GPS Battery life: No way 13 hours!

Being raised in Detroit and having generations of family members who work with the Big Three, I can assure you that you're absolutely wrong. The manufacture's sticker city/hwy mpg are based on test done under a controlled environment and not based on if you do the speed limit or if you're towing. Road grade, weather conditions, road temperature, using AC, driving with windows open, etc. will all degrade mpg, just as using other features with GPS degrade battery life on your VA3. As far as normal use for the VA3, that would be an opinionated answer. We could both have different opinions on what normal use would be, but neither could say the other is wrong.

i would like to add to this debate, that it really matters what sort of face watch one uses. Some of them and usually the most popular ones drain the battery real fast. And i mean real fast like 50% or even faster.

The manufacture's sticker city/hwy mpg are based on test done under a controlled environment and not based on if you do the speed limit or if you're towing. Road grade, weather conditions, road temperature, using AC, driving with windows open, etc. will all degrade mpg, just as using other features with GPS degrade battery life on your VA3.

I don't want to get into car/watch debate, but (I guess I will) if you drive car normally on hwy you will get damn near the EPA est. hwy mpg. Actually, if this watch was a car, it would get sued left/right for getting 50% of the estimated mpg

I checked Garmin's official advertising. The only caveat says: "Under typical use; battery life may vary depending on usage and selected performance mode" -- I agree that "typical use" is subjective but... come on, is typical use turning off everything but gps?

I'm still new to the VA3, so I'll keep giving it a try. Honestly, I would be happy with 10hrs. gps (with HR).

You're missing my point completely. My point is if you use other features on the VA3 you're not going to get 13hrs of GPS. Yes, the examples I gave about losing mileage may be minimal towards mpg, but they will indeed affect mileage. Do we know the battery usage effects of watch faces, HR monitoring, Bluetooth, etc. with the VA3? No. As far as we know Bluetooth could affect the battery of the VA3 more so then running AC in your vehicle would affect mileage. A lot of people assumed when they purchased their VA3's they would be able to use all the functions the VA3 is capable of doing on top of the 13hrs of GPS with a full charge. Others assume the GPS feature and HR monitoring go hand in hand. This isn't the case. There are more fitness devices available that have HR monitors without GPS capabilities then devices that have both capabilities. They don't go hand in hand and are two separate features. Do I use both? Yes. Do I wish the battery would last longer? Of course. Do I expect 13hrs of GPS and use the other features too? Absolutely not. I'm not taking Garmin's side or trying to piss anyone off. I'm just pointing out things others may not have considered.

Had my first golf round today.

I lost in 2.5 hours 23% battery.
10 hours should be possible.

HR is off!

Real World Update - VA3 v2.0 (my 2nd VA3)

Monday 12/18 - 100% @ 10:41am.
Friday 12/22 - 6% @ 10:41am

Burn Rates:
Daily Wear: ~10% /day
GPS Runs: ~16-20% per ~1hr 20+/-min.

Summary: 4 days wear and 4h 39min or 33 miles of GPS - About the same as VA3 v1.0 *THUMBS DOWN*

Settings:

• Watchface - Garmin Titanium
  
• GPS only (no GLONASS)
  
• Smart Data recording on
  
• Backlight set to 10%
  
• HR Broadcast - off
  
• Side Swipe - off
  
• Gestures - off
  

ciq.forums.garmin.com/.../1287849.png

CliftonMiller, I think that it is unreasonable to expect 10 hours of GPS and a week of wearing. Garmin claims 10hrs with basically everything turned off and a single GPS activity. The 4 days wear that you mentioned above are more or less the same drain as 3 hours of GPS acivity (using your numbers). So, you are getting the equivalent of 7h 40m of GPS time if you had done a single activity. If you also (like Garmin did) turn off Bluetooth and other stuff then that number will go up more. And you will probably be a lot closer to 10 hours.

I think that you need to consider Garmin's caveats about how they got the 10 hours before you buy the watch or consider it to have a problem. Nowhere do they say that it gets 10hours GPS while also having everything else turned on and wearing it for a week. If you really need longer battery life then get a different watch with a bigger battery. For what it's worth, my old Apple Watch 2 had even shorter battery life. I had to charge it every day without even doing any activities.

Garmin claims 10hrs with basically everything turned off and a single GPS activity.

djwalker -- read Garmin's advertisement. Garmin claims 13 hrs of gps activity possible. They say you can get this with "typical use," NOT with everything off. We can disagree what is "typical use", but based on CliftonMiller's numbers, he'll only get approx. 6.5 to 8.5 hours of gps activity (and that's with pretty much everything off -- I note C'Miller doesn't mention whether he has HR on or off.)

I am burning battery at about 12% per hr for gps/hr runs (with everything else off, gps set for smart recording, and 20% backlight). This is not that bad, but I think this would be considered "typical use" (actually, pretty stingy use since I turn off alot of stuff) and this amounts to only 8.5 hrs of gps use.

VA3 owners manual, page 18 under specifications. Battery Life. Up to 7 days in smartwatch mode (with heart rate). Up to 13 hr. in GPS mode. That is verbatim, even with Garmin incorrectly printing 13hr. and not 13hrs. There should no longer be any debate on what is "typical" or "normal" use of the VA3. Two things to point out. No where does it say GPSin addition to any other function. Notice how Garmin noted the HR feature under smartwatch mode and not GPS mode. Secondly, both say "Up to". It's not a definitive 7 days or 13 hrs. It can be up to those times in the right conditions. Things such as temperature can and will affect battery life. So, "typical use" of smartwatch mode can get you up to 7 days and "typical use" of GPS mode can get you up to 13 hrs. It's in black and white for anyone to read, yet I'm sure there will be some who will try and "interpret" it their way just for sake of argument.

A good reality check stat would be "expected battery life with everything on in the most severe conditions, and expected battery life with everything off in the most tame conditions."
Whats a guess? 3.5 hrs with everything on full tilt and 5 days with everything off and just barely humming along?