Fenix 6 Series - 19.20 Public Release

Gary said:

A release candidate is not a final release but normally proceeds a final stable release.

A Garmin release candidate is typically (almost always) identical to the final release, and even has the same version/revision number. If one installs a release candidate, and Garmin later releases it as a public update, they will not get the public update, because they already have it, so installing the public release firmware on top of it would be redundant.

This might be different than how other companies do it; some companies put out release candidates, and then the subsequent public update has a slightly higher version number, and would get installed even for those who already have the release candidate firmware, even if there were no actual changes to the code. But historically that's not the way Garmin does it. The release candidate firmware always is the exact same files, same code, same version number as the final release, unless they catch critical bugs in between (which has happened once that I know of).

It's also worth noting that Garmin doesn't always put out a release candidate at all, before releasing the public update. They have been doing it more often recently, but many times in the past, the only way to get the stable release firmware was to wait for the OTA public update.

eezytiger said:

Garmin has been playing fast and loose with cut and paste. There is a bit of a mishmash of inappropriate references to candidates and betas. 19.20 is neither.

19.20 is a production release which, unusually, has also been made available for manual installation to speed availability to those who care while rollout continued for everyone else.

FWIW I've been running a manual install of 19.20 for over a week on my 6X Pro Solar and power consumption continues as normal at around 7% per day including recording training and walking activities.

eezytiger thanks for the clarification and explanation dude. Appreciate it.

C.sco said:

A Garmin release candidate is typically (almost always) identical to the final release, and even has the same version/revision number. If one installs a release candidate, and Garmin later releases it as a public update, they will not get the public update, because they already have it, so installing the public release firmware on top of it would be redundant.

This might be different than how other companies do it; some companies put out release candidates, and then the subsequent public update has a slightly higher version number, and would get installed even for those who already have the release candidate firmware, even if there were no actual changes to the code. But historically that's not the way Garmin does it. The release candidate firmware always is the exact same files, same code, same version number as the final release, unless they catch critical bugs in between (which has happened once that I know of).

It's also worth noting that Garmin doesn't always put out a release candidate at all, before releasing the public update. They have been doing it more often recently, but many times in the past, the only way to get the stable release firmware was to wait for the OTA public update.

C.sco ok thanks.

i wasn't quibbling about version numbers etc. I was just literally trusting their use of established terminology.

To me a release candidate is pretty much close to a final release i.e. it's good enough to put out publicly, it's 'better' than a beta (though might actually be a beta in terms of no further changes) and it's a means of catching any bugs which weren't detected in previous testing.

It doesn't guarantee it'll be the final release but may well be (as you say). Equally well, it might expose a previously unknown issue.

C.sco said:

It's also worth noting that Garmin doesn't always put out a release candidate at all, before releasing the public update. They have been doing it more often recently, but many times in the past, the only way to get the stable release firmware was to wait for the OTA public update.

Cool and noted. Cheers.

Unfortunately, battery life since update is extremely bad. 3 days and I'm down 70% to around 20% left, with very little activity. Previously, I would be down only 40-50% for similar activity. Fenix 6 Pro, no other changes to settings since update and did a restart of the watch a day after the update.

I just posted as well below on the terrible battery life after the 19.2 update. A shutdown and start via the watch interface didn't do anything to helping with this. I've lose 70%+ battery in 2.5 days, where normally I would have lost only 40-50%

Rahul T said:

I just posted as well below on the terrible battery life after the 19.2 update. A shutdown and start via the watch interface didn't do anything to helping with this. I've lose 70%+ battery in 2.5 days, where normally I would have lost only 40-50%

Rahul T ouch! And i think the Pro has a bigger battery than my S too.

Averaging out my battery performance logs (just home made notes), i'd say i previously got, for 50-60% consumption, +/- 3 days endurance. If it was less than 3 days (say 2.5), it would be because i'd done a 3-4 hr GPS tracked hike and probably a couple of tracked meditation periods. Maybe even some short HIIT periods (5 min stuff).

This isn't perfectly consistent but a reasonable overview of performance.

Interesting to note, I usually see about 5 - 6 days normally with (4 or 5 tracked workouts - no GPS) before hitting the 15% alert. When I'm sitting around after 3 days I should be at about 50% left on the watch. Today I'm at 18% with one 40min GPS session that had little impact to battery. I've now tried the "soft" reset and just tried the "hard" one described in earlier messages. Not sure why this should be necessary with software updates...and if so, Garmin software should auto restart the watch as needed after an install. In the past some software releases had pretty bad battery life also until another release fixed it. I've never needed to do any restarting...seems like poorly designed install/maintenance process if it isn't a firmware issue.

I already stated that I have a 6X Pro Solar.