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Any help and advice before I send this back for a refund?

Mitch Peplow
over 2 years ago

Hi all,

Got a bit of an issue with my wife's Venue SQ.

To be honest, she's had issues with it since day one but I convinced here to persevere with it and the pumps would iron out as the watch 'bedded it'. Alas, she's starting to see through my smoke and mirrors Grin

Biggest issues we've had recently are these:

  1. Battery life is completely random, could be hours, could be days, regardless of use or from a full charge. Had it go from 100% to 2% when off wrist in like 2 hours one day, another day it went from 90% to 4% instantly then shot back up to 80%?

  2. The time is wrong on the watch and won't update no matter what you do, then randomly it will update to the correct time, and not at say midnight or when it sync'd

  3.  Watch freezes and needs a hard reboot to get it active again

Now this could well be a software issue, but when I check on GCM, there's no option to check for a software update like there is when I check on GCM for my Garmin watch (I have the Instinct Solar 2)?. If I check on the watch, it states v4.2, then if I check for updates it seems to connect to GCM but then just returns to the update page and no message is displayed either on the watch or the phone, yet online it seems like there is a software update available? Can somebody confirm what the latest software version is?

Also, in Explore, the watch is found, but it says it's not supported. Why is the Venu SQ not a supported device as you can also check for software updates and change the settings through Explore rather than GCM which I find easier sometimes.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to m4dx

    I am talking about the setting on my phone that doesn't allow updates and the one you showed.  My watch only updates when it is connected to the PC so I think it works well enough to serve my purpose.  There is a setting under the system settings that one can check and run updates, my watch does nothing.  Maybe, my watch is broken and I just think it works, but no updates unless I plug it in to the PC.

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    may wanna contact support. this is my 2nd garmin venu sq after using for a year plus that the battery drains to 10% over one day.

    have the watch looked at by Garmin support, replace or refund.

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    I'm on my first day with a new Venu SQ, my fifth Garmin watch, and my experience is consistent with your wife's:

    It's a *** product.

    Even compared to every other Garmin watch I've owned, it's completely unsatisfactory. It's very pretty, and has many features I like. But the features don't work consistently, the performance is sluggish and response to my actions is mushy. Even features I also use frequently on my Garmin Vivoactive 3 work poorly on the Venu SQ (Garmin Pay, especially).

    I've been generally happy with previous Garmin watches I've owned. This one is a dog.

    I'm giving this unit another day or so to put it through its paces, but it's looking highly likely that I'm sending this back for a refund.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to BillD500

    So the Garmin site automatically censors curse words describing their product. ("It's a s*** product"). Hmm. I guess that happens so often they need to automate it.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to BillD500

    Joy That made me laugh

    I'm still in two minds as to what to do. The wife has said it's settled down and the battery has started to regain capacity (clearly not physically, something software wise is afoot), so for now she's happy, but I know it's only a matter of time before something else happens, at which point I may just buy her an Apple watch and have done with it. I'll stick with Garmin though Relaxed

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Mitch Peplow

    FWIW, I've hung in with the SQ for 2 days now, and my no-good-very-bad out-of-box experience has become less bad. There are still some annoyances I'm sorting out. I figure on a rest day today, a run tomorrow, then evaluate. Garmin Pay is not reliable on the SQ yet, not as reliable as it was on my Vivoactive 3, but maybe that will settle out. If I had only had my Day One experience to go on, I'd have sent it back. Still want to see whether a brand-new SQ delivers better battery life than my 2 1/2 year old Vivoactive 3. 

    The odd thing about battery level is that devices calculate it for you, and they're not always right. I sometimes suspect that device makers are gaming that somehow. Yes, I know that's paranoid.