Fenix 5 Sapphire Wifi

After digging around on these forums when I got my Fenix 3, I found that I had to change my router from having the WiFi Channel from Auto to Channel 10 or 11. I've left it on that and my Fenix 5 picks the WiFi up fine. Also, if your PC/Mac is a distance from your router, you might need to move the PC/Mac closer to the router when setting up, as Garmin Express is actually listing any WiFi router signals that the connected watch can see and the watch's WiFi antenna does not have the gain that the one in your PC/Mac will have.

After digging around on these forums when I got my Fenix 3, I found that I had to change my router from having the WiFi Channel from Auto to Channel 10 or 11. I've left it on that and my Fenix 5 picks the WiFi up fine. Also, if your PC/Mac is a distance from your router, you might need to move the PC/Mac closer to the router when setting up, as Garmin Express is actually listing any WiFi router signals that the connected watch can see and the watch's WiFi antenna does not have the gain that the one in your PC/Mac will have.

I'm also struggling to get WiFi to work on the Fenix 5/Sapphire. Everything appears OK in Garmin Express during setup... I get a green "Connected" message but when I go to "Settings/Wi-Fi/Connect to Wi-Fi" on the watch I get a message saying "No app or Wi-Fi connection available"

I tried changing the WiFi Channel on my router to 10 and 11 without luck. This isn't a great solution in any case since hard setting the channel will increase interference and reduce performance for other devices on the network.

Hmm... I'm not broadcasting my SSID... I guess it's time to muck around... after a long run.

Sync via BT is working fine.

How are you accessing the WiFi sync on the watch. I have a hot key configured to force a WiFi sync and that seems to work very well on the F3 and F5 (I can't see why it would have a no app error message if you're forcing a direct wifi sync, that sounds like a BLE sync error).

Another thing to try would be to set your smartphone up as a wifi mobile hotspot and use Garmin Express to add that as a second wifi connection. If the watch then works fine with the phone's wifi hotspot, then at least you know there's something up with how the watch and router are talking to each other.

The problem I had with wifi on my f3 was down to different wifi channels in different parts of the world (I think this is also what Crispin was referring to in his earlier response)

Most of the world uses channels 1-13, and unless you manually set the channel on your router, it will select one within this range that gives the best performance. In the US, they only use channels 1-11, so some device manufacturers forget their is a world outside the US and only set their devices to work on these channels. This means that if your router has decided to use channel 12 or 13, then your device just isn't going to connect to it. The solution that's always worked for me is to change my router to manually use channel 6 (there's a reason to choose 6, but that's another story - Google 'wifi channel overlap' if you're curious), then once the device is connected, you can change your router back to Auto and I've never found it had the need to go back to using 12 or 13 (though there's a higher chance it might do if you're surrounded by lots of other wireless access points, but maybe if you leave yours manually set at 6 for a day if will force neighbouring ones to move away front that channel).

I've no idea if this is still an issue with the f5 (mine's non-wifi), but it might help.

Hey

I'm still not able to connect to any wifi. I have done a master reset, tried several different wifi connections (including creating a hotspot from my phone).

Has anyone else had wifi issues with the 5 Sapphire?

Thanks!

This is not to answer anyone's question specifically but just in case someone else is in this situation...

I have a D-Link router capable of producing both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz. I also have a repeater with same config. They are named differently so I can tell which is which. Interestingly, when I was setting up my Fenix 5 with Garmin Connect app on my Mac, it would only list the 2.4Ghz wifi... so just 2 out of 4 wifi networks. I nearly disabled the legacy 2.4Ghz on my router... glad I didn't.

F5 - Wifi works

Hello,
I have wifi auto sync working with my F5 black Sapphire. One finding tho, to echo an earlier comment. The range is limited. Being within eyesight of the router is suggested. If I am a couple of walls/rooms away from the router, wifi connection will fail.

Getting my Fenix 5 Sapphire on Wifi

Hey

I'm still not able to connect to any wifi. I have done a master reset, tried several different wifi connections (including creating a hotspot from my phone).

Has anyone else had wifi issues with the 5 Sapphire?

Thanks!

I had a few issues early on. It might have been a combination of the watch and my router settings. Here are my router settings and changes:
1. Publishing SSID -- this was turned off, I turned it on.
2. I had MAC filtering turned on. This stops a device from using the wifi, although it appears that the device is connected. Once I updated my router with the watches MAC address the watch connected fine
3. My wifi channel is automatic. This is because my router has both 2.4 and 5 G frequencies

I hope this helps