The uselessness of a Fenix 6X -> less useless after some help of STers

Oct 14, 19 11:01

Post #1 of 28 (6702 views)

Had to buy a new watch here in Kona after my Fenix 3 died: I decided again for a Garmin and bought a Fenix 6X from which I expected improvements because of the larger screen inter alia.

Already my Fenix 3 had the problem, as the Fenix 6X, that you have to wait before open water swimming until the GPS says ok, because otherwise he does not notice the distance at all, during the whole swim.
So I put the watch in triathlon mode and the swim screen came up and the GPS was found rather quickly and the watch waited for the start button push.
The case here in Kona is though, that you have to swim to the startline which costs several minutes. The Garmin software- developers are than so "smart", that they notice you do not press the button directly so the watch started to display some bloody messages at the start which I had to push away, I was happy the swim screen came back and by pressing "start" the watch started,
So far so good? No. Of course it had lost its GPS so it did not measure the distance of the swim. After a 4 minute transition the watch picked up the GPS not only before about 3 minutes on the bike.
So I would say the watch is rather useless in triathlon-mode, just because the software-developers try to be smarter than the user.

Analogue watch face:
The "second hand" (which shows the seconds) disappears after 30s, to "save energy". I do not want this, so the analogue watch faces are not usable for me (this "intelligent" supportive thinking of the software developers was not there with the fenix 3, so this is a clear deterioration).

Ok maybe I am stupid and just do not know the settings to solve these problems, although I tried around for several hours.

A sports-watch rather useless for triathlon with irritating analogue watch faces leaves me rather frustrated.

Last edited by: longtrousers: Oct 14, 19 16:48

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [longtrousers] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 11:36

Post #2 of 28 (6612 views)

A few quick thoughts...

"The Garmin software- developers are than so 'smart,', that they notice you do not press the button directly so the watch started to display some bloody messages at the start which I had to push away"

There is an option to disable this. My 945 has never done this, and it has the same firmware as the 6x.

"You have to swim to the startline which costs several minutes...Of course it had lost its GPS so it did not measure the distance of the swim."

This sucks, but it is a edge case. All GPS watches are likely to lose GPS lock in cases where you are treading water before the gun. After that, it is a crap shoot to reacquire while in motion. This should be a non-factor for the rest of the races you do.

"The 'second hand' (which shows the seconds) disappears after 30s, to 'save energy.'"

I am pretty sure there is a setting for this too. I think my 735XT was doing this, and I figured out how to disable it a couple years ago.

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [longtrousers] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 11:37

Post #3 of 28 (6600 views)

The swim distance is 2.4 miles at Kona. Just look at your time and divide it by that distance.

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [longtrousers] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 11:41

Post #4 of 28 (6580 views)

Your fenix 3 did the exact same things when it came to losing gps below water and the second hand disappearing after a few seconds. if those two quibbles make the fenix 6x useless, your expectations are overinflated

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [exxxviii] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 11:58

Post #5 of 28 (6533 views)

exxxviii wrote:

"The Garmin software- developers are than so 'smart,', that they notice you do not press the button directly so the watch started to display some bloody messages at the start which I had to push away"

There is an option to disable this. My 945 has never done this, and it has the same firmware as the 6x.

Maybe, I did not search for such a setting.

exxxviii wrote:

"The 'second hand' (which shows the seconds) disappears after 30s, to 'save energy.'"

I am pretty sure there is a setting for this too. I think my 735XT was doing this, and I figured out how to disable it a couple years ago.

Maybe, I looked heavily though for such a setting: the only thing I found was talk about a setting "hands always on" but that was for developers of watch face apps. The stock watch faces do not provide for such a setting, at least I did not find that.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [jazzymusicman] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 12:00

Post #6 of 28 (6522 views)

jazzymusicman wrote:

Your fenix 3 did the exact same things when it came to losing gps below water and the second hand disappearing after a few seconds. if those two quibbles make the fenix 6x useless, your expectations are overinflated

To the point of loosing GPS under water you're right, but concerning the disappearing second hand the fenix 3 did not have that problem.

