Fenix 5 battery - 9% per day in watch mode

Hello Garmin fans,
After detailed search for my ideal watch I have decided to by fenix 5, and my first impresions are very good. I just have one question, my battery drains appx 9% per day in watch mode.Is that normal? I read somewhere that 5-6% is normal and Garmin says two weeks in watch mode, I know that is in ideal conditions but I am afraid that by battery drains quicker than it should. When I bought it it was completly drained, we had to charge it in store to try it. Yesterday I did some cycling and crossfit so it was appx 11% for that day.
Maybe it is normal battery drain, but i I had to ask, so Fenix 5 users please let me know if that the case. I didn't install any watch face or anything else, waiting and testing battery before that.
If there is any writing errors I apologize in advance.
Thank you very much, kind regards

0 thr4 over 7 years ago

It's a bit on a higher side but not totally off the mark. I am now on 54% and I did recharge my watch last Friday so its 46% in 5.5 days which comes to 8%/day. That includes 4 runs, all day HR and smartphone notifications. If the watch had no charge when you bought it it might need a few cycles for the battery to recover.

0 Chimcen over 7 years ago

Thats much... mine has a drain of 4-5% per day... (without doing any sports - just watch mode with wrist hr activated)... i think it also depends on the used watchface and also the backligt settings...
I didn't use the backlight very often - i think its one of the major battery killers...

Since my last charging:
2 short runs on the treadmill

Battery drain approx 0,175% per hour
Time since last charge: 15 days
Time remain: ~ 8 days
Actual battery level: 33%

Settings:
- watch mode
- bt off
- gestures off
- wrist hr on
- sync every day sometimes through wifi
- backlight set to 20%
- backlight duration 8 sec
- used watchface: "Sun"

If the watch had no charge when you bought it it might need a few cycles for the battery to recover.

This could be a solution...

0 mcalista over 7 years ago

Garmin rate the watch at 14+ days in watch mode with OHR running, which implies about 7% per day, and I think that is consistent with what most people report. If you are not getting that, I'd suggest the following:

1. Give the watch a full charge, then let it run down to close to zero - this helps calibrate the battery meter.
2. Revert to a stock Garmin watchface - not all developers are economical in their coding.
3. Power cycle the device - if like most of us with a shiny new watch, you are adding and removing apps and widgets to find your preferred set-up, this can sometimes leave stray loops of code, and power-cycling can help clean this up. A hard reset is an even better way, but this will erase your existing data (although with a new watch, this may not be a major concern).
4. The backlight settings are the major user-controllable factor in power usage - each 10% backlight uses about 1.5% battery per hour. At higher intensities, backlight can chew the battery fast. 10-20% should be sufficient backlight for most purposes. Check your timeout settings, and have keypress, etc set for After Sunset.
5. If you are leaving your phone unattended around your home, the BT chip can go to full power as it struggles to maintain connection as you wander in and out of range.

OHR sampling frequency increases in sports mode, and GPS can be a significant power drain. An hour of GPS per day will double battery usage, bringing life down to 1 week.

0 Fenix009 over 7 years ago

Thats much... mine has a drain of 4-5% per day... (without doing any sports - just watch mode with wrist hr activated)... i think it also depends on the used watchface and also the backligt settings...
I didn't use the backlight very often - i think its one of the major battery killers...

Since my last charging:
2 short runs on the treadmill

Battery drain approx 0,175% per hour
Time since last charge: 15 days
Time remain: ~ 8 days
Actual battery level: 33%

Settings:
- watch mode
- bt off
- gestures off
- wrist hr on
- sync every day sometimes through wifi
- backlight set to 20%
- backlight duration 8 sec
- used watchface: "Sun"

This could be a solution...

Thanks for the answers guys,
My settings are:
watch mode
bt on
wrist hr on
sync automatic (probably, I see whenever I do sometnig it automaticaly sync with smartphone)
backlight set to 20%, 8 sec
watchface garmin default ( I didn't install another watchface).
In the store the charged it to 5% to try it, and I charged it to 100% the following day, could that harm battery (beeing 5% whole day)?
I am ok with charging it weekly, not a problem, I am only asking this to see if there is a problem with battery, or it is close to normal.
Running (60min) with gps drains it appx 12-15% a day.
Thanks again

0 Fenix009 over 7 years ago

Garmin rate the watch at 14+ days in watch mode with OHR running, which implies about 7% per day, and I think that is consistent with what most people report. If you are not getting that, I'd suggest the following:

1. Give the watch a full charge, then let it run down to close to zero - this helps calibrate the battery meter.
2. Revert to a stock Garmin watchface - not all developers are economical in their coding.
3. Power cycle the device - if like most of us with a shiny new watch, you are adding and removing apps and widgets to find your preferred set-up, this can sometimes leave stray loops of code, and power-cycling can help clean this up. A hard reset is an even better way, but this will erase your existing data (although with a new watch, this may not be a major concern).
4. The backlight settings are the major user-controllable factor in power usage - each 10% backlight uses about 1.5% battery per hour. At higher intensities, backlight can chew the battery fast. 10-20% should be sufficient backlight for most purposes. Check your timeout settings, and have keypress, etc set for After Sunset.
5. If you are leaving your phone unattended around your home, the BT chip can go to full power as it struggles to maintain connection as you wander in and out of range.

OHR sampling frequency increases in sports mode, and GPS can be a significant power drain. An hour of GPS per day will double battery usage, bringing life down to 1 week.

Thanks for the great info and advices, I didn't know that..
I am on the 68% at the moment, almost 3 days usage. I forgot to say I don't wear it when I sleep but I don't change anything or, WHR stays on, and BT.
I'll try power cycle, than I'll report back with the results.
Thanks again, this is a great community

0 chatlow over 7 years ago

i remember someone talking about a possible battery draining issue if you had wifi auto-upload enabled - perhaps the F5 searched for the wifi network quite often, I'm not sure. I turned my off just in case and just sync with BT/Wifi once a day.

Anyway, I get around 4-5% depletion each day with BT connected most of the time (most other settings are default). I would guess around 2 weeks usage with some GPS usage too. Part of the reason I love this and the 935 is battery life.

0 Fenix009 over 7 years ago

i remember someone talking about a possible battery draining issue if you had wifi auto-upload enabled - perhaps the F5 searched for the wifi network quite often, I'm not sure. I turned my off just in case and just sync with BT/Wifi once a day.

Anyway, I get around 4-5% depletion each day with BT connected most of the time (most other settings are default). I would guess around 2 weeks usage with some GPS usage too. Part of the reason I love this and the 935 is battery life.

Mine F5 is non-sapphire, so I think it hasn't got wifi, or am I wrong?

0 chatlow over 7 years ago

ah okay, yeah you're right, think only F5 sapphire and 5x/sapphire have wifi

0 VictorFoxx over 6 years ago

Please help! Witout any changes from my side, suddenly f5 battery starts to drain very quickly, about 50% per 8 hours just in watch mode, witout notification from phone and back light. Afraid, that is became from 10.00 firmware, I rolled back to 8.00, but have same problem. Does anybody help?((((

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

That is odd, so apart from a hardware failure (battery?) it could be a widget or watch face that updated which has a bug in it and needs either updating or removal. Factory reset your device and see if that helps. If so, re-install your items one at a time until battery drain fails again. Then you know which item is responsible.