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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0 gaj104 over 4 years ago in reply to kvasimodoo

Thought the hard power down fixed this, but was wrong. Realised I hadnt been out for a run with my BT headphones for a while. Since a run this week the big power drainage has returned. Looks like a restart each time I use my BT headphones until a fix :(

0 kvasimodoo over 4 years ago in reply to gaj104

A hard restart will never fix it, it's just an ANT 6.03 and 6.06 driver problem which only turn to a repaired driver from Garmin support! Or re-upload to a lower version of the authorized ATN 5.04 driver, which was released only after the released version of the ATN 6.03 driver! The first version of ANT 5.04 can no longer be installed in sportwatch !!! You can only install version ANT 5.04, which was released from Garmin support as a patch for the already mentioned ANT 6.03! This is important to know because sometimes it happens that some people try to install the first released version and then they are surprised that they fail to load it there. Procedures and download links are described in this thread.

0 Raz3r over 4 years ago in reply to Raz3r

Like a few said, a downgrade of only the BLE Driver is not enough. The Battery gets still low very fast. I will go back to 12.00 and hope for the best.

0 5135968 over 4 years ago in reply to Raz3r

The new beta ANT/BT/BLE 6.09 at the top of this forum was released yesterday. The changelist mentions a fix for power drain with music.

0 kvasimodoo over 4 years ago in reply to 5135968

Hope this ANT 6.09beta fix helps. Especially when someone tests it, write your knowledge here right away!

0 Sam201176 over 4 years ago

More information on version 12.00 and 5.04.....

I'm staying with 12.00 and 5.04 as the battery drain is minimal.. anyone that does upload the patch fix... as already said.. It would be great to read about it here : -)

Over 36hrs time, with 45mins walk with GPS and music.... I've lost 10% battery!.. : -)

First pic is for four hrs .. and shows the last half hour drain to.

second pic shows how long ago the last charge was....

TThird pic shows overall battery usage over the last 37hrs...including the GPS usage.

Ps....the battery monitor Prg may take battery power to use also,so figures could be even better without the monitor running.

0 Raz3r over 4 years ago in reply to Raz3r

For me, the downgrade to 5.04 and FW 12.00 didn't work. My Battery is bad as before. I made a hard reset too with no success.

I will now try the new BLE Driver and hope for the best. Nexr week, when my cheap intermediate Sportwacth arrive, my Fenix goes back to garmin. If they couldn't fix it, I use Amazon and get another one, maybe one of the Fenix 6 Series.

0 Data over 4 years ago

Is there anyone who has a power drain issue that is _not_ related to music? I'm thinking I have a different battery problem. Was already thinking of replacing the battery because it didn't last as long as it used to, anyway. Still puzzles me why, after some (most) activities, there is a really high battery drain until I restart the watch or disconnect from the phone.

0 Andrés Sánchez over 4 years ago

I’ve installed 13.0 with the new bt driver 6.09. Tested for 3 days, music and activities, and my battery is fine again.

+1 kvasimodoo over 4 years ago in reply to Andrés Sánchez

And did you find any major improvement in SW13 over the older SW12? Because it seems to me that Garmin support lately doesn't come with anything so interesting that it's worth doing an update at all. On the contrary, there is a risk of a problem (for example with the battery)!