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For the last 6 months I regret buying the FR965

Gogi
14 days ago

I had a Huawei watch GT2 for 3 years and it was great. It even had a microphone and speaker for hands-free calling, which came in very handy during long hikes in the hills and mountains. the accuracy of the sensors was around 85%, the GPS was solid, I paid €110 for it.

Because a friend had an FR935 watch and it was preaty the same as the GT2 and since Garmin was considered a manufacturer of watches whose sensors are considered the most accurate, I decided last January (2024) to buy an FR965 for €600. Until July, August 2024 I was very happy with the watch, accuracy of heart rate measurements, altimeter, sleep and nap detection, GPS... everything was really good and fairly accurate measurements. Then the big updates started, new functionalities were added and with each update new problems... heart rate accuracy, sleep and nap detection, altimeter accuracy, crashes.. and many other problems... why ? a watch that costs €600 and a watch manufacturer like Garmin should not be able to afford something like that. To be honest, I now regret not waiting a little longer and buying the Suunto Race S for almost half the price of the FR965.

How can I recommend a Garmin watch to anyone after all this?

@Garmin-Sierra please stop adding new functionality and focus on the stability of the watch and the accuracy of all the sensors.

  • 0 13 days ago

    100% agree. Every update is 3 new features and 15 new issues breaking things which were working fine before. I moved to Garmin for the maps, but the new Polar and Coros look great without the Garmin premium price. They need a 3 month no-new-features all-fixes-only bug bash because every time I recommend a Garmin it's a caveat-riddled recommendation with the hope that fixes are ahead, but knowing the reality is that anything non-new is effectively done for. Their software quality control is such trash even major bugs make it from beta to public, reports are made, promises are made, fixes aren't made. Garmin rest on their brand at the moment. Once Coros etc are more established then they'll become their own anachronism.

    I love my Garmin watches, but there's no way in *** my next watch will be a Garmin.

  • 0 13 days ago

    Totally agree. I had FR245 and it was great, solid and reliable sport companion. When Garmin released FR965 I decided I want something better looking and more premium and I thought it must be obvious improvement over older model, so I bought it. I was happy at first, but then Garmin started breaking the software with useless updates and now my 965 is not reliable anymore, I don't trust this watch at all. In few months Garmin changed me from great fan of the brand almost to a hater. I do not recommend Garmin anymore and I already decided to sell the watch and buy something else. I'm now evaluating alternatives and will switch soon. Overpriced and buggy Garmin - never again. 

  • 0 13 days ago

    I buy the FR965 when it's out and since then I see only updates and improvements. Of course sometimes bugs happen but are really minor issue which has never compromised the main function which is to monitor physical activity. Sometimes what is called a bug can be solved with a reboot and sometimes with a reset. This happens with computers, laptops, phones, etc. and it must be done also with your watch which is now a mini PC.

    I have also had other devices, but none have monthly updates after several years, none have a worthy assistance center and above all the activity monitoring is unmatched. This is my thought, personally I have tried Sunto, Coros and other brands, but I have returned to Garmin.

    Cheers !

  • 0 13 days ago in reply to Deiv

    And yet there's hundreds of pages of issues, some going back to release day, which haven't been fixed while new ones are added. None of these bugs can be solved with a reboot, take a look at them, they're real firmware issues which plague this and seemingly all other models, some of which will be abandoned after a few years with issues never fixed. 

  • 0 13 days ago

    1000% agree...the WHR, Nap/Sleep tracking, and reliability has gone backwards since I've owned my watch, they are literally shooting themselves in the foot...I use really none of the new features, so my watch is worse in many ways than when I bought it.

  • 0 11 days ago

    I know I'm repeating myself, but I couldn't agree more with what's been said here. I bought this watch when it was released, and it was an upgrade to my FR935 in many ways. I was so impressed with the wrist HR that I sold my strap.

    For more than a year now, things have only been getting worse. The WHR is completely useless—super laggy and never accurate. Nap detection is gone, along with other small features that no longer work. I would give up all the software features that have been added over time just to have the firmware with the great WHR back. I don't care about jet lag tracking or nap detection if the core functionalities no longer work.

    This is not a hardware issue; it’s software-related. It has been reported so many times, yet there’s no way to revert to the initial firmware, unfortunately. I stopped believing they will ever fix it.

  • 0 11 days ago in reply to reflecx

    Would you know if there is a place where we can find older firmwares + instructions for the 965?

  • 0 11 days ago

    I reboot my device daily, and the only issue I had was with a past firmware, when I could not save my location, which was solved after a full reset that I did after the backup / restore function was implemented.

    The firmware is crap, and it should not require frequent reboots, but if that is all it takes, I think you should try it.

    Maybe I am just lucky.