DIY USB-C Cable for Garmin Fēnix

It has been almost 4 years that I've been a faithful user of the Garmin fēnix watch. The model I have now is the D2 Delta PX and I must say I really really like it. It has great aviation features and includes topographic maps for North America. It also has memory big enough to upload other topographic maps. Such as Tenerife, where I'm going to hike the volcano next month. Or any other map. Global offline topo maps are phenomenal, when you consider you can have them in a watch.

One annoying detail about the Garmin watch is the charging cable. There is no Type-C version of it. No genuine and not even a Chinese one on AliExpress. My patience has ended this week and I decided to build my own. Which actually turned out to be a fairly easy wire-cutting and soldering exercise.

To start with I took the Amazon Basics Type-C to micro-B USB cable (it has all the necessary circuits to ensure the micro-B side is getting proper 5V voltage) and an aftermarket Garmin - compatible charging cable. I simply cut both and soldered them together. The Amazon cable has just three insulated wires: VCC (5V), D+, D- an the shield carries the GND signal. Luckily the colors of both cables matched, so I connected red to red, green to green and white to white. The black wire (Garmin side) has been connected to the non-insulated shield of the Amazon cable). Then put a heat-shrink tube over the joint (actually remember to put it on BEFORE soldering :P) and it worked like a charm.

I can now even charge the (Garmin) watch from my (Blackberry) phone!

Considering it all took me 15 minutes I just cannot imagine why Garmin does not want to release a Type-C cable for the fēnix. I think I am not the only one who wold buy it...