HR sensor craking issue

Are you wearing it every day ? Do you use it at the swinning pool ? I am also wondering if this problem is located to some areas (USA,...) or is also present in all countries.

Every day since May 2017 except charging. In every condition.

Maybe. F3R models had broken altimeter issues in some countries. However, here in Turkiye I haven't hear nobody complain about that. But a friend bought a second hand one from someone that had bought the watch in USA. And that watch had the issue too. It seems some batch of watches has some production issue and experiences the issue.

I wear my F5x every single day. I had cracking in the original. The replacement from Garmin so far shows zero signs.

Did you notice any difference between the old one and the new one about the plastic used for the sensor ?

No, no difference that i'm able to spot.

I'm making a leap of faith.
I got a silver pin 5X in June 2018. The cracks appear during summer and only in December I has decided to have it changed.
It was not recording my sleep anymore... Garmin (great service by the way, at least in France) accepted it.
It was replaced by a Casio GPW-2000 and I was thinking to sell the unit when it will back.
Four weeks later a new unit was sent to me. It was a golden pin 5X and I decided to give it another run.
But 4 months later I had noticed the beginning of a crack. Disappointed and even disgusted by that plague I have sold it half its price and been back on Casio (a gorgeous Casio PRW-7000).
Now I have decided to give Garmin another run and this time. Just ordered a Fenix 5X+ Black in Toulouse and should receive it tomorrow in Paris.
Despite the cracking HR sensor angst, after all, I have never found such an ergonomic watch and useful on the field.
An all time lover of atomic and solar this new stamina of 20 days is really getting me excited !!

My diagnosis about the cracks in the resin is the body heat. Let see what will happen with this new model. This time I will use my warranty until the 21st of June 2020 !!!

Yes we have this chance in France to have a 2 years Warranty :) Like you, I was thinking about going with a casio watch, like the new Rangeman GPR-B1000 (with GPS) but it has not 1/1000 of all the functionnalities of the Fenix even if it is tougher !

But I don't understand how Garmin could put a so weak piece in a tough watch ! This problem was known from months and they made the same mistake.They didin't give any explanation about this issue whereas a lot of people are concerned ! Suunto9 made the OHR part of the case, Garmin should have done the same thing instead of just putting a piece of bad quality plastic through a hole in the case.

Asking the same question I've got the reply from Garmin: Hello Roman,

I will be happy to assist you. I am sorry to hear that you have the cracking in your optical heart rate sensor. I am unaware of any change in the material of the 5+ devices. It is possible there was a change, however this is not something we have been made aware of at this time. Our devices are back by our warranty, and after the warranty timeframe, we still offer exchanges and possibly upgrade options.

I hope this information helps you move forward.



Thank you for choosing Garmin,

Anna

Product Support Team


Obviously they just don't know.
But I really wanna switch over from the Chronos to a Fenix 5 x plus.