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iPhone battery drain w/ Garmin connect

gunnar9090
over 7 years ago
I have looked through the forums and have seen some talk about this, but I haven't had issues with battery drain until the last 2 months. I just realised the culprit with battery drain on my iPhone (s) is Garmin Connect.

I have a iPhone SE since new, and I was putting the recent battery drain on the phone down to the fact the phone is 3 years old. It got so bad I switched to a new (old stock) iPhone 5c I keep as a back up. Same thing.

I'm now on holiday on a bike trip and stupidly forgot both my edge 1000 AND the charging cable for my 735xt. So I'm stuck using the Strava iPhone app. I turned off Bluetooth on my 735xt and closed the garmin app and wouldn't you know my battery life on my iPhone 5c is back to as it should be. Very little drain while on a 3 hour ride with the Strava app open and recording (also had BT HR and cadence sensors paired as well as periodically looking at the map).

I've used garmin watches for years (original vivoactive, fenix 1,2,3, and now 735xt) and don't remember battery drain being this much of a problem with Garmin connect?

iPhone 5c iOS version 10.0.2
Garmin Connect Mobile version 4.4.0.19
  • 0 over 7 years ago
    Have you installed iOS 11.3 and checked the health of your battery?
  • 0 over 7 years ago
    You can also check to see what is using the most battery. If you haven't done so, on the iPhone go to Settings, Battery and have a look.

    I have GCM running in the background all the time. Over the last 24 hours it's only used 2% of my battery.

    Given the age of your iPhones I would suspect the problem is more due to the battery health than the app. The app likely just exacerbates the problem.
  • 0 over 7 years ago
    Hopefully it's a battery age issue. I'm due a new iPhone SE battery through Apple's new replacement program (£26), so I'll give that a shot and see how GC responds.

    However, with GC running in the background it is by far the biggest culprit for draining my battery ( when viewed in the battery health app)......so that's a bit worrisome.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 7 years ago
    I have exactly the same issue. The iStore confirmed battery age/condition are not the problem, so the app, being the newest thing loaded, seems the most likely culprit.
  • 0 over 7 years ago
    I just noticed this on my iPhone last night. I haven't experienced this issue in the past, but am going to assume it has to do with GCM 4.5.1.1.

    Over the last 7 days GCM has been #3 on mybattery drain list, 2.5 hours on screen - 2.3 hours background, which equates to 15%. Normally GCM sits at 2% battery drain over 7 days. This leads me to believe this has been an ongoing issue for sometime. I am going to delete/reinstall the app to see if that fixes the issue.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    Unique Phone Cases
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    I've noticed that the connect app is draining my battery. I have the iPhone X (running IOS 12 GM version) with 100% battery health with a Fenix 5 running the latest Beta. The app is very laggy and if I open up the app at the beginning of the day, it will run constantly in the background all day if I don't remember to force close it.

    At this moment the app is number one for highest battery usage (25%), 8 minutes on screen time and 12h 26m background activity. Between this and the lag (only the connect app) it feels like something has gone badly wrong. It's been like this for about 2-3 weeks now and had previously ran perfectly under older IOS 12 beta's and Fenix 5 firmwares.

    Edit. Looking back over the last 10 days, the Connect app is the 2nd highest app for battery usage with 46mins screen and 63h 35m background activity. It has to be force closed otherwise it will run and run.
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    i have found something similar with iOS 11 too starting with a Garmin GC update of 4.7 back in May/June.

    the latest firmware on my 935 FW10.10 seems to have fixed some of the issues i had where i can force quit GC and notifications and notification counters still work properly. but it would be nice to not have to force quit GC and have it run properly in the background with occasional updates between the watch and the phone (iPhone 7 for me)....i believe it was more like 1 hr in the background over 24 hours previous to that June update.
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    Same here on iphone 8 with iOS11. Garmin is at the top of the battery usage stats, which insane amount of background battery usage.

    New version (4.11) of the App is released today, but info the release notes about what is fixed.
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    just got the new iPhone XS, and running ios12. same exact problem... left to on its own, GC runs continuously in the background. if i force quit GC (4.11), i still receive notifications, and the background usage goes away.

    hope Garmin fix this long standing problem.