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I lost faith in Garmin

Nikage127
12 days ago

On 6/6/2022 i decided to change my vivoactive 4 with a garmin forerunner 955 solar. I would run my first Marathon here in Greece and i wanted to make an investment and thats what i did. I couldnt be happier with the watch and i was mainly using it for running/hiking and sleep data (also managed to do a sub 4 first marathon, yay me!)

The watch even though its been 2.5 years since i bought it, hasnt even fallen from my hands, i was wearing it at all times (except when i was swimming) and i never had any issue with it. 4/5 days ago i get a prompt to update it to 21.19 and i connected it with my PC to do it through garmin express. So after the update (and a big map update) my watch has been freezing continiusly and especially when i sleep. Sometimes i have to connect it to a power source and try holding the power button for 3/4 times for 60 seconds before it comes back.

I spoke with Garmin Support and a guy called Brian in North America (very polite and professional) using the chat in Garmin.com. I told him that i tried everyhting, reseting, restoring to deffaults, deleting all external apps/watchfaces and he told me that the watch looks like it got updated correctly and i might need a replacement although he cannot arrange it and i need to contact Garmin Support here in Greece.

So i spoke with Greece support and they told me that it sounds like a hardware issue (how? everyhting happened after i got the latest update!!) and the only option i have is to pay 205 euros (half the price to buy a new forerunner 955 here!!) to get a refurbished one (!!!!).

Investing 600 euros back then and 2.5 years later (6 months after the warranty expired...), after treating the watch in the best way possible (theres not even a single scratch on it) i have to pay another 200 euros to get a identical refubrished watch with 3 months of warranty.

I am beyond dissapointed with Garmin! I decided to move to Coros and never look back!

  • 0 4 days ago

    Hi, I have similar issues. Garmin Forerunner 955 display often freezes since the latest software update. Resetting etc. all did not work. I also recognize a lot more battery usage when the display freezes. I think it is a software issue. Last night the display froze again with light on and the Garmin symbol (blue triangle) on the screen. It is frustrating. Spoke with Garmin Support in Germany. I then resetted the watch, then no problems for 4 days, but last night it happened again. 

  • 0 4 days ago

    Hi, I have same problem. Since the last update 21.19 my watch freezes sometimes (mostly during the night) and looses signifcant battery. I have tried all, reset etc. Up to know nothing works. 

  • 0 1 day ago in reply to schaeferseb

    welcome to the club, i've been trying everything for 3 weeks straight, nothing works for my case.

  • 0 1 day ago

    If I contact dutch garmin support with the many software bugs I experience with my expensive forerunner 965, they always call it a hardware problem and insist I have to send in my watch. I already got a brand new one, and that one I send in for checkup. Garmin claims they send a refurbished one, the second time, but it had the same serial number. When I confronted them with that, they quickly changed to story that they checked the watch and it was ok. 

    But I still have loads of bugs. Now garmin wants me to send in the watch again, but this time a supervisor will do the checkup.

    I told them, it’s not hardware related and asked if they are willing to consider the possibility that the problems are firmware related and developers should fix the bugs. Since then, they don’t react at all.

    Garmin support is ok with hardware failures but lousy with software bugs.

    My previous watch, a forerunner 935 was ok. It had some bugs, but overall was ok. My expensive 965 is super buggy and all garmin does in firmware updates is adding useless functions and annoyances (like the forces voices with tbt navigation)

    Garmin firmware is really half baked and their watches have become overpriced.

    A suunto race s might be just as buggy, but at least you pay about half what a garmin costs. And since I’m not into overquantifying my life, I won’t miss all the marketing metrics a garmin produces.

  • 0 1 day ago in reply to Elbo

    Garmin is simply atrocious when it comes to software. Having too many SKUs to maintain is taking a toll. I wish they simply refrain from adding features and instead focus on polishing existing ones to work as advertised. And yet they insist on releasing new builds every month with new features and a lot of bugs that were all known in development and beta-testing. So sick and tired, my next watch will not be Garmin for sure. Too old for the sh1t...

  • 0 1 day ago in reply to 4955375

    I think garmin sells a lot of watches to people who want more and more features. I hear a lot of people claiming garmin is better because it has more features. 

    I guess the way I use my watch is not the best way to use a garmin watch. I really don’t care the sunsetwidget now has 4 data screens, but I do care about navigation and for me, that’s a mess garmin refuses to fix. 

  • 0 1 day ago in reply to Elbo

    I believe those wanting more features have already made their choice towards Apple Watch and their equivalents from Samsung, Goggle and the likes. Even Garmin has the Vivoactive and Venu lines, which are geared towards the smartwatch crowd. I still believe that specialized sport watches like the Forerunner should be more focused on reliability instead of every feature under the sun that few use but cause a lot of issues.