Fenix 7 Solar - Battery Drain since August (from 18.14 to 19.38)

Gugher 1 month ago

Hi all,

Could you please let me know if you experience the same?

Since August, the infamous 18 v software update that drained the battery of everyone, my watch didn't recover from it and even now with the latest update to 19.38 (I even tried every beta), I have still the battery lasting 5 days or less (with activities indoor and outdoor, almost everyday). I disabled as well the accident detection. During nighttime the drain is around 5-7%.

I want to understand if this is for my specific device or just a problem that most Fenix 7 users are experiencing.

Please let me know.

Thanks!

Best regards

Top Replies

FurtherNorther 1 month ago +4

7 Pro Solar here. The battery drain issue started in August a little before Garmin Fenix 8 was released.

Now with 19.41, did 2,5 hours activity today in bright sunlight and the battery went down 23 %.
…
ThomasN 12 days ago +3

So since Garmin does not react here (hello Garmin-Laurie ?) I had no other choice to downgrade the Fenix 7 Pro SS from my girlfriend to 17.28 using an official source.

Not nice Garmin!

Since then the watch…
2892955 1 month ago +2

My 7 pro solar with 1-2h of mixed activities per day requires charging every 5 days too. I think advertised 15 days assume that you you are not using it for any activity at all, have completely disabled…

All Replies

0 2892955 1 month ago

My 7 pro solar with 1-2h of mixed activities per day requires charging every 5 days too. I think advertised 15 days assume that you you are not using it for any activity at all, have completely disabled puls ox and the only thing the watch is doing is displaying time

0 Petr 1 month ago

Sorry to hear you have such problems with your fenix watch. Did you consider to revert to previous stable firmware?
Recently I downgraded to firmware 17.28 version (fro fw. 19.34) on my Fenix 7 Pro Saphire Solar. With this downgrade, the watch are resetted to factory settings that could help. Now I have aroun 6% a day battery consumption per day.

If you decide to proceed this way, I recommend to backup all data before downgrade using Garmin Connect and restore the watch from backup after downgrade is done.

0 Munen 1 month ago

Hi Gugher

I'm just here to give you a +1.

Thank you for voicing that issue! I have the same with my Fenix 7S Solar Sapphire.

Kind regards,

Alain

0 Gugher 1 month ago in reply to Munen

Thanks!

0 Gugher 1 month ago in reply to Petr

Hi,
I tried to look for this version in the forum, I only found the 18.09.

All the links to 17.28 doesnt seem to work for me.

0 Petr 1 month ago in reply to Gugher

For which exact model of Fenix 7 watch you are looking for a 17.28 firmware?

0 Gugher 1 month ago in reply to Petr

Fenix 7 Solar

0 Petr 1 month ago in reply to Gugher

Hi Gugher

On this forum go to the Beta Version 18.10 thread:
https://forums.garmin.com/beta-program/fenix-7-series/f/announcements/378968/beta-version-18-10---check-for-updates-only

On the very bottom of this page, there are links for firmware download for each Garmin watch type. Second link is for the Fenix 7 (non-pro) version. Click on the link and you will download previous version 18.09. You probably already got this file as you mentioned.

This zip file includes two folders. 18.09 firmware and 17.28_systembackdate. In this folder you'll find 17.28 stable firmware for your Fenix 7.

Follow the instruction on link below to downgrade to 17.28 firmware. This thread is for 16.22 firmware but the instructions are valid regardless of the firmware version.
https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/fenix-7-series/372868/downgrade-to-stable-16-22---instructions

This solution worked for me but I was facing some issues with restoration of the watch setting from backup. I had to make it several times till it was successful.

Hope this helps.

0 J_uK_i 1 month ago

Hi, had the same issue.
Downgraded to 17.28
Battery runtime is now better than ever
That sounds funny, but some other users reported the same here already.
Had 89% one week ago and did 2 activities in the meantime (3h of GPS time approx.)
Now still have 58% left

0 Gugher 1 month ago in reply to J_uK_i

Thanks, at this point I will try...
Any issue with 17.28?