My old Fenix 3 HR would stay connected to my phone via bluetooth at least twice as far as my new F5. Did Garmin decide to gimp the bluetooth transceiver on the F5? It literally buzzes all day long... sometimes when I'm walking only 15 feet away from it. Yes, I can turn off the notification but I really liked how my old Fenix 3 HR would buzz and warn me when I left my phone behind. Nice feature to have. Would hate to lose that feature because of a gimped BT transceiver. I'm hoping that my unit is just defective. Any others here that had a Fenix 3 HR and now have a F5 experiencing the same?
How is this a solution? I always want to know if i'm connected or not because i don't want to loose my notifications.
Hopefully this can be resolved through a software update. Would be completely unacceptable for a 600-850$ watch to have such a hardware limitation.
It's not a solution. Some people actually think the solution to a problem is to make you forget the problem even exists. :confused:
I have a feeling this is a hardware limitation and F5 users will be permanently stuck with abysmal BT range. The least Garmin could do is push out an update that provides a unique vibration/buzz pattern so people don't have to keep looking down at their F5 to see if a text or email came through only to find the dreaded "disconnected" pop up. Very annoying.
Right, I can agree with "metal case decreasing the range" theory, mentioned here, but, it doesn't explain the fact that my watch is disconnected now, with the phone being peacefully sitting by the keyboard on which I'm typing this message :). Right now, for me, it's a feature that is not working correctly. The watch has smart notifications advertised as part of marketing and this is not functioning. Agree - we all use it differently - for some it's not important to have BT enabled for notifications only, but for others it's a must. When I ride, or hike I have my phone in the backpack and I would like to rely on the watch to give me a notification and let me decide if I should stop riding or hiking and pull my phone out to react on message or important call.
While it's easy and convenient to blame the metal casing on the watch I do not think that is the issue. The fenix 3 and 3HR that I had both had metal casing and they were fine. When the Edge 1000 was 1st released it had what I'd call the worse BT in the history of any device ever made and released. It would be in a constant connect -- disconnect -connect loop for most of the early adopters. Not a drop on metal on it's casing..
Garmin's always, and I mean always, appear to have BT issues out of the gate that are eventually sorted out.. With the Edge 1000 it took numerous updates and months before it was properly sorted. Fingers crossed they solve the 5 BT issues quickly..
I'd be shocked if the fenix 5's metal casing has anything to do with it at all....
Not seeing any issues here (F5X)- the watch connects to my phone (in my room that is on the third floor of my house), while I am standing outside trying to find my keys. Not a single dropout so far either..
Does someone else have the problem, that bluetooth at the mobile phone sometimes switch of automaticly? I can't find any configuration for that. But it starts after I got my fenix 5, so I think there is some correlation. Before I got the fenix I had no issues like that.
For what it is worth, my 5X has excellent connection range. Slightly better than my 3. Connects to phone 2 rooms away, multiple walls, etc and stays connected.
People having issues may need to consider a return as there's plenty of evidence BT is fine on the 5 series.
I have 2.40 with 5 sapphire iPhone 7. I saw that one betatester on 2.72 claimed the bluetooth has improved under 2.72, but Ive only read this claim once.
Looks like all the people say the BT is good is on 5x (same size as fenix3), and everybody complain have the normal fenix5.
Not everyone with the 'normal' Fenix 5 is complaining either. I'm on 2.72 beta and the BLE connection is entirely stable with my iPhone SE. I also have my Fenix 3 connected and as I slowly walk away from the phone with both watches the Fenix 5 looses BLE connection ever so slightly ahead of the Fenix 3, but by that point I'm already at the far end of a separate room to the phone, so the Fenix 5 maintaining that far is more than acceptable. I remember in the early days of the Fenix 3, there was big variability of BLE connection depending on what make/model of phone was used (not just iOS vs Android). If you are on 2.72 beta, record your findings (including exact make/model of phone and version of OS and GCM) and fire it over to the [email][email protected][/email] email, as detailed in the first post in the beta thread.
