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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 Gr4z over 6 years ago

This is quite frustrating. I've got this issue since I bought the watch and tried every single tip for reducing the battery consumption. I'm testing several things and just realised it's not only post activity drainage, it is whenever I use the GPS. For instance, I'm traveling for leisure 4 days. I fully recharged my Fenix 5s beforehand and unplugged just before leaving hoping it will last in watch mode only the 4 days. Battery consumption was more or less ok (I kept track with the battery widget and consumption was around 0.7 to 1%/hr) until I checked the altitude. It was way off(-200) I calibrated the altitude (the watch uses GPS) and the watch was with 30% battery. Approximately 5 hours later when heading to check the time, watch was off and no battery whatsoever... So it looks like the drain is not after an activity only, but whenever it uses the GPS.

A couple of weeks ago I contacted Garmin regarding this issue, and showed some prove of the battery drain (2.2%/HR while working sitting on my desk). Their reply was: 'we know there is an issue, we are working on it". I hope they can find the issue and solve this problem.... although my fears now are (and as some people point out in this thread) that they will release a new version of the watch and move one, and we will be stuck with this problem.... hopefully my fears are wrong....

In any case, another thing to add to the list of tips for saving battery in the meantime they solve this is to avoid auto-calibrate altitude, etc???

P.s.: sorry for my English, it's not my first language.

Unfortunately they have been 'fixing' this issue for a while now, months in fact. Still no firmware release. Let's see if the new version is released next week, otherwise you could always try swapping it out with Garmin direct and see if that fixes it. Some have had results from this.

0 soss3osp over 6 years ago

really strange: Yesterday 97% battery left, today not even 24h later 51%. This is really lousy. And: No Sports, nthing special, just some sitting and 8000 steps 24h.

0 Gr4z over 6 years ago

really strange: Yesterday 97% battery left, today not even 24h later 51%. This is really lousy. And: No Sports, nthing special, just some sitting and 8000 steps 24h.

Uninstall and don't use 3rd party watch faces. Let the watch empty the battery and turn off. Charge the watch to 100% and leave it on charge for a further 1-2 hours. Reboot your watch and test it again. If still bad send it back for a replacement.

0 Nehows over 6 years ago

Unfortunately they have been 'fixing' this issue for a while now, months in fact. Still no firmware release. Let's see if the new version is released next week, otherwise you could always try swapping it out with Garmin direct and see if that fixes it. Some have had results from this.

Well....not sure how to do that, as when I contacted them, they didn't give me that choice, only the option of wait and that they will contact me...hence I'm a bit worried they'll move on...adding to that...and as you said... at the moment, swapping the device is not a 100% effective.... So ..this is a bit terrible...

0 NirCohen over 6 years ago

0.35% per hour, WIFI activated,smart watch mode, getting all notifications from mobile, 2-3 times a day sync, no 3rd party watchface. Currently using the one with 1 sec dial updating, No spotify activated. Seems that i will be able to cover > 10 days of recharge.

0 JSRUNNER_ over 6 years ago

Gr4z are you sure it was fully charged. I have found that although my 5+ says 100% on charger - if I disconnect from the charger and turn it off and onn it will restart with a different figure (last time I did this it showed 87%). I then charged for about another hour disconnecteing and rebooting a couple of times in that period to check progress.

My watch was charged midday on friday and is now (7:20 am Monday) at 58% - activities in between 1.5 Hours swimming indoors and 2 Hours running with GPS. I have wifi and BT on but use no music etc. so .62% per hour or about 4 days max

0 Yarg over 6 years ago

Just by way of an update: the replacement 5+ appears to be doing better than my original. It was dead on arrival, so I left it charging via USB connected to a laptop for more than a day. With the original I had read so much about poor battery life that, the moment I got it, I disabled everything possible (wifi, bluetooth, backlight down to 10,etc) and it still lost about 1.5% per hour without any activities.

With this replacement, I have not disabled anything: everything is exactly out of the box, and I have left bluetooth enabled all the time as well. Using the stock watch face but without any activities so far, the watch has drained 14% in 24hrs, so not as good as some on here report, but also not as bad as the previous device. Remains to be seen how it performs once I start doing some activities with it.....

0 JSRUNNER_ over 6 years ago

Yarg that still seems a very high for no activities its similar to my drain rate including activities - be interesting to see what your drain rate is when you start to include GPS activities (actually my drain is about .6 - .7 per hour including GPS activities )

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

What are some settings to immediately shut off? I have backlight set to 5 after subset, Bluetooth phone connection off unless needed, abd WiFi auto upload disabled. Anything else that should be shut off to save bettery?

How does bluetooth work for headphones? Does it automatically get shut off once music is paused and headphones disconnected?

0 chatlow over 6 years ago

There is obviously a big problem If you are having to turn off some of these settings and losing functionality just to save battery. As many have said before, if you are not getting close to the advertised battery expectation then just raise the issue with Garmin. Just be sure that the battery level is what it reports (reboot usually confirms) first.