Garmin Forerunner 745 GPS battery..

Without music 16 hours. You can do a full Ironman and still have battery left. Seriously do you need more?

AFAIK 16 hours is the common cut-off time for a full ironman race. When garmin says "up to 16 hours", then you can be almost certain, that the watch won't last that long. And besides, there are people who do activities longer than 16 hours. And the FR745XT being just slightly smaller than the 945 (which goes for 36 hours), the 16 hour battery life is indeed surprising. Heck, the old 735XT was speced at 14 hours. Now you have the much more power-efficient GPS chip in the 745, and all you get is additional 2 hours? I don't get it either.

Agree that this watch is not for Ultra. There are other models designd for that. I guess 745 is for people like me who go as far as marathon and 1/2IM but not beyond.  

What the watch is designed for is actually not relevant. People keep scratching their heads, because similarly sized garmin wearables can go significantly longer than that, and some people are just dying to know the technical reason for it. Because I do not suspect it to be an artificially imposed limit just to make the FR745 worse.

Agree to your pretty much your whole message, and am one who is curious to the technical reasons - we'll probably never know though.  As you note, the life probably drops with quantity of connected sensors or any phone connection / notifications.  I'd still guess it would last for the "average" ironman finisher (being diligent to have a brand new watch with fully charged battery at start), but this is still a bummer.

tmk2 said:

AFAIK 16 hours is the common cut-off time for a full ironman race.

I think, unless it has changed, it is actually ~17 hrs (maybe slightly longer with rolling swim starts messing with the "last swimmer in the water" start time).

Yes, I seriously need more;). 30 hours at least, but therefore I have 945. I was just curious if anybody knows the reason. For example it would be interesting for me, if slighty bigger consumption is caused by better GPS precision (for example).

Y

kantalarski said:

Without music 16 hours. You can do a full Ironman and still have battery left. Seriously do you need more?

Yes I need more! My forerunner 935 started 3 years ago with 24 hours gps battery life. Now less than 10 hours are left.

Either Garmin uses inferior batteries or they added more bugs to the gps firmware that causes battery drains. 

My forerunner 935 still does wat I need, but cover a complete ironman? No it doesn’t.

I would never buy a garmin device with such low battery life. This just means in 2 or 3 years only 4 or 5 hours are left.

Or are you willing to spend 500 euro/dollar every year and generate a pile of e-waste?

I am not sure why this thread exists at all.

Garmin state the battery life of the 745, if that battery life isnt long enought for what ever reason, then go buy a fenix 6x pro, and get 60 hours in GPS mode. No point bleating on about why the battery life isnt any longer than it it, wishing for something it isnt.

Its not as if Garmin are keeping the battery life a secret. Surely you have something more in your life rather than to go on about something thats pointless.

There is a difference between buying a 745 and then complaining about batterylife. That’s stupid and you should have known better.

But there is also complaining about batterylife and not buying a 745. There should be a signal for garmin they have to look at a different way to the specs (if enough people complain)

Just telling no one is allowed to complain about the specs is.. just pointless?

Garmin have produced a product, the 745.

The specs are published.

If you dont like the specs, dont buy the device. Garmin produce a range of devices to suit everybody, go buy the one that works for you. If enough people dont buy the 745, they will either change it or withdraw it, thats the way the public can affect what garmin produce or dont produce.

Complaining that a new device doesnt meet your needs is completely pointless, because Garmin will just ask you what your requirements are, and then say, well the 945 or the fenix 5 or 6 is the right choice for what you want to do, so buy one of those instead as we dont recommend the 745.

Garmin make tens of millions of devices, how many complaints do you think they get ?. Making a complaint that a new device doesnt match your needs when others are available that do, will just be put in the bin.

The most effective move is to vote with your feet. Dony buy it.