Is it time to replace my Fenix 5s battery, or is some setting set poorly? Short (5 hour) battery life.

So I have had my Fenix 5 for a few years, and when doing a long hike recently I noticed that after 5 hours of tracking it was down to 10% battery life. I know the backlight is a large driver of battery usage, so it is on 20% and is OFF during daylight hours anyway. Thoughts? I certainly had full ski days several years ago while tracking and did not remember getting a battery warning back then. How long do these internal batteries last?

Thanks!

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0 Robin over 3 years ago

I've had my fenix 5 for 2 years en 2 month and I can do a half Ironman in 6 hours with 50% battery left.

0 Elbo over 3 years ago

I have my forerunner 935 for 4 years. Batterylife with gps used to be more than 20 hours, now it is about 10 hours.

Either garmin added an other bug to their firmware (around gps firmware 2.50) or they use very poor quality batteries.

About the same poor performance @Robin reports. His fenix 5 should also do 20+ hours but has only 12 hours left. Sad.

0 WAYNESWHIRLED over 3 years ago

SOLVED: It appears to have been operator error. Months ago I was making some changes, and had changed my tracking method from "UltraTrac" to "GPS", and that is what resulted in the high battery usage. I knew it was something to do with tracking, because standby time with no activity running was still good. I had not noticed the issue until I was on a 6 hour hike, when it got down to 10% charge and so I got a battery warning.

Apparently, use UltraTrac mode!

0 bluefish over 3 years ago

Garmin does not replace the battery.

0 WAYNESWHIRLED over 3 years ago in reply to bluefish

Sorry I was not clear; I meant that I would replace it myself. #electricalengineer :)

0 JM_Zogg over 3 years ago in reply to WAYNESWHIRLED

Did you get a suggestion how to replace the battery?

also #electricalengineer!

0 WAYNESWHIRLED over 3 years ago in reply to JM_Zogg

Go engineers! :)

I found a few videos like this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o_F6NxtkAk), but mostly I would just take it apart and see what's in there. I also replaced the "unreplaceable battery" in my old Garmin Forerunner 305 when it lost it's ability to hold much of a charge years ago.

Looks like I won't need to worry about it for a while, but good to know it's pretty easily doable, even with my lousy soldering skills

0 guzzio_ over 3 years ago

I am also into the search if it's possible yes or now to change the battery of the 5s (smallest model). But here is where i get stuck: the 'normal' size has 5 screws to teardown the watch. I can't see any screws on the 5s so i wonder how to dismantle - teardown the smallest of the Garmin Fenix Plus family? ? ? Grtz from Belgium.

0 WAYNESWHIRLED over 3 years ago in reply to guzzio_

I don't have mine with me right now, but aren't the screws on the back on the 5s?

I found this video as well: www.youtube.com/watch

0 thermo over 3 years ago

I was in your position and had trouble finding information online. I recently uploaded a video on how to replace it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La73m_t0Sr0 if this helps.