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Battery Life on 520 edge plus

Boothy_81
over 6 years ago
I went for a ride yesterday and the battery only lasted 5 & 1/2 hours, instead of the claimed 15 hours.

Started the ride with 100% battery.

I was using turn by turn navigation, connected to garmin HR monitor and an Ant+ speed/cadence sensor. Also my phone was connected, but I didn't receive any calls or texts whilst out.

Does anyone who has any real world usage experience know if this sounds about right, or if i might have an issue.

Also, any advice on what settings i can change to extend the battery life?

I need the turn by turn directions and the HR, speed & cadence. Not too fussed about phone being connected, however it is a shame not to be able to use the full functionality of the unit.

Thanks Paul
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    Thanks, it's brand new so shouldn't have battery fade issues.

    Guess I could turn the phone connection off. It just seems a shame to only get a third of the advertised battery life, by using the unit for such standard things as having devices connected to it.
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    I'm seeing longer battery life than that

    with various ANT sensors and iphone connected I've dropped about 30% on a 4 hour ride. I'm not using navigation and backlight is off.

    Backlight is a big drain so keep off unless you need it.

    Easy to do a quick (ish) experiment by switching on and leaving it somewhere with GPS cover and bluetooth connection. FWIW battery drain isn't totally linear

  • 0 over 6 years ago
    I've ridden 2.5 hours across 3 sessions this week and am still at 74% battery, didn't use navigation though but do have phone, cadence sensor and HRM strap connected.

    Backlight off unless button press activated.
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    thanks all

    I've turned the backlight off and will test next time I go out for a long one!

    I had it on "always on" so could be that!
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    backlight did the trick

    with phone connected and using turn by turn directions, I went out for a 3 hour ride and used only 13% of the battery

    winner, cheers folks!
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    Went for a 7 hr ride yesterday and saw similar battery life. Had navigation turned on the whole ride and by hour 5 my battery was at ~30%. I turned the backlight off at that point and only lost an additional 7% in the remaining two hours.
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    Went for a 7 hr ride yesterday and saw similar battery life. Had navigation turned on the whole ride and by hour 5 my battery was at ~30%. I turned the backlight off at that point and only lost an additional 7% in the remaining two hours.


    I don't know the 520 Plus, but on the 1000 you can set the backlight to a fixed value. I could not switch it completed off as for Moutainbike you would need it in forest. I set it to 4 digtis on the 1000 that allows me stil enough battery for a a day ride incl. navigation. Maybe this is possible on the 520 as well.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    The 520 Plus screen is truly one of the best color screen i've seen - it has really good clarity. Since there's no extra layer of touchscreen the screen is very sharp and legible in the day. There's really no need to use the backlight at all in daylight riding. I set mine to zero to save the battery.

    I've had Magelan Cyclo505, handheld Garmins 64s, Oregons and these color screen ain't as good as the 520 Plus. I think garmin finally used a good quality color screen.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    Where is the option to set backlight to zero or off? I have only this 'Backlight Timeout' options: 'stay on', '15 sec', '30 sec', '1 min', '2 min'