Fenix 5+ power drain

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.

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+1 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to Raz3r

Use Andy's link Raz3r, I did and it worked perfectly.

Good luck.

0 kvasimodoo over 4 years ago in reply to Andy

But here's Andy the problem is ,
that this link is for 5x plus and he's looking for 5 plus!
Watch out!

0 Raz3r over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

I will give it a try. Do You only update BLE or the FW too? Thanks for Your help @all.

0 Data over 4 years ago

I left SW 12.71 on my watch and did not update to 13.00, because I wanted to keep the device usage widget. If you downgrade to a beta, you can activate the Device Usage widget and that gives a lot of information: 'uptime', and times spent in 'GCM' (syncing), 'Low power', Backlight usage', OHR, scan, ANT scan, GPS and Wifi. It resets every time you attach a USB cable to charge or transfer files. If you make notes of these numbers over time it may tell something.

I don't have the power issue, but GCM is set to never sync data and I don't use BLE sensors (only ANT+) or music, so my setup limits use of BLE to a minimum which may explain why I don't notice this problem. I do see brief messages on the watch stating that sync was unsuccessful after every activity, and that is new since 12.71 (obviously with data sync switched off, syncing should not have to be attempted),

0 Andy over 4 years ago in reply to kvasimodoo

For the ANT/BLE/BT 5.04, I used the 5x plus that I linked and it worked on my 5plus. Just don't do the overall firmware since the watches are different. But the ANT/BLE/BT is ok.

0 kvasimodoo over 4 years ago in reply to Andy

Oh, I didn't know that! So that's great, probably ANT/BLE /BT is the same part of HW for both watches.

0 Andy over 4 years ago in reply to kvasimodoo

No problem. Yeah, I believe the ANT/BLE/BT is the same for the 5+ and 5x+. The GPS FW should be the same as well. Unsure about the 5s+. But the overall FW should be different for all watches.

0 Raz3r over 4 years ago in reply to Andy

Everything I try went wrong so i give it up to flash an older driver. Also I think it is not task of the user or customer to make this. Garmin, it is your turn to fix this issue.

0 5135968 over 4 years ago in reply to Raz3r

Please report the problem to Garmin, I agree end user workarounds, whether its downgrading or resetting are not the answer.

When submitting a report to Garmin, provide as much information as possible - keep accurate logs of power drain, note any CIQ watchfaces or data fields and provide your watch type and firmware details. Also note if the drain only appears after activities - for example, a reset will temporarily solve the drain, but it re-appears after an activity. Also tell them what accessories you use, for example music earphones, heart rate sensors etc

The list above is not exhaustive, but try to provide as much evidence to Garmin as possible for the drain, and steps to reproduce the problem is very helpful.

0 Sam201176 over 4 years ago

I've taken off software version 13.00 and 6.06......and replaced with 12.00 and 5.04.....no problem with the installation on my 5x plus, the watch prompted me to install the moment it was unplugged... I used a link here in this thread for the ANT....I'll see over the next day if it's worked for me...

I'd also like to thank the users/posters here for the information that was shared, I appreciate it. : -)

Is this the right setup in the pic?...is the GPS version right?...