RIP Garmin (Read 296 times)

My Garmin FR610 has finally become unusable.

For 9,300 miles it's been my constant buddy.  1,300 hrs of listening to it beep at me.  Almost 5 years to the day.  Not bad for the $250 I paid.

Thought it might be interesting to put together a quick longitudinal review declining capabilities:

1) The touch screen sensitivity area seems to have drifted.  I can no longer touch the "bottom" of the screen . . .which makes changing settings a frustrating challenge because to get to the menu you need to touch the bottom of the screen.

2) Battery life isn't exceptional, but still good.  It more than carries me through a 3hr marathon.  Not sure if it would make it 4hrs anymore, though.

3) The water-proofing is laughable.  Biking in the rain would cause the watch to freak out.

4) The backside of the watch is pretty corroded.  This actually my second FR610, and the first one did not have this problem.

5) The final problem that made the device unusable is actually the inability to charge it.  I don't mean the battery holding the charge.  I mean the tiny contacts on the charging cradle get corroded in the Summer because of sweat.  I've done many thing to clean them as best I can.  I have two, and removed the plastic around the contacts to get better contact between watch and cradle.  This worked for a while, but eventually more plastic gave way and the contacts now "float" -- which seems to have caused a short.  I also used a C-Clamp to apply more pressure on the cradle/watch.  This worked for a while but eventually became unreliable.  Currently, after cleaning with Isopropyl Alcohol and a q-tip, and clamping, it takes about 30mins of jiggling everything for the watch to start taking a charge.  And sometimes it stops -- occasionally I'll get the "negative charge" problem where the connection is so poor it actually just drains the battery.

Before this final problem, mostly my experience with the FR610 was carefree.  Sure, there were a few minor issues, mostly frustrations getting watch to notice the Ant+ device to start a download, but a software update in the first year sorted that out.

I've loved this watch.  And if #5 wasn't a design issue, I would gladly purchase another.  I don't use 90% of the features, but the touch screen to flip between displays is really nice.

Just ordered a refurbished FR620 for $125.  Hope it lasts me just as long.

If you have a Garmin Death story, please share.

Five years is four years longer than I got out of my 610.  I returned it to Costco after a year when the screen kept shutting off mid-run.  I got a 620, then sold it on eBay after a year of frustration (got back half of what I paid, so score!).  I was an early adopter to the 620 and had so many damn problems with that thing, but it was finally stable when I sold it to get a 920 for triathloning.  If you told me 18 months ago that the 920 would be single greatest thing ever, I would have laughed, but here we are.

I had a 201 that made it 7 years or so.  I've had good life from Garmin devices.

My first was a 210. I thought it was excellent functionally - had all the features I needed, without extra unnecessary complications. The only problems were (1) after the first few months, it took forever to pick up a signal, and (2) that damn finicky charging clip. The latter was particularly frustrating, because it would connect so it charged, but the computer would not recognize it to upload data. I could never figure that out, you'd think either it was connected or it wasn't. Had to go through a convoluted process involving jiggling, disconnecting & reconnecting, every time. Anyway, both issues got pretty aggravating, but not enough to justify buying a new one. It had also frozen up a few times; had to do a hard reset, but then back to normal. Finally after something less than 2 years, it froze up for good - no sequence of pressing/holding various buttons would bring it back to life.

Bought a 220, and couldn't be happier with it. The charging base works perfectly. Still can take a while to pick up a signal, but with the internal accelerometer, I can start running without it. And the best feature is the bluetooth connectivity, to sync with the GC app on my phone & push out to RA. I hope this one lasts forever, I don't really need anything else in a running watch. If (when) it craps out, I'll probably try to buy another one rather than "upgrade". Read enough on these forums to believe that in the Garmin world, newer isn't necessarily better.

^^^ I had that same Timex.  It took forever to lock on to the GPS and I HATED the arm pod.

I had a 201 that made it 7 years or so.  I've had good life from Garmin devices.

My 201 has been pretty reliable. I've had it since 2003 and it's still going strong though I didn't use it regularly until 2010—and that primarily on my bike. So far a minimum of 526 uses and 538 hours. (It's been used on more runs and rides, but I don't have a way to calculate the complete usage.)

It's a kind of a pain to upload the data though. I have to keep around an old computer with a serial port.

 

 

Just ordered a refurbished FR620 for $125.  Hope it lasts me just as long.

 

I had a 610, loved it until it started to freeze during runs. I think it was because of my foot pod's battery being low. It only happened indoors. But with Boston coming up (2016) I didn't want to risk it NOT being a foot pod issue. Bought a 620 on huge discount (the 630 was out), sold the 610. It's still going I hear. The guy never had an issue with it.

I think you're going to prefer the 620. I do.