someone tell me : has garmin always been this "bad" or is something going on recently?

I think it is an engineering culture issue. Garmin has transitioned from being a primarily hardware company where the software is secondary to a primarily software company. I bet they share the same code between most watch models now, and that code likely has a lot of legacy and various flags to support the multitude of models, so I suspect they are dealing with what is called spaghetti code - a brittle and and hard to understand code.

Some of the bugs that I personally observed over few years seemed quite bizarre. For example, once my watch spontaneously switched the distance unit for running activities to yards, even though that wasn't even a valid option in the menu. Also, there are so many features and options that nobody really needs or uses and that don't really work. 

In order to improve the code quality they likely need to slow down and do a lot of refactoring and code cleanup, and improve the testing, but there is a constant pressure to release new models because their business model is based on that. 

Only complaints are submitted, no-one is going repeatedly post "watch perfect no issues", so it is a tiny minority of all the 10's of millions of garmin watches out there. I have owned just about every model since the 'fenix 3, and have never had an issue, hardware or software.

Most users aren't really sophisticated and use only  mainstream features. I bet 90% of users don't even customize their data screens and never use navigation features. Heck, a large number of users don't even use activities. Their device usage is limited to counting steps and floors, and checking their sleep score. That doesn't mean that more rarely used features are bug free. I could probably list at least 10 bugs in navigation features alone.

For example, when I ran my last 100K race I had a pretty obvious malfunction of the Up Ahead feature when it just plain stopped working about 40-50 miles into the race. But how many users do runs that are longer than 40 or 50 miles and use custom course points with Up Ahead at the same time? I bet the number of such users is relatively tiny. And how many of them would post their issue on Garmin Forums if they run into a similar issue?

But yes, if someone uses the most basic subset of features, they would rarely run into any issues 

silentvoyager said:

I think it is an engineering culture issue. Garmin has transitioned from being a primarily hardware company where the software is secondary to a primarily software company.

Couldn’t agree more. Even some of the biggest Garmin defenders will readily state that Garmin has always been better at hardware than software. (Strangely enough, this statement is often used as a defense whenever anyone complains about software bugs, poor UI, or UX issues. IOW: “it’s ok if Garmin’s software is bad, bc everyone knows Garmin is bad at software!”)

But actually, I think Garmin’s critics and supporters are pretty unified on this point.

I will say the UX has gotten a lot better in the past few years, but there’s still a ton of issues.

silentvoyager said:

I suspect they are dealing with what is called spaghetti code - a brittle and and hard to understand code.

This is extremely obvious when:

- the same bug (or type of bug) comes and goes over the years. (i.e. nobody is surprised when a bug that was fixed in 2021 comes back in 2024)

- Garmin fixes one thing, but changes something else, causing the previous bug to come back (maybe in a slightly different form). This is a variant of the previous point

- various “edge cases” are clearly not tested. (the GC website redesign is a great example of this, with various cases where charts were displayed incorrectly on the website for certain permutations of data, while the same data displayed correctly on the mobile apps). Ofc it’s also possible to not test edge cases in the absence of spaghetti code, but both of those things reflect on the engineering culture

scarboroughjohn said:

I have owned just about every model since the 'fenix 3, and have never had an issue, hardware or software.

I wonder why DC Rainmaker reported a few years ago that Garmin had overhauled its QA processes and that they were a lot better at releasing devices free from major bugs than before.

Can’t have it both ways: “Garmin has never had any major problems” and “Garmin has made huge strides in improving their software quality”.

I bought a 935 at launch and ran into multiple issues with navigation. Spent quite some time going back and forth with product support and collecting data so I could give them precise reproduction steps. To their credit, they eventually fixed all of that stuff. I felt like an unpaid beta tester tho. I do know of at least 1 problem that was never fixed, but it’s such an esoteric use case (creating custom activity profiles) that I’m sure nobody cares.

