While charging in unusually dim lighting this morning, I noticed hairline cracks on the face of the HR sensor. Panicking, I did some research and found this has happened before to people (like me) who have not damaged the sensor in any way. I have not dropped, smashed, or otherwise done anything to the underside of the watch. It is on my wrist 99% of the time. Sent an email to Garmin support this morning and hope they can address the issue quickly. I love this thing and hate the idea of being without it. ciq.forums.garmin.com/.../1284467.jpg
Decided to update 5X this morning and noticed these rather scary cracks on the OHR sensor. Googled and realized that there are many other cases like this.
They will replace it. there is an email address on here somewhere you can contact. They are sometimes a little slow responding but once they get back to you the turn around is usually pretty fast.
Mine started as a minor mark maybe 6 months in, thought it was me. Now I'm a year in and it looks like this.
I wonder if the kind people at Garmin will replace it if it's slid over the 12 month mark by a few days, given it's a fault that's been inherent since purchase but not shown itself until now.....email sent.ciq.forums.garmin.com/.../1341508.jpg
After almost a year my Fenix 5X (54H) started to show cracks on sensor. Garmin service in Warsaw replaced my watch to new one in 5 minutes! Hats off to Garmin! My new 5X (also 54H) is with gold pins. Came with 8.10 firmware.
It's funny, mine went today, I was cleaning it and it was all fine, took a shower later on and went to put the watch on charge and noticed that the sensor now had a couple of cracks on it, really strange because I thought to myself that I was lucky I hadn't had sensor cracks (I had the same thing happen on my 3HR).
Oh well, email sent to the address mentioned here and I will chase up later this week.
Adding my story to the thread in the hope that it helps the Garmin engineers resolve this, images attached.
Bought my first 5X on 29th September 2017:
S/N 54G0494..
Silver Pins
Noticed a couple of lines on the HRM after the first week or so, after running and swimming with it a few times, and assumed it was imprints of my arm hairs in the surface, or just a pattern in the material after manufacture as that's all they looked like at the time. I didn't inspect the HRM when I took it out of the box, so they could've been there the whole time.
Cracks gradually spread to cover the entire lens like a spiderweb.
Exchanged on 9th February 2018 (133 day after purchase of original) in the store I bought it from (not a Garmin store) for a new one, resetting the warranty to 12 months, as I didn't want a refurb after only four months of ownership:
S/N 54G0519..
Gold Pins
In-store the shop assistant helped me to open up three other new 5Xs that they had in stock. Two out of the three had either one or two very faint lines in the HRM already, which the shop assistant also saw and agreed with. I took the only one that did not have any hairline cracks.
For a month or so I thought that I had now got "a good one", and trained with it as usual, ensuring to thoroughly rinse it off after swimming, and not wearing it in the shower to ensure it didn't get exposed to any soaps or oils - as a reply from Garmin email response enquired about that when I reported the issue with the original one.
I can say with 100% certainty that this on has only been in contact with my skin, pool water, rainwater, clean tap water, and sweat. As I owned it through the winter months (so no sunscreen/insect repellent) and I'm not the moisturising type.. I have also made full use of the sapphire crystal's harness by placing it watchface down whenever I take it off - I have never placed it down HRM-side down; I've been babying this one given my experience with the last one!
On 10th April 2018 (60 days of ownership) I noticed the first crack on the replacement watch's HRM when rinsing it off under the tap after a pool swim and Tweeted about it (https://twitter.com/nolnefm/status/983916934377832448) because I wasn't able to post on the forum at the time (now fixed obviously, thanks!).
For reference, swim training twice a week in an indoor pool for 1hr a session. Running twice a week (8-10k a time), and cycling (40-60km) with it once or twice a week - I have a handlebar mount but haven't used it with the replacement watch as I didn't want anything coming into contact with that HRM on the back and potentially cracking it, so it stays on my arm for rides (which is annoying). I'd imagine that's average training load for most people with a multisport watch, so I don't think I'm using it excessively.
Frustrating to have a problem on a flagship device; I paid for the top-spec model in the line because I want to be able to rely on it during training. I use a chest strap for heart rate monitoring when training, so the optical only takes my resting and all-day heart rate, so I'd really rather not even have on on there! But as it's there, and cracked on the two that I've owned, I'm not convinced that it'll remain watertight for its full lifespan.
I've a tri-race in June and I'm reliant on the watch to keep my coach updated on my training sessions, so won't be returning it until after that. As the cracks have only crossed the illuminating LEDs around the outside and not the OHR sensor in the middle, I've not noticed any problems with functionality or unusual heart rate values when using it so far.
Anyway, I hope this info helps to diagnose whether it's a manufacturing or design issue. I'll keep an eye on the back of this one and will report any changes I observe in the next month.
One last thing: I bloody love this watch!! It's the best training gadget I've ever owned!! If it wasn't for the cracks, it'd be perfect.ciq.forums.garmin.com/.../1344428.png
