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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
  • I have noticed that after every factory reset or firmware update the watch runs fine for a few days and than starts to drain, sometimes a bit, sometimes a bit more. Could very well be caused by a memory leak that can be extremely difficult to find. Hence it takes Garmin a long time to address this. And therefore I believe that asking Garmin for a new watch is not the solution (unless you have a real HW fault).
  • I too see an improvement after installing the 6.58 Beta. So far, I am getting a battery life on my 5+ that matches the product specifications with Bluetooth on, WiFi enabled, and smart notifications on. But I think an issue remains with the battery meter during charging. My watch still jumps from 92% to 100% when charging. Through trial and error of cycling power and charging, I've learned to let the watch charge an additional hour after this happens to reach a full charge. So my statement regarding battery life is prefaced with obtaining a full charge.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    Just wanted to add my Fenix 5 Plus real world usage to this thread. I recently traveled to Europe and was unable to do any activities for 12 days. When I left the watch was charged to 100% and rebooted to verify that the charge was in fact full. I used the watch in smartwatch mode only for the whole 12 day trip. When I returned to the states, my battery was at 15%, so I'm very pleased with the battery in smartwatch mode. I am on beta 6.57 and have yet to test post activity or activity drain with this beta installed, but hopefully there is an improvement there as well.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    I have been a Forerunner 735XT user for 2.5 years and recently decided to “upgrade”. Overall, that is the “standard” for which I now evaluate battery life. I purchased a Fenix 5 Plus at the beginning of March and immediately noticed the drastic difference in battery life. I struggled to get 4-5 days of life out of that watch while essentially eliminating all marketed functions that the Fenix 5 Plus is known for. For comparison I purchased a Forerunner 935 and setup both watches identical. Under the same conditions the Fenix 5 Plus decreased at 12% / day and the Forerunner 935 decreased at 4% / day. There is without a doubt a hardware / software issue with the Fenix 5 Plus at the current moment and unfortunately I would not recommend purchasing one at the present time.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    Well mine this weekend completely locked up on ver 6.0. Watch would function by the buttons, battery showed 70% for 3 days, couldn't connect to GC, couldn't connect to GPS. What the heck?! Tried turning off, charging etc....stayed at 70%. I had to do a hard reboot and it's been fine now for 4 days. What the heck? Completely annoying.
  • It's a hit and miss affair here. Normally in SM mode my f5+ consumes about 0.35% per hour which is OK. But it can also jump to 0.48% for no apparent reason. And last night it dropped 10% over 7 hours. I miss my F5 which ran 21 days on end easy!
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    I notice a lot of you guys are complaining about your battery life. do you not realize, picking GPS +GLONASS, or GALALLO kills your battery fast. I have tried all and they kill your battery, unless you pick just GPS on it's on, just GPS setting.
  • This has been discussed before and I think most of us are aware of this but thanks for reminding.
  • Denodan for me I see no detectable difference in drain with or without glonass or Galileo unfortunately nor do I see any difference in the accuracy of the gps track