Firmware 12.6 + gps 3.20 drain & other issues

I am staying on FW 12.1 & GPS 3.0 ( 2 year old unit, couple of sensors, always follow course, minimal backlight, battery 5 - 6% /hour over 12 - 17 hour rides) until some addition worth while features are released, maybe never?

Is there any way to roll back the firmware to 12.1? My 520 has pretty much identical stats as yours but I can only get up to 5 hours max while following a course. You get much better battery life than mine

My battery life has been all over the place with the recent firmware updates. I used to easily get 13-14 hours per charge but since the update in December I doubt I’d get 9-10.

Yesterday’s ride:
GPS & Glonass
Backlight 0%
No course
HR, speed and cadence sensors
2:10 ride time, 2:29 elapsed time battery Battery finished at 72% (~13% Hour)

Today’s ride:
GPS & Glonass
Backlight 0%
No course
HR, speed, Vector 3
1:50 ride/elapsed time
Battery finished at 86% (~7.8% hour)

There was also an indoor ride on Monday but I forgot to write down the exact numbers but I believe it was down in the low 80s after an hour and a half.

Is there any way to roll back the firmware to 12.1? My 520 has pretty much identical stats as yours but I can only get up to 5 hours max while following a course. You get much better battery life than mine

The FW can be rolled back, the process is described in various post but the GPS FW was also updated 3.0 to 3.1 at the same time as the FW 12.5 and this can't be rolled back. In the large 12.5 battery issue thread there are suggestions that it is the GPS FW that causes the problem which might be why there is a GPS FW 3.2 included with the FW 12.6 update.

The 12.1 update included a change to turn notification if you are using a TCX route and this allows perfect turn notification with the "Training>Courses>Course Options>Turn Guidance" turn off, it also avoids the lengthy "Calculating" phase and in my experience uses less battery. Try it.

ps you use Crs Pt Dist as the data field for the distance to the next course point in the TCX and this field includes the type ie right / left etc. Your also get a warning at the bottom of non map data pages with a countdown from about 100 metres. On the map page you can have the course point name (10 characters), distance countdown and direction as the "guide text"

My experience with 12.6, 3.2 gps
3:30 hours ride without GLONASS , speed, cadence, HRM and bluetooth paired ,backlight off, started with 85% ended with 62%
Approximately 7-8% per hour.
Much better than 15% with 12.5 so it worked for me.
Only problem is that it keeps switching distance from Km to miles and have to switch it back manually every time I start a ride. I don't know why it switches only distance but not speed ,though they are on the same setting, but I guess it's part of the bug.

Today whilst I connected my phone, a new 3.3 gps upgrade (downgrade to be precise) was installed to my 520 and while battery drain seemed to be fixed with 3.2, now 3.3 screwed everything up. 3 hours ride 40% consumption.
PLEASE GARMIN SEND ME BACK THE 3.2 OR ALLOW US TO INSTALL WHATEVER FW WE WANT WHENEVER WE WANT.

THE DEVICE IT'S OURS, ITS NOT A TEST BENCHMARK TO TEST WHATEVER YOU WANT

NO MORE GUINEA PIGS FOR GARMIN FFS!

Results from today's ride:
Elapsed time: 5:41
Moving time: 4:40
Ant+ Devices connected: SRM, Speed/Cad, HRM
SW Version: 12.6
Battery: 100 -> 36%
Location: GPS+GLONASS

Definitely better than it was and fine for me. I think they've improved power consumption with the latest firmware version.

12.6 +3.2 I was still draining my battery by 30% an hour
12.6 + 3.3 today seems FAR BETTER ! at last ! 13/14% battery drain while followgin a course ! didnt see that since MONTHS. for me, and my 2years old battery and a shitload of hours of riding its fine, I can say its solved...to be honest, I didnt expect it...I was close to buy a polar not long ago....

ofc, it cannont be perfect, my gradient are still totally messed up , growing as expected until I reach 14%, then going back at 0...it never display again my lovely 20-25% :( whatever I use 1s ou smart gps record

My experience with 12.6, 3.2 gps
3:30 hours ride without GLONASS , speed, cadence, HRM and bluetooth paired Doy you have the same settings,backlight off, started with 85% ended with 62%
Approximately 7-8% per hour.
Much better than 15% with 12.5 so it worked for me.
Only problem is that it keeps switching distance from Km to miles and have to switch it back manually every time I start a ride. I don't know why it switches only distance but not speed ,though they are on the same setting, but I guess it's part of the bug.

Do you have the same settings on Garmin Connect?
Do you have anything in miles? (courses, segments, strava, etc?)
It happened to me once, but I think I have something in miles...change it to metric and kms and never had the problem again...

Another ride: settings as my post above, 3h25 ride 3 h 41 total time, never turned on backlight, from 95 to 67%, is less than 8% per hour. That's ok. Now that gps chipset 3.30 is out, I'm scared to upgrade...