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Fenix 5+ power drain

Artem
over 4 years ago

Hello,

I've got a battery drain issue with my fenix 5+. They were not in use for the last 2 months. After powering up, updating (to SW 11.00) and charging the battery life became completely disastrous. In smartwatch mode it consumed aroud 0.4..0.5% per hour. But after first outdoor activity with GPS it started to burn the power like demon. Average consumption ranged from 1.5% to 2% per hour and never less. I tried rebooting and soft reset; this helped until the first GPS activity. After that the power drain returned to the extra level. All external sensors (including wrist HR) were turned off. Moreover, I've tried the beta SW (11.73) - nothing new: after resetting everything looks fine till the first GPS connect.

I love my watches, but the power drain is far off the specification and dissapointes me. I see that without any sport activity battery works well and could hold the charge up to 8..9 days. But it doesn't fit me.
Do you have any idea how to troubleshoot this? 

PS: I tried to fully discharge and recharge the battery to recalibrate the circuits.

Thank you in advance.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to kvasimodoo

    hello,
    i can confirm this situation as well my f5 + was empty after 2 days and three small activities, whereby i had heard about the watch during the first music ...

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to slaphappy76

    I don't know how to fix this now when the new ANT / BLE / BT driver does not downgrade to the older one! Even a watch reset will not uninstall this driver. We will probably have to wait for the driver update where this error will already be fixed. If there is any driver downgrade option then please someone help! Thank you

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to kvasimodoo

    As I mentioned recently I faced higher drain than earlier, but I stayed with 11.00.

    Sometimes I feel itis a mission impossible to be sure what causes an abnormally high drain.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Tisztul_A_Visztula

    super it is already possible to downgrade the driver to v 5.04 from the sw11.74 file

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to kvasimodoo

    Tested today and it works as it should again. After activity even with headphones, after disconnecting the headphones from Fenix ​​5x plus, the battery consumption returns to 0.5% per hour. Everything is normal again, great !!!

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Thanks for the tips!
    After the update, everything works well. I want to share another experience that I hope no one will repeat.

    This way lead to warranty loss and may lead to the watch breakage!

    While waiting for the update, I surfed the Internet trying to figure out how to replace the battery by your own means. The local service center repair watches purchased only in Russia – that's not my case.
    I found a similar, non-original-shape battery and disassembly instructions. Rectangular batteries (which could be found on AliExpress) fit poorly into the round watch case, although they are suitable for the connector. Buy only original spare parts =) After the replacement, the discharge decreased, the new battery was better than the old one. It could be stopped at this point, but I began to look another ways to increase the running time.

    My research showed that a battery from 5X+ is similar to the battery from 5+ (it is also used in prior 5X and 5 versions, respectively). In several stores I was told that the batteries differ only in capacity (430mAh and 255mAh), but not in size. They were wrong ... The battery for 5X + is significantly thicker and larger in size, so it should not fit into the 5+ case. But, if you are very persistent and patient (and equipped with a pair of pliers and a knife) you can fit it into the battery compartment. And even tightly close the lid. But the watch was not charging due to the thicker battery: there was no contact between the USB cable and the motherboard.
    Never repeat the next step: I had to use a soldering iron to made the contact pins higher. After that, everything worked as it should be.

    Now I have a 5X+ battery in my 5+ case ... Happiness)

    For whom this post: only for those who do not have the opportunity to replace the battery of their watches under warranty, but ready to do it, taking all the risks upon yourself. In other cases, never open the watch and, moreover, do not try to squeeze the 5x battery into the 5 version. It costed me several white hairs.

    PS: I still think that the discharge range 0.4..0.6% per hour is still high, especially for my modified 5X. Time will tell how the new battery works, there was only one charge cycle.

    If the rules prohibit describing the process of such "abuse" under the watch, I rewrite the text and remove the details.

    Cheers.

    If you need details, feel free to contact: [email protected]

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Artem

    I want to thank Garmin support once again for the possibility to downgrade to ANT /BLE /BT driver 5.04, today is the second day without activities, which I still have a battery consumption between 0.2% - 0.3% per hour. I'm very happy about that, and I don't think I'd rather update the ANT / BLE / BT driver next time!

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    To be fair, when installing a beta version you choose to install a not fully released "product" (Firmware) and you have to expect that not everything is working perfectly.. And if you experience a bug/error then use the provided email-address to report it ( outdoor[email protected] ) 

    So generally if one does not want to be part of the "bleeding edge" - then DON'T install beta-versions.

    As simple as that.

    As a side note, do love these releases as they tend to find the most annoying bugs before the final release.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to parentoft

    This is clear to me, but it is possible to downgrade from Beta SW at any time in case of major problems to the original SW in order to solve the problem! The problem is reported to support, and it can solve it. But downgrading the ATN driver to an older one is no longer possible! So helping to troubleshoot is good, but it's good to be sure there is some way to restore a working version Wink!