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Battery issue, known bug

Hi!
Since i bought my Fenix 5, one month ago, updated to v 12 on the first day of use, battery life has been awful.
Without recording any activity, the watch battery drains 25-30% every day.
I always kept 20% display light for 4 secs and only after dark on wrist move.
In the last weeks i tried disabling activity tracking as well as Move IQ and stopped wearing it while sleeping. I just left on phone notifications and HR, but that didn’t make much difference, just a few percentage points per day.

So I called the italian support center, where a not very polite operator told me that Garmin was aware of a bug affecting not all but many F5 units and was responsible for the heavy draining of the battery. He told me that it’s not a hardware related issue so it is pointless to return it, and that i just have to be patient and wait. When i replied that this device is available since more than 1 year and this should be enough patience for a bug so serious, he just told me that there was nothing he could to.

So I took a look at this forum, but except some poeple complaining, didn’t find case so severe as mine.
I’d like to know if this is really a known bug and if Garmin is actually working on that.
Also it would be helpful to know in there is other people on the forum with my same issue.

Thanks

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0 UrkoMantzi over 4 years ago in reply to Tom.Alf

Same for me, draining about 1,5% per hour, without optical HR back to the usual... I'm really dissapointed, I had same issu with my FR235, whith 4changes from GArmin!!! Now I have the fenix 5 and same history... I should bought a Polar...

0 Former Member over 4 years ago

[deleted]

0 Chaos_White_Rabbit over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

I should say I'm "happy" not to be alone in the case.

I have the F5 for a year and usual battery drain without activity was around 7 to 8% a day, I could last for a week with 3 activities. And for 2 weeks now, battery drain is about 20% a day without activity.

Tried several things and the only thing that makes significant change (but still heavier than 7-8%) is to turn Bluetooth off and sync manually.

I upgraded yesterday to last version. No noticeable change to the issue.

I wonder what they do at Garmin to decrease their device quality like that. Aren't they running regression testing or so ? Such a disappointment for a watch this price and this segment.

0 1761040 over 4 years ago

Have the same problem did have 100% at 6:00 AM and 10:00 AM I have 90% of battery, have not done any changes in the settings.

Before the battery life was 7 days with 4 actives a week

0 7466335 over 4 years ago in reply to 1761040

Hi All

Glad to see I’m not the only one with this problem. Since last 2 weeks my Fenix5 battery life dropped from 10-12 days to 3 days with very limied activity. I’ve updated software to version 14 and no difference. It’s very annoying for a watch this value. Can Garmun please give us some feedback is this would be resolved?

0 Shent-Aurkhan (SHN) over 4 years ago

Hye everyone

Here is how I did to '' solve'' the battery issue.

I mean it is a trick but still waiting an update to fix everything.

Ive noticed the issue come from the HR sensor.

So I get back to 13.51 bêta and when I dont need it I turn off HR sensor.

Now i have less than 0.4% per hour.

0 Chaos_White_Rabbit over 4 years ago in reply to Shent-Aurkhan (SHN)

Hi Shent-Aurkhan,

It is not easy for the standard user to roll back versions.

Moreover, it seems we are not experiencing the same source of issue. eg, in my case, the HR sensor is on all the time and doesn't cause major drain. But as soon as I turn bluetooth on to connect to the smartphone, drain resume.

So, I turned my bluetooth off, meaning no sync, no notification anymore on the watch, and do the synchronization manually when turning the bluetooth on for some minutes. So doing, the battery drain remains under control.

What striked me also is I didn't do any update on the watch when the drain started. It just came one day. So, I do suspect the issue might not be on the watch or watch firmware but on the App. On my smartphone the updates are automated, so what COULD have happened is a version update of the application which then requires more sync from the watch and would drain the battery.

Hope someone at Garmin one day will take the time to reply to the users (and payers) we all are.

0 Joey_likey over 4 years ago in reply to 7466335

I am having the same problem on my Fenix 5

0 6412997 over 4 years ago

Hi everyone.

Only remedy is to install 13.51.

I had 14.x

first download all files from 13,51

then follow instructions BUT first Start from droping 13.30 file into proper folder. Proceed with other files (dont copy 13.51 on this stage).

Disconnent from pc. You garmin will notice about system upgrade. Do it.

Restart.

Then connect to oc again again and start all the procedures but with 13.51 file.

Disconnect. Upgrade to 13.51. Restart.

Done.

Turn off auto update.

Get back to routine life and wait for any positive feedbacks on new sw version here. And only then - upgrade

)))

0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to 6412997

I just left it on 13.30, as I don't row or play golf