I purchased my second in about eight years. I gave the first one to my son, and it still works fine. My second went out after three years, and Garmin replaced it at no cost. It was a minor problem to set up but I love the watch.
This watch "The Epix" is an awesome watch that pretty much does evrything. I bought the venue 3 to try out garmin after leaving my apple watch 11. I find the Garmin watch to be an fanastic watch with superb battery life. I went on vacation for two weeks and didn't need to bring a charger. My daughter had her apple and was charging it daily. So the Garmin Epix is superb and if I could give it a 10 on the scale I would. Can't wait to buy another one eentuallly. But these watches are just out of this world for performance and reliability.
I bought this over a year ago. My family and I decided to take up hiking, the topo maps have been very useful. This thing has taken everything I’ve thrown at it; hiking, mountain biking, swimming, shooting sports, motorcycles, kettlebells, not to mention I work in a machine shop, it’s a tank. Battery life has dropped a little but not enough to make that big of a deal. If you’re on the fence or if you’re an AWU user who’s thinking about it, jump on it. I’m considering upgrading to the Tactics line at some point in the future, not because I need to replace this one, but because I like playing with new toys.
I regret having purchased the Epix over the Fenix. I have never had confidence in the heart rate monitor. It once went completely haywire and altered my heart rate zones considerably. Recently, it wouldn't connect to my phone. I had to completely reset it. Since then, it has given me very different metric for things like VO2. It's probably good that Garmin discontinued this watch. It's fairly low quality and it's the first Garmin product I've owned in 20+ years that has me considering an Apple watch.
I have had Garmin watches for years in both the fenix and epix ranges. My first watch was Fenix 6 which i purchased in 2020 and still use that watch as my "work" watch to this day. As a welder i am tough on things. the screen is pretty pitted but the watch works flawlessly. My epix i had purchased in 2023 and it was my main wearable in everyday life as well as running and working out and now surfing. i had an issue with the epix and contacted Garmin directly and the unit was well out of warranty but the immediately sent out a refurbished watch. i have and will continue to alway recommend Garmin wearables to anyone i know the dozens of people i have recommmeded them to and they have purchased do agree. The epix has all the features you could want from a wearable and than some.