Battery drain after update to 8.10?

Aagar over 5 years ago

Do you have any experiences with the same after update to 8.10? With 6.10 everything was OK.

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Garmin-Nate over 5 years ago +7 suggested

Hey guys, first I want to say Thank You to everyone for all of the extensive testing and troubleshooting you have done. I have been adding these details and they will be helpful in resolving this battery…
Garmin-Nate over 5 years ago +6 suggested

Hey guys, I have contacted several of you to gather information and get you added to the case. If there is anyone experiencing this issue that has not been contacted then please send me a private message…
Garmin-Nate over 5 years ago +5 suggested

Hey guys, I checked the 6 pro I have and the percentage drain per hour is usually around .3 if I haven't done anything except leave it on my wrist, that can vary though if the backlight has been on a lot…

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+1 bluefish over 5 years ago in reply to Garmin-Nate

Thank you for confirming this again from Garmin side. I simply add the complete help text from the Garmin Support article here:

Functions of Garmin watch that use additional battery:

Backlight: Can be the biggest contributor to battery drain. How bright the backlight is set and how often it comes on can drain battery more quickly or less quickly. Having backlight set at 100% will drain a lot of battery while the backlight is on. The manual backlight setting uses the least energy, and some settings, like when the backlight comes on from a gesture, will drain more battery.
GPS: Can potentially contribute to large battery drain, which is why GPS tracking is only activated during activities or navigation.
WiFi: (only on select models) The watch will download updates and upload step and other activity data through WiFi. When it is always active, it is continually searching for, and maintaining connections. The WiFi on the watch will connect through any open WiFi source, including many restaurants.
Bluetooth: The drain created by Bluetooth is dependent on how many notifications come to the watch from phone, and how often the watch syncs with the phone. Occasional text notifications and use of other connected features will drain far less battery than continually receiving texts, answering the phone, running a music player, or getting weather updates.
Vibration: Alerts that cause vibration or make sound use additional battery. Turning them off can extend the battery life of the watch.
Widgets and Connect IQ downloads: The difference between Apps and Widgets is that widgets are always on. Some widgets update data when you select them, like weather. Altimeter, Barometer, and Compass (ABC sensors) are always active. Connect IQ downloaded watch faces, apps, widgets, and data fields may draw more power depending on how many things they do or whether they use GPS positioning or not.

Some of the functions are redundant, for example; steps and activities are uploaded both through WiFi and the Bluetooth connection to the Garmin Connect Mobile application. If using the Garmin Connect Mobile app continuously, it may be a good idea to turn off the Auto Upload setting to help conserve battery power. The Storm Alert function of the Barometer when a smart phone updates local weather is another redundant battery drain.

If battery drain still continues after making some settings changes, try returning the watch to factory defaults and seeing how long the battery lasts on a full charge without pairing it to smartphone again. If the battery lasts like it used to, then the battery drain would be the result of the choice of customized settings on the watch, or Bluetooth connected features.

0 maglodilevente over 5 years ago in reply to Garmin-Nate

My Fenix 6X Pro Sapphire had great battery life before firmware 8.XX, but not it's terrible. It's loosing 10-15% battery daily without any CIQ watchface, widget or app installed. I'm using only one datafield in my running profile (Datarun Ultimate) and that's all.

I've upgraded from 8.1 to 8.73 and 8.74, but it still uses about 0,8-1,0%/hour in smart watch mode without activity and pulseox disabled. Before 8.XX series idle battery usage was about 0,1-0,3%/hour with same settings.

I've made a full factory reset and restored 8.10, but it doesn't solved the issue.
I don't know what causes this high battery usage (maybe the updated sensorhub?!) but firmware 6.XX was way much better!

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

I've also been having battery issues with my 6s over the past few days. The battery used to last a week with night time Pulse Ox, now it lasts less than a day. I turned off Pulse Ox entirely, and the estimate says 13d when fully charged, but the estimate goes down by a day every hour or so. I have tried soft resetting it and it hasn't helped. I'm not using any IQ apps.

0 vaggos13 over 5 years ago

43 Minutes run, with strap heart rate and gps on, -4.2% battery. Is that normal for fenix 6 pro? When I first bough fenix I used if to a 200km cycling route over 10 hours and from 100% dropped to 70%. Now the battery really sucks. If Garmin could take my watch back and return my money I would accept it.

0 Rob_B over 5 years ago

Hi. I have done some more testing. I removed all CIQ stuff, except the battery monitor. I soft reset my watch again, since I was having high battery util (around 0,3-0,4% per hour on a 6x). After this, battery usage dropped to 0,2 sometimes even 0,15%. That is great. During the night this remained stable. This proves the only widget installed is fine. Then, this morning, I went for a walk, logged it with the regular activity app. Battery util was at 2% per hour, which is too much (more than normal). After the activity, battery util was between 0,5% and 0,8%! For me, this prives something is wrong in the garmin software and it makes me suspect activity tracking is causing something to surge battery, which remains after closing the activity, until the next soft reset.

Garmin-Nate, is this something you can reproduce?

0 vaggos13 over 5 years ago in reply to Rob_B

I think you have right, after my run the last hour of the battery usage is -2,6% which is too high. I don't use BT.

0 JacekZet over 5 years ago in reply to Rob_B

I noticed very similar behavior (fenix 6X pro).
I charged my watch to 100% last evening. After 12 hours (including 8 in safe mode with WHR on) decrease only 1.8%. Then went for a 30 min walk with the dog (GPS on, OHR on) with a consumption of approx. 1.2% / h (more than normal but this is not always repeatable). And now I noticed that after another 6 hours at work (at the desk), the battery level dropped to 87%, i.e. 10% (average about 1.5% / h, which is even more than during activity).
This situation in which the battery consumption after activity was still high for a long time(few hours) has happened to me in the past, but not in this SW. I use beta 8.73.

0 vaggos13 over 5 years ago in reply to JacekZet

One test would be to power off the watch after the activity and check the battery usage after that. I switched off/on the watch and the last hour now is 0,0%

0 bluefish over 5 years ago in reply to vaggos13

vaggos13 said:
the last hour now is 0,0%

Well that's a great value. The best firmware ever.

0 vaggos13 over 5 years ago in reply to bluefish

I meant that something is wrong how the battery changes. Don't be a lamer.