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Battery Life Tips

Former Member over 8 years ago

I've been a bit underwhelmed by the battery life on the 520 so far.

Last week I went for a 130 mile ride, 7.5 hour moving time and 9 hours total time, started at 100% battery and ended with just 2% left.

I had the route loaded on the unit and was using it for navigation, and the screen brightness was @ 20% with no backlighting throughout.

Given the promised 15+ hours on the box, to nearly run out at around half that was a bit of a worry.

I've got a couple of long 10-12 hour rides coming up this summer, what should I be doing to try and get as much as possible out of the battery. On those routing won't be needed which I assume is responsible for some of the battery drain? Have got back up option of Vivoactive watch but not ideal having it split over two devices.

Thanks

0 vestergaard.rene over 8 years ago

The unit works the same when connected to an external battery, in case that's convenient for you. I tape a 5200mAh battery wrapped in plastic to my stem. With no or 10% backlight, the battery will last days.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

Did you have bluetooth on? You could try with it off. Also the GPS mode changes the battery usage a bit. (i.e. turn glonass off)

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

the screen brightness was @ 20% with no backlighting throughout.

What? If your screen brightness was at 20%, how was there no backlighting?

Anyway, I'm guessing that it's the 20% brightness. Garmin's claim of 15+ hours is probably only true with minimal power usage, and backlight contributes a good amount, relatively speaking. Probably helps to turn off bluetooth (or turn off your phone so bluetooth doesn't actually connect to anything), if you're gonna do such a long ride.

For any ride other than at night, or indoors on my trainer, I have my brightness at 0%, and at 12 hours or so, I'll get the battery warning (which means I have around 20% left).

I suppose you can always strap one of those external battery packs on the top tube of your bike and plug it into your garmin, when you start running low. That's what I intend to do if I need it to go significantly past 12 hours or so (just because by that time, the sun would be threatening to set, and I'll have to start turning on the backlight).

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

I bought mine 08/2015 and never got more than 10 hours life out of it with everything off (GLONASS, BT, backlight, smart interval). Was pretty dissapointed, coming from 500 which really had up to 18 hours.
Recently a couple of my friends also bought 520 and they really do get up to 15 hours, I rode with a frend on a 12 hr ride, his 520 had 35% left, I had to recharge mine. So this really triggered me to take mine to local Garmin service to complain.

Should get results next week. I guess it will be "that's the way it is", but I'll complain to Garmin Europe if that will be the case.

edit: I just got a call that my unit is replaced under warranty :)