Venu 2 Plus : Battery Drain Issue!

Like Eakchat, I've also been having power drain issues on my Venu 2 Plus (see this FB thread).

I've had my Venu 2 Plus since Saturday, 22 Jan 2022.

Basically, I am only getting just under two days of battery life on a full charge.

Settings:
    •    Gesture mode: timeout "Low"

    •    Display Brightness: Low (with auto adjustment)

    •    had SpO2 tracking at night the first few nights (drained 35% batt overnight), turned off evening of 25 Jan (drained 15%)

    •    since turning it to On Demand the O2 isn't being recorded when I do a Health Snapshot nor when I do a specific SpO2 reading

    •    approx 1-1.5 hours of gps use per day

    •    MoveIQ: On

    •    Watchface: Phoenix v2 from 22-24 Jan, then switched to one of the stock watch faces (with a rotating second line around the edge but otherwise no animation)

    •    didn't use music

    •    haven't used the speaker/mic since the first charge cycle (despite wanting to)

    •    Bluetooth: always connect to my phone

    •    Data Recording: Smart

    •    Firmware: v7.37 (added overnight via wifi 23-24 Jan)


According to Garmin's estimates I should be getting upwards of 9 days—though I realistically expected 5-6.

——I didn't think much of it the first couple of days as I was still in the set up phase and fiddling with it often. But I've become more aware of the issue in the days after and started keeping a log. I will expand on this below.

***Additional issues I've experienced (beyond the battery problem):

1) The aforementioned issue with Sp02 (since turning off the evening readings I don’t get Sp02 readings when attempting a Health Snapshot or individual Sp02 reading request)

2) Reordering of Glances (when I swipe up/down on watch): I noticed on 26 Jan that the order had changed from how I had set it. I first noticed it after turning the watch off/on after charging

3) Selecting Favourite activities and apps on the phone get continually reset.

22 Jan

330pm — turned on after unboxing, batt at 93% (I didn’t charge it)

Walk (GPS): 1:03mins total time (tested using Live Track)


23 Jan

Morning Health Snapshot

Bike ride (GPS): 1:06 elapsed time


24 Jan

Morning Health Snapshot

Firmware updated overnight via wifi

Noon: Charged when I got warning for low batt (10%)

Strength: 53min total time

Walk: 17min total time


25 Jan

640am — 64%
- noticed big batt drains
- turned off sleeping O2 tracker to see if same the next night
- switched gesture display to low (from high)

Morning Health Snapshot

Walk: 42mins total time

Walk: 32mins total time

540pm — 36%

Strength Work Out: 51min total time

702pm — put on DND mode for the rest of the night


26 Jan

640am — 8%

Morning Health Snapshot (It didn’t record Pulse Ox, I assume because of low batt)

Walk (GPS): 35mins — battery died about 500m from end, watch turned off
- 820am - plugged watch into computer/Garmin Express when I got home

958am: unplugged from computer, fully charged. Turned it off.
10am: Turned it back on.
- the order of my glances has changed without my changing them

1220pm: batt at 96%
- turned on battery estimator, says “9 days”

Walk (GPS): 35min total time
555pm: 85% after walk batt

Strength: 46min total time
658pm/8days

930pm — 77%
- put it on DND mode


27 Jan

Morning Health Snapshot
- again didn’t record Pulse Ox (set to On Demand)

656am: 59%

836am: 55%
- attempted just a Pulse Ox reading on it’s own: No reading.

859am: 54% / 5days

——> at this rate of power drain it is consistently still at 2 days. This despite Sp02 readings turned off.

---------------------------------

***Additional notes:

- I was advised on this FB thread to "power cycle" (turn off/on) after charging which I did the last time I charged it, that hasnt worked. Also, I already regularly power off/on a couple times a day: when I shower, after a workout to wash the watch.

UPDATE (29 Jan, 830am) — I think the problem is resolved (though I'm giving it another week to confirm it's not a blip)

After I wrote the above I contacted garmin chat online and spoke with Kevin (27 Jan, 10am). He asked me to connect my watch to Garmin Express and asked for the serial number and permission to run a diagnostic.

He wasn't sure what was wrong and told me that there was an update on the way (I was still on v7.37 at the time). He hoped that the update would correct it, but since it hadn't yet rolled out to my region to wait and see. His recommendation was to wait for the update then do a full reset (I'll include his instructions below). Meanwhile he continued his diagnostic.

While I still didn't have the update, I noticed that after this chat/online diagnostic the watch started draining at a much slower rate. I didn't change any settings and from what I can tell, neither did Kevin. But something about the diagnostic seemed to have snapped things into place in the watch:

27 Jan:

• 10am: Contacted Garmin Chat, plugged in my watch, Kevin does a diagnostic,
• 1030am: Fully charged, I unplug and power cycle watch
• settings still the same, used about 1.5hrs of GPS that day

28 Jan:

• 1030am: 89% charge remaining
• 214pm: v7.40 gets installed automatically on watch via wifi

29 Jan:

• 830am: 78% charge remaining

------------------------

I didn't have to do what Kevin recommended after the update as the battery issue seems resolved, but if any others are interested and want to try here they are below. I'd also recommend using Garmin chat and have them do a diagnostic as that seems to have been what resolved the issue for me.

