Brand new Garmin Instinct Solar dramatically drops battery life after software update

I bought a new Garmin Instinct Solar several days ago (Best Buy in the US).

Went for a few bike rides and runs, full charged battery duration indicated as 18 days.

Yesterday I woke up and watch indicated on screen that software had updated itself while I was sleeping.

Since the update max battery life is not higher than 5 days.

I cannot figure out what that update did and how this battery life is now this much shorter than before. I went online and sought advice on how to extend battery life, turned off all functions that drain battery I could. Still only 4 days battery life on ~80% full battery now.

What do I do? How did the update "break" battery life? What do I do to prevent software updates in the future, since I am reading other peoples' posts who have experienced similar issues after software updates?

Thanks.

PS: I have no idea what the previous version of the software was and what it is now.

Top Replies

trux over 4 years ago +1 suggested

Just power cycle it. Under some conditions it can indeed happen that the watch starts draining the battery after an update, but shutting the watch down and starting again mostly fixes it easily, in such…

All Replies

0 revcph over 3 years ago in reply to sspanak

I toggled PulseOx on and then off. It keep it off.

0 revcph over 3 years ago in reply to revcph

So, yesterday, after 3 days of charging and running whatever update Garmin Express triggered (it was already on 12.2, so it must have been some other update) and doing about a 2 1/2 hour GPS activity it started draining at an alarming rate. From the time I finished the activity to when I went to bed, it used from 87% to 62%, just being worn as a watch. This morning at 8am it was at 22% and now an hour later it's at 10%. This never happened before 12.2 and the other updates. It's really terrible battery life. One day? What is this, an Apple Watch? My old Forerunner 235 uses about 5% a day (GPS activities use more of course). This is getting ridiculous.

0 revcph over 3 years ago in reply to defalkner

When you do a reset do you typically remove the device from Garmin Connect and then set it up as new? I've done that twice already in the process.

0 4312091 over 3 years ago

I had this problem recently. Went from 68% to zero in a few hours. Chatted with Garmin, cleared my history and did a soft reset. Seems fine now.

0 revcph over 3 years ago in reply to 4312091

Did you "delete all activities" or "reset totals" under History? And by soft reset, you mean "delete data and reset settings" or just a power cycle?

0 4312091 over 3 years ago in reply to revcph

Delete all activities, then press and hold power button until it restarted

0 revcph over 3 years ago in reply to 4312091

Thanks! I'll give that a try.

0 Nikolay Yordanov over 3 years ago in reply to 4312091

Hi, do you delete all activities one-by-one, since i could not find an option for deleting all at once?

Also, do you delete from the device or from the Garmin connect App?

0 revcph over 3 years ago in reply to Nikolay Yordanov

Long press MENU to get to the Menu>History>Activities>Option>Delete All Activities

They still exist if they've been synced to Garmin Connect, they're just not stored on the watch

0 Nikolay Yordanov over 3 years ago in reply to revcph

Many thanks, REVCPH

i will try and hopefully it would work.

i have linked my Garmin account to Komoot account for syncing the tracks, but would like to believe that that would not cause the problem with the draining battery.