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Garmin connect battery drain - frustration!

Hi there. Posted this in the Fenix forums, but was told to post it here instead.

I have a problem with Garmin Connect draining the battery on my Samsung Galaxy S21. It uses approximately 15% battery during a full day, running only in the background. During days when it does not drain the battery (after my fixes below), it uses less than 1%.

The watch is a Garmin Fenix 6S.

After googling, I found that others had done the following (with result in parenthesis):

Update the maps using Garmin Express on the computer (solved the problem for maybe 2-3 days, but only the first time)
Remove stored data and cache, uninstall and reinstall the app (solved the problem for one full day)
Turn of auto-update firmware (no effect)
Turn on/off always location permission (no effect)
Turn off bluetooth (no effect, and I want those notifications)
Restart the watch (no effect)

I restart my phone automatically every night.

This is extremely frustrating. Anyone having additional tips?

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0 Alan111111111 11 months ago in reply to N

I haven't heard anything from them or received any advice. They seem unable to deal with the problem, which is astonishing given that other watch companies like Casio have similar apps that have been working fine for years. I leave the watch shut off, which is the only way to put the app to sleep other than uninstalling the app. I have stopped using the Garmin watch for the most part and am now using the Apple Ultra. The battery on the Ultra is pretty good now; five days for me if you shut it off at night.

0 N 11 months ago in reply to Alan111111111

This might be too advanced, but newer Android 13+ systems have something called TARE under Developer options (not enabled by default, google how to get there). I havent delved too deeply yet, but the description is promising for this kinf of issue:

TARE stands for The Android Resource Economy and is a service that monitors how apps run in the background and which tasks they perform. TARE will be responsible for awarding and revoking credits from apps to limit their ability to schedule jobs in the future.
Along with TARE, Android 13 will also have a built-in system to alert you when an app goes rogue and is draining your battery excessively.