Fenix 6X - since last week battery drains heavily!

Hi there,

first time, I am writing here, because, well, never had any issues and been using first the Fenix 5X and then upgraded to the 6X last September.

Since approximately seven days, the battery drains really fast! Have the watch since September last year and got solid battery life like charging it every 5 days while using it quiet intensively (around 900 activtiy minutes per week plus yoga everyday). Now, the battery has dropped from 95% to 10% within a day without my using it for any activity. I have de-installed all non-Garmin watchfaces as I thought Infocal would be the culprit. I also de-installed anything else Non-Garmin.

Yesterday, I got normal battery life. In the morning I had 5Days left, went running for 40 min and had 4Days this morning. Howevery, right this morning, it dropped again from 50% to 9% with no apparent reason. WLAN is switched off permanently. I certainly didn't drop the watch and can rule out physically damaging the cells.

The software is 9.0.0. I do not know whether the drop in battery life occurred right after update. The last update I noticed was for Bluetooth.

Anybody else seen this behavior?

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0 jarivee over 3 years ago

Have you done a soft reset after updating to 9.0? Press and hold power button ~20s until watch switches off, release button and switch watch back on.

0 tiefflieger666 over 3 years ago

Connect to PC (Garmin Express) and check of some update are stucked.

And the usual - after the update - soft reset.

0 eezytiger over 3 years ago

My 6X Pro Solar seems to be behaving normally regarding battery and everything else. I was running 9.00 RC as soon as it was released and 9.00 Live as soon as it was available to me.

The watch should last 21 days from a full charge in smart watch mode, so about 5% consumption per day without activities or music etc..

I charged my watch to 81% on Friday evening (I try to aim for 80% rather than 100 in order to preserve long term battery life). Yesterday was one hour hiking with GPS, Stryd and wrist HR. Now it is Sunday morning c.36 hours since charging, and my battery is at 74%. I'm happy with that.

0 Walker over 3 years ago

This just happened to me today -- dropped ~75% in a day. Yesterday or day before it only dropped 3.9% in a day for comparison. I'm on 9.0 as well, and had the Bluetooth update the other day. I was in an activity today with heart monitor for about an hour. And dropped it on the charger after workout. It was after charging that battery tanked.

0 Walker over 3 years ago in reply to Walker

Here's a plot:

0 brucebb_ over 3 years ago in reply to eezytiger

Is this 80% charge still a thing with these newer batteries?

0 Bernd over 3 years ago

Wtf same happend to my 6 pro sapphire over night. Dropped from well over 80% to 0! What's going on?

+1 eezytiger over 3 years ago in reply to brucebb_

It's still lithium ion technology, or lithium polymer, but either way I don't think the advice has changed for lithium batteries. It's the same for phones, laptops, action cameras etc.. Even the latest EVs such as Tesla recommend avoiding full charge and full drain. If you simply must max out the battery for an event then go ahead, but for daily use I would not.

Maybe it is a needless precaution, but my watch will last a week between charges from 80% down to not less than 20%, which keeps it in the sweet spot for a long life. I have no need to charge it more, so I don't.

0 Walker over 3 years ago in reply to eezytiger

80/20 is a good rule -- it will definitely increase the life of your battery. I generally charge once a week or so when I get in the shower, so have a similar range unless I forget to take it off the charger.

I do the same with all lithium batteries if I can. I have a laptop that let's me set the max charge capacity, I keep that at 80%. Worst thing we can do is perpetually charge li-ion batteries and try to keep them topped off.

Garmin had to optimize cycle life vs capacity when they selected the charge profile. Higher charge voltage gives high capacity but lower cycle life. Regardless of charge profile, us pulling off charger at <100% will help cycle life.

0 BhaSin over 3 years ago in reply to jarivee

No, but have done it now and am checking for any changes!