It’s one of my best friends on any given running day. It’s my training partner which tells me how long, how far and how fast I’ve gone. On race day, it’s my pacemaker and it tells me whether or not it’s going to be a PR kind of day or not. It’s my Garmin.
But one day, my faithful friend was hurting. Its arm or shall we say, wristband, was broken. There was a flaw with it in that the pin holding the band to the watch would pop out and my lovely GPS watch would dive towards the ground. Not wanting to end the relationship prematurely, I lovingly taped up my Garmin – it wasn’t pretty but at least it would hold up and help us stay together longer.
The other day, however, I was at a race expo and I saw Garmin’s makers there. They were at the booth showcasing all the different cousins to my Garmin 610 with a variety of features, colours, and price points. I decided to ask about my Garmin’s broken arm to see if any others had the same flaw, and I was surprised at the answer.
One of the makers retrieved a small kit which contained two wristband parts, two pins, and a tool to help replace the defective parts. He explained that other Garmins had the same problem – there was an issue with a specific supplier which caused these Garmins to have their pins pop out and their arms fall off – I wasn’t the only one. He said “Sorry about that, here you go” and just handed me the kit just like that. No charge, just an apology, and I was on my way.
At home, it took me all of a couple of minutes to untape the broken arm, pop out the pin and band, and replace it with the new one. With a bit of trepidation the next day, I headed out for a run with my good friend to find out it was fully healed.
Thank you Garmin,
Andrew
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