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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

Top Replies

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…

All Replies

0 AnatoliAngelov over 6 years ago

My third one after several discharge-charge cycles started to work better: last two days the battery drain is around 6-8% daily which is acceptable. I hope it will become even better after several more charges. I bought it 1 month ago.

0 jamesrussell01 over 6 years ago

Iirc my original F5 would last about 2 weeks but I was not using a lot of gps then. I had to RMA it a month ago due to a faulty select button and the NOH unit I received seems pretty stable. I can get approx. 7-8 days and Im down to 10-15% at that point. I typically have about 4hrs total gps usage per week, Acti face wf, no gestures(gestures on is a real killer while i sleep i found out) backlight at 20% 8sec duration, bt, notifications and ohr always on. At first I was a bit disappointed but after thinking about it the amount of information that is always being displayed and constant connectivity it really seems reasonable. Could it be better...always....but would I get rid of it because of this type of batt life...absolutely not...

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Mine has gone wild again. It worked well for maybe 2 days, then gone back to 30-35% battery consumption per day. After firmware 12 dropped to 25-30%.
I'll defenetly return it!
Be back with more info ...

0 BLAU over 6 years ago

Since updated to v12, when I put the watch on do not disturb when go to bed, the battery comsumption goes to the "normal", drains during the night 1-2%, then when it turns off this mode, the drain become crazy again ... to the 20% each day, anyone is getting the same?

I do not think is problem with the watch, is problem with a batch of watches that a change made on v11 made this .. because have no sense to have a refurbish one from garmin and found you got the same problem once you charge it.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Since updated to v12, when I put the watch on do not disturb when go to bed, the battery comsumption goes to the "normal", drains during the night 1-2%, then when it turns off this mode, the drain become crazy again ... to the 20% each day, anyone is getting the same?

I do not think is problem with the watch, is problem with a batch of watches that a change made on v11 made this .. because have no sense to have a refurbish one from garmin and found you got the same problem once you charge it.

I'm still not shure if this is a battery problem, because now after more than several runs i'm shure that in activity battery consumption is OK. About 5-6% per hour with GALILEO. But, i'm now concerned that it will fail me when i most need it. Bought it because i'm in ultra trail running.

0 NotThatImportant over 6 years ago

I am now on my third full recharge cycle, and the problem still exist. 0.8% per hour in watch mode. Will ask for them to fix or replace it.

0 mcalista over 6 years ago

Since updated to v12, when I put the watch on do not disturb when go to bed, the battery comsumption goes to the "normal", drains during the night 1-2%, then when it turns off this mode, the drain become crazy again ... to the 20% each day, anyone is getting the same?

I do not think is problem with the watch, is problem with a batch of watches that a change made on v11 made this .. because have no sense to have a refurbish one from garmin and found you got the same problem once you charge it.

If it is not draining in DND mode, perhaps try turning off the Bluetooth connection with the phone during the day. If it doesn't drain with BT turned off, you have at least isolated the problem. The more specific you are with the problem, the easier it is to get a replacement from Garmin.

0 BLAU over 6 years ago

If it is not draining in DND mode, perhaps try turning off the Bluetooth connection with the phone during the day. If it doesn't drain with BT turned off, you have at least isolated the problem. The more specific you are with the problem, the easier it is to get a replacement from Garmin.

Try to isolate the problem is annoying, and think this should be done by garmin, and give an answer to the user nor just ask for replacement and do not say anything in the updates.

Because have no sense to get a refurbished and once you charge it found you are again with the battery drain like the one you sent, this shows is not only with my watch and other users ... is a problem with something they changed on v11 and affect if not to all of us, like we see ... is a fact that a batch of them got us affected.

And back to the drain... is impossible that just as a watch! with a garmin face and all the stuff disabled (hr, bt, widgets, etc!) the drains remain over 1% per hour.

The only think i found is that with the dnd mode the drain remains in 1% per hour in my watch at least.

0 sirgab01 over 6 years ago

After doing a hard reset, letting the battery completely drain and having many charging cycles, the problem remains. I am still on 1.2 - 1.7% per hour.
I would like to ask if any of us tried to downgrade the firmware of the watch.... What the results were and what version he installed? I am thinking giving a try before I return it...

I am quite sure that the problem was not there from the beginning… (Even if, the watch arrived with “dead” battery).

0 Richard-Hagen over 6 years ago

Hi, I'm new to Garmin watches, and was excited to get a watch with 14 days (!!!!) battery time compared to my android wear watch....

But the first one (I got it for black friday) only lasted 3 and a half day, so was extremely dissapointed. After talking to Garmin I was sent a new watch, which lasted 4 days on the first cycle, then 5 on the next...

It finally emptied out wednsday night, so I charged it for 8 hours while sleeping, and used it for about 30 hours now, including 2 hours of running with GPS+GLONASS. Now Battery Analyzer claims its using 18% pr day, and will last for 5 days and 10 hours on a single charge. Also, current charge is 69%.

I'm wondering if there are versions of the watch out there that actually lasts for 14 days, or if all of them have bad batteries. Or if it's a firmware problem.

Also curious about the watch, I can't get it to connect to wifi at all (it finds my 2.4ghz, but always fails to connect). I'm running the GPS firmware 4.4.0 (!) but can't install the update, it always fails without any reson (I tried to download it 2 more times via Garmin Express and WebUpdater, but no change).