I think it will be good to have one central place to have the latest news people here about the updated release date. DCR said it looks like early March. The garmin site says 5-8 weeks but thats the default time on all new products. Everywhere I read it says "By end of Q1" which is the end of March. Rei still doesnt have it listed yet either. Has anyone heard anything more specific?
Seems highly unlikely we wouldn't see 5's shipping in March.
Garmin is a publicly traded company and they announced they would ship 5's in Q1.
This watch means revenue and with the high cost of the watch they will want to Start shipments in Q1.
Fingers crossed they start soon. :) 5 is on order.
everyone with close connections says the 5 is coming in March, based on Garmin sending units out for review and to influencers it will happen, I bet by MID-March. That said I think a lot of people might be disappointed when the initial shipping numbers will be very small and may not include some colors and versions of units. I doubt there will be availability of units to just order one pretty much anywhere and have it ship same day until May at the earliest.
The Casey Neistat recent Strava activities are the Fenix 5, but he is new to Garmin watches and optical HR devices and may have been wearing the Fenix very loose. I don't believe Ray makes his testing runs/rides etc. of unreleased devices public so anything on Ray's Strava isn't likely to be the 5.
I suspect (total guess) the new optical sensor will be no better or worse than the old, the major improvement being it is now battery efficient enough that it can sample every 1 or 2 seconds 24/7 like Fitbit's have done for years instead of the every 15 minutes to couple of hours that the current Garmin Elevate sensor does. That means the optical sensor should do reasonably well for steady-state runs but not be perfect for intervals, very cold temperatures, or for wrist movement sports like weight lifting or even cycling.
Yup, that's the one I was looking at as well. It's way too erratic. I have to assume he's not wearing it correctly or there's something else in play.
Given that both Ray and Riz seem to think the HR is fine and on par with everything else they've seen I'm going to write Casey's data off as an outlier/user error so that I can continue to justify my preorder ;)
I think those of us who've pretty much written off the Elevate oHR (from the 235, 735, VAHR, etc...) for any serious training are/were hoping that the F5 would show some improvements but it may be a case of hoping against hope ;-)
Given that both Ray and Riz seem to think the HR is fine and on par with everything else they've seen I'm going to write Casey's data off as an outlier/user error so that I can continue to justify my preorder ;)
Casey has a 5X with a metal band. I presume Garmin would have also given him one or more QuickFit bands made of silicone/rubber. However, I don't know if he's using them, but my bet is no, looking at his runs. Given that, he's got the biggest and heaviest watch in the lineup, which can and will impact optical HR if it's loose.
Since metal band sizing is a pain in the ass to change if you don't have the tools, it's probably loose - which means outside light is getting in (optical sensor evil item #1), adding to that is the heaviness of the band causes movement, doubling down on the optical HR challenges (evil item #2).
Riz would (and does) know all this, which is why he's getting what I presume to be more or less equal results to the Fenix3 HR. Which, is what I'm seeing. Things are still in beta, but given Riz was talking about it and other media outlets have units for review, I'd say that in general it's no better or worse for workouts in the Fenix5. It's better however for 24x7, because it's legit 24x7 measuring.
In any case, more in my in-depth review. Though, most of my Strava activities are indeed the F5.
For what it's worth I just received a Fenix 5 update email from CleverTraining.
We just wanted to send you a courtesy update concerning your Pre-Order of your Garmin Fenix 5 watch!
We are still on track for receiving the Fenix 5’s starting at the end of March. We will have weekly updates as we get closer to that time frame regarding order fulfillment dates.
Riz would (and does) know all this, which is why he's getting what I presume to be more or less equal results to the Fenix3 HR. Which, is what I'm seeing. Things are still in beta, but given Riz was talking about it and other media outlets have units for review, I'd say that in general it's no better or worse for workouts in the Fenix5. It's better however for 24x7, because it's legit 24x7 measuring.
In any case, more in my in-depth review. Though, most of my Strava activities are indeed the F5.
Thanks Ray, those are all really great points about the metal band. Hopefully Garmin also managed to work out the kinks with the altimeter/barometer that the 3 seemed to suffer from. Can't read the review and get my hands on one!
