Backlight refuses to stay on despite correct settings

After the last update, the backlight will no longer stay on despite the settings being exactly the way they were (with a functioning always-on backlight). Seems that the last update broke it. I work in a dark environment and my watch is unreadable without the backlight being on all the time.

Oddly, the backlight will stay on indefinitely while I'm in settings, but it times out after about 20-30 seconds when I go back to the watch face. I can press the backlight button and it will come on for about 5 seconds and then turn off. Before, I could toggle it on or off... staying on or off indefinitely until I pressed the button again. That is how it's supposed to work.

Here are my settings -

Settings... System... Backlight... Watch Mode...

Keys - On
Alerts - Off
Gesture - Off
Timeout - No Timeout

Any suggestions are much appreciated.

0 bakewell over 8 years ago

Just curious...what is your brightness set to?

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

had the same exact problem but mine was fine after i change gesture to on

0 peteholloway over 8 years ago

After the last update, the backlight will no longer stay on despite the settings being exactly the way they were (with a functioning always-on backlight). Seems that the last update broke it. I work in a dark environment and my watch is unreadable without the backlight being on all the time.

Oddly, the backlight will stay on indefinitely while I'm in settings, but it times out after about 20-30 seconds when I go back to the watch face. I can press the backlight button and it will come on for about 5 seconds and then turn off. Before, I could toggle it on or off... staying on or off indefinitely until I pressed the button again. That is how it's supposed to work.

Here are my settings -

Settings... System... Backlight... Watch Mode...

Keys - On
Alerts - Off
Gesture - Off
Timeout - No Timeout

Any suggestions are much appreciated.

Have you tried changing the backlight setting then setting it back to always on? I know with some fenix 3 updates this was required for certain settings... might be worth a try.

0 jim_m_58 over 8 years ago

The BL timeout is only used if you're in an activity, and not when you are just showing the watc hface. It always times out when you are just running a watchface.

It's all about the battery. The BL burns a lot.

0 jaono over 8 years ago

Have you tried changing the backlight setting then setting it back to always on? I know with some fenix 3 updates this was required for certain settings... might be worth a try.

Yes, I tried that. Still times out after several seconds.

0 jaono over 8 years ago

Just curious...what is your brightness set to?

I have it set to 10%, no time out.

0 jaono over 8 years ago

The BL timeout is only used if you're in an activity, and not when you are just showing the watc hface. It always times out when you are just running a watchface.

It's all about the battery. The BL burns a lot.

This is incorrect. You can set the watch face to be lit 24-7 if you set it to "No Timeout". The Fenix 3 HR and Fenix 5 (up until just yesterday) operated like that. But choosing that setting now does nothing. It must be a bug otherwise why have the "No Timeout" option even there? And the impact on battery life is tiny. I could go three days easy... sometimes four with the backlight on 24/7 (even when I slept). Yet I could drain my battery down from 100% to 0% within 24 hours on a long enough hike (using GPS).

0 jaono over 8 years ago

I spoke to support this morning. They said my unit is defective (apparently broken after the update). They are sending me out a replacement. First time dealing with their support. Very short wait time to be connected and they handled it very courteously and professionally.

0 andythetee over 8 years ago

I spoke to support this morning. They said my unit is defective (apparently broken after the update). They are sending me out a replacement. First time dealing with their support. Very short wait time to be connected and they handled it very courteously and professionally.

Interesting as mine is doing the same thing. It did it on previous updates too but would go back to normal after toggling the backlights settings. Not this time though

0 NoTex over 8 years ago

I spoke to support this morning. They said my unit is defective (apparently broken after the update). They are sending me out a replacement. First time dealing with their support. Very short wait time to be connected and they handled it very courteously and professionally.

Seems that support doesn't know what they are talking about. I contacted the beta dev team because of the described backlight issue and this is what they replied to me:

Hello Norbert,
This is working as expected.
The watch face screen goes into low power mode to save battery life after about 5 seconds when “No Timeout” selected. This is by design.

The Fenix 5 team