Fenix 6s Battery Life is Terrible

Got the watch on Tuesday. Spent a few days learning about the settings. Full charge on Friday night, up to 100%. Short run on Saturday morning, 10% of the battery. Then, normal day with no other events. Wore the watch overnight, woke up to 53% battery.

I have Pulse OX off -- all the way off, sleep / daily tracking. I've turned off the seconds display. I'm not sure if there is anything else for me to mess with.

I had gone from the FR 230, to the FR645, and a brief stint with the Coros Apex (amazing battery, bad GPS / HR / Interface). I was really excited to get this watch as I met all of my needs. But I'm not keen on charging my watch EVERY day.

  • Do you have a music service set up to sync with your watch? If so, your watch may be using a lot of battery downloading music over wifi while you're asleep.

    The 6X is rated at (up to) 9 days in smartwatch mode (that is, Bluetooth and HR turned on, but most everything else turned off). That's the base battery rate, but that gets reduced when you receive smart notifications, use the backlight and/or play around with the watch, do an activity, etc etc.

    That said, your FR645 was rated with slightly less (7 days) of battery life, so logically it seems like you should get about the same battery life with the 6S, or slightly more, than the FR645.

    There's a thread here that lists off the various functions you can turn on or off and how much it reduces or increases your battery life - check it out, and make sure there isn't something running and draining your battery that you might not know about. If, after that, it still doesn't seem like the battery is lasting as long as it should, contact Garmin as it seems like that would mean the battery is defective.

  • I think there is something wrong with your watch or you have settings or services that are draining the battery. I upgraded from F645M and the F6S battery life is at least on a par or better. Considering it's the same size as the F645M I can't complain.

  • This version has no WiFi, there is no music service.

    Seems like it's just a bad product.

  • Something definitely seems wrong. I'd get in touch with Garmin, they'll be able to help you figure out whether there's a settings that is draining the battery, or if the battery is just defective. If it's a bad battery, then it's good to find out during the warranty period.

  • Hi, 

    press up/menu - power manager - edit - wrist heart rate. Turn off permanent sending heart rate to the phone... It turned my watch from 6 to 12 days. 

    Greetings from Hamburg, Germany 

    Lars

  • I just purchased the 6s Pro. Although I know it won’t get the same battery life that the 6 will get, I was expecting more than 4 days. I charged it fully and have only been wearing it a few hours. It only shows 4 days battery power. I’ve done nothing but wearing it for half a day and it’s at 93%. I do have HR on and the red lights will come on. I think that’s Pulse Ox, but when I go to settings it’s off. I have normal functions on. Otherwise what’s the the point of having them if you can use them. I just started digging in and made some changes to the back light. I’ve turned “gesture” off and reduce it from 8 sec to 4 sec. I did this to hit during and not during an activity. I also turned on Do Not Disturb from 10pm-4:30am. My battery life immediately jumped to 9 days. I think the gesture backlight is a huge drain because it literally comes on every time you move your wrist. It is not as refined as an Apple Watch. The Do Not Disturb also helps turn off things like HR, syncing and notifications while you sleep. I don’t use the watch will I sleep. So if you track that it will be a huge drain too. 

  • check the backlight level, usually 20-30% is bright enough so if its set higher than that turn it down.  You can also select gesture backlight to come on only after sunset so it doesn't illuminate during the day when its not really needed.  I don't pay really close attention to it, because I don't wear mine every day, but the backlight on mine seems to need an actual wrist rotation gesture to illuminate, not just any motion of the wrist like you claim.

    I've also found mine to last far more days than the watch claims in the battery life display, probably twice as long as it claims, but I'm sure everyone's battery life will be a bit different in that regard.  I also have a regular 6, not the 6s, and I don't know if things scale relatively between them or not.

  • Well I was moving my wrist while eating and while it may be considered a rotation it’s a lot more sensitive than the AW. It came on each time I picked up food. I have mine set to 20%.  I have a Forerunner 920XT that I’m upgrading from. I only wore it during running. Way to big for everyday wear. I got this so I can get rid of all the back and forth with other watches and for loner battery life. The 6 has a significantly longer batter. And the 6X even more. That’s a downside of a smaller watch. 

  • You can set gesture backlight to only operate after sunset until you go to bed.

  • OK, Pulse Ox is a big power drain, so address that. If the red lights are on despite the Pulse Ox settings being off, try turning the settings On, then Off again.