Disappointing battery life

I charged my fenix 5 plus last sunday , and during this week i just realized 3 run less than an hour each one, two of then with music and some alarm in the watch. Today friday night i just checked my watch to see if i am ok for tomorrow saturday long run and my battery is completely depleted with just 6% lasting. So i go ahead and put it to charge during the night. So battery is garbage, no offense ahh and i do have bt on, but i dont receive any notification on my watch. Bt is only for the watch to sync. I am in the last beta .53 and i do not have galileo or any extra gps on in my watch. I recorded activities in 1 seconds and that is, not lasting a week at all.

1 week? Jajaja my battery only 1.5 days whitout activities...53beta. i need help

Forerunner (and a few others!) First: I'm not defending Garmin regarding bugs and errors not being fixed, there is a lot of things they could improve, especially their responsiveness when certain bugs that affects a lot of users are identified.

That said; based on my observations in here lately I think that you are taking this personal vendetta of yours towards Garmin a bit too far, and frankly I think it pollutes the forums for everyone that wants to discuss and exchange user experiences and contribute with constructive feedback to Garmin in a civilized way. Even official Garmin representatives have reached out to you with seemingly genuine interest of trying to understand what you are experiencing and how they can possibly help you. But no, you just keep on ranting.

Please do yourself, and everyone else, a favour and go buy yourself a Polar or Suunto or Finow or any other apparently perfect watch that is available out there.

Very well said and I couldn’t agree more.

Charged my watch last saturday (exactly one week ago) to 100%. Since then I’ve been using it 24/7 with OHR on and connected to my phone, 3x1h treadmill runs with music and external HR and FP sensors, 2x1h strength with music and external HR sensor, and a 3h hike.
Oh, and by the way: I’ve been suspecting oncoming sickness, so I’ve been checking the stress widget A LOT.

This morning I still have 19% left.

Sure, I’ve not been using GPS a lot, but it’s not too bad none the less?
I’ve experienced similar battery life in previous weeks also, before I moved my runs indoors.

(FW5.10)

Forerunner (and a few others!) First: I'm not defending Garmin regarding bugs and errors not being fixed, there is a lot of things they could improve, especially their responsiveness when certain bugs that affects a lot of users are identified.

That said; based on my observations in here lately I think that you are taking this personal vendetta of yours towards Garmin a bit too far, and frankly I think it pollutes the forums for everyone that wants to discuss and exchange user experiences and contribute with constructive feedback to Garmin in a civilized way. Even official Garmin representatives have reached out to you with seemingly genuine interest of trying to understand what you are experiencing and how they can possibly help you. But no, you just keep on ranting.

Please do yourself, and everyone else, a favour and go buy yourself a Polar or Suunto or Finow or any other apparently perfect watch that is available out there.

Well said....

I come to these forums to inform myself and take part in a positive and meaninful discussion.

Forerunner (and a few others!) First: I'm not defending Garmin regarding bugs and errors not being fixed, there is a lot of things they could improve, especially their responsiveness when certain bugs that affects a lot of users are identified.

That said; based on my observations in here lately I think that you are taking this personal vendetta of yours towards Garmin a bit too far, and frankly I think it pollutes the forums for everyone that wants to discuss and exchange user experiences and contribute with constructive feedback to Garmin in a civilized way. Even official Garmin representatives have reached out to you with seemingly genuine interest of trying to understand what you are experiencing and how they can possibly help you. But no, you just keep on ranting.

Please do yourself, and everyone else, a favour and go buy yourself a Polar or Suunto or Finow or any other apparently perfect watch that is available out there.

Having read this I had to go back through this thread to see what had sparked such a response, TBH all I see is people naturally reacting in frustration due to having an incorrectly functioning product with no idea if/when it will ever be resolved.

From my point of view Garmin probably are trying to fix the issue(s) but past performance with other products does not inspire confidence. I have owned Garmin products dating right back to the early eTrex all the way up to the the latest Oregon 750t, Index scale, Edge 810, F5+, various ANT+ sensors. Many of these products and their previous iterations have quite major unresolved issues and that often Garmin never resolve and just move on to the next iteration (with a new set of issues). It does not help Garmins case when people contact support regarding a known issue only to be told they have never heard of it before.

The problem is that Garmin are currently in a niche and have good eco-system that currently has no competition that could fully replicate what they have, so certainly from my point of view there is nowhere else to go to.

So although I am a returning customer and Garmin get my money it does not necessarily mean I am a happy customer.

BAZ8755 I’m not denying there is an issue. I’m not saying Garmin isn’t required to improve their responsiveness when issues are identified, and last but not least: I’m not saying that people shouldn’t be allowed to be frustrated.

What I’m saying is simply that when discussions more and more often seems to turn into irrational rants and conspiracy theories, that doesn’t add value to the discussions nor contributes to solve the issue(s) at all.

BAZ8755 I’m not denying there is an issue. I’m not saying Garmin isn’t required to improve their responsiveness when issues are identified, and last but not least: I’m not saying that people shouldn’t be allowed to be frustrated.

What I’m saying is simply that when discussions more and more often seems to turn into irrational rants and conspiracy theories, that doesn’t add value to the discussions nor contributes to solve the issue(s) at all.

