Battery life on Fenix 7X has been reduced over 75% by firmware updates. Now just **6.5 days** of battery life in Smartwatch Mode!

Battery life on Fenix 7X Solar Sapphire has been destroyed by the latest two firmwares (both 17.12 and the previous non-beta have same issue.) Battery life in smartwatch mode -- NO activities or GPS -- is now 6.5 days, absolutely abysmal. 

This is a premium smartwatch which Garmin advertises as having 28 days of battery life. So this firmware has killed over 75% of the claimed battery life. That's really bad.

Observations:

  • The battery percentage declined rapidly from 97% to 34% within a span of just over four days.
  • This is smartwatch mode only, with pulse but no activities or GPS.
  • Estimated days of battery life left showed a sharp decrease from 27 days to 10 days (indicated) in the same time period of just four days.
  • Notable rapid declines occurred between April 19, 16:35 (76%, 23 days) to April 22, 20:00 (34%, 10 days), showing a loss of 42% in battery percentage and 13 days in estimated (indicated) remaining battery life over approximately 3.25 days. Nothing about this is normal or acceptable.

    Readings from last charge:



    Chart of battery drop:



    Again, this issue has been observed not only with the current beta 17.12, but also the previous stable public firmware. 

    I love my Fenix and Garmin but this needs to be addressed. This is not in any way acceptable, and will cause me and others to reconsider being Garmin customers unless it is addressed. It makes this watch close to useless, a device I paid $1,000 for.
  • Can you confirm them following:

    • Youve rebooted the watch following the firmware install
    • You've allowed the watch to fully recharge after firmware install
    • Confirm what watch face you're running
    • What activities have you been performing

    If you're complaining about beta firmware draining your battery and not having the same quality as the stable firmware, then you're probably not well suited to being a beta tester unfortunately. As a beta tester, it's your role to ask yourself the above questions and provide as much context as possible in the beta forums in order to get the firmware upto a quality where it can be released.

    If you're complaining about battery drain on stable firmware, then the above questions still apply. The battery capacity algo normally needs a reboot and a full charge before it starts predicting correctly in my experience.

    All the best and perhaps stick to stable firmware in future.

  • -Yes, of course it's been rebooted multiple times
    - Yes, it was recharged multiple times
    - Standard Garmin factory watchface
    - No activities

    As was clearly noted twice in my post, this issue was present in the STABLE, live firmware 16.22 as well. I upgraded then to 17.12 to see if it was fixed. It is not.

    It's BOTH a current beta and the last stable firmwear issue.

  • In which case it's probably worth a factory reset and restore from backup.

    Ive not experienced what you're experiencing, so whatever is going on with yours, it's not affecting everyone equally.

    Let us know how the reset goes. Good luck with it.

  • Same problem with my Fenix 7 SS and 16.22

  • The best advice I want to give you is this:
    exit the beta program

    I stayed at 15.77 because I suspect that when new functions arrive (sleep coach) even the official firmwares behave like the beta versions (noting the watch's behavior and encouraging research and improvement of the function).

    My watch has incredible durability and I want to keep it stable. A few days ago I published the links to the 15.77 firmware you can try to install it but I also advise you to reset the watch completely after the downgrade.

  • advise you to reset the watch completely after the downgrade.

    There is no choice when downgrading software. 

    My watch has incredible durability

    Glad that is the case for you. However, there were plenty of reports of battery issues with 15.77 (including 15.xx beta) as even a quick glance of forum posts will show. There have always been reports of battery issues with every version of released software and beta since before Noah was a boy. 

  • I came here to see if anyone else has this issue, I went from 58% yesterday to 33% today, its still way better than my wife's Apple Watch, but this needs to be addressed by Garmin 

  • -Yes, of course it's been rebooted multiple times
    - Yes, it was recharged multiple times
    - Standard Garmin factory watchface
    - No activities

    The other suggestion I would make is to reboot your phone. Often the culprit in battery drain is the bluetooth connection with your phone, and rebooting the phone can sometimes resolve the issue.

  • You'll find "Device Sync Audit" under Setting in the ConnectIQ app. Here you'll be able to see the last few syncs and whether it's stuck in a sync loop, in turn draining the battery.

  • I had the same issue and did factory reset and restore from backup. It is too early to be sure (24h after reset), but battery life looks very good so far.