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Battery Drain

Former Member over 5 years ago

HI,

I just joined the Garmin bandwagon coming from fitbit. I had my V4 delivered to my office yesterday afternoon around 2pm.

Now, it was unboxed @ 57% battery, first thing i did was to charge it, upgraded to 3.60 (using Garmin Express). Took it off the charger @ 100% and had the following settings:

Gestures - off
Back light Brightness - 10%
Vibration Strength - Low
Pulse Ox - On while asleep
Notifications - Off while in bed

Now i tracked no activities for the rest of the day, and by the time i got home battery was at 88%, and i fiddled around with it some more till bedtime @ 82% (which i believe is fine). What surprised me was waking up this morning to see the battery was @ 30%.

Now my question to other V4 or Venu users is: could the pulse OX only when asleep drain over 50% in just one night?

0 JestaCat over 5 years ago

I don't expect this to be the pulse ox for all that drain. Tech opinion would be good to confirm this...

I would expect, like me, you're knocking the device during the night and turning the display on. If you sleep with your wrist near your body/face etc you might be activating the device during the night.

Try setting the "lock" option before sleep, see if that reduces the battery drain?

0 fallenwout over 5 years ago

Give it a few days. I have similar settings and it drains 0.75%/hr.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to fallenwout

Well, its been 6 days.

The drain is still bad, just not as bad as the first day. I notice when I reboot the watch after tracking an activity (due to the reported v3.60 bug) the drain reduces abit but i get 2 days max. So its still terrible. If I could get at least 4 days, I wouldn't be so bothered.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

I have exactly the same problem - still experimenting with my VivoActive 4 (about a week old now).

In the beginning, the battery drainage was shocking....my watch rarely last 2 days (and I also sleep with it, with Pulse Ox on for sleep as well).

Suspect it might be the BlueTooth setting? I switch it off, before sleep, and turn on the DND (do not disturb) option and somehow the battery life is slightly better.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

Same story here. Bought the VA4s for the wife. Stock default settings, updated to V3.6, first charge not good result. Second got 6 days in smart watch mode as no activities recorded. 3rd charge it started doing strange things like freezing up and then loosing battery very quickly on second day. 4th charge it died after 3 hours. Looking to return watch unless I get a solution from Garmin. The wife is not so happy at the mo

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

It's really bad. Today makes it a week since i've had the v4. The most i've got out of the device is 2 days

While i no longer have drains of 50% overnight, the discharge rate is way higher than most have reported. Mine discharges @ 1.45% per hour. This is with Pulse ox totally off and I track a 4km walk every weekday during lunch while at work using GPS, but never music.

Clearly the bugs in 3.60 are terrible and Garmin needs to do something about it. What would be the best way to contact them for an exchange/refund?

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

A few days ago i allowed the battery run down completely, and left it for a few hours in that state before charging.
It charged to 100% pretty fast, but the drain rate is still high. All i get is 2 days out of a watch that should at least last up to 4/5 days.

0 JestaCat over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

Have you raised a support ticket? They should ask you for activity logs and settings output to check your settings for you.

Otherwise back to place of purchase usually.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to JestaCat

No I haven't raised a support ticket. Where can i do so?

0 JestaCat over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

support.garmin.com