since one of my most important criteria is battery life I’m eager to see how the PVs extend that. I looked at the forerunner line but the battery just didn’t compare even without considering solar, so that’s what I’m getting with the bigger watch - plus I’m already familiar with the fenix and used to it.
Thanks Tim & James for the feedback! Was going to wait and consider my options longer, but with the delays on shipping and the holidays I just went for it. Merry Christmas to me…Hope my current fenix can hold up meanwhile
Solar aspect of Fenix 6 Pro Solar works fine, the battery life on the watch is good & improved. I run 8-12 hours a week and with that usage I only have to charge about 5-6 times a month, a little over once a week depending on more specific usage. I have a hard time guessing the direct contributions of the solar charging but the ‘solar intensity’ measurements definitely correlate well with my outdoor time.
But since we’re here…I would not recommend this watch. Everything @Scott_McClure said about the GPS antenna was true - in fact, the watch I started using in January randomly would lose GPS connectivity and not even just when running in tunnels or under overpasses. It was super frustrating how terrible the GPS connectivity was, to say nothing of the fidelity of the tracking to my routes. I contacted Garmin and they did replace the entire watch no questions asked, and the new one I have been using since June 4 is working much better (so far). Finally, to say something nice about the watch/Garmin, I did finally learn how to use Courses and I’m very happy with the maps and navigation features of this watch, albeit I have no comparator.
If I had a do-over, for the same $ I spent I’d go with a Coros, probably the Pace line…Overall I’m sure other watches will add PVs in the future and it’s not really a killer feature worth going for. Just focus on battery life and good GPS reliability, to me the 2 most important features!
Must say I’m very impressed by the Multiband GPS on Fenix 7 SS. The track is amazingly correct. See my example where I ran one sidewalk, the a local parking street, then the other sidewalk
Been thinking more about this lately and feel largely the same a year later. I will keep putting up with the watch (which is being serviced again by Garmin as I write this). But when it comes time to buy again, assuming I can put my money where my mouth is when that comes to pass…I will splurge for a multiband, whether it’s Garmin 7 or Epix, or whatever new hotness is on the market at that point.
Update: I sent my watch out to Garmin fenix 6 pro solar, and they returned it in less than a week with a performance review. Apparently there were some ‘corrupt archives’ that they removed - I’m not sure how this would even occur, or if it’s something that happens over time with having a high volume of activities and courses flowing into and out of the watch’s memory…no idea, I’m tech-stupid.
Anyways, today was my first run with the serviced watch and it might be the best GPS fidelity I’ve ever had, even better than when I first got the watch?? So the moral of the story is…squeaky wheel gets the grease, I guess - and maybe I can juice this watch a few more years after all.
I think I am an outlier in that I never gave up. I got a Fenix 6x and had terrible GPS routing and distance reporting. It took me 3 new watches before they would even listen to me that there are issues with both the GPS antenna and the programming in how the watch itself parses the data it is recording (likely to try and gloss over the problems with the antenna.)
I finally convinced them to replace my 6x with a 7x Sapphire Solar and I just paid a portion of the MSRP difference.
My experience since then (Much like @hans1) is that the Fenix 7x has been scary good in GPS track, and all of the GPS distance reporting issues have disappeared, regardless of tree cover (which was often their excuse as to why my data wasn’t as accurate as it should have been)
My opinion is tell them you believe the problems you are seeing are endemic to the watch design and programming of the Fenix 6, you just want a watch that does what it was marketed as being able to do, and you’d like to replace it with a Fenix 7 of similar trim level (and maybe be willing to splurge on the version with multi-band)
I’m both relieved and upset on your behalf, because that probably would have been best case scenario for me if I’d kept up with them either time I had the watch sent to them for servicing. As it is, I just accept that my previous Fenix 5 lasted about 3 years and so I’m halfway through this one’s “life cycle”.
I’ve now had this well past the warranty cycle and I don’t have the time to deal with their very obtuse customer service. As a 2 month update to my last post, the watch went back to the same old problems and is as bad as ever around the city. But I’m tapped out, I can’t keep emailing them and sending the watch out and running with my barely-alive-battery-fenix5 for a week while they tinker with my 6x only to send it back and say it’s fine.
