Solution to battery drain? (New issue for me)

I've seen lots of posts on battery drain, and given them a cursory look but have always been happy with the life on my Fenix 6X Sapphire.

Until now.  I don't know what's changed in the last couple of weeks, but it's getting absolutely ridiculous now.

The original battery monitor app I was using had me at 0.7%/hour, which is a 6 day battery life (no GPS activities)

I did a soft-reset today (the one that keeps your activities and music but clears everything else), and put Battery Gauge on and charged to 100%

Now it's on 68%!  In 5 hours!  With a run that was 1hour 8minutes long.

In comparison, when I first had the watch I ran a 50 miler in 10 hours with full GPS and the watch went from 100% to 80%.

Is there a solution to this issue?

I'm assuming it's a sync problem with Garmin Connect as that's the only part of the link that could have changed (I'm on the latest non-beta watch software but that was released in January and the battery problem has only been apparent for a few weeks).  Having said that, I turned off the Phone connection yesterday for about 8 hours and it didn't seem to make a significant difference to battery drain (hence the reset this morning).

I do long events - 10 to 36 hours - and right now this watch will be flat before the end.

Any help much appreciated!

  • Oddly, a reboot of both watch and phone seems to have fixed it - no change in battery % in 3 hours (will review in the morning). 

    So although the symptom is the same this may be a different, random problem fixed by a restart (I’ve certainly had those before over the years with Garmin).

    But next step (if the problem resurfaces) will be the xml file removal - it’s the one thing I never tried before.  Thanks for the tip.

  • Could you take a copy of the xml file before deleting?

    I'd like to compare the previous and regenerated file.

  • Hello,

    How do u do that?

    You connect the watch to the pc with cable.

    You delele the file garmin.xml

    You disconnect the watch. And you turn off the watch and turn on ? Is it good if i do that? 

    Thank you

  • to be clear, it is garmindevice.xml

  • Latest update: dropped 2% last night (over about 9-10 hours), so I figured it was a one off problem.

    Just been for a run - less than 90 minutes used 35% of the battery.

    I've just connected to a computer saved GarminDevice.xml, deleted it and disconnected/reconnected the watch.  The file was recreated and WinMerge shows the contents are identical, so I don't think this will solved the problem.

    Before the last time the watch went wrong, I was poking around with PTP messages to be able to write podcasts to the watch directly from an iPhone (via a cable)... nothing I did *should* have caused an issue, but it may have done.  I didn't do that this time round, but I do regularly connect to the computer to update podcasts, usually using the excuse for software that is Garmin Express, but last Thursday I tried out another method mentioned on this forum using MusicBee.

    So I'm thinking a possible explanation is that the file system implementation in the Garmin watches is easily upset if you use things other than Garmin Express to transfer files... any thoughts on this ?

  • Thanks for checking garmindevice.xml, honestly I'm really sceptical whenever someone suggests deleting this, it looks pretty inocuous. 

    Regarding accessing the file system, I do not use Garmin Express due to its nasty habit of pushing unwanted updates. So I transfer via usb, uploading mp3s or map updates etc, I've never seen any signs it causes drain.

  • I do not use Garmin Express
    So I transfer via usb, uploading mp3s or map updates

    How do you install map updates without Express ?

  • Copy the .img file directly. Lots of better map sources are free ie topomaps, OSM, better contour detail for UK vs stock Garmin.

  • Thanks for the reply.  That’s another data point, suggests it may not be a clear issue with file transfers with other apps.  


    Bit annoying... I’m still hoping for a definitive answer in the next day or so, but looking with interest at the Coros offerings.  No music (but just bought a tiny £20 Bluetooth MP3 player to try), and no maps, but I tend to use an eTrex or now a 66i when I need nav as I tend to need battery life in the watch at the same time.

  • The Coros Pace 2 is nice if you can handle the crown (I could'nt)