Battery drains fast after update from 14.20 to 19.10.

Before Update 0.3%/h after 1%/h. Nothing else changed only new Software was installed.
Is this a known bug??

  • Had the Fenix 5s for 1 year now. After reading other posts it looks like others have had the same issue. The forum is now blocking new posts because the problem was “resolved” with 14.20. Battery used to last a week, decreased to 3 days and now is down to 1 day without an activity. Backlight is at 5% and Bluetooth off. Been looking for solutions and As far as I can tell I’m just SOL. 

    Any advice? 

  • Hello, Have you tried the trick some used? It was to plug the watch, turn it off (while charging) and let it for a (very long) while (let's say 10h), then unplug, left it for 15 minutes, then plug it again (the watch should start and display 100%) and leave it for some hours...

    It had worked for a friend of mine.

    Best regards

  • No problems with Fenix5x and Firmware 19.10.

    lioxan: Are you using non-native Apps?

  • Hello,

    thanks for your reply.

    I'm using exactly one not native app which is a programm to track battery consumption.

    I'M using this programm for a year now. Never had problems.

  • with 19.10 only 5 days of batttery, i have resset the watch and still the sama

  • I've had the 5x for two years and have seen a similar issue before. The only times I saw this before was when I was installing BETA versions on my own. I'm having a similar issue on 19.10 however I'm barely making it a single day on a full charge. Some days if I have a lot of activity I'm charging it twice.. I did a hard reset to eliminate all non-native apss. I'll update if I find that worked.

  • Its not better with 19.10 my watch ia dropping my heart rate, i have to charge this thing every other day now..even on days i don't bike, and has decided to not pick up active minutes, and also felt like dropping my activity from monday. Good luck, this smells like the end of my relationship with Garmin. Exactly how it went for my husband! 

  • Update. I did a factory reset and did not reinstall anything. I've been using it as stock other than some settings changes. Battery life is better but not what it was before the update.

    This kind of defeats the purpose of being able to load widgets, watch faces, and various data screens through Garmin's own platform. I can't even tell which did it. I guess I'll slowly add them back.

    I'm frustrated because nothing else tracks so many things so well and is so rugged. I don't want an Apple watch or the like.

  • To solve the problem for me, I also did a factory reset one month ago. It worked for me a little. I use only native app except the battery tracker app.

    Battery Life is now in long term 0.5%/h which is ok  -  in comparison to other products.

    BUT. Do we seriously need  to perform a factory reset after a simple software update... ?!

  • I also experience poor batterylife with my forerunner 935 (the plastic fenix 5) since firmware 14.xx, but only during workouts.

    Normal day to day use is fine (always connected to my iPhone, no custom watchface or custom apps/widgets)

    During workouts with gps and connected cheststrap it uses about 10% battery per hour. That's a lot. It used to be 5% or less per hour. I've tried gps only, of gps/glonos or gps/galileo, but I don't see any difference in battery usage.

    My watch is over 3 years old, so I do expect a reduction in batterylife but this is way beyond normal wear. On average I charge once per week, so 150 cycles. Even if thats double, only 300 charge cycles should not reduce batterycapacity by half.

    So the most logical thing is that Garmin once again added bugs in their software.