6S real world battery life?

Hey guys and gals with the 6S. What are your experience as far as real world battery life with the 6S. I previously had the 5S Plus and with that I got about 40hours total which included about 3 hours worth of GPS time, and one hour with music. This meant I had to charge it every other day and I could forget about traveling away for the weekend and leave the charger at home. It was a huge pain. I also felt that the display was quite dim. For these reason I sold the watch. I ended up replacing it with a used Polar V800 which has amazing battery life and the best screen I've ever seen on a "modern" exercise watch. Unfortunately it's heavy and ugly.

So the new 6S is looking quite sexy. But there is no way I'm spending that amount of money if the battery life still is terrible. I use about 1.5 hours of GPS time 5 days a week and 30 minutes of music a day. I figure I need at least 96 hours of battery life, including these activities to justify the purchase. What kind of battery life are people on here getting?

I did actually have the regular F5 before the 5SP, and that gave me very decent battery life. Unfortunately my wrists are one the smaller side so it just didn't look very good on me.

  • I don't have a 6S, sorry, but I will say that your 5S Plus experience of 40 hours in smartwatch mode (or 3 hours GPS time, or 1 hour gps+music) sounds to me like your battery was defective. That is an unbelievably low battery life.

    I had a Vivoactive 3 Music before my Fenix 6X, and it has roughly the same battery specs as the 5S Plus, but I got WAY better battery life than you did with your 5S. In the real world, I got about 6 days in smartwatch mode, or about 8-10 hours of GPS.

    I'm surprised you didn't contact Garmin about your unreasonably bad battery life on your 5S Plus, I'm sure they'd have replaced it for you during the warranty period.

    At any rate, assuming you get a 6S that doesn't also have a defective battery, you should easily get 6+ days in smartwatch mode, and 15+ hours of GPS.

  • I have a 6S Pro and the battery life is more than my 5S.  I never found my 5S lacking.  I often leave my iphone Xs/watch BT pairing off, as I find it noticeably increases battery life on both the watch and the phone.  Keep in mind, the new 6's have a lot of features that can affect battery life including pulseOx.  It now has a data field of days of battery left, plus tools to help you manage your battery life better.

    I don't find carrying the little USB charging cable to be a burden, and I would carry a multi-USB-port travel wall brick anyway (iphone, etc).  Plus, now lots of airplanes, cars, hotels, etc have USB ports.

  • My battery life with the 5s was similar. I had the original 5s, the 5s plus, and a replacement 5s when I complained about the battery. It made no difference. I would use GPS about 2 hours/day, and I absolutely could not get through 48 hours without recharging. That was with no music, which absolutely torches battery life, even according to Garmin's specs. Based on the response I got, I think Garmin knew that the 5s did not meet the stated battery specs. 

    The difference with the 6s is night and day. That said, music streaming still has a big effect. 

  • So the new 6S is looking quite sexy. But there is no way I'm spending that amount of money if the battery life still is terrible. I use about 1.5 hours of GPS time 5 days a week and 30 minutes of music a day. I figure I need at least 96 hours of battery life, including these activities to justify the purchase. What kind of battery life are people on here getting?

    Doing the same math as above including 0.5h/day music with 12%/h (rough estimate) i would get quite exactly 96h for 100% to 0%. 

    PS: Taking the exact numbers from Garmin Homepage (the Up To values) i calculate 113h.

  • 40 hours was including GPS and music time on the 5SP. I don|t remember Garmins exact marketing claim but I was quite dissapointed with that figure. I did actually contact them about the low battery life and they said that it sounded normal. So yeah, big let down. 

    I do know that constant bluetooth to my phone will drain battery faster, but I do feel like that is an essential part of the watch feature so I am not going to buy the watch to turn off one of the core features. It|s either the whole package or a pass from me. I'm not doing expeditions or anything crazy. Just trying to be active and travel a bit in the back country during weekends. 

    It seems like some of you are getting the kind of bstterylige I'm looking for. So the next question is: how fast does this watch charge? Let's say it's at 15%. How long would it take to charge it fully?

  • Depends on the charger, but with a 2.4A charger it takes less than an hour. Even my 6X takes about an hour I think, I didn't time it but it seemed like it charged much faster than my phone that I was charging at the same time.

  • I guess that the charger does not matter so much. My 5S take about 0.07A, regardless of the phase of charging. (But it takes ages to charge…) If your 6X takes ten-times more power (as it has a larger battery and charges faster), it would take about 0.7A, which most of today's chargers can provide. Most likely, an 1A charger will charge at the same speed as your 2.4A charger, as neither would be likely fully utilized.

  • You're probably correct - the watch has a tiny battery compared to, say, a cell phone. So if it was actually using all 2.4 available amps, and we know the battery only has like 0.25Ah capacity, it would take a full charge in less than 10 minutes. So I'm guessing it's current-limited to some low amperage number, like you said, maybe half an amp or so. Unfortunately I don't have a way to measure it, but the math seems to suggest that's the case.

  • At any rate, assuming you get a 6S that doesn't also have a defective battery, you should easily get 6+ days in smartwatch mode, and 15+ hours of GPS.

    Can anyone confirm from real life experience if 15+ hours of GPS (in non-energy saving mode) is about accurate for the 6s?

  • I've had 6s sapphire for one week.  It had zero charge on arrival and it took around 3 hours to get up to 100%. When it completed it said 9 days battery life.  I ran a 10k and 5k both with GPS/music plus a 1 hr walk no music and after 3 days the battery was showing as low.  Not really the 9 days I was expecting.  I gave it a quick charge before an 8 km run with GPS/music and by evening I was prompted to go into power saving mode as the battery was almost dead.  I gave it another full charge back up to 100% and ran a half marathon with music and it already says only 2 days battery left after one activity.  I thought this watch would see me through an ultra easily (with some things switched off I know).  I don't have any third party screens (just using what it came with).  HR and PulseOx etc are on plus connected to phone.  Those features were always on my 645 so not using up any more than before.  It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't take so long to charge.  Maybe an hour for 645 vs 3 hours for the 6.  If the battery is low and want to charge it up again before a run I have to give myself a few hours and it seems to need it frequently!