There is absolutely nothing wrong with my Fenix 6 Pro Solar

There are always people complaining about many things in these forums.

I wanted to say, since my 735XT, I tried many different Garmin watches (and still regret selling my 735XT for an Apple Watch :-( ). 

The Fenix 6 line, and especially my Fenix 6 Pro Solar is the first Garmin that I have had that is high quality, fits my small wrists well, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Averaging 2hrs of GPS time a day, running, cycling with power. With and without wrist HR. Everything is accurate. The battery life is phenomenal (easily getting 9d). 

I find the new revised sleep widget helpful. Recovery time is spot on (even when I don't want to work out), body battery this time around is good too.

Good job Garmin. I am just hoping that firmware quality remains stable going forward.

And I really hope that the strap for Enduro comes to the Fenix 6 line and with different colors.

  • The solution is to tune distance calculation specifically for each sport. I am too happy with distance calculation for road running. I think it is quite accurate. But I am unhappy with distance calculation for trail running and would be happier if Garmin just used GNSS distance without smoothing. That would be much closer to actual distance but still a bit short. How do I know that? I compared distances to a few race courses officially measured with a measuring wheel. 

  • I might have this wrong, but if the course has significant accent/descent and you use 2D data on the watch instead of 3D then you would expect the wheel to show greater distance as it is measuring the 3D track. 

  • Correct, but the distance added by 3D Distance is usually not so long and doesn't have so big impact. For example, on my 10.633 km course with 158 m elevation change the difference is ~23 meters (~0,2%). I have other courses with more elevation changes but I haven't controlled the data on them yet. 

  • That is true but the difference isn't as large as people think and even on a moderately mountainous terrain is often within 1%. For example, on a recent 10.8 mile race my Fenix had measured 10.12 miles as reported by the watch and 10.4 miles GNSS distance (after distance correction in Strava). The total ascent/descent is about 2000 ft. The total elevation change is 4000 ft which is 0.76 miles. Assuming 10.8 miles was 3D distance and assuming gradual ascent and descent, the 2D distance would be sqrt(10.8^2 - 0.76^2) = 10.77 miles. That is 0.27% difference. Sure, in reality it could be a bit larger because ascents and descents aren't always at the same grade, but the difference would still be well within 1%.