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Top ten of VA3 bugs by severity. FW 3.50

1. Battery bug - rapid energy loss immediately after charging (don't matter how long and how full). Workaround - missing / not known - IMHO software bug

2. Sporadic loss of sensors during activity (Reset sensor hub) fills like all 10 minutes when watch is connected to external sensors (clarified by had746) Workaround - missing / not known

3. Mad barometric altimeter / floors counter - bad programmed?

4. Strange behavior of moveIQ - no effect on the amount of activity minutes, Running indoors started automatically leads to autosaving after pause and hung (rotating circles and word "saving"). Only reset (long press) helps. It seems to me that this function is not fully programmed/designed.

5. Weak precision of GPS tracking - can be much better. It's a really Garmin?

6. During a training, the countdown timer resets after an auto lap is triggered (see topic #4) I think the problem lies deeper - many developers of wigets, datafields have already complained that access to certain "system" data is closed - for example, the widget can not read some data - whether the watch is charging or not - it is an OS function and access is denied to it. I'm afraid the same with the timers. Which, of course, wrong security design. You can start the watch with a bad programmed WatchFace and trap in to boot loop.

7. Activity App overload CPU? I was indoor tracking to control my cadence - on the parkingfloor is quite dark and if I lifted my hand to look at the clock, the lighting lit up with a delay of perhaps 3 to 5 seconds. Practically useless function with such a delay - the lighting was lit when I was already lowering my hand.

...

what do you say, dear forum users - add, if I forgot something.

N.B. I really want to use the clock - I like the design, I like the declared functionality - provided they work as expected.

0 had746 over 7 years ago

I have problems with GPS spikes and sensor hub resets when watch is connected to external sensors. I don't have any problems with battery bug, barometric altimeter/floors counter and strange behavior of move IQ, those things work fine for me.

0 NomekSan over 7 years ago

I agree with those points and have one to add what was described by another user and me after that:

During a training, the countdown timer resets after an auto lap is triggered. The overall training timer runs correct in the background and changes to the next step correctly but the displayed timer resets after every lap so you are not able to see how much time remains instead of looking at the elapsed time on the next page.

Edit: The issue with the training timer, for me, has nothing to do with 3rd party apps. It was the built in training function and I confirmed today that it really does reset with the auto-lap triggering.

Another thing I forgot: The intensity minutes count is really off. A few days ago I did the same bike ride as today. That time I got about 160minutes, today I got zero. I even hard resettet the watch before.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

what do you say, dear forum users - add, if I forgot something

8 through 10 of your top ten. :cool:

0 jim_m_58 over 7 years ago

When you do find things, be sure to contact support, as that way things get fed into the system, and when you post about things, if support gave you a tracking number, include that in posts so others can also contact support and add a "I see the same" to a problem. (that can help with priorities)

This is primarily a user-to-user forum, and you want to make sure things have been reported.

0 NomekSan over 7 years ago

Another thing I described in this post:
https://forums.garmin.com/forum/into-sports/health-fitness/vivoactive-3-aa/1352495-step-statistic-looses-data-on-watch-does-not-get-synchronized
Some days in my steps history get "deleted" and are beeing shown as 0 steps. The data is kpet in Connect however.

I will feed my issues so far to support. I thought that Garmin sometimes checks the forums for bugs.

0 jim_m_58 over 7 years ago

Garmin will catch some things posted in the forum, but to make sure, contact support.

0 All_toss over 7 years ago

From how I see it - all of these are the glaring indicator of the root of the problem. Watch has some hardware deficiencies. My bet is on power supply (problem 1) - during using much of a radio (use of external sensors), internal optical HR, broadcasting HR, GPS and some processing of it - power surges and watch resets (problem 2). Once it resets - of course sensors (including GPS and pressure) are thrown off - thus 3 and 5 evident. And since Garmin tries to solve (read hide) this problem for a while already (problem made itself apparent half a year ago) - with different techniques, including throttling - thus 7.

This way I believe only 4 and 6 (MoveIQ and autolap timer) problems that we can hope could be resolved. Others - just masked, as already seen for oHR - during sensors reset Heart rate used to drop to 0 in earlier versions, now it drops to 70(ish, I am sure they use some odd number like 69 or 71), so it takes quicker to ramp up and less noticeable in general. But covering up - is not fixing.

I still hold hope that I am wrong and all that is fixable. I still like idea of this watch for what it's worth - everyday style design, plenty of smarts yet a lot of sports.
Your turn, Garmin.

0 NomekSan over 7 years ago

As I understood it from the Forums, there was a time on the VA3 without the HR issues. Thatt would indicate a SW problem for me. Even if not, they could take their value of 70bpm and change it to the average of the last 5 datapoints or whatever as start value. That would smooth out the drop significantly.
It would still be incorrect but it would barely be noticable, at least for more HR steady sports and to be honest: If I decide for a VA3 instad of a Forerunner or Fenix, I do not need exact data (and am not able to interpret this correctly and adjust my training accordingly) because most likely I am just at the beginning to get more into it and I want to get a feel for it. Crunching numbers comes later and at that time most likely a better, more expensive watch. At least that is the case for me.

0 global_local over 7 years ago

....This is primarily a user-to-user forum, and you want to make sure things have been reported.

Full ACK.
I contacted the support on May 14 about problem 4 - hung on saving. No response so far, just a confirmation of the email receipt. But! Yesterday's sensor update to 4.40 seems to have solved this problem :) The update seems to have brought other problems - huge GPS spikes and today I got holes in my cadence at my lunch run in the parking lot (sensor reset?). Now I do not know if a new patch is better than the old problem.