Related
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Poor battery life (less than 4.5hrs) and unreliable sensor connections

thetomfox
over 1 year ago

Today I set out to do a ride. Fully charged overnight. There is full sun on the device all day. 

Frequent Garmin Varia and Garmin HRM sensor disconnects. Of note, my Assioma pedals and Bontrager headlight never disconnected, just the garmin sensors.

4hrs and 27min into the ride, the 1040 tells me I should enable power saver mode. I enable it and it tells me that I have 3hrs remaining. 

15min later it was dead and wouldn't even turn on. So on one hand the battery life sucks badly. On the other, it totally lied about the remaining battery life. What happened to the amazing battery life advertised? Why cant it make reliable predictions? Thanks for leaving me in the middle of a ride with no radar. Arent safety features supposed to be reliable?

And in the next hour+ of riding in sunshine why wouldn't it collect enough energy to power back on? Does the solar actually do anything?

I know I know, you guys are going to jump to the defense of Garmin and highlight that calling the ugly baby ugly is rude and insensitive to their feelings and that I should be nicer about spending 700 dollars on a device that simply doesn't work reliably doing even the most basic things it is designed to do. 

I did the second half of my ride using strava on my phone, no thanks to garmin whatsoever. At least my iPhone works reliably.

Running 12.15 firmware fwiw. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to zsitvayb

    This is provided by the „My EDGE2“ datafield. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to AgentMax

    Ah, ok, thanks…that’s the only one I haven’t installed yet on my 1040 (on top of what is not yet compatible with it).

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to krazyeone

    no one is asking YOU to spend your time.  You are making that decision on your own and FWIW your life seems pretty insignificant if you get so twisted over comments in a forum.  Last time I checked, you personally are not in charge of ANYTHING let alone who gets to say what or how they say it or ask it.  So basically you can just bugger off if you don't like what I write or state.  If you personally think something is too stupid for you, then you can simply move along.  However thanks for the reminder about how some people have such a over the top value of their own self worth.  

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Thanks for some helpful suggestions (and some less helpful ones LOL!)

    It sounds like this may be a unit with a faulty battery. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to thetomfox

    Hi Tom,  

    just a final comment from me. Your sensor dropouts could be part of your device problem, but others have also reported this. Teething troubles possibly with the 1040. However, your comment when you were told to engage battery-saving mode and got only 3 hours extra is totally off. You should have 35hrs in normal mode and 100hrs in save mode, that means you device should have said “you have 50-60hrs” plus!

    Recommendation: (ignore if you have already sent the device back - or are fed up with all the advice Stuck out tongue winking eye

    Disable all your devices other that the standard 3 Garmin bundle ones. These plus Auto display; route and ClimbPro and all standard screens etc. should cause no problem.

    Go for a ride:

    - what happens with your sensors? If they still dropout, it may be a bug and hopefully fixed with update shortly

    - what happens to you battery in 1/2 - 1 hour? If it has gone down by more that 2-3%, go home, you have a device defect

    This test will show you if your battery is defect or one of your many connected devices is causing a battery drain. If the battery is still being drained, Garmin Support will have to accept it’s defect. (You probably know Support Desks as well as me, It’s always your problem, or you have to supply 55 more details.)

    I think your device is defect and it is not a common Garmin battery problem, as such you should decide and close this post, it is causing more debate than necessary. especially as you are probably a one-off.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    FYI: I did a 4h15m ride today. Started at 100%, ended at 92%. With numerous sensors (hearth, power, varia). Just incredible, this battery life.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Microkid

    Same for me, 3 hours ~10%, but I had also tried strava segment and navigation , and workout

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to MikeF-Swiss

    .16 and full config reset looks promising so far. Yesterday I started an activity with 99%, the activity was 1:47 in mixed sun and shade. At completion battery indicated 92% which seems like what it should be. Solar page indicated a few minutes of time added. No sensor drops so far. I'm feeling optimistic.

    EDIT: solar charge shows it added 8min of time. Seems pretty good.