My Garmin GPS watch is broken :-(

[stevesuk]

Wasn't sure where to post this, but since I use it mainly for tracking my running/cycling activities and step count, I thought this would be as good a place as any.

I've had my Garmin VivoActive GPS watch since July last year, fallen in love with its functionality over the past 13 months, and now predictably one month outside of the warranty, it's failed catastrophically. Completely dead after 20 minutes of being worn in the swimming pool (it is a swimming watch).

First thought was just to buy another one, but the reviews section on Amazon has a number of other dissatisfied customers complaining of failure just outside the warranty. So my question is - for running and cycling, is something like a Garmin VivoActive still the best smart watch? Or should I be looking at something else like TomTom?

I wouldn't want to spend more than about £150. What I liked about the VivoActive was its long battery life (about 10 days between charges) and its simplicity. I quite like the Garmin Connect app, but not so much that it would stop me changing allegiance to another manufacturer if the hardware was better...

[essayer]

Have you contacted Garmin? They will do out of warranty repairs - it wasn't too bad to replace my ForeRunner when I smashed the screen

[stevesuk]

essayer said:

Have you contacted Garmin? They will do out of warranty repairs - it wasn't too bad to replace my ForeRunner when I smashed the screen

Yes, I'm waiting for them to reply at the moment.

Interested if anyone else has had reliability issues with Garmin smartwatches? I'd have hoped it would have lasted much longer than a year before breaking. My previous Garmin (which was a ForeRunner) lasted years - and in fact still works today so far as I know (gave it to a friend).

[Simon.]

I have a Fenix 3 HR and it's about 13 months old, it's been rock solid for all this time and currently I have no concerns about recommending it to friends / family.

I have been that impressed with it that I sold my Apple Watch 2 a couple of months after getting the Fenix3 and I am now looking at either the Fenix 5x or the Forerunner 935 as a replacement (still umming and ahhing as actually there is nothing wrong with my F3HR, it's just not the latest shiny toy).

[stevesuk]

To close this off, and with kudos to Garmin, I contacted them on Twitter and they've agreed to fix it for free - despite it being a month outside of the warranty period, and me being unable to find the original order confirmation/invoice