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Fenix 5x general questions & software improvement ideas

Former Member
Former Member over 8 years ago
Hello,

After reading these forums for a while, I bought a Fenix 3 sapphire watch. I was extremely pleased with it but I have sold it as the the Fenix 5x looks even better. I have a few questions:

  • Will it come with screwdrivers to unscrew the bolts for the straps? I use my own NATO strap.
  • What size is the battery in mAh?
  • Are there any places to get cheap maps of Canada? I'd like to hike a large portion of the "great trail", and the maps on the Garmin website are quite expensive.
  • Is there a limitation to the amount of .FIT files you can store? The website says "100 saved tracks", so I assume this is the limitation but it might be in error. 12gb of storage should allow a lot more than that. I typically transfer the files to a phone using the USB connection, so I'm just being greedy. It's not essential.


After using the Fenix 3 sapphire for a while, I noticed a few things that could have been improved:

  • The storm alert is great but it'd be nice if this could be disabled between certain hours e.g. "sleep hours." If you've left something outside your tent, it's nice to be woken up but if you're at home, it's a nuisance to be woken up in the middle of the night just to be told it's going to rain.
  • The garmin mobile app doesn't allow offline syncing due to its design. For long hikes (multiple weeks), there's ways around this (copy the .FIT files using a USB connection) but I'd like offline syncing with the phone nonetheless i.e. a cache.
  • The sunrise/sunset app and the sunrise/sunset information pre-included with the watch don't seem to show the same information. They're a few minutes out. For landscape photography, it is useful to have the exact time.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    I don't know all the answers but I'll guess at some.

    no screwdrivers. The quick release straps don't need them. I bet you can get them on eBay really cheaply.

    FIT file storage. The 12GB is for maps mostly. 100 fit files should be more than enough.

    Storm Alert. I believe Garmins thoughts is that a Storm warning is potentially dangerous and so it overrides the Do Not Disturb settings. I reckon the F5 will carry on this behaviour.

    GArmin Connect Mobile. It can't be used offline. It's normally installed n a phone which has an internet connection most of the time. I can't see them adding this

    sunrise timings. If GCM and the watch differ then it's a bug on either GCM or the watch. I'd report it to Garmin.

    HTH

    CW
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    You never actually sync TO GCM. You sync THROUGH GCM to the garmin servers.

    As far as sunrise/sunset, that can actually vary a bit even with a short change in distance, and also due to if the minute is truncated or rounded up. The small difference in locations can be due to how current the lat/lon used for the calculation is.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    You never actually sync TO GCM. You sync THROUGH GCM to the garmin servers.

    As far as sunrise/sunset, that can actually vary a bit even with a short change in distance, and also due to if the minute is truncated or rounded up. The small difference in locations can be due to how current the lat/lon used for the calculation is.


    I'm aware of how the syncing works but I wanted to make my post deliberately short. In my opinion, it's pretty poor that there isn't a cache i.e. the watch syncs with the phone and then the phone uploads the files when a connection is available.

    FIT file storage. The 12GB is for maps mostly. 100 fit files should be more than enough.

    Storm Alert. I believe Garmins thoughts is that a Storm warning is potentially dangerous and so it overrides the Do Not Disturb settings. I reckon the F5 will carry on this behaviour.

    GArmin Connect Mobile. It can't be used offline. It's normally installed n a phone which has an internet connection most of the time. I can't see them adding this

    sunrise timings. If GCM and the watch differ then it's a bug on either GCM or the watch. I'd report it to Garmin.

    HTH

    CW


    I respect you may want to use it all for maps but the storage itself is shared. limiting the amount of files you can store based on the number of files rather than the amount of data they use is somewhat like selling a 10TB drive and saying you can only store 20 JPEGs on it because most people like to put videos on it. It's absurd, unless there is a logical reason behind it--perhaps the CPU or OS can't handle it. Collectively, people are against technological advancement (they were against books being mass printed, microwaves, mobile phones, etc.) far too much for me to respect "enough." 20 years from now, people most likely won't be saying "100 fit files is enough." In other words, I'm purely interested in the objective math; objectively speaking, 100 .FIT files with such a massive storage pool is sub-optimal.

    As a coder, there's no reason Garmin Connect cannot have a cache feature. This would be especially nice for exporting files from the phone, too.

    If the Fenix 5x exhibits the same problem, I will report it to Garmin.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    Are there any places to get cheap maps of Canada? I'd like to hike a large portion of the "great trail", and the maps on the Garmin website are quite expensive.

    Try this:
    http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    Thank you, I've downloaded some maps. I'll try them when I get the watch.

    I have a few more questions...

    • Can you display your heart rate on the front face of the watch?
    • If you bind a button to save location, then saved your location and name it "home"; can you later build a route to "home"?
    • Does the Fenix 5x have a bigger battery than the Fenix 5? I notice on the Garmin website it says the battery life isn't as good, but I assume if you don't use the map features, you can get better battery life compared to the Garmin Fenix 5 or at least equal to it? If they've put in a more powerful processor but the same sized battery, then this is unlikely.

    I am really hoping the battery life is great :).
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    A few more guesses...

    HR on watch face. Don't think so. The watch face is displayed in low power mode to save battery so I doubt you can show HR as it would impact battery life

    Route to home. I don't see why this wouldn't work. Save location then go to navigation and select Goto: save locations: Home

    no idea on battery size. 5X could well have a bigger processor and the extra memory will take power also so my guess would be same size battery hence less battery life, but that's a total guess

    CW
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    A few more guesses...

    HR on watch face. Don't think so. The watch face is displayed in low power mode to save battery so I doubt you can show HR as it would impact battery life

    Lots of CIQ watchfaces will display the last 24/7 reading from the history kept in the FW, but just not a real time HR. But with CIQ watchfaces only updating every minute at most times, real time wouldn't really be needed. Not sure about the Fenix devices with WHR, but a va-hr, the HR is saved to the history about every 95 seconds. I have watch faces ready for the f5s/f5/f5x that will display HR, and one that also lets you see a graph of the last 55 readings.