Fēnix 5S/5 – 3.42 Beta Release

It's silly to assume this isn't a top priority for Garmin but clearly it's not an easy fix either.
Also based on what we know it would appear to be a sensor hub issue, which is a different section of code to the "main" watch OS so it will be a different set of developers with a different set of expertise.
Asking the rest of the developers to drop everything else to focus on the sensor hub issues would likely be of little benefit to the Ant+ problem and slow down sorting out fixing bugs/adding features to the main code.

It would also be foolish to hold off the rest of the beta programme will they've found a fix for the sensor problems - there's plenty of "quick wins" they can sort out in the meantime and it doesn't make sense to break their weekly beta cadence just to show that the sensor problem has been their main priority. Imagine the uproar here if they didn't release a beta for a month.

I agree with you. I am sure they are working hard to fix the HUB issue, and have a feeling they will fix it in short time. Otherwise...? Otherwise clients will keep clear of Fenix 5 and they do not want that...

Does anybody know if the bug "wrong ascent/descent calculation" is fixed?

I agree with you. I am sure they are working hard to fix the HUB issue, and have a feeling they will fix it in short time. Otherwise...? Otherwise clients will keep clear of Fenix 5 and they do not want that...

Adding this here, but combined with the hub problems, beta is having BT issues with phones running Android 7.0 or higher. Had that confirmed when I was beta testing my prior 5x (which was unable to connect to any external sensor; Ant+ and BT and keeping any prolonged connection to my galaxy s8).

Personally, my 5 isn't suffering from dropouts of any external sensors... Just the poor BT range connecting to my phone. I said this in a prior thread, but this is starting to sound like a production line issue. A few (or many) of the earlier manufactured models were faulty and while later models have similar problems but to a lesser degree and they are trying to find a fix for ALL the watches at the same time.


Or, all new products from Garmin are plauged with bugs.

I agree with you. I am sure they are working hard to fix the HUB issue, and have a feeling they will fix it in short time. Otherwise...? Otherwise clients will keep clear of Fenix 5 and they do not want that...

Your optimism is rather naive considering Garmin's track record i.e. the barometer/altimeter issue that plagued the 3HR. Various conflicting responses were put out (only to customers who phoned) and afaik the issue has never been resolved. The problem is with little in the way of competition (the other watches are either worse or have very limited features) it does seem like they do not care about their customers as long as they are still making money selling unfinished products.

Your optimism is rather naive considering Garmin's track record i.e. the barometer/altimeter issue that plagued the 3HR. Various conflicting responses were put out (only to customers who phoned) and afaik the issue has never been resolved. The problem is with little in the way of competition (the other watches are either worse or have very limited features) it does seem like they do not care about their customers as long as they are still making money selling unfinished products.

It may sound like that, until you read my latter part of the post...

thank you beta team for solving and providing us with a new beta

let us go and test :o

Test issues nobody has... Waiting for Beta 100.0 to think abt Bluetooth and Livetrack

Nope, what you basically said was "they will fix it because it's in their best interest". But in practice people, including myself, keep buying their products that don't work properly. There isn't enough of an incentive because there isn't any real competition and sadly we all have to put up with unfinished products and never get any statements as to what problems exist and what they are doing to fix them. Nobody really knows if they are bothering at all with the connection issues etc. A lot of Stryd users have seemingly been told because it's not Garmin - tough! If you ever phone up and speak to a garmin rep and mention a widespread issue on the forum they have a set response which is basically "we don't believe anything in forums" which sort of negates the reason for them even having a forum.

I totally don't agree with any of this. If you're using the BETA firmware then log your bugs through the beta email. They've always responded to me and been quite frank about the challenges they're facing. They're a lot more open in their communication through there as they don't have to worry about feeding the trolls like they do in the forums.

But as was pointed out to me - when logging your bugs it's important to be specific with your reports.
For example - I initially flagged that I was seeing more drop-outs than I ever did with my F3 but that frankly told them nothing useful.
I have since gone back with specifics about where I saw the dropouts in my workouts, what I was most likely doing at the time (they're from cross-fit workouts) and information about my height (because personally I think it's a distance related issue and so my height/wingspan is a relevant piece of information). This will hopefully help them replicate the issue and therefore help them work out a solution.

So what I'm trying to say in all of this is - if you're going to be part of the beta programme then be a part of it - don't come into here just to rant and rave. Log your specific bug issues through the beta email and help them fix the issues. That's the whole point of the beta programme after all.
If you just want to vent about bug A or bug B then there's plenty of bug posts already where you can do that.
If you doubt Garmin will ever fix whichever bug is frustrating you the most then return the watch. Most countries have pretty good consumer protections and you shouldn't have a problem arguing that the watch isn't fit for purpose. Or sell it on Ebay etc. I doubt you'll struggle to sell it.

Test issues nobody has... Waiting for Beta 100.0 to think abt Bluetooth and Livetrack

Email the BETA team with specific examples of where/when your bugs are occurring along with relevant information like the tracked activity in Garmin Connect where you had the issues.
Maybe then they'll be able to work towards fixing the problems by BETA 50.0

It's silly to assume this isn't a top priority for Garmin but clearly it's not an easy fix either.
Also based on what we know it would appear to be a sensor hub issue, which is a different section of code to the "main" watch OS so it will be a different set of developers with a different set of expertise.
Asking the rest of the developers to drop everything else to focus on the sensor hub issues would likely be of little benefit to the Ant+ problem and slow down sorting out fixing bugs/adding features to the main code.

It would also be foolish to hold off the rest of the beta programme will they've found a fix for the sensor problems - there's plenty of "quick wins" they can sort out in the meantime and it doesn't make sense to break their weekly beta cadence just to show that the sensor problem has been their main priority. Imagine the uproar here if they didn't release a beta for a month.

Nice to get a bit of common sense/reason from someone who appears to have experience in software development :)