Garmin Forerunner 910XT Update & Wrist Band Replacement

I got my FR910XT 2 years ago during the race expo of Brooks Half Marathon. The unit is great and I loving it. It got long battery life. It may not capable to do 20 hours now, but for the past 24 months, I never drained it. During low training mileage (<140km/mth), I may charge it once every 6-7 weeks. Even with high training mileage (250-320km/mth), I only need to charge it fortnightly cause I ran with the back light on during my weekly speed repeats. Run my first ultra 50km with full charged battery, and it still had 50% left after the 7.5 hours race. Anyway, after few firmware update, those issues that I don’t like from my previous review still remained. I just need to get use to them.

Snapped at the right hand side, cut the left to remove the piece for installing the expender band

Yesterday, when I prepare to heading out for the routine morning run, I found out that the wrist band snapped! My wrist is only normal Asian sized, hence there is actually some gaps between my wrist and the FR910XT. This created a stress point over the wrist band and finally it gave way. No choice, hence I held the FR910XT on my hand for my 4k easy.

Knew that Malaysia authorised distributor will sure have replacement, but I tried to search online for its pricing. Amazon selling at about USD$19.90, with postage should be around USD$25 (MYR82-85). And I saw some interesting comment in the users’ feedback: there is an expender band came with the FR910XT box, which you can use it as temporary fix for the snapped band. Then I called AECO yesterday to order their stock to PJ Digital Mall, so I can collect it today. And it cost MYR100 from AECO.

This morning, I dig out the expender band for the speed repeats. I have no problem to hold it on my hand (I usually race with a 500ml bottle on my hand, did that for my 50k too), but it will be big disturb during a speed repeats. The expender band holds up the snapped band nicely. Nonetheless, the snapped part left only very short section for the expender band to hold on, it was a bit loose. It will no be a comfortable replacement for the snapped wrist band, but it served well during this emergency.

Snapped Wrist Band with Expender Band

Expender band in action

Expender band in action

Original Replacement Wrist Band from Local Distributor

Replacement Kit, the 2 screwdrivers used to held the screw from both sides 

Done! Fixed in 10-15 minutes

Garmin is coming up with new and better product, like FR620. But I will stick to FR910XT for another 2-3 years (or earlier if the battery gone flat). It will be a very important partner for my sub-4 journey.

Happy Running!