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Forerunner 945 short battery life

2101753
over 3 years ago

I got a forerunner 945 a few weeks ago. The  battery life was good (about 10 days) until this last week. The battery seems to drain quickly. An example is today at 0500 the battery was at 98%, now at 0913 the battery is down to 88 % already.

I have gone to setting and set music provider to phone and restarted the phone. I have taken seconds off of my watch face and done a few other things to drain the battery the least it can be. 

Any thoughts or things to try would be great.

Thanks!

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Have you updated the watch software to the latest version? v.9.00.

    Connect to Garmin Express and install all updates. 

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to e7andy

    V9.00 is installed

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to 2101753

    Great. Make sure the pulse oximeter is turned off. That is a battery hog. Also use a minimalistic watchface with no fast updating features like seconds, steps, pulse etc. All data is avaiable as widgets in the widget loop that you find if you press up or down from the watchface.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to e7andy

    Meh, not necessarily an issue though... when badly implemented it can drain yeah but when properly implemented it's very efficient.

    My watchface has heartrate, steps, etc and I think I use 0.2 - 0.3%/hr (excl activities, watch is over 2 yrs old now)

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to FlipStone

    I just put a battery widget in and it looks like it is using %1 per hour.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    I found a restart of the watch fixed this for me earlier this week. Seems like some process was stuck "on" in the background.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to driscoll42

    A restart is good to do from time to time. I usually do one once a week when I remember to do it.

    Best way to restart is to hold the light button until the watch turns off. It appears to be a "harder" restart than using the Power off control.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    I'd suggest the following:

    Connect your watch via USB to Garmin Expresss and let it perform all the updates (just in case you are not yet on the latest firmware).

    Once done and the updates installed (if any), perform a factory reset from the System menu.

    Set up your watch as a "dumb watch" first after pairing it with Garmin Connect Mobile, disable Bluetooth, Wifi, do not download ANYTHING to the watch, no watch faces, no further apps, no nothing.

    Observe the power consumption now for two or three days. This is to ensure that your watch will show normal discharge under these conditions. If you already notice high battery drain here, it's something for the Garmin support as your battery might be defective. Rare, but happens.

    If everything is fine, try to perform changes step by step, e.g. enable music but don't change any watch faces etc.

    Continue step by step until you find the problem (or maybe it will just disappear).

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Some times after the firmware update a hard reset is needed. As someone else said, press and hold the light button until it powers off completely, (ignore the message about sending assistance, just keep your finger on the button) It will suddenly shutdown, turn it back on and you are probably good to go.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    I loose around 15-17% of battery per day with no activity, no pulseOX, no BT, no IQ watch faces or widgets installed with brightness set to mininum.

    No restarts or firmware updates help with this issue that started around 6 months ago.

    I talked with Garmin Support and they said that for a 2,5 year watch this is normal and should be expected.....(I doubt that this is true).