Hi - apologies if I missed this elsewhere on the forum but I've been looking for advice on how to maintain optimal battery life on my Fenix 5. is it best to try and run the battery down as far as you can before fully recharging, or are modern battery technologies different? Eg if you top-up charge 30 minutes each day at your desk, does that have a long term effect on battery life? Thanks in advance for any guidance.
Li-ion batteries typically experience a drop of about 20% in capacity over 500 cycles (a cycle being a 0%-100% recharge). With people getting 7+ days battery life out of a F5 even with GPS use for an hour per day, the watch will be obsolete long before it reaches anywhere near 500 cycles and battery life becomes an issue (compared with a smart phone which typically has a daily charge cycle).
That said, keeping it between 30% and 70% does maximize battery life, 10 minutes per day is probably more than enough to keep it in this range. But don't be afraid to charge it to 100% before a big event - who wants to deal with even the possibility of running out of battery on a big event.
Thanks mcalista. I would prefer to top-up a little each day as I like to wear the watch to track sleep at night and throughout the day, so I guess the follow-up question is, how much damage does a daily 10-minute top-up have on your battery? ie how many 10-min top-up cycles before a 20% drop in capacity? if it's still 500 (ie 500 days) then that's a bit of a concern.
A cycle is a 0% to 100% charge. So taking it from 30% to 80% would be half a cycle. But a weekly charge cycle for a typical user would mean 10 years to reach 500 cycles (at which point you would only experience a 20% drop in battery life, and I doubt many F5's will still be in use in 10 years time.
This is different to many other smart watches out there where with a daily charge cycle you will notice a drop in battery performance in just a year or two - Garmin really have put a premium on maximizing battery life in their design.
I would agree with the above. I run on average 5 times per week, obviously with GPS (plus an Ant+ device), and I charge 1ce a week, well before the battery reaches critical limits. I could probably charge even less frequently than that. Battery life is not a problem. I am more concerned with my 'phone which I indeed have to charge every night to avoid Zero battery at the end of the next day.
