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

Hello everyone. I'm looking for a replacement for my old Forerunner 645 Music, and I'm looking for the Forerunner with the most autonomy that best suits my watch uses, both for daily use and for 2-3 hours of GPS with music per week.

And I have a candidate, the 955 Solar.

But I have doubts about the autonomy, and I would like to ask you.

I want to ask you two basic questions:

  1. I would like the battery in smartwatch mode to last about 20 days. This would mean a consumption of 5% per day.

    I don't want notifications or similar. Just clock, steps, and HR. That's enough for me.

    I have seen around here, in the "Battery consumption: initial observations?" thread, thanks to the contributions of mates like @derek87 or @FlipStone (thanks so much, dudes!), that there are even people who have only a drain of 3-4% per day. Or at least it was like that.

    Are there still people with that consumption? Do they really exist?

  2. The Battery Saver mode would help me a lot to not be aware of the battery for many more days, but in battery saver mode, are steps, FR, and sleep tracked?

    Because one option would be to leave the watch always in battery saver mode and, if this mode counts the metrics I want, remove it only for my 2-3 hours of weekly GPS.

  3. This more than a question is something I have almost decided. I think I will go for the 955 Solar since I live in a VERY sunny place, and as soon as there is a sale on the model I will surely appreciate the small battery boosts. And more so because my GPS runs are with music, which consumes more, and I would somehow try to balance that fact.

As you can see, my main concern is to see if there are people, as I have read here (but with other older firmwares), that, with a simple configuration of the 955, have a battery consumption of only 3-4% per day.

If so, because that's what I'm most interested in, I'll start looking for the watch soon.

But many times reading the forum, with all the battery problems, it's scary to invest so much money if it will not last long. And, furthermore, the 255 Music is another good option (although the GPS mode with music falls almost 4 hours compared with the 955)...

Many, MANY thanks to all in advance :)

  • What's interesting to me is that I briefly tried a different battery gauge widget that was giving stats like 0.123% per hour since last check, after what would seem to be too short of an interval to have observed whole percentage drops. I wonder what they are doing for their stats.

  • Hi!

    I come up with the final data of the 3rd charge.

    This time, as I said before, I did it with my activities in "Only GPS" and there is an obvious, but more than noticeable difference in consumption concerning the "All" option (no multi-band).

    I'm going to use a table to illustrate it better :)

    LAST CHARGE PREVIOUS CHARGE
    DAYS 22 21
    ACTIVITIES 7 6
    GPS HOURS 6 hours 36 minutes 5 hours 18 minutes
    % per day 4.32% 4.52%

    As you can see, in my last experience with "Only GPS", I had one more activity in total, but (and here is the most significant fact), I have had almost 7 hours of GPS use, while in the previous charge I barely exceeded 5 hours.

    If I had done 6 activities in this last test, as I did with the previous one (or if I had tried to balance the GPS usage times), I think I would have reached 24-25 days with 6 activities without any problems.

    Be that as it may, I'm pleased with this data. For the moment I'm going to do this next load with Only GPS, as it seems to work for me where I live :)

  • awesome update (and nice table too!). i'm glad that the 955 has fit your goal of extended battery endurance.

    i'll live content with my charging every 10 days or so... i don't think i could live without seeing other field and having a 1hz updated seconds on my watch face, but it's good to know how i can be more miserly while backpacking if i want to eek out some extra life.

    in my experience, GPS only is fairly good but i have some noted areas between buildings and under tree cover where it struggles and i have bad instantaneous pace. this is corrected nicely with All Satellites and i haven't really explored Full Multiband since the first month of ownership since All Satellites meets my needs. i have tried SatIQ (auto select) a few times and found no battery savings over All Satellites and in fact, it seems to use a little more (not enough data to be definitive) than All Satellites.

  • Hello again everyone!

    First of all, I hope you are well :)

    I am writing again in the thread not to post my usual (and sometimes boring) detailed data as I did before, but to comment that I am extremely happy to have chosen the Solar version of the FR 955.

    Since the hours of sunshine started to increase I have noticed an improvement (and increase) of the autonomy. Today, again, I have seen the battery life increase and I wanted to give you this real-life example:

    At 10:20 am the battery went down from 97% to 96%. At 11:50 am I went outside and walked for 5 minutes (almost all of them in the shade on the street, but with ambient light) and when I got to my destination I saw that the battery had risen again to 97%.

    After that I walked for about 10-15 minutes in the street alternating between direct sunlight and shade (mostly in the shade due to the heat)... and since then (16:21 now here in Spain), the watch is still at 97% battery. I'm still not back to the battery percentage I saw this morning.

    It surprises me how most of the time, with very little solar stimulation (but powerful because it is summer) you get a lot of extra hours of battery life.

    In August, when I will have holidays, I should notice it more and better. And I'll be here to take notes and share them in case anyone else finds it interesting or helpful :)

    Best regards to all of you!

  • Thanks very much for the update. Garmin solar specs are relatively accurate and should give you around 0.5% at 50K lux per hour for the 955. But that's shady conditions so 1% should be definitely possible as you saw.

    I did get the 955 as well but without solar (wanted slightly better display and typically avoid long full sun exposure so solar gain would be not big enough for me).

    I did some batttery drain tests in pure watch only mode with everything turned off (except low power watchface). I haven't fully charged more than once so the results are not fully reliable yet. I noticed that a hard shutdown is sometimes needed if I see weird large battery drain especially after an update. Hopefully that improves after 1-2 full charges.

