The battery percentage petition

I agree It looks like a feature that could be added. Not a groundbreaking change  and it goes in accordance with the "survival" character of the watch.

I Join the petition! It is indeed odd to miss such a basic function!

I've heard that lack of percentage is not a design choice, but SoC (system on chip - hardware) limitation. Perhaps the SoC reports only 5 grades of battery charge instead giving access to raw data (like current voltage) - AFAIR Instinct Solar allows to display battery percentage in some screen (not watchface though).

kidney_thief said:

I've heard that lack of percentage is not a design choice, but SoC (system on chip - hardware) limitation.

I do not know where you heard it, but it is wrong. Garmin Instinct can read the battery voltage quite accurately, and it is able to display both the battery voltage, as well as the estimated remaining charge in percents (see the photo of Instinct in the Test mode - after starting the watch while holding the ABC button).

The true reason for not using the percentage is that it is more or less useless, better told it does not offer much more accuracy than the graphical indicator. That's because the discharging curve is not linear, the power drain is not constant, and there are many other factors influencing the discharging.

Thanks for clarification! Yeah, hardly any battery has linear discharge, but I have to disagree - having precise percentage can give you a better idea how fast battery is being drained  

trux said:

The true reason for not using the percentage is that it is more or less useless, better told it does not offer much more accuracy than the graphical indicator

Your "true reason" for not using a percentage sounds more like speculation on your part, or can you reference where Garmin says it does so.  I have no idea why you would think 2 bars is just as good as knowing if you were at 21% or 39%.

tess said:

I have no idea why you would think 2 bars is just as good as knowing if you were at 21% or 39%

Because, as I wrote there are so many factors that you won't know much better whether the watch will hold 5, 10, 20, or 30 hours more, anyway. So seeing I have one part of the indicator remaining tells me clearly I should hold on with power-consuming usage, and charge the watch soon. 

tess said:

Your "true reason" for not using a percentage sounds more like speculation on your part

Yes, that's true. If you have a better theory why Garmin decided to use the more complicated method to program the code for the battery indicator, than using the simpler percentage value, then tell us.

trux said:

Because, as I wrote there are so many factors that you won't know much better

Common sense tells us many factors will affect the battery. Common sense also gives us an idea what we can or can't do at 21% or 39% as opposed to just seeing 2 bars.  I use a 945 that displays in percentages. I know what percent my watch uses on an hour long run using GPS and my sensors I have connected. I also know how much it will increase if I listen to music.  I know I can do this run if I have 13% or better remaining on my watch.  You on the other hand will have to guess if you wanted to do this run and your 945 was displaying 1 bar. 

trux said:

If you have a better theory why Garmin decided to use the more complicated method to program the code for the battery indicator, than using the simpler percentage value, then tell us.

I don't have a theory as to why Garmin chose this method, but if I did, I would clearly state it was my theory and wouldn't say it was the true reason. 

I completely agree with you!

I do an example. I travel a lot for work, most of the time for 1/2 days, no more. I want to know if I have to bring the charging cable or not.

For this reason 39 vs 21 is a big difference.

it’s just how electronic interact with us, and I don’t care if the discharge rate is not linear, or anything else. Also the discharge percentage on the iPhone is not linear, but i don’t see anyone complaining about that!

tess said:

I don't have a theory as to why Garmin chose this method, but if I did, I would clearly state it was my theory and wouldn't say it was the true reason.

If, instead of the nit-picking, you focused on the content, you'd understand that the sense of the message was telling that the choice of the indicator vs. percentage was not due to any hardware limitation as claimed in the post preceding mine, but purely intentionally and by design, for the apparent reason that the accuracy in both cases is around  ± 20% (or more) anyway, and is depending on many variable factors, including also for example the ambient temperature (due to the size of the watch, causing much bigger and quicker deviations than at a phone). 

Simone E. said:

I do an example. I travel a lot for work, most of the time for 1/2 days, no more. I want to know if I have to bring the charging cable or not.

Bring the cable with, if you are on one bar of the indicator. Typically you can still easily do a full day incl. several hours of GPS, with that charge, but if you do not remember when the indicator dropped from 2 to 1 bar, it is safer to have the cable with. Or plug the watch on the charger for 10 minutes or more before leaving, to boost the charge a bit.

If you really want to see the percentage, start the test mode, but as I wrote - the percentage value shown there may change significantly just when you go out and leave the room.