Fenix 7 and Tactix 7 Pro Solar bug: Percent/Days increase and/or energy inflow ONLY Display after Reboot

2021488 over 2 years ago

Hello everyone, I recently bought the Tactix 7 Pro Solar watch and would like to alert you about a possible bug I have seen personally, that a number of other users have discovered as well and which likely leaves many people unjustly unsatisfied with their solar watch performance, thinking that there is something wrong with the watch. It very much looks like the Fenix 7 Series has the same "Bug".

Long story short, before I bought the watch, I extensively researched solar technologies and related questions after which I found that the Garmin watches could possibly do by far the best job in catching and using solar energy in a watch that has such features. I also researched the way in which the watch has incorporated the solar function extensively before I bought it. During that research I came across quite a number of people who wrote either reviews, published videos, or wrote on forums about their experience with the Tactix 7 Pro Series and/or the Fenix 7x and similar Solar watch versions. What I found is that quite a number of people complained about the "poor solar performance", or even said, paraphrasing, that "the solar function doesn't work as advertised, or at all", or that the watch they bought must be "broken" or "poorly build".

So I researched what might be going on and came across videos like this, where people charge the watch with up to 391k Lux hours with no or very little improvement on either the days left or percentage! Then, by looking into it more deeply, I found that some people discovered that when you turn off the watch and restart it, the percentage and days increase actually, and show up on the watch! Other people on the internet who tried that off/on thing reported the same thing... Here is the same guy from the last linked video doing that "power off/on trick" after a charge of 418k Lux hours and the percentage increased! From what I have seen, all the people who tested it got such a result AFTER the Off/On trick. Here is one example of how people react when they are most likely confronted with the same issue and don't know it. And I'm sure most people are not aware of that. As you can see, people react very unsatisfied and think there is something wrong with the watch while it seems like it is some bug in the software or something? From what I have seen, the problem seems to be on the two Tactix 7 Pro versions as well as with the Fenix 7X watch (which is quite similar). I can't say if the problems, is also on other watches, but I suspect it might.

Next thing I did: I bought the watch and tested things out for myself. After my research above, I didn't take those "bad" conclusions people got about the solar performance at face value. So now, after a couple of weeks of very thorough testing of the solar performance under many different conditions (I went about it quite "scientifically", actually) I can say that, yes, I have found the same "Off/On solar bug" on my Tactix 7 Pro watch, and that I think many people get a bad impression of the watch because of it, unjustly.

I will spare you the details on how I tested things, but I would like to mention that I used (among other things) one external watch face and one external App in order to test/see things: Namely, the "TSWF04" watch face and the "Battery Graph" App. With the help of those and many different tests, I can say the following, for now:

- The Solar function of my watch works as advertised, and I suspect that many people who think their Solar doesn't work and/or that it doesn't work as advertised or that their watch is kaput, are simply wrong, in good parts probably because of the mentioned "solar bug" among other factors

- I'm positively surprised and happy with the solar capabilities of my watch considering the complexities of solar in general and especially of a solar system that is deployed in such a full specs and complex watch

- The Solar capabilities of my watch exceed my (educated/researched) expectations

- Contrary to what people say (because of the "solar bug" and other factors, I suspect) my watch actually can uphold the charge of the battery quite significantly and even charge up in conditions such as; Power saving mode on + sleep mode on + DND on + touch disabled + all Wireless disabled, while the Heart rate sensor is on continuously! Which is quite a feat, I must say!

- With the help of the above-mentioned "Battery Graph" App and the "TSWF04" watch face, my tests have made it clear that, yes, the solar functions well, and my watch can uphold the charge and even increase the charge of the battery if enough sun is coming in, even when energy hungry things like the heart rate sensor are enabled!

