Disappointing battery life

Updated to 5.00, Battery drain seems to be gone/better.

A 3,5h run with a bluetooth Wahoo Tickr was ~30%.
No bigger drain afterwards,

Accoding to Battery Gauge i have ~0.7-0.8%/h with no activity (some Smart Notifications, OHR measurement) - this is still ~ 20%/day which could be better.
Reboot does not change the usage.

Standard watchface, Smart Notifications, no music, nothing special.

Have to correct myself: After a Halfmarathon with HRM-Strap (~17%) the battery usage stayed at 3%/h in idle according to Battery Gauge (at least it was so 2h after finish), a Reboot brought that down to 0.8%/h

So elevated usage after workout is still seen here

Firmware v5 has had big improvement on battery life for me on a 5S Plus. For month on v4+ I didn't get above 2.5 days life, this while trying variety of battery saving options inc reduced backlight, stock watchface without seconds and disabling auto upload WiFi. This is with OHR, continuous phone connection and 30-45 mins daily GPS tracking with music.

v5 has seen almost doubling of battery life, to just over 5 days on same typical usage. With v5.1 just out, hope battery gains I have seen retained.

The challenge with so many degrees of freedom and the days needed to build data is it is difficult to confidently establish precise conclusions. It's not like I am running repeated consistent tests with this thing sitting in a fully controlled environment, I actually use it.

An official battery monitoring widget (interpretation of Battery Analyser introduces another variable) could help, but I imagine risks Garmin being hoisted by their own petard.

Still, I'm in an acceptable range now and can focus or more important/fun stuff like getting outside and up some mountains.

I still have ~0.6 -1.0% battery drain every hour and I'm very surprised how people are not complaining about having such values. Yes, the post workout battery drain might be "gone" (I sometimes still have it, not as bad as 3%, but still increased), but with these base values (~0.6-1.0%) I achieve a runtime of 4-6 days in normal watch mode, which is not even half of what Garmin promised! One of the reasons I bought this watch (THE main reason) was the superior battery life, which was supposed to be much higher than the one of the usual smartwatches (e.g. Apple Watch). If you are on a multi-day hiking/mountaineering trip the watch is basically useless. Yes, if I just do a run starting from home, then it's fine. But then I could have stayed with my Forerunner 235... But advertising a "multi-sport" watch, which has settings for mountaineering, which usually takes several days and then having such a s**** battery life is in my opinion straight up fraud! I hope they can fix this with software updates...

And btw, yes, I tested the watch with every possible setting (no smartphone pairing, no wifi, DND mode during the night, disabled barometer calibration, etc.). Still battery drain could not be pushed below ~0.5%.

I still have ~0.6 -1.0% battery drain every hour and I'm very surprised how people are not complaining about having such values. Yes, the post workout battery drain might be "gone" (I sometimes still have it, not as bad as 3%, but still increased), but with these base values (~0.6-1.0%) I achieve a runtime of 4-6 days in normal watch mode, which is not even half of what Garmin promised! One of the reasons I bought this watch (THE main reason) was the superior battery life, which was supposed to be much higher than the one of the usual smartwatches (e.g. Apple Watch). If you are on a multi-day hiking/mountaineering trip the watch is basically useless. Yes, if I just do a run starting from home, then it's fine. But then I could have stayed with my Forerunner 235... But advertising a "multi-sport" watch, which has settings for mountaineering, which usually takes several days and then having such a s**** battery life is in my opinion straight up fraud! I hope they can fix this with software updates...

And btw, yes, I tested the watch with every possible setting (no smartphone pairing, no wifi, DND mode during the night, disabled barometer calibration, etc.). Still battery drain could not be pushed below ~0.5%.

Same problem here, I contacted Garmin, sent the device and they changed it for a new one. Now i have 0.3-0.4% per hour

Same problem here, I contacted Garmin, sent the device and they changed it for a new one. Now i have 0.3-0.4% per hour

Can you tell us the S/N? I am wondering the range of S/n's affected

Charged my watch for approx. 30 minutes starting at 39%.
When disconnecting it showed 39%.
Now, 5 hours later it shows 39%.

Shall we guess what it displays in 3 hours???

...still sitting at 39%

You have of course done a restart of the watch in your testing, Forerunner...? (Not just turning it off and on, but a restart)

You have of course done a restart of the watch in your testing, Forerunner...? (Not just turning it off and on, but a restart)

Ofcourse i did!
Is there any battery powered device on earth that does not need it? :)

I still have ~0.6 -1.0% battery drain every hour and I'm very surprised how people are not complaining about having such values. Yes, the post workout battery drain might be "gone" (I sometimes still have it, not as bad as 3%, but still increased), but with these base values (~0.6-1.0%) I achieve a runtime of 4-6 days in normal watch mode, which is not even half of what Garmin promised! One of the reasons I bought this watch (THE main reason) was the superior battery life, which was supposed to be much higher than the one of the usual smartwatches (e.g. Apple Watch). If you are on a multi-day hiking/mountaineering trip the watch is basically useless. Yes, if I just do a run starting from home, then it's fine. But then I could have stayed with my Forerunner 235... But advertising a "multi-sport" watch, which has settings for mountaineering, which usually takes several days and then having such a s**** battery life is in my opinion straight up fraud! I hope they can fix this with software updates...

And btw, yes, I tested the watch with every possible setting (no smartphone pairing, no wifi, DND mode during the night, disabled barometer calibration, etc.). Still battery drain could not be pushed below ~0.5%.

This points to a faulty battery then, there is nothing you can do except exchange for a new unit having exhausted all options. If I strip out all options I get about 6% per 24 hours drain.