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AMOLED Battery Life - Real Life Experience

NeilJonesOnline
4 months ago

TL;DR - better than advertised!

I received my 45mm AMOLED Instinct 3 on 12th Jan, and fully charged it by mid afternoon.

Since then I've worn it 24/7, with display set to Always On and all other display settings at default, Pulse Ox at night and GPS set to Auto Select. The initial battery estimate it gave me at 100% charge was 6 days, which was a day short of Garmin's advertised "Up to 7 days in always-on" maximum.

However, including 5.5 hours of GPS activities, I got a low battery warning last night (20th Jan), so well over 8 days since the full charge. I suspect it would have made it through the night, based on my previous experience of when the alert comes up, but didn't try. Plus, as the battery hasn't yet been run down to empty so won't have had chance to fully calibrate, it's quite possible that the alert was triggered prematurely and it may have had even longer left in it.

Obviously battery life is dependent on individual customisation and usage, but for context my MARQ2 advertises 6 days of life, and with the same usage as my Instinct 3, that's invariably what I get out of it so it was good to see the I3 exceeding Garmin's numbers. It's also nice to pass the 7-day mark for my usage, as that makes charging it easier to fit into a weekly routine.

  • 0 3 months ago in reply to 5016816

    BTW, I disabled the gesture because I do a lot of activities every day, and if I kept the gesture on, it would light up all the time, and hence the results would not be representative for the "smartwatch mode" from Garmin's specs, that I am trying to mimic. 

    5016816 said:
    It's more of a "how much can you squeeze out of it" situation.

    No, if I wanted to squeeze out of it the maximum, I would use the Battery Saver, or at least turn off the HR and/or Bluetooth, I would not use it for sleep monitoring, and I would minimize the display usage even more.

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member 3 months ago

    I have the 50mm AMOLED, and use it for workouts, and everything. AOD is on, Data recording; every second, display brightness: low, GPS: auto, and about 30 minutes of GPS usage per day. I charged it about 3 days ago, and right now it is at 79%. So should get over 10 days out of it. As long as I only have to charge it once a week, that's fine with me.

  • 0 3 months ago in reply to trux
    trux said:
    the specifications claim the watch should hold 18 days in smartwatch mode, hence I wanted to see whether it can really hold that long. To my surprise, after 19 days, the watch is still at 65% of battery.

    I'm guessing that your test is not what Garmin consider a "smartwatch mode" - it's more of a "smart fitness band with display" mode. Very unlikely they wouldn't be boasting about the fact that their AMOLED watch can last for close to 60 days without a recharge and understandably so, nobody would treat them seriously if they said that you can have 60 days out of a charge, but to see the actual watch face (on a watch) you need to press a button.

  • 0 3 months ago in reply to 5016816

    The reasons were explained - I cannot let the the wrist gesture on, because I am too active during the day, and could not simulate the smartwatch mode of a non-active person in a controlled way. To simulate the average usage in the smartwatch mode, I light up the display manually ~20 times per day - this allows keeping certain level of consistency of the measurement during the long period, which I would not be able to do if the wrist gesture was enabled. For the testing, it is unimportant whether the watch is turned on 20 times by a wrist gesture, or by a button press. A non-active person certainly does not look at the watch every couple of minutes 24/7, so I think the count of 20 active periods of the display per day is a fair average. I simply wanted to avoid letting the watch on the shelve, which many people testing watches do too, since I do not find it simulating the standard smartwatch use correctly. Controlling the frequency of the display usage is way to keep the test systematic.

    And as I told, a test with real-life usage, including GPS activities will follow, once this minimalist test is over (probably in a month, or so).

  • 0 3 months ago in reply to trux
    trux said:
    The reasons were explained - I cannot let the the wrist gesture on, because I am too active during the day, and could not simulate the smartwatch mode of a non-active person in a controlled way.

    I read your reasoning but your methodology is questionable. And that's why Garmin's numbers are way lower than yours. Garmin need to be realistic and cover a wide range of scenarios, your "too active" is one of the scenarios they need to cover. 

    You can get a 6 or 8 pot to burn as much fuel as a Prius. But nobody would consider using these numbers as official..

  • 0 3 months ago in reply to 5016816
    5016816 said:
    I read your reasoning but your methodology is questionable.

    It is the best I could come out with. If you have a better idea for a systematic and consistent testing, feel free to make your own test.

  • 0 3 months ago in reply to trux

    Well you're making big statements - not only here but also in other threads - about how much better the real life battery performance is vs Garmin's own numbers. You need to be clear that this is an edge case for the 0.01% of I3 customers out there and describe what exactly is it that you're doing to achieve it. I can drive a Corvette and burn very little fuel but you won't see me on a Corvette forums saying how low the "real life" fuel consumption is, because it's not real life.

  • 0 3 months ago in reply to 5016816

    The smartwatch mode is no real-life mode anyway. Probably nobody buys Instinct watch to use it just as a smartwatch. It is a virtual mode in the specifications that Garmin uses for demonstrating maximal theoretical battery life, without turning off vital functionality like notifications, sleep monitoring, heart rate, BT etc, and without using the Battery Saver.

    I chose it as the first mode for the testing, and I will the test other modes as well. What I do, is meticulously documented, so everyone can choose for themselves whether it interests them or not. If it is not your case, and you do not like how it is done, just ignore it.

  • 0 3 months ago in reply to trux
    trux said:
    The smartwatch mode is no real-life mode anyway. Probably nobody buys Instinct watch to use it just as a smartwatch.

    Pretty sure there's more people using their Garmin watches as smartwatches than using them without displaying anything on the screen. I know quite a few people who own instincts and they tend to use them mainly as Casio replacement watches with advanced health features. I have multiple instincts and 99% of my usage is as a watch which monitors my health metrics.