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Disappointing battery life

I have just upgraded from a Fenix 5 to a Fenix 5 plus and so far I am finding the battery life to be a lot less than I would expect.

I used to get nearly 2 weeks battery life out of the Fenix 5 but so far the Fenix 5 plus has used 25% in 2 days, both watches are set up and used exactly the same.

I know the Fenix 5 plus is supposed to have slightly less battery life but at this rate it is not even going to last a week.

Does anyone know if this will improve if I cycle the battery a couple of times or if this is normal for this model

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0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Went on a 1.5hr walk today with GPS enabled. Went down 5%, and even with a soft reset I'm seeing some bad battery drain. This morning at 7am it was 37% now, at 20:30 it is 22%.

I think the battery indicator drops faster near the end clearly!

Depending on drain over the next few hours I'll have to put it on charge tonight to get through tomorrow.

I'm on 8 days and 2 hrs so far with almost (very close) 3 hrs GPS usage and a few hours (12+) of phone connection messing with watch faces.

Not sure if that is good or not?

They quote 19hr with GPS. So that is roughly 1 hr per 5.263% ...vs (12d/288hr) 1hr per 0.347% watch mode.

So for my usage I expect to be at the following %

3h gps * 5.26% = 15.78%

191h (minus GPS time) watch *0.347% = 66.277%

So roughly (very roughly) 82.057%

The fact that I'm at 22% when the maths (and Garmin estimated) says I should be at 18% I think it pretty good. Although I don't have smart watch on all the time (only for about 12 hours)

Thoughts?

Your math is spot on and your watch is exceeding the manufacturer suggested battery life. What firmware version is your watch on?

0 Skynet5 over 6 years ago

Your math is spot on and your watch is exceeding the manufacturer suggested battery life. What firmware version is your watch on?

I'm on 5.10.

See my later post. And to update further I've just gone down to 18% at 15:00 GMT.

So 3% in 15hrs! This is after a bit of a drain after my 1.5hr walk.

If it keeps up til 1% then I'm happy with this. Although dissappointing the drainage isn't linear.

0 Skynet5 over 6 years ago

hello! I'm an Italian user and recently I bought an Fenix5 plus.
After 2° charge I use the Fenix from Monday (6:00am) to Sunday (11:30pm) (approx. 0%). I wear 24/7 the watch with active monitoring and BT notification (with iphone). During the week I run 2 times (total 2 h)

I'dont know if it's normal but obviously not the same of Garmin's tech spec

So you have had less than a week from full charge with 2 hrs GPS time?

I don't have my phone connected typically. Also I reboot after GPS activities. It only takes 10secs to boot, so annoying, but not bad.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

hello! I'm an Italian user and recently I bought an Fenix5 plus.
After 2° charge I use the Fenix from Monday (6:00am) to Sunday (11:30pm) (approx. 0%). I wear 24/7 the watch with active monitoring and BT notification (with iphone). During the week I run 2 times (total 2 h)

I'dont know if it's normal but obviously not the same of Garmin's tech spec

They quote 19hr with GPS. So that is roughly 1 hr per 5.263% ...vs (12d/288hr) 1hr per 0.347% watch mode.

2 GPS hour * 5.263 = 10.52% used for GPS
168 Smart watch hour - 2 GPS = 166 hours * 0.347 = 57.602% used for Smart watch
10.52% + 57.602% = 68.122% battery used for GPS and Smart watch

So 100% - 68.122% = 31.878% remaining.

So yes your battery life is poor. BUT do you receive a lot of notifications? Did you play around with your watch a lot? What firmware are you using?

0 zetxx over 6 years ago

The suggestion is up to 7 days from a full charge. That would be under ideal conditions. I would suggest that depending on a device that might last 7 days for a 7 day trip is probably not a good idea. Different matter if there was a guaranteed uptime of 7 days. But really, what can you do with it if you only use it as a watch? As soon as you start using it to record data, you are going to begin impacting the battery life. And since you would be lucky to get 11 hrs using GPS and OHR, what is the point of "depending heavy" on it for an extended trip?

As i said earlier im not a pro and im not pushing my luck, but also i dont to baby-sit the watch... also on the box its says 19h on activity ... not 11

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

As if things weren't strange enough, I experienced the following. Charged the 5+ last night up to 55%. Woke up and it was 54%. Checked 2 hours later and it read...55%! I guess my body is recharging the watch, lol!

I decided to restart the watch which may fix the incorrect battery reading. Restart, check percentage...it's now at 56%! What is going on???

0 radamat82 over 6 years ago

They quote 19hr with GPS. So that is roughly 1 hr per 5.263% ...vs (12d/288hr) 1hr per 0.347% watch mode.

2 GPS hour * 5.263 = 10.52% used for GPS
168 Smart watch hour - 2 GPS = 166 hours * 0.347 = 57.602% used for Smart watch
10.52% + 57.602% = 68.122% battery used for GPS and Smart watch

So 100% - 68.122% = 31.878% remaining.

So yes your battery life is poor. BUT do you receive a lot of notifications? Did you play around with your watch a lot? What firmware are you using?

Firmware 5.10
-I dont'know how many notification but probably >20/day
-During the day I check sometimes the day activity (step, HR ecc....)
-connect with GarminConnect APP on my iphone 3-4 times/day

With the battery widget I saw in watch mode >0.347%/h....often approx. the double

0 Dr Phil over 6 years ago

As i said earlier im not a pro and im not pushing my luck, but also i dont to baby-sit the watch... also on the box its says 19h on activity ... not 11

Possibly my bad as I am referring to a 5S+. I am aware there is a difference. I probably missed the reference to your issue being with a 5+. Either way, my point still stands. Why would you trust your life with a piece of electronics when failures occur all the time? Yes we expect manufacturers to stand by their claims. Garmin are hedging a little, but they do say up to x hrs, n days. They are not guaranteeing anything.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Firmware 5.10
-I dont'know how many notification but probably >20/day
-During the day I check sometimes the day activity (step, HR ecc....)
-connect with GarminConnect APP on my iphone 3-4 times/day

With the battery widget I saw in watch mode >0.347%/h....often approx. the double

Bluetooth uses a lot of battery and my watch was lasting only about 5-7 days with all of these features on. So your battery life seems typical based on all of these activities. To get to 11-12 days of battery life with 3-5 hours of GPS activities, I turn off my Bluetooth and only turn it on once a day - probably extreme but I hate charging. :-)

0 Skynet5 over 6 years ago

@charleymedia that is my next test. Constant bluebooth connection. I don't get a lot of notifications. I'm pretty unpopular lol.

Meanwhile still 18%.

Don't think my last post has been approved yet. No idea what the policy is on this site for posting, everything has to be reviewed?. It seems very unconducive to joining in on the conversation and helping people. That and the constant "not authorised" and logging out.