Garmin battery life specs reliability/experience

I am currently figuring out if the 5S could suit my needs over the 5. I very much prefer the smaller bezel.
The only point which really keeps me thinking is the battery life. For my hikes the battery life I need is usually about 7-8 hours but could sometimes go up to 12 hours, not more.

According to Garmin specs the 5S and 5 hava a battery life of:
5S: 14 hours in GPS mode
5: 24 hours in GPS mode

If these numbers were reliable the 5S would have just enough battery life for my purposes. However, if the real value was only 10 hours, this could be a problem for me.

What is your experience with the specs given by Garmin on the other devices (F3 etc.). Are they reliable or do I need to "discount" the numbers by a certain percentage?
Does anyone know if these numbers include heart rate monitoring and bluetooth connection with smartphone?

0 tommays56 over 7 years ago

Optimistic

For example on the 920XT its up to 24 hours and apparently that means turning everything possible OFF as the most I have gotten was 16 hours and had 9% left after saving

saving uses a good bit of battery on a long activity

My F3 seems to use about 2% less per hour went setup=to the 920XT

Suunto is also Optimistic as I have had the Ambit 3 peak setup in 30 hour mode and it had 25% after the same 16 hours so 30 was clearly not going to happen

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I have to use the cradle if I plan on over 12 hours and want navigation

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0 jim_m_58 over 7 years ago

As for long hikes, you could go with the 5s and just bring a battery based cell phone charger, and top off the battery when you stop for a break (it appears to have "charge while in use"). It looks like with the connector on the back, it might be hard to charge on your wrist, but with just a 10-15 minute charge a few times, you can extend the battery quite a bit.

0 R_Tellis over 7 years ago

Definitely think of the Garmin specs as being optimistic, but also keep in mind that there is also the Ultratrack mode which should work fine while hiking.

0 manueleltoro over 7 years ago

As for long hikes, you could go with the 5s and just bring a battery based cell phone charger, and top off the battery when you stop for a break (it appears to have "charge while in use"). It looks like with the connector on the back, it might be hard to charge on your wrist, but with just a 10-15 minute charge a few times, you can extend the battery quite a bit.

This should work as there will only be a few occasions in which I would need >10h battery life, and this will include some rest on the summit for charging.
Does the activity need to be paused for this? Charging it on the go wouldn't make much sense as I would put it in my backpack which would result in lost GPS signal.

UltraTrec is not really an option since it is not accurate enough, as I need to produce tracks which others can follow.
Would I get some more battery life by using the "smart" recording option? Or is there an option to set the 1s intervall to 5s resulting in extended battery life (as with Suunto products)?

If I can get about 10h GPS recording (with everything else turned off), I'd be fine I guess.

0 Jag035 over 7 years ago

Changing specs on fenix 5 battery life

I noticed that garmin reduced battery life specs on their site. For fenix 5, there used to be "75 hours" in ultra trec mode, now it says 60 hours.
So not really reliable...

0 milesgilmour over 7 years ago

I noticed that garmin reduced battery life specs on their site. For fenix 5, there used to be "75 hours" in ultra trec mode, now it says 60 hours.
So not really reliable...

They kept the regular GPS reading at 24 hours though which sounds like they have simply had to alter the UltraTrac mode - probably as a result of feedback from beta testing.

0 jim_m_58 over 7 years ago

Does the activity need to be paused for this? Charging it on the go wouldn't make much sense as I would put it in my backpack which would result in lost GPS signal.

It doesn't need to be paused to "charge on the go". With a fr 230, you can easily still wear it while charging. The f5 might be a bit harder to do that as to where the charger plugs in (on the back vs a clamp on the side).

If you're worried about GPS (may not be an issue with putting it in a pack though), you could put it on a strap on the outside of your pack for the 15 minutes you need to top off a charge though.

0 lbkjrmd over 7 years ago

UltraTrec is not really an option since it is not accurate enough, as I need to produce tracks which others can follow.
Would I get some more battery life by using the "smart" recording option? Or is there an option to set the 1s intervall to 5s resulting in extended battery life (as with Suunto products)?

If I can get about 10h GPS recording (with everything else turned off), I'd be fine I guess.

It remains to be seen how accurate the F5 series is in Ultratrac mode; supposedly there's a supplementary gyroscope that's supposed to improve accuracy. I'm curious to see how it works out, but won't be shocked if it's not much better than the current Ultratrac.

0 manueleltoro over 7 years ago

It doesn't need to be paused to "charge on the go". With a fr 230, you can easily still wear it while charging. The f5 might be a bit harder to do that as to where the charger plugs in (on the back vs a clamp on the side).

If you're worried about GPS (may not be an issue with putting it in a pack though), you could put it on a strap on the outside of your pack for the 15 minutes you need to top off a charge though.

This would work, I don't mind putting it away from my wrist for 15 mins. I am thinking side pockets of my backpack (mounting the watch on the strap, keeping the battery in the pocket).
As said, usually I need 5-6 hours and only 3-4 times a year 9-10 hours. So, I think I'm fine.

0 Volker over 7 years ago

My experience:

we will never reach the battery life time which is announced in the specs. These values are only theoretical values under laboratory conditions...

Outside you have different settings, sensors in use? different weather conditions, different number of button presses, different number of scrolling through the screens, glonass on? etc. But this applies almost for every battery life announced in the specs, no matter which manufacturer.

I would guess the maximum in gps mode (gps only, no glonass) on average for
F5 is about 10 hrs
F5s is about 18 hrs
F5x is about 14 hrs