I recently had to contact Garmin because I was having an issue with my Fenix 6 and pool swims. Sometimes the activity does not sync to Garmin connect, manual upload doesn’t work because Garmin Connect won’t recognise the .fit file and you cannot view any activity details on the watch. Had the same issue just last week and when you try view activity details on the watch it crashes to give you a screen with a blue triangle and then restarts. On other occasions they do sync but show up in the watch as a multi-sport activity - this throws off the sync to Strava and TP because it uses total time instead of swimming time as the activity time etc.
Images below of how the activity looks. Dotted line swim icon is the one that causes issues.
It took 15 days to get a response from Garmin. A copy paste response (because the format came up different in certain parts of the email) that completely missed the mark, its like they don’t even read your email?
Compare this to the multiple times I’ve had to contact Wahoo. More often than not I get a response with 48 hours, that is actually helpful and their ticket system follows up with you repetitively.
When this watch dies at some point you can be sure I’ll be looking for alternative brands. Taking recommendations.
the normal support is very bad, mostly copy & paste answers without reading you initial request,
i tried to reach them over twitter channels, now i have a good contact by mail to US Garmin Support,
because here in austria you have to contact german support, they can’t really do alot, because US are the leaders.
It looks like you have to make a full reset of your F6!
I’ve found the opposite, Garmin’s tendency to release beta products onto unsuspecting customers means their support has had to evolve to pick up the slack! How many companies do you know who would release a third generation product which still has such fundamental design flaws that their official support recommends applying baby oil with a tooth pick when changing the batteries? https://support.garmin.com/en-GB/?faq=DIq9EtNhPH0qDSoqFyZWg8
A firmware update back in Feb/March caused my Tacx Flux 2 (Garmin own Tacx no I think) to constantly drop off wattage in ERG and resistance. Garmin support by email was non existent - basically to make sure you calibrate the trainer despite me telling them I had (and do every time I ride it).
They answered the phone, but didn’t get me anywhere despite various promises. I had to do some sample rides on the Tacx software and send them the files. They are supposedly investigating and should be getting back to me…
I managed to rollback the firmware thanks to a file I got through a Facebook group, and it’s been fine ever since. Still no reply from Garmin 6 months later.
I’ve only called Garmin in the US and each time the problem was resolved quickly. Wahoo support was similar. One difference for me - feature requests were repeatedly ignored by Wahoo. I’ve had a couple feature requests implemented by Garmin.
I’ve had my share of Garmin complaints. I have had two Edge 510s and those two suckers should have been ditched years ago. They are buggy and Garmin doesn’t help because they have literally broken features multiple times over the years. My first 510 was just glacially slow to sync or slow to update. I crashed that 510 and got a refurb replacement from Garmin. Their customer service was great and $75 to replace a crash damaged out of warranty $300 computer was a good deal IMO. I’ll call my second 510 finicky. You couldn’t force it to sync over bluetooth. You had to connect it and then turn your back on it and it would do by itself 1 minute or 2 hours later.
Garmin support forums are great. At least you can get confirmation that a thousand other people have the same exact problem and that it’s not fixable until Garmin updates the firmware. It saves you a lot of time from banging your head against a wall trying to get something to work. Or, people there can give you the quick fix.
I did get a 530 and it’s awesome, glitch free, and fast. It has renewed my faith in Garmin.
I’ve only used them once and it was positive, in fact better than I expected. A response from an actual person that was timely, helpful and offered a better solution.
Garmin have been very responsive replacing my vector threes due to various problems with battery compartments, seals and alignment of the spindle to the pedal shell. One call, and a follow-up, three times.
At this point, however I have moved on to a crank-based power meter while my vector threes await necessary maintenance. But I digress - the product may be a pain, but the support has been great!
My vivoactive HR watch kinda died. 2-3 years after i bought it. There was a known seal issue. I got a refurbished replacement for free (at first they told me it would cost me $110 for a refurbished but i re-chatted with someone else and they sent it for free).
I have their cycle computer (edge 810) and now their power pedals too… hopefully i dont have to cntact them much but overall my experience with contacting them through phone or chat channels has been good to great.
Same here, and a much better bike computer than the Wahoo Bolt that I bought, tried out, and returned. My 520 was solid but not as nice. I’d probably buy the 830 if given a do over.
I am still using an ancient Edge 500. Been through many crashes! Only issue I did have a few years ago (3 rides in a row corrupted after 90 minutes) I sorted out with Google.
The sad thing is, this is still a problem. I was having some issues with connecting my Flux S to my new computer last week, so I figured I’d update the firmware on the trainer to see if that solved that issue, and it completely killed the ability to hold wattage above a certain point. It would constantly drop off. I must’ve found the same Facebook group you did as I was searching for solutions, and I had to fix it by rolling back my firmware to the version I had on there previously. I didn’t even bother contacting Garmin because in searching for information on the problem, the overwhelming majority of comments were people saying Garmin didn’t help them, with a few people saying Garmin gave them the old firmware file (which I was able to do without waiting on Garmin). I can’t even open the Tacx app on either of my computers, which is a whole separate issue, so I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have gotten much help from Garmin anyways since I wouldn’t have been able to test it using their software, which seems to be what they ask people to do first when they do help. It’s a little sad that a significant firmware issue hasn’t been resolved months later (I don’t think this one can be blamed entirely on COVID).
I’ve had nothing but good experiences with Garmin customer service.
Had a 720xt display go slightly on the edges, they replaced it no problems asked. Have a set of Vector 3 with dropouts, replaced the set of pedals no questions asked.
It saves you a lot of time from banging your head against a wall trying to get something to work. Or, people there can give you the quick fix.