Is my battery defective?

Josh over 1 year ago

I know I see a lot of posts about battery life on the i2 solar so I am sorry for repetitive question.

I bought the i2 a few weeks ago and my settings are as follows:

- Pulse ox = night only

- Heart Rate = on

- Bluetooth = on (off at night with my battery saver automatically enabled during sleep)

- Backlight = 40% at night

- GPS = normal GPS mode. I use GPS for roughly 20-30 mins a day during my workout.

- Battery Saved Mode = enabled at night

I have reviewed this article and have tried just turning things off to see what the results would be.

Based on this article there seems to be a "smartwatch mode" that I can enable that will give me 28 days (unlimited with 3 hours 50k).. I cannot find this anywhere. If I go to Menu >> Power Manager I see "Battery Saver" and "Power Modes". If I go to Power Modes I see "Max Battery" or "Jacket Mode".

If I charge it up to 100% I get 10 days it says. Currently I am 54% and it says 5 days left. When I am charged up to 100% I have tried the "Max Battery" mode just to see what happens and I never ever saw anywhere a "28 days" estimate so I am trying to figure out how to get there, or at least more than 10.

If I enable Battery Saver mode I should see a "65d" for 65 days on my screen according to documentation and if not "65d" then something somewhat close, right?

Fully charged turning battery saver mode on I see 11d on mine. Thats basically 1/6 of what I should be getting, right? I'd be happy even if I saw 30 days?

My Battery Saver mode is mostly untouched I think, settings as follows:

Watch Face=low power

Phone=off

Heart Rate=on (if I turn it OFF it says +54 days but that doesn't make sense why Smart Watch mode can have it on and still get 28 days)

Pulse ox=off except for sleep its on

Backlight=off

1) How do you enable smartwatch mode? Am I missing it? I am on 9.15 but it wasn't there in 8.x or whatever the current public release is.

2) Is this normal or do I have a defective battery in some way? This has been the same way since I took it out of the box and I'd like to get it serviced if something is wrong!

Top Replies

Kyšperská lesnická over 1 year ago +3 verified

Turn off pulse ox - just for manual measuration. You will get 28 days.

All Replies

0 philipshambrook over 1 year ago

Josh said:
1) How do you enable smartwatch mode?

Smartwatch mode is just the normal watch face with time etc. It's the default.

Edit Battery Saver Mode so that everything is selected to Off then ensure that Battery Saver mode is on. If it is the watch face will only display a time.

Josh said:
I am on 9.15

In which case you should be posting this in the beta forums.

0 Josh over 1 year ago in reply to philipshambrook

Ok if smartwatch mode is normal everyday mode, why do i get 11 days max and documentation says i should be getting 28?

Regarding the software version that I’m on, go ahead and read what i wrote a second time

+1 Kyšperská lesnická over 1 year ago

Turn off pulse ox - just for manual measuration. You will get 28 days.

0 Josh over 1 year ago in reply to Kyšperská lesnická

That helped a lot!!!!! Thank you!

0 Batman over 1 year ago in reply to Kyšperská lesnická

Yeah, I think this being enabled by default is throwing people off. Other Garmin watches do not even have the option of continuous Pulse Ox measurement during the day. The choice is either during sleep only or Off, plus of course manual spot measurement.

Continuous Pulse Ox measurement during the day makes only sense in my opinion if you are going on an extended hike/expedition at high altitude and you want to monitor your acclimation (how well you body is adapting to the lower oxygen level in the air).

In a way it can make sense it is enabled in a watch like the Instinct 2, given the target use, but it is easy to miss the connection between this being always on and the battery life as rated in the Garmin specs.

0 Josh over 1 year ago in reply to Kyšperská lesnická

So this was 28 days for the longest time. Now - I only get a max of 20 days according to the watch face estimator. This used to say 28 days. I am on the newest software now, maybe this did something to the calculation?

0 Yeti over 1 year ago in reply to Josh

I think they did, the prediction is much lower than it used to be, and by that more realistic. Also during activities.

I wrote the BatteryGuesstimate app, but maybe I will not use it that much anymore

0 TeaRacer over 1 year ago

5 percent of the battery during the day is enough for me, why 40 percent at night?

You will gain a lot from it.

0 Rockel83 over 1 year ago

I think backlight on 40% is also quite a bit. You should do so if you're comfortable with it ofcourse.

But on my Instinct Solar 1 it was standrd set to 20%, and I even reduced it to 10%.

Depending on your settings, backlight is going on everytime you press buttons or move your arm (gestures enabled). So again, depening on your settings, backlight can be turned on quite often a day. And how brighter it is, how more energy it will use.

And I believe the watch is calculating the daily battery capacity on the average daily use and settings.

So reducing backlight could be verry helpfull here too.