Battery draining 20-25% per day

I think the single biggest source of improvement was switching from a third party watch face to the Garmin watch face and going basic. I may eventually go back and try more detailed watch faces, but I have gotten used to the simple look.  All of the other data is available in a widget and only a swipe away.

The three things that I know I did just before the improvement in battery life were change the watch face, charge the watch for an hour beyond when it showed 100%, and change the music source to "Phone".

That sounds really great but it seems like you have so many of the basic features turned off to achieve that and it seems like you shouldnt have to do that to get the battery life as advertised. I did edit the basic watch face to add HR and steps so I will remove those and test if it is any better. I have also reported but after a week got only a "canned" response about updating the firmware and  how different settings affect battery life. I was thinking sort of... duh. 

test continue: I'm on 65% after 76hours in smartwatch mode, 11% per day (https://photos.app.goo.gl/3ospAvrNjwtVycKp6)

jha2, Where I can find that watch face ? You did it by yourself ? Now I set up one of the pre instaled digital face without second, so wi will see...
My battery life is abaut 4 to 5 days. I have only notifications and HR on.

Actually, I am at about 7.5 days so far with about 3 hours of GPS for the week and am still at 51%, so that is a 14 day pace, though I never run it down that far. I mainly use the watch to track my runs (with Garmin Coach) and, when it warms up, my bikes and swims. I would like HR and steps displayed on the watch face but frequently updated data on the watch face (like seconds) is a known battery killer. HR in particular fluctuates frequently, so I suspect it harms battery life.  I would prefer a more detailed watch face that has the option to update the data only once a minute, but I have not found one yet. I really don't use things like notifications much, so I don't know how much of a battery killer they are.

I’ve had problems with my vivoactive 4s regards battery life. I noticed that if I didn’t use the GPS then the battery life went down slowly. However once I’d used the GPS to track a run then the battery lasted 2-3 days at most losing 20% in the night. It was though the GPS was still running in the background. This week I did an experiment. I fully charged it Wednesday night and then when I tracked a run with GPS once the run was finished and saved I turned my watch off and turned it back on again. Touchwood it seems to have worked as I’m still on 43%. Looks like it could be the GPS. 

Some pics to supplement my posts.

Wow that’s amazing, I can believe regarding the watch face with seconds hand; I also did notice more drain on it and had to change to analog face. I like to see my steps and HR on watch face perhaps that is also draining battery. However I feel that turning all these functions off defeats the purpose of the watch and takes out the whole experience. I feel that the battery life claim from Garmin is misleading. I am amazed how I can get 6.5 days on the Venu and get much less on Vivoactive 4 with same settings. Thanks a lot

I think having Notification OFF is key here. I personally use a Polar Vantage M and I do not use notifications (I got bored of them when using an Android watch previously). Having notifications off makes a huge difference I guess but most people chose this watch to have an ideal balance between an activity tracker sport watch and its smart watch features. My wife is using a VA 4s (I do the forums bit for her :) ) and this watch never does 5+ days unless you turn notifications off.