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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 LucidityCrash over 6 years ago

hmmm ... everything seemed fine for me on everything up to 12.00 ... upgraded to 12.30 recently and battery gauge is now reporting a much higher per hour (as in over 1%-2%) ... can you see when it happened ? :p
ciq.forums.garmin.com/.../1451367.jpg

0 frem over 6 years ago

Hi guys,
I've seen a couple of times mentions of the downgrade to 12.0 - where it is possible to find the 12.0 software version to download? Thank you

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I posted this in another thread, but it kind of belongs here:

Bear in mind it may be the meter, not the battery. Meaning the software is trying to interpret the remaining capacity based on battery voltage alone, and is applying a curve-fit to what battery technology it thinks is in your device.
Different LiON chemistries have different discharge curves.
A good deal of LiON discharge curve is a very shallow slope, and small change in offset would result in a lot of error between 95% and ~15% of charge.

For now, base your discharge numbers on actual run time, and until your are sure a fix is working for you, ignore it. Otherwise top it off every so often.
I would bet that different curves are being applied on a serial number basis for what is thought to be a certain battery chemistry paired with it, and may not necessarily be correct for your model and serial number, or your watch was serviced so the battery is no longer associated with the serial number in the same way.

Lastly, let the thing fully discharge. It may need to do that to properly discover what the battery really is and "calibrate" to that.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

After getting a new Fenix 5 battery consumption was about 0,8-1,2% per hour. Firmware version was 12.0. Update to 12.30 didn't change anything until I did a hard reset (not just switching on and off the watch). After that, battery consumption is around 0,1-0,2% even better than expected!

In my case, a hard reset was essential to see the improvement.

0 BLAU over 6 years ago

Anyone updated to to 12.40 and keep with low battery usage?

0 AnatoliAngelov over 6 years ago

Yes, all fine with 12.40.

0 Omega over 6 years ago

I flashed the 12.40 today. I charge to 100% and do a 2 hours indoor workout with hrm run strap and the footpod. Battery widget says 5h and 0,8 %/hr. If i understand battery widget right, it displays the average consumption based on the runtime. So it seems ok at the Moment.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I have had the Fenix 5 Sapphire since early December, and ever since the purchase it has been sticking to appr. 5 days battery life.
I have not been using GPS at all.
Every 2nd day I have recorded 1 - 1,5 days indoor activity.
I have been using 24 hours wrist heart rate monitoring.
After a claim to Garmin they swapped to a new Garmin Fenix 5 a couple of weeks ago.
This watch has (had) the same issue.
Both of the watches were completed drained of battery power, when I unboxed them.
A couple of days ago I have been on the phone with Garmin Support to find out, what to do next, and they advised a test to clarify, whether the problem was the actually the battery itself or perhaps rather the software or whatever...
So they requested me to fully charge the watch, activate a GPS activity (outdoor cycling) and leave the watch in the window to let the activity run until battery drain. Theoretically the watch should run appr. 24 hours with this activity. Depending on the result we would be able to get a better view on the issue.
I actually ran 21,5 hours in the test, which I suppose is close enough to the specs - at least closer than the 5 days of watch mode compared to the theoretic 14 days.
So after this test, I connected to Garmin Connect, and updated to software version 12.40.
Until now I had been on versions 11.00, 12.00 and 12.30 - all with the same battery drain. I have not been on version 12.21.
After the update to 12.40 the battery seems much better - at least according to the battery widget.
It has run now 15 hours since I unplugged from the full charge.
I estimates 18,6 days to remain. Far better than the expected 14 days.
This is what I know now. I hope, that this will turn out to just haven been a software issue, because I really love this watch, and don´t want to have to return it.
I will keep you update, what will actually be the battery time of this charge.

0 jamesrussell01 over 6 years ago

I'm starting to think the sensor hub is causing some instances of excessive drain. I have always followed factory updates, no betas, but was interested in the sensor hub update in the 12.21 beta. Factory version was 6.2, beta had 6.25. I installed just the sensor hub update and can see noticeable change in battery marker after update. I wonder if 12.4 contains the sensor hub update as well. Last marker reset was 1-27 at 13:21. Current stats are 12.94% remain avg of .2-.4% per hour 85.7% since marker. Ive used gps for maybe 3hrs with constant ohr, bluetooth, & notifications. I just got the 12.40 update and Im happy overall.

0 Omega over 6 years ago

After 17h i have a Battery drain of 0,346 %/hr. Thats absolute ok for me. I have FW 12.40 and Sensorhub 6.2. Notifications, constant hr, bluetooth is on.