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235: The good, the bad and the ugly

Former Member
Former Member over 9 years ago
Hi everyone,

I'm writing to share with you my first experiences with the 235 and see if some of you have observed something similar.

The good: It is a nice looking watch with great GPS accuracy

The bad: 4 days after getting it - and while everything worked perfectly, the battery fell below 15% (that was a surprise given that there was only one 45' activity involved) and the watch froze. I managed to do a hard master reset (following the instructions applicable to 220) and on the following easy run, 5' into it, the HR sky rocketed for the remaining 40' of the run (with a max HR in the neighborhood of 170, the watch indicated values between 180 and 210 - no repositioning helped the situation). Also sleep tracking (but not step tracking) is down the drain.

The ugly: What else - the promised virtual racer/pacer features that are not there.

Now, I will revert back to my Shosche Rhythm+ until Garmin decides to upgrade the 235 firmware and hoping that this will resolve the bad issues.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    I experienced another bug (i think)

    Using the 3.10 firmware, it was a bit unclear to me where pressing the "start" button actually means... start.

    Selected "running" ("hardlopen" in dutch), again "running", and then on the data screen one final push on start.

    Started running, but the green "play" symbol didn't appear, and the numbers stayed at 0. Just when I was about to press for stopping the excercise the numbers started appearing. Stopped the exercise, started again, same problem. (I stopped because I wasn't entirely sure everything would be registered correctly)

    I rebooted the watch, and then everything worked fine. Occured only once in four runs.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    14029

    I have picked up my watch on Wednesday afternoon, and had a full charge on that in the event. I only set the bt on and connected to my phone, but with the DND mode on thou, at night for 7 hours. When I woke up in the morning, I saw the battery was down from 100% to 72%. that was a very surprise to me.

    I had a run with the watch for 1 hr and the battery life went down to 56%. I have the HRM on 24/7 and step counters on too.

    my watch shows it is 44% this morning, and i am trying to have a full charge of it again, and i will leave it charging for extra hour even it gets to 100% (that is what I normally did on my 225); and will see how things turn out again.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    419

    Got mine today and it froze had to do hard reset.

    Now the heart rate monitor is just stuck on 66 no matter what I do. Someone on DC Rainmaker said theirs also stuck on 66.

    Will try the new beta firmware when I am back later.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    How are you all getting a number value for the battery remaining? Is it displayed somewhere on the Garmin or are you using something in Connect IQ?
  • 0 over 9 years ago
    How are you all getting a number value for the battery remaining? Is it displayed somewhere on the Garmin or are you using something in Connect IQ?


    It shows you the charge percentage on the screen when you are charging it.

    Some CIQ watch faces and data fields will show it as well.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    I experienced another bug (i think)

    Using the 3.10 firmware, it was a bit unclear to me where pressing the "start" button actually means... start.

    Selected "running" ("hardlopen" in dutch), again "running", and then on the data screen one final push on start.

    Started running, but the green "play" symbol didn't appear, and the numbers stayed at 0. Just when I was about to press for stopping the excercise the numbers started appearing. Stopped the exercise, started again, same problem. (I stopped because I wasn't entirely sure everything would be registered correctly)

    I rebooted the watch, and then everything worked fine. Occured only once in four runs.


    Waiting for GPS to connect first before giving the green play??
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    Got mine today and it froze had to do hard reset.

    Now the heart rate monitor is just stuck on 66 no matter what I do. Someone on DC Rainmaker said theirs also stuck on 66.

    Will try the new beta firmware when I am back later.


    No joy with the new firmware. It says 66 but only on the heart rate screen when not in activity. In activity it shows no heart rate at all.

    It's going back I think for a swap.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    Glass(plastic) not centered

    Hi, just got my 235 today and noticed the screen was not centered. I can put a fingernail down the bottom side of the watch, but the top half is tightly against the bezel. Anyone else with this problem? I expect more from a $330 watch. It just feels cheap to me.
  • 0 over 9 years ago
    My turn

    First run with the 235. I didn't think to check the firmware version before heading out and only found out afterwards that it was on 2.40. Oh well, it will give me a point of comparison after the next run:

    The Good: Better looking than the 225, band much better, barely there feel to it. The larger screen is great for my 50+ year old eyes, I'll have to wait until Monday to get a better idea of how effective the backlight is/isn't. The alerts are louder than the 225 and the vibration about the same.

    The Bad: The only real complaint right now is that the menu system seems too complicated, but that might just be a matter of getting used to change. There seems to be a bit of lag in the response after pushing a button when working in the settings and other menu screens.

    The Ugly: Spikeyness of the optical HRM. If you're just looking for idea of what your average HR is over the course of a run it's OK, but trying to run within a specific, narrow HR range forget it right now. I'm doing a 6 week base building phase where I'm trying to stay under 140bpm (except on hills) where I set a high heart rate alert for 140. I did that with this watch and I was getting spikes of 146 while going down hill and when the alert screen went away the current HR screen would be at 135-136. When I went back and looked at the data afterward sometimes it was dropping back down into the 120's after the spikes.

    Overall, once I get the hang of the new menu's the only thing that I have to complain about is getting some smoothing of HR data from the optical sensor. Of course since I've only taken the dog for a walk and done one 6.5 mile run I can't speak to the battery life yet, but I'll post a follow up on that after a weekends worth of use.

    Edit: Why is the charging cable half the length of my 3 pervious Garmin watches? Makes it almost useless.
  • 0 over 9 years ago
    Hi, just got my 235 today and noticed the screen was not centered. I can put a fingernail down the bottom side of the watch, but the top half is tightly against the bezel. Anyone else with this problem? I expect more from a $330 watch. It just feels cheap to me.


    Sounds like high manufacturing tolerances. While I don't have the issue you describe, my face does not sit flush on the watch. When looking at the screen from a side/profile view (i.e., looking directly towards buttons), the 12 o'clock end is slightly raised while the 6 o'clock end is flush with the case. I can press it to make it flush but it doesn't stay that way.

    That said, this is the only complaint I have about build quality thus far (coming from an F3)