For those complaining about Garmin’s updates :)

It’s not the number of updates that count, but the quality of the updates. Any many of those updates came because the previous had major bugs.

We're lucky as Fenix owners, most other Garmin watches don't get nearly as many updates. Look at Forerunners for example, they only just now got a whole bunch of features added to it that we Fenix 6 owners got almost a year ago. Different teams work on different product sets, for example the team that does Venu/Vivoactive is totally different than the team who does Forerunner/Fenix. Overall I like the team we have for the Fenix. Is the software always perfect? No. But 99% of what I use the watch for works perfectly fine.

Overall I've been quite happy with the updates we've gotten for the Fenix since it came out. I've never experienced any of the critical issues that some others seem to get. I've had a few issues, but I always worked with Garmin directly when they arose, and ultimately they got fixed. In its current state, the Fenix 6 is the best it's ever been. Many of you probably didn't own it when it first came out, but I did, and I can tell you the difference is like night and day. They've added a TON of new features over the 20 months it's been out, and most of them improved my user experience substantially. The on-board sleep tracking, for instance, is exponentially better than what the watch used to do originally. And we got the Enduro's features the very same week the Enduro came out. We got workout animations and water tracking the very same week that Vivoactive 4 and venu came out and introduced those features.

And what's REALLY cool, is that Garmin actually listens to us, as individual consumers, when we talk to them (directly I mean, not just posting on the forum that they don't really monitor) about fixing issues or adding features. There have been THREE occasions where I have gotten into contact with Garmin about bugs, and all 3 times they fixed it soon after. The first was mid-activity watch crashes after a firmware update, I worked with them and they released new firmware to fix it within a week. The second time I reported that the map was freezing during navigation, and again I worked with them to duplicate the issue on their end and they fixed it within a week. The 3rd time was with battery drain after recording an activity with an InReach paired to the watch, and that one took a bit longer to get resolved, but it's resolved now. Try getting someone at Apple to re-code everyone's watches because of something you're experiencing.

There is always going to be a small handful of people who are going to say Garmin sucks and the watch sucks, no matter what. I'm puzzled as to why those people still own the watch and participate in the forums if that's how they feel.

Woow, you are a lucky man. 3 out of 3 fixed. Not everybody can say the same. My rest heart rate have been 30 for over a year now, have to go into the menu every morning and set «use average», reported several times ( and aknowledged) by Garmin, over a year ago. Same with stress meassurement after a workout, it does not start work again before i start a breath exercise (also aknowledged). Other than that, i agree with you, they have added tons of stuff, so listen to us, well i guess that’s some different opinions on that. 

While I do agree that Garmin have sent out a lot of updates and updated functionality - it does not compare to the updates on my AW4 - far from it. That would be equivalent to Fenix 5 Plus getting all the new feature enhancements currently available on Fenix 6 (bar hardware changes/limitations) 

Apple Watch 4 was released in Sep - 2018 - Fenix 5 Plus in June '18. 

And since Watch 3 still got WatchOS 7 - that is equivalent to Fenix 5 (not plus) in release date. So a current Apple Watch 3 have all new features (again mostly bar hardware changes) that any current AW Series 6 have. And since Apple is still selling AW3 - I do think it will get WatchOS8 as well.  The ONLY software feature I can find that is NOT on the AW3 vs later models is the Family Setup. 

So if you compare Fenix 5 (not plus) with Fenix 6 - there are a lot of software features that have not made it to the F5 and even F5 plus.

But at least Garmin F6 updates is a lot better than most Android products where you are really really lucky if you get ANY updates 12 months post the press release...

But then lets talk VivoActive 4... that hardly has gotten any new features compared with F6... That is the "Android" style update frequency - despite running mostly on the same platform as the F6.

So in general I'm happy with the updates to F6 - not so much for my children VA4s's. I know they are not multi sport but they are so so limited in what they can "connect to" 

So next time I "upgrade" the children's devices it will either be AW or Garmin Fenix 5/6/7. Children's interests change fast - so they need a watch that is "ready" for any challenge... 

Just be thankful you don't own a Fitbit, their software updates are pathetic to say the least.  No notification if anything is due, a closed beta program with NDAs to sign and as an example the latest update for the Versa 3 / Sense adds new goal celebrations, woohoo!!  I say this as a former Fitbit Community Council member who was removed from the program due to me being a bit too honest in the forums (i.e. Fitbit are ***) and the Fitbit forums were filling up with loads of complaints and issues about the devices which were not being addressed or even acknowledged.  In that respect Garmin are a revelation and not only push out decent updates but are completely transparent about what they contain and publish decent change lists as well.

+1 for publishing their changelogs etc. 

Has anyone ever seen an Apple changelog in the wild?!

yes - Apple does post change logs. Not as exhaustive as Garmin's but still

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211815

The only nitpick I have is I wish they would automate the beta firmware install (Windows).  Shouldn't be too difficult to query the watch and push the appropriate files to MPT.