Garmin Fenix 6 Series
Verified17 reviews
Can't begin to tell you how much I dislike Garmin. One of the worse purchases I've ever made. I thought spending a lot of money on a watch would mean having less problems and better service but how wrong I was. Do yourself a favor and just buy a cheap smartwatch instead of wasting your money. Show details
Follow-up · Garmin have subsequently admitted there is a fault with my watch and have offered me a refurbished Fenix 7 for $300. Given how poorly the Fenix 6 has performed, I won't be wasting more money on a Garmin product.
fantastic to horrific in 4 short years – I loved this product initially but a product that cost $1200 should not fail so comprehensively after 4 years. My watch now has a battery life of 1.5 days down from the original 21 days. The heart rate monitor has stopped working, the GPS distance and speed are badly inaccurate when doing an activity such as bike riding. This has rendered the… Read more
watch close to useless for what i intend to use it for when i bought it. I understand that things go wrong which would be palatable if there was any avenue to seek help and get it fixed. I have sent multiple emails to garmin support and have spent 2.5 hours trying to get through to the Garmin support line. To date, i have not spoken to anyone nor recieved any response to my email. I want to get the watch working properly and to keep wearing it but if i don't get a response soon, I am done with Garmin for life
Unacceptable lifespan – I have owned my Fenix 6X Pro Sapphire for 3 years. My wife bought it for me for a significant birthday. I am an avid endurance athlete and have had Garmin devices for many years. I love the watch and we have been inseparable since owning it. However, in the last few months I noticed the screen was developing a shadow which was particularly… Read more
obvious when the screen was illuminated. Then about 2 weeks ago the screen developed a section that had totally failed. It was in the corner of the screen and obscured some of the time but I thought I could persevere with it. Finally today the watches main action button (top right) stopped working and it has rendered the watch useless. I have tried to reset the watch but to no avail. As can be seen in the photo there is a circle on the right of the screen that is a dead section. As can be seen in the video buttons aren’t working either.
I am deeply disappointed with the situation. I love the watch and as it was given to me by wife for my birthday it has significant sentimental value.
3 years is hardly an acceptable lifespan for a $1600 high end watch. I am now not sure what to do. Not sure I would trust investing in another Garmin.
Buy something else – Watch band broke just after 1 year and therefore not covered under warranty. Replacement bands are close to $100. Show details
Once great, has been destroyed thanks to terrible app update – I'm writing about this product 8th May 2024. This is important as what this product used to be like say in 2023 is very different to now. Many of Garmin's fitness products use a smartphone app called "Garmin Connect". It is very much something that collects and displays information gathered on fitness devices and the Fenix 6 is just one of… Read more
those devices. Thus, whatever you do both during the day and also at night while you sleep, the Fenix 6 watch assists in collecting the information (heart rate, oxygen saturation etc) but eventually you get the benefit when you view the Connect app on your smartphone. And this is where the big problem is. This Connect app was quite nice, but Garmin forced an update on us all and it has ruined the experience. How bad is it? Bad enough to make hardened garmin loyalists consider moving to some other brand. At 65yo, I find it more imporant than ever to retain health and fitness. It's taking months to years to become very familiar with what information that the Garmin system can bring to the table. If I can't find the information, it's useless. If I can't understand the information, it's useless. It was very useful to me. Now, information has been removed, hidden and disguised. Look at the Garmin official forums and you'll see these sentiments and people pleading just to have the old software available again. The fact that Garmin actually published this update is amazing in itself. It's not like they didn't get feedback from their beta. I tried the beta version myself and gave Garmin my thoughts on it after uninstalling it after just two days. The Fenix watches may be great, they may be rubbish. At the moment, it's not possible to use as they should be due to this problem. All I can do is post this in the hope that someone in Garmin will take this issue seriously and revert to old so at least we get back what we once had. Meanwhile, either take a look at Fitbit, Google or Apple or keep waiting to see if Garmin do the right thing.
