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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

Hi Guys,
So a week with the new replacement watch... apart from the initial charging session and replugging in to sync Spotify etc, I can report from 100% to 80% I am getting 0.3 percent loss.. up to 0.6 for post gps work... currently 92hours in and 3 x 3km runs and a 30 min gps walk... and I’m on 42% battery...

very happy... and technically a pot luck watch as it was replaced by Argos from their stock and not by Garmin, new from the shelf.... so it sounds like they do have certain chips that don’t take the 6.0update well...

0 JanH over 6 years ago

I don't think it's GPS;

4-10-2019 12:08:39 UTC
Software: 6.64
Time on since last charge: 00:11:14 (674 sec)
Time in low power: 00:11:07 (667 sec)
Time with backlight on: 00:00:00 (0 sec)
Time with GPS on: 00:00:05 (5 sec)
Time with OHR active scan on: 00:00:06 (6 sec)
Time with WIFI on: 00:00:00 (0 sec)
Time with ANT active scan on: 00:00:06 (6 sec)
Time with BLE active scan on: 00:00:06 (6 sec)
Time with GCM connected: 00:10:57 (657 sec)

Device info when plugged in:
Battery percentage: 100.000000%
Current backlight mode: 3
Current backlight brightness: 20%
-----------------------------------
4-12-2019 06:53:56 UTC
Software: 6.64
Time on since last charge: 1d:16:17:31 (145051 sec)
Time in low power: 1d:15:22:31 (141751 sec)
Time with backlight on: 00:06:44 (404 sec)
Time with GPS on: 00:00:21 (21 sec)
Time with OHR active scan on: 00:53:15 (3195 sec)
Time with WIFI on: 00:00:00 (0 sec)
Time with ANT active scan on: 00:02:37 (157 sec)
Time with BLE active scan on: 00:02:35 (155 sec)
Time with GCM connected: 1d:15:28:22 (142102 sec)

Device info when plugged in:
Battery percentage: 58.937500%
Current backlight mode: 3
Current backlight brightness: 20%

Hey, wich app are you using to get this detailed info? Thanks!

0 StefanWilliams over 6 years ago

JANH , I think this is from one of the files in the Garmin/debug folder (visible when you connect to the PC over USB). The latest information can be viewed on the watch using the "Device Info" widget.

0 soss3osp over 6 years ago

Due to its daily disabilities i do not wear the watch aside running anymore. on Sunday night i charged my fenix 5s plus to 100%, then i sitched the watch off. On tuesday I went on a run (1.30h with only HR, GPS & Galileo, no music, I switched on the fenix 15min before my run started) and when i came home i witnessed a 67% charge. This can not be normal and is indeed very disappointing (FW 6.00).

0 JSRUNNER_ over 6 years ago

5+ With 6.71 beta I am now getting 99 hours uptime with 143 minutes GPS time and 41% remaining so about .42% per hour. This assumes that the 41% is realistic (unlike on the last beta where the final 25% vanished far too quickly). This is still fairly poor as I suspect I'll only get 1 more run in before I have to recharge so maximum of about 4.5 days up time with 3 GPS activities - drastically worse than the 935

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

For me, 6.71 beta resolved the charging issue and appears to have eliminated post-activity drainage. However, now it seems to drain slightly more during activity.

Previous to installing beta software, I threw together a spreadsheet to track the battery consumption. I found that although there was post-activity drainage, I was getting pretty close to expected battery life overall. In other words, the device was draining too little during the activity, and then in excess post-activity to make up for it.

I'm guessing there was an issue with correctly displaying the true battery level which 6.71 has resolved for many users. I'll still have to do some testing with 6.71 to determine if the overall battery life is close to what is advertised.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I upgraded to the 7.10 and it is much worse than with 6.72, only HR turned on and step counter, no activity, no notifications, nothing, lasts at most 36h.
I charged yesterday during the night, and after 3 hours he already lost 10% without any activity.

I bought this watch mainly because of the battery life they advertised, is a great disappointment compared to fenix 3.

I will return the clock to be replaced, in the last case I return it and go to FR 945.

0 Baz 8755 over 6 years ago

I upgraded to 7.10 about 4 days ago and for the first couple of days I was getting not PAD and everything appeared fixed but in the past 24 hours the thing has consumed nearly 40% battery with only 1 hours GPS & ANT+

This is the worst it's ever been, I wish I could get my money back.....or maybe we should file a class action :(

0 JaymO over 6 years ago

What would be great is if Garmin would offer a trade-in credit for the F5+ to put towards one of the new watches that just came out. Especially since many of the new features are not going to trickle down to the F5+ (which is less than one year old).

0 gianpaoloracca over 6 years ago

I am soooo disappointed with the battery life of this watch... on the box it's said 12 days battery life, but maybe they should have said 12 hours...
This is the worst thing but not the only, because now and the notifications are gone (and have to reboot) and I had a reboot even during an activity.
Really really pre production level.
What I am wondering is: does anyone get at least decent battery life? I mean like one week between charging with monitoring and 3 or four runs like I did with my 920 XT?