UPDATE: A representative for Garmin contacted TR and informed us a software fix for the cold-water issue has been released (SW Version 11.68). We have not yet updated and tested the Fenix 8 watch to verify whether it does solve the problem.
The Garmin Fenix 8 is a fantastic watch. We thought it was one of the best Garmin watches yet and awarded it a rare five-star rating, albeit before we learned about a serious issue. The Garmin Fenix 8 seems to have a big problem with cold water, as for lots of users, it shuts down when immersed. Not ideal for a device marketed as a dive watch.
Those users include podcaster Joe Rogan. On The Joe Rogan Experience #2209, around the 2:40:00 mark, Rogan discusses the Garmin Fenix 8 with guest Paul Rosolie.
“I do wanna say, Garmin, that your new Fenix 8 watch shuts off when you get in the cold plunge. I have a Fenix 8 and a Fenix 7, they’re awesome, I love these things. [The Fenix 8] has a better heart sensor, it’s just better overall, but it sucks if you go in cold water, it doesn’t make any sense: how can you go backward? On the old one, you can go in cold water and nothing happens.”
“So if I’m in the water for five seconds, it shuts off. They’re apparently going to fix that, they think it’s a software issue. The crazy thing is, they have a dive feature… if you get down to depths and it’s below 40 degrees, it’s probably going to shut off."
“People have done it in cold water, so they’ve taken a glass of cold water and dropped the watch in, and it shuts off. Not good, Garmin... I ordered one, it took a while to get there and got all excited, then during my first cold plunge I thought 'What in the f***?'"
By “people”, Rogan means TechRadar. We recently ran a story where we put the Garmin Fenix 8 watch to a cold-water test in the office, compared to a Fenix 7. The Garmin Fenix 8 shut down twice through cold water exposure, while the Fenix 7 emerged unfazed.
After his assistant clarifies that you can put the watch in Beta to solve the issue, Rogan immediately retorts with, “but Beta disables the dive function”. So he’s clearly done some reading around the issue – including our coverage. He then goes on to espouse its virtues, with Maps, elevation, waypoints, the long battery life and the LED flashlight, all features he loves. “These f***ing things are incredible.”
A regular cold plunger, Rogan has a solution: he wears the Garmin Fenix 7 during cold plunges and sauna, while mentioning he uses the Garmin Fenix 8's LED flashlight and elevation out in the woods, presumably while hunting. It seems as though he swaps from one to the other depending on the task at hand.
It’s not the high-profile plug Garmin would have wanted for the next iteration of perhaps its most popular watch series, despite Rogan evangelizing on the series in general. However, it does put additional pressure on Garmin to solve the issue quickly, when users like Rogan with reach and clout become public Fenix 8 detractors.
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