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [longtrousers] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 12:10

Post #7 of 28 (6479 views)

And no option to change it

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [longtrousers] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 12:26

Post #8 of 28 (6410 views)

longtrousers wrote:

The Garmin software- developers are than so "smart," that they notice you do not press the button directly so the watch started to display some bloody messages at the start which I had to push away...

Maybe, I did not search for such a setting.

The Edge computers have an alert to "start timer automatically" with either a prompt or just go. I do not see this in the online manuals, but I bet they rolled the option over to the watches. I am puzzled that I never had this happen on my 945.

longtrousers wrote:

The "second hand" (which shows the seconds) disappears after 30s, to "save energy."...

Maybe, I looked heavily though for such a setting: the only thing I found was talk about a setting "hands always on" but that was for developers of watch face apps. The stock watch faces do not provide for such a setting, at least I did not find that.

Google Garmin Power Manager. There is a watch face setting that changes the update behavior. I think this is linked to the second hand as well.

Last edited by: exxxviii: Oct 14, 19 12:29

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [jazzymusicman] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 12:29

Post #9 of 28 (6397 views)

Just use one of the custom faces in the app store.

Personally I use/like the steam gauge one.

ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [jazzymusicman] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 12:42

Post #10 of 28 (6330 views)

jazzymusicman wrote:

And no option to change it

With my old fenix 3 the second hand did not disappear, I used the stock watch faces though, your film seems a watch face from the app store?

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [longtrousers] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 12:50

Post #11 of 28 (6298 views)

And THIS is why I'm hesitant to trade up from my 910XT. I've had the thing for 6 plus years and consistently used it for indoor pool swimming; outdoor swim training; deep water Oly/70.3 swim starts; 5 full Ironmans, mtb'ing in Pine Barrens; road cycling all over; road and trail running -- the thing NEVER misses a beat!! EVER!

It records SBR workouts of any type on any day, in spades 100% of the time.

The band finally broke on one side, and I bought a new flourescent band for 10 bucks on Amazon and now it looks even better.

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [longtrousers] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 12:57

Post #12 of 28 (6273 views)

I've never really relied on distance in open water from my Fenix 5x. Its crap really. The pool seems accurate. But, for everything else it is awesome. Its been by far my favorite watch.

The only thing is that it is harder to charge now as I think the terminals on the watch have deteriorated. I still have 1yr left out of a 2yr Best Buy insurance so was thinking of upgrading to the 6x unless it is a flop. But, it sounds like it is similar to the 5x but thinner.

As a note - if anyone else is having charging issues with the 5x, I've figured out that taking a toothbrush and just brushing the terminals with water until they are clear fixes the charging issue - I'm hoping the 6x is more durable in that aspect.

https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [BT_DreamChaser] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 13:03

Post #13 of 28 (6241 views)

BT_DreamChaser wrote:

And THIS is why I'm hesitant to trade up from my 910XT. I've had the thing for 6 plus years and consistently used it for indoor pool swimming; outdoor swim training; deep water Oly/70.3 swim starts; 5 full Ironmans, mtb'ing in Pine Barrens; road cycling all over; road and trail running -- the thing NEVER misses a beat!! EVER!

It records SBR workouts of any type on any day, in spades 100% of the time.

The band finally broke on one side, and I bought a new flourescent band for 10 bucks on Amazon and now it looks even better.

Just trade up to the 920xt. /pink-maybe

I just bought a replacement battery for mine. /not-pink

Last edited by: Tom_hampton: Oct 14, 19 13:04

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [longtrousers] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 13:11

Post #14 of 28 (6205 views)

Nice Kona backdoor brag :)

Eliot
blog thing - strava thing

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [longtrousers] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 13:14

Post #15 of 28 (6193 views)

Set it for every second display and get it synced before its time to go. I had to play with mine a few days before I got the hang of it. But it’s light years better than my 935 was.

