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Anyway to downgrade firmware? 7.2 has been absolutely killing my standby battery life.

danamkaplan
over 2 years ago

UPDATE: I sent in my watch for a replacement with a new battery after talking to support and so far the standby life has been EVEN BETTER than before, even on 7.2 firmware. 

I've been using my Vivoactive 4 consistently since May 2021. I use no HR or other sensors. Simply run GPS for my runs and bikes and have it as a minimal smart watch most of the time. It has consistently easily lasted 6-9 days (depending on how much my sleeves wake up the screen light).

Over the last month i've noticed a sudden drop in battery life. Like losing 25% on my bedstand overnight. Barely makes it passed 2.5 days on my wrist with no GPS activities. etc...

I've turned off all sensors. Use a very lightweight watch face. I really feel it must have to do with the firmware upgrade to either 7.1 or 7.2 based on the forum posts here.

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Try rebooting the watch.  Press and hold the upper button for about 20 seconds and the watch will turn itself off.  Then turn it back on.

    This is different than using the control to turn the watch off.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

    Unfortunately this did not help. Lost 3% in an hour of standby after.

    I forgot to mention I tried a "factory reset" and set up everything how I like it again and there was no improvement to stand by battery life. 

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    What do you mean by "very lightweight watch face"? IS it Garmin stock watchface or one from CIQ app store?

    Did you use same watchface before update to 7.20?

    Try using garmin stock watchface for a week and see how it goes.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Vizi

    I use https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/87a520fc-88a1-4297-9f8e-f950ec2e54bb with most all elements removed - except hour and minute hand. I've have this face for most of my time with the watch (A year and a half). I will try with a stock face but I don't think that is the reason for the standby drop. 

    Do you use a Vivoactive 4 with 7.2?

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to danamkaplan

    Yes, and I have no battery issue but I use stock watchface

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Vizi

    Update is that the stock watch faces do not help with battery life. It still drains 25-30% on standby overnight. 

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to danamkaplan

    You have 2 options:

    1. Try factory reset

    2. Write to Garmin support

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    I have the same problem...2-3 days of battery life

    I try firmware 7.20 and 7.30 beta

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Same problem here with va4. Been using it since july 2020. Did not change any setting or watch face in months and suddenly about 2 weeks ago battery life is dropped from 5 days to less then 1 day. Already did a factory reset with everything set to default, but did not help. Also tried beta 7.30 with no result. Already contacted support and they suggest to exchange my watch with a refurbished one costing me 150 euros :/

    Hope somebody knows a solution for this.

    On the other hand it is possible that my battery did actually die after 2 years and 3 months of usage, but all occured so suddenly. When a battery dies I expect that battery life is in a couple of weeks/months slowly dropping from 5 to 4 days and later from 4 to 3 days et cetera. In my case it happened in one day.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 6973120

    New software updates csused serious battery drain problems for some users of range of garmin watches (forerunner 255 and 955, epix 2, fenix 7) and now vivoactive 4. Wahtever garmin did, they messed up badly. Hardware does not break suddenly after software update, especially not on whole range of watches.