Update 19.18 looks like a joke

Firmware has been buggy for me since the start, a year ago. Most bugs I now have might fall in the category “annoyances”, but it’s also the way garmin responds to bug reports. It’s next to impossible to have garmin investigate a bug. Here on the forum they are ignored, on the beta forum they are either ignored or rejected as too old to look into. If I mail to [email protected] I end up at dutch garmin support. They are the worst. And there is the “suggest ideas” webpage, some garmin employees tell you to use for reporting bugs, we all know that’s just a black hole nobody looks at.

And about reviews. I stopped looking at them. The well known ones have a bit of bias towards garmin. You can see that at the way they talk about products. They mitigate garmin problems and ridicule problems of other brands.

I'm using my watch since July 2023 and from the beginning it was very okay, seemed stable, very convincing - i was happy with it. But currently it's most likely a joke. Even today I had to stop during running, cause AGAIN my heart rate locked at 120-125bpm? After stopping running, stopping activity and taking off my watch I noticed that the green light is... absent. It wasn't measuring nothing... My HR chart below - at about 6:40 minutes into activity I stopped. What helped (for now) I turned off everything off - I mean sensors, headphones etc. Only left connection with my phone.

I am very unhappy currently with performance of my FR965 and don't see any solution for making It better. Maybe I'll wait for next update or just sell this watch. For now I have feelings that I have an overpriced "kickstarter" watch and not a professional training tool what I was looking for.

Seraph

Thank you for sharing, and I'm very sorry to read about this! We've been investigating OHR concerns during activities, and I'm happy to add you to our report. You can also follow the main FR 965 thread regarding this HERE.

Please also see the troubleshooting steps from I Am Missing Wellness Data in My Garmin Connect Account regarding Body Battery not syncing.

We would need permission to view your Connect account to look further into the other concerns you listed. May I have permission to view your account and reach you via email to further investigate?

Hello Garmin-Sierra

Yes, Your have my permission to view my Connect account.

Yes, please contact me via email.

In case of lacking data from body battery I looked at troubleshooting and none of those paragraphs match. Watch was synced whole time with my phone, and for even funnier further events

1) Data was missing in mobile version of Connect 

2) Correct data was displayed correctly on web version of Connect, but only on main page. When entering to details of Body Battery again data was missing.

I am experiencing the same issues as Seraph regarding the heart rate problem and metrics that can no longer be trusted since this upgrade.

Additionally, some functionalities have changed for no apparent reason, such as call notification vibrations, which now only vibrate twice instead of continuously, with no option to revert to the previous behavior.

I do not understand why Garmin keeps releasing upgrades that break a product that was working really well before, just to add useless new functionalities. This is a shame for such an expensive product.

I am very disappointed and am increasingly considering switching from Garmin to another brand.

Yes, it;s a bit sad that some of those functionalities changed and are worse in my opinion. 

Like incoming call - only twice vibrates and then You don't know if caller ended call or Yours phone answered it by accident... ahh frustrating.

SMS/text messages - I loved option to select "mark as read" on my watch if something unimportant came. Now it's gone and only useless option to "open conversation" came... which is useless. "Dismiss" doesn't gets job done as i need to open message on my phone anyways. 

Very sad, that those two functionalities are broken/gone.

And garmin removed the location from the weather widget. Now you cannot see how relevant the weather forecast is on your watch. 

And none of these changes are mentioned in the release notes. Either garmin developers don’t care at all or these changes where not intended to happen. I heard Garmin-Sierra tell the change in incoming call vibration was on purpose, so garmin developers couldn’t be bothered putting it in the release notes. (These changes are unwanted! Turn them back!)

It’s the attitude of garmin that bothers me the most. Bugs happen. How fast you fix them counts. But garmin doesn’t show any interest in fixing bugs.

I due for a new bike computer. Requirement #1, not a garmin. (But I think some hardcore garmin fanboys wouldn’t mind)

About the text message actions on the watch: at least if you have a Garmin watch, those options are taken from the notification options on the phone notification. Has a messaging app update changed those on your phone? Or maybe a phone firmware update has changed how notifications are grouped, and that has changed the watch options?

I'm not saying those are the reason, but could be worth checking. Compared to watches from phone manufacturers, Garmin can only do what the phone notification allows it to do.

I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the watch update. Because on previous software version it was working and disappeared right after the update to 19.18. my messaging app didn't change a lot - last update is from 10.06. and whole the time there is an option to "mark as read" even on phone lock screen. 

When was the Garmin Connect Mobile app on your phone last updated? Because it wouldn't make sense to use watch's resources to select the options (which work even differently with Android and Apple). But the phone app definitely has to do it...