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Vivoactive 4S battery drain overnight - Only have watch for 6 days

Former Member
Former Member

I am a new Garmin user and decided to buy the Vivoactive 4S after such a disappointing experience with Fitbit's Charge 4.  The Vivoactive 4S is very expensive (over $500 CAD with tax) so I expect the watch battery to last up to 7 days in smartwatch mode as advertised.

I started wearing the watch on Tuesday Sept 8th when it arrived.  I charged it when I got it but I don't remember if I charged it to 100%.  Anyway, from Tuesday to Saturday at 5 pm (almost 5 full days) I have worked out with the watch twice and the battery was only at like 20% or so (i never used GPS to workout and I don't ever plan to).  On Saturday around 5 pm since my watch was around 20% I decided to charge my watch to 100%.  It only took under and hour to charge and I was next to it at my desk the whole time, so I didn't leave it overcharging for that long at all.

I didn't check what my battery life was like when I went to bed Saturday night, but the next morning (today) I was woken up at 7:30 am with a notification that my watch was only at 10% battery.  I have no idea why it drained so much overnight.  I didn't change anything about my watch's settings on Saturday.  Pulse Ox and Wifi are NOT on for my watch (Pulse Ox isn't' even installed on it). 

I have no idea what happened to my watch overnight and I am worried it is defective.  I did play around with some watch faces at the IQ Store on Wednesday but I ended up uninstalling watch faces I downloaded and I use one already supplied in the watch from Garmin.  I would be skeptical that adjusting the watch faces is the problem though, because I did that literally on the second day I wore the watch and the battery life continued to be good until Saturday. 

I still have 15 days to return it for a refund and given how expensive it is I may do so if I can't get the battery life to improve.  Does anyone have any tips on what I can try?  Thank you.

  • Have you tried to switch if off and on again? 

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to ovekvam

    I fulled charged my watch to 100% this morning by 9:50 am.  I was shocked to see that by 5:15 pm today the watch still said it was at 100%.  I didn't really use it much today but thought it was odd that it was still reading 100% after 8 hours.  Then I worked out for an hour (just did strength training and tracked it with the watch) and it still said 100%!  Makes me worried that the watch isn't properly displaying how much battery is actually left.

    Just now I saw your suggestion so I just turned my watch off and on again.  The battery now says it's at 97%.  Not sure what to think at this point but I will take note of where the battery is before I go to bed and see what is says in the morning. Thanks for your tip - hoping it works. 

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 4 years ago

    Got Software update on Saturday (12.09.2020.) and since then the battery drain is very high during the night. I noticed this since Saturday so I had a closer look on the battery usage in the past 24 hours. Have only Activity Tracking and Move IQ enabled, BT is off, screen brightness low/backlight off.

    • Yesterday at 9am had the battery recharged to 100%.
    • Normal usage during the day. No GPS tracking. No BT enabled. No sports activity recorded.
    • Yesterday at 11pm battery was down to 92%, which is normal battery usage.
    • Today I woke up at 6am and the battery was at 72%.
    • 13 hours of normal usage, 8% battery drain. 7 hours of sleep, 20% batter drain.

    So, something weird is happening in the "Normal Sleep Time" period, when the DND sign is on... or should I be worried about me sleepwalking in the night.

    I went on a ride on Sunday, with full GPS tracking etc., and the battery usage was as usual. No difference at all.

    I hope this problem will be fixed.

  • Me and couple of other users have the same problem after latest update. see "vivoactive 4 (all versions) SW 5.10" thread at top of the VA4 forum

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Hi Igor 
    I have the exact same experience over the last few weeks. Did you/Garmin find a solution? 

  • I have the same problem. I have got the watch since juli. The first two monds i have to charge it once in a week. Since 1 or 2 weeks i have to charge it every day! 

    Is it possible to uninstall the last update?

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 4 years ago

    As already stated here, there is a forum post regarding this issue. https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/healthandwellness/f/vivoactive-4-series/238197/phased-rollout-20---vivoactive-4-all-versions-sw-5-10

    There is a description how to revert the firmware to a previous version. Me personally, don't want to do any revert on my own, change files, delete files, edit/modify files, uninstall apps, face watches, install them one by one, monitor if things are better etc.

  • Hi guys, good morning. I'm sure you've all had experiences with smartphones and apps that drain the battery insanely. I personally interpret the smartwatch as a sport watch and health watch. For me it would be unthinkable to use an Apple Watch and recharge it twice a day to monitor sleep and sports performance .... Some watch faces weigh heavily on the battery, especially those faces that have data variability ...

    My experience with va4 is: 

    forums.garmin.com/.../congratulations-garmin

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

    same here!