Is the Forerunner 955 Solar worth it, or should I consider another model or brand? Update: 955 Solar purchased! Battery life impressions inside! :D

Yes, and I'm curious what other 955 watches report. (Mine is -7 days disabling the low power watchface.)

The OP estimates 24 days of normal usage (w/ 3 hrs activities/week). However, I would be recharging in 8-9 days with similar activity.

i can't see from my menus how it would get close to 74+ days. i think roughly extrapolating, i am seeing 22 days with 72% left which is pretty close to 31 days.... extrapolating, that is suggesting 3%/day for smart watch use.

for the OP, that would be 72% for smartwatch and 28% for 9 hours of GPS use which seems reasonably in line.

one thing i don't see on my 955 is "activity tracking" as something that can be disabled under Power Manager. not sure if that got removed at some point or what...that would presumably turn off step and floor tracking which might save more power.

Also I think that if you have solar model it will add extra time based on past solar charging. At least the Instinct does that but not sure if that's true for all. There is one video on YouTube showing 2 days at 5% battery for solar model so likely it all shows consistently around 31 days in battery saver excl. solar charging.

Why the 255 has much longer battery life in battery saver mode I don't know for sure, but likely the cpu is more efficient and less powerful as it doesn't need to process maps.

I've seen Garmin removing activity tracking from Fenix/Epix2 as well so likely same here. There are some related settings now in health & Wellness. Turning off all settings there might help little bit.

good call on the potentially different processor tuning for the devices, but hard to know for sure.

i do have the solar model. on a good day of vacation when i was out in the sun, i was routinely saving about 2% of battery each day, so it would be possible to get some crazy range on the 955 solar if one were outdoors and treating it like a plain watch, but then, as suggested, one might as well just have a casio or timex.

First of all, I hope you get better soon. I also had my ankle injured twice during the last month, and it's pretty annoying having to stop so suddenly

My config would be, more or less, this:

• BT ON
• WIFI OFF
• Touchscreen OFF
• Stock watchface without seconds
• HR ON
• PulseOx On Demand
• Notifications OFF

One thing I usually do is keeping the watch charging for half and hour after It has reached the 100% mark. I think the watch is NOT on full charge when the number appears (quick charge) and I prefer to make sure it's fully charged keeping it charging for a little more time.

My firmware is 12.29, the one that came out of the box.

And this is the stock watchface I use.

Unfortunately, with my firmware, the estimates are quite useless since they always show less days than the real experience :-(

You could also double-check you have all alerts turned off in Health & Wellness settings (but likely no difference). This is kind of the old activity tracking on/off but with less control unfortunately (unless your older FW still has it).

Maybe estimates are lower due to solar charging? Weird enough the 955 (theoretical) specs show that charging rate differs a lot between GPS mode and watch mode:

• Smartwach mode: (100/15-100/20)/3 hours = 0.56% per hour (at 50K lux which is more like cloudy weather)
• GPS mode: (100/42-100/47)/100 = 0.34% per hour (at 50K lux)

Note in perfect conditions these numbers can at least double (no overheating so can't be too hot, battery state between 10-80% or so).

With Fenix series the numbers are closer between the modes (0.34/0.38%, must be something specific with the chipset drain in GPS mode).

it is possible, as your suggest that the Solar estimate is higher than the non-solar and based on past usage. but in my experience, i don't think that is true. during my first few weeks of ownership in June, i was traveling a fair bit and was definitely seeing the benefits of solar. during that time and onward, i still see a "day estimate" of 15 days on the watch itself when i fully charge the watch. so anecdotally, i don't think the estimate is showing the effect of solar. on the other hand, beyond a backpacking trip later in the summer, i don't get much solar benefit since i spend most of time time indoors and run early in the morning. even when there is sun out, its cool, so i often have my sleeve pulled over my hand to keep it warm, so not a lot of solar insolation there. [i do believe the 20 day spec is legit based on my days where i see significant sun. in fact, i think it could be exceeded]

aside: one of my major complaints of this watch is how useless the Solar glance is. the Fenix7 widget shows an actually numerical insolation value for the day. that would be very useful for the 955.

Hello everybody! :D

Small update, since yesterday I reached 50% battery:

• 50% battery
• 12 days since full charge
• 4 activities (running)
• 228 minutes of GPS Only (almost 4 hours)

I'll post the final data when I decide to charge the watch again (I won't push the battery to 0%). It will then be my fourth full charge.

Have a nice day and a better weekend!