Is my F7x the worst bug ridden watch ever?

Hello,

I have been having no end of problems with my Fenix 7x Solar, is anyone as worse as mine?

1. Using the hike setting with auto pause I have been getting times when this pauses it will not re-start when I have restarted walking. Sometimes I must stop the watch and then restart it, sometimes this just causes the watch to re pause itself despite me moving, it will also pause when I walk up hills, despite having only auto pause on stop AND in clear OOS to the sky

2. Using run setting this just exacerbates the above problem, I press start it just simply pauses straight away and throws the accuracy of the watch way out, turning off auto pause semi cures it, but I still get the extended pauses and I want to use auto pause, with a watch so flipping expensive, I expect to be able to use it!

3. The watch is erratic and extremely bug ridden in everything, I have fluttering fields in my bike indoor training page.

4. I have had a period of several days where I could not get the pulse ox to work at all, no red light on the HRM at the back of the watch, nothing!, then suddenly works again!

5. Body battery had a period when it would register the stress levels but not register the actual ‘battery level’ it would just say no data recorded?

6. Respiration would show day only and came back to normal days later?

7. Days where sleep wasn't recorded, then suddenly back to normal!

This is so annoying, my 6x Pro worked flawlessly and now this watch I cant trust, I work out doors too, so with GPS accuracy so poor, I cant trust what its telling me, with the Multi Band its now not even tracking walking on paths correctly..... AAAGGGGHHHHHH!!! 

I really don't expect this from a thousand pound watch that's for sure. I have a ticket in, but I'd like a watch that works in a way one so expensive should work now, not in god knows how many updates!

  • Yea i agree. And it is frustrating. But it is what it is. So i will buy another watch when it is almost bug free and all core functions works properly. Othwrwise is waste of money and time. 

    And it is not just watches, it is everything. Even cars. I will buy new car sometime this year, and i will buy model which will be retired soon and i will do a lot of research about known bugs and everything. If you buy brand new model, ohh boy, constant problems...

  • I do have some minor issues with Fenix 7X, but the GPS tracking is very solid - way more accurate than I had with 6X.

    One issue that I've seen a couple of times is that the screen may turn blank during an activity. But changing the data screen by pressing up or down resolves that. Also I've seen the watch lagging for a couple of seconds. For example at the end of a recent marathon it didn't react when I pressed the start/stop button at the finish. I then pressed the start/stop button again and the watch reacted twice - pausing the run and immediately resuming it again. That is definitely concerning - to me the two examples indicate that there may be some race conditions in the realtime code, which may potentially lead to more serious glitches.

    One thing I would agree with is that Garmin doesn't seem to test their devices well enough in real world usage scenarios. The company should have dedicated and experienced beta testers who push the devices to the edge and who are technical enough to recognize issues and report them back to the engineers. Instead Garmin uses everyone as beta testers. But general users are often clueless and can't properly recognize and report issues, and the customer support is usually clueless too when they deal with such issues. 

  • 3. The watch is erratic and extremely bug ridden in everything, I have fluttering fields in my bike indoor training page.

    What does that mean?  Do you have Auto Scroll on?  Some activities I have set to use Auto Scroll set to medium speed while others I have it off.  I assume fluttering fields might imply that the bike activity is transititioning through multiple data screens while you are in the activity.

    6. Respiration would show day only and came back to normal days later?

    Is your device going into sleep mode.  That is, does the watchface change at night?  I'm just wondering if your sleep setting is turning off the Optical HR sensor at night because the default settings should leave it set to No Change.  Either way, Wrist Heart Rate needs to be on if you have turned it off.

    I would really reset the watch to "default settings" and set it all back up.  Takes like a few minutes depending on if you're familiar with the screens and depending on how many changes you typically make.... which for me means 10-15 minutes.

  • Click here to play this video

    No, I’d have a single field within a page fluttering (hopefully the video works)

    The optical sensors are ok (I think) it just chooses to work when it wants to.

    I have reset the watch several times now, but still have the same annoying problems. 

  • If I click on the play icon of the video file you attached it doesn't work. I managed to circumnavigate the problem by right clicking on the video > copy link > paste the copied link (forums.garmin.com/.../trim.9FE9EE3B_2D00_11CA_2D00_4C18_2D00_8E61_2D00_AF2B4DD25BE9.MOV to a new tab/window > hit enter that will download the video file

  • wow that is weird.  can't be a hardware issue... At first I was thinking it could be a finger smudge or water screwing with the touchscreen but it's so specific

  • In your video, it could be hardware issue with your touchscreen. Impossible to say but there is no question you need to get your watch replaced. Please do not hesitate to reach out to UK Product Support or return your watch back to the vendor and exchange it for another new one if still within the return period.

  • I know weird right, I've recorded it several times, the watch decided to change its time to 6 hours behind the actual time last night on its own, just to keep me on my toes.

  • Hi Chris,

    Thanks for chipping in, I will forward this to the UK support ticket I have open and hopefully get me back up and running soon.

  • So I thought I’d do a little update of this now, my watch now tells me every workout is a VO2 max effort, including my sedate walk to work, tested against my Edge 830 and 6x Pro, it’s not giving the same metrics back at all and the auto pause lag is still there.

    So, after a month after the ticket and nothing back from Garmin, I open another, send the Garmin folder again, send numerous screenshots and videos and examples of Garmin Connect activities with the problems again and I get these absolutely barking mad recommendations back.

    On the auto pause problem, don’t use auto pause because if you walk slow it gets confused. My response, my older tech works fine on auto pause and you also have auto pause listed on the specs sheet in your literature. Silence.

    On the HRM connected problems (I also have got now intermittent problems with health snapshot not working well) oh we can’t change your watch, the replacement may also have the same problem. Dumbfounded silence from me…..

    Garmin UK, absolutely sterling customer service….