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Is There A "Best" Older Firmware Version For Battery Life on a Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar?

partyman66
16 days ago

When I first bought this watch my battery life was great...  i only use it as a sportswatch and don't use it for notifications or other smartwatch activities aside from syncing my data to the Garmin servers.  I disconnect WIFI and bluetooth after syncing.  I did not do any updates for a full year after first getting the watch and then finally updated and Battery usage basically doubled after updating away from the firmware version that came with the watch.  I had done several more updates since then and it hasn't gotten much better.

My battery life isn't extremely bad, but it's still about half of what it was on the stock firmware from when I bought this watch in October of 2022, and the change wasn't gradual as if it was battery degradation. It happened immediately after getting that first firmware update.

I was toying with the idea of rolling back to Firmware version 15.19 because i could actually find the files for that version, but was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on a firmware version that is best to go to for battery life and general stability?  I don't need all the new features that came out in the past 3 years, I just want it to track runs, bike rides, sleep patterns, steps, and recovery.

  • 0 9 days ago

    Update:  I installed version 15.19 and set my watch up the way i usually do (geared for battery life optimization and function as a health/wellness monitoring device primarily), with no notifications, WIFI and Bluetooth off except for when i need to do a synchronization, and have my biometric monitors set to auto and GPS auto.  Battery life increase has been unbelievable in comparison to what it was on firmware version 22.22 (and many other versions that i tried over the past year).

    I've had this firmware installed for 2 days now.  I started at 100% charge the first day and went for a 56 minute run in the dark at night with GPS on auto and used up 5% battery, dropping it to 95% after the run.  I slept for 7 hours and it dropped another 1% to 94%, but then miraculously charged back up to 99% due to solar charging during my 20 minute drive to work.  This is the first and only time I've ever seen solar charging actually put charge back into my watch in the almost 3 years that i've had it.  It dropped another 1% over the day and then charged back up to 99% again when i was outside for about 5 minutes in the sun.  It then dropped from 99 to 96% over the course of the next 30 or so hours with almost no sunlight exposure and no additional workouts recorded yet (spent the entire day today inside working from home unfortunately).

    So over the past 42 hours since switching to firmware version 15.19 with 56 minute run and I am at 95% battery.  The newer firmwares that i have been using over the past year usually burn up about 6-9% battery from that run and then also drop about 6-8% per day just capturing biometric data about steps and pulse... and i never noticed any solar charging gain before.

    I'll report back in another week or so with more details.

    There is a pretty big negative to going with this old of a firmware though.... if you're into custom watch faces and apps, you really can't use any of them unless you find one you can sideload.  CIQ version on the watch is too low to support being able to push anything aside from new maps to it it.

  • 0 8 days ago in reply to partyman66

    Please post more usage reports. It will be interesting to hear your long-term impressions.

  • 0 7 days ago in reply to partyman66

    4 days + 8 hours now since last full charge (104 hours since last charge to 100% and 2 runs with GPS on totaling almost exactly 2 hours) and I'm at 86% battery.

    I was at 92% early this morning after exactly 96 hours and then went for a 63 minute run and dropped to 86% during that run. Slept for about 6.5 hours and woke up with the watch still at 86%.  I was exposed to about 20 minutes of direct sunlight during the day yesterday while at 93% battery and saw no battery percentage gain from it. 

  • 0 6 days ago in reply to partyman66

    Battery testing will have to be started over at 97% starting tonight since the watch started charging up from 86% as I was USB-cable transferring test versions of new software to it that I'm writing.  I wrote my own watch face specifically for this firmware that is compatible with CIQ version 4.2.2 (that's the CIQ version included in firmware bundle version 15.19 that i have on my watch now) so i could sideload it to the watch and have 5+ data fields on the screen where there is no seconds hand/field for the time readout in order to save battery.  My data fields are currently:

    -Weekday MONTH Day(Mon AUG 11)

    -Battery % with Battery icon that can change based on state green/yellow/red

    -Solar Charging %

    -Time with AM/PM

    -Total steps for the day

    I still have 2 open data fields on the watch face that i'm leaving empty for now and may fill in with something else if i can think of anything else relevant that won't cause battery drain (pulse causes battery drain, so not that).  I wish i could get sunrise/sunset and body battery to work, but those don't seem to want to cooperate with this version of CIQ.

  • 0 4 days ago in reply to partyman66

    Updated my custom watch face with these fields and some coding/behind-the-scenes efficiency improvements:

    -Weekday MONTH Day(Mon AUG 11)

    -Battery % with Battery icon that can change based on state green/yellow/red

    -Solar Charging %

    -Time with AM/PM

    -Last recorded pulse (not real-time.. to avoid waking up the heart rate sensor)

    -Body Battery %

    -Total steps for the day