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Battery issue, known bug

pistapoci
over 5 years ago
Hi!
Since i bought my Fenix 5, one month ago, updated to v 12 on the first day of use, battery life has been awful.
Without recording any activity, the watch battery drains 25-30% every day.
I always kept 20% display light for 4 secs and only after dark on wrist move.
In the last weeks i tried disabling activity tracking as well as Move IQ and stopped wearing it while sleeping. I just left on phone notifications and HR, but that didn’t make much difference, just a few percentage points per day.

So I called the italian support center, where a not very polite operator told me that Garmin was aware of a bug affecting not all but many F5 units and was responsible for the heavy draining of the battery. He told me that it’s not a hardware related issue so it is pointless to return it, and that i just have to be patient and wait. When i replied that this device is available since more than 1 year and this should be enough patience for a bug so serious, he just told me that there was nothing he could to.

So I took a look at this forum, but except some poeple complaining, didn’t find case so severe as mine.
I’d like to know if this is really a known bug and if Garmin is actually working on that.
Also it would be helpful to know in there is other people on the forum with my same issue.

Thanks

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to djimbel

    Where can one find old firmware's to do a downgrade? I'm having terrible battery drain with fenix 5 13.30, when 13.00 was just perfect. Nothing changed in settings etc. just device sw was upgraded and problems started. Tried hard reset with no help...

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to Tcornall

    Tried it. I even ordered a new cable from Garmin. Nothing worked.

    I cleaned both connectors on watch and cable.

    Thanks anyway for your answer.

    I guess i'll have to wait a new firmware correcting it

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    Hi,

    I made some tests during the last days and I found what causes that heavy battery brain on my Fenix 5s.

    I used the following widget to take my measurements https://apps.garmin.com/fr-FR/apps/5e49aebc-af75-43f4-9718-03159bd8b6da

    With the optical HR sensor activated, the battery drops 3,2% per hours

    Without it : 0,2% per hour

    I made other measurements with Bluetooth, GPS... The only thing that matters is the optical HR sensor.

    Hope it will help for a fix in an incoming firmware as it is an issue I have since the 13.00 version and I can't downgrade (cf. My previous posts)

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    My fenix 5 is now doing the same thing. I’m losing about 1% per hour, not doing anything special. Tried removing everything that’s not stock garmin (except the battery gauge widget), still terrible. My friend has the same watch, his is still doing great (<7% per day with activities).  I have 14.1 software, I think it was released to fix the battery drain in 13 but it didn’t. Garmin said they’re evaluating and I have to just wait. 

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to david2s

    What happens to data like vo2max and LT when you downgrade? Can it be saved and if so how?

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    What happens to data like vo2max and LT when you downgrade? Can it be saved and if so how?

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to arn01d

    Not sure. I tried to downgrade and wasn’t able to. I asked Garmin how to do it and they said it’s not possible. I found old releases and lots of forum posts where people have done it, but no directions on how to do it. I would love to go back to 12.X until they fix this problem, I lost 27.5% over the last day and only did one workout (no GPS).

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to djimbel

    How do you actually do the downgrade?  I can’t find directions and Garmin is no help. 

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to 2841682

    Is there anyone from garmin officials reading this forum?

    what the hell is going on with batteries over last 3 sw updates!? 

    Why this issue can be solved?!

    last update doen not even contain bat issue remedy in the list of improvements!