    Most 955 stock watchfaces btw are tough to read (they should not use outlines for digits). So I tested first with my created watchfaces which I prefer for readability:

    UPDATE: I noticed after 2nd battery charge it performed much better, I've updated few numbers below:

    Battery runtimes for pure watch face mode with auto sleep mode for 8 hours (1st charge so should improve after that):

    • ProTrek Custom: 30 days (tested 7 full days, about 3% per day, 4% without 8 hour auto sleep)
    • Standard watchface: 35-40 days (still testing)
    • Battery saver: 50 days (tested 3 full days, slightly less than 2% per day)
    • Battery saver with ProTrek Custom (low power WF disabled): 30 days (seems to be about same)

    I'm still at 23% after almost 3 weeks which includes 8 hours of GPS. I'll soon fully charge it and then these numbers should be more accurate when I repeat the tests. I'm curious if battery saver mode with low power WF disabled is more efficient. In theory not but will test it.

  • Have you tried this experiment ?

    When the watch is at low battery ie 30%, leave it under the sun.

    See how many hours to move battery from 30% to 50% or 100%.

  • There are couple of solar tests for Fenix and Instinct on youtube but they should be comparable. For 955 you should see a range from 0.5-1.5%.

    I'd estimate typically 1% per hour if you leave it in the sun and angled constantly towards sun (and not too hot/cold). I've had the Instinct 1 Solar and got simliar charge per hour (watch turned off for best charge). Still lot of hours from 30-50%. However in pure watchmode you likely need 2-3 hours a day to run forever. For my 2nd charge test I see only around 3% drain per day for my custom watchface.

    A great very detailed solar in-depth test you can find here for the 6X: https://www.pocketnavigation.de/2020/01/test-solar-fenix6xprosolar-garmin-pro/ (in German so use translation as needed).

  • I tested a few watchface modes with everything turned off (no solar). I get more than the watch estimates, maybe because I used no backlight but not sure. I'm interested if anyone else sees different results since I tested only for 1 week so not 100% sure on accuracy.

    In pure watchface mode solar should extend run times significantly (2-3 hours might be enough to have no drain). GPS drain though is much higher so eventually you'd need to charge there no matter how much sun exposure.

    Mode (wifi/bt/sensors disabled) % per day est. days Comments
    Battery Saver 2% 50 rounded up, likely around 1.9%. Tested 3 days
    Standard WF+8hr sleep 2.4% 41 tested 5 days, backlight < 1 min.
    Standard WF 2.8% 36 tested 5 days, backlight < 1 min.
    Custom WF + 9hr sleep 4.3% 23

    tested 23 days 2x. It will drain faster <25%.

    To adjust by 10-20% rest of measurements

    Custom WF+8hr sleep 3.4% 29* tested only 7 days. garmin.watchfacebuilder.com/.../
    Custom WF 4% 25* garmin.watchfacebuilder.com/.../
    Custom WF 2 timezones + 9hr sleep 3.5% 28*

    garmin.watchfacebuilder.com/watchface/64fcbfee1830e/

    Sleep mode est. 2% did not test by itself, deducted from mixed usage
    GPS only with map no nav. est. 2.5% 40 hours everything else turned off
    GPS Auto with map no nav. est. 4.5% 22 hours everything else turned off. Might vary a bit depending on reception
    GPS Auto with map nav. est. 5% 20 hours Only run for 5 hours so rough estimate.
  • @luc: this is a great series of tests. am i correct in assuming you've also disabled 24/7 HR monitoring and notifciations/connections via BT. these are outstanding numbers.

    as i have previously noted, using a full featured watch face like Big Easy, i see about 5-5.5% day but disabling 1hz seconds on display. it's closer to 6-6.5% with 1hz seconds.

    i find that when i have significant solar (saw this for a couple weeks of vacation and appreciable time outside), the same watch face use drops to 4-4.5%/day.

    for all of these numbers i have the watch go to a sleep watch face for 8 hours (the faint open outline time with TINY next alarm time and date), do 24/7 HR monitoring and have notifications sent from my phone to my watch.

    in short, for my settings, the Garmin specs of 15 days without solar and 20 days without solar seem legitimate and reasonable. i haven't played a lot with the standard watch face, but i believe it was around 6-6.5%/day draining (what permanent 1hz seconds showing).

    my GPS power consumption numbers are also on spec with Garmin's published numbers.

  • Thanks, yes everything disabled that I could find: BT/Wifi disconnected, no HR and I also disabled move IQ. Backlight is manual only (<1 minute a day). The estimates look correct typically except if I turn everything off. Then it seems overly conservative. Battery saver at 31 days is more like 50 days for me. Unless I can't trust the battery % shown (I did full shutdown to be safe before testing).

    I see less drain for my custom watchfaces at about 4% per day (3.3% with 8hr sleep mode) but not sure if you have anything additional enabled. HR is typically relatively low but BT is high. I used https://garmin.watchfacebuilder.com which has similar watchfaces but allows you to fully customize including refresh time.

    I am surprised about the extra efficiency of the built-in standard watchfaces. Most are tough to read with thin non-solid outlined digits. But at least a few I can see fine and even though not exciting to look at, decent trade-off when you'd need that extra battery.

    I also tested GPS but didn't put in enough hours to have a reliable number yet. I'm seeing around 2.5-3% per hour for GPS only with maps (which is typically all you need except for more dense places). GPS Auto mode I found is still not nearly as efficient and not sure if it really has an efficiency benefit.