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Battery life improvements in software 24.00?

AndersB
over 2 years ago

I just noticed that my battery life has improved with software version 24.00 on my Fenix 6X Pro Solar. But I'm usually running alphas/betas, so I don't know if there are differences in battery usage for alphas/betas compared to production releases or if its real battery life improvements in 24.00.

Anyone else who have noticed changes in battery life after installing 24.00?

 and/or @Garmin-Jimmy, do you know if alphas/betas have different battery usage than production releases? Or, if there are improvements in 24.00 regarding this? Nothing mentioned about it in the release notes. 

See a screenshot of my battery usage the last days:

  • 0 over 2 years ago 
    Confirmed that the reset is useless; I did a hard reset a few days ago and it is true that in daily "watch only" consumption it consumes little, but in activities it has increased a lot; I have published it in the BETA forum, today in swimming: 1000 meters before it was 1 or 2% and today it consumed 5% (indoor pool, without GPS) and also without backlight. I only have the FC sensor activated, the rest deactivated and backlight at 10% in clock and 20% in activities, but only "after dark"
I make it clear that it is a firmware issue and that the consumption is not mine but general (there is no better test than a hard reset and removing sensors)
  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to eezytiger

    50 hours since charging and the watch has now lost 21%. No further activities recorded, so still just one 2 hour walk.

    Daily loss without activities should be 5%, not 10%.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to lexabogado

    Thanks for sharing. I'm having the same issue. I've had the Fenix for 2 years and until v 24.00 it behaved correctly. Totally a software mess. Maybe it's Garmin's understanding of planned obsolescence 

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to eezytiger
    eezytiger said:
    and not as good as older firmware, specifically 16.70.

    Idont want to start a debate about which fw version was the best as regards battery consumption, but I was fully pleased with 19.20, because it gave me exactly the same battery consumption as advertised provided that I avoided CIQ datafields and other ciq solutions.

    Since then it has been not true, but I never had such a big drain which was more than double of the advertised numbers.

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

    Idont want to start a debate about which fw version was the best as regards battery consumption, but I was fully pleased with 19.20, because it gave me exactly the same battery consumption as advertised provided that I avoided CIQ datafields and other ciq solutions.

    Since then it has been not true, but I never had such a big drain which was more than double of the advertised numbers.

    Well I can share new information.

    I am still relatively OK with the battery consumption of my F6X as a smart watch without recording any activities. But it only means that if I dont make any sports either its battery level decreases by 4.5-5 % per day - so by the advertised extent - or 7.5-8% per day. 

    I guess the discharge level is in fact  not so excessive to really have 8%/d, but also I dont believe the 5%/d, that is the battery meter is far from perfect. It seems to underestimate the drain between 80-100%, and overestimate under 40% or so.

    Anyway the long term avg  of F6x as smart watch is not more than let's say 7%.

    So the new piece of information is what happened when recording activities w/ GPS usage. These data are vaild using 24.00 and 24.10. 

    1) 4.5% per hour if there were 2 CIQ datafield were used, so Garmin would say that those extra data fields must have sucked too much.

    2) 3.7%/h if there were NO CIQ datafields used at all.

    Since 3.7% is more than double of the advertised 1.7%/h (100/60), I started to worry that the 2 latest firmwares are really worse than the previous ones and much worse than fw 19.20 as regards battery consumption. 

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    my battery life plummeted to only getting 2 days from a full charge, even after turning off most sensors, wifi and phone connection...

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Anne

    Planned obsolescence via supposed software updates. I think it's Garmin's way to make us upgrade to Fenix 7

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to javivisito

    If it is in fact, one simply should not be greedy for new functions and keep some early version of the software, which is never bug free, but at least gives a relatively good battery time. Like it is 19.20.

    But people are typically greedy. :-)

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to eezytiger

    My experience still is that I am closer to the advertised 5% per day (100/21 days) on days without activities  than to 1.7% per hour for GPS-enabled activities. At least in the upper half of the battery levels.

    I can say that activities both with CIQ datafields and without them sucks  appr. 4-5% an hour during this winter. This goes down to appr. 2% when recording an indoor activity.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Tisztul_A_Visztula

    My watch has dropped exactly 20% since charging to 80% just 44 hours ago, so less than two full days.

    I have only recorded a single activity of Virtual Run, which lasted 50 minutes.

    This is on 24.84b.

    Even before recording the Virtual Run this morning the watch had lost 17% upon waking, so it is draining rapidly simply in smartwatch mode, regardless of activity recording.