Disappointing battery life

@Artivis

Not sure if you could characterise my post as “flaming” (def: “vitriolic and abusive post”). It may be I am misusing my watch in some way as you appear to suggest, but you have as little basis for suggesting it as I would have for suggesting you are responsible for the problems you are experiencing with Bluetooth just because on my watch it functioned flawlessly.

Today I called Garmin to report the bad battery life on my 5S Plus. I have had a 5S for the last year, and usually get about 5-6 days between charges using GPS/Glonass 5 times/week for about 45 minutes. My 5S Plus using just GPS and music gets about 3.5 days between charges. The person at Garmin said they have only had 11 people report bad battery life so far. She was not aware of any of the posts here. I asked her if Garmin is doing any work on this issue and she said they are not. She was unable to provide any techniques that might increase battery life. She followed up our conversation with an email that said that I am actually getting about the right amount of time per battery charge. Her last comment in the email was "I can only suggest that if the 5S+ battery life is not suiting your needs, the 5S might be the better alternative."

I am amazed that Garmin is not taking this issue seriously. I really like the 5S Plus, but the battery life is not what it should be. It is really disheartening that Garmin is not interested in user experience or satisfaction.

I work for a fairly large company that has a tech support organization. Level 1 tech support sometimes will tell customers some crazy things. This sounds like one of those cases. Best advice is to email the beta email address in the public beta post from this forum. Ask for how they would like for you to help troubleshoot the issue, and offer to provide logs, screenshots and anything else they might need. The software developers will absolutely want to give their customers the best experience. I've had great success with the approach outlined above. With all that said, the 5s will get better battery life, but you may get closer to your previous levels with some software improvement.

My 5S Plus using just GPS and music gets about 3.5 days between charges

Maybe I've misunderstood what you're saying here? Using Music literally doubles the battery consumption which is a far more significant hit to battery life than using GLONASS is.
So if you're running for almost 4 hours a week there shouldn't be any great surprise that you're having to charge more frequently?
The Garmin website even states that you'll get no more than 4.5 hours of battery life if you're using GPS and Music, so it's not like they haven't disclosed what the hit to battery life will be from using music?

Today I called Garmin to report the bad battery life on my 5S Plus. I have had a 5S for the last year, and usually get about 5-6 days between charges using GPS/Glonass 5 times/week for about 45 minutes. My 5S Plus using just GPS and music gets about 3.5 days between charges. The person at Garmin said they have only had 11 people report bad battery life so far. She was not aware of any of the posts here. I asked her if Garmin is doing any work on this issue and she said they are not. She was unable to provide any techniques that might increase battery life. She followed up our conversation with an email that said that I am actually getting about the right amount of time per battery charge. Her last comment in the email was "I can only suggest that if the 5S+ battery life is not suiting your needs, the 5S might be the better alternative."

I am amazed that Garmin is not taking this issue seriously. I really like the 5S Plus, but the battery life is not what it should be. It is really disheartening that Garmin is not interested in user experience or satisfaction.

As nmyeti says, I wouldn't take too much notice of anything first level tech support tells you. There's been other ongoing faults with other Garmin products in the past which Garmin's developers have been working closely with users on here on fixing, yet 10 people can contact tech support about that same issue and each be told it's not a known issue and they're the first person to have reported it. I've even had the experience of calling tech support about the same fault twice without identifying myself, and on the second call still being told this was the first time anyone had reported the issue.

I'd also defend Garmin from a charge of not being interested in user experience or satisfaction. Ultimately, that is all they sell, and they know it. On the few occasions I have had to contact them with a hardware issue they have been very responsive and more than generous in interpreting their warranty conditions. As for firmware, I can say that over the decades I have been a customer they always got there in the end :rolleyes:. When I contacted them about the current issue, customer support said they were aware that problems had been reported (including on this forum) and were looking into it. I was provided with an RMA number without a murmur.

I imagine most people are not having or reporting a problem and there may well be a whole clutch of issues creating the perception that there is one, including incorrect user expectations, an over-optimistic or unclear specification (viz. a 20% variation in battery life cited by Garmin itself in different regions), firmware bugs or a number of units that are genuinely faulty. I returned the watch for a refund pending a consensus as to what the problem is or Garmin providing a solution as I had only a few days left in which to do so. I also have my trusty (two/three weeks between charges) 935 to fall back on, although I will miss having Juliet Stevenson read Middlemarch to me in the long hours of marathon training.

I work for a fairly large company that has a tech support organization. Level 1 tech support sometimes will tell customers some crazy things. This sounds like one of those cases. Best advice is to email the beta email address in the public beta post from this forum. Ask for how they would like for you to help troubleshoot the issue, and offer to provide logs, screenshots and anything else they might need. The software developers will absolutely want to give their customers the best experience. I've had great success with the approach outlined above. With all that said, the 5s will get better battery life, but you may get closer to your previous levels with some software improvement.

I appreciate the various responses to my post. On balance, I have had a good response from Garmin on other issues with my previous watch, so I will not let the response of one 1st level support person color my opinion of the company or its products. I think your advice is good, and I will follow through with emailing the beta email address to offer to help to troubleshoot the issue.

Thanks -

I lose 40% of battery life by listening to music, gps on one run about 13 km

Since I reboot right after the activity Im OK with battery life. Its within my expectations. If I dont do That it goes down pretty fast. So Im confident that the issue is just Software.