New F5+ arrived!

My new F5+ sapphire arrived yesterday! I'm upgrading from an F5 with the mineral crystal in slate gray. It was completely dead when it arrived, so I had to let it charge for a while before it would start up. After it did, I spent several hours playing with it, installing the missing apps, syncing with True Up and upgrading the maps.

Sitting these two watches side by side, you could never pick out which was which by looking. The F5+ in black looks almost identical to the F5 in slate gray, with some minor differences concerning what's printed on the bezel. Some people have reported that the sapphire crystal makes the watch face look a bit darker but I compared in a few different lighting conditions and couldn't see a difference. One of the first things I did was to fool with the run widget. I was cycling through the pages so I could add my custom ones and noticed the map page. That's cool! Frankly I doubt I would ever use it running. I might if I get lost cycling, but its very cool. I also noticed that there are some new exercise widgets, like stair climbing and such. Perhaps those were there with the F5, I don't recall. Only one of my apps - a sailboat start timer app - refused to run. That's a good app, so I hope the developer fixes it.

I also installed my spiffy watch faces and my aftermarket orange strap. The strap fit perfectly, which I expected. The watch face looks exactly as it does on the F5.

Then I loaded some music onto it. I'm not thrilled that to use Spotify with this watch I have to pay them $10 per month, but at least I can manually load my music. I paired it with my Jaybird X2 bluetooth headset and it worked as expected, sounding good. I did notice that there does not seem to be a way to actually turn the music off, short of pausing it. Perhaps this has to do with the battery life issues being reported?

The watch face I use updates only once per minute. I let the F5+ charge all night, so I'll be able to get an idea of the battery life vs the F5. During the winter, when I'm not doing much outside, I would get great battery life from the F5, as in nearly three weeks between charges. That's with the OHR running al the time, bluetooth connection to my phone for texts and alerts and the occasional GPS activity. Hopefully I'll see comparable battery life. Fingers crossed!

0 HeliosJim over 6 years ago

Sadly, it turns out the GPS on the F5+ is the same as the F5. I think this is a bit more than "wobbly"... The actual route I took was straight down Atlantic Ave then a right on Seaport. I never got into that parking lot near the end of the walk.

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/3201508902

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

GPS tracks seem to be related to pace/speed. The slower you go, the more 'wobbly' they get. My take is that this happens because as you move faster it's easier for the software to calculate direction and movement. When you are walking, the data points are closer together, the margin or error for each data point can then 'blur' the true direction.

Also I've noticed that the watch showing "100% GPS" doesn't mean it has a stable fix. Leaving the watch stationary for another minute or two makes it acquire more satellites and thus a more stable (and more accurate) fix.

0 Dr Phil over 6 years ago

it turns out the GPS on the F5+ is the same as the F5.

Can’t agree. Granted I never had a F5, but my F5+ is tracking pretty much the same as my wife’s 935.

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/3201852543. https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/3201943340

Must be something else going on. Reach out to Garmin support and see what they have to say.

0 Seren over 6 years ago

Also I've noticed that the watch showing "100% GPS" doesn't mean it has a stable fix. Leaving the watch stationary for another minute or two makes it acquire more satellites and thus a more stable (and more accurate) fix.

This is supported by a tendency for the track (on slow pace activities) to improve as time progresses. Regards pace, I have observed very accurate tracking of course changes while cycling, including where crossing at lights at walking speed. This counts against the hypothesis that fast activities owe accuracy to trajectory smoothing. I think watch position has a big part to play; I walk with hands in pockets or to the side, run with arms swinging above waist height, cycling usually means watch points at the sky.

Broadly happy with GPS track accuracy except for walking. I'd be interested to see anyone with a significant number of good walking tracks. Trailcat posted a very good one a few weeks back...

0 Dr Phil over 6 years ago

Leaving the watch stationary for another minute or two

This has long been suggested by some. Along with waiting for any pace data to indicate 0.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I would like to know if in my new F5 its possible to add new profile with inline skate activity. I’ve copy one of run, and changed the name, but its not the same, I’d like not to change in GC the activity type to inline skate every time, and another question the equipment for this activity in order to control Kms for my wheels... (Also for ex for activities run and trail-run for my shoes; run shoes or trail-run shoes...) thanks

0 HeliosJim over 6 years ago

I have had good luck with the F5 GPS, and I expect the F5+ GPS will work as well. When I'm bicycling or running at home, there are no super tall buildings right next to me. When I'm in Boston, well, they are everywhere. Looking back at my F5 tracks and a few F5+ tracks from Boston, they all suck.

0 HeliosJim over 6 years ago

I have been tracking the battery capacity every day at 8:00AM, ands after eight full days of use Im down to 19% (after the initial, overnight charge). There have been some GPS walks in there, and some treadmill runs, and constant OHR and BT use, and a watch face without a second hand. Overall it seems the battery meets Garmin's spec, although I have not really used the GPS or the music. This is all on the 5.1 firmware, I disabled automatic upgrade to 6.0 after I saw all the complaints.

I'm on the fence about keeping it. The battery life is less than my F5. The BT connectivity to my phone is better. Both the F5 and F5+ talk to my Garmin foot pod with no trouble, but I do want to get a Stryd foot pod at some point and I' a little concerned about the F5 on that front. The maps are very cool, but the watch is too small to make them useful. The GPS seems no better or worse than the F5 GPS. The OHR when running is about the same as I recall with my F5, meaning I have to make it very uncomfortably tight for it to work, which is why I was using another OHR monitor (which I lost just after my F5+ arrived). The music is the big thing I wanted to get, and I have not really used it yet since I watch my iPad on the treadmill. I have played with the music and it works, although I have not tested the battery drain.

Other advantages of my F5+ over my F5 are the sapphire crystal and the wifi. The wifi is convenient; it's nice that when I get home the watch automagically syncs my activities. The sapphire crystal is nice, but my F5 still looks brand new with it's mineral crystal.

I may look to see if I can find a small music player I can use with BT headsets and, if it's proced well less than the differential between what I can sell my F5 for and what I paid for the F5+, I'll get it and send the F5+ back...

Still deciding...

0 HeliosJim over 6 years ago

I have had this watch nearly three weeks now and I'll be keeping it. Aside from the new features over the F5, the most noticeable change is the big improvement in connectivity with my phone. My F5 would often disconnect and didn't have much range. The F5+ has more range and disconnects less frequently. I suppose it could be the firmware is just not reporting disconnects as frequently but it does seem to work better. I have only had a chance to run outside once when it was warm, and I liked having the music on the watch much more than I expected I would. I had considered getting a BT portable music player for $60 but that's one more thing to carry. The GPS seems to work the same as the F5. The maps are cool, but useless. The watch screen is just too small to make those useful. Having the wifi onboard is also very convenient. The battery life is noticeably shorter than the F5 but not so much that it's a problem. It's actually on spec, I think I was spoiled by a particularly long lasting F5.

So between the improved radio performance, the onboard music and the wifi, and only minor reduction in battery life, I decided it's worth the upgrade cost.

0 DerDembo over 6 years ago

I also installed my spiffy watch faces and my aftermarket orange strap. The strap fit perfectly, which I expected. The watch face looks exactly as it does on the F5.

Of course we all would love to see a picture of that aftermarket orange strap - the watch comes with an orange strap and so far I haven't found any third party options on par with the Garmin straps but I am very curious to learn more about my options.

I think you made a good call in keeping the F5+ - for me maps & music are nice but the main thing is that the F5+ offers a lot more memory and resources for CIQ apps / data fields. It should be much more future proof than the F5-series watches.