New firmware, same bugs. Ridiculous...

-Stress hrv always displays 1
-Strange segments that sometimes crashes the watch when you try to delete
-Same bug on resume stats after ending a mountain bike activity
-Same gps bad accuracy
  • Sadly, first buyer are always beta tester for Garmin. More than one year to have a stable firmware on Fenix 3.

    The Fenix 5 follows the same way...
  • -Stress hrv always displays 1
    -Strange segments that sometimes crashes the watch when you try to delete
    -Same bug on resume stats after ending a mountain bike activity
    -Same gps bad accuracy


    What did you expect from them?Take a look at fenix3 HR.It still have bugs and problems and they don't even release new firmwares.This it will happening with fenix5 also.Just wait and see...The single good thing that garmin have, it's the battery life in comparision with other watches on the market.
  • Early release vs. no updates

    It is probably all a mater of getting the device out as soon as the hardware is ready.

    Personally I can live with some issues when I get the device. Sure it would be better with no errors, but as a software engineer I know that this is hardly possible.

    The flip side of the medal is that you get a constantly improved and updated device over a rather long period of time.
    My old 920XT still gets updates after more then two years now.

    You choose a state of the art, but complex device with lots of features.
    And I am sure that the firmware will improve over the next couple of weeks.
    We get betas almost weekly and release versions every month or so.

    As an engineer and gadget geek I am pretty happy.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    I agree with this completely. I do however, understand that for some, the bugs are in the features which attracted them to the device, and therefore the entire issue is a subjective one. Given the distance things have come (and being realistic), even in the short time since I received my device 6 weeks ago, I couldn't be happier with the new FW. The niggles I have now are generally cosmetic.
  • Gps worst than before
    https://www.strava.com/activities/1032826086/overview

    I don't understand why garmin device are always full of bugs much more than other manufacturers device (any kind....)
    Windows has less problems than garmin devices

    My phone records tracks better than fenix5x and it costs half price
  • -deleted segments that are still starred on strava
  • Gps worst than before
    https://www.strava.com/activities/1032826086/overview

    I don't understand why garmin device are always full of bugs much more than other manufacturers device (any kind....)
    Windows has less problems than garmin devices

    My phone records tracks better than fenix5x and it costs half price


    My GPS track has never been great on my 5x but I've managed to meter my expectations for now. The real issue has been pacing/speed & HR which has gotten WAY worse with the new FW. I have rides lately that routinely show heart rates of 220+ (and I didn't die, sooooo) and speeds in excess of 55 mph (on a mountain bike on tight single track). I pretty much only wear it as a watch for now to keep track of the time (which it manages to do for now) in hopes that future updates will stabilize things again. I didn't mean to update to the newest firmware but it did it automatically when I plugged in to charge. Shucks
  • What did you expect from them?


    From a 750€ watch, I expect a good gps track.
    I had forerunner 210 610, 910xt vivoactive, vivoactive hr, fenix2, fenix3 edge 500 520 810 1000 and the gps was never so inaccurate
  • Sadly, first buyer are always beta tester for Garmin. More than one year to have a stable firmware on Fenix 3.


    It was great to have new features like intensity minutes, paddlesports apps etc.. But the new features usually have bugs that never get fixed.

    Here's a fenix 3 example:

    Dec 2015 - Garmin introduces paddlesports apps with stroke rate and distance per stroke. Except that the distance per stroke is a factor of 500 too small. There is also some waiting before it is implemented on Garmin Connect.

    April 2016 - Distance per stroke is 'fixed'. Except they multiplied it by 1000 instead of 500. Oops.

    Aug 2016 - New bug is introduced that regularly crashes the paddlesports apps in the middle of an activity. The watch reboots and then when it comes back up there is no stroke rate.

    May 2017 - Fix for crashing goes in to production (9 months after it was reported).

    There are still two issues with paddlesports apps. One of them (compass doesn't work in activity) cannot be fixed, and the other probably will never be fixed (distance per stroke is factor of 2 out).


    It took a long time for intensity minutes to be stable. Plenty of stuff in the forum about this. fenix 3 HR owners have probably had the worst deal because there was only really 1 year of 'support' as opposed to 2 years for the f3. Chronos owners will probably get the best deal because this predated the f5 by quite a few months but was recently moved onto the same firmware. It also doesn't seem to suffer many of the radio and GPS problems of the 5 and 5s despite being roughly the same size and having a metal casing.
  • From a 750€ watch, I expect a good gps track.
    I had forerunner 210 610, 910xt vivoactive, vivoactive hr, fenix2, fenix3 edge 500 520 810 1000 and the gps was never so inaccurate


    I was ironic with what i've said.Neither do i, i am not happy with the watch.And i was hoping that garmin will release a good watch with a good gps but instead they only release a watch with a good battery and that's all!