- Thanks to the solar on the watch, the watch is actually and in reality energy independent from the electric grid and can function theoretically forever with solar alone! And Garmin doesn't mention that very interesting and good feature/fact. In other words; if you enable extreme power saving modes on the watch, and you have little to no battery left on the watch, you can charge up the watch with solar alone quite significantly! For example, one of my tests shows that the watch charged 4.5 percent with an input of 426k Lux hours, while the watch was on and in extreme power saving mode + sleep mode on + DND on + touch disabled + all Wireless disabled (basically, I tried to have the basic non power hungry things of the watch still on in the background, while disabling all big power consumers), which meant and showed that the watch gained 2 days of working time in normal mode and 4 days in Energy Saving Mode! Which is very impressive IMO! I started the test at 16,7% and it ended at 21,2% of battery; it went up from 6 days remaining in normal mode to 8 days; and from 15 days remaining in Energy saving mode to 19 days. But here's the catch: I wouldn't have seen any of those good and impressive solar gains/results on the watch if I hadn't known and used the Off/On trick! In other words; also, for me, the watch again showed no gains because of that solar "bug", I strongly suspect. It was only after I turned the watch off and on again that I saw those results!

- From my testings, I'm fairly confident that the very good results of the solar input described in the last point above would be even more significant and good if I turn the watch off completely and then charge in via solar. In fact, I did tests in that regard, and so far I suspect that this is most likely the case.

So, long story short, it seems to me that there is really some kind of (software?) problem/bug here, and I think it would be good if the developers would look into the problem. Wrapping it up, I should also mention that this bug didn't just happen once to me: quite the contrary, it was and still is consistently and constantly present! There was just one day/test, in which, for some reason, the percentage increased slightly while the heart rate sensor was on, without me needing to do the off/on thing to see it. Other than that, it was/is a constant thing/problem.

Greetings

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0 Maruzko over 2 years ago

2021488 said:
The Solar capabilities of my watch exceed my (educated/researched) expectations

Thank you for this extensive report.

Gives me additional faith in the solar charging capabilities of my 7X SS

0 Maruzko over 2 years ago

2021488

I am curious to know what your day to day settings are for:

GPS

During Activities and General use:

- Back light brightness

- Back light time

- Gesture

0 2021488 over 2 years ago in reply to Maruzko

GPS is set to the highest possible setting, system wide, but I have used it only very seldom so far.

I’ve basically configured the watch to the lowest possible energy consumption while still running the heart rate monitor continuesly 24/7 at the same time with all associated processes so that I‘m able to still see and access all things quickly by the push of just one button.

Day to day setting during Activities and General use:

- Backlight off by default everywhere but I’m able to turn it on (only) manually by the push of just any button one

- When I put on the backlight on manually it is set at the lowest possible setting everywhere in terms of brightness and duration.

- Wrist gestures are off by default as well as the Touch screen (which can quickly be turned on if needed)

I haven’t done any activity yet but are planning to create/introduce a full body workout that I will try to do around 3 times a week. I should also mention that I don’t wear the watch Mo-Fr during work since I want to avoid damaging it. Other than in those times, I wear the watch continuously.

0 C.sco over 2 years ago

Interesting stuff - I had already assumed all of this was true, but I didn't want to put in the effort to scientifically prove it. So, thanks for doing that for us!

I want to reiterate, in case some people misunderstand your findings:

You do not need to restart the watch to actually get the battery boost from the solar charging. A restart is only necessary if you want the watch to display the new battery charge %.

If you choose not to reboot the watch, you will still be using all that extra charge you got from solar, you just won't see it in the battery % shown on the watch. But it's there.

For example, if the watch started at 67%, and then you laid it out in the sun all day and it charged the battery up to 71%, the display will still show 67% (even though the battery is actually at 71%). Then, you will notice that the watch stays at 67% for an extraordinarily long time, perhaps even a day or two, before finally dropping to 66%, because in fact you're actually waiting for the battery to go from 71% to 66%, not 67% to 66%.

For whatever reason, Garmin's battery algorithm is incapable of moving the displayed battery % upwards unless it's plugged in to USB. Obviously, that's some sort of software bug/omission. Hopefully they fix it someday, because it's really hurting them: people all over the internet are constantly reporting that the solar cannot actually charge the battery at all, that it only reduces how much battery gets used, and that's just not true, but until Garmin fixes this bug those rumours are going to persist.

