Insane Battery drain since 15.10

9170306 said:

Simple. Forget the old models. Disappointment. Where's the body battery?

If Garmin was to add support for Body Battery in my Fenix 5, I would be overjoyed and love it. Do I think that is a reasonable expectation, no. These features like many others are added with new products just like the Fenix 5 came with new features, which is why we bought it and not an earlier Garmin model. So spare a thought for the people who, like us at the time, bought an upgraded model and not the Fenix 5.

On the question of forgetting the old models, while I agree that Garmin's communication is extremely poor, I think it would be a stretch to say that they forgot the old models, unless remembering means adding features supported by newer models. Unless you are recommending that we forget the old models, which is reasonable if we want new features. I bought my Fenix 5 at the end of July 2019, fully aware of the feature set. My FW after setup was 13.3 and 13.4 came out a few days later. In less than 6 months, they have released 13.4, 14.1, 14.2 and 15.2. Mainly with fixes but hardly forgotten. This is for a watch announced 3 years ago and released probably in March 2017. When I look back at the release history, they added support for many features, particularly in the early months. Physio TrueUp support was added in 9.2 and GPS + GALILEO support in 11.00.

I found 15.10 to be a little flakey. Would go from .3 percent to 1-8 percent - def not consistent. 15.20, so far, seems better - been holding around .3 percent. First full charge to discharge though so will see.

Hi how do you get back to 14.20?

ikim1967 said:

I found 15.10 to be a little flakey. Would go from .3 percent to 1-8 percent - def not consistent. 15.20, so far, seems better - been holding around .3 percent. First full charge to discharge though so will see.

This is very strange, but not totally surprising, since 15.10 to 15.20 was "only" to deal with a limited Fenix 5X CIQ issue. The fact that it can have noticeable impact on battery life shows how battery life is connected to a issues not directly related to battery performance. It is partly why, including poor communications, I think Garmin does not specifically address battery performance directly, because they are "working on it" as they work on other issues they know impacts battery life. Any use of a sensor or action that consumes processing cycles impacts battery life. 

7407331 said:

I too am having the battery issue on 15.10. Down to two days or so. Downgraded to 14.2 and back to normal. I am not upgrading until they fix this.

This makes complete sense if 14.2 gives you the battery life you need and none of the fixes that they did between then and 15.10 or 20 relate to a need of yours. I am running 14.77 which gives me a better battery experience than 14.20, which was not great for me. At the same time I largely have the newer fixes, such as they affected me at all.

OK, please guys can You provide a link or something how to downgrade to 14.2 or 14.77. Two of You mentioned that yoau allready done it. How? Please. Thanks.

My fenix 5 is in 5 charge cycle with 15.10 .now.the drain is terrible.from 100% to 92%  it tooks 36 hours i think is normal.from 92% go to 87% in 15 min .then i start a 2 hours long run and at the end  the battery was 17%.after 10 min the watch go to 7% as and i plug to charge.every charging cycle is worst than the previous.i try to go back to 14.20 which was good for my fenix 5.the watch go only 2 days .

I came across those two links:

gcd files: http://gawisp.com/perry/fenix_D2_tactix/

installation guide: https://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=11665#Instruct

However, I never tried do downgrade, version 15.1 and a hardreset solved my battery problems for my 5X. Version 15.2 seems to be even better.

Did you try an update to 15.2?

8691659 said:

OK, please guys can You provide a link or something how to downgrade to 14.2 or 14.77. Two of You mentioned that yoau allready done it. How?

The following links you to a page (top of the page) with downloads for the Fenix 5 14.77 Beta : Fenix 5 14.77 Beta Downloads

Choose the one that's relevant to you and download.

You first want to roll back to 14.20 so start with the installation instructions in line 8.

If you follow the following instructions, you should revert to 14.20:

1. If you would like to revert to the last public release software, drop the gupdate.gcd file, found in the System_Backdate_v1420 folder, into the \GARMIN folder of the device.

NOTE: If you revert to an older version of software, all of your settings will be reset to defaults. This means that you should do a sync before you roll back.

Ensure that your watch settings are set to not auto update and when you connect to the computer ensure that Garmin Express is not running. If you fail to do either, you will be updated to the latest release, 15.10 or 15.20 depending on the watch you have.

After 14.20 is installed, follow the instructions to install 14.77

Note, since you are not updating through Garmin Express, you need to update using your phone. In my experience, I have had to set up the watch fully or else the connections to Garmin Mobile tends to fail. The sync also takes a long time and is not as fast as a USB connection to Garmin Express on a PC.

Read carefully, ask questions if things are not clear and I hope I documented each step. That's what I recall.