• State Not Answered
  • Replies 8 replies
  • Subscribers 2 subscribers
  • Views 4390 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related

Sudden Battery Drains

profunditas
over 4 years ago

Greetings,

In general the battery on my Descent is fine. It last as long as one would expect, about 3 golf rounds or for days without significant GPS activity.

There are, however, times when it drains too quickly. Example from today: watch charged to 45%, taken from a charger. Within an hour, just before the dive, it is showing 38%. 25 minute into the dive, watch displays low battery alarm. Total dive time is 50 minutes, 22 degrees water temperature @25m. I surfaced with 13% battery. Less then two hours later battery is empty and watch shuts down. No phones or other connecting devices in sight. I don't run custom watch faces and aside from one widget and 2 activities everything else on the watch is from Garmin.

After recharging, watch works fine and shows normal levels of battery utilization. 

Similar thing happened before, once during golf and the other time during skiing. In all times device was charged just before the activity, not to the full, but to the level sufficient to complete the activity. 

Anyone?

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    My Mk1 hasn't done anything like this.  I get really good battery life. 

    I tend to charge for an hour on each of Monday and Friday.  I usually do 2 x 20 minute walks each weekday and 1-3 dives on the weekend. My dives are long, too - 90-150 minutes.  I rarely get below 40%.  I've never see the low battery alarm.

    Do you have any watch faces or apps that could be draining the battery?

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to atj777

    No, no watch faces.

    I have OTP widget and 2 3rd party apps, but I doubt they are the issue as those are seldom used.

    Battery is working great in most cases, just like yours.

    There is a typical pattern when problem occurs though. I rarely charge the battery. When I drain the battery (normal pace) to single digits, I put the watch in the charger to have sufficient power for the activities I'm planning. It typically charges to 45-85% depending on how much time I have, Following this, battery discharges unbelievably fast, last time it took 1x 50 mins dive and roughly 3 hours of surface since it was at 45% to drain completely.After the shutdown and recharge watch operates normally for days.

    Garmin staff, any suggestions?

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to profunditas

    How are you typically charging your Descent? Charging from a USB port on a computer is the recommended method. If you are using a car charger it could cause the watch to show an inaccurate charge percentage. Try power cycling the watch by holding the top left button until the watch shuts down and then power it back on with the same button. Then charge your watch to 100% using a computer and see if the battery drains at a proper rate.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Garmin-Nate

    I charge it from a wall adapter which charges all my other devices without a problem. Saying charging from computer does not mean much, I'd rather know how many Ampers does watch draw when charging? I'm sure 2A which wall adapters have is sufficient. 

    It is true that watches does not exhibit battery drain after restart. I believe this is due to something running in the background, will keep monitoring. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to profunditas

    To reply to myself, problem reoccured and it is always the same pattern. I discharge the watch through regular use to single digits (this time it lasted for days), put it back into wall charger, charged it for 2+ hours, went to bed, woke up with watch being shuttdown. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to profunditas

    And did you try using the USB port as suggested? Wall chargers may have slightly higher or less stable voltage, and/or there may be a significant unfiltered AC signal - all of that could play a role. If Garmin tells you should use an USB port, they probably already have the experience that at least some wall chargers cause problems, so insisting on using them is perhaps not the best way to do.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to trux

    To answer your question, same occurrence happened charged from the wall, PC or TV set. And they charge all my devices, other Garmins included, without any problem.

    Garmin support was referring to car chargers and there is a good reason for that; voltage in those varies between 9 and 14.5V and it is hard to have stabilized 5V on a lower end. USB chargers plugged to the wall have to confirm to certain USB standards unless you're posting this from North Korea. 

    You don't have to be the sharpest tool in a shed to understand charging your outdoor watch in a PC might not be the most practical thing, do you?

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to profunditas

    5V/1W - slow and true charging is what our watches are designed around and it is what we highly recommend. The more you are able to stay within that range without using larger voltage/wattage fast charging options, the better it will be for your Lithium-Ion battery lifespan.