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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 Chrisly over 6 years ago

You´re right! But which alternative is there? My old fenix 5 was okay (70% satisfaction; problems with hr during activity, but perfect battery: 2-3 weeks). My new fenix 5 plus would be nearly perfect (for me: 95% satisfaction) without the battery-problems (I would be happy with 0,25%/hour). So I hope for another one without this problem or: fenix 6/7 ...
I would like to go to another manufacturer - but no one has nearly the same performance (more than 1 week/battery; swimming/diving ...).

0 Baoran over 6 years ago

I ordered a fenix 5 plus earlier this week. What do you think the chances are that it comes with a bad battery when it arrives at next week? I'm just bit worried after reading this thread.

0 Chrisly over 6 years ago

I ordered last week. So you must pray for luck ...

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Pray pray pray and beleave in aliens and that there is something faster than light... :)

0 Dr Phil over 6 years ago

What do you think the chances are that it comes with a bad battery when it arrives at next week?

Minimal. There will always be defective devices. However, you can be sure that the majority of the devices Garmin ships do work as intended.

Bear in mind that most people who post to this forum have a complaint. We tend not to hear from people who use their devices and don't have any problems.

The only piece of advice I'd give to you with a new device is to avoid adding any 3rd party data fields or watch faces for a couple of months. Use the device as you get it until you are sure there is nothing wrong. Only then begin adding 3rd party add-ons.

0 jminar over 6 years ago

I ordered a F5 Plus on Wednesday this week from Amazon, which arrived yesterday. When I opened it, the battery was fully depleted, so I connected it to my PC to charge and update. It took reeeeally long to charge to 100% (around 3,5h, shouldn't be the USB-Port since my 935 only took around 1,5 to 2h to charge from ~10% to 100%), whereafter I set everything up and updated to FW 6.00, GPS 2.30 and ANT/BLE/BT 3.30. I left the watch to search for a GPS signal for 15 minutes as recommended. This was around 2pm yesterday, since then the watch was connected to my phone via BT with notifications on, no GPS since then. Right now the battery charge sits at around 90% (it's 9pm atm), averaging about 0,3% per hour (including the 15minutes searching for GPS so not perfectly accurate). This would put me around 12 days, just as advertised.

I'm fully aware that ~30h with the watch is not enough to show real battery usage, I just wanted to share that a watch arriving with a depleted battery doesn't necessarily have to mean that it's faulty.

0 Chrisly over 6 years ago

After charging to 100% my fenix showed 0,2%/hour (for the first 6-8 hours after charging). But then: battery was empty after 4-5 days (smartwatch-mode). So I agree with you:real battery usage is shown after 2-3 days ...

0 GaryHawke over 6 years ago

I noticed strange behaviour on my replacement 5+, battery indictor show normal sign of drain. Then after a 10 mile outdoor run with GPS and foot pod, I am calibrating it for treadmill running, and using music the drain was as I expected, but the drain over the next few hours was around 1% per hour. Putting the watch to charge back to 100 seemed to return the drain to normal. 24 hours after putting watch to charge to 100 I have lost 4%.

0 zetxx over 6 years ago

so you are hitting PABD(post activity battery drain) .... garmin invented this :) .... this is all about this thread :)

0 Yarg over 6 years ago

Hi All,

I've had my Fenix 5+ for just over 2 weeks now and it's gone through 5 full charges already. I've read through this and many other threads, disabled many settings and still see drain that doesn't match the stats on the box. So I thought I'd ask here before contacting Garmin Support to take things further. The watch has the following settings at the moment:

Wifi auto-upload disabled
Bluetooth disabled
GPS - there doesn't seem to be a way to disable GPS manually; if I've understood correctly, the GPS will only be active when I start an activity; I haven't been doing any activities so theoretically GPS is not active (right?)
Stock analog watch face (second hand showing - no possibility to remove the second hand on the stock watch faces, but I read somewhere that apparently with FW6.0.0.0 the second hand shouldn't consume battery as it did before)
Activity tracking enabled
Move IQ enabled
Move Alert enabled
Wrist Heart Rate enabled
Physio True Up enabled
Alert vibration enabled

With those settings above, the watch is losing more than 1% battery per hour; it was fully charged at 19:00 yesterday evening; at 19:00 today it was at 68%. I don't know if there is anything else that needs disabling to save battery, but I don't think 30% drain per day without any activities at all is reasonable.

Grateful for any suggestions from anyone here (or Garmin themselves if you're still reading this thread); otherwise I will contact Garmin Support to see what can be done.

Thanks!
G