My second Garmin, but it's not perfect – My vivoactive 3 died after years of great usage, so I decided to stick with garmin, but upgrade to the 6x. I waited till it was on special thankfully, if I'd paid full price I'd be peeved. I was sick of a touch screen watch as I wear it non stop, so was happy this was buttons. It took me a couple of days to be able to use it quickly, but it's… Read more
mostly intuitive....mostly. The music streaming function (and the Bluetooth headphone connection for that matter) is beyond me. I'm computer literate but that's just plain hard. My other gripe is the sleep tracking. I'm a shift worker, and after playing with sleep settings, it still won't map my sleep properly. I've tried everything to get it to work, but it can't cope with anything outside of 8hrs overnight. Other than that, it's good. The battery lasts about 10 days with no power savings applied and over an hour of gps usage a day. I've put a cover and screen protector on it as other reviews mention the poor paint. I'd buy this again, but only on special.
Brilliant sports smart watch and exceptional service from Garmin – When my old Fenix 3 died I sought spare parts from Garmin Australia. Garmin were very helpful but unfortunately (and understandably) Fenix 3 parts were no longer available. Garmin were very responsive and helpful and went out of their way to ensure that my transition to another excellent Garmin product went smoothly. In a world of poor customer… Read more
service, chat bots and no customer interface Garmin were a breath of fresh air. I don't say this often but they were amazing, offering me a favourable deal on a new replacement watch.
The fenix 6 is an exceptional piece of kit that I'd struggle to live without for health monitoring, fitness tracking and major hikes. Battery life is good and in battery saver mode is exceptional.
Don't lose your way Garmin. You have that holy grail combination of amazing tech and exceptional customer service
Super expensive terrible technology – To just listen to podcast through you watch, get ready for some serious headache. Not intuitive, I would never buy Garmin watch again Show details
Worked well until it suddenly stopped working – I bought this watch in January 2021 for $999 and was impressed by all the features. It worked well for 2 ½ years and then died suddenly one night when it still had about 75% battery. I now have to send it away to Victoria (1800 KMs away). Just to have it assessed for an extended warranty claim that I originally paid an extra $107 for. Very… Read more
disappointed that there are no tech centres in Brisbane that I can take the watch to. The Garmin claims process is very archaic.
A $1000 watch should last more than 2 ½ years.
Pretty amazing watch but not worth the money – My wife bought this for my birthday 2 years ago as I was looking into getting a smart watch. Was looking at the tag connect but she ended up getting me this one. Super happy with it for the last couple of years but all of a sudden the middle menu button stopped working. As the watch was out of warranty I decided to open it using YouTube tutorials.… Read more
What I discovered was that a micro switch attached to the motherboard had totally disintegrated rendering the button inoperable. Super bummed out. After looking online there is nowhere to buy replacement motherboard to rectify... Pretty disappointing. She told me the price she paid and it was circa $1200.
Terrific Support from Garmin – Open water mode on my Fenix 6S went haywire e.g. GPS showed me swimming 17km along a busy road. Contacted Garmin & although out of warranty, was sent brand new replacement watch. Show details
Great but with some major flaws – I love my watch. It’s helping to focus my health journey. However, as someone with a knee injury that still pushes myself on x trainers I’m really disappointed that the VO2 reading favours running. I think you can do walking too but it’s running that it wants to read. What if you can’t run? Why can’t it read your effort on a cross trainer? Why is… Read more
my reading poor when I’m training regularly? It feels like there’s so much to love about the health data but if you can’t run then maybe you wasted your money.
Only for small wrists – I opened the box of my new 6s pro only to find the wrist band is too small. I have to buy another band before I can even wear it. I was completely shocked to find it doesn’t have a touch screen. The face is very small. I won this watch, so glad I didn’t pay for it myself, however there was a choice of other prizes, any of which would have been a better choice than this watch. Show details
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Good, solid watch – Had mine for a year and I'm not easy on it. Good battery life and feels like it will last. Relatively easy to use. Paint quality is poor. I've lost most of the paint on the sides. Show details
Love It! – Easy to use and collects great data. Very comfortable to wear, even when sleeping. Had a couple of glitches but tech support fantastic, easy access to them. Updates fix them. Show details
Great feature set, good battery life – Finally bit the bullet and bought this model, larger style - 51mm body, but under 100g and so not noticeably heavy on the wrist. Great set of features for day-to-day life. Sleep monitoring, step count, pulse ox. Hugely customisable within each category. Simple to set up and pair with Android phone, syncing is seemless. Garmin Express app gives… Read more
wide range and detail of information. Activity range is great and again very customisable. Couldn't be happier. Bought this during a special offer period so good value
Excellent but – Excellent watch with many great features. Did get caught out though by expecting it would have access to Spotify through a widget, unfortunately this is not the case with 6S. Show details
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