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

Actual Battery Life

bigjac1
over 5 years ago

Anyone know the actual battery life. Garmin says 20 hr. with 2 sensors hooked up. So I would assume most have Bluetooth,HR monitor and GPS going while riding. So how many ACTUAL hours do you estimate? THX

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    My 530 is 18 months old,  I manually set many of the settings that "battery save" mode adjusts but I think mine are a bit more efficient in some areas. So backlight 10% (rather than auto) but turns off after 15/30 seconds, "smart" recording, no Turn Guidance but mostly on map screen following a route, no BT (phone) or wi-fi connections while riding, have a speed & a cadence sensor, rides mostly daylight but "long" rides might involve an hour or two pre-dawn and / or post-dusk, if more at night (or over-night) I can survive by pressing a button (up/down) to light it up for the 15/30 seconds every now and then to check progress but if a tricky route I might have to keep 10% going longer.  I am getting 40-45 hours between charges although if over 30 with big ride coming up I will charge it before, pretty happy with that.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to meltonboy

    Measuring current drawn from a USB source with the internal battery fully charged gives a good indicator of the relative power use of different settings. Low backlight settings don’t have a big impact, high ones do and WiFi is also power hungry. It comes down to personal preferences for convenience and functionality tradeoffs. I agree with disabling any unused ANT+ sensors as a bit of power is used searching for them, but receiving signals from connected sensors uses a negligible amount.