I replaced my smartphone with a Garmin Fenix

Hello everybody,

I’ve now lived without a smartphone for the past 2 years and replaced it with a Garmin Fenix. I use the watch as my main GPS navigation system, for music and also audiobooks.

If you are interested in the details of my experience, I wrote an article about it.

I had to experiment a lot to find out how to make the Fenix work fine without a smartphone. Maybe what I learned can also help others.

Feel free to ask me any questions on the subject.

  • Thanks Greg, I've skimmed your article, and it's going to make interesting reading. 

    In case you find getting a GPS fix slow.. I have used Garmin watches without a smartphone or wifi for some years (until GDPR came into effect) and the only thing that I missed was the automatic download of GPS ephemeris data, so getting a first GPS fix was slow. But you can get that data here and put it on the watch via USB: https://www.javawa.nl/epo_en.html

  • That's nice, I didn't knew you could update it manually. Thank you I will check it out!

    With the firmware version 7 my GPS fix was 3-5 seconds even inside a house. When I updated it to 8 and above the GPS fix was 30 sec outside and 3 min inside. I ended up staying in version 7. I updated to the Fenix 6 afterwards and same thing (v11.20). Do you know what can cause this?

  • Outdated ephemeris data file is the most likely cause. It's long been recommended that this be updated following any software update.

    As noted you can manually add it but other options exist:

    1. Connect to Garmin Express (although I suspect that's not an option for you)
    2. Leave the watch outside with a clear view of the sky and and GPS activity selected (but not started) for at least 10 minutes. This will also update the EPO file. There is a setting in the activities 'Power Save Timeout' that defaults to 5 minutes. Change this to Extended and it will be about 20 minutes before the activity is closed and the watch reverts to the watch face.
  • Fascinating article!  You wrote "I plan my road trips in advance. I use GPS coordinates to transfer an address from open street map to my watch before leaving. It is 10 times faster and simpler. You can see them as phone numbers for locations. The Fenix also supports GPX files for more complex road trips."  How do you sent the GPS coordinates from OSM to the Garmin watch?

  • I did the method 2 today and it worked like a charm. Thank you very much! Now my GPS fix is nearly instantaneous inside and outside.

    I'm starting to understand better what happened. I read somewhere that the EPO files were updated automatically when you used any GPS activity. So I never really thought about it. However I think this feature was removed with the firmware 8 and above (seems normal since nearly everybody update their watch). That why I never had any trouble with the v7 and the GPS fix after 2 years of use without updates.

    They seem to have left the EPO update has an hidden feature when you do the method 2. If you are stuck in the desert in expedition mode seems logic. However it doesn't appear on the manual...

    How often do you have to update the EPO file?

    Does it update all networks (GPS, GLONASS and GALILEO) or only the one configured for the GPS activity?

  • I click on navigate with any GPS activity, scroll down to coordinates and enter them manually. In general I have to change one or two numbers of the displayed location (which is a lot faster than entering an full address).

    When you use the coordinates mode it also saves you the locations in "Saved Locations" with the name "Coordinate". If you don't change the name afterwards and use again the mode it will overwrite the old coordinate.

  • As far as I know, obtaining the EPO file via USB, via the phone (Garmin Connect app sync), or by letting the watch listen to the satellites for 10 minutes, it's basically the same data. Big difference is, via USB you can get a larger file with more data that is valid for a few days to a week. Via the phone it's data that's valid for a day (or two) and directly from the satellites it can be just one hour - that is very slow data transfer, so you don't get a lot.

    All you ever wanted to know about EPO files is in this document (written for the Mediatek chipset - that's the one in the Fenix 5 Plus).

    Back in the day when consumer GPS was new, the only way was 'listening to the sky' for 30 minutes to get that 'GPS almanac' in your new handheld GPS unit (running on 6 AA batteries), but after that first time, if used every day or so, 'just' 5 minutes. Provided you didn't fly halfway around the world - then it would take the full 30 minutes again. By the way those were the days of 'selective availability' - only the military got a precise location, consumers got a position with an accuracy of around 100 meters. Good enough to find your way back to your camping site, generally. With that backpack full of AA batteries. And maps. 

    I don't think the principle of downloading ephemeris data (during use of GPS) ever changed, but not all devices write out an updated EPO file to the internal storage. I am not sure if the Fenix 5 Plus does that, but it would be cool. Older Fenix models I've used kept the last EPO file they got via USB or Bluetooth, so when no new file came, the watch started each activity with stale data, taking extra long to download the data from the satellites, every time again, and you'd have to delete the old EPO file to avoid that. 

    Apology for the half off topic ramble, hope it's interesting in some respect. 

  • thank you!  I also found the fantastic following method to add a "saved locations" from a normal address. Alas you need a smartphone.  This is done via the free Garmin app Sendpoints and well explained here https://youtu.be/pHFtkkSPscw