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [longtrousers] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 14:26

Post #16 of 28 (6082 views)

longtrousers wrote:

Analogue watch face:
The "second hand" (which shows the seconds) disappears after 30s, to "save energy". I do not want this, so the analogue watch faces are not usable for me (this "intelligent" supportive thinking of the software developers was not there with the fenix 3, so this is a clear deterioration).

Ok maybe I am stupid and just do not know the settings to solve these problems, although I tried around for several hours.

A sports-watch rather useless for triathlon with irritating analogue watch faces leaves me rather frustrated.

This is dependent on the watch face you use not the watch. I have about 5 third party analogue faces and all but one of them show the second hand all the time. The default (built in) has an option to show second hand all the time.

Last edited by: ale_ers: Oct 14, 19 14:28

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [jazzymusicman] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 14:31

Post #17 of 28 (6067 views)

jazzymusicman wrote:

And no option to change it

That is the fault of the third party watch face you have on there...not because of the watch. I deleted most of the faces I had that did not keep the second hand on all the time.

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [longtrousers] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 14:50

Post #18 of 28 (6027 views)

How did the battery do? Did it last the whole day? I have heard that sometimes it doesn't make it 3 hours....

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [longtrousers] [ In reply to ]

philipshambrook

Oct 14, 19 14:56

Post #19 of 28 (6014 views)

longtrousers wrote:

Had to buy a new watch here in Kona after my Fenix 3 died: I decided again for a Garmin and bought a Fenix 6X from which I expected improvements because of the larger screen inter alia.

Already my Fenix 3 had the problem, as the Fenix 6X, that you have to wait before open water swimming until the GPS says ok, because otherwise he does not notice the distance at all, during the whole swim.
So I put the watch in triathlon mode and the swim screen came up and the GPS was found rather quickly and the watch waited for the start button push. There is a setting to extend the timeout before the start button is pressed under the activity settings - Power Save Timeout default is 5 minutes I believe and why your watch timed out. Set extended for each of the activities you include in the triathlon.
The case here in Kona is though, that you have to swim to the startline which costs several minutes. The Garmin software- developers are than so "smart", that they notice you do not press the button directly so the watch started to display some bloody messages at the start which I had to push away, I was happy the swim screen came back and by pressing "start" the watch started, Those messages were countdown messages telling you the watch was about to exit the activity
So far so good? No. Of course it had lost its GPS so it did not measure the distance of the swim. After a 4 minute transition the watch picked up the GPS not only before about 3 minutes on the bike.
So I would say the watch is rather useless in triathlon-mode, just because the software-developers try to be smarter than the user. Nope. Problems were self-induced

Analogue watch face:
The "second hand" (which shows the seconds) disappears after 30s, to "save energy". I do not want this, so the analogue watch faces are not usable for me (this "intelligent" supportive thinking of the software developers was not there with the fenix 3, so this is a clear deterioration). Find a watch face that will work for you then. It's a battery saving feature that some people want.

Ok maybe I am stupid and just do not know the settings to solve these problems, although I tried around for several hours. Not going to go that far but what is there about not using anything new in a race? Now it's over, spend some time with the user manual

A sports-watch rather useless for triathlon with irritating analogue watch faces leaves me rather frustrated.

Trust me I’m a doctor!
Well, I have a PhD :-)

Last edited by: PhilipShambrook: Oct 14, 19 16:12

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [reggiedog] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 15:27

Post #20 of 28 (5922 views)

reggiedog wrote:

How did the battery do? Did it last the whole day? I have heard that sometimes it doesn't make it 3 hours....

Are u serious - that can’t be right

https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [plant_based] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 16:07

Post #21 of 28 (5869 views)

Sorry, i was thinking of the 5

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ttery_life_P6913545/

I was looking at the 5+ for ultra navigation and found many posts Iike this, many much worse.

