e-mail sent to Garmin support:
“Good Afternoon,
I return to your contact because, until yesterday, the middle button was not working at all, but I could use the watch partially for my workouts.
As of yesterday my swim2 hibernated (apparently forever) - soon it stopped working!
When I charge it, it turns on the battery signal for 1s and turns off immediately.
Let me give a summary of the history of my swim2 to better understand the quality and reliability that Garmin is selling, through these Swim2 units:
- Delivery of my unit through amazon.de- 6 Nov 2020
- I start using the unit in sea and pool training - 7 Nov 2020
- The unit has a shutdown during a pool workout recorded on the watch- 27 May 2021- 6 months of use (228k workouts in the water)
- I contacted Garmin support- they told me to reset the unit without giving any explanation for what happened- so I did- 27 May 2021- 6 months of use
(May 21, 2021- the same shutdown had happened but I didn’t contact Garmin)
- The unit again has a shutdown during a pool workout recorded on the watch- 17 April 2023- 29 months of use (744k of water workouts)
- I contacted Garmin support- they told me again to reset the unit without giving any explanation for what happened- so I did it And also this feed-back “Otherwise, and if you are in mainland Portugal, the price to send it to our facilities would be €104.21 with a three-year warranty.” That is, they suggest resetting the unit again and if the problem continues they sell (note that at this time the warranty was expired) a refurbished unit for 104€ (my new unit cost 160€)- 17 April 2023- 29 months of use
- I contact Garmin support again because the up button was not working properly. First the screen was jumping between menus without me pressing any button- I realized that the up button should be inside. So I put the watch in warm water for 15min- this time the button does not have this behavior but also does not react. When I push it does not react- 6 August 2023- 33 months of use (866k training in the water)
- Garmin proposes (as they had done in April 2023) the sale of a unit (reconditioned?) For 104€ ( 65% of the cost of the new unit)-6 August 2023- 33 months of use (866k of training in the water)
Reinforcement, as I have written several times, this unit has done 972 km in the sea and pool. It has always been treated with great care - always placed in running water after each workout.
During the warranty period, Garmin never proposed that the unit be inspected or exchanged for another - when already at this time shutdowns were frequent.
Therefore, Garmin’s behavior from the beginning - when the unit had several reported shutdowns - was to push the problem as much as possible to a time when the warranty was expired and thus propose the sale of another refurbished unit and at an uncompetitive cost.”
Garmin answer:
unit has not shown any unusual behavior during warranty period so we will not support any customer service on the unit, besides a supply of a refurbished unit for 104€
Bottom line: if you want a unit for heavy swim (average 10-15k/ week) only do not buy swim2- this unit is only for ocasional swimmers