My current 955 sometimes spontaneously crashes and reboots during an activity (such as running or basketball). This has happened a few times over a period of several months, during which time I’ve received several firmware updates. Does this happen the majority of the time or to the majority of users? No, but that doesn’t make me feel any better about it.

For some reason, any reports of problems are downplayed in the forums tho. See the same thing in user communities for other tech companies.

New Poster: I’m having super-frustrating [Problem X]. Please help!

Seasoned MVP Super Community Moderator: I’ve never seen [Problem X], there’s no way [Problem X] can be happening to you. *thread locked*

Why anecdotes about not experiencing any problems are given more weight by some than reports of problems is beyond me.

silentvoyager said:

Most users aren't really sophisticated and use only  mainstream features. I bet 90% of users don't even customize their data screens and never use navigation features. Heck, a large number of users don't even use activities.

Yeah, I know ppl who’ve been running with 5-button Garmins for years who don’t know how to open settings (hold UP), let alone customize activities. The fact that Garmin recently added a simpler and more obvious way to open activity settings (before an activity is started) kinda proves two points: Garmin’s UI/UX has historically been subpar, and most users barely scratch the surface of what their Garmin can do.

In truth, anything that can record a GPS track and sync to Strava would do, but they use Garmin bc all their running friends use Garmin.

FlowState said:

Seasoned MVP Super Community Moderator: I’ve never seen [Problem X], there’s no way [Problem X] can be happening to you. *thread locked*

,are you really sure you need that feature anyway, you might be using it wrong, it works as it should 

silentvoyager said:

I think it is an engineering culture issue

Have you worked there? How would you even know?

silentvoyager said:

Garmin has transitioned from being a primarily hardware company where the software is secondary to a primarily software company

Garmin have always engineered both the software and hardware in the products. What do you think early GPS units, aero nav, finders etc ran on?

FlowState said:

In truth, anything that can record a GPS track and sync to Strava would do, but they use Garmin bc all their running friends use Garmin.

Oh, so no one uses recovery metrics, chronic load calculations, automated workout generation, mapping and navigation, etc? All we do is just run or ride a couple of ks, post it to Strava and job done. Got it..

Lot of big opinions here with absolutely nothing to back it up. What the heck has happened to this forum.. where's the critical thinking?

I never noticed a thread been closed in this forum.

Anyway, I am a person to work around known issues. Some issues are annoying, but I use the watch in a way I know is working. The main use case for me is navigation while hiking eg 200miles over 2 weeks. I plan with Komoot and synchronisation with Garmin is good, there are even two different options which work both for me.

I am not always following the planned route and I tested an option with rerouting. It worked for a while but suddenly the remaining distance increased to something like 50000 miles. Some say it depends on the tool you are using to create the track. Annoying. But with shorter tracks based on Garmin xplore rerouting works.

I report the issues here on the forum but I don't start complaining about Garmins software engineering.

I have had a F6 which is great. Now moved to MK3. Use it for diving, hiking and gym without serious issues.

”Critical thinking is when people agree with me.”

2529455 said:

FlowState said:

In truth, anything that can record a GPS track and sync to Strava would do, but they use Garmin bc all their running friends use Garmin.

Oh, so no one uses recovery metrics, chronic load calculations, automated workout generation, mapping and navigation, etc? All we do is just run or ride a couple of ks, post it to Strava and job done. Got it..

You removed the context of that quote, where I was talking about runners who only use Garmin as a Strava syncing machine and bc their friends use Garmin. Not too different from runners who only buy Apple Watch bc it’s cool.

These are the ppl who won’t know or care about bugs — the ones that silentvoyager referred to as unsophisticated users. You can choose to take that as a slight against you or other forum users, but I didn’t intend it that way. I’ve talked to running coaches / subelite runners who openly admitted they didn’t know how to use most of the stuff on their Garmin. I’ve talked to ppl who’ve run with Garmin for years and they can’t change activity data fields.

