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235 battery life - post your experience!

Former Member
Former Member over 9 years ago
The claimed battery life of the 235 is up to 11 days with 24/7 HR on and some GPS each day. Is that what you're finding?

Post here your experience! Are you happy, and does it match expectations?

In particular, following comment by dcrainmaker in the comments section of his recent TomTom Spark review worries me:

As for the FR235, it does do HR 24×7, as well as more advanced sleep metrics. However, Garmin’s battery claims of 11 days are super-optimistic. I’m getting about 2.25-2.5 days per full charge, assuming 1hr of GPS workout time per day. So, about 25% of claimed battery life.


Of course there's a world of difference between having to recharge every week and a half and every 2-3 days!
  • 0 over 9 years ago
    I'm new to the 235 (only had it a day) but in the space of about 6 hours yesterday it lost more than 20% of its charge when just bring worm on the wrist as a watch, rather than doing any activities.

    It also now won't charge to 100%. I know it'll make almost no difference but it is slightly irritating my charge will go to a maximum of 98%


    That's when you charge with a wall charger. I read it's the API that doesn't report 100% to the watch faces that have battery percentage. If you plug it to your computer, you will get the USB connect/Charge screen which will show a full 100% charge.
  • 0 over 9 years ago
    That's when you charge with a wall charger. I read it's the API that doesn't report 100% to the watch faces that have battery percentage. If you plug it to your computer, you will get the USB connect/Charge screen which will show a full 100% charge.


    Ah, thanks. I guess that sort of makes sense. Will have to check when I get home and access to my PC to test.

    But frustrated with the length of the cable but that's a discussion for another thread.

    I've disabled all the smart notifications today. While they were nice to have, they were actually killing the battery life on my phone more than my watch. While eating lunch today, in the space of about 30 minutes with the phone doing nothing but sitting in my pocket it went from 86% to 68%
  • 0 over 9 years ago
    Bit odd such an excessive battery drain.
    What screen was your device on during this time and was the backlight on at all?
    Did the phone connection appear to be dropping in and out?
    How many notifications were you getting?

    As for the USB cable length, I still haven't untied it to its full length. I imagine your "answer" is probably a USB extension cable.
  • 0 over 9 years ago
    could be, that the battery or the software calculating battery charge is not yet calibrated. I remember on my first few charge cycles battery life seemed to be awfully short (like 2-3 days).
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    could be, that the battery or the software calculating battery charge is not yet calibrated. I remember on my first few charge cycles battery life seemed to be awfully short (like 2-3 days).


    Same for me. My first charge went from 100 to 12% in 3 days 5 hours (2 hrs GPS). I'm now on my second charge and just passing 3 days and at 60% (but with only 34 min GPS).
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    OK, so onto my second charge and i'm much happier with the 235's battery life. My first charge only got 3 days, including ~2hrs GPS. I've consistently used: BT and notifications, vibration only, no light on wrist turn, 24/7 HRM, 1sec recording.

    2nd charge (numbers taken at the end of the day just before going to bed):

    Day 0: 98% (charged right before bed)
    Day 1: 81% (including 34min running)
    Day 2: 70%
    Day 3: 59%
    Day 4: 37% (including 1hr 33min running)
    Day 5: 26%
    Day 6: 9% (including 56min running)

    So that's 6 full days with 3 hours of GPS. Basically i found that the 235 uses ~10% per day as a daily activity tracker/watch/24-7 HR, including ~3% while sleeping. Then ~10% per hour for GPS+HR. I think if i turned the persistent BT off i could probably get another 0.5-1 days out of it.

    Hopefully my third charge will confirm these numbers, but so far i can't complain.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    Pretty much the same as I get.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    I just wanted to add my experience with regards to my 235's battery life and sorry to hear that some users are seeing poor battery life.

    Previous running watches include the Motorola MOTOACTV which gave me no more than 4 hours after a full charge, Fitbit surge which gave me 3 days battery life without notifications enabled.

    With a full charge the 235 has surpassed my expectations with everything enabled, 1 sec heart rate and both GPS modes on I am getting 6 full days with 20% left.

    The battery drain is approx 15% per day until the battery was at 25% charge, then the rate slowed to 11%. I have no doubt the 235 would last a full week with about 10 notifications a day - the 235 is never too far from my phone though.

    GPS was used 5 days for approx 1 hour per day, plus 4 gym sessions using the GymTimer app.
    Overall I am very happy with it and have MFP working well after a few teething issues.

    I was running 3.2 but upgraded to 3.3 a day after release.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    I just wanted to add my experience with regards to my 235's battery life and sorry to hear that some users are seeing poor battery life.

    Previous running watches include the Motorola MOTOACTV which gave me no more than 4 hours after a full charge, Fitbit surge which gave me 3 days battery life without notifications enabled.

    With a full charge the 235 has surpassed my expectations with everything enabled, 1 sec heart rate and both GPS modes on I am getting 6 full days with 20% left.

    The battery drain is approx 15% per day until the battery was at 25% charge, then the rate slowed to 11%. I have no doubt the 235 would last a full week with about 10 notifications a day - the 235 is never too far from my phone though.

    GPS was used 5 days for approx 1 hour per day, plus 4 gym sessions using the GymTimer app.
    Overall I am very happy with it and have MFP working well after a few teething issues.

    I was running 3.2 but upgraded to 3.3 a day after release.


    Wow that's pretty exceptional. By Garmin's specs 1hr GPS should drain at least 9% battery, and 1 day tracking should drain at least 11%. So for the 5 days you ran plus tracking the battery should drop at least 20%. If you're getting 5% better than that per day (25% more over 5 days) your watch is on the awesome side of the curve. Let me know if you want to sell ;)
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    At 3.10/2.20 I was using 15% of battery life a day. After 1 week on 3.20/30 and 2.40 I not only lost frequency of HR sampling, but I'm now at 22% usage a day. Lose, lose for me!