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Battery Drain on Forerunner 970 in the last month

Auron

Hello,

In my last month or so I am having issues with battery life in my Garmin watch.

I own it for about 5 months now, and first 4 months were great (about 12 days battery life), but recently this has dropped drastically to 30 hours of battery life.

  • AOD - Off
  • Pulse Ox - On Demand
  • WiFi - Off
  • Sleep Mode - On (12AM-8AM)
  • Not used in any activity, so no GPS usage

In Battery info is saying that almost all battery usage is from "System" -> "Other"

I have tried:

  • Update to latest software (current Software Version: 16.28)
  • Let battery drain itself to 0%
  • Force restart the watch to stop any background process
  • Reset all settings to Factory state (without erasing data)
  • Use default WatchFace
  • 0

    Had a battery issue today and came here to see if anyone else did (on 16.28).
    Answer: yes, it appears.

    My experience:
    Left on a run today with 20+% battery available and it died on me after 6 miles (~55 minutes).
    I've owned Forerunners (specifically the 945, 955 and now 970) over the last five years.
    Have not had this problem before prior to this firmware...even on *much* longer runs.
    This is definitely not normal.

    Going to look into downgrading my firmware.

  • 0

    Maybe a hardware issue? I charged to 100% on sunday. Did a few runs and walks about 3,5 hours active. Wifi and ble on SPO with sleep on. Today. (Fridaymorning) stillon 52%

  • 0

    Obvious question: what does the new battery widget report in the latest firmware? Add the widget and you'll get a whole load of insights as to what is using battery over a period of time. 30 hours is pretty brutal, so I'd have thought that whatever it is would be pretty obvious within a few hours.

  • 0

    If you’re seeing some variation in battery life, it's good to keep in mind that the Forerunner 970’s estimates are based on specific default settings. Things like Always On Display, frequent notifications, Pulse Ox, longer GPS activities, etc. can definitely shorten that window. This article breaks down the conditions used to determine the estimated battery life: Forerunner 970 Battery Life Assumptions

    Many of you may have already tried several troubleshooting steps, but if you haven't yet, I suggest giving this article a quick review. It provides information on what impacts the battery most, and offers suggestions to adjust some settings to achieve longer battery life in-between charges: Why Is the Battery of My Garmin Watch Draining Faster Than Expected?

    If you’ve already gone through those steps and are seeing unusually high drain (e.g., large drops overnight with minimal use), please let us know. 

  • 0 in reply to 2086493

    Have you been able to resolve the issue? 

    Garmin Support suggested to do a Factory Reset and erase all the data, and to not use any back-up. Still the same issue, battery life no longer than 30hours.

  • 0 in reply to Garmin - KS

    I already tried all these, and as I described on the post itself none of them are working, not even Full Factory Reset with data erasure (not recovered from back-up). Even during sleep (around 8 hours, in Sleep Mode) battery drains around 25-30% with PulseOx off, AOD off, no notifications at all, Bluetooth off. Also new Battery Widget is showing that 99% of battery usage is from System > Other category.

  • 0 in reply to Daern

    I added it, and it always shows that System > Other is consuming 99% of the battery. All other categories are at 1% or less than that. I am at the point that I think is def a hardware issue.

  • 0

    my 2.5 hr run ran the batt from 50% all the way to turning off yesterday

  • 0 in reply to Garmin - KS

    Thank you for this but can you clarify further:

    No doubt settings re display, pulse ox, GPS use, etc can and do shorten the estimated battery life. But I'd like to know whether what is actually displayed on the watch (eg, 42% | 3d) is based on the default settings or based on how I have the watch configured. If the "3d" estimate in my example is based on default settings and not on my specific settings (eg, brightness or pulse ox)--which are completely "known" to the device--then the value of the estimated life metric seems fairly limited, no?

    If it is the case that the battery life is based on default settings regardless of user settings, then I would suggest that Garmin provide more accurate estimates based on at least the biggest settings-based drivers of battery performance which I believe are Always On (yes/no); brightness (low/med/high); and Pulse Ox (always/sleep/demand). (And to be clear, I'm not talking at all about GPS use as it is not a parameter and is highly specific to the user.)

    Can you please clarify? Thank you.