I agree. All I am looking for in this forum is information about how Garmin products work and how identified problems can be fixed.

Okay. New (replacement) 5+ arrived just over 2 weeks ago. Not using GPS, maps, music, pay etc. On full charge, recorded about 10 half hour activities during the first week (indoor rowing). Just over 10% battery loss per day. No activities during the second week and I'm just under 10% battery usage per day. After recharging to 100% in a couple of days it should be "settled in" and I'll start to build up my usage. If this continues then the 5+ is nowhere near as robust wrt battery life as the 5. Really disappointed so far but I'll leave a confident conclusion for another 2 weeks.

Still not happy about how long they took to send a replacement .

So below are my findings after installing firmware 5.53 beta. The good news is the high battery drain issue after GPS seems to be much less. My watch lasted for an incredible 11 days through 6 GPS activities. The only high battery drain issue I noticed was on 10/26 where I ran for 30 minutes and the battery life went from 41% to 38% in a 3 hour span (battery life per hour is .347% or roughly 1% to 1.1%). I do still see inconsistent battery reading after charging to 100% and restarting the watch; please fix that! In addition, one run on 10/21 produced bad data reading (wrong pace, heart rate) and one run on 10/26 produced inaccurate heart rate (low heart rate). All in all, I think Garmin has addressed this high battery drain after GPS activity issue - so thank you for listening to your customers!

Note to other users - if you leave your mobile Garmin app open, I noticed the Bluetooth icon (BT) on the watch is still active and this seems to cause huge battery drainage for me. I have created a shortcut to turn on and off Bluetooth and it is only enabled when I turn it on for a few minutes a day. Of course this may not be an option to other users who wants notifications on their watch.

Estimated battery life in percentage: 12 days smart watch or 8.333%/day or 0.347%/hour
18 hours gps or 5.56%/hour

Install firmware 5.53 beta

Settings: Crystal face watch (no seconds, no heartbeat, Bluetooth (BT) icon); GPS/Gaelilo; 1 sec heart/GPS rate tracking; no notifications or smart watch features; BT off and only turn on once a day to upload data; enable/disable BT shortcut

Charge 1

• 10/18 - update firmware to 5.53 beta around 8pm; begin charging @ 9:26pm @ 32%; 100% @ 11:11pm; after restart BL shows 90% (still a bug);
  
• 10/19 - 90% @ 6:58am; 90% @ 9:29am; 90% @ 11:51am; run for 15min and BL stayed at 90% @ 1:04pm; accidentally restart and BL shows 94% (what the heck); upload data and turn off BT; 94% @ 3:04pm; 92% @ 8:43pm; 92% @ 11:45pm;
  
• 10/20 - 91% @ 1:59am; 90% @ 8:16am; 90% @ 11:02am; restart and BL shows 90%; 89% @ 2:39pm; 89% @ 4:28pm; 88% @ 7:18pm; 88% @ 10:58pm;
  
• 10/21 - 86% @ 7:21am; 86% @ 8:53am; run for 42mins and BL went from 86% to 80% @ 10:24am; 78% @ 2:01pm; 77% @ 5:05pm; upload data and turn off BT @ 76% @ 11:36pm (corrupted reading with invalid heart rate and pace, unable to load to Strava without fix);
  
• 10/22 - 75% @ 6:58am; 74% @ 9:18am; 73% @ 12:15pm; 72% @ 5:31pm; 71% @ 7:37pm; upload data and turn off BT @ 10:50pm @ 70%;
  
• 10/23 - 68% @ 5:22am; 64% @ run for 38min and upload data and turn off BT @ 6:31am; 61% @ 9:14am; 61% @ 11:55am; 60% @ 2:36pm; 60% @ 5:04pm; 59% @ 8:38pm; 59% @ 11:40pm;
  
• 10/24 - 57% @ 7:111am; 57% @ 9:04am; 53% run for 45min and upload data and turn off BT @ 12:45pm; 52% @ 3:07pm; restart and BL shows 52% @ 3:20ish; 51% @ 7:41pm; 50% @ 10:17pm;
  
• 10/25 - 49% @ 6:01am; 48% 13 min strength workout @ 6:33am; left watch at home; 45% @ 6:52pm; 45% @ 10:04pm;
  
• 10/26 - 43% @ 5:50am; 41% @ run for 30mins 6:32am (bad heart rate readings); upload and turn off BT @ 6:38am; 38% @ 9:28am; 36% @ 1:04pm; 35% @ 3:01pm; 33% @ 5:40pm; 33% @ 7:12pm; 31% @ 11:41pm;
  
• 10/27 - 29% @ 8:05am; 28% @ 10:40am; 28% @ 12:55pm; 27% @ 6:11pm; 26% @ 9:28pm;
  
• 10/28 - 24% @ 7:20am; 21% run for 42mins @ 8:52am; 21% upload data and turn off BT; 18% @ 11:17am; 18% @ 4:18am; 16% @ 7:05pm; 16% @ 9:30pm;
  
• 10/29 - 15% @ 6:37am; 15% @ 9:06am; 14% @ 12:09pm; 14% @ 7:51pm;