Garmin 620 versus 610 thread

I've not had charging issues with the 610 over a year a half and two watches, but I did exchange my first one due to the strap pins falling out (didn't become a problem until nearly a year of use).

The main problem with my 610 relates to going out of range of the computer when the watch is transferring activities. Since it does this automatically, and my computer is often on, this happens occassionally when I am unaware that the watch is transferring activities. Sometimes an activity gets corrupted (not showing complete data in the activities history on the watch), and once I delete the corrupted activity, it works fine again. If the corrupted activity isn't deleted, it sometimes keeps trying to transfer, and keeps failing. If I put it on the charger in this state, it will loose charge and continue to vibrate occassionally - possibly the "reverse charging" issue that some people have experienced. Recently, it hung up while I was resetting an activity, and that activity got corrupted during vibrating reset signal. It didn't stop vibrating until I turned the watch off. Then I had to sleep my computer to get it to stop trying to transfer the corrupted activity before I could fix the problem. Another time, I had to do a complete reset to fix the watch (special sequence of button pushes - look it up on Garmin), which reset the watch to the out of the box condition (deleting waypoints, HR settings, etc.). I think I can avoid that now that I'm familiar with how the watch gets hung up.

The running dynamics metrics features on the 620 seem almost entirely useless to me. My cadence is fine, though I can see it maybe being useful for beginners with really bad form. I don't see the vertical oscillation and ground contact times as being useful for training. Bounciness of a stride can be often be a good thing, indicating good springiness, and I can see people messing up their from trying to minimize vertical oscillation when they shouldn't. There's a lot of variation in ground contact time among even the elites going the same pace, so what are you supposed to try to do with that data?

The main pluses of the 620 to me might be the longer battery life and the better strap attachment. Slimmer and lighter is nice, but the 610 isn't that thick or heavy. I don't have a smartphone so the bluetooth link is useless for me. The Wifi sounds good, but I wonder if it would have the same issues with incompete data transfer that the 610 does. Also the online training log that I use does Garmin transfers from a folder on my computer, not from Garmin Connect, so I would probably have to use to cable for the transfers to my computer first, unless I'm missing something about how that works.

The on the Garmin 620 forum, there are complaints about GPS accuracy, so it might be good to wait until they update the firmware a few times before buying.

I have both the 610 and 620. I travel a lot and like to just keep one in my travel bag

The 610

- reportedly has reverse charging issues. It dd happen to me once. Not sure what triggered it to do so.

- the watch is pretty heavy, but otherwise does what it is advertised o o

The 620

- is noticeably lighter

- the oscillation and stride length metrics are interesting initially but nt sure what practical purpose they serve

- internal accelerometer is absolutely useless for indoor running. Looks like it assumes you are always going at your normal stride length, and just measures distance based on that and cadence

- battery life is great. No complaints

- Bluetooth connectivity is temperamental. Very temperamental. As in it uploads successfully once every to weeks (usually have to do a reset to get it to work, but gets old having to reset every time I want to upload)

- wifi connectivity even less reliable. I've given up on it. Won't even work after a reset

- menus much easier to navigate than the 610

- much, much faster at acquiring GPS signal

Not ure if the 620 is a keeper, but te GPS acquisition speed is probably the reason o keep it

I've used the 305 and 910 for the past 5 years, but love the 620. Its light and the wifi uploads have worked flowlessly for me. The cadence feature is really useful when I get tired/lazy to let me know I need to rev back up to 180+.

I have both the 620 and 610.

I'm not sure if it is a firmware issue but I have had the reverse charging issues happen frequently over the past 3 months or so (sucks waking up for a run and realize your watch is dead).

So far the 620 has been nice. I had one issue with elevation the other day on a route that I run everyday with the watch. Said I dropped and gained like 7,000+ feet of elevation over the course of a few miles and that I split the first mile in 5:05:) Ironically, the distance corrected itself for the entire run but the elevation didnt, even on Garmin connect with elevation corrections enabled.

I do like the slimmer feature (you can definitely wear this watch with casual clothes and not stick out like the 610 does) and the cadence, oscillation and SPM with the HR strap definitely get you thinking about form during your run.

In my experience with my 610, the reverse charging issues have been due to slightly bad connection. When plugged in, the watch activates the gps, which burns battery life. If the connection is intermittent then the gps drains the battery faster than the charge can go in. I have found that cleaning the terminals helps prevent this.

I have no experience with the 620. But, I use my 610 in the backcountry as a backup GPS. I put coordinates of my camp or car into it so if I get lost I can at least have a direction and distance to get back. Taking this out of the features is no good in my mind.

