fenix 5 Plus Sapphire bricked

Former Member over 6 years ago

I went to bed last evening around 9PM CT with my watch charged at 60%+. My daughter woke me up around 2:30AM and normally I can use the back light of my fenix to see around the room; however, it was not turning on. I turned on the light and saw the screen was on; however, was frozen (although the time was correct). I tried pressing the menu and back buttons and nothing happened. I noticed the charge was down to 8% which is extremely odd since my battery typically drops fewer than 5% overnight, so I plugged my watch to get a charge. The watch would not receive a charge. I tried a hard reset and the watch seemed to be in some sort of terrible loop where it would take forever to shut down and power back up. Finally, I took it to my laptop to sync directly with Garmin Express. Everything seems to sync fine and then the screen froze again... so I hard reset again... this time when it came back on line it showed 0% battery. Since then, the watch has shutdown and will not respond to a charge (yes my contacts are clean).

According to Garmin Express I am running software version 6.0.0.0

I did/changed nothing... I just went to bed with a functioning watch and woke up with a paper weight on my wrist, so Garmin must have pushed through some sort of update while I was asleep... my watch is bricked (completely unresponsive to any of the traditional reset methods) and I leave for a two week trip to Arizona on Sunday. Awesome.

I purchased the watch on October 28, 2018.

Top Replies

Gr4z over 6 years ago +1

I would speak to Garmin ASAP. I would try a full reset again, no updates have been sent as far I am aware as I am on v6 as well.

All Replies

0 Gr4z over 6 years ago

I would speak to Garmin ASAP. I would try a full reset again, no updates have been sent as far I am aware as I am on v6 as well.

0 JSRUNNER_ over 6 years ago

Badger47 I have 6.51.00 for several weeks now - but yes urgent call to Garmin is in order

0 Odie21 over 6 years ago

I would download Garmin Webupdater and re-install the software (6.00). You may have a corrupt file causing the issue. If after re-installing doesn’t solve it, call Garmin. This is probably what they’ll recommend anyways before you can get an RMA to send back for a replacement.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Thanks everyone... I am not sure what the issue is. After a day of charging, the device suddenly was able to be powered on and while I was pushing my way to the reset screen to perform a factory reset, it froze again... so I waited, again... and about 5 hours later, I was able to initiate a full factory reset... it seemed to fix the issue and then 12 hours later it froze again while on my plane ride to Arizona... I plugged in and got it back on again, and it ran fine for 24-ish hours... mind you it was always fully charged, etc... then today, I went to check myFitnessPal and noticed my steps were way down for where I'd normally be mid-day and it turned out my watch was dead... AGAIN. I've initiated an RMA with Garmin, but this is all very frustrating to be happening 3 months in to a $800+ dollar purchase. What's worse, Garmin has me sending this thing back... allows itself "processing time" and then will send me a replacement. They charged me $340 with tax (which I'll eventually be credited back), but now I can expect minimum 10 to 14 days without my watch, fitness tracker, and mode of mobile. No doubt these are not life altering problems, but Garmin needs to improve this process. In the age of Amazon and 24 hour delivery and returns at Kohls, etc... 10 to 14 days is a lousy duration to resolve this problem. In fact, I'm probably back to an Apple Watch after this whole ordeal. I don't love Apple, but I never had these issues.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Curious... do any of you use Spotify on your watches? It's the only third-party application I use on the watch and I know it caused issues on other devices I've had in the past... and requests to resolve went largely unanswered.