Brand new device: RIP

Former Member over 7 years ago

PREMISE:

5 months into the purchase, wasting 10 minutes each time I connect to the USB because of the bad connectors for months already. Suddenly, barometer dies.
I wouldn't have sent it back just for the connectors (been having the problem for months) but I HAD TO because of the barometer. 2 weeks without the watch. Patience, it happens.

I BEGGED the tech support in Milan to give me a unit with the new golden connectors (Hey, since there's no alternative, let's kill the secondary issue and solve them both together with just one RMA).

Milan sent me a unit with the old connectors. One month into the RMA and I'm already having the USB problem again... never mind, I can handle it: when I install the betas it's a nightmare but it's not happening so often and when I need the .fit files, instead of grabbing them from the F5x, I take them from Garmin Connect. It's a pain but I can take it, never mind.

TODAY:

This morning I wake up and the altimeter shows -29.000 meters. I calibrate to 154m, then go down and wait for the GPS lock... the altimeter is still on 154m. Uh-oh... this is bad.

I turned off the F5X, rinsed with hot water and soap but I knew it wouldn't help because I don't do dirty sports and it's been over a month I last did MTB. Not a chance in a trillion there was dust in the barometer but anyway... I turned it on and it was still dead.

So I went for a very short walk, about 300m. I live on a hill so it's easy... either walk up 5 minutes or walk down 5 minutes I can INSTANTLY find out whether the baro is working or not.

Grade 0, baro permanently fixed on 148m, gain 0, ascent 0, descent 0.

And so, Garmin has once again given me a defective unit, knowing very well these units are defective (you can see by yourselves what's going on with the cables and what's going on with the barometers not just here in these forums but also in the FB groups).

Now, I, the customer, have wasted a running day (too upset) and I have to prepare the watch (reassemble the stock wrist bands), put it in the box, get the photocopy of the purchase receipt and bring it to the shop. The shop opens at 10. I swim at 6 but tomorrow is Sunday so, Monday, I have to take a day off at work to get the watch to the shop.

The shop will wait the usual 2 days for Garmin Italy to give them an RMA number, without which the delivery can't be started... no matter me bombing them with mails and phone calls and they surely won't feel any pity or remorse, nor the need to take the right choice: send this guy a new watch IMMEDIATELY because we have a LONG record with him and if he says the watch is broken it means it IS, besides, his log shows he's walking uphill and downhill and the altimeter is FLAT. Let's try to easen the pain... oh no, they surely won't.

I will be without watch for 15 days, during which I will have to duplicate a hundred logs (I train 5 hours per day), then I'll have to setup the watch again and also gather a few runs together to get the VO2Max upon which several other parameters are calculated.

This is the second time this happens with the F5x but it happened 4 (FOUR) times with the 910XT and once with the F3.
(It didn't happen with the 920XT because I got rid of it before it happened and it didn't happen with the second F3 because I sold it to buy the F5x)

These are not coincidences: the same person cannot get a faulty device again by chance - it means the whole production stock is faulty.

It's not the logs (it's a pain to duplicate and change dates/times), it's not the betas (I got 2 *big* bugs cracked completely open for the team to fix and after all, I didn't spend so much time to get a stable USB connection for the file transfers since betas don't come out so often) and it's not even the fatigue I can't track anymore for 2 weeks because I'm tired beyond endurance already despite the holiday.

It's the idea the customer is worthless, his needs, his time, his money are worthless to Garmin.

It's REALLY ugly because I stand a very good chance to get another brand new watch with the old connectors, hence the old USB problem that will present itself again as soon as the connectors and the cable get worn down by use (typically, 2 weeks time) and, on top of that... this feeling it's only a matter of time before the baro breaks down again.

I don't know what to say... it seems like they just never learn from their mistakes and so they keep repeating them over and over and over again.

I beg the guys who are constantly complaining about the poor GPS performances of the whole Garmin brand to consider that you can fix that with a cheap foot pod but you'll still be getting an unreliable device in your hands that can break down anytime.

Keep that in mind before picking your training device.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

I think Garmin overreaches, systematically, year after year... promising new features as a marketing tool to entice new customers and it's mostly new features Garmin either doesn't deliver or delivers with so many bugs they are virtually useless. I didn't sell my (replaced) F3 because I was interested in the F5x... I sold it because I broke my knee and would have had to wait in line for the surgery for 6 months at least (turned out to be 9 months) and yes the F3 was and probably still is, plagued by bugs... especially in the navigation features which is (not) by coincidence the only difference between the F3 and the F5.

You are absolutely right in your understanding of the development timeline.

Garmin will not release F6 this year but since they didn't release the F4, they will probably release the F7 next year... in line with their programs as we've seen with the F3-F5 upgrade. Of course their top priority should be to solve the EXO antenna problem once and for all but unless we see a new patent by late autumn this year, it's not gonna happen.

The compass problem appears to have been solved and as far as the baro is related, Garmin has produced an outdoors product with swimming features. The problem is that the baro is exposed to the outer environment for obvious reasons and this wears it off, especially if you swim regularly or perform other water-sports activities (or both, as in my case) in the swimming pool. Let's face it, you'd have to live at the Equator in order to swim regularly at sea, be out of shark-infested areas and possibly be protected by lanes, unless you want to be killed by a passing boat.

So, while I accept the fact there's a problem that can't be totally solved with the baro, I also think that Garmin has the weakest of all baros since nothing like this ever happened to me with Suunto or Polar. Furthenmore, Garmin is big enough to build and handle correctly a list based on user experience so as to tackle the problems of those who already have had a failure in the correct, most painless way possible for both parties.

Garmin knows very well who I am. How many RMAs I've had in the past and what kind of sports I practice. The Tech Service in Milan knows this as well.
It was totally inconsiderate to give me another F5x with the old connectors because they knew I would be having troubles with installing the betas and handling the logs (I use Sport Tracks, not Garmin Connect so I need the .fit files either from the watch or from Garmin Connect and at that point in time, Garmin Connect was giving many problems in exporting the .fit files to PC).

Aside from the baro that would possibly fail again, there was this very well known problem I explained but they probably didn't have a unit with the new connectors in the warehouses. I've placed the request AGAIN and told them to wait in case there wasn't one available this time but there are no guarantees. Technicians act like robots: they aren't seemingly allowed to take decisions. Anyone in their place and I mean me, surely, would have immediately placed a priority request instead of sending me back another faulty device. Faulty... it takes a week-time with the connectors and you start having problems.

This kind of attitude would mitigate the obvious engineering problem with the first batch from the production line and instead they aggravated it. Now... it's been a week and the watch is still in Milan. No clue on when the delivery will start nor whether this will be a unit with the gold connector pins or not... and at the end of the day the new connectors give no guarantee of reliability on the barometer.

Be it chlorine (but this happened twice overnight, not after the swimming pool or after gym or other outdoor activity) or salty water I don't think this matters much (and if it did, the problem would plague Suunto and Polar too... and it doesn't).

I have had contacts with Garmin UK many times on the phone in the past and they are superlative but they can do very little since we locally depend on the national branch of Garmin's structure. What hurts me is that all the money Garmin loses on these RMAs could be better placed to improve BEFORE its competitors do.

See... I bought the F5x when its price was 750€. If Garmin releases the F7 in 2019 as I presume, and I buy it in 2011, Garmin's revenue will be halved (and this on top of the second-hand market). That's MORE revenue lost and who do you think pays for that? We do in a way or another: quality assurance, skillful engineering, masterful planning, software development.

I really, really don't understand why they make such mistakes and why so consistent in time.