WI-FI type? Watch can only see 2,4GHz SSID networks, but not 5GHz ones

same here only 2.4Ghz ...WiFi from 10 years ago

There really is no reason to move to 5GHz spectrum. The chipset is more expansive, just about every router supports both, speed is not really an issue as we aren’t transferring large volumes of data and aren’t doing transfers very frequently and 2.4GHz has better connectivity/range.

expo8282 said:

speed is not really an issue as we aren’t transferring large volumes of data and aren’t doing transfers very frequently

Personally, I think a big exception to this rule is Spotify. When you add playlists / podcasts to Spotify on your watch, the app only allows you to select one playlist at a time. So if I want to sync 5 playlists (for example), I have to select the 1st playlist, wait for it to sync, select the 2nd playlist, wait for it to sync, etc. This ends up being an annoying chore which makes me hate both Spotify and Garmin.

So any time I want to add multiple playlists to Spotify, I definitely notice the slow Wi-Fi speeds. Could Spotify/Garmin fix the UX/functionality of the app so you could select multiple playlists to add at once? Yes. Will they do it? Probably not. They could also give you a way to select playlists to download on the phone app (similar to how it's done for Apple Watch), but again, they won't.

Garmin really has the opposite mindset of Apple. Apple prioritizes user experience and form over functionality (which is usually great for the average customer, but sometimes annoys power users.) Garmin absolutely prioritizes certain types of functionality (like battery life *) over user experience, which is why (I think) they don't care if your Spotify downloads are slow.

(* then again, in this case I'm not certain whether there's really any measurable battery life to be gained by only supporting 2.4 GHz, or whether they avoid supporting 5 GHz just to save money on parts.)

yes it is the reason because it's a 600 euro watch so why not have the latest tech, do you preffer to pay more and have less ? it's your choice

try to report to Garmin email etc, I always do that and of course reporting here

In general, the difference between 2.4GHz and 5GHz boils down to wireless range vs. speed. If you want better range, use 2.4 GHz. If you need higher performance or speed, use the 5GHz band.

My smartphone, for example, automatically switches (it uses 2.4Ghz when I am upstairs which is farther away).

Bye

I don't think it's about not putting "latest" tech in the watch, it's about putting most power-efficient tech considering normal use. The CPU in Garmin watches is designed to be barely efficient enough most of the time (the watch must not fail in sports real-time data analysis, but it's ok if it occasionally drops frames in transition animations, etc.). And because of that, I suspect having 5 GHz Wifi wouldn't make Spotify/map downloads much faster, because the speed of the CPU etc. could be a bottleneck, anyway.

So, if you pay Garmin, you'll get a watch with more battery life, but less processing speed. For smartwatches like Apple and Samsung, their priorities are the other way around. Often you cannot have both, because including faster hardware in the watch could increase energy consumption even if that speed is not utilized all the time.

Totally agree, well said.

You can update all playlists at once. There is an "Update downloads" button for that.

If you want to download multiple playlists at once, you can download a playlist, wait for 1-5% download on that playlist, cancel, then download next one and so on. Make sure that you have atleast one song downloaded from the playlist you want. At the end, just update all of your playlists with "Update downloads" button and your playlists will complete download all at once.

Also, if you manually update playlists one by one without using "Update downloads", there is a bug with Spotify that shows that the playlist is not updated fully but it is, it shows that it needs to update only because in that playlist is a blocked song wich you can not listen to.

Also, 5Ghz is just too fast for the CPU and storage on the watch and it consumes more power, and it has less range. 2,4Ghz is just perfect in this case, because it is enough for the CPU and storage speeds on the watch and it consumes less power.

Actually the watch can not even fully use the speed of 2,4GHz because of the CPU and storage speed limits, so it does not definitely need 5Ghz.

Adrians said:

You can update all playlists at once. There is an "Update downloads" button for that.

Yep, I know.

