Outdoor Recreation Archive

fēnix 5 Series GCM required to be running full time?

GCM required to be running full time?

Former Member over 6 years ago

Hi,

Apologies if this has already been covered but I couldn’t find anything in search so...

I’ve recently ‘upgraded’ from a FR230 to a Fenix 5. It should be noted that I did this mainly for aesthetics as I love the design of the Fenix 5, but I was looking forward to the whole ‘premium’ experience. I have to say I’m a little disappointed.

The first Fenix I received refused to pair with Garmin Connect/Express and had to be returned. The second one appeared to be fine for the first few days but then I noticed some strange behaviour and due to the experience with the first one, I’m not sure if this is normal or not.

It appears that with the Fenix 5, I am required to keep GCM open or at least in the background, as once the app is closed my 3rd party watch faces indicate that the phone connection is lost. Message alerts come through fine but they do not show in any on screen message count. Message counts on the native watch faces seem unaffected by the running status of the mobile app.

Ideally I don’t want to leave GCM running 24/7 on my iPhone as it is a huge battery drain and on the FR230 I was never required to do so.

I appreciate this this is a bit of a long winded post, so to those of you who’ve made it this far and actually understood what I’m trying to get at, thank you and I would appreciate your advice on the matter.

Is it normal for a Fenix 5 that the Garmin Connect Mobile app must be left running?

Ive attached a photo of the same watch faces side by side to hopefully illustrate the issue I’m having.

ciq.forums.garmin.com/.../1384042.jpg

0 TrippyZ over 6 years ago

What makes you think that GCM is a huge battery drain? First I have heard. Leave it running, problem solved.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Thanks for the reply. I've been using GCM for almost 2 years on this iPhone 7 and the battery appears to drain noticeably quicker when the app is left running in the background. I assumed it was to do with automatic syncs and location services, but I'm not massively techy... I appreciate that leaving the app running solves the issue of notification counts, but it doesn't answer the question as to whether this is intended behaviour on this model or not. I just find it strange that the FR230 has no requirement for the app to be running. Can i take from your response that your Fenix 5 behaves in the same way? Anyone else?

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I have an Android phone and my watch stays connected to the phone, and receives notifications, when the GCM app is closed. I see that you are using a 3rd part watch face. Could it be that the custom face requires the app to be open in order to work?

0 jose.cboliveira over 6 years ago

If you have oreo in your phone you need to Disable battery optimization. If you an huawey then it must be in background.
In my case it drains bwttwen 3% to 5%.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I’m using an iPhone 7 with iOS 11.4.1 and a Fenix 5 with version 9.20.

The ‘problem’ if indeed there is one only manifests on 3rd party watch faces, or at least the 4 or 5 I have tried. It appears that the 3rd party watch faces use ‘app connection status’ rather than ‘phone connection status’ whereas the native faces seem to know he phone is still connected even when the app is closed.

0 carl.andersson over 6 years ago

Interesting stuff. I also have the same issue of app battery drain on iOS 11.4 on an iPhone 7. I didn't consider the 3rd party watch face being a likely source of the problem. Nice work!

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I’m not sure it’s exactly the watch face that causes the iPhone battery to drain, just the necessity to leave the app running constantly in the background to get full functionality from the 3rd part faces, whereas previously (on the FR230) I could swipe up and close the app with no loss functionality.

I’ve just now turned off ‘background app refresh’ for GCM and full functionality remains, but only time will tell if it makes a difference to battery life of the iPhone. Today GCM has used 17% battery so I’d much rather be able to close it down!

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Just to update this thread...

It appears something has changed recently. I don’t *think* it was the update to FW10 as I checked it straight after, but I now no longer need to leave the GCM app open In order for things to work as they should with 3rd party watch faces, notification wise. The only thing I have done is that I found the HRM strap sensor was constantly ‘searching’. I switched this to ‘off’ wondering if it would affect the watch’s battery life and since then I’ve had no need to leave GCM running.

I have now noticed though, that Bluetooth occasionally disconnects completely after a period of the watch not being on my wrist (eg overnight) and requires a launch of GCM to reconnect. Perhaps this is a deliberate function to again preserve battery life, who knows?!