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Realistic battery life, fenix 5?

Former Member over 8 years ago

Hello all,

So last week I bought a fenix 5. Store had it in open box and on the shelf but it was off, I was worried about it having been on for months on the shelf but they told me it had never been powered on, they only had the 5X on display powered up. Bought it, no discount got home and charged it. The battery was completely discharged.

One of my main reasons for buying the fenix 5 vs a 3 or another less expensive option was battery life - as I am starting to run ultra marathons.

Last Saturday ran my first. I started with 95% charge. GPS only mode (no Glonnass). I played occasionally with the watch during the race, and often moved it into view to see my HR (with backlight at 50%). Halfway into the race, 7 hours in, I notice it is at 40% battery. I changed it to Ultratrac in the activity settings menu, and start avoiding using the backlight or play with it(still glancing at it often to see HR).

My race time was 14 hours 30 minutes. When I made it across the finish line, literally 1 minute after, I glance at the watch to stop the activity and it powered down.

I know actual, realistic device times are often lower than what the manufacturer advertises. Still, advertised GPS mode at 20 hours and Ultratrac 60 hours, seems I should have gotten to the end of this race with a good battery reserve. I am planning longer races later in the season so... this watch might not cut it, apparently. My iphone 7 plus in airplane mode, but doing GPS tracking, went through all of this with 30% power left and me taking some pictures and listening to podcasts on the way.

So question to the group - is this the normal battery life I can expect from this device while tracking activities? Or did I get a dud or a battery affected by it being a showroom device?

Unsure if I am just being paranoid and need to enjoy the device and go Ultratrac from the start, turn off the backlight (not needed to be honest).

Thanks all,

Juan

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Garmin-Heath over 6 years ago +1 verified

If you are experiencing rapid battery drain, where your watch is only lasting a few days, first verify on latest software version. If you are using any third-party Connect IQ watch faces, try changing…

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0 Former Member over 6 years ago

As I know soft reset can't do any harm, because it doesn't delete anything. I didn't find any correlation with soft/hard reset (did it both once) and solving battery problem, but I was persistent in depleting battery until watch turned off by itself and charging back to 100% every single time.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

LIPO batteries do not like to be completely discharged. The same should be recharged when they reach 15/20%. Make them run out completely, reduce their lives. These concepts are written in all electronic texts related to the maintenance of LIPO batteries.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Good to know.

Also, this is the first device that came to me fully discharged, so my guess was that the device "didn't know" where 0% and where 100% is.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

LIPO batteries do not like to be completely discharged. The same should be recharged when they reach 15/20%. Make them run out completely, reduce their lives. These concepts are written in all electronic texts related to the maintenance of LIPO batteries.

Quite true. Normally a LiPO battery has a battery controller that completely disconnects the battery when it gets under a certain SoC, but cannot drop the load to zero and cannot stop the battery from self-discharge (leakage) down to nothing. So if a LiPO (or many LiON technologies) is allowed to discharge completely on the shelf, you will receive a battery with problems. The Cathode materials have almost completely dissolved away or oxidized into a non-conductive state.

I have seen where several users noticed that the Fenix 5 discharges FASTER when it is off than when it is running. I don't know why that would be, or if it was a fluke, but if so that means that when they are shipped off, they discharge quickly to a low power down state and disconnect. Then sitting on the shelf, they self-discharge the rest of the way into damage zone.

Sometimes, if you are able, these batteries can be restored by gently charge/discharge cycling them a couple of times to help restore the Cathode that has deteriorated from sitting at empty. Some of you have seen that happen. It is likely the Fenix 5 does not have a discrete battery manager controller in it due to the tiny capacity of the battery makes it overkill. It is best to replace those batteries though for product longevity.

0 AnatoliAngelov over 6 years ago

But Garmin Fenix 5 manual says that the battery is lithium-ion, not LIPO?
Is this valid for lithium-ion batteries?

0 NotThatImportant over 6 years ago

Heres another one with a battery that discharges to quickly. In normal mode with activity tracking and HR tracking.
I have 0.85% per hour. Which means a lot less then the 14 days they promised (not even half of that).

I havent enabled smartphone connection (bluetooth). and disabled compass. Backlight is set to 20%, and only if I press a button.

I love the watch, but I am very disappointed in the battery (and in Garmin, as its obviiously an issue for more users, and so far I see no effort from them regarding fixing this issue).
I'm on my second battery charge now, and when I got it, the battery was empty. I'm also trying to fully discharge and then charge it to 100% again, as mentioned in this form.
I did a reset once, as it was mentioned in this form.

If anybody has any other tips, they are more then welcome. I'm a bit desperate at this point and thinking about returning it.
Ill do a couple of full charge cycles as a last test..

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I also have bought Fenix 5 and battery lasts only 5 days(tried with 3 charging cycles), then I request a change and now this second one after 3 days and the half have only 42% of battery power left. In those 3 days I have only one indoor activity without GPS.
It looks like battery of this one is pretty same like first one. I don't know if this is ok, but I have feeling that battery should last longer.
I don't know what to do ?
When I received watches, in both cases watches came totally empty, I don't know if that means something :(

0 Dimas_sc over 6 years ago

Same here, testing the second Fenix 5 now and at the moment with the same high battery drain :-( After 1 full charge 0.7% per hour. I will try a second one... but it doesn't seem like a one-off problem.

0 denyed8808 over 6 years ago

I have the same problem with my Fenix 5. I have had it for about 3 weeks now and the battery only lasts about 4/5 days. I last charged it 3.5 days ago and am on 38%... with minimal GPS usage. Update 12 seems to have helped a little bit as before I was getting about 25% drain per day without GPS usage.

Is this really a hardware problem or does Garmin have some hardware incompatibilities or something? I also have the "5Q" serial number device

0 theseb over 6 years ago

Mine lasts a bit longer 7-8 days battery life with 2-3 gps runs is not that bad, but if i turn thr fenix 5 off, the battery drains 15% per day. It is also 5Q and arrived with flat bettery. This consumption by switched off device is a problem, that cause the dead battery in the new device. What can it do when it’s off?