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TWO BATTERY BUGS!

DaveBrillhart

Here is what I found on my 130-mile ride yesterday, Aug 13th, 2022 on my EDGE 1030 with the latest firmware.

I connected an external power source. Over time, it charged my EDGE 1030 to 100% while I rode. Great. I unplugged the external power. After a few hours, it still said 100% charged!! Ugh. Obviously not. I even forgot to turn off the continuous backlight since I started in the dark. And I was using turn-by-turn routing. So the drain rate was pretty high.

I got home, SAVED my ride. Then tested some things. I held the POWER button and put my EDGE to "sleep". Woke it back up. And the BATTERY was still reporting 100%. So that didn't help.

Then I hit POWER OFF and turned it back on. The battery was at 56%.

This is a major issue for those on LONG rides, since there is no way to know what the battery level is. The device could run out without warning and lose the ride! Obviously we don't want to power cycle the device mid-ride.

This likely has to do with the "artificial lock to 100%" feature that has a bug. This is from the CIQ docs for System.getSystemStats().battery

"Some devices may report slightly less than 100% charge immediately after being removed from the charging cradle or cable. While the device is on the charger, the charger will disable itself after the battery charges to 100%. The battery will then very slowly discharge until it hits a hysteresis threshold, at which point the charger will reactivate. This is intentionally done to extend the life of the battery if the device is left on the charger for a long time. Garmin artificially locks the charge indicator on the charge page to 100% once the unit reaches full charge to mask this minor charge cycle fluctuation."

This is even worse given the other BUG. Once the device reaches 100%, even if there is an active external power source, the device stops reporting that it is "charging". So you don't know if your external power device is supplying power or not. Some external power sources turn off once the device is full and won't turn back on until to tap a button. So you think your device is at 100% since it is plugged into an external power source. But in fact, the power source isn't active and your EDGE device is draining to zero while reporting 100% full. See System.getSystemStats().charging

Battery charging indicator. This will be set to true if the device is connected to the charging cradle or cable whether or not the device is fully charged.

  • You are probably better off posting it in the CIQ bug section. But I think this is more a bug in the Garmin device itself than the API's exposed in CIQ. 

    And tbf, if it is documented it isnt a bug. You might disagree with the behaviour (which you colorful do) but it works as decribed. 

  • in reply to waterkip

    Hey I'll post over there too... But I don't get how you think it operates as described.

    Garmin locks it at 100% forever once it hits 100%. The docs clearly say that should only happen until it hits a hysteresis threshold. The purpose is to prevent it from staying at say 99% when it is actually full. So, for example, when the device drops to 98% or so, it should begin reporting it correctly. You don't really believe Garmin intends to keep the device reporting 100% forever, even when it is almost out of juice?

    And for the 2nd bug, the device stops reporting that a charger is attached once it hits 100%. But the docs clearly say the CIQ "charging" variable should be TRUE in that case.

    Maybe this is a DEVICE bug, which then CIQ reflects. But given CIQ exhibits that bug, the CIQ team could/should ask the DEVICE team to correct it.

  • For the first one, I'd post in the E1030 device forum. especially if you see this in the FW screen.   CIQ just passes on what the FW tells it.

    For the second one, does it again show charging when the battery hits say 97-98%?  Most charging circuits actually stop at a certain point as over charging can harm these type of batteries.

    Are these things that worked in the past but stopped after a FW update?  

  • in reply to jim_m_58

    Hi Jim.

    On the first one, YES the device Settings Screen also shows 100% forever once this bug is triggered. I was hoping that since CIQ is showing bad information maybe they would also chase this device bug down.

    On the second one, the problem is the device was really at like 56% battery level, but because of BUG #1, the device logic thought it was at 100% full, so, therefore, it didn't acknowledge that there was an active external device supplying power.... the coder apparently decided the proper behavior was to NOT show "charging" as TRUE when the device thinks it is at 100%, even when an external source is active. Which isn't helpful and is counter to the documentation. I did make sure the external device was active and didn't turn itself off. I think this is ALSO a device bug, since the setting screen also doesn't properly show that the device is charging when it falsely reports it is at 100%.

    This is a long-standing issue. It is just that I have a 24-hour race coming up in 6 weeks and I've been testing my charging strategy and ran across it again.

  • in reply to DaveBrillhart

    This one needs to be reported to the product team. Like Jim mentioned, we just pass along what the firmware tells us, and since this is exhibited everywhere (and not just in CIQ apps), it's definitely something at the firmware level, and that requires product team attention (we in CIQ could reproduce, but that wouldn't tell us any more than what we already know).

    I will make inquiries, but I'd appreciate it if you could also post in the product forum with all of your details (including info like firmware version) so the product teams will have the info they need.

  • in reply to Brandon.ConnectIQ

    Thank you. I did post in the E1030 forum. I imagine this is a systemic bug across many models. Is there a better place to post?