Fenix 5 takes 1 hour to full recharge

Former Member over 5 years ago

Hi guys,

I bought a Fenix 5 on Mon 03 June. The battery must have been fully discharged as I couldn't start the watch until I had charged it a bit.

The first time I charged it, it took an hour to fully recharge. Yet the manual says it takes 3 hours. Since then, I've used the watch for daily 5km runs with gps up until today, where the battery has gone down to 15% and it's only been 6 days. I have activity tracker, HR, and bluetooth always turned off (I don't pair the watch to my phone at all). GPS is only switched on during my activity.

I'm now charging it for the second time today but it seems to have taken an hour to fully recharge...

Has anyone else experienced a similar issue? Or knows what is going on?

Regards

David

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0 sis651 over 5 years ago

1 hour is very fast. Is it a new device? The device may still be calibrating the battery. Continue tracking charge time and decharge time for a few times and if it continues to charge in an hour you may need to call Garmin. The battery is maybe bad.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to sis651

Yep it's a new device.

Thanks for the advice mate.

0 Mistamb over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

what i found out: i have a anker battery bank and it is showing the battery LED's how much power it has.

anyway, when i connect a device the LED's are showing. disconnecting a device or if the device is not consuming power the LED's are turning of.

when charging the fenix 5x and the watch shows 100% the LED'S are on. so the watch is still charging. it takes another 30-40 minutes until the LED's turns off. so i think the 100% indicator on the watch is very set to a very low level.

keep your watch for 2-3 hours on the power source and then check again.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to Mistamb

Thanks Mistamb.

Do you think this is a common issue for brand new Fenix watches that have been in its box for a while?

0 mcalista over 5 years ago

You may want to try a different USB power source. Because the watch battery is a very small device, it draws a very low charging current. Some USB chargers will then turn off at very low power levels.

As with most rechargeable batteries, they charge quickly up to about 80%, then the charge rate slows down, and the final few % from 95% to 100% is quite slow.

Assuming the watch continues to show the same behavior with a different power source, and that further use doesn't recalibrate the battery, then you may want to contact Garmin support.

Although it's not clear to me whether the problem is the bottom end of the battery scale, the top end of the scale, or whether the GPS is drawing too much power.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to mcalista

Thanks mate.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to Mistamb

BTW. The firmware on my Fenix 5 is 11.0. Do you think that might be a factor?

0 Mistamb over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

no i don't think so. normal they have around 20-30% while getting out of the box. i would try to load it fully up and leave it on the charger. after 2-3 fully charges, the battery should have it's full capacity. if not, i would try to contact garmin and tell them .

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to Mistamb

Ok thanks.