Battery usage with Spotify

Good news, finally got Spotify installed on this APAC model, and it works great.

Bad news - so far, it seems to really chew threw battery life.

I’ve done numerous 3+ hour events (running / biking) and only had my Fenix 5 Plus lose 5% or so of its battery charge during the event. I usually only need to charge the watch maybe once a week, if that.

I’ve now done two runs with the Fenix 5 Plus using Spotify. On the first run, the battery went from 65% to 35% in about 45 minutes. This morning it went from 45% to critical battery save / shut down in 70 minutes.

Anyone else noticed any abnormally fast battery usage using Spotify?

0 Crispin_Ellisdon over 6 years ago

That sounds too high. I’ve been using Spotify since launch on F5+ and locally transferred music before that, with my typical experience being music adds about 10% per hour to the battery drain you’d otherwise get from the same activity. I’ve certainly noticed no battery use difference between Spotify or locally transferred music. The only thing I can think is that the watch and headphones dynamically increase/decrease Bluetooth power depending on connection strength; so it could be some particularly power hungry watch-headphone combination you have.

0 SAHO over 6 years ago

I agree with Crispin. My setup consists of F5+, HRM-Run and Stryd, and I have not experienced any excessive drain after introducing Spotify and JBL Reflect Mini. Have not done any «scientic monitoring» but my best guess is that added battery consumption is at most in line with Crispin’s suggested 10%/h

0 VARunner89 over 6 years ago

I’ve noticed a significant change myself. A week or so ago I had to a factory reset which wiped all the stored music off my device. When I added the music back on it chewed up about 9% battery just on the transfer. About two hours later it was showing another 20% drain. After a full recharge not even utilizing the music during activities I’m still seeing 10+% drain a day. Idk if Spotify is doing something in the background but it def seems to be using more battery. If I had more time I’d do more documented research but for me I just try to charge it more often.

0 crutlefish over 6 years ago

There is a line in the beta firmware that states:

"Fixed an intermittent issue where the device could switch to high power mode, and search for GPS and other ANT/BT sensors while playing music outside of an activity."

You could be expieiencing this bug.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I’ve now done two runs with the Fenix 5 Plus using Spotify. On the first run, the battery went from 65% to 35% in about 45 minutes. This morning it went from 45% to critical battery save / shut down in 70 minutes.

Anyone else noticed any abnormally fast battery usage using Spotify?

I was waiting for someone to bring this up. My 5+ burns through 10-15% more battery using Spotify over the native music app during runs (GPS, HR, music). I noticed this immediately after switching to Spotify, but I'm not complaining because Spotify on the Fenix Plus is f'ing brilliant.

5.10 non-APAC

0 surista over 6 years ago

Yeah, there's definitely something there. Yesterday: 1-hour outdoor run with Fenix 5+ using native music app: Battery went from 65% to 64%.

Today: 1-hour outdoor run with Fenix 5+ using Spotify: Batter went from 97% to 73%.

Make sure you're fully charged up before going out for longer runs/events.

I only play music via the watch during an activity, so don't think I'd be experiencing the bug that crutlefish noted.

5.10 APAC

0 GS05 over 6 years ago

Lost almost 70% with Spotify and gps on a 2 hour 20 min run. Not acceptable

0 Gr4z over 6 years ago

I think everyone agrees there are significant issues with the battery on the plus models. It’s either a software or design defect. Let’s hope it’s the former and Garmin can fix it.

5.53 beta has been put over two weeks now I am hoping for a full release soon.

0 surista over 6 years ago

Don't know if the battery issue is specific to 'plus models' - I was getting excellent battery life until now - could go a week or more without charging.

At least in my case, it's Spotify that is seriously chewing through battery life - it will lose 5-10% just updating music etc.

Hopefully will be fixed at some point. At this point Spotify isn't remotely usable except on really short workouts.

0 Crispin_Ellisdon over 6 years ago

it's Spotify that is seriously chewing through battery life - it will lose 5-10% just updating music etc.

The high battery usage updating the offline tracks on the watch is normal and why it’s recmendeed the watch is on charge when you do sync the watch with the Spotify servers. What is not normal is getting any higher drain outside of this when compared to playing any other music source on the Fenix 5+. My typical observation is that a 1 hour and 15 minutes of an indoor Strength Training activity without music consumes about 4-5% battery and with music (in my case Spotify) this goes up to 12-14%. So Spotify, for me, seems to consume around 6-8% per hour when playing.