Firmware updates and battery drain

After every firmware update, a lot of people post about excessive battery drain. I'm still on 13.30 because of this. (Even the 13.30 update had people with battery drain, but the ones after seemed worse.) The battery on my over 2 year old Fenix 5 still lasts close to 3 weeks if I'm not doing any activities (mostly use my Edge for that). If it suddenly started to drain battery, I might as well throw it in the garbage, because it would be useless to me as an everyday watch.

The problem is, a lot of ConnectIQ apps won't install before I update my watch.

I know that often, the 2% who have problems post 98% of the posts on forums like this, while the 98% who don't have problems are just silent. So all of you on newer firmwares without problems, please let me know it is safe!

Regards,

Audun

0 Ieslei over 5 years ago

Hi there!

I am on v19.1. my watch does 0.140%/h with Garmin watch face and everything OFF. But after a GPS lock the watch starts to drain a bit more, like 0.300%/h. I reset the battery stats and it does still drain more. It only goes back to 0.140%/h after restarting. I am waiting for the v20.0, hope they fix it.

Mine is a Fenix 5x, 1.8y old.

Cheers

0 Elbo over 5 years ago

In smartwatch mode (bluetooth connected, with notifications) battery usage is fine with 19.10 on my 3 year old forerunner 935 (internal the same device as a fenix 5)

In sport mode, with gps, it drains 10% per hour. That’s a lot! And at least since 14.xx I experience this.

Doesn’t matter if I use gps, gps/glonas or gps/gallileo.

This means I have to recharge every 4 or 5 days, and before the drain started every 10 to 12 days. Especially if I do a long bike ride for 4 or 5 hours I have to plan in advance (or wait till my watch is charged before I can go out, which I hate. The only reason I bought an expensive watch is because of battery live. All other additional features of the expensive watches are just gimmicks, or doesn’t work anyway)

0 brwsrr over 5 years ago

I have updated 19.73 beta. with this version, my watch battery drain 9-10% per day. so, i have go back to 19.10 version that drain 6-7 per day.

all values for fenix 5-smart mode-custom watch face.

0 audunth over 5 years ago

It all sounds more than mine, it uses about 5% day with bluetooth on, wrist HR and ConnectIQ watch face (NoFrills, showing seconds), wearing the clock 24h/day. I almost never use backlight, though, it's set on manual, 5% brightness and turns off after about 8 seconds.

It really seems to me many manufacturers of phones and smart watches deliberately increases battery drain after a certain time (or at least stops caring about fixing battery drain bugs) to make people buy the new models. Yeah, I know batteries degrade over time, but not overnight like it does with firmware updates.

Does anyone know how to sideload ConnectIQ apps when they refuse to install because of old firmware? Is it possible to install them on my Edge 520 Plus, which has the latest firmware, and then copy the files to the Fenix 5? I'm betting most apps will still work, but the app developers don't want a lot of bad feedback just in case it doesn't, so it makes some sense demanding the latest updates. Other than not being able to install some apps, my Fenix 5 does everything I need, so I don't really se a reason to update.

0 audunth over 4 years ago

An update.. finally took the chance and updated from 13.30 to v20.00. Since updating, my watch has been using 4-5% per day, just like before the update. I am running a ConnectIQ watch face, activity tracking with pulse and bluetooth always on. Also updated the GPS to the newest version.

Cheers

Audun