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.
