Battery life still sucks - 21.19

I'm glad you figured it out and Garmin gave you a replacement. FW19.18 was very good for me, so tag definitely speaks to some hardware issue. 

my 935 had super battery life with a full featured watch face (JBlack) for the time (1hz HR and seconds) and would last 16 days when I was injured even 4 years after purchase.

I feel my 955 (and your replacement) do live up to Garmin specs of 15 days of smart watch use under realistic conditions.

congrats and enjoy your replacement. most of us buy Garmin's to reduce battery anxiety, so a device that is missing the mark by so much is beyond frustrating.

Final report on charge cycle #1 for 21.20:

down to 20% after 6.9 days

6+ hours of running: 22% All Satellites GPS

4 hours strength training: 5% (guesstimate ... lots of backlight since this is done in the evening)

net 53% smartwatch usage: 7.7%/day

pretty much in line with what I would have expected from 19.18 and before, so I'm glad things have stabilized. as before, battery drain has been faster the past 15% or so. I will charge it soon and have never let it get below 8% in the past, but it does seem to slow below 20% from my more limited experience as well.

but I'm back to a 7 day charge cycle (over 6 hours of running is a higher than norma week for me) even with zero solar exposure (2.2k/day average)

I am still waiting for the delivery of mine. Should have had it on Friday, then today...now tomorrow. It arrived to my country...then left the country to previous warehouse again (according to tracking), came back today...I somehow doubt it will be delivered tomorrow on Christmas Eve. BTW, Merry Christmas to all and I'll get back in a few days with news and impressions I hope.

Saw a post on E3 thread - "Battery life is so bad…Garmin really needs to improve this, their claim is totally wrong" and thought oh no, not again, but I guess with the same settings (as on FR955) it will be OK.

EDIT:

I just wanted to let you know that the Enduro 3 arrived...and it is big. In the past I had Timex Ironman Global Trainer GPS and it reminds me on that "watch". It is similar size wise to a Suunto 9 from my memory, but Garmin is lighter. I don't have issue during the sleep...but boy it is big and thick:) I wouldn't recommend it to anyone with wrist less than 185mm or even bigger. My next watch will definitely be smaller. Battery is OK, it drains about 4% per day, but I am still at process of setting it up. I still have to go for a serious run tomorrow (read longer, with all satellites + multi band + 1 second recording). After that I will use All satellites or SatIQ and Smart Recording on known path.

There are some posts that it has inferior tracking than Fenix 7 and current Forerunners (2X5/9X5). I would like to know which GNSS chipset is inside and in Fenix 8. Worried a bit about that, but we'll see, because FR955 with Airoha chipset was very good.

Shame that manufacturers don't publish all hardware info.

derek87

Any chance you could summarize what you did to get to this point, on the 21.xx f/w?

I've long ago disabled the Garmin-share, and I have similar GPS use (perhaps slightly less than you, weekly, my Edge tracks most of my longer activities), but am still seeing the abysmal numbers since the 21.xx branch.

I am on a 3rd party (Hexcellent, supports touch-hold fields) with no weather updates or similar - my BT and WiFi are typically disabled, unless I'm doing a sync (or occasionally forget to disable).

I also went from 8-10 days, with the same watch face and 1 custom activity field (All-In-One), to 4-5 days, which is incredibly frustrating.  

Just wondering what you did that "stabilized" things, since it sounds like we have very similar use profiles?

Thanks.

hi there, I wish a had a magic bullet, but for me, the turning of Garmin Share (under connectivity) was a big time saver. I never got to where you were (losing 50% endurance); I was losing about 25% from where I was previously.

my only suggestion is to do some testing which should help troubleshoot given the extreme nature of your elevated battery drain. the first culprit to test is your watch face. use a simple stock watch face to see what you get for burn level in "smartwatch mode" vs Hexcellent).

here are my settings (hopefully I will remember them all):

- Pulseox Manual

- No notifications from phone except calls (I can read texts on my phone, but I never have it alert me that a notification is incoming. I just have a counter on my Big Easy watch face)

- no Garmin share

- no wifi on

- Big Easy watch face set to show seconds on Gesture (burns 7-8%/day)

- I have backlight set to 10% on Gesture between sunset and sunrise for 4 seconds

- 5% backlight during sleep hours (10p-6a)

I think that's about it. it's really hard to compare use cases, and who wants to switch watch faces especially if you like the one you have. but it would be instructive for troubleshooting.

I'd also potentially troubleshoot burn rate during your runs (I have a field called Solar Intensity Logger which allows me to see the drop in battery level (and solar insolation) over the course of an activity. that way, I can troubleshoot if somehow burn rate is higher during activities. (it is not)

finally, I should update that I think my burn rate over the past couple cycles is a "bit" higher than on FW19, but nothing dramatic. I'm getting down to 20-25% left after 1 week of use which is typically 3-4 hours strength training and 5 hours of running (All Satellites). my recollection is I was closer to 25-30% left under similar conditions several months ago, but those months had more solar input (which is essentially nil for me during the winter months).

I'm on 21.22 and fr955 went from 100% yesterday 6pm to 22% this morning 10am

something went horribly wrong, don't know what 

You need to power off your watch for 1-2 minutes and the you'll be back to normal battery consumption.