I have a Garmin 500 which has an 18 hour approx battery life. The longest Bike Ride i have done so far is 152 Miles (around 17 Hours which included stops) and it pretty much lived up to its billing. However recently i have added a HRM and switched on auto-pause. Then on one bike i got a "low battery warning" and it powered down at 108 Miles (13 Hours 36 Min running time). Worth pointing out that whenever i use it it the battery is 100%. Its worth noting that i do use this once a week for prolonged periods
Have since read that the more things are running the more the battery drains. So i unpaired the HRM and left the Auto-pause on, have not done as higher mileage but some over 100 Miles and looking at the Battery power, would expect at least around 25-30% left after 12 Hours out cycling (including stopages)
I have since retested this at home leaving the timer to run, with the auto-pause switch off (and this managed just over 14 Hours). Still significantly under the 18 Hours expected. I have also looked at the display options. these were as follows
Backlight Timeout = 15 secs
Backlight Level = 80%
Contrast = 50%
Not sure what these were specifically before i added the HRM but would reducing any of these help the battery performance, just concerned as the unit is still under 12 months. Can things be reset in anyway back to factory settings
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
Ben
