Hello everyone, I recently bought the Tactix 7 Pro Solar watch and would like to alert you about a possible bug I have seen personally, that a number of other users have discovered as well and which likely leaves many people unjustly unsatisfied with their solar watch performance, thinking that there is something wrong with the watch. It very much looks like the Fenix 7 Series has the same "Bug".
Long story short, before I bought the watch, I extensively researched solar technologies and related questions after which I found that the Garmin watches could possibly do by far the best job in catching and using solar energy in a watch that has such features. I also researched the way in which the watch has incorporated the solar function extensively before I bought it. During that research I came across quite a number of people who wrote either reviews, published videos, or wrote on forums about their experience with the Tactix 7 Pro Series and/or the Fenix 7x and similar Solar watch versions. What I found is that quite a number of people complained about the "poor solar performance", or even said, paraphrasing, that "the solar function doesn't work as advertised, or at all", or that the watch they bought must be "broken" or "poorly build".
So I researched what might be going on and came across videos like this, where people charge the watch with up to 391k Lux hours with no or very little improvement on either the days left or percentage! Then, by looking into it more deeply, I found that some people discovered that when you turn off the watch and restart it, the percentage and days increase actually, and show up on the watch! Other people on the internet who tried that off/on thing reported the same thing... Here is the same guy from the last linked video doing that "power off/on trick" after a charge of 418k Lux hours and the percentage increased! From what I have seen, all the people who tested it got such a result AFTER the Off/On trick. Here is one example of how people react when they are most likely confronted with the same issue and don't know it. And I'm sure most people are not aware of that. As you can see, people react very unsatisfied and think there is something wrong with the watch while it seems like it is some bug in the software or something? From what I have seen, the problem seems to be on the two Tactix 7 Pro versions as well as with the Fenix 7X watch (which is quite similar). I can't say if the problems, is also on other watches, but I suspect it might.
Next thing I did: I bought the watch and tested things out for myself. After my research above, I didn't take those "bad" conclusions people got about the solar performance at face value. So now, after a couple of weeks of very thorough testing of the solar performance under many different conditions (I went about it quite "scientifically", actually) I can say that, yes, I have found the same "Off/On solar bug" on my Tactix 7 Pro watch, and that I think many people get a bad impression of the watch because of it, unjustly.
I will spare you the details on how I tested things, but I would like to mention that I used (among other things) one external watch face and one external App in order to test/see things: Namely, the "TSWF04" watch face and the "Battery Graph" App. With the help of those and many different tests, I can say the following, for now:
- The Solar function of my watch works as advertised, and I suspect that many people who think their Solar doesn't work and/or that it doesn't work as advertised or that their watch is kaput, are simply wrong, in good parts probably because of the mentioned "solar bug" among other factors
- I'm positively surprised and happy with the solar capabilities of my watch considering the complexities of solar in general and especially of a solar system that is deployed in such a full specs and complex watch
- The Solar capabilities of my watch exceed my (educated/researched) expectations
- Contrary to what people say (because of the "solar bug" and other factors, I suspect) my watch actually can uphold the charge of the battery quite significantly and even charge up in conditions such as; Power saving mode on + sleep mode on + DND on + touch disabled + all Wireless disabled, while the Heart rate sensor is on continuously! Which is quite a feat, I must say!
- With the help of the above-mentioned "Battery Graph" App and the "TSWF04" watch face, my tests have made it clear that, yes, the solar functions well, and my watch can uphold the charge and even increase the charge of the battery if enough sun is coming in, even when energy hungry things like the heart rate sensor are enabled!
- Thanks to the solar on the watch, the watch is actually and in reality energy independent from the electric grid and can function theoretically forever with solar alone! And Garmin doesn't mention that very interesting and good feature/fact. In other words; if you enable extreme power saving modes on the watch, and you have little to no battery left on the watch, you can charge up the watch with solar alone quite significantly! For example, one of my tests shows that the watch charged 4.5 percent with an input of 426k Lux hours, while the watch was on and in extreme power saving mode + sleep mode on + DND on + touch disabled + all Wireless disabled (basically, I tried to have the basic non power hungry things of the watch still on in the background, while disabling all big power consumers), which meant and showed that the watch gained 2 days of working time in normal mode and 4 days in Energy Saving Mode! Which is very impressive IMO! I started the test at 16,7% and it ended at 21,2% of battery; it went up from 6 days remaining in normal mode to 8 days; and from 15 days remaining in Energy saving mode to 19 days. But here's the catch: I wouldn't have seen any of those good and impressive solar gains/results on the watch if I hadn't known and used the Off/On trick! In other words; also, for me, the watch again showed no gains because of that solar "bug", I strongly suspect. It was only after I turned the watch off and on again that I saw those results!
- From my testings, I'm fairly confident that the very good results of the solar input described in the last point above would be even more significant and good if I turn the watch off completely and then charge in via solar. In fact, I did tests in that regard, and so far I suspect that this is most likely the case.
So, long story short, it seems to me that there is really some kind of (software?) problem/bug here, and I think it would be good if the developers would look into the problem. Wrapping it up, I should also mention that this bug didn't just happen once to me: quite the contrary, it was and still is consistently and constantly present! There was just one day/test, in which, for some reason, the percentage increased slightly while the heart rate sensor was on, without me needing to do the off/on thing to see it. Other than that, it was/is a constant thing/problem.
Greetings
