I'm interest in peoples experience on the impact of using ANT+ sensors on the fenix 5 Plus battery life, specifically:
- Difference in using no ANT+ sensors at all vs. one or more (ie. is there much power saving to be had by not using any ANT+ sensors?)
- Difference in using a single ANT+ sensor vs. multiple sensors. (ie. if you are using an ANT+ sensor, therefore the radio is on and in use, is there much power saving to be had by reducing the number of sensors used?)
- Difference in different types of ANT+ sensors (ie. do some sensors have more of a bearing on power consumption than others, either directly or indirectly?)
- If a sensor is connected at the start of an activity, but then becomes unavailable (either runs out of battery or goes out of range) whether this has any impact (ie. does the watch continue to search for the missing sensor?)
My own experiences to start the ball rolling:
- I know when you start an activity the watch will search for all paired sensors, after a few minutes however it will only communicate to those that it has found - for any additional sensors to be added mid-activity then you have to go into the settings which initiates the search again.
- The above is also true at the start of each section of a multi-sport activity.
- The Temp sensor is a weird one - whereas most of the others are activated by motion (or detecting a heart beat for a HRM) and then transmit every second, the temp sensor seems to permanently transmit (24/7, whether in use or not) but only every 60 seconds - ie. I have two sets of shoes in the garage now which will both be transmitting temp information, whereas the footpods that are also on them will be 'sleeping' until I put on those sets of shoes and walk around.
- The Temp sensor is also a little difference in that it is seen as a datasource for multiple activities (running, cycling, walking, hiking etc) - this combined with the above means nearly all activities I start at home will initially connect to a temp regardless as to whether it's going to be coming with me or not (hence my interest in q4 above).
- The Shimano D-Fly unit (transmits Di2 information) seems to significantly reduce Garmin head-unit/watch battery, or at least used to, not sure if this was some sort of bug that has since been fixed?