If you see my blog at all, you are probably aware of the fact that about a year ago I became a massive Garmin fan. I was talking about it so much not just online, but in person, that I started to feel as though they were paying me to say that. The fact of the matter is that I have never had a watch that was so helpful as far as tracking my physical activity was concerned and when I cross-referenced whether or not the stats it was giving me as far as calorie burn and other things are concerned, it was actually quite accurate.
So needless to say I still stand by this equipment, but I recently discovered something that really blemishes them as a company in my mind, and because of this I will be investigating other options as far as my next smart watch is concerned.
The reason why I was initially unwilling to get involved with a Garmin watch was because they are quite expensive. If you want a Garmin you are looking at $200 for a base model and even more if you are one of those people that have to have the latest and greatest.... I am not one of those people.
Fortune was shining upon me one day, I guess, and I decided to drop the money on a watch after playing with a friend of mine's watch for a bit and really liked the results.
I have been quite happy with my Garmin Vivoactive 4 for quite some time but in the past couple of months the battery started acting all weird in that the watch would completely switch off after the power level got below around 50%. There was also issues of it switching off completely when I would complete an exercise and wouldn't start back up until I connected it to a charger. Only at that point would it sync with my app and let me know the statistics on the exercise that I just did.
So I contacted Garmin to see about a battery replacement, which I foolishly thought would be as simple as getting it to a center that does this sort of thing and then paying something like $20 for a battery. Wow was I ever wrong.
The Vivoactive 4 was released in 2019, which is a mere 6 years ago. I didn't but it that long ago, that was just when it was first sent out to market.
I have a couple of traditional watches that I bought as long as 35 years ago, I can get the batteries changed in those until the end of time.
This planned obsolescence is something that really annoys me, because I don't need the upgraded features that the Vivoactive 5 has, I also am not interested in spending 2 to 3 hundred dollars on a watch every couple of years, I'm not an Apple customer for a reason after all.
I noticed that they never made the claim that battery replacement wasn't possible, they just use lawyer wording to say that they wont do it. In a later email they informed me that they do sell refurbished Vivoactive 4 models, which kind of implies that they have the ability to change the battery, they just wont do it because they want to force you to buy a new product.
This sort of thing should be illegal, and I am now in the process of looking for a different company for my next purchase. I will not reward a company with my money for these sorts of business practices.
Had I known this going in, I wouldn't have purchased it in the first place. I am definitely not the only one, as the brand has a rating of 2.5/5 on pissedconsumer.com
There apparently is a law that is being introduces in the EU called the "Right to Repair" that will force companies to repair their products - to me it is crazy that we need a law for things like this.
If anyone out there has a reccommendation for a different company with a similar product, I would really like to know about it. Garmin has lost me as a customer until the end of time.