Paused Rollout - vivoactive 4 Series- SW 5.30

These updates do not add important Activities and Workouts or improvements,

... it seems that Garmin technicians only know how to play golf!
... but Golf, is it a sport? ... so why don't they also add chess and bowling? 

Hey, don't give Garmin any ideas about bowling... But in all honesty we'll sooner see bowling than hiking on this watch, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

marco bologni said:

These updates do not add important Activities and Workouts or improvements,

... it seems that Garmin technicians only know how to play golf!
... but Golf, is it a sport? ... so why don't they also add chess and bowling?

I promise that if they would add chess and bowling, I will no longer complain about sleep tracking and pulse ox.

The fact that this watch as well as Garmin Connect invest so much in golf is actually one of my big turn-offs. It feels like subsidising Trump.

Well, it's fairly obvious that with my average use, that 5.3 has a higher battery draw than 5.1 using a stock watch face. 

Also, calibrating altitude is still a crap shoot. @Garmin-AmberD Please fix this. It's just a coin toss at which altitude the watch will settle its calibration to. It was reliable and consistent with earlier versions from 4.6 to around 5.0. Let me say that again... CONSISTENT. Emphasis on this too.

I'm Ok with it being not perfectly accurate, but that I have to wait over 2 minutes now post "GPS Ready" signal, that is not acceptable. 

Today at the beach, first calibration was -56meters. Second one was -19meters. (this was with my phone connection off) With phone connection on, it was 25meters. After that it was 21 meters. After the 7th try, it was at 3 meters, which was accurate. TWO MINUTES after GPS Signal turned green!!! And yes, everything was up to date, with a CPE file updated just yesterday, less than 24hours ago.

Funniest of all, at one point my pressure measurement on the watch was showing 1018.4, and sea level corrected pressure was 1018.6, yet I was at 25 meters above sea level according to my watch. Seriously! 

Make life for us easier and introduce a control centre option to "calibrate altimeter", just like your set time by gps tool. How about allowing the user to set the altimeter?

Skip the whole automatic GPS calibration when starting an activity. It doesn't work. When GPS is ready, and I press start, altitude IS ALWAYS WRONG. 

I've factory restored my watch now more times I care to admit, but it's been more than 4 times since September. Most of the time it was to fix bugs or issues brought on by "stable" updates. 

My Garmin EDGE 530's barometer readings are also totally bonkers. One morning at my doorstep I'm at 10meters, the next I'm at 56 meters. I remember getting the thing and being impressed how consistent the barometer was. Hardly an error greater than 5 meters every time at the start of a ride. 

Same question.

This 5.30 update it's worse than the 5.10 with regards to battery drain. At least with 5.10 it was only the CIQ watch faces that were affected. Now with the stock ones (which are pretty bad compared to other garmin watches btw), my watch loses about 30% each day (compared to 10-15% before all this mess started). It's strange because the battery life is significantly worse at night despite not using sp02. This is getting ridiculous Garmin...

I've had significantly worse battery life at night until I turned off the backlight.

The problem is the watch activates the backlight with a single touch of the watchface, even with gestures off. During the night you can & probably will inadvertently touch the watchface on your other arm. Do this a lot and battery drain will be high. 

The Venu has a double tap to turn on the screen. I had a Venu and never had the screen turning on at night.

I think this is an important difference between the VA4 and Venu, which doesn't get mentioned.

I would prefer the VA4 to have the double tap but doubt Garmin would change it.

My workaround is to put backlight setting as the shortcut. A simple swipe and tap activates or deactivates the backlight.

I find I don't use the backlight very much and can live with the workaround.

My battery life is now ~9% per day (no GPS activities)

This is on firmware 5 30.

I should have added I don't have any CIQ watch faces or widgets installed.

I use the analogue built in watch face with always on second hand. I had a Venu for a few months but missed being able to glance at the watchface, so sold it and replaced it with the VA4. I don't miss the OLED display and find the enhanced usability of the VA4 always on display compelling.

I generally avoid digital watchfaces as I can't read the time when I'm not wearing my glasses. However, with an analogue watchface I can see the position of the hands & hence get the time .

I had a severe problem with battery life (only 24-36 hours). Yesterday and today I went back and forth with some firmware versions.
To day I went to 5.3 and deleted all of my watchfaces except Simple TDB and WeatherFace.
I am using WeatherFace and suddenly my battery drain is (almost) gone. Go figure!

Why is this taking so long to reach all users?

It's been 50% for a week now, ransomware again?