Disappointing battery life

Did anyone still have battery drain with GPS staying turned on in the background? I used it for 6-7 hours skiing profile, and after saving the activity, watch was still at around 40%, then by the evening it turned off due to low battery. :-(

Here’s my anecdotal experience with 2 F5+ models. One is an F5+ Sapphire which was bought used off eBay, the other is an F5S+ base model bought new from Clever Training. Most of what this is based on smart watch mode because I’ve been dealing with a foot injury so no outdoor running and it’s been winter and all of my bike training has been inside on the trainer.

Both watches were getting battery life well below stated specs at first. After about 3 or 4 charging cycles the SW mode on the Sapphire model started getting closer to advertised battery life and now after a few more charge/discharge cycles it is usually using 0.3% per hour. As part of my foot rehab I’ve done some 1-3 mile walks with GPS and battery consumption has been within what would be expected.

With the base F5S model the battery drain was way off and only getting around 3 days in SW mode. I tried using the beta FW with no improvement but it too is now showing closer to spec battery life draining by about 0.6% per hour.

Lackluster initial battery life at first that improves after a couple of charge cycles is something I’ve noticed on other Garmin watches I’ve had. But never before was the initial battery life as poor nor did it require so many cycles to improve. Not saying this is the case with all F5+ battery problems in this thread, but it is what I’m seeing.

How many people have had success with getting a replacement unit? I was having the battery drainage and charging issues mentioned above with a Fenix 5 Plus and contacted Garmin Support. They sent me a replacement watch, but it appears to have the exact same problems. Should I request another replacement unit? I'm just curious if good watches are out there or if most are having issues.

Over the last 3 Weeks I have made daily battery tests.

My watch is a Fenix 5S plus (replaced two times....)

I started with a full reset and deleted the watch from garmin express.
Then set up the watch:
- no bluetooth connection
- no WLAN
- no Heartrate
- no other apps and widgets
- default digital clock without seconds and heartrate
- default light
- no gestures
Then full charge to 100% plus one hour.

Then made dayly tests (24h) of power consuption per hour:

Day 1: 0.28% (no sports)
Day 2: 0.31% (Heartrate on, no sports)
Day 3: 0.35% (Heartrate on, WLAN on, no sports)
Day 4: 0.65% (Heartrate on, WLAN on, Bluetooth Connection to Phone, no sports)

I repeated the Test and had the same result.

Bluetooth doubles the consumption...

0.65% per hour gives me 6 days only in smartphone mode !

The consumption for Indoor sports (crosstrainer, stepper, cycling) is 5% per hour.

Indoor Cycling: 5.2 %/h
Crosstrainer: 3.2 %/h
Stepper: 4.4%/h

Outdoor activities:

Walking: 10%/h

For measuring the battery consumption ind Activities I use the Battery Info Field.

Hi axbl,

I have more or less the same observations. I was very disappointed with the battery life of my Fenix 5S+ sapphire but after some various optimization it looks better now - I have also updated in beta firmware 6.58 last week and the battery life seem to have improved a little bit.

Another interesting point is that the battery life depends a lot on the watch face:
- with the default and simple stock digital watch face I am getting more or less the same results than you, eg 0.35% (Heartrate on, WLAN on, no sports) and 0.65% (Heartrate on, WLAN on, Bluetooth Connection to Phone, no sports)
- with the default stock watch face with needles it is slightly more --> around 0.85% per hour in watch smart mode

Which watch face did you use for your tests?

Thanks,
Tom

- default digital clock without seconds and heartrate ;-)

Have you guys thought, the 5 plus has a faster processor, by 40% is claimed somewhere, this alone maybe taking the toll on battery life, yet garmin still quoting the battery life based on the older 5

Newer procesors are usually faster but also more energy efficient so that's probably not a major factor. I haven't checked the specs though.

True, as newer processors are generally more energy efficient, it's not always the case.

The plus series are faster, and seems the battery life of the other non plus is much better, suggesting it's a hardware issue, so suspect it's the processor, nothing else is different, the IO is the same, apart from a few things like music ability, maps, garmin pay, but even the older X is more efficient than the plus X.

It is no coincidence that it's all the plus versions suffering and all have updated processors.

Just because a processor is newer, does not mean it's always more energy efficient?

They also generate more heat and as we know heat effectss battery life.

[QUOTE=Denodan;n1467474

It is no coincidence that it's all the plus versions suffering and all have updated processors.

.

Not all. My 5 plus gets the claimed battery life without issue and I am sure many others do.

Not all. My 5 plus gets the claimed battery life without issue and I am sure many others do.

Same - mine (5 plus sapphire, orange band) gets the advertised battery life. Bought it from a local run shop about a month or two ago. I find it about on par with the 935 I had. I never use the music function, though, and I use one of the stock watchfaces (the default one from the 935) plus GLONASS.