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I need to downgrade my Forerunner 255's firmware

My Forerunner 255 updated on its own despite the ''auto update'' function being off!

I've had it for about two years and it had never updated before. The other day, I put it to charge and when I took it back, it turned off on its own, then turned back on with a gear icon on the screen, and proceeded to update itself.

One week later, the exact same happened to my wife FR 255, who also had that function off.

I am very pissed as it is very bad now!

- The battery lasts about half of what it used to.

- there's that new function called Naps, but it tracks naps very badly and says I'm sleeping when I'm just sitting watching TV, video games, etc.

- sleep tracking is way worse than before : I manually put it in sleep mode at 9.30pm yesterday and this morning it says I went to bed at midnight... Doesn't track when I wake up either, unlike it used to do before.

- some insight are bonkers. Yesterday, after doing a 34-km walk, it told me ''you still have plenty of body battery left for the rest of your day'', even though my body battery was 16.

- the ''controls'' screen looks bad, now when you have mode icons that the circular screen can show at once, it removes TWO spots, one that is replaced by 2 slash bars '' // '' and one that is just a gap between the first one and the last one of the circle. It used to be so much more harmonious, with just a bar and a ''+x'', x being the number of icons that are not shown.

The only thing I like about that firmware version is the new way to input reps and weights while doing a strength activity.

Given how messed up it is, we need to revert back to the firmware it had before, which was 16.xx

Please, tell me there's a way to do it.

Thanks heaps!

  • I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed the battery hit! I used to be able to get like 65 days in battery saver mode on my 255 on a full charge. Now the most I've seen is 28 (still a lot, but it used to be WAY better).

  • it's super disappointing! 

  • the same opinion than older version was better

  • Dont blame you - my watch is measurably worse now than it was 2 years ago and all from "updates".

    Battery life has gone from 10-12 days to 3-4 with daily activities.  Pace used to be an approx 5 second average, now its nearer 30 making it near impossible to stick to.  Sleep tracking is less accurate (2 nights running its logged me as sleeping while watching movies).

    The wrist HRM is far buggier with far more inaccuracies or total failures to lock.

    LTHR used to be an accurate manual chest strap activity.  Now it picked them at random with about a 10bpm variability depending on what run im doing and i cant reject its new offer.

    Plenty of other issues.  I wish i could go back but my watch is AIPAC so wont take the US/EU firmware files.

  • Thanks! I got someone to send me an old firmware file but I cannot instal it on the watch. When I follow the procedure, nothing happens as if the watch didn't see the file.

  • It's barely any good now... Stress graph is off the charts, HR is bonkers, sleep tracking is a joke, body battery is crap - which is to be expected since it largely depends on Stress... It's only good for sport activities, and ONLY when linked with a chest strap. A good chunk of money in the trash. 

  • What is a recommended firmware version to downgrade to? I'm new to FR255 so I'm not familiar with how good past firmware versions were.

    Does any firmware version work with the currnet Connect IQ watch faces, or is there a minimum version for that?

  • 19.18 or earlier. Give me feedback about results of operation downgrade

  • I've seen 16.19 and 11.12 mentioned as good reference versions -- does anyone have feedback on these versions? For 19.18 I can see threads complaining about bad battery life and unresolved HR issues.