Fenix 6 Pro - 20% power drain in 3 hours (update now 8% loss in 43 minutes, proof in photos)

Hi

This morning when I woke up my Fenix 6 Pro was at 84% at 7:30 AM - I cycled into town to get some groceries and used about 1 hour of GPS.

Suddenly at 10:45AM the battery is at 66% and draining rapidly. I always have Bluetooth off (I hate notifications), and I don't use an apps, CIQ or 3rd party watch faces. I've not used any music. I've never turned on the SPO2 sensor (don't see the point of it)

I am on 15.71 beta but the Usage widget isn't showing any signs of abnormal drain. 

Looking at the watch face and doing nothing else shows: 

10:43 AM UK time: 67%

10:45 AM UK time: 66%

11:01 AM UK time: 64%

11:08 AM UK time: 63% (so 4% drain just observing the watch face from 10:43 to 11:08)

Device Usage stats:

Uptime 3d:00:55:20

Low Power: 2d:17:47:16

GPS: 01:01:32

OHR Scan: 00:40:05

ANT Scan: 00:32:51

BLE Scan: 00:32:19

WIFI: 00:04:19

Backlight: 00:00:00

CGM: 00:00:00

The power is draining rapidly as I type but the Usage Widget isn't showing whats doing it. I honestly I hoped I got away from strange and unexplained power drain I used to get from my Fenix 5+, but doesn't look like it. I have hardly anything on the watch left I can turn off.

  • Have you contacted Garmin and sent logs and photos showing drain from watchface?

    I have done another activity since yesterday, 1 hour 30 minute bike ride, I saved the activity but disabled everything that can upload. So its saved on the watch, but not uploaded anywhere. No drain from this activity. I'll monitor power for an hour or two then upload and see if the drain kicks in again. I used ANT+ sensors on my ride - so I think this rules out ANT as the cause.

    My feeling is that this isn't a hardware issue - I'd put money on the root cause being the same underlying issue as the InReach drain issue on another thread that is being posted to.

  • Are there also any real solutions?

  • I started this thread about a year ago and I have found rolling back to 15.20 firmware has always fixed the drain for me which I documented in the 19.20 drain thread and again when 22.7x alpha users had bad drain (down to 2 days with alpha and back to 13 days with 15.20)

    The Fenix 7 forums are full of people reporting bad battery drain and Forerunner 255 owners report the same.

    As rollback solves the issues it HAS to be a software issue and as Garmin seems to use a common code base, then Fenix 7 owners seem to see the same drain issues we talk about here. Its not possible there is so much bad hardware / bad batteries around IMHO.

    Some people do not and have never seen drain, others do. I suspect because we all use our watches differently so specific use cases trigger it. Obviously some issues will be battery degradation, but with so many Fenix 7 owners reporting issues with battery drain too, battery degradation feels increasingly unlikely to be the primary root cause.

  • I also have the battery drain issue. 
    So you're saying goning back to 15.20 is a solution. Any suggestions where to get 15.20?
    Are you staying on 15.20 or are you updating from there on?

  • So you're saying goning back to 15.20 is a solution.

    All I can say is that I have done this twice, once when large numbers of us had drain with 19.20 and again here:

    https://forums.garmin.com/beta-program/fenix-6-series/bug-reports/i/public-beta-22-80/massive-battery-drain

    And:

    https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/fenix-6-series/273784/battery-issues-after-update-19-20?pifragment-1292=46#pifragment-1292=41

    pertinant quote: '6 Sapphire has used 2% on 15.20 while the 6x on 20.00 used 13% over the same period'

    I am quite meticulous documenting this sort of thing, so all I am saying for sure that if rollback is so successful this rules out a hardware issue. Occum's Razor would therefore suggest a software issue.

    I should also note that I have had 3 Fenix 6 watches - 1 6x, 1 6Pro and 1 6Sapphire and ALL suffer massive drain and 2 out of 3 could be solved by rollbacks (Garmin asked me not to rollback the 6x to 15.20 so they could get logs from me)

  • I guess you're right.

    My problem is, I got a replacement, because my watch had an issue with Wifi.

    I never had battery drain issues with my "old" watch. I think my old watch was on 19.20.
    But since I had the replacement, I have massive drain. It came with 22.10 and now updated to 23.00.

    So due to a new watch, I an not 100% confirm it's not the watch or some settings but the software.

    Any suggestions where I can download 15.20 to downgrade?

  • Any suggestions where I can download 15.20 to downgrade?

    So if you can find a beta for 15.xx then you can use the rollback firmware which is 15.20

    If you cannot find it, I probably have a copy on my laptop - what watch do you have? I have it for the 6 Pro and 6x but not the 6s.

  • I tried rolling back to 15.20, but I had still intense barttery drain.
    Garmin offered my another replace, so I sent them my watch.
    But as you said the rollback fixed all your watches, I guess I did something wrong.
    Have you also rolled back the ANT, Wifi, GPS, ...? Does it work the same way as rolling back the firmware?

  • But as you said the rollback fixed all your watches, I guess I did something wrong.

    I am sure you did everything correctly, but your issue was simply a different root cause?

    It is not possible to rollback subsystem software only main firmware - however my excessive drain has always been in watch mode when it has occurred, so ANT or GPS etc are not involved. I never use WIFI.

    I think rolling back has only worked for about 50% of people who have tried it - if you have excessive drain during activities I do not think rolling back will help.

    Some people have had good luck fixing drain by connecting their watch to a computer and deleting as many files as possible (credit to   ) but I think that only has a 50% success rate too.

    Some people do have faulty devices and in that case, there is no end user solution.

    The Fenix 7 and 955 / 255 forums are full of battery drain topics too, so I think it is highly likely excessive drain is an issue in Garmin's firmware they have not solved yet. 

  • I now have a(nother) replacement working fine with 23.00 and 23.10.

    In line with your observation that a rollback only worked at about 50%, I almost suspect that Garmin may have installed different versions of hardware components. And not all of them are compatible with the new firmware/driver.