Garmin Fenix 3HR: 1-star Review
I've had my pre-order in since it was announced at CES and could not wait to get it. Now that I've had it for 36 hours, done a bunch of workouts that I have a years+ data on, and spent quite a bit of time on the phone with Garmin tech support (who are always great), I'm about 50/50 on returning it.
My workout breaks down like this: 10,000+ steps a day, 1-2 hours a day (more on the weekend) on a bike (17+ mph) and running 1-3 days a week. I have been using a Fitbit for 14 months and have lost 60 lbs with it's help. I decided to reward myself with the Fenix 3HR and stop wearing the Fitbit One and my HR strap since it was starting to aggravate my skin. I also have a Garmin Edge 810 on my bike, which I love.
Here are the problems (for a cyclist):
1. BROADCAST MODE: Fenix 3HR does NOT talk to the Garmin Edge 810 or share data, despite sending all that date back to Garmin Connect software, EXCEPT if you put the Fenix 3HR is "HR Broadcast Mode". When in this mode the Fenix 3 will send your HR to the Edge 810 (and is about 15bpm lower than the chest strap) but you can NOT do anything else with the watch. It's stuck just showing you the HR/time and can not be switched to any other mode. For my this defeats the point of having the HR version of this watch, and yes I can wear the chest strap if I care, but one of the selling points was not having too.
2. BIKE RIDE DATA: The Fenix 3HR has a function to record your ride, but again, it does not talk to the Garmin 810 and can not be used in any other mode while you are recording your ride. You also can not put the watch in both Broadcast mode and Ride at the same time, which was a trouble shooting idea from Garmin to let both devices record the ride and delete one when done. So, if don't have a bike computer and don't mind looking at your wrist to check your data, then none of this will be a problem for you. However, I ride in a pretty fast group ride and I like to monitor all that data in real time and don't want to take my wrist off the bars and look down/scroll through functions while riding.
3. RUNNING: This is where this watch is better for me. I like being able to glance at my wrist to check data (vs. looking at my phone) and being able to check messages and control my music.
4. NOTIFICATIONS, ETC: The smart-watch aspect of the Fenix 3HR is nice, and I don't care about the button usage rather than a touch screen, but all of that could be had in a much less expensive watch. As for the other aspects of the watch, the Fitbit style functions are nice as are the clock faces you can download. The vibrating alarm is great for getting up in the morning without waking my wife, and it fits well. But again, all that is available on watches that are 1/2 the cost of this one. At the end of the day I think it comes down to what you do with this watch. I don't golf, hike, open water swim, or any of the other functions that this watch has, so I can't speak to those. But as an avid road cyclist it really fails. I'm going to give it a few more rides over the weekend, but odds are that I'm going to return it and buy something much less expensive.
--UPDATE-- 3/30/16 I have now spent HOURS on the phone with Garmin because the watch will not sync to my Android phone and was told "this is a known issue with the Android Marshmallow operating system, no solutions are offered at this time". So basically to get my data I have to plug it in to the computer. If I forget it dumps all my data at midnight off the watch and it's gone forever. Great. Also, in "Bike mode" the watch just stops recording and goes back to being a watch randomly, once again dumping all the data. This watch is not ready for prime time, and is a 2nd gen? My phone does a better job recording everything, and my wife's $70 Fitbit is a better activity tracker.
--UPDATE-- 3/31/2016 after receiving a Beta OS update from Garmin and uploading it my watch still does basically nothing except tell time (see all comments above) and I sent another Email to Garmin letting them know. I then received this email, which I called to confirm, and yes, they are saying that at this time the Fenix 3HR does NOT work with Android. "Thank you for getting back with us at Garmin International. The issue you are experiencing is a software issue and we are looking into it. Any new device you get from Garmin will have the same software so the same issue. Thank you for providing us with more information and we will get back to you once we got a fix."
--UPDATE-- 4/1/16 This morning I got another update from Garmin and Android and it seems like the watch is working as advertised. I guess I will give it another week and see how it pans out, but this seems like a crazy way to launch a product, especially a 2nd gen $600 product!
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