A month or two ago I noticed that my GPS watch band was starting to crack. Now, I’m an adult, so I did the adult thing: I slapped some masking tape over the affected area and carried on with my life. Problem solved!
Unfortunately, a few weeks later, the band legit just fell right off my wrist, so a new plan was needed. Now, this watch is almost four years old and has a mysterious crack in the face, but otherwise works great and has plenty of battery life. I didn’t think it was time for a new watch just yet, so I set about fixing it.
First I needed a stopgap measure. Enter: an old shoelace! Why did I have this shoelace? Um… I think it was for a pair of running shoes that came with multiple laces? Or something? I don’t know. But I found it in my box o’ extraneous running stuff. I cut off some of the broken brand, wove the shoelace through the holes in the remainder, and bam – I had a fashion masterpiece.
Kinda cute, no? But I had to admit it wasn’t a permanent solution, what with the shoelace’s proclivity for soaking up liquids (sweat, rain), the difficulty of getting the watch face portion to stay on the right bit of my wrist when running, and the minor annoyance of untying and retying it every time I showered.
Amazon to the rescue – Amazon has tons of replacement Garmin watch bands under $10, in standard colors and also cute prints. I went with this one, which offers lots of colors and patterns, but there are plenty of additional options to explore if you’re so inclined.
My new watch band arrived without any installation instructions, but it was a fairly simple process. The only problem I ran into was unscrewing the screws on the current band. Turns out, the reason the kit comes with two mini-screwdrivers is so that you can jam one into the opposite side to prevent both from rotating together in perpetuity and never loosening. Once I got that bit from the video below, the rest was intuitive.
Anyway, dig my new watch band!
The only remnant of its original purple splendor is in the start button, but I’m quite into the tie-dye. File this mission in the success pile.
P.S. Suggestion: I saved the hardware from the original band. I just popped it back into the bag with the screwdrivers and put it in my aforementioned box o’ extraneous running stuff. You never know when something might loosen and go missing!
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