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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

tiku
over 2 years ago

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 :)

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to DPSK



    Hello, mate!

    I promise I never forgot about you and your question. In fact, I was planning to try it out during my holidays in August.

    What happened? Well, I've had a month of non-stop sitting almost all the time (except when I had COVID, and then I hardly went outside) and I haven't been able to do even a short test with the watch focused on the sun at all times.

    I have had battery increases this month of August, true, but I couldn't extrapolate a pattern. Sorry :__(

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Hi,

    I just picked up a (non-solar) FR955 recently which came with firmware v15.19 installed. I do the following:

    • Synch manually one time a day over Bluetooth with Airplane mode on before synch and then again after synch
    • Heart rate on, Pulse ox on demand
    • Wi-fi off, gesture off, touch screen off
    • 1 or 2 indoor pool swimming (no GPS here) activites a week
    • Stock watch face with seconds, steps, date, heart rate, and battery level
    • No 3rd party apps installed
    • Watch not worn when sleeping

    I get around 4-5% battery usage a day. It is possible!

    Knightazul

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to KnightAzul

    Great battery numbers!

    And, if you try and remove the seconds from the watchface (or every data field that's constantly changing), I'm sure you will get event better numbers! :-)

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to tiku

    True, but I can live with 4-5% battery usage a day :-)

    And call me old school but I like to see the seconds.

    KnightAzul

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to KnightAzul

    these are great numbers. you have me curious because those are better than I would expect but I speculate that maybe having touch off saves a percent or two. is your "stock watch face" the dual digital/analog with seconds going around the outer edge of the screen, or is a full seconds hand like a conventional watch?

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to derek87

    See my earlier table battery test results which do look similar to those results. Heart rate is not much % I believe and few activities without GPS is likely not much either but don't know details.

    I use a custom watch face with seconds and consumes bit more than the standard watch face. But still I can get 30 days without GPS and everything turned off with 9 hour sleep mode. I don't use flight mode but instead turn on/off phone connection. Also I turned off touch since I noticed sometimes it accidentally swipes to different screen. But I didn't notice any difference but didn't do any scientific testing.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to derek87

    I use this stock digital watch face:

    It's the only one which has clear readable big solid digital digits. I have zero steps today, must get out there and move! :-)

    I think that it was the default on the FR245.

    KnightAzul

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to KnightAzul

    That's exactly the watch face I used to do my battery tests (rest is tougher to read) except I used white background but should be identical consumption (see previous page). I think adding heart rate and few activities matches those results:

    Standard WF+8hr sleep 2.4% 41 tested 5 days, backlight < 1 min.
    Standard WF 2.8% 36 tested 5 days, backlight < 1 min.
  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Luc

    Although a black/white background should make no difference to the battery usage on a MIP display, apparently the number of pixels being changed does have an impact.

    The changing seconds on that stock digital watch face only occupy a small area so usage should be less than refreshing the whole screen.

    KnightAzul