955 fast discharge after 17.24

i have a hints that for some reason that the discharge rate is higher for 17.24 for me in smartwatch mode, but nothing near what you are speaking of. i went from a typical 6-7%/day to about 8%/day. i need to do a full charge cycle on my watch and go back to my usual daily driver watch face (Big Easy) to confirm as i have been playing with a lot of different watch faces recently.

but it was a big enough difference in the past week to make me wonder if something was up (i didn't notice this with the beta versions of 17.XX that preceded this release)

Yes, my battery consumption is up significantly after the update. I would typically use 5-7% in a 24 hour period with no activities, now it's about 15% in a 24 hour period with no activities. While doing activities (running, in my case) usage is about the same as pre-update: 16-18% per hour, with no music. My pre-update numbers align with Garmin's advertised battery life, my post-update numbers are about half that. I don't see anything different that the update did as far as settings changes, so who knows what the problem is. Multiple restarts, plugged into PC to sync to Garmin Connect, etc...nothing has helped so far.

Not going to bother with support as it'll be the typical process of spending hours of my time over multiple weeks of turning off features one-by-one until the battery life has improved, not saying a word about the fact that they're probably already aware of the problem and releasing an update to fix it in a month or so anyway. I'm done doing updates after this issue is fixed. I'm tired of the bugs every single time. Last update, it was wacky heart rate data. This update fixed it, now the battery life is trash. This thing worked great when I first got it, wish I could revert back to that software it came with. Nothing implemented since then has been useful to me.

following up on my own post. i charged up yesterday after my run and did a Soft (held light button down for 20 seconds) reboot and things, after 24 hours seem back to norm with about 6% consumption in 24 hours (just turned to 95% after 21 hours) with the Big Easy watch face.

i'm hoping things will continue to be normal moving forward.

that being said, i appreciate JGood325's sentiments: i think all the features i want are there now, so no need to continue updating if this is stable. i upgraded to FW17 because of the added Nap feature and larger font feature. the latter has been helpful, and the undocumented UI improvements on the activity summary have been nice. but i wouldn't want to lose battery life  at the expense of new features. when i had my 935, i "locked down" my firmware after all the major bugs were squashed and i didn't see any noteworthy features worth upgrading for. i will follow a similar path with the 955. my fingers are crossed that i don't have any appreciable battery issues introduced by 17.24 and that the past 21 hours are a good indication that all is well with my watch.

good luck to the rest of you.

so 17.26 is released and drain battery still on? No mention in bug fixes by dev...

Actually battery life is reduced 45%...  thanks to 17.24......

I updated to 17.26 in hopes of it fixing the terrible battery life that 17.24 caused. Not only did it not fix it, but now it is doing the random heart rate spikes during runs again, that 16.17 caused (which was temporarily fixed with 17.24).

So 16.17 caused the random heart rate data, 17.24 fixed the heart rate issue, but introduced the less than 1/2 battery life problem, and 17.26 brought both problems together in one great gift of an update. The only thing left to screw up is the GPS accuracy, then I'll officially have a $600 plastic bracelet.

Garmin, if you're unable to release reliable updates, allow users access to previous software versions so we can make our devices usable again. At the very least, have Auto-update defaulted to 'Off', so that users have to manually choose if they want to have a non-working device.

Zwidow said:

so 17.26 is released and drain battery still on? No mention in bug fixes by dev...

There is no such thing as battery drain caused by a specific firmware.

I had the FR245 for more than two years, the FR255 half a year and now FR955 since more than one year. After EVERY SINGLE UPDATE for every of those watches, reports of battery drain were posted here in the forum.
I had two drains in 3,5 years and none of it persisted.

So, my conclusion is: The process of updating can cause drains, yes. Maybe some circumstances like 3rd party apps or special settings play a role, I don’t know.

The other way around: Don’t expect a fix by a firmware, as it is not caused by a firmware.

(955 with 17.26, charged yesterday evening to 100%, now a day later at 96%)

JGood325 said:

So 16.17 caused the random heart rate data, 17.24 fixed the heart rate issue, but introduced the less than 1/2 battery life problem, and 17.26 brought both problems together in one great gift of an update.

I have none of these problems.

JGood325 said:

At the very least, have Auto-update defaulted to 'Off', so that users have to manually choose if they want to have a non-working device

Majority has no major issues, but gets fixes and new features. Auto update as default makes sense.

I work on the service side for an equipment manufacturer, and I can tell you with certainty that software and firmware changes (updates) implemented by the manufacturer can impact nearly every aspect of the device, including expected battery life. I actually can't imagine why anyone would think otherwise. The software is literally what is using the battery, so when you change that software, whether it be adding features or changing the way it uses the hardware, potential change in battery life can be expected. In this case, there would be no logical reason for the drastic change many of us are seeing, other than bugs in the software release that effect some users, for some reason. That's on Garmin to figure out.

Most of my other comments were rhetorical, out of frustration, from Garmin not spending enough time beta testing the software before release. There's obviously a lot of people experiencing issues, and just because you aren't, doesn't mean the issues don't exist.

JGood325 said:

There's obviously a lot of people experiencing issues, and just because you aren't, doesn't mean the issues don't exist.

Well, you either did not read and understand what I wrote, or you want to get me wrong here.

I literally wrote, that the updates can cause drains and also that I experienced at least twice myself:

Grumpy from dawn till dusk said:

The process of updating can cause drains, yes. Maybe some circumstances like 3rd party apps or special settings play a role, I don’t know.

Grumpy from dawn till dusk said:

I had two drains in 3,5 years and none of it persisted

My main argument is, that after every single firmware update for every single watch, reports of battery drain are posted. That is no metaphor, it is true, just look it up.

So either every firmware of Garmin is using much more power than the ones before (which also caused drain already), or it is more complex and has to do with some more circumstances.
What do you think is more plausible?

Maybe let’s start with defining drain and usage. Usage of battery to me is the typical usage, eg 5% for one hour of GPS or 4% daily without other activities than wearing the device.
Drain is a sudden, unexpected and drastical loss of battery, like 30% over night.

Now you say

JGood325 said:

firmware changes (updates) implemented by the manufacturer can impact nearly every aspect of the device, including expected battery life.

Sure, agreed. Things like „GPS used 5% an hour, now it is typically 8%“ would be surely caused by that.

But not 30% over night just for some users… and this repeating with every firmware release.

JGood325 said:

In this case, there would be no logical reason for the drastic change many of us are seeing, other than bugs in the software release that effect some users, for some reason

Well, I think it is much more likely, that during your update, a process broke somehow and now is using too much CPU time (all the time), while it should go sleeping most of the time.

Sure that is a kind of bug, but none that a firmware update will solve. Most probably killing and restarting this process would help, maybe also deleting some faulty config file.

I have the same issue with battery drain since last update. Got a warning when I woke up this morning that I was below 5%. Charged it up to 100% and it is now at 79%,14 hours later. This is NOT ACCEPTABLE!! I have just had it as a normal watch today i.e., no training done. And yes, I have restarted it several times, both normally and ”hard”, since the update but it doesn’t seem to stop the drain.

Garmin, please fix this. This rapid discharge is not acceptable! I guess it harms the battery long-term which reduces the life of the watch. Fix this ASAP!