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Battery woes continue on v 15.19 - had it enough!

Hi guys and everybody from Garmin here. My battery issues on FR955 Solar continue, this morning, updated watch to version 15.19 from 14.20.

I've had it enough. I am returning the second watch and want a refund. Currently injured and had my watch in airplane mode from 80 to 20% for 12 days.

This morning installed the new firmware, removed all connected devices and turned the watch off by holding the light button for 10 seconds.

Turned it back on, turned off airplane mode, went to Music - Headphones (before that turned OFF Autodiscovery under Sensors). Connected Redmi Buds 4 Pro that I have currently on me.

Connected, played the music for couple of seconds, disconnected them (to OFF in Headphones) and went back to airplane mode.

After about 2 hours I looked at the watch - IT LOST 3%...the freaking drain not fixed. ONE YEAR AFTER RELEASE. Usually lose less than 5% a day when not connecting sensors or earhpones. Really annoyed by Garmin.

No phone connection or GC involved.

  • UPDATE:

    Did factory reset, wiped everything + app cache, though that doesn't matter. Paired only to Varia 515, turned it off (also both radar and lights on the watch), back to airplane mode - the watch looses 1% every half an hour...until 10 sec. light button press & hold.

    Anyone with the solution? Garmin someone? No response yet on replied e-mail.

  • Sorry to hear you have such an awful experience. I had also observed battery drain in the past, but it was only like 2 or 3 times during the whole time that I own FR955 and after reset it hadn't occurred again. After 13.15, I installed 15.09, 15.11 and 15.19 when it was still beta and so far I am satisfied.

    Maybe the problem is the airplane mode itself (no matter how much more sad it would be). I don't use the airplane mode at all, as there have been problems with it in the past and from my experience there was no significant impact on battery life when switched to airplane mode.  

  • I was thinking about that also. I will try to pair HRM and leave the watch after turning OFF BT HRM to see if that "helps". I don't get it how only I have this issue now for months, with 2 watches and 6-7 different sensors and earphones. I was using airplane mode TO PRESERVE the battery more...since I don't use it as a "smartwatch":)

  • Maybe you are a premium beta tester, just somebody forgot to tell you :) No, really, good luck with figuring it out. 

    Now with FW 15.xx, I finally consider FR955 to be in a serial production status, which was not true with all previous firmwares. There are still some glitches, but mostly minor ones...

  • i'm sorry to hear your woes. like the others i have not experienced the kind of battery drain issues you have had. yet, i do not use headphones with my watch.

    for the year i've owned the watch, i have seen random drops of 4-5% over a few hours, but they never go beyond that sudden surge. i've chalked these moments up to either one of two things: weird background connections with GC phone app (eg, i left that app on a setting screen), or simply an imperfect battery calibration.

    as i've written elsewhere, i've been really fortunate. even though i have these little weird blips, overall, my watch, using a variety of Connect IQ watch faces has performed according to spec and i daresay that the Solar specs are spot on two in spite for Garmin not giving us a real way to seeing the cumulative solar insolation on a particular day (unlike Fenix 7). in the past few weeks, i've seen my projected smart watch usage in the range of 5-5.5%/day using one of a few watch faces (Big Easy, Coros Apex Like, Huge plus complications) with just a modest amount of time in the sun each day (2-3 hours including some time running).

    that being said, i did try airplane mode on a couple occasions and for some strange reason, it seems those "surges" is battery consumption would occur during those. (but in my case a few %, not 10s of %) now, i just try to save a little battery by using the sleep watch face which is a bit hard to read (can't see the tiny font well with my 54 year old eyes)... this works pretty well as my consumption is probably about 1% over the 8 hour span i'm sleeping (never jumps more than 2%, but most commonly, i see a 1% drop at night).

  • It looks like it was an Airplane mode after all. Connected all sensors (except cadence), again the earphones from this morning and varia radar - no airplane mode, no drain.

    For more than an hour after that I am still at the same battery percentage... dropped that 1% just now. I will see what it will show when I wake up.

    Unbelievable I will submit a bug....somewhere on support chat. I mentioned it here more than a few times in couple of threads and nobody from Garmin did anything about this issue or asked info...Sierra or Kevin. I sent Garmin folder when Kevin asked for previous issue when battery was draining after changing settings or CIQ fields last year.

  • Good job! And applause to Garmin, for offering an airplane mode which causes battery drain...

    Submitting the issue directly would be a good idea. I was told by the technical support, that the forum is primarily intended  for user chat other than reporting bugs, although they respond to the issues in the forum sometimes also. Another field where Garmin could improve - clearer description of the processes. But also I have a feeling that since Sierra joined the 955 team, things started to move forward much better.

  • Yes, as I mentioned, there were other battery issues earlier, but fixed. This, what I have now, is definitely not app related, because the bluetooth on the phone is turned off. I was suggested long time ago from someone of you here to clear cache besides turning the watch off...so it happens without the phone. It is some bluetooth/ant+/airplane mode related bug.

    I wonder if I would get the same behavior with Fenix 7 or Forerunner 965. I don't use music on the watch, very rarely, but this morning I only had the earphones when I left home. Got back home, tested with radar - drain. When not cycling, I only use H7 HRM and after every activity I disconnect it, turn it off on the watch, plane mode back ON and drain happens all the time:)

    Also I am wondering now will the drain "trigger" even after a couple of hours or a day if I turn airplane mode back on without turning the watch off previously...I'll try to test it in a couple of days if everything goes as it should now.

    As I mentioned - it would be about 2% per hour during drain, I didn't have crazy % drops, since last year (with that sync/CIQ), except if I had an activity in the evening and went to sleep without turning the watch off. Then I was welcomed with unpleasant surprise in the "morning battery report". I also use sleep watchface, but I would say that I loose about 2% over night, but rarely I get to sleep 7-8 hours. I guess 2% for 6-7 hours after sleep watchface is activated (11 p.m. - 6. a.m.). I have 60% battery usage with no activity for just over 12 days (I lie, had over 1h of walks with GPS only during that period) with Quatro watchface.

  • UPDATE 2:

    So far, so good.It looks airplane mode after using sensors was causing the problem. Lost another 1% during short night sleep last night.

    After that turned back on Airplane mode for test - and no drain.I will keep testing different scenarios (shorter period), but I really hope that this is not an exception.

  • In the earlier firmware days of the FR945 there was a bug where any sensor connections did not disconnect/sleep properly when not in an activity and therefore hit battery drain pretty heavily.  
    Maybe there is a similar bug when in airplane mode that leaves a connection active ??