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Battery Drain Issues

I've generally been happy with battery life (about 15% drain/ 24 hours and 13% per hour of gps use).
However, I have noticed some erratic/excessive battery drain in the last few weeks.
I finally decided to measure/chart the battery drain -- see below.
I've written in other threads (like the 3.70 update and bluetooth issues) but thought I'd start a new one since I'm not sure what is the cause of problem and I cannot pinpoint when it started.

Anyway, here is my experience from last few days:

March 18
1600: charged up watch 100% (waited couple hours after it reached 100% to be certain full charge) (BT off)

March 19
0730: 72% (turn BT on)
1700: 64%
36 min run (gps)
1800: 53% (turn BT off overnight)

March 20
0700: 46%
1200: 43% (BT on)
1830: 33%

March 21
0735: 8%
1030: 7%
1300: 3%
1500: dead

(My usual watch settings are: "No Frills" watchface,** 20% backlight, no gesture, 1 sec gps recording, all sensors set to off)
** I've used the no frills watch face for a long time and have had good battery life with it, so unless something has changed with it, I cannot blame it **

0 godolphins over 6 years ago

[UPDATE]
Last night, I charged up va3m to 100% (at 1800 hrs).
I woke up (0730 hrs) to 78%
Loss of 22% in 13.5 hours is NOT good.
My iPhone was within BT range the whole time and BT was "on"

I will contact Garmin support today.

0 Fung1984 over 6 years ago

i bought it recently ..
i got exactly the same issue as you ...
daytime ~ wear 10hours battery drain 20%, the watch will consume 100% battery without any activity tracking , music playing/
i have already contacted Garmin support. they replaced a new one to me.
but the same issue happen ... i wanna downgrade the firmware to try,...

0 w8rabbit over 6 years ago

same issue since update to 3.70. Even an reset did not help. Yesterday i did an exercise and after 3h i only had 10% power left (started with 99%)

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

same issue since update to 3.70. Even an reset did not help. Yesterday i did an exercise and after 3h i only had 10% power left (started with 99%)

If you had GPS on and were streaming audio I would say that is absolutely normal.

0 w8rabbit over 6 years ago

I would say its not normal. I loose 5% battery every 10 Minutes. This huge battery consumption happens since some days. Iirc there was an BT update (ANT/BLE/BT v3.30) some days ago.

0 Jiffylush over 6 years ago

According to the product page on Garmin's site -

Battery life: up to 5 days in smartwatch mode or up to 4 hours when connected to Verizon, using GPS and playing music and using the LiveTrack feature over 4G LTE³

I believe the non-Verizon version claimed 5 hours of GPS while playing music.

I've noticed it's been draining a lot more as well. I don't use the music feature, but it is connected to the phone all the time and I use about two hours of GPS most days. I am now plugging it in every morning while I get ready because I'm usually around 50-60% in the morning.

Before the update that added Spotify, and possibly before the other few updates that have happened since then I didn't plug it in everyday and didn't have any sort of battery anxiety.

0 w8rabbit over 6 years ago

Vivoactive3 vs Vivoactive3Music
both have latest software versions installed, both only had GPS enabled (no music!)

after 4:19h the battery from Vivoactive3Music was empty. After 5:30h we stopped our tour and the Vivoactive3 had 18% battery left.

0 godolphins over 6 years ago

[UPDATE] Garmin swapped out my VA3M. On the first full charge, the battery on my new va3m is MUCH better:

March 29 (at 1500 hrs.): 100%
Today (April 2, at 1000 hrs), I have: 35%

This is just from normal mode (BT and notifications on/gesture off/ 20% brightness/morning alarm/1 sec gps recording) and 2 hrs. of GPS use.

Basically, I'm now experiencing before battery issues started (about a month or so ago) -- about 12-15% drain per 24 hrs. with normal use and additional 10-12% per hour of gps use.

** I did change my watch face from "no frills" to a Garmin stock one (shows digital time, date, battery % and has second ring moving around the face). So, I'm no longer seeing altitude at all times **

Keeping my fingers crossed!

0 billyjk over 6 years ago

I've waited since the last update to voice my concern about battery life, to ensure that I've been able to observe the problem over some time.

For sure, the battery suck on this new release is real - at least for me.

All of my settings are exactly the same as they've been since I got my VM3 last December. What used to be a 15-20% drop per 24 period, is now a 40%+ drop. It would be great if Garmin could look into this and resolve it.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Just my 2 cents, but this battery brain seems to be totally bluetooth related.

As long as bluetooth is connected all seems ok (~20% drain per day), but as soon as my iPhone is out of range, the battery drain starts and worse: connection isn't re-established until I manually connect using either Garmin Connect, or fiddle woth the BT settings on the iPhone.