Real Life Battery Consumption During Ironman Race for 6 / 6X Pro

Hi all,

I would like to get an idea about the real life battery consumption on the 6 Pro and/or 6X Pro in an Ironman race, i.e.:

no phone connected
swim with GPS
bike with GPS, power meter, external HR monitor
run with GPS, Stryd power meter, external HR monitor

I do have a 2y old Fenix 5+ that currently chews through approx. 10%pts in the above configuration which would give me 10h time to finish the race and that is cutting it a bit thin. I need probably an additional 30min - 60min.

I could of course use UtraTrac during the run or turn off the GPS during the bike ride (got all the information on my bike computer anyway) but this is my first IM distance and I would love to have a single, as perfect as possible, multisport activity. I do have the option to rent a 6 Pro or a 6X Pro from grover which seems like a better idea than buying a 945 - I expect the 955 in less than 6m and the 5+ is totally fine for 70.3 or shorter races.

0 eezytiger over 3 years ago

I have some recent stats from a run with my 6X Pro Solar and 5X+, both connected to a Stryd footpod and HRM-PRO strap. The run wasn't really long enough to obtain rock solid battery data, but the numbers here are consistent with the generally poor performance of 5X+ battery vs 6XProSo. I imagine your 5+ would be even worse than my 5X+.

This is with smartwatch connections to my phone enabled on the 6X. Not sure about the 5X+. It certainly had Bluetooth connection enabled, for syncing etc, but possibly not for notifications.

GPS is going to be the battery hog. Indoor cycling with power, cadence, speed, but no GPS, drops at 0.57% per hour based on stats from a 108 minute ride today.

I would imagine the drain rate to be the same for running and biking outdoors with GPS. Basically a fully charged watch is good for 60 hours with GPS according to the specs. My experience seems in line with that.

0 DerDembo over 3 years ago in reply to eezytiger

Excellent, that is superb data and just what I was looking for, thank you so much.

So for now, I'll work under the assumption that there is roughly a factor of 3 between 6x and 5x+. If that holds true for 6 vs. 5+ then renting a 6 Pro would be more than enough (I have small wrist, the 6x would look crazy on me).

0 Master_Ming over 3 years ago in reply to eezytiger

Excuse me. How can I get the graph like youn attached about the battery capacity estimate curve? By GCM or GE?

0 eezytiger over 3 years ago in reply to Master_Ming

The graph is produced from the DCRainmaker Analyzer. The data must be embedded in the fit files. You just need the right tool to read it.

www.dcrainmaker.com/analyzer

0 Dr Phil over 3 years ago in reply to DerDembo

Using a fully charged 6 Pro would give you more than enough juice to finish an Ironman event, even if it took you the full 17 hours.

0 mcalista over 3 years ago

A couple of things to check on your watches (whether the 5+ or a 6) to reduce power consumption:

* use GPS only, rather than GPS+GLONASS/Gallileo
* backlight settings - turn the intensity and timeout down, and for During Activity, make sure the various triggers are After Sunset.