Garmin Fenix 6X Pro, Premium Multisport GPS Watch, Features (Open Box)

This watch does a lot of things well: GPS is top-notch (although an older protocol and slow to connect at times), the battery life is downright unbelievable if you come from Apple, and it's durable. The included workouts and training programs are excellent. The sleep and body battery analysis are well done and helpful when training hard and consistently. I even like the screen and the way it looks on my wrist. I like something so simple as it's round which is the shape a watch should be! The Garmin Connect app is outstanding. I like how it looks and feels on my wrist, and there are TONS of bands and faces available for this device. All good, great even! The shortcoming? The HR sensor and/or the software that processes it are absolute trash if you're doing anything other than steady-state cardio or sitting/sleeping/resting. That's it. And it destroys this watch's utility as that's the foundation upon which the rest of this device's fitness tracking capability is built. I do a lot of lifting, trail running, hiking, HIIT with sprints or kettlebells, and ice/roller hockey - ALL HIIT ACTIVITY!! - and this watch's HR sensor simply cannot handle activities when your HR goes up fast and then comes down fast repeatedly. There is a 30-50 sec lag between what your heart is doing and what this watch captures, and that's pretty mush useless for sprints or interval training/activities. It's not just a lag; it's that the watch (and app) only captures what it gets to, and it simply never gets to an accurate beat count. In addition, there is some glitch that prevents your heart rate showing higher than like 90-100 BPM for basically the whole workout. I'm betting that there are multiple components at work here: slow CPU, not great software running this bit, and subpar sensor for 2023. Just yesterday I did a 50 min weighlifting workout that included heavy benching, deads, back squats, and some over head pressing etc. With a Garmin strap or an Apple Watch (like my old Series 3 Nike), or even some of Garmin's cheaper trackers like the Vivofit/Vivosmarts I've also owned, my HR is captured pretty accurately and instantly. I can hit 160-170 easily on heavier lifts by the end of a set. Not according to this watch. Yesterday's workout showed a max HR of 102, and a minimum of 78. For the whole 50 min workout. Which gave me 12 minutes of moderate activity and 0 intense minutes, which is insane. Unacceptable for a device that cost almost 4 figures approx 2 yrs ago. This has been an issue since Day 1, it's apparently a well-known issue all over online, and I thought I'd fixed it by buying one of their HR straps to help. NOPE! The watch drops the connection to the strap and it's still inaccurate. In fairness, there have been periods when it seemed to work well, but then another update would install, and I'd be back to Garbageville as far as HR monitoring is concerned. The problem is that every single other piece of training info: HRV, Recovery, Body Battery, calories, Training Load, VO2, and literally everything else, depends on this watch's HR being accurate, and it's just not, not even close, at least not for what I do for exercise. Bottom line: this is a great watch if you're buying it to slowly and steadily hike off the grid for a week straight without recharging and simply need something that lasts that long. The Garmin Connect app is OUTSTANDING: great layout, great data presentation, amazing included training workouts, and so much more. I REALLY wanted to love this watch! But I can't, and the root cause is a fatal and fundamental functionality flaw. I'd suggest that Garmin simply buy and dismantle an Apple Watch to see how their HR sensor/software work, and then just copy that, because what Garmin is doing is simply unacceptable at this price point. As soon as my new Ultra arrives, this thing will be available for sale on an auction website for probably 1/3 of what I paid for it and my Garmin chest strap and Vivosmart 4 will be in the box with it. I'm out, Garmin: you've lost a customer for good here. I've held out for software updates, some of which actually did seemed to help, but then of course the next one quickly returned this device to unacceptability. I've trid all the Garmin advice: tighten the strap, loosen the strap, wear it higher on the wrist, wear it lower, wipe/reset/restore, new sync, updates, all of it. Also, I feel I should mention I am light-skinned and have no wrist tattoos that could be interfering with the sensor either. What a shame, as so much is awesome about this watch, as well as other top-end Garmin devices. But if you bill yourself as the last word in fitness tracking devices, perhaps you might want to work a bit harder on making sure your fitness tracking actually works, and not just for easy steady-state stuff. Garmin's HR tracking is basically useless, or at least so unreliable and laggy as to be useless. And that's just unacceptable for a device as expensive as the Fenix line, especially when you have to supplant it with a second or even third Garmin - or 3rd-party! - device to get any semblance of accurate HR training. So much about Garmin's fitness ecosystem is so well thought out and great...but this device stinks, full stop. Too bad.