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Realistic battery life, fenix 5?

Former Member
Former Member
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
  • Experiences of a new replacement watch. It is a 54H. Arrived in the box 54% charged. Immediately updated to software v12.

    On receiving, I charged it to 100% using a battery pack that stops charging once the watch seems to be full. The watch started using battery at 0.7% per hour in watch mode.

    When the watch was down to 90% I charged it via the mains and left it on charge on past 100%. Now the watch is using battery at 0.2% per hour in watch mode.

    So promising signs.


    So the new watch arrived to you turned off, and when you turned it on it was on 54% battery.... (mine came turned off, could not turn it on, it was dishcarged).....
    How much time they needed to replace your watch?
    I think I will give a try and wait until V13 rolls out.....
  • I think v13 will not be rolled out until they find out where the battery drain mistake is and get it resolved.
  • I think v13 will not be rolled out until they find out where the battery drain mistake is and get it resolved.


    I'm not sure they know the problem, or will they take it into account in the next upgrade.
    If the knew it, and plan to fix it, why they change the watches....?
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    So the new watch arrived to you turned off, and when you turned it on it was on 54% battery.... (mine came turned off, could not turn it on, it was dishcarged).....
    How much time they needed to replace your watch?
    I think I will give a try and wait until V13 rolls out.....


    Yes new watch arrived turned off and when I powered it up it said 54%.

    Re the return, the watch was replaced for a non battery issue. UPS collected it on a Friday, delivered it to Garmin on the Monday, and Garmin dispatched my replacement on the same day. I recieved it on the Wednesday.

    So a pretty decent service. Can't complain.

    Watch has been on 15 hours now and has used less that 3% battery.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    i'm having the same problems with a fenix 5 watch, i bought it on amazon it. I'm currently using the second watch cause the first one was replaced by amazon.
    they both arrived with battery depleted and battery life is awful, 0.5 0.6% an hour, the first watch had v11 so i think the problem, if it's software bu i doubt , its from before v 11.
    both have also 5Q serial number.
    i tried the full discharge charge for several times, also BT and HR off but the consumption stays the same...
    i'll try the third one maybe i'm lucky ,otherwise i'll send it to Garmin to have the battery replaced.
  • I'm not sure they know the problem, or will they take it into account in the next upgrade.
    If the knew it, and plan to fix it, why they change the watches....?


    Neither I, but some sense would be to grab more information from the devices affected.

    In v11 the development of new betas was quite fast, now in v12 seems to be stopped, and the christmas vacation think is not the reason.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    I've gone through 3 watches with the same problem and the three came with 0% battery, I kept the last one that looks is using 0.5%/hour, not good but at least is not over 1% like the rest. I hope is software related and they fix this because it's lasting less than a week with watch mode.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    After "de-activating" GPS, nothing changed.... Still on -1.6% per hour.....


    No luck with my F5, neither.
  • I really cannot understand if it is a hardware or software problem. Yesterday for about 4 hours F5 was on -0.2%..... But this was temporary.
    Any news from Garmin about the problem?
    Are they going to roll out soon V13?
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    I received my F5 on Friday and I'm seeing the same issues.
    I've installed the Battery Gauge widget and fully charged the watch, and then set a marker. Details as follows...

    All dates/times are based in the UK.
    12/01/2019 @ 09:12am - Fully charged to 100%. HRM and notifications on. Stock watchface.
    12/01/2019 @ 09:13am - Marker set in the Battery Gauge widget.
    13/01/2019 @ 11:32am - 1hr 10mins of running with the GPS on.
    14/01/2019 @ 09:42am - Watch is showing 54% battery life remaining. A 44.9% drop according to the widget, over 2 days.

    At this rate, I should be able to get roughly 6 days of battery life in Smartwatch mode, according to the statistics from the Battery Gauge widget. Less if using GPS on my regular runs.
    Quite far from the stated 14 days (i'd be expecting at least 12 days in smartwatch mode, and at least 10 days with my weekly activities covering around 2-3 hours of GPS tracked running.

    I previously purchased an FR645M but this had terrible battery life (would go from fully charged to depleted in less than 9 hours). I sent that back as it was clearly a faulty unit and bought the F5 as I found it on sale for cheaper than the FR645M that I previously purchased. I'm much happier with the current battery life on this model in comparison to the faulty FR645M, but I still don't think that it cuts the mustard in comparison to its advertised capacity.

    Definitely looks like it might be a software issue IMO, although mine is also one of the 5Q models and the battery was not charged when I received it (not sure if that makes any difference).
    Other than that, love the design and performance of the device (apart from the battery).

    It would be nice to see a Garmin representative at least write a comment on here to acknowledge that there is either batch issues with the device or a drain occurring in the software somewhere. Even if they don't know what it is but are working to fix the issue would be nice to know. I'm not very impressed considering this is my 2nd Garmin device in one week that has battery issues.

    Maybe a public comment on Twitter to Garmin might yield some results?