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Clarification on solar numbers?

Kaitlyn
over 3 years ago

Looking at the specs for the 7s, The details for solar battery life are indicated as:

*Solar charging, assuming all-day wear with 3 hours per day outside in 50,000 lux conditions
**Solar charging, assuming use in 50,000 lux conditions

Previously, I simply assumed the "3 hours" figure meant 50,000 * 3 = 150,000 lux/day. Now, I'm not so sure. Is the battery life based on getting 50,000 lux / day, or more?

If it is assuming 150,000 lux/day to achieve the stated battery figures... that seems incredibly dishonest to me and unachievable for most. Now that I've actually got the watch in hand I can see the "lux report", and the figures simply feel misleading.

Between shorter seasonal days, winter, MOST people working indoors 9-5... I would like to know how garmin rated the battery life. Because right now, to me, the solar seems to basically have zero effect and is just a gimmick, false advertising, money grab.

(It's also not clear, nor have I been able to test myself yet, whether standing around all day in perfect sunny weather would result in a net positive charge and could theoretically result in forever battery life)

  • +1 over 3 years ago

    You will see prolonged battery life when also solar charging. Will you visibly see your battery percentage climb? If your watch is off or if you put your watch into Battery Saver mode, you will at some point see an obvious gain. There is no solid answer other than, the feature will help improve your  battery life between charges.

    - Getting the Most Out of Solar Charging With a Solar Capable Watch

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Hi! Based on my testing, Garmin's claims are pretty correct. About 80k LuxHours will actually give you 1% of battery on the Garmin Fenix 7S. About 150k LuxHours will give you almost 2%. Considering that the watch consumes roughly 5,5-6% per day in smartwatch mode, the improvement is ~30% which is in-line with Garmin's estimations -> going from 11 days to 14 days. 

    Now, weather or not you're able to achieve 150k LuxHours per day will depend on the outside conditions. If it's sunny and you spend the entire day outdoors you'll surely get even more. I've seen people getting >400k and even myself I've easily got 180k. If it's cloudy and on top of that you spend very little time outside, you're not going to get a lot. But remember that it's called "Solar charging" so it requires the Sun, not clouds or indoor lights to charge your watch. Even if you entirely disregard the Solar charging, the battery life on the Fenix 7S is really great... I'm easily able to get >2 weeks in smartwatch mode and I'm sure in the summertime I could even stretch that to 3 weeks. It's really fantastic compared to an Apple Watch that you have to recharge daily... and in terms of sports features & navigation the Fenix just destroys the competition. 

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to W1zzard

    I live in a sunny place and battery life on the 7X SS is simply outstanding. No exercise for more than a month as I'm recovering, so using it in smartwatch mode only. After almost 5 weeks since charging, there is still 27% of battery left.