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Solar ring color - is one better than the other?

C.sco
over 3 years ago

My first 7X Solar Sapphire developed an issue where it ended up in an infinite boot loop, and had to get sent back to Garmin. I found another one locally at a store, and before I got a chance to send the old one back to Garmin, I was able to compare them side by side. These are the exact same model watch. Old one on the left, new replacement one on the right.

You can easily tell the solar panel on the old one was a lot redder, and the new one is a lot yellower. I assure you, it's not due to different viewing angles, the solar panel on the new one is substantially yellower at all viewing angles and in all light.

I asked Garmin if this was something I should worry about, and they essentially said "no", and said it was probably due to different viewing angles (it isn't). Anyways, not knowing which one was better, or whether it even made a difference at all, I just let it go.

But in the 2 days I've been using this new one, it seems like it struggles to get very much energy from the sun. This is a screenshot of my watch after driving to work this morning - the bright morning sun was hitting it directly during the entire drive, for 30 minutes - the watchface was perpendicular to the sun, and my window was down so it was not in between the sun and my watch. You can see, it got VERY little energy from the sun. When I did the same thing with my previous 7X, it would net 10-15k Lux hours. This time it barely got 1k. And I noticed the same thing yesterday, walking around outside in the sun, that it barely seemed to take in any energy from the sun at all.

Is it possible that the yellowish version of the solar panel just sucks? Should I return it and try to get another one with the reddish solar panel? It seems like my first 7X solar worked vastly better than this replacement one I got.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    If we find out the difference this might be a new black/blue backlit screen thing. :D Can you compare both of them under the same light source?

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Uh Garmin… To bad that first one is dead. The only way to know that is to compare two units side by side. I’m not telling You to buy a third one (Rofl) but maybe there’s a store with the same unit on display?

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to KrapfenKringel

    Sadly the first one is dead (and now in the mail), so I can't.

    I may go back to REI this week and swap it out for another one and see if I have any better luck. Maybe the morning sun just isn't as bright as it seemed like it was, but it really seems like I should've gotten more than 1k Lux hours with the watch being in direct sunlight for half an hour. Seemed like I was getting way more than that, by about 10x, on my first one.

    On second thought, I might just wait until March when the second production batch from Garmin gets finished and sent out, and swap it out then. That'll also give me more time to put it through its paces and see if maybe this issue is just in my head.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Very interesting. I guess it's like with the displays on the Fenix 6 - Garmin sources its components from several suppliers, but doesn't like to talk about it. It's surprising that quality-wise there is always such a big difference - especially with the solar cells, where Garmin supposedly uses its proprietary 'power glass', which they acquired by buying up this small solar company some years ago. As often with Garmin, the spread in quality is an issue you would not usually see with for example Apple - their tolerance between suppliers seems to be much smaller.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to 4241327
    4241327 said:
    As often with Garmin, the spread in quality is an issue you would not usually see with for example Apple - their tolerance between suppliers seems to be much smaller.

    At risk of being accused of being a fanboy (again!) these statements are pretty tiresome. It doesn't take too much searching on the interweb to find people having issues with Apple watches too - expanding batteries, broken screens, poor results, charging etc. Whether or not there is a larger number of faults with Garmin watches compared to Apple is hard to prove.

    But simply saying it is so, doesn't mean it is so.

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 3 years ago in reply to C.sco
    C.sco said:
    Maybe the morning sun just isn't as bright as it seemed like it was, but it really seems like I should've gotten more than 1k Lux hours with the watch being in direct sunlight for half an hour. Seemed like I was getting way more than that, by about 10x, on my first one.

    Darker colors absorb more photons (energy) from sunlight then lighter colors due to reflection of light.  How much of a difference between the two watches you had is beyond me, but there would be a difference nonetheless. 

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Former Member

    I just spent another hour in the sun, This time it's high noon, and a very sunny day here in California with not a cloud in the sky. Spent as much of that time as possible with the watchface facing directly at the sun. The solar meter never went above 50% (indicating ~25k lux), mostly it was around 25% (~12k lux). If I had to estimate, I would guess it should've been getting at least 50-75k lux - it was getting enough sun that the watch was getting hot to the touch. The overall daily lux hours only went from 1k to 1.8k. So something is definitely wrong. I should have gotten at least 30k lux hours from that, but I didn't even get 1k.

    Sounds like it's time to try Fenix 7X SS number 3. Frustrating, because my first one was working perfectly in every way, until it bricked itself. Now I feel like it's going to be a long search involving a lot of exchanges before I get another one that's perfect... and of course it's further complicated by the fact that it's nearly impossible to find them in stock anywhere. but not ready to give up yet.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Could you confirm that which model i got if i send you a screenshot?

    Please...

    My watch is in Europe and I'm in middle east , it's not easy for me to mail it back to Europe when it delivered to me .

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Could you confirm that which version i got if i send you a screenshot?

    Please...

    My watch is in Europe and I'm in middle east , it's not easy for me to mail it back to Europe when it delivered to me 

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to aryanabdulla

    It's too hard to tell from photos.

    Just check and see if it seems like the solar is working right or not, it should be easy to tell - as I mentioned above, having my watch in direct sunlight for almost an hour only got me 0.8k lux hours, which is WAY below what it should be doing, it should be closer to 50k lux hours in those conditions.