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Battery drain so inconsistent

Fully charge VA3 via wall , not PC, charger and the drain is over 5% per hour, giving around 17 hours of usage. This persists for the next 4% when the drain starts to come down to 0.7% per hour.
Do the same but turn off the VA3 when fully charged and the initial drain is 0.3% per hour. Around 40 minutes later its 0.7% per hour.
The VA3 is on 3.4, but this happened on 3.3 and 2.9 - not unexpected as none of the change logs suggest improvements to battery life.
Perhaps the more worrying issue is the battery drain during an activity. On 2.9 it was around 10% per hour. On 3.3 more like 16% per hour. I could accept 10%per hour but 16% is a real problem. I need the walk activity to record a 7 or 8 hour hike. Just about possible at 10% per hour but impossible on 16% per hour. Yet the VA3 is capable of only using 10% battery per hour, so it seems to me that although the firmware change logs don't mention battery improvements, some changes are adversely affecting the battery life.
It's 6 months since the launch of the VA3 and poor battery life has been widely reported.
So Garmin when are you going to fix the poor & inconsistent battery drain?
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 7 years ago
    I just purchased the VA3 this Monday and have not experienced these issues, easy 8-day usage as I just re-charged it yesterday (Thursday)and it was at 38%, and I used the GPS several times. I would bet some setting or add-on is responsible that is left over from prior versions. If I were you I would do a full factory reset of your VA3, let it update to 3.40 (if not already) and start using it again.

    I noticed that some add-ons (IQ Apps) are currently not compatible even though they were once. I would suspect that some of these are using the VA3 incorrectly resulting in battery drain, and have been shut off until they are fixed? It is just a guess. Your VA3 may still have these apps on it.
  • I have done a factory reset and the VA3 battery drain is worse!!
    The VA3 was already on 3.4
    The watch with nothing added, default watch face and default settings is draining at over 1% per hour.
    Also it took many attempts to pair with my phone. This is after deleting the VA3 from Connect and resetting the phone. For a while I didn't think it would ever connect. Would show the passcode but once entered on the phone, it didn't disappear off the VA3.
    I will see what happens to the battery drain after fully charging the VA3, but this is so inconsistent.
    I've yet to try a GPS enabled activity, but don't hold out much hope on battery drain.
    If it persists I will create a service request as it looks like my VA3 is faulty.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    Hello,

    I am facing the same issue with the latest firmware 5 of the Vivoactive 3. The watch was lasting 5 / 6 days, now it is 2 days maximum before the battery full drain. This is a behavior I have without doing any activity and without any widget installed.
  • I had this issue some times but it seems to always occur if there was some type of update (mostly little ones, every time you see the loading bar on the watch).
    I then have a drainage of 2-3%/h. Everytime a simple reset with 15s button holding solves the problem and I'm back to 4-7 days depending on GPS usage.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    Hello,

    I am facing the same issue with the latest firmware 5 of the Vivoactive 3. The watch was lasting 5 / 6 days, now it is 2 days maximum before the battery full drain. This is a behavior I have without doing any activity and without any widget installed.


    Same issue here also on vivoactive 3. After firmware 5 only 1/1.5 days maximum. No activities just heart/steps tracking and phone notifications.
    Anyone knows if is there a method to downgrade to a previous version?
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    Same issue here also on vivoactive 3. After firmware 5 only 1/1.5 days maximum. No activities just heart/steps tracking and phone notifications.
    Anyone knows if is there a method to downgrade to a previous version?


    The same is with my watch too. I logged the battery draining and it is 3% / hour. No activities, GPS, light and vibration on the lowest. The online chat support suggested resetting to defaults (the 15 s reset method tried it before, did not helped), but nothing changed. The same battery drainage. No watch faces, apps, anything. I wrote an email to the Support Center with these 4 days before, now i am waiting the answer. Lasting time degradation from 6 days to 30 hours, it must be a serious problem, i think.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    i have the same issue, battery drain issue started since i upgraded to 3.x, now at 5.0 and nothing helps. tried factory reset, 15sec reset, nothing works..my VA3 is now becoming another A-Watch :rolleyes: had to revert to my old trusty VA HR..wonder if they had the same issue with VA3 Music?
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    The Product Support answered, and suggested to re-install the software on the device via the Garmin Web Updater application.
    http://www8.garmin.com/products/webupdater/howtoinstall.jsp
    I made it, and for sure also made a reset factory defaults once again. Now i will restart logging the battery draining...
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    I reinstalled the firmware through webUpdater, made a reset to defaults, unpaired it from mobile phone but still

    5.00 pm was 100% now 10.00pm is at 70%
  • I'm starting to see this too. Battery normally lasts 7 days, for the past 3 weeks it lasted about 4 - 4.5 days depending on my activities. I've tried the 15s reset method and I don't see any difference.