Battery life still sucks - 21.19

My 2 cents. I had another change of plans just before the run. Now it's late and cold for that. In about 20 hours the battery went from 61% to 55% for a while, probably 54 soon...and my prediction is 53 after 24h...so about 8% with stock watchface. No touching the watch except the morning report. I am interested how fast it will drain when reaches below 30%.

After that and charge I will test with phone connection on. It seems a bit better, just don't understand how the watchface that has changing elements every second does better than earlier praised "static" watchface & what's going on in the background.

So I guess it wasn't all Garmin's fault.

I don't mean to badmouth the Quattro watch face, but in my quick test when it first came out, I found it was a battery hog. I don't have more specifics than that, but that's my anecdotal sharing. my favorite (Big Easy) isn't the most miserly, but it works well for my purposes and old eyes. the faces from the author of Coros Apex Like and others I've tried tend to be more efficient than most even if updating seconds and HR at 1hz. I  haven't had much time to play with the stock watch faces, but from your days with the 935, I was led to believe that Garmin stock faces will always be the most efficient as they can make "direct calls" to the processor (think assembly language if you've been around computers long enough).

as usual YMMV. and again, back to the point, I do think 21.19, in my very limited data is using more battery than 19.18 was for me. I'll need a few more charge cycles to confirm that and provide concrete numbers but I'm pretty sure it won't match what I was seeing with FW19. for day to day life, it will all be ok. yet, given that I haven't found the strength training and meditation all that great, the only thing I can say I enjoy are the larger fonts working now with Glances (again helping my older eyes). not sure that was worth losing the range I had with FW19, but I'm now on 21 so that's what I'm going to have to live with. 

aside: I'll be looking forward to what the 975 will bring. as I've noted elsewhere, while it may be crazy, if they include a flashlight (LED) that may be enough to get me to upgrade even if I lose MIPS and have to switch to OLED. on the flip side, even with the diminished battery range, there is no practical reason for me to upgrade the 955 Solar for another few years. it works well and provides very good battery life overall, especially for my backpacking trips where I have sun to top things off and I can go multi-days without worrying about running out of power.

As I expected 54% after approx. 22 hours. 4% is good enough "save" for me, get me few days when fully charged. I am also wondering what will 975 bring, except for higher price:) OLED for sure, not sure how it would perform when mounted on a bike stem, MIP is great in that scenario in bright sun from my own experience, as you know. I was not checking videos for Fenix 8 in those situations, do they turn the screen on always in bike activity settings.

I have a bike computer (from a competitor & Varia radar), but was sure in my head that Edge 1050 had OLED...and it doesn't. I haven't seen many reviews not to get into temptation of buying it...but that's another topic.

we are a going a bit off topic here, but the developer of Big Easy also has Easy Round which is similar to Quattro. I tried it (got it for free when it was first released but you can try it out and it's functional). I would guess it is more efficient than Quattro just by extrapolation from his other watch faces, but no guarantees. yet, might be worth trying (fully functional for free as license gets you a few extra fields and settings ... disclaimer: I have no relationship to developer except loving Big Easy and using it as my primary for 2+ years).

back on track (somewhat): I liked having a minimum 1 week charge cycle which includes my regular routine of 5-6 hours of running + a few hours of strength training (mostly physical therapy stuff I learned for my back and also my legs)) the 955 has always done this well and even with this less than stellar cycle, I'm ok with 21.19. yet, I'm hoping it will be better in subsequent cycles.

in the end, we need to choose something that works for us. Big Easy is very easy on my eyes with it's only lacking detriment is 1hz HR (which would hit battery even harder) but it seriously is easy for me to read at a glance with my 55, going on 56 year old eyes so I don't think I'll deviate from my current use of it.

as for the 975 (and 965 for that matter), from what I understanding, bike mounting is a problem because even if always on, it will dim a bit after a while even if still active. that may or may not have changed in recent or future firmwares. I haven't followed the 965 thread in a while, but I recall reading that as a chief complaint of AMOLED.

975 I'm guessing with be AMOLED, Elevate 5 with EKG, flashlight (I hope). I can't imagine any new running metrics...maybe LTE will come back too (shocking it was abandoned after the 945LTE) for "emergency use"

Hi Derek, here are the details you asked me: I use Garmin only digital dial, the one divided in half right and left, from 11pm to 7am the low consumption night one. I don't use bt connection to the phone because I don't want any hassles on my wrist but I synchronize every evening with wifi. I uploaded last Thursday and in 8 days I completed 4 activities, 2 70 minute runs only single band gps and ant+ connection with rdp and verity sense, 2 more 60 minute runs in the gym with integrated heart rate sensor, I don't care about accuracy. As I'm writing I'm at 60% charge, even my friend with FR255 has returned to normal consumption pre 20.xx which was a total disaster. Sorry for my English but I'm Italian and I use google translate.

your english is perfect and your information very helpful insights for all of us. it's nice to get the bounds of what is possible for this watch as far as battery endurance is concerned. based on my own limited information I would say your 2x70 min runs wshould be about 6% of battery life (hard to guess what your ANT+ connections use as I only have experience using a chest HRM) and then maybe 2% for your two workouts so that leaves roughly 32% for 8 days which is about 4%/day which is solid.

Thanks. I'll try Coros Like (already installed) and tried before Big Easy, but returned to Quatro. Those "up to" 7% per day were on Ouatro but last year and in 2022 when I had previous (replaced) watch. I didn't answer that earlier.

Now after 18 hours later (by the forum time:)) I am at 48% so it is a bit better with stock. If I notice anything out of the order, in next charge cycle or two, I'll mention it in the thread.

I didn't notice any extraordinary drain during the activities outside (mainly All Satellites setting), now in fall and winter it is usually paired with Polar H7 BT or Hammerhead HRM Ant+ for run and additionally Ant+ for cadence and radar when I bike. Battery could (always) be better, but it is OK.

For a Run about 1 hour long with HRM it burns up to 5%.

I think, it's a hardware problem. Contact the support. Garmin Support ist very professional. In time i'm waiting for replacement device.

it seems, some battery are bad. in my case, there was no problem solving by update. At the end the battery lifetime was less then 4 Days.

keeping my update log to show the nonlinearity:

right now (no running nor strength training since my last posting): I'm at 78%, 2.3 days (31 hours). call it 4% from run + ST, that would be 7.8%/day (smart watch use. that's a little bit more than 19.18, but acceptable if that trend continues. (absolutely zero solar the past two days)