Thanks for the tip on the terminals, I'll try giving them a good clean and see if that resolves the issue.

Yeah, I'm not sure what they took out the GPS location display. It's not like you are going to buy both a Forerunner 620 and a Phoenix(or Fenix or whatever it's called) for $400 each!

This! wrote:

- internal accelerometer is absolutely useless for indoor running. Looks like it assumes you are always going at your normal stride length, and just measures distance based on that and cadence

- wifi connectivity even less reliable. I've given up on it. Won't even work after a reset

Agreed on the accelerometer, I hope they fix this through a firmware update. They should be able to gather a few data points of stride frequency at different min/mi during GPS mode and plot a formula.

WIFI sync works great for me, pretty much every single time. Maybe yours is a router issue?

100% agree on the accelerometer, it was over a mile short the other day on the TM for me.

I had the same wifi issue as yours and remember reading a thread on Garmin about the channels for your network and that the watch doesnt work on channel 11. My wifi router was set to auto select between 1-6-11, so I just hardcoded it to channel 6 and my watch has worked like a champ ever since. Perhaps this is your issue as well.

I've had similar issues with the 620 giving me incorrect pace/elevation data for a mile or two. I've had it under the sleeve of my jacket lately, so that might be creating some issues. But needless to say it's a bit concerning. Never had this problem with the 610, but it's dead and useless now so that's not an option.

Anyone else having this issue? I should probably pop over to the garmin forums as well.

It's happened to me once -26. Here is what Garmin support told me when I opened a ticket:

Thank you for contacting Garmin International. I would be happy to assist you with the accuracy of your activity from your Forerunner 620. It appears that there was a temporary GPS signal loss which would definitely account for elevation inaccuracies and the tell-tale straight line at the beginning of your activity. Because the 620 is equipped with an accelerometer, it compensated for this signal loss and resulted in a relatively accurate total distance. If you continue to have issues with the GPS signal or data loss please let us know. If this is isolated it is normal.

Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

How is the accelerometer know that your stride length has changed?

This! wrote:

I have both the 610 and 620. I travel a lot and like to just keep one in my travel bag

The 620

- is noticeably lighter

- the oscillation and stride length metrics are interesting initially but nt sure what practical purpose they serve

- internal accelerometer is absolutely useless for indoor running. Looks like it assumes you are always going at your normal stride length, and just measures distance based on that and cadence

Not ure if the 620 is a keeper, but te GPS acquisition speed is probably the reason o keep it

I have been wondering about a comparison between the 610 and the 220.

It seems to me that if the stride info on the 620 isn't helpful, then there is no real difference in the 620 and the 220. As far as I can tell the 220 has custom workouts and customizable training pages, so what is the reason to buy the 620?

Randy Oldman wrote:

How is the accelerometer know that your stride length has changed?

It might not be able to do so on the wrist. With a footpod, there are obvious changes in acceleration that can be correlated with speed. I think it would be safe to assume that arm swing doesn't have nearly as good a correlation with speed, so measuring acceleration from the watch might be good for cadence (sensing obvious changes in direction) but not speed.

Wow, this ANT transfer is annoying. I like the USB transfer on my 210 way better. That's another point for the 620 I guess. If the 620 had the navigation, I'd buy it.

the559miler wrote:

Wow, this ANT transfer is annoying.

I agree with that. My fix is to plug the ANT usb stick in when I want to download and unplug it immediately after the transfer. That stops it it from trying to connect and transfer every time the watch is close enough (which is always right when you don't want it to).

You don't have to "stop" it with the windows "safely remove hardware" option, it doesn't care. When you plug it in it finds the watch and completes the transfer quickly (for me at least).

the559miler wrote:

If the 620 had the navigation, I'd buy it.

I have yet to use this option after more than a year but I can see where it would be very useful for some. Seems like a no-brainer to leave that in but maybe they were just out of room in memory given how much smaller the watch is plus adding in the new features.

This isn't a showstopper for me but the fact that the accelerometer in the watch isn't very accurate (for speed) and reports that it doesn't even play well with the current footpod is a big issue.

Some updates on the 620/220 from the best reviewer on the Internets.

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2014/01/roundup-withings-interactive.html

My garmin forerunner 610 is always vibrating. It does not stop. Only powering off stops. I deleted all the activities. I setup to factory setting. Help please !! The vibrations got stuck. Thanks !! Pablo from Argentina

pabloavegno wrote:

My garmin forerunner 610 is always vibrating. It does not stop. Only powering off stops. I deleted all the activities. I setup to factory setting. Help please !! The vibrations got stuck. Thanks !! Pablo from Argentina

Sounds like you're now the proud owner of an expensive sex toy.