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [reggiedog] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 16:14

Post #22 of 28 (5848 views)

reggiedog wrote:

How did the battery do? Did it last the whole day? I have heard that sometimes it doesn't make it 3 hours....

Still have 70% now

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [ale_ers] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 16:35

Post #23 of 28 (5814 views)

ale_ers wrote:

The default (built in) has an option to show second hand all the time.

Do not find that option for the default analogue watch faces in my fenix 6x

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [PhilipShambrook] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 16:44

Post #24 of 28 (5800 views)

PhilipShambrook wrote:

longtrousers wrote:

Had to buy a new watch here in Kona after my Fenix 3 died: I decided again for a Garmin and bought a Fenix 6X from which I expected improvements because of the larger screen inter alia.

Already my Fenix 3 had the problem, as the Fenix 6X, that you have to wait before open water swimming until the GPS says ok, because otherwise he does not notice the distance at all, during the whole swim.
So I put the watch in triathlon mode and the swim screen came up and the GPS was found rather quickly and the watch waited for the start button push. There is a setting to extend the timeout before the start button is pressed under the activity settings - Power Save Timeout default is 5 minutes I believe and why your watch timed out. Set extended for each of the activities you include in the triathlon.
The case here in Kona is though, that you have to swim to the startline which costs several minutes. The Garmin software- developers are than so "smart", that they notice you do not press the button directly so the watch started to display some bloody messages at the start which I had to push away, I was happy the swim screen came back and by pressing "start" the watch started, Those messages were countdown messages telling you the watch was about to exit the activity
So far so good? No. Of course it had lost its GPS so it did not measure the distance of the swim. After a 4 minute transition the watch picked up the GPS not only before about 3 minutes on the bike.
So I would say the watch is rather useless in triathlon-mode, just because the software-developers try to be smarter than the user. Nope. Problems were self-induced

Analogue watch face:
The "second hand" (which shows the seconds) disappears after 30s, to "save energy". I do not want this, so the analogue watch faces are not usable for me (this "intelligent" supportive thinking of the software developers was not there with the fenix 3, so this is a clear deterioration). Find a watch face that will work for you then. It's a battery saving feature that some people want.

Ok maybe I am stupid and just do not know the settings to solve these problems, although I tried around for several hours. Not going to go that far but what is there about not using anything new in a race? Now it's over, spend some time with the user manual

A sports-watch rather useless for triathlon with irritating analogue watch faces leaves me rather frustrated.

Thank you. I found the "extend time out" option and put that in all of my activities on "extended".

At least on this point I'm more confident now and the uselessness of the watch becomes less useless :)

Maybe I also kept my watch too long under water while waiting before the startline such that it lost GPS.

Yes and one should never use something new in a race: but my old watch died 3 days before the race...

Re: The uselessness of a Fenix 6X [plant_based] [ In reply to ]

Oct 14, 19 18:32

Post #25 of 28 (5664 views)

plant_based wrote:

I've never really relied on distance in open water from my Fenix 5x. Its crap really. The pool seems accurate. But, for everything else it is awesome. Its been by far my favorite watch.

The only thing is that it is harder to charge now as I think the terminals on the watch have deteriorated. I still have 1yr left out of a 2yr Best Buy insurance so was thinking of upgrading to the 6x unless it is a flop. But, it sounds like it is similar to the 5x but thinner.

As a note - if anyone else is having charging issues with the 5x, I've figured out that taking a toothbrush and just brushing the terminals with water until they are clear fixes the charging issue - I'm hoping the 6x is more durable in that aspect.

I have a fenix5 and every so often it won't charge. I take a q-tip, dip it in rubbing alcohol and clean the contacts on the watch and the charging cord. gunk tends to accumulate, especially in the summer when you're sweating extra hard and wearing sunscreen.

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