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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

I think battery is broken! Send it back!

Maybe Suunto 9 is the better (and only) alternative?

0 GaryHawke over 6 years ago

It looks like you are having the same problem I had, within 72 Hours the battery was dead and I had my watch set very much like yours. I spoke with Garmin and they replaced the watch. However, I did have the watch for a month as I am aware that some times a battery might need time to become stable.

0 Yarg over 6 years ago

Thanks for that info; I'll wait for the month to pass before escalating to them then. Is the replacement unit better then (I hope?)

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

@Yarg: don't wait that long! I had the same issue with my first fenix 5 plus. It basically drained 1+% per hour. Took it to Garmin on the 4th-5th day and they exchanged it. The next one was totally different with pretty much 11-12days on normal standby with full time heart rate monitor and full phone notifications all the time.
I had the miss fortune to break the 2nd one so I went again to Garmin and they gave me a 3rd one.
I just took this photo. The watch has been charged only once after it was replaced! As you can see... there is no need for a month of waiting torture - go replace it!

P.S.
The only battery saving settings I'm using are:
* set the brightness to the minimum of 5%
* disable movement wake up

The stock faces use a completely different mechanism to display the seconds hand, which from what I understand is not available for custom faces. It is consuming way less energy than the custom ones and this is why you can use the stock "safely".

0 Baoran over 6 years ago

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.

My fenix 5 plus just arrived and I turned it on for the first time about 15 minutes ago. At least the battery wasn't drained on arrival. It has 22% battery left so I think that is a good sign.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Hi all,

i'm not using F5+ yet (planning to buy though) but Vivoactive 3. Since i am a software developer for the last 20 years one think that i have learned is that most creepy bugs get solved from unexpected and probably "out of context" observations. So despite the fact that i will not refer to Fenix + this is an observation that might lead somewhere.
So since upgrading to Android Pie i noticed a huge battery drainage in Vivoactive 3. I also have noticed that after the Pie update the phone all day tried to connect with the watch. This caused a huge battery drain. Just food for thought at Garmin Devs out there.

0 GaryHawke over 6 years ago

Thanks for that info; I'll wait for the month to pass before escalating to them then. Is the replacement unit better then (I hope?)

The replacement appears to be stable.

0 Yarg over 6 years ago

Thanks for the info. I'm contacting the vendor at the moment, and will see if they'll replace it or if I need to carry on up the chain to Garmin themselves....

0 Gr4z over 6 years ago

3.5 hours after my last run, I am still sitting at 0.8% drain even after a reboot.

0 Baoran over 6 years ago

My fenix 5 plus just arrived and I turned it on for the first time about 15 minutes ago. At least the battery wasn't drained on arrival. It has 22% battery left so I think that is a good sign.

Never mind that. It seems that it drains battery fast really fast. Probably almost 10 times as fast as it is supposed to. I don't have bluetooth or wifi on and I have not connected it to any external sensors. Also using the default watch face that was there except I replaced the top altimeter data field with battery meter %. After charging it full (5 hours of charging over night), the battery seems to be draining at constant rate of 1% every 20 minutes and I am not doing anything with it, just keeping it strapped to my wrist, so that means that in 33 hours the battery will go from 100% to 0% without any activities.

I really don't know what to do because it is not going to be easy to send it back in the situation considering where I ordered it from. I should have read about these battery problems before I ordered it.