Watch failure / problems at the outage?

Former Member over 4 years ago

Hi,

Has anyone else suffered watch problems / failures at the time of the outage? My Tactix Bravo went 'nuts' for 36-48 hours - wouldn't save activities, kept asking for GPS signal and reverting to the positioning screen, responded only sporadically to button presses etc. - and then died (or at least the screen did). Garmin support have consistently claimed it's nothing to do with the outage but it's too much of a coincidence. The watch has been with Garmin UK for 4 weeks - and I've just learned that they are maintaining their position that it's just a coincidental failure and if I want a replacement I need to pay for it as it's a 2016 unit.

I'd be really interested to know if others have had a similar experience or if I'm alone on this

I have to say that I think I've had enough of Garmin's poor reliability and service and am concluding I just need to phase out the Garmin products and buy Apple / Wahoo etc.. I have Edge 1000, Edge 810, Taxc Neo, lots of HR straps and the Bravo (so £2.5k+ of kit) but each one has suffered reliability problems and software issues and each time it's a battle to get things resolved. You would have thought that after the ransomware attack, Garmin would be wanting to really look after and retain its customers. Unfortunately though, it doesn't appear that's the case at all...

0 Volker over 4 years ago

No problems/failures at the time of outage on my Garmin wearables. Maybe just a real hardware issue on your 4 year old device (?). What did they offer you to pay for a replacement?

0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to Volker

It's certainly possible. Just very strange to have no issues and then what seemed to be a GPS-led problem (and i understand gps functionality was broadly affected by the outage). I also have the context that supposed hardware issues occur a lot with the Edge devices just after software / firmware updates - so I am sceptical of taking them at face value when they claim things are unconnected (I had to buy a new SD card, perform hard resets and wait for 2 more software updates to reinstall everything after the last major Edge 1000 update)

The replacement device offer is £80. So it's not a huge amount of money. It's both the principle of it, and the fact that it could well be good money after bad - I've had refurbed replacement Garmin devices before and my experience is poor (the Edge 810 I paid a similar amount for a replacement device that had serious battery issues only a few months later - but long enough to be outside the replacement warranty)

0 Volker over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

Isn’t the price for a new tactic bravo about £400? So £80 seems to be a fair offer (for me).

0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to Volker

You're not wrong. I seem to recall the watch was originally even a bit more - say £450, so yes £80 is reasonable (on the premise of course that a £450 watch failing after 4 years is just to be accepted as also reasonable - even if caused by their outage). If I was confident the replacement would have a decent life and wasn't just at the end of my patience with Garmin I would get it. However, I'm sorely tempted just to 'rip off the bandaid' and go elsewhere (new Apple Watch has just been released!). Of course that will cost me more in the short-term

0 mcalista over 4 years ago

I had the saving problem during the outage, as did many others.

Deleted the stored activities on my watch, watch has been perfectly behaved since then.