I thought the 735 was waterproof?

Same happened to me with my FR630, after 6 months happy with it. But just taking a few showers, not swimming.
Got a new one as replacement until warranty from Garmin.

Not again!

Okay so I had a swimming lesson tonight and left my replacement watch on in the poll. The same thing has happened again, water has somehow got into the watch and it's now dead again. Absolutely fuming. How come nobody else has had this issue and I have a 100% failiure rate. Very poor Garmin

Have had my garmin since Feb and used it daily. Has been great until a couple of days ago, had a shower like usual but the screen is black and when i try and turn it on it is jibberish and not a full screen of colour. How do i get it replaced with a non faulty one.

This definitely should not be happening! I have had mine for 6 months, and swim almost daily. Recently I noticed several hours after swimming that when I push a button, water drips out. I don't remember it doing that before, but I am not sure if the seals are meant to keep the water out of the button gaps or between the button and unit. I never push a button while the watch is submerged as per instruction manual. Works fine in any case.

but I am not sure if the seals are meant to keep the water out of the button gaps or between the button and unit.

There are no seals between the plastic outer shell of the button and the unit case. This is why water gets in between and then drips out. The inner button itself, however, should be sealed to some degree, but in case of most of garmin devices the waterproofing of buttons is not very impressive (I saw once a dissasembled Fenix 3 and was supprised on how the buttons were mechanically constructed). This is why increased water pressure should be avoided and why pressing buttons while submerged should be avoided. And even if you observe all the precautions failures will happen occasionally. This is no g-shock, mind you.

I never push a button while the watch is submerged as per instruction manual. Works fine in any case.

My theory is that this would be the main reason of damage for those people who tend to kill one garmin after another. I know users who were not aware that pressing buttons under water is something to avoid.

There are no seals between the plastic outer shell of the button and the unit case. This is why water gets in between and then drips out. The inner button itself, however, should be sealed to some degree, but in case of most of garmin devices the waterproofing of buttons is not very impressive (I saw once a dissasembled Fenix 3 and was supprised on how the buttons were mechanically constructed). This is why increased water pressure should be avoided and why pressing buttons while submerged should be avoided. And even if you observe all the precautions failures will happen occasionally. This is no g-shock, mind you.



My theory is that this would be the main reason of damage for those people who tend to kill one garmin after another. I know users who were not aware that pressing buttons under water is something to avoid.

Interesting. I agree it is no g-shock! ;-)

Yes, I can imagine many people don't know about the button pushing underwater caution in the manual. I was happy when Garmin added the countdown timer (like the 5 year old Garmin Swim technology) to start intervals as this makes it easy to avoid inadvertently doing do.

I had this same problem today. I have been mostly running and decided next year to do a triathlon, so started swimming, and first swim session the screen went black after I got out. It still appeared to be working, just nothing was displaying on the screen.

Well, press no buttons under water But what about coming out of the water and press lap button for cycling? The watch is still wet.

The watch is still wet, but there is no water pressure, so it should be safe to press buttons when the watch is wet but out of water. I do it all the time and my FR735XT is fine so far.