Battery Drain

Former Member
Former Member
Hi. I could not find anything on this in recent posts, so I guess it is something only concerning my watch. Unless I have overlooked something. Until about 3 weeks ago the battery life on my Garmin 5 was something which impressed me the most, as I only needed to recharge my watch every 5 or 6 days. But now all of a sudden I have to charge it every 2 or 3 days. I did not change anything on the watch at all, in fact I even did a complete reset of the watch, turned off the notifications and back light, but nothing changed. I still have to charge every 2 or 3 days. This is rather annoying and frustrating, especially knowing that it was not always like that. Does anyone have this same issue, or know of the reason why this is happening? Has there been a firmware update perhaps which is leading to this sudden battery drainage? Any help would be appreciated, thank you.
  • Usually a reset will clean up any looping code that can cause excess processor usage (and battery drain) - but it seems you have already done that.

    Something in the last update is causing issues with custom watch faces - I haven't seen people talking about battery drain, but it may be worth reverting to a standard Garmin watch face and seeing if that resolves the issue.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 7 years ago
    Usually a reset will clean up any looping code that can cause excess processor usage (and battery drain) - but it seems you have already done that.

    Something in the last update is causing issues with custom watch faces - I haven't seen people talking about battery drain, but it may be worth reverting to a standard Garmin watch face and seeing if that resolves the issue.


    So it seems that this is not a known issue and is only affecting me. Thank you for the answer, I will try out what you recommend and see if that changes anything.
  • On my side I have to charge it approximately every two weeks ! I confess to not be very active at that moment but every 5 or 6 days seems very short to me...
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 7 years ago
    I have set everything back to factory settings, have the original watch face, and did another reset, but all to avail. The battery is still draining at the same rate :( Is there anyway to remove the last firmware update?
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 7 years ago
    Can anyone help? Where are the experts?
  • It's probably time to contact Garmin Support (including details of what steps you have taken so far).
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 7 years ago
    It's probably time to contact Garmin Support (including details of what steps you have taken so far).


    Thank you for answering ... I was beginning to wonder if I was just talking to myself here :) I wanted to leave contacting Garmin Support as a last alternative, I thought maybe someone else here was experiencing the same issues and wanted some advice on how to fix it.

    I do have some more information now. Yesterday I did some testing. I tried turning off features like notifications, GPS etc individually for an hour or so to see if that influenced the battery drain in anyway. When I got to the wrist pulse function I hit paydirt. When I turned off the wrist pulse function the battery drain was gone and my watch worked like it did in the past dropping 1% of battery charge every two hours or so.

    Does anyone have any experience with similar issues where the wrist pulse function drains the battery? Does anyone know of a fix for this? Any help would be appreciated on this. Thank you.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 7 years ago
    Nobody? 420 people have viewed my post, and no-one has had this problem? No one has any tips or advice? (Other than calling support, that will be my last resort). Maybe someone has a link to another forum where issues like this are actually discussed?
  • 1% every two hours still feels quite a lot. My F5 drains without OHR and GPS appr. 4-5% a day and with OHR only appr. 6%

    Edit: Added some text
  • 1% battery drain in 2 hours is not normal (4-6% per day in watch mode is what you should expect), and there aren't large volumes of people on these boards complaining that FW 6.0 is draining the battery. You've taken all reasonable steps in terms of self-help. But seriously, it is time you contacted Garmin Support, because it seems to me the only logical possibility remaining is a hardware fault.