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battery life issue

2268525
over 4 years ago

Got my V4 3-4 months ago. No issues. Through the summer used it daily, almost 24/7. Besides daily exercise, I was monitoring my sleep patterns. Five or more days before charge.

A week or two ago there was an upgrade. Seems that since then, battery lasts less than 24hrs. So, really recent issue.

I've seen a lot of info from a year ago. This seems new.

Help please.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    I definitely think it’s a firmware issue. Noticed that since 5.10 even if I turn off gesture recognition the watch face update on a gesture and even updates heart rate,...   Definitely didn’t do this with pre 5.10 firmware. Also 5.10 changelog says: “Fixed gesture handling for CIQ watch faces”. There’s some smoke here imho.

    Please fix this!

    Thanks

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    I noticed something that might be related or cause for the battery drain: There is one whatchface (Data Lover) which seems to be stuck in an update loop. It keeps saying there's an update available then tries to update, then it says again there's an update (though it seems to have momentarily stopped). 

    Even worse, I can't seem to be able to uninstall it. I tried for a week to uninstall it: from CIQ, from Connect, from PC with Garmin Express. Nothing works. It says it's uninstalling, but then it stays on the watch and it shows up again in the list of installed watchfaces in the app when I restart it. Sometimes it even sets it by itself back as my selected watchface. I contacted the developer of the watchface, but he (curtly) pointed me back to Garmin - and he's right. Even if an app or watchface is poorly written, the Garmin tools should always be able to reinstall it. So it's another fault on the Garmin side.

    For context, this watchface hasn't caused me issues before. I had it installed some time ago, but I wasn't using it. It seems that after one of the Garmin updates (5.10 probably), something threw this watchface in the update loop and started to drain my battery twice as fast as before.

    So, from the people who still have battery issues and haven't resetted to factory already, can you check if you have any apps or watchfaces which are stuck in the queue or in an update loop, or apps or watchfaces which you can't uninstall?

    (I will eventually probably re-format the watch, but I want to see first if there's any way to uninstall this watchface, and see if it solves the battery drain).

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to 1987017

    Exactly what happened to me. Although I was not using CIQ watch face but there was one installed even after reset. I think its any CIQ watch face because the installed watch face was from Garmin i.e. Titanium. It keeps coming back even though I removed it from CIQ store.

    Finally I removed the Titanium watch face from Devices --> Appearance. This time it gets removed from watch. Suddenly my battery back increased to 1% in about 2 hours. I'm getting 6-7 days backup now.

    So installing any watch face after 5.10 is useless now even though you are not using the watch face. I also realized that Garmin's software is a lot buggy and it will be painful to find a the root cause going forward if there is any issue by reading these forums.

    Even though my issue is resolved and I like the watch, I think I might be inclined to return this watch in January and move back to fitbit. The only useful feature which I love on this watch is using spotify offline music during workout which is lacking in Apple watch and fitbit.

    Also sleep tracking on garmin is garbage. I'm coming from fitbit and garmin is not even 10 % accurate compared to fitbit. it show me sleeping if I wake up and read on bed.  

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Garmin-AmberD

    ... This might not be the right way to seek help, but I'm desperate!

    I have a new Vivioactive 4s.  Set it up three weeks ago (11/25) and noticed major battery drain starting about 2 weeks after I had it. I wear it almost 100%. I've added a few runs (activity tracking, didn't listen to music from it).

    I've tried several things to extend the battery life (which didn't work), so I this morning, I decided to do a factory reset. Just finished the setup. I was at 83% when I started the setup. I've done NOTHING to it after setting it up (no activity, no widget setup, didn't add any watch faces, etc) and I am literally watching the battery % decrease while I am typing this message. No activity at all! Over the course of 15 minutes with NO notifications / alerts popping up, my battery life went from 73% to 45%.

    • Backlight at 30%
    • Backlight timeout short
    • Heartrate monitor on (monitoring my heartrate is important)
    • Activity Tracking - Status on, Goal alerts on, Move off)
    • Bluetooth connection to phone is on 
    • Broadcast Heartrate - Only abnormal heartrates 
    • Pulse Ox - Tracking only during sleep

    According to the "Battery Life Information" for this device, with Smartwatch mode with activity tracking and 24/7 wrist-based heart rate monitoring... I should get 7 days. I'm not even getting 3 hours! 

    Is something wrong with my device?

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to JessBP

    There's nothing you do wrong. There is an issue on Garmin's side with the latest firmware update, and the ticket was already filed to them. Try setting a different watchface, use the default Garmin's watchface and this will help with the battery drain.

    If this didn't help, I'd advise just to turn-off and turn on the watch (restart) for the beginning. If this doesn't help either - you can reset it to the default factory settings and this will definitely help.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to JessBP

    Hi Jess! I added you to our case that we have opened and I am also going to DM you regarding this. 

  • 0 over 3 years ago
    I have reached out to many users so far In regards to the battery drain that some users are experiencing. We would like for you to remove all CIQ apps, disable the Pulse OX and retest the device. After these steps have been completed, please tag me in the post with feedback then we can add you to the case to further investigate what's causing this.
  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Garmin-AmberD

    Hi Amber. I completed the steps in your post. Can you please add me to the case?

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Colin

    Thank you! I sent you a message!

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Garmin-AmberD

    Hi @garmin-AmberD,

    Can you add me to the case too?!

    Done all the steps mentioned and the battery drain appears to have stopped.
    As soon as I put a custom watch face on, the battery drain is that bad the watch lasts a day at most.

    it's a brand new watch, so if this issue isn't sorted by January I will be refunding it.