Kevin:
I’d recommend restoring the device to default settings - this erases data from your watch.
Since the watch does need to be set back up afterward, it might be worth waiting until it receives the update we're currently releasing. If you'd like to try restoring it now, I'm happy to help.

Remove the Garmin Device from Garmin Connect Mobile
    1.    Open the Garmin Connect Mobile App
    1.    Android - Tap the 3 lines in the upper left corner
    2.    iPhone - Tap More
    2.    Touch Garmin Devices
    3.    Touch the name of your device
    4.    Touch the three dots in the top right corner
    5.    Touch Remove Device
    6.    Confirm you want to Remove the Device
Remove the Garmin Device from your Smartphone’s Bluetooth Settings:
    1.    Go into your Smartphone’s Settings
    2.    Locate Bluetooth
    3.    Locate the Garmin Device listed in your Bluetooth
    4.    Remove, Unpair, or Forget the Garmin Device from the Phone’s Bluetooth Settings (tap the blue ‘i’ on iPhone)
    5.    Confirm the Garmin Device is no longer listed in the Phone’s Bluetooth Settings

Once you have removed the devie from your Garmin Connect App and your phone's Bluetooth Menu, please restore it to default settings using these steps:
You can reset all of the watch settings to the factory default values. You should sync your watch with the Garmin Connect app to upload your activity data before you reset the watch.
    1.    Hold the lower-right button.
    2.    Select The Settings Icon > System > Reset.
    3.    Select an option:
    ◦    To reset all of the watch settings to the factory default values and delete all user-entered information and activity history, select Delete Data and Reset Settings.
NOTE: If you have set up a Garmin Pay wallet, this option deletes the wallet from your watch. If you have music stored on your watch, this option deletes your stored music.

Once your watch finishes restoring, it will reboot and display a Hello screen. Make sure the Connect App has been re-opened to the Garmin Devices menu, then proceed with device set-up on the watch until it enters pairing mode:
    1.    Open the Garmin Connect Mobile App
    1.    Android - Tap the 3 lines in the upper left corner
    2.    iPhone - Tap More
    2.    Touch Garmin Devices

From there, you should be able to pair and sync your device back to the Connect App. I would recommend not installing any Connect IQ apps/watch faces for a couple days to make sure they are not affecting battery or other features. If you continue to experience issues from there, please do let us know.

I am still having issues and on line diagnostics is not an option for my region (Croatia in Europe). I'd appreciate if anyone has additional help. I've reached to Garmin representatives in Croatia however no response yet. I am pretty upset because this is a brand new watch and its quite expensive. If I wanted 2 days of charge, I would've stuck with my Samsung. 

I have had other watches that do have actual built in VA, not just leveraging your phone, and from my perspective its usefulness is still super limited and it isn't wouldn't be a decider for me either way. If it was built into the watch itself I would consider that slightly more useful as you could then potentially use it if you had an alterative data source and your phone was out of range. But from its super limited usability, from my perspective - no benefit.

(good to see it, but if it cripples the water proofing and rating of the watch in anyway - would be a super hard no for me).

THE BATTERY DRAIN PROBLEM IS BACK

I had thought the issue resolved, but for unknown reasons it's mysteriously returned. No settings have been changed from the original post and from 10am, 27 Jan to last night (1 Feb) the problem seemed to have been resolved. Then beginning sometime last night, the battery is back to draining quickly.

Below is a brief timeline:

• 27 Jan, 10am
  • I contact Garmin Chat and speak with Garmin-Kevin, he does an online diagnostic
  • 1030am: 100% batt, watch is fully charged and I unplug and power cycle
  • 10pm: 93%
• 28 Jan
  • 656am: 90% batt
  • 210pm: 87%, firmware automatically updated (v7.40)
• 29 Jan
  • 753am: 79% batt
• 30 Jan
  • 909am: 68% batt
• 31 Jan
  • 1159am: 57% batt
• 1 Feb
  • 10pm: 37% batt
• 2 Feb
  • 637am: 10% batt
    • plug in to fully charge
  • 751am: 100% (power cycle)
  • 12noon: 93%

It's back to draining at a rate of approx 2 days. I've made no changes.

Hello af-toronto.  I see that you had a Live Chat session with another one of our agents named Kevin.  I have read through the transcript between the two of you and have some questions about your latest post.

1. Did you perform any GPS activities between 11:59a (on 31 Jan) and 6:37a (on 2 Feb)?
2. Did you make any changes to Bluetooth (BT) during this time (including removing and re-pairing the watch or turning BT off/on on the phone or the watch)?
3. May we, if necessary, have permission to email you?
4. May we, if necessary, have permission to view/access your Garmin Connect account?
5. In what country do you live?

Hi Kevin (sorry I thought you were the same Kevin!), thanks for the reply.

1) I did one GPS activity on the afternoon of the 27th (1hr 20min), and not any after that. I still went on walks, I just didn't record them as GPS activities

2) no, for the sake of ensuring a constant I changed no settings whatsoever. The only change that occured was the auto-update from v7.37 to v7.40 on the 28th

3) yes

4) yes

5) Canada (I live in Toronto, thus my login name)

Thanks for any help you can provide.