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Battery consumption: initial observations?

i know it's probably way to early to start this discussion, but i figure crowd sourcing may yield some insights. in short, after very disappointing battery use, in particular smart watch mode endurance on my 945LTE, i have been hyperaware of how much battery use my 955 Solar is using. just overnight (8-9 hours), i was surprised to see it dropped 3-4%. it may be that the battery gauge is poorly calibrated, but so far, even though one would guess it has a larger battery than the 945LTE, i'm finding consumption not very different.

on the positive side, for my one activity so far, a 70 minute run with Multiband+All satellites, i used up 6% which right on target with spec. (basically zero sun since i ran before and just as the sun was coming up).

i'd love to hear other people's impressions and experiences as some of you have had the watch (just a bit ;) ) longer.

  • I found exactly same thing....How to ask Garmin to improve it?

  • Hey, at least nice to see someone confirming this!

    Wondering if you have any sensors attached? I thought it might have somethign to do with that, but could indeed be GPS as well (though I think I also head it once with an activity where I had GPS disabled).

    Not sure how to contact garmin, I had contact with (dutch) support regarding the map issue (not being able to select a location on the map for navigation) for which I had to send additional info so they can send it to the software team.

    Communication is slow though, might try english support for this one. Knowing this at least helps in the sense that I just reboot the watch (whcih luckily also doesn't take too long).

  • I really think that when doing an activity (with some ant+  device attached) something isn't shut down properly... I almost always see a drain after having done an activity until I restart the watch.

    Over in the Fenix 6 forum I connected a Stryd and 2 external HRM sensors. Battery drain of 1.5% per hour in watch face mode immediately occured.

    https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/fenix-6-series/297242/sensor-battery-status-now-in-gc-inc-non-garmin?pifragment-1292=5#pifragment-1292=8

    'I paired the Polar H9 by ANT for the first time to the Forerunner 255. I deleted all BT pairing yesterday from the Fenix 6 as the watch started battery drain even in smart watch mode outside of activities. Drain issue solved as soon as the new pairings added yesterday were deleted. There is probably a bug with a 'hanging' BT connection in BT/ANT/BLE so a BT session is left open on the watch when it should be closed.'

    I agree - some connection is left open that should be closed. I guess the bug followed over to the 955?

  • I charged to 100% on Saturday morning. Did 6 hours with All systems and dual band. Speed sensor, power sensor, ext hr session attached. A good bit of messing with it as well. On 60% now. I was seeing about 5% drop per hour stint - in line with expectations. 

    was 6x1hr sessions with 3hours in between

    Watch face is stock, spO2 is on Demand

    Posting for informational purposes only.

    Drain outside of exercise is not as I would like

  • For me, it's almost definitely because of sensors and not GPS.

    When I disable all of my external sensors the battery drain is reduced to a "normal" 6% per day. After an activity in which I had the sensors enabled again the drain went up to about 5% per hour. As soon as I disabled the sensors again it returned to normal and has been holding steady. 

    No restart needed in my case.

  • Which sensors?

    At the weekend after every one hour session I was still within sensor range of my Garmin speed sensor, still wearing a HRM-Run (didn't take off for 24 hours) and my assimo power meter.

    I wonder is there something specific to a type or brand of sensors.

  • Interesting, enabled bike activity to work this morning to test it (no sensors attached now) and currently 2% in 4 hrs which is more then usual but not as bad as usually after an activity. Will keep an eye on it and test simply disabling sensors next time after an activity (only use Polar OH1+ HR strap myself).

  • Hi, dear FlipStone,

    During running, I attached RDP, but I think it's low possibility the root cause is from attached sensors because I also did some testing below,

    -Remove all sensors,

    -Reboot watch

    -Did outdoor swimming with my 955 for just 10mins,

    After this I monitored the battery status for 5 hours, it dropped from 14% to 4% within 5 hours, which is horrible...

    I reboot my 955 again, after about 8 hours to next morning, the battery still remains 2% which became normal again...

  • Something is wrong with my device at least. I am a stryd user but i put every sensor on "inactive" yesterdays, went for a long run. The 955 drained about 10% an hour without music. I went to bed with 50% battery and woke up with 23%....

    I've contacted garmin but have not yet get a response.

  • Fully Charged mine (non solar 955) . Did a 1hr run with HRM-PRO and full GPS. Its now at 91%