Fenix 5/5s Plus - 6.51 Beta Release

Definitely tomorrow

2 months and counting for the beta and still nothing...maybe the day after tomorrow?

...if tomorrow never comes... ... welcome at garmin :)

Garmin has the resources to make the best fitness products on the market, but they generally are lacking in good product management on the software side of the house (at least that's how it appears from my vantage point). I've come to this conclusion in the years since around the time that I got the Edge 810. Prior to that, my Edge 500 and Forerunner 910xt were really solid, but the 810 had bugs that still plague it to this day making some of its headline features completely unusable. Like TBT routing. Literally never got it to work despite massive efforts on my part, and it seems I am not the only owner that had that problem. Some of its other features, like Strava live segments seem to work when they feel like it, and not at other times. I felt they never finished the software on that before moving on to the NBT.

Yet, they're basically impossible for me to quit, it's like an abusive relationship. I'm so deep in their ecosystem that even when I tried to get away from them on my bike computer with a Hammerhead Karoo, then a Pioneer SGX-CA600 alongside the Karoo, I came crawling back due to products that are even worse than what Garmin puts out (though the Karoo truly continues to get better - I've really got to return the Pioneer while I still can - it's fraught with deal breaking issues), and my missing having everything in Connect. My own stubbornness to switch away from a full color display also kept me from what are probably the truly best alternatives that don't cost nearly $600 - the Wahoo ELEMNTs.

Still, they make products that are so nearly perfect from a hardware standpoint, I do really love my Fenix, and I think it will be a decent device to run alongside the Karoo on the bike as my record-keeping device - though I haven't yet had a ride with it and this particular bug worries me, as ANT+ issues are the main deterrent from me making my Karoo my device of record.

My suspicion is that the product manager decided that it was fine for the general community to wait on more stuff to be added to the next update, and that they just didn't need to release this bug fix update by itself. I have worked with a product manager like that and I oft wondered how upper management didn't see how full of you know what he was. There have been puzzling decisions made by their product managers, though, for a good 5+ years that leave me shaking my head.

And it's left the door wide-open for a growing field of competitors nipping at Garmin's heals. I wouldn't be surprised if they start to lose the bike market with things like the Sigma ROX, the Wahoo ELEMNT series, and maybe even eventually the Karoo, offering up pretty compelling alternatives to the Edge units. On the wrist, I still don't think there is as complete a package as the Garmin multipsport watches, but these are kind of niche devices compared to the fitness watch market where Fitbit already eats Garmin's lunch.

Hi all,

Any idea when this version will be released via Garmin Express and if not how I can install this version using OS?
Kinda annoyed by my power meter results going sky high...

Thanks

The instructions to install are in post #1 - assuming you mean operating system (OS) as in Windows or Mac. AFAIK it's not possible to install beta software via any of the mobile operating systems, Android or iOS.

Hi all,

Any idea when this version will be released via Garmin Express and if not how I can install this version using OS?
Kinda annoyed by my power meter results going sky high...

Thanks

If you mean using OSX on a Mac, OSX won't natively 'see' the file system of the connected Fenix, so you need to download a free app called Android File Transfer to your Mac first.