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Realistic battery life, fenix 5?

Former Member over 7 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 5 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 audunth over 6 years ago

It seems battery life has increased after the latest firmware update (11.00). Today it's exactly 2 weeks since I charged my Fenix 5, and it's still at 33%. It used to be about 5-10% as far as I remember when going 2 weeks without a charge. This is wearing the watch with the HR sensor turned on 24/7 and almost no GPS/acitivity usage. Very pleased since they advertise 2 weeks battery life.

0 AnatoliAngelov over 6 years ago

Hello everyone,
I am facing a high battery drain. In watch mode it drops with ~1% per hour.
The watch is brand new - bought it two weeks ago and is on two full charges /and 2-3 partial/. I made one reset to default settings after seeing this issue, but with no success.
The last full charge was this night - 8 hours charging after full discharge.
Tried firmware 11 and now 11.56.
I am using one of the default watch faces, HR is on, BT is off.

Any idea how I can fix this...

Thanks in advance!

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Anatoli did you have any luck with the battery drain? I am in exactly the same position, well about .9% ph. It is very disappointing to say the least specially after coming from a Fenix 3 which has excellent battery life and the 5 is meant to be better!

0 AnatoliAngelov over 6 years ago

Anatoli did you have any luck with the battery drain? I am in exactly the same position, well about .9% ph. It is very disappointing to say the least specially after coming from a Fenix 3 which has excellent battery life and the 5 is meant to be better!

Hi joeord_, no luck for now. Two watches from amazon.de. Both returned. The second one drains in 6-12 hours...
Today I have received third one from different dealer, charged it and crossed fingers to have more luck, because I really love this watch.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Good luck Anatoli. I have tried a couple of charging cycles with mine, letting it drain down to around 10% then charging it overnight. On the 3rd cycle I left it on hike tracking overnight - i.e. had the activity running for about 12 hours, it was still on 50% battery. It wasn't on a 100% when I started the activity so I guess that is over 20 hours of activity tracking. I'm going to try leaving it charging all night as some have suggested. Hopefully we might find it is a battery memory problem and if recycled it will work....

Could I ask, when you first unboxed your Fenix was the battery totally dead? Mine was. And I can't really remember buying another electrical device when this was the case.

Like you I really love the watch, it is such a more polished performer and better size than the Fenix 3 it has replaced.

0 AnatoliAngelov over 6 years ago

All the 3 watches were with a dead battery when I unboxed them.
Sounds good what you are describing. I will try the same as you - charging it all night several times.

But as the first two batteries started to drain in hours, not in days, I think they had a hardware issue.
The third one from yesterday drained 0.6% per hour. I hope the battery will show its full potential after several charges.

Good luck you too!

PS. What are the first two symbols of your serial number? Mine were/are "5Q" on all the watches.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Interesting about the batteries. I wonder if this is 'normal'? My Fenix 5 is also a 5Q on the serial number. Battery drain is .8% an hour and I think it should be around .2%. So very similar to yours.

I have BT running (If this needs disabled to get decent battery life I'm just returning the watch)

Everything else apart from battery monitor app (which I removed to check if ironically that was eating the battery, it wasn't) is stock Garmin. Sounds are off and backlight is at 20% when keys are pressed.

4-5 days battery just isn't good enough especially when a certain brand starting with S is advertising longer battery life than that for activity tracking.

The Fenix really is a fantastic watch, I'd hate to have to return it.

Good luck with the charging cycles, I'll try this a couple of more times and see if it will drop to .4% at least.

0 danlorek over 6 years ago

I am on my third Fenix 5, all three of them were unboxed at 0% battery as well. This is not very confidence inspiring as I think it is not good for batteries to run down to 0... at least Li based ones I believe.

This latest one actually seems quite solid compared to the other two, so there is a lot of variation with them... even when using the same FW.

The second Fenix was about 1% per hour and I left it in the window for a "run" completely depleting the battery. I then charged it to 100% and seemed significantly better, so perhaps there is a battery calibration routine that is needed? They all charged from fully depleted with a capacity of just shy of 300mAh according to my USB meter.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I've have received a replacement for my Fenix 5. Same 5Q serial number. Same flat battery on arrival. Same massive discharge rate. I'll try a few recharging cycles but I think a company starting with S is going to get my money! Shame as I have been a Garmin user for decades and really like this watch!

0 AnatoliAngelov over 6 years ago

Sorry to hear that...

I guess that this is a whole lot of faulty watches...
My third one still has 0.6% per hour discharge rate - which is better than 1% but still not acceptable.
It is on 2 full charges for now. I have 3 more weeks to see if the battery will improve...