Battery status reporting

Are you sure your batteries are not fake? That's the kind of hours I would get when using batteries purchased off Amazon. I have two sets of Vector 3's one single system and one dual I just replaced the dual set at 114 hours and currently at 109 hours on the single.

For the last two rides when I open my Edge 1000 I get a low battery warning for the vector 3 pedals. So I ignore it, as you do, and they work fine. When I open the activity in Garmin connect on the laptop it says battery status low, no surprise there as it is getting that from the edge 1000. When I open the mobile app on the phone afterwards and connect to the vector 3's it tells me the battery status is good..!!!! I intend to just carry on riding until they stop working to see which is right. Just wondering have others had similar issues?

One day later and the phone is now saying battery low so have swapped out. 30 hours of riding is a bit disappointing but I can live with it...

What you're seeing is the batteries "recovering" from use. When batteries are under load they will show a slightly lower voltage. Not to get into battery chemistry and make up to far: as more current is drawn from the batteries, increased voltage is dropped across it's internal resistance, lowering the voltage from the battery. But when you turn off the device, the battery voltage will slightly rise. Here is my last ride from the .fit file:

9/11/2018 Ride

Ride Start: TYPE=3 NAME=device_info NUMBER=23
--- software version=3500=35.00
--- battery voltage=683=2.67 V
--- battery status=3=ok

Ride End: TYPE=8 NAME=device_info NUMBER=23
--- software version=3500=35.00
--- battery voltage=658=2.57 V
--- battery status=4=low

So the Vector will produce a low battery warning at 2.60 volts. as you can see before my ride they were at 2.67 and after 2.57. I did get a low battery warning again. Now when I checked it today with the Garmin app it shows that the batteries are good! I checked the voltage and they are back up to 2.65 volts. But when I ride again they will drop below the 2.60 volts and flag the low battery warning again. This will happen all the way down to 2.59 volts when you will get a low battery warning right when you connect to them, beginning of ride.

So that is how you can bounce back and forth between Good and Low as the batteries wear out.

They need to add in one layer in the middle, Battery High(good), Battery Med and Battery Low. Something along those lines.

From what I have read the Vector 3s will operate down to 2.35 volts and then turn off. So you will have plenty of time after the first low battery warning to keep using them. I have been using mine for the past three weeks since the first low battery warning and you can see I have plenty of battery power left to go.

I'm experiencing same problem. At start the battery status is ok but after a while during activity the alert battery low pop up on screen! After 55h it seems too early. TYrying to do the same as you. Discarding the alert and going on till the end :)

I concur with what aawhyte has said. My original batteries (Varta LR44s) gave me the low battery warning after 36 hours, but I continued to use them until I started to get dropouts which was after 64 hours, when the voltage reported was 2.45v.

My next set of batteries were Ex-Energy CR1/3N that I bought from Amazon - 6 for £8.99. These lasted for 100 hours before I started getting dropouts. The voltage reading never dropped below 2.78v so I never got a low battery warning.

I am now on a set of Duracell SR44s, which have have now done 60 hours and the voltage reported oscillates between 2.90v and 3.09v which is the same as when they were new. I am expecting 100+ hours from these, but the drop off in voltage may be fairly sudden as it was with the CR1/3Ns.

I'll go back and finish the other 2 sets of CR1/3Ns before deciding on what to use next, but the SR44s do seem to be good performers, and they are officially sanctioned by Garmin, unlike the CR1/3Ns.

New Vector 3 user here that are 40 days old - 48 hours usage. On my second ride of the day I got the battery low message on the Edge 520 and later spotted it in Garmin Connect site. Checked via bluetooth on the mobile app this morning and it appears to say good.

Will check out the data in the fit files as per aawhyte suggestion, I work in IT and totally get it :) Surprised Garmin don't display this battery info in Garmin Connect - it would be super useful.

aawhyte Could you point me in the right direction on how you obtained the battery voltage data please. I've tried various online convertors and Golden Cheetah and still can find it in my FIT files.

Could you point me in the right direction on how you obtained the battery voltage data please. I.

Here's a couple of options. I use the perl script referred to in this thread: https://forums.garmin.com/forum/into-sports/cycling/vector-3/1348593-battery-amount-of-hours There's links in the second and third page where you can find it.

Or, bloom34 talks about another one in the last post of this thread: https://forums.garmin.com/forum/into-sports/cycling/vector-3/1396458-battery-low-here-we-go

Error

[QUOTE=John.Grenfell;n140875 Could you point me in the right direction on how you obtained the battery voltage data please. I've tried various online convertors and Golden Cheetah and still can find it in my FIT files.

Hi John, Go here:

https://fit2tcx.runalyze.com/temp/

and upload your fit file. Then do a search (ctrl-f) and search for bike_power. Depending on how many devices you have hooked up you will find several entries.

Here is a full section for one of the power pedal entry.

= TYPE=3 NAME=device_info NUMBER=23 ---
timestamp=907266967=2018-09-30T18:36:07Z ---
serial_number=
cum_operating_time=174548=174548 s ---
unknown15=5=5 ---
unknown24=3842730965=3842730965 ---
manufacturer=1=garmin ---
garmin_product=2787=2787 ---
software_version=3500=35.00 ---
battery_voltage=680=2.66 V ---
device_index=4=speed ---
antplus_device_type=11=bike_power ---
hardware_version=51=51 ---
battery_status=3=ok ---
ant_network=1=antplus ---
source_type=1=antplus

You are looking for two of these. One will be from the beginning of your ride and one will be for the end. You can then compare the two voltages listed as battery_voltage.
You can also use the cum_operating_time. Just google 'seconds to hours converter' It is in seconds so convert to hours/minutes to see how long the batteries have lasted so far.

Turned out in the end the pedals were faulty and running the batteries down even when not in use. The battery life was a function of how long they were fitted and not how long used. Pedals replaced very quickly by Garmin and now work perfectly with no rapid degradation.