I did a bunch of research and decided when I do get a new watch (hopefully no earlier than late 2024), I will go with the most recent Fenix/Epix because despite my frustration, no competitor can match their maps. Other possibilities of current watches with a multiband would be Suunto Vertical or Coros Apex 2. I’ll keep tabs on those 3 companies, and saving up for these even more expensive wristpieces…
For any folks considering looking beyond Garmins and use either Strava, Runkeeper, MapMyRun, or other third-party sites that sync with CS, I’ve really enjoyed my Coros watch. I bought the Coros Pace 2 for about $200 a little over 6 months ago and I’ve really been impressed. It’s the lightest watch I’ve ever worn, the GPS is rated very high for accuracy, and the battery can last over a week between charges even with heavy use.
The Coros Pace 3 is out now, as well as many other models, but I’ve really enjoyed the simplicity of the Pace 2. No touch screen to mess up my run (I was doing that a lot with my Garmin Vivoactive 3) or extras that I don’t use.
Coros is also quickly beefing up their software and being very receptive to customer feedback. A month or so after I bought the watch, they rolled out GPS navigation followed a few months later with turn-by-turn navigation (which I wish included street names, but I bet that will happen eventually). Coros doesn’t directly interface with CS, but I’ve had no issues with Strava syncing.
However, if you use your watch to navigate and not just to track, I don’t know if Coros is quite on par with Garmin yet. Personally, I prefer audio turn-by-turn prompts via the Komoot app on my phone through Shokz open-ear headphones so I don’t have to look at any maps mid-run unless I need to double-check a tricky spot.
Folks, I think the solution just came down. I’ve been sticking it out for 2.5 years with the Fenix 6 Pro Solar, crappy GPS and all, but the new Enduro 3 looks like a winner in the all-important areas of battery, GPS, and maps – and they decreased the price by $200 from the Enduro 2, although it’s still a hefty $899. Now it’s only a question of if I break the bank and get it now, or wait for some sort of moderate sale potentially around November/December…
@kevincharlespels With plans to get back into Ultras next year after a couple surgeries this year, I upgraded from Fenix 5 to Enduro 3 about a month ago. Loving it so far! Battery life is as promised. I charged it on day one and haven’t plugged it back in, yet.
One thing that has been odd about my various Fenix/Epix watches is the GPS tracks are all shifted if I wear it on my left arm instead of my right arm. Its a known issue and on the Garmin forums. I think it has to do with where the antenna is located in the watch. I never would have cared if I wasnt doing run mapping but worth pointing out. I got the Fenix 8 recently and havent tested if it has the same issue buy my Fenix 5/6 and Epix 2 all did. I thought about the Enduro 3 but the thing is massive…the battery for the AMOLEDs already easily get me through a week without charging even with ~9 hours of GPS use a week.
So I’ve been using the Enduro3 for a week now since October 8th. Charged it to full before wearing it, up to >10 hours of GPS tracked activities in the 8 days I’ve had it and it’s still at 30% charge as of this writing, which is awesome. 3 runs with heavy maps/navigation usage. I turned off some features to make the battery last longer – namely, reduced backlighting to minimum because I’m almost always running during the day, and turned off gesture backlighting. I have no problem with watch face visibility. The 51mm is larger than my old Fenix6 and I did have a bit of a moment of doubt when I took it out of the box, but the experience of wearing it has been pretty much no change. I think because the back is plastic, not metal, it feels if anything lighter than the old watch? Certainly less dense.
The GPS on the Enduro3 in SatIQ mode is massively more accurate than my Fenix 6 Pro Solar. Some minor drift, but nothing more than a few meters whereas my old watch would sometimes have me >10m off the road I was running. I wear the watch on my left wrist, I’ve heard the antenna is more aligned for right-wristed wearers but as a righty I just can’t do that, I’ve tried.
All in all very satisfied. I hope you are likewise with the 8! Decision was easy for me because I didn’t have any interest in the dive or microphone features, nor AMOLED. Just maps, battery life, and good GPS.
If I did get a new watch, I’d consider going to a forerunner model because I wouldn’t mind if the watch wasn’t as big.
