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6.20 SW Battery Drain

Reuben
over 3 years ago

My 10 month old Vivoactive 4 is draining battery like crazy - any pointers or help to fix this?

  • Current software version: 6.20

Issues I've noticed so far

  • Battery draining at around 1% every 5 minutes
  • Crashes every night - have to do a restart every morning to turn the watch on (and seeing around 20% battery left)
  • Crashes while attempting to connect to Wi-Fi, check for updates

What I've tried so far (none of this seem to help)

  • Did a full factory reset by deleting data
  • Did a full recharge - shutdown - wait for 5-10 minutes - power up again
  • Tried to do a update, but each time it crashes after attempting to connect to the Wi-Fi

Need some help with this.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to 7204664

    Thank you. I'll check this out.

    Trying out the solution by Kevin now. Will try this one after that.

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

    Hello Kevin,

    Today is day 2 after trying out what you suggested and the results aren't looking promising. Please advice on how to proceed

    So far

    1. Charged to 100% battery and did a power cycle (turn off by pressing button A and selecting power icon > wait for few seconds > power up again by using the power button)

    2. Did a complete reset - Delete Data and Reset Setting from the watch

    3. Lowered display brightness to 10% and left everything to stock (did not download any watch face or apps, all stock)

    Issues I'm facing with the above set up

    1. Battery drain - 35-37% per day

    2. With the SPO2 tracking set to track only during the night - work up in the morning with a turned off device. Every time I tried to turn if on, it turns off after few mins. Sometime after 3-4 re-starts (around 09 AM) the device stopped crashing. Working fine since then.

    Please advice on what to do next. Or if I should retry any of the steps.

    Thanks,

    Reuben

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Reuben

    If the battery drain persists and if you have any Connect IQ (CIQ) Content, especially watch faces, you may need to delete that content until the independent developer is able to update their app/watch face to function correctly (without causing a battery drain) with the new firmware version on your watch.  You can use any of the 3 FAQs below to uninstall the CIQ content.

    How to Uninstall Connect IQ App Content Using the Connect IQ App

    How to Uninstall Connect IQ Content Using Garmin Express

    How to Uninstall Connect IQ Content Using the Garmin Connect App

     

    If you would like to submit feedback to the developer of the CIQ content, you can do so by clicking the link below and searching for the download page of the CIQ content.  In the bottom right corner of that page, you will find the option to contact the developer.

    https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/

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

    I do not have an Connect IQ content on the watch now, all that is there is what comes with the stock watch as I did a complete reset - Delete Data and Reset Setting from the watch.

    Let me know I this is a problem with the stock content present in the watch after a reset and I can try removing those.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Reuben

    I repost a previous comment, so Kevin would be appreciated if you could answer at least for Garmin developed CIQ watchfaces.

    That is maybe true that 3rd party watch faces drain the battery much faster than stock ones. This by the way started with updated 5.80 before it was fully normal. The other strange issue is that battery drain is not present even with non-stock watch faces if the backlight is turned completely off. On top of this also non-stock watch faces from Garmin (as a developer) cause the same issue so maybe you can transfer this to Garmin developers. To me it seems that there is a SW related issue which started as said after 5.80 version. Many users already reported this issue and it cannot be that all 3rd party watch faces (including Garmin ones) cause a battery drain and believe me I have tested a lot. Apart from this the watch works as expected as long as you stick with stock watch faces, but for me at least having the ability to update the way watch looks like was and is important. With the above hints hope you can solve the issue in future update.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to 4175353

    I completely agree.

    Before 5.80 CIQ faces worked fine (I use SHN TXD). Since then it's constant issues. I have had a replacement watch and I have factory reset. It's the same. The only thing that fixes this is turning the backlight off completely. Clearly a software issue!!

    cc:

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

    Updates 

    So far

    - all of your steps does not seem to help with the battery life - so far I'm averaging 3-4 days at the best, which is around 35-25% battery drain per day and that too with - display brightness set to 10%, no SPO2 monitoring, all stock apps

    Watch crash seems to have no rhyme or reason

    - with the SPO2 turned off, it was better for last 3 days, but today it started again

    - the watch crashes with no reason and seems to crash even after I turn it back on

    - it sometimes works or sometimes it doesn't

    Garmin - this is totally unexpected out of your products.

    Please provide some instructions to help resolve this or let me know the process to apply for warranty. I'm sure, this is something that's got to do with the device/software.

    Expecting a response at the earliest. 

    Note: Feels dumb for having opted for Garmin when there were a lot of other smart watch options out there. Please do not let me regret my decision.

  • +1 over 3 years ago

    Hello and .  If you have any Connect IQ watch faces installed on your watch, please refer to our previous statement in this thread.  If you do not have any watch faces installed, we recommend that you reach out to your local Garmin support team to explore more detailed troubleshooting (they may need your permission to view/access your Garmin Connect account) or possible exchange options.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    I have same issue. It's software bug after 5.80, but they don't want to fix it.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to 3425675

    Unfortunately true. Up to now I have not received any meaningful answer rather than to uninstall watchfaces including those developed by them although hints like disabling backlight have been provided to indicate a software issue.