0 2021488 over 2 years ago in reply to C.sco

It should also be mentioned that the mentioned "Battery Graph" App that I installed on my watch and used for the tests has displayed the 4,5 increase in Battery in the mentioned test. It went up with the charging color red. What is also curious is that said App seems to pick up on the battery increase of the solar input even if I don't restart the watch and just small inputs/increases happen: The graph stays straight or moves slightly up in those instances for example. What's more, the App seems to add the gained days from the solar to the battery life, so much so, that I'm now at an expected total battery life (since full charge till zero) of 69 Days, which seems to be well within or even above the marketed capabilities, I would guess/reason. Just to reiterate, I have the heart rate sensor on 24/7 with the mentioned extremely low power consumption set up; Power saving mode on + sleep mode on + DND on + touch disabled + all Wireless disabled + gestures disabled + no backlight + backlight at smallest setting when engaged etc. (although, keep in mind, that I don't wear the watch for a significant amount of time Mo-Fr when I'm at work).

Another good example of that is that the Battery Graph App tells me right now at this point in time that I have 52 Days left until the battery is empty (if I keep my setup and habits the same I would guess, which I will try) while the Garmin watch/software itself tells me that I have 34 days left! Which is quite a huge discrepancy, I must say. It should also be said that the increase in expected days on the battery graph can and does go up quite significantly every time a very high, high or even just good amount of solar is inputted (with my setup, mind you, which is not how most people use the watch).

Now, the interesting question would be which estimates are the right ones at the end (when the watch goes out or is at "0" percent). There could be quite a number of reasons for those discrepancies between the Garmin software and the Battery Graph App, among which is the possibility that the Battery Graph App is doing a better job at calculating the battery life and/or charge inputs from the solar. It could also be that Garmin doesn't let the battery drain down to 0 on purpose (which would make sense, for the battery life/health) which could mean that when the watch shows 0 percent, that there are in actuality still 10-20 % or so left. The Battery Graph App on the other hand might be reading the full capacity of the battery and displaying how many days that would be. Also, it could be that Garmins software/hardware (machine learning, for example) is taking my daily/weekly/monthly habits into account in their estimates while the Battery Graph App doesn't do that. Which could mean that, at the end, Garmins estimates could be more accurate, or not. It could also be that I just haven't used and/or worn the watch for a long enough time since I bought it a couple of weeks ago: both, the Garmin Software, as well as the Battery Graph App, might not have enough data yet to calculate accurate estimates.

0 2021488 over 2 years ago in reply to 2021488

Also, given that the whole thing is a pretty complex issue/topic and that it looks like that the following is true - the smaller the batteries are the harder it seems to be to estimate the real percentage of a battery at any point of charge - it could be, since we are naturally dealing with very low charge inputs with the solar, even at best conditions, that it makes the whole thing even more difficult: Therefore, it could be that Garmin decides to stay on the safe side on purpose and only displays/mentions the most conservative estimates.

0 2021488 over 2 years ago in reply to 2021488

Furthermore, naturally, if I/you would use the watch how most people use it I would guess (without much use/concern/attention for energy consumption), meaning, that pretty much all high power consumers are on continuously + daily activities with GPS and such, then, of course, the pretty good results I have seen would flatten out quite a bit/lot on the battery charge input under the same sun/wear conditions, so much so, that even less change/charge would be detected.

Therefore, that could mean that for the average watch user they wouldn't be able to see/notice much of the (pretty good) solar advantages/gains, even if the possible "bug" is fixed, and they get a good amount of sunlight every day. Unless though, Garmin can come up with something like a short and easy to understand statement/graph/script/software that tells the user something like "you have gained/prolonged this amount of days/hours to the total operating time of the watch, with the solar input of 100k lux hrs today, if you keep your habits/activities the same".

The more I think about it, the more it seems to me, that, if the Battery Graph App should turn out to be fairly accurate, that they have already created a pretty awesome/good template on how something like this could be approached and be improved/added upon.