Garmin fenix 6s sapphire lifespan

Oke, I was talking about the watch in perticular, I understand the band needs to be replaced after +5 years. How long would the watch itself last?

It depends and there is no set lifespan.  Outside of damage, the more you charge the battery, the bigger toll it will take on the lifespan.

I don't see why you would not be able to use the watch for 5+ years honestly. I upgrade every 2 years or so but only because I want a new toy and not out of necessity.

A friend of mine still uses my former fenix 3, I'm certain it is older than 5 years. I don't see this one to stop working anytime soon. Most likely the battery will be the weak spot, usually I hear you can recharge about 1000 times. Considering charging once a week, it can last 19 years on average

tess said:

It depends and there is no set lifespan.  Outside of damage, the more you charge the battery, the bigger toll it will take on the lifespan.

This.

The 6S has the smallest battery in the Fenix lineup, so battery degradation will become a problem earlier than it's larger siblings.

The 6X, for example, has a battery that is 3x larger. So even if the battery degrades down to 33% of its original capacity, it would still hold a charge just as well as a new 6S did. But if a 6S battery degrades down to 33% of its original capacity, then now it can only hold a charge for as long as an Apple watch.

All that said - the watch battery will likely outlast your interest in keeping the watch. I think they're good for something like 500 charging cycles, which depending on your usage habits, could be 10 years. In the rare event that the battery ever degrades past the point of usefulness, you *might* be able to just replace the battery with a new one at that point. But most people would rather just upgrade their watch by the time that happens.

Other than the battery, the watch has an indefinite lifespan. It might survive 2 years, it might survive 200 years. Depends on how well you take care of it, how it gets used, and also just plain old luck. Lots and lots of people are still using Fenix 3's, and those are 4 year old watches at this point.

A rough guideline for li-ion batteries is that they lose about 20% of their capacity over 500 charge cycles. For something like a phone or an apple watch with a daily charge cycle, you could reach 500 cycles in about 18 months.

However, with the F6S most people are probably on a weekly charge cycle, so it will take them 5-10 years to reach 500 charge cycles. I would think that most people would be upgrading for new features long, long before the watches ceases to be functional. Garmin also has a history of supporting (in terms of back end servers, etc) for many years.

If you do intend to keep your watch for many years, it is worth noting that it you get slightly better long-term battery lifespan by keeping it charged between 20-80% than fully charging then fully discharging it. I try to give mine 5-10 minutes per day by putting it on charge while I shower after a run, rather than giving it 2 hours once a week. It is also worth investigating some of the power management options (eg. battery saver during sleep) to reduce overall battery usage.

The problem with keeping the watch between 20-80% charge, is that you are then functionally only ever using 60% of the potential battery capacity. The 6S only gets 7 days to begin with, so using that strategy means you're only getting 4 days of battery life out of it.

Of course, if you don't mind charging it often, and you never use your watch in GPS mode for extended periods of time, then none of that is an issue.

Personally, I always charge mine to 100%, and then once it drops down to around 20% or so, I charge it whenever I get the next good opportunity to do so. If this causes my watch to lose 20% of its capacity in 10 years, then so be it... small price to pay for getting to use my watch longer between charges, and I seriously doubt I'll have this watch longer than 5 years anyways.

You need to take into consideration that Garmin sells thousands of watches per year and this forum is more focused on helping people with issues on those watches... so this is a "bad forum" for you to consider. No one will come to this forum to write: I LOVE GARMIN AND MY WATCH! SEE YOU ALL :)