Solution to battery drain? (New issue for me)

I have had mine for a year and it has worked perfectly and battery life has been Fenix like....suuuuper long, never think about it.  Yesterday I charged to 100% (after days of use it was a 30%) and at the same time, decided I had no continued use of the pulse OX data, and turned off the sensor, thinking it would give me EVEN Better battery life.  This morning I was shocked to see I was back to 30%!  Never have I seen a drop like that.  The only thing I changed was the pulse ox setting.  Turned it back on and charging again to see if it repeats or goes back to normal.

Actually, the other thing I did, that I have not done in a while, is charged via PC vs just charger....so its possible something changed with a sync.  I deleted the garmindevice.xml and charging again.  Will leave the pulse ox off.

I have had mine for a year and it has worked perfectly and battery life has been Fenix like....suuuuper long, never think about it.  Yesterday I charged to 100% (after days of use it was a 30%) and at the same time, decided I had no continued use of the pulse OX data, and turned off the sensor, thinking it would give me EVEN Better battery life.  This morning I was shocked to see I was back to 30%!  Never have I seen a drop like that.  The only thing I changed was the pulse ox setting.  Turned it back on and charging again to see if it repeats or goes back to normal.

Actually, the other thing I did, that I have not done in a while, is charged via PC vs just charger....so its possible something changed with a sync.  I deleted the garmindevice.xml and charging again.  Will leave the pulse ox off.

Update....deleting the xml seems to have brought it back to prior form. Have been flatline at 100% for almost 3 hrs.  phew!!

Hopefully my last update on this topic, but it certainly looks like my battery drain is not only fixed, but is better than I remember it for a very, very long time.

Yesterday I charged to 100% while loading up the watch with music, taking off charge around 1030 (so pretty much 24 hours ago).

Since then I've done 90 minutes of running with GPS and music, and the watch has dropped to 89%.

So, here's a rough summary:

- Started with appalling battery drain - 20-40% loss per day with no activities, and 64% lost in a 3h30 run.
- Tried disconnecting the phone and switching off the wrist HR - minimal improvements
- Did a soft reset (losing user details, but keeping activities and music) - looked better overnight, but the next day was back to severe drain
- Did a full reset - clearing all music and activities.  This appears to have fixed it. 

Note that after resetting I have NOT put any Connect IQ things or custom maps back on the watch, but I have put around 10GB of music, audiobooks and podcasts on.  I'm also fully connected to the phone continuously and chest HRM during runs (so using both Bluetooth and ANT+)

As mentioned before, I have a gut feeling that it's file system corruption through continuous use of the internal file system for activities, watch data, music, maps etc.  My watch is around 18 months old and has never been fully reset until now.

Apart from the boot-loop issue that people are seeing recently (may want to wait for a fix for that!), if you're having battery issues I'd recommend a FULL reset (which iirc I did with System > Reset > Delete Data and Reset Settings option on the menu).

Hope this is helpful to someone!

In my fenix 6X the hard reset (to solve severe battery draining issues) caused the endless reboot loop.

Hi

I wrote on the Garmin chat the day before yesterday because my battery was lasting 3-4 days, and it used to last 6-7 days. I did what the guy recommended:
I connected the fenix 6s to a computer USB. While it was connected I holded the top left button and didn't let go until the screen went blank. Then I disconnected and reconnected to the computer. I showed charging. I allowed it to charge to 100% and left it connected for an hour after it showed 100%.

It seems its working because now my battery is not draining as fast.

4916588 I am also trying this procedure and, for now, it seems to work, let's see if it will be definitive.

Rectification, the procedure of connecting the clock to the computer, soft reset, unplug and hang up letting the charge go to 100% for an hour, works momentarily, then the battery drain increases again.

And... 26 days later, it's back again.

It's been a wonderful 26 days - hardly any battery drain when not using activities, really decent battery life.

The for no apparent reason, the watch has just used 40% in an hour while on a run.

I do believe that my relationship with Garmin for sports watches has just ended - I'm planning a multi-day event soon where I'm going to need 12 hours a day from the watch, and in it's current state it wouldn't last 3 hours... and even if I fix it again with a master reset (like I did before) it could happen again out in the field.

Really disappointing as the other manufacture offerings lack a lot of the features of the Fenix 6X, but the failure of the single most important aspect of this watch - it's ability to actually log an activity for 12+ hours - means it's not fit for my needs.

Sorry to hear that.

It's been 28 days since we corresponded above - my drain issue has never come back, I never reset etc and just keeping Bluetooth off all the time apart from the 5 minutes needed for syncing (which I do every 2 days) sorted it for me. I'm getting to 9 days or so with around 20% left, and recharging at that point.

I guess you still have the option to getting Garmin UK to do a swap out?

FWIW I woke up out of the blue on the weekend with the watch having gone from 35% to 4% over night.  I deleted the garminxml and charged again....fine since.