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Realistic battery life, fenix 5?

Former Member
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
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    I have version 12.40. I still have the problem of the battery drain. With all versions of firmware, maximum 2 days and the problem reoccurs.
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    I have version 12.40. I still have the problem of the battery drain. With all versions of firmware, maximum 2 days and the problem reoccurs.


    Sounds like a hardware fault.
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    I have version 12.40. I still have the problem of the battery drain. With all versions of firmware, maximum 2 days and the problem reoccurs.


    Did you try the 12.21 beta? I might be wrong but the 6.25 sensor hub update made a difference for me. All subsequent releases did not contain the hub update, no idea why however. Just a thought.
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    I just want to share my experience with my fenix 5. I bought it on amazon mid-November 2018 (received with FW 8.0). I did not encounter any battery issue until 4th of february. From November 2018 to that date, I used it as smartwatch with a battery consumption of 0.2-0.3%/hour and with GPS activity at 5-7%/hour. I used the production firmwares until christmas time and when the v12 was suffering from bad stairs count in activities, I switched to the 12.51 beta version and was very happy with this FW until 4th of february.

    The 4th of february, I realized that suddenly, my HR was not working anymore with an error message appearing on the main screan. When looking at the battery consumption, I saw that before switching off the HR, the watch was draining the battery for almost 6 hours at about 7-8%/hours. After a soft reset, the HR restarted, battery drain decreased to 1.2-1.8%hours, but no way to make it again at 0.2-0.3%/hour.

    From all the discussions on the forum, I made a hard reset of the watch, which made the watch back to V12.0. But No change on battery drain... I tested the 12.21 (beta version) without change, then upgraded to V12.30 (production) again without change in battery drain. I upgraded to 12.40 when it has become available the 7th of february, again without any change: 1.2-1.8%hours.

    I tried to make the watch fully drain with a GPS activity. In such a case, the battery consumption seems fine at around 7-8%/hours, until the watch switched off, which make me think that the battery itself seems OK. After a full charge and no any change in the battery drain, I hard reseted again the watch this morning as advised by some users, which made the watch back to V12.40 but without any data. Again charged to 100%, but since few hours, the consumption is still high at 1.2-1.8%/hours

    For information, I have GPS 2.30 and sensor hub 6.25 since I use the 12.51 beta version (more than one month).

    I also tried to switch off the HR or the BLE -> both of them decrease marginaly the battery drain, but no way to make it below 1%/hour

    I see that others are experiencing the same kind of issues... some of you seems to have fixed the issue by some firmware update, but not everyone... If you have any idea/input

  • 0 over 6 years ago
    Did you perform a hard reset after you downgrade to 12.21?I understood that you did it when upgrade to 12.00, but after that you do not.

    People that faced with the battery drain in 12.21 downgrading fixed it with a hard reset.

    I am on 12.21 with 4% per day. That is more or less the same drain with v8
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    I did not perform a hard reset while in 12.21. The point is that such a hard reset in 12.21 will make the watch back to 12.00?

    This is the way I have been able to downgrade from 12.51 to 12.00.

    am I wrong?
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    I did not perform a hard reset while in 12.21. The point is that such a hard reset in 12.21 will make the watch back to 12.00?

    This is the way I have been able to downgrade from 12.51 to 12.00.

    am I wrong?


    A hard reset do not downgrade the watch at all. Makes it back all to default.

    At least for me to perform a downgrade the watch have to be full of charge, if not, and try to install an older version, it do not do anything.

    Once you got the watch in 12.21, check BLE/ANT/SNS 6.26 and perform the following, I think may help.

    ATTENTION: ALL USER DATA WILL BE LOST
    When the instrument is off, hold down the start and back / lap buttons on the top and bottom right
    Switch the device on by briefly pressing the light button on the top left.
    Release start after hearing a first beep, release back / lap after a second beep.
    At this point the device will reboot and offer you the choice of language
    Once reset, carry out a complete cycle of charging its clock and then test the battery life with normal use.

    i find the seme procedure in internet (in italian language with an image) at this site: https://diegocampy.it/2018/07/31/gui...orerunner-935/
    is for the forerunner but i the same for the fenix5.
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    Hi everyone!

    I just had an easy week of 3 hours of running, and 40min of swimming.

    I charged the watch to 100% on Monday afternoon and already today Saturday morning the watch died. So approximately 5 days of battery life ????


    ciq.forums.garmin.com/.../1453290.jpg
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    I just want to share my experience with my fenix 5.



    rom2sainpan, I have a very similar experience with my fenix 5 - I've tried many options to resolve it too without any luck - still have drain ~1.5-1.8 per hour.
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    A hard reset do not downgrade the watch at all. Makes it back all to default.

    At least for me to perform a downgrade the watch have to be full of charge, if not, and try to install an older version, it do not do anything.

    Once you got the watch in 12.21, check BLE/ANT/SNS 6.26 and perform the following, I think may help.

    ......


    Thanks for the information BLAU. I did test what you suggested: downgrade to 12.00 then upgrade to 12.21 (I do have the 6.25 sensor hub fro a long time) + hard reset in 12.21 (which made me stay in 12.21, sorry for the misunderstanding before) -> the behavior is still the same .... between 1.2 and 1.8%/hour in watchmode, and between 5 and 8% in GPS mode. I do think it is software related... but do not understand...

    rom2sainpan, I have a very similar experience with my fenix 5 - I've tried many options to resolve it too without any luck - still have drain ~1.5-1.8 per hour.


    Thanks for your status frem. I'm in version 12.21 now, following suggestion of BLAU, but still the same problem. I do hope we'll find how to solve it. According to the number of people facing the problem on the forum, I guess it is not hardware related...