Problems with Ant+ connectivity

I was also affected by these issues and I have spoken about it with Garmin in Germany.
First they told me that it was due to non-supported ANT+ sensors and a lot of additional bla bla bla which I could argue away quite easily.
In the end they told me to send it in for a repair and without any large discussions I received a new one by mail 2 days later.
Let's hope this will be the revised version and it works better now!
I will check in the upcoming days while on a 4 day bike-packing trip. I'll report if it's better when I am back.

I was also affected by these issues and I have spoken about it with Garmin in Germany.
First they told me that it was due to non-supported ANT+ sensors and a lot of additional bla bla bla which I could argue away quite easily.
In the end they told me to send it in for a repair and without any large discussions I received a new one by mail 2 days later.
Let's hope this will be the revised version and it works better now!
I will check in the upcoming days while on a 4 day bike-packing trip. I'll report if it's better when I am back.

Is it actually confirmed that it really is a new revised version?

Was chatting to Garmin today, and they confirmed they had a HW fix available. Said it was a new contact between circuit board & antenna.and were swapping watches out via RMA.

Was chatting to Garmin today, and they confirmed they had a HW fix available. Said it was a new contact between circuit board & antenna.and were swapping watches out via RMA.

I have fenix from January and I don't have issue with connection with tempe,footpod,hrmtri. I believe I don't have ;-)
Could you give me steps to reproduce and see issue with ant?

Was chatting to Garmin today, and they confirmed they had a HW fix available. Said it was a new contact between circuit board & antenna.and were swapping watches out via RMA.

I was happy to hear this but this is what I just got from Garmin support. Of course they (still) blame it on 3rd party sensors:

Thank you for contacting Garmin Outdoor support. I am sorry to hear you are still having trouble with the Fenix 5. I am happy to help with this. There was not a hardware change released to resolve pairing or disconnect issues with 3rd party sensors. And If you have the software version 8.00, this is still the latest available. I do apologize for the inconvenience.

Please let us know if there are any other questions.
Thank you for choosing Garmin,
Laurie
Product Support - Outdoor Team
Garmin International
For 24-hour access to support videos, manuals, FAQs & more, visit the Support Center.



If anyone gets something different in writing please post it.

I emailed Garmin regarding this issue nearly 2 weeks ago and as yet I have received no reply :(

Is it actually confirmed that it really is a new revised version?

I checked and it's definately a different version based on the FCC ID of the watch. If it's the latest (newest/revised) version, I don't know.
The new watch has the FCC ID: IPH-A3119-10.
The ID of the old watch I have to check at home (am travelling now), but it was definately different. Garmin has placed a sticker over the old FCC ID on the box with the new FCC ID of the new watch. The old FCC ID is still visible underneath though.

But I promised I would report back on the test after my bike trip:

In the first few days it was definately better than the previous watch, far less dropouts, but I still recorded quite a few.
When I compare it to the record of my edge1000 I see a difference of 1-2 Watts in NP, which is acceptable, but still not as it should be for a €600 watch.

However, the last few days I see far more gaps in the recordings of the watch and I still cannot figure out what the cause is. I think I had exactly the same setup as before, but the result is getter worse. (10-20W difference in NP).

I will monitor next few weeks again when I am in the Dolomites and climbing a lot and if it's not better then, then I will return it again and ask if they can replace it with the Fenix 5S plus, which got just released today. I am even willing to pay for the difference if I get a functional watch back for it...

, then I will return it again and ask if they can replace it with the Fenix 5S plus, which got just released today. I am even willing to pay for the difference if I get a functional watch back for it...

I asked about that and Tech support said absolutely no upgrade path/exchange for a newer model. All they would do was exchange for a refurb of the same model:
We would only exchange the fenix 5 out for another fenix 5. There is not an option to upgrade unfortunately.

As I've only had my Fenix 5 just under 2 months I have arranged to get a refund as it is not fit for purpose. Fenix 5 Plus Sapphire now on order ;)

I have had my new Fenix 5 plus for only a day but it does indeed appear that ANT+ is now fixed in the newer models, it's just a shame that Garmin will probably never do anything to address this issue in the F5.