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Battery drain problem is a matter of a dodgy battery meter

Former Member over 5 years ago

Began my 3h ride today with battery meter at 50%. After 2:30h showed 3% but it continued recording.
Got home, uploaded my ride and then started to record a new dummy activity just to see how far it goes without shutting off.
Suddenly it began to show 6% battery, so far i've managed to record another 3h of dummy activity ,logging more than 12h in one complete charge.
I've tested 2 firmwares, 9.1 and 12.6 with 3.3 gps fw , exactly the same behaviour ,seems that gps fw makes the battery meter go nuts,
So it appears that the battery drain problem is just a matter of bad meter calibration,
the question is ,why garmin support doesn't fix it , it's been a year since the problem occured ,people return their 520's to service or change batteries for a problem of misinformation regarding both garmin support and dodgy battery meters.

0 looigi over 5 years ago

Estimating battery level is tricky with Li-Ion batteries as the slope of the voltage curve is very shallow and is variable. With other devices, I've found that battery meter is adaptive and by letting the device run until it shuts down due to low battery it will recalibrate and have greatly improved accuracy. IDK specifically how the 820 meter works, but you might try this.

0 CaffeinePowered over 5 years ago

why garmin support doesn't fix it , it's been a year since the problem occured ,people return their 520's to service or change batteries for a problem of misinformation regarding both garmin support and dodgy battery meters.

Because they can charge £95 in the UK per exchange.

It's disgraceful.

I recently started a test ride with 36% battery. 20 mins later it had gone UP to 43%.

It rose steadily over the following 90 minutes to 46%.

It then dropped down at a steady rate and was still at 38% 3 hours later.

i.e. 2% higher than in the beginning.

Garmin are well aware of the issue, yet still no fix offered in over a year.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

It's utterly disgraceful, I don't trust 520 battery meter ,like I don't trust a broken fuel gauge, neither do I trust Garmin for their software updates.

0 Vincent_Chang over 5 years ago

I have done 3 indoor training about 4 hours in total. The battery was down to 1%. Then I recorded a dummy ride and left it running till shutting down. It recorded another 6 hours. I think you are right about calibration. Just I'm not sure this is still happening outdoors.

0 KevinJames over 5 years ago

Same here. Did a 5 hour ride recently, starting with a fully charge battery. After a few hours it was down to 2%. It then remained at 2% for the remainder of the ride (occasionally going up to 3%). I'm sure Garmin know what the problem is, they can't be that stupid!

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

It's tested and confirmed ,both indoors and outdoors. Battery meter is going nuts. I leave mine running in 2% and don't worry, actually It's better for battery life, to be charged when it reaches actual 20% of it's capacity, than recharge from 80% to 100%.
Actually there is no response from Garmin for a known problem found a year ago, users discover the solution by accident and Garmin does nothing to solve it.
Maybe this strategy will drive the sales of 520plus to skyrocket highs.
I wonder how many 520 users changed batteries and devices because they thought their batteries were faulty.
Such a shame Garmin.