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Battery issues after update 19.20

Shane Carney
over 2 years ago

After updating my Fenix 6X to version 19.20, my battery is draining extremely fast. I took my watch off the charger at 0600 this morning with 100% and by 1400 it was already down to 70% charge. Before the update I would maybe be at 97%. I haven’t even used the device to track any activity, listen to music, and my pulse ox is turned off. 

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 5135968

    Yes my issue is related the to 25% drain per day in watchface mode only.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Jambo69

    Garmin have just sent me the following

    '

    Thank you for your patience. We are still investigating this case and not far from rolling out a new software update which may resolve this issue.

    We will contact you shortly regarding this matter.

    Kind regards,

    (name removed)

    Garmin Europe

    Having said that my rollback to 15.20 is still very sucessful - still 56% left after 5 VERY active days with lots of GPS used.

    I will try the new fimware on my 6x but might stick with 15.20 on this watch as I dont need pickleball and a bad altimeter :)

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Davide_Mores_Fenix

    I did installed new fw yesterday and tested today. It is better but not got as before (like 18-19 versions) 

    My battery was consuming %25-30 in 4 hour marathon running. With this issue it was consuming %33-40 in an hour. With latest fw (20.30) it consumes ~%23-25

    We still need a fix for this, I wish I could revert to old versions. If you are a long distance runner, Fenix 6x is rubbish. I think this is my last garmin watch

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 5135968
    5135968 said:

    Thank you for your patience. We are still investigating this case and not far from rolling out a new software update which may resolve this issue.

    We will contact you shortly regarding this matter.

    Super good response.  I hope they solve this issue (thought it hasn't affected my watch yet)

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Heeeeere we go again! After every update Garmin sets something that causes my watch to eat a battery per day instead of a week. This has been going on for years now, it is never VO2Max, turning off/on bluetooth, etc that get posted every time. The only thing that "fixes" it is making sure to restart phone and watch a few times. However this time, the Fenix 6x is sitting on loading maps when I restart.. so an additional added problem and I havent been able to resolve it yet because of this I think... Any suggestions from Garmin??

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to SoLongAndThanksForAllTheFish

    I tried updating to 19.20 several days ago with no difference to my battery drain of around 25% per day.

    Yesterday I received an email from Garmin asking me to upgrade to the latest 19.20 firmware which should resolve my problem. I replied stating I had already upgraded and the problem had not been resolved. Today Garmin replied basically stating they will arrange for a replacement watch Disappointed which I don't think will resolve a firmware issue. 

    Has anyone here had their watch swapped out due to this problem and upgraded to the problematic firmware without the battery drain issue?

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Jambo69

    I had my watch swapped a couple of months ago (see my posts earlier in this thread). It didn’t make any difference - I still had about 25% per day drain when PulseOx monitoring was switched on compared to about 9% per day on pre 19.2 firmware. With it switched off I get about 5% per day, which was about the same as pre 19.2 with PulseOx off. My records show that the hardware change made no difference. 

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Jambo69

    Firstly I'm not a developer or expert with Garmin Fenix watches and used to update to all beta firmware when released on this forum and never had battery drain problems with any firmware upgrade.

    However, IMHO, the battery drain issue has to be either hardware or user settings configuration.

    Why you ask? I had a Garmin Fenix 6X Pro Solar and all I basically use it for is HRM and at least twice a week I use the garmin GOLF app.

    I've always been careful with battery charge, don't like to see it go much below 80% and I always make sure it's 100% charged before going to golf.

    After using the golf app for 4.5 hours the GF6XPS always had 88-92% charge left, all of a sudden it was showing 50-55% remaining. I contacted Garmin Support who were very helpful, tried going back to older stable firmwares and exectly the same with battery drain.

    Garmin Australia after a week of trying to correct issue, advised they wanted to replace the GF6XPS with a new one as they didn't have a refurbished available.

    Received the GF6XPS replacement, started a charge routine like before, same watch configuration and the replacement was back to have 88-92% charge remaining after golf.

    I'm currently using fw 20.30 but since about 19.20 I've waited until my GF6XPS advises me a fw update is available, I used to update to every beta fw but stopped because my watch is APAC region.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Jambo69

    Garmin help always seems almost nonexistent in my experience, so its good they are offering to replace the watch. At least try this first though if you dont want to replace it. This has always worked for me, including it appears this time, (my watch battery life is back to about 7 days now). It seems silly, but make sure you update your app on the phone, garmin IQ and then reboot your phone and your watch. Make sure your phone also has all updates, reboot if necessary, then re check app and garminIQ app and check update if anything is there again (there hasnt been for me, but may be possible for some). Reboot phone and watch again. Watch battery burn to verify if there is a change, if its still burning through battery too quickly, reboot watch and phone again.

    Now this time the above worked several times after updates in the past, but did not work after trying this a couple times and watch kept hanging on loading maps. Finally the last time while it was still on loading maps I pressed buttons on the watch until a screen popped where I had to select "YES" or no to reset watch settings. Its very annoying to have to do this and then reset what you want on it, but I was not successful in getting it to normal drain until last reboot when I said yes to reset settings. Mine seems to be almost normal now, I'm at 59% day 3 today starting at full charge 3 days ago, so pretty much normal. Ofc PulseOx at 91% is still laughably bad, VO2max absurd, but hey, its back to "normal".

    I would ignore all the very commonly suggested conjectures about setting bluetooth off/on, turning PulseOx off, etc etc (unless you've monkeyed with these before the drain problem). I have been through this 4x at least without having to turn off any of that, and NEVER was there a change set in any of these before it acted funny and drained fast. And never have any of these ideas helped when I did try them. The only change every time was an automatic applied update before the fast drain started. Every time repeated rebooting and checking worked, this time additionally I had to select yes to reset watch settings, but I'm back to normal battery drain now. I'm guessing this is to do with sloppy update programming which fails to reset certain variables that are now read differently after update, and the rebooting over and over eventually resets them.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Jambo69

    I also want to say this is assuming it just is spontaneous after update like I noted, because I'm sure this is not a cure all, and doesn't apply to many situations of onset like others have described. But if it just started after the update, I'd say try the repeated reboots and select yes to reset watch settings.