Adrians said:

If you want to download multiple playlists at once, you can download a playlist, wait for 1-5% download on that playlist, cancel, then download next one and so on. Make sure that you have atleast one song downloaded from the playlist you want. At the end, just update all of your playlists with "Update downloads" button and your playlists will complete download all at once.

Thank you. I think I may have done something like that in the past, and I'll definitely do it now, but I still think it's an annoying workaround that shouldn't be necessary. It still requires me to "babysit" each individual playlist transfer.

Same with the fact that it takes forever to scroll through playlists (there's a significant delay between loading each page of playlists), so I end up moving playlists to be synced to the top of the custom order in the desktop app.

Bitti said:

I don't think it's about not putting "latest" tech in the watch, it's about putting most power-efficient tech considering normal use. The CPU in Garmin watches is designed to be barely efficient enough most of the time (the watch must not fail in sports real-time data analysis, but it's ok if it occasionally drops frames in transition animations, etc.). And because of that, I suspect having 5 GHz Wifi wouldn't make Spotify/map downloads much faster, because the speed of the CPU etc. could be a bottleneck, anyway.

So, if you pay Garmin, you'll get a watch with more battery life, but less processing speed. For smartwatches like Apple and Samsung, their priorities are the other way around. Often you cannot have both, because including faster hardware in the watch could increase energy consumption even if that speed is not utilized all the time.

Adrians said:

Also, 5Ghz is just too fast for the CPU and storage on the watch and it consumes more power, and it has less range. 2,4Ghz is just perfect in this case, because it is enough for the CPU and storage speeds on the watch and it consumes less power.

Actually the watch can not even fully use the speed of 2,4GHz because of the CPU and storage speed limits, so it does not definitely need 5Ghz.

All of that is fair. I agree that Garmin prioritizes battery life over certain aspects of user experience (like speed/responsiveness.) My point about slow wi-fi was more of a blanket statement about how I do think Garmin could use faster hardware in general, but they apparently choose not to either for battery life or cost reasons.

In my specific example, they could work around their hardware limitations by writing better software (or asking Spotify to do so), but they apparently don't care. Even with the fastest wi-fi in the world, it would still be a better user experience if we could select multiple playlists to add at once.

Also, I used to have an old 630 touchscreen watch, and it was so laggy / unresponsive when scrolling the touchscreen that I didn't bother to flip data pages when I was doing hard workouts. Obviously they've improved a lot since then, but there's definitely a line where a system as a whole can be too slow for users, imo.

Off topic, but it's also kind of ironic to me that Garmin makes all kinds of UX sacrifices in the name of battery life, but they're apparently going all in on AMOLED for the sake of marketing. As nice as the AMOLED watches are, there's certain compromises compared to MIP, like the fact that you need to do a deliberate wrist gesture for AMOLED screens to go full brightness, whereas MIP is always visible in daylight. I've tried Apple Watch, and the UX is ok for the native Workout app (the screen always stays on and gestures like double tap or pressing two buttons are always recognized), but if you use a third party app, the screen goes to sleep and gestures aren't recognized (meaning you can't use the app without looking). With AMOLED Garmins, you can still use the watch without looking, but you can't quickly glance at the screen and see the information you want (e.g. instant pace during hard workout.)

Given their uncompromising obsession with battery life (one aspect that makes their devices unique), you'd think that Garmin would be take a similar stance on MIP screens and say that they can't compromise on "always active" screens (which also sets them apart from the OLED smartwatches.) I guess the difference is they can't really put that on a spec sheet, since Apple Watch is "always on" (* but sometimes the display sleeps and the controls don't respond) and the average person wouldn't know the difference or care.

I just find it funny that Garmin has a blog post about MIP displays where they explain it's a good thing that MIP lacks "distracting brightness" and "superfluous colors" and instead focuses on a readable display outdoors in daylight. Those two things which they positioned as weaknesses are the selling points of AMOLED....

[https://www.garmin.com.sg/minisite/garmin-technology/wearable-science/chroma-display/]