The ppl who use even 10% of Garmin features are in the extreme minority, which is why certain bugs won’t make a ripple in the general Garmin population.

2529455 said:

Lot of big opinions here with absolutely nothing to back it up. 

Source: years of using Garmin Forerunners and being frustrated with major bugs either at release or 1.5-2 years after release, developing 3rd party Connect IQ apps, and looking at Garmin / reddit threads complaining about bugs and poor UX. I also get frustrated with various usability / design issues.

Like I said, Garmin UX has improved a lot but I still see issues. They def can’t / won’t do UX like Apple (Apple isn’t perfect either.)

Did you read where I said my 955 spontaneously crashes every now and then? Would anyone here accept that if it happened during a big race?

I also mentioned DCR — “Garmin’s Biggest Competitor Is Their Own Software Instability” (2019) (see below). If you think about it, as a sports tech blogger whose primary focus is Garmin, it’s against his interest to make negative posts about Garmin. If he was willing to post something about poor Garmin software, it must’ve been really bad. (Similarly, you never see bad product reviews from him unless something is *really* bad.)

Ofc just bc he said something, doesn’t mean it’s true. But it does suggest there is/was a *perception* of poor Garmin software quality.

I don’t have a problem with ppl saying they’re happy with their Garmin or even that they don’t have any problems. What’s super annoying is when people downplay or downright deny problems that other ppl are having, like I see right here in this thread. Anytime I say anything negative about Garmin (whether based on my own personal experience or the experience of others) I’m sure to get downvotes. It’s classic Nintendo/Sony/Xbox fanboy behavior and I really don’t get it. Do ppl really identify with Garmin as a brand?

6805874-Micha said:

Anyway, I am a person to work around known issues. Some issues are annoying, but I use the watch in a way I know is working

I’ve seen this kind of post before, as well as ppl who swear you should never update your Garmin watch after buying it, bc new updates will only bring new bugs. 

6805874-Micha said:

I report the issues here on the forum but I don't start complaining about Garmins software engineering.

Why not? Personally I don’t blame any issues on any individual engineers at Garmin, I think it’s clearly a company culture issue. (Garmin obviously has a very old school culture — I don’t work there but it’s obvious when I look at stuff like Connect IQ, which I’ve worked with extensively. Clearly they are trying to change some of that.)

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/06/competitor-software-instability.html

(Note that there's 914 comments, compared to 222 for a recent Edge review)

To the casual observer, one might assume Garmin’s biggest competitors are Apple, Fitbit, and in certain cycling circles – Wahoo. But in reality, I’d disagree. Garmin’s biggest competitor is themselves. Or more specifically, their lack of focus on solving bugs that ultimately drive consumers to their competitors. In effect, my bet is the vast majority of time a person chooses a non-Garmin product over a Garmin one is not because Garmin lost the features or price battle. It’s because that person has been bit one too many times by buggy Garmin products.

And sure – that intro paragraph might seem unfair, after all I do record the vast majority of my own workouts on Garmin products without issue. But the reality is that the ‘Garmin bugginess’ is also true, and everyone knows it. The sole reason Wahoo has slowly gained market share in cycling GPS computers isn’t because they have a technologically more feature laden or better priced product (they don’t). It’s because they have a product that seemingly has less bugs (and also as everyone points out, because you can configure your data pages via phone app).

The reason someone chooses a Suunto watch over a Garmin Fenix series watch isn’t because Suunto has more outdoors features or even better accuracy these days (they don’t). It’s because Suunto spends the time to ensure the vast majority of bugs are never seen by customers. Be it hardware or software related issues, the products are just more dependable.

Which isn’t to say these other companies are perfect. Far from it. But this isn’t a post about whataboutism. It’s not about some random bug that Apple, Wahoo, or Polar hasn’t yet fixed. Or Suunto’s site. It’s about the a cultural problem Garmin seems to have around software stability and bugs, that appears to be ‘features first, stability later’