Battery life still sucks - 21.19

I share in your frustration. for me, the jury Is still out, but I do think battery drain is elevated for FW21.

up until Friday, I was running FW19.18 which gave me consistent smart watch battery drain in the 6.5-8%/day depending on watch face and whether I had always on seconds.  this put me right in the published specs. when it's summer months and I'm outside, this drain rate is less and I also believe in the 20 day estimate (5%/day) for a good day of 150 klux sun exposure.

ii was on the bleeding edge as a beta tester through FW19, but opted out of beta testing FW20 and 21 because I was content with FW19.

So... that aside, my experiences with FW21.19:

Since Friday when I updated, initially, the drain was incredibly bad: 100->90% in 19hours for my regular smartwatch use.  but since then, things have slowed down appreciably (ie, the drain has been nonlinear)

I'm currently at 64%remaining after almost 3 days which includes 2.5+ hours of All Satellites GPS running with very little sunlight. based on experience and a Connect IQ datafield, that accounts for 8-9%. I also did 2 half hour nonGPS activities which I'd say should eat 1%...so that's reduces to about 26% for 3 days (smartwatch use) which is on the high side of consumption but thankfully not ridiculously more than I was seeing on FW19.18.

that being said, some other caveats:

- we'll see how the drop continues in the next few days

- I have always seen a fast drop from 100% unless I find time to let it sit and trickle charge for 1+ hour after hitting 100%. but even then, this drop was very fast. (it's usually more like 9% for 24 hours)

- I have also noticed since having the watch, that the drop from 30% downward is much faster than the first 70%. I've never dropped below 7-8% (it seemed to slow, if I recall correctly, at about 12%) and typically charge somewhere in the 20-30% range.

I knew it was a risk going from FW19.18 (which to me was the best firmware by far that delivered all that the watch originally promised to be when I bought it in June 2022), but I wanted to see what the added for meditation and strength training (haven't explored them a lot yet) and took the leap.

sor far, I feel blessed that my first 24 hours of rapid drain has slowed down considerably so I'm more at peace.

Thanks for the reply. I plan a run tomorrow after work, have some issues with a knee...and years:) That will ruin my calculation, just before 2 days complete. We'll see how it goes from sleep mode tonight till the run tomorrow. I also did some of trickle charge yesterday.

I also have Polar Grit X that after 2 years started loosing about 20-25% next morning when charged to 100% evening before (always near empty to full charge practice because it had about half shorter battery life than 955 advertised) so I decided to charge FR955 from 20 to 80%...except when there is a new firmware update. I haven't noticed that battery behavior on 8-9 year old V800, but I rarely use it nowdays.

I noticed similar battery behavior too, after 100% earlier...or couple of times under 32-33% & after 24hours it will be at 20 or 21% and it's time for charge.

let's keep this discussion going. it looks like your initial measurements were in line with my experience. I hope your drain slows like mine has and continues to get better. I feel I need a few weeks to assess the real behavior.

I use this Connect IQ field to track battery drain and solar insolation during activities:
https://apps.garmin.com/apps/d25c1310-a6a5-4517-8626-b3353665796e

I don't really use this field when running (I have it on a data screen I don't use), but I find it helpful to track battery drain during a run. it was this field that allowed me to see that I should stick to All Satellites over SatIQ.

I used Flipstone's Battery Info Filed (https://apps.garmin.com/apps/80d67ebb-78e9-4e07-9b82-f52e05ebfe89) but now I see that my CIQ fields were removed from Run activity...from all activites. Also for Bike I only have IQ logo on those 2 screens and for other activities the same. Another unpleasant surprise.

thay stinks. can you readd them? I use the solar one above and Strava Relative Effort and both seemed to work fine today (although the Strava one has never seemed to record info that I can easily see it on Garmin Connect afterward -- I've never done a full deep dive into the FIT file using an advanced tool like DC Rainmaker's so maybe it's there somewhere)

I had some other errands today so I haven't managed to go for a run, but the story with the battery if following: just before midnight yesterday it had 87%...17 hours later, or about 48 since full charge it was on 75% with no activity or syncing, no seconds or HR on Quatro watchface. So 25% in 48 hours, about 12.5% per day. That really stinks, I would understand if it is connected to a phone or wifi. Shame that there isn't an app to show what drains the battery like on a phone, or I don't know one.

Also...that CIQ is weird now. I don't see those apps when I add them to fields/screens...or when editing screens, but they show normally in the activities. Tried to update them when charged for the first time via Garmin Express and in Garmin app, but no updates were found. When you add (and after you added) CIQ app...the watch shows only "IQ..." on that screen.

They messed something up with that, thought it had something to do with incompatibility with v 21.19...but fields work when in an activity.

thanks for the update, even though disappointing. what was Quatro giving your previously? not saying that the face is the culprit, but when I tested that face out eons ago (probably 1.5 years ago?), I found it was one of the more power hungry of the faces I was exploring.

that being said, 21.19 continues to use more than I think 19.18 was using. 

I'm now at 51% after 97 hours of use. I'm now up to about 12% drained from GPS (All Satellites Running) and 2-3% strength training. so if completely optimistic, that's 34% drained for just a hair over 4 days of smart watch use. I would say previously, that would be about 29-30%. so not horrific, but with a small sample size, definitely faster drain than I'm used to. (I'm using Big Easy with Seconds activated by gesture which should burn about 7-7.5%/day. I'm getting next to nil solar help these days so probably 7.5% is what I was previously seeing.

other settings: no PulseOx, no seconds when sleeping, BT active with iPhone (I don't send explicit notifications except calls, but read my texts from my watch when I see the notification counter and have time to review things on the fly). no wifi on either. I also have backlight set to activate between sunset and sunrise by gesture at 20% level.

I most cases you just have to power off the device for one minute and then it should be fine again.

"After the update turned it off by long press. Twice and then when it depleted. Turned it off today for the third time but it doesn't help a bit."

After 60-61 hours I am at 70%. Nobody else commented about their experience on 21.19 and I don't see any thread about CIQ problem...except Stryd Datafield.

I'm nowhere close to your battery usage, but it's more than it used to be before the update. I used to have about 6.5 - 7% per day. Now I'm at about 9 - 9.5% per day. Not as much as you, but where I had about 14 days between charges before, it's a bit over 10 days now.