Fenix 6 got crazy, looses battery during night, each button press takes 30 seconds

HELP, SOS!

I'm in the middle of a family trip. I used the fenix6 to track 2-3 hour hikes every day without problems until yesterday.

Yesterday I had a 2 hour "bouldering" activity and at night the watch notified me that it has less than 1% battery. I was surprised because I thought it should be around 50%. I fully charged it in the evening and went sleep in the knowledge that I'm ok now for at least 5 days. But in the morning I woke up with the watch being turned off on my arm and the battery was depleted again.

I only used bouldering activity twice in my life, 1st time 4 days ago and yesterday. All the other things I did with the watch were things I did many times. I had no software update recently (on 26.00), everything should be normal. The only unusual thing was that yesterday was pretty hot, but I did not notice that the watch was hotter than usual during the day when we were out in the sun. I did notice that during the night when I charged it it seems unusually hot.

The other unusual thing is that EVERYTHING takes about half a minute. I click any button, and have to wait ~30 seconds to see the reaction of the watch. I connect the charging cable and it takes half a minute for the watch to react with the vibration and display the battery percentage. I click on start, 30 seconds...

Restarting the watch doesn't seem to change anything.

I never had any problems like this before.

Here's a video showing how slow it reacts to the UP button from the watch face: www.youtube.com/.../6Gj8zFUI7aI

I just noticed now that the watch is not connected to my phone even though in the settings it is enabled. I also checked that it isn't in some kind of power saving mode.

0 darnich over 1 year ago

Instead of restarting, did you try a soft reset by holding the light button for 30 seconds?

0 flocsy🤠 over 1 year ago in reply to darnich

I'll tried it now, but it doesn't look any different after that either

0 socorsu over 1 year ago

Hi, i'm sad for you.

Try to remove all third-party WF, Widget, DF, etc. even those provided by Garmin.

Last time i encounter battery drain issue, i have had to remove all these content, restart (Light until shutdown), GPS Fix outdoor, multiple times until i recover a normal/standard battery drain.

This could help you regarding your too long delay on the watch GUI.

0 flocsy🤠 over 1 year ago

Something is VERY wrong: just went to the shop to buy milk. I disconnected from the charger, was at 45% battery. I'm back. It took 15-20 minutes, and just walked around, didn't touch the watch or started any activity. After 20 minutes it's now down to 28%

Ah and also I'm still on 0 steps today even after the 15 min walk to the shop

Looks like the watch is dead

0 Data over 1 year ago in reply to flocsy🤠

It looks like something eats up most of the processing budget or your watch (reset to defaults will help) or the battery is in such bad state that the software has started giving certain proceses a lower priority (maybe reset can also reset the state of the power management logic)

I hate to give this suggestion which will ruin all your settings in the middle of your trip; but this is really big reset time.. https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=wxPmdnWsev1xGRUf58oDC8&productID=552982&tab=topics

Have you been able to sync your activities?

0 JohnLinnell1973 over 1 year ago

I've just had the same with my Fenix 6s Solar.

Takes forever for the buttons to react and can't get steps or HR to work after doing a soft and hard reset.

If you get a solution please add it on here and I will too.

I'm thinking somethings seriously wrong....

It's only 18 months old too, not what I'd want from a £700 watch.

0 JohnLinnell1973 over 1 year ago

It also just randomly buzzes twice for quite a while.

Battery needs charging everyday too when it used to last at least a week.

0 Data over 1 year ago in reply to JohnLinnell1973

If a reset to factory defaults does not fix this, you best give Garmin supporr a call.

0 flocsy🤠 over 1 year ago in reply to Data

Yesterday night it managed to sync, so I only lost today's family bike ride, which is lost anyway 'cause the 45% I managed to charge in the morning (as it was way slower to charge) was not even enough to get me to the bike rental (20 minutes walk, without starting an activity) and no steps were registered anyway...

I will be surprised if factory reset works. It (or Microsoft's variation to disconnect the electric cord from the plug for 30 seconds kind of crap) never worked for me, it's only effect was always that I was even more angry...

0 flocsy🤠 over 1 year ago in reply to flocsy🤠

I did a "Reset default settings" and it looks like that bricked the watch. The only thing it does now is to display the blue triangle and turn backlight on/off.