Vivoactive 3 battery drain

We have 3 VA3 watches in our family. All of them are about 12 to 14 months old. Only one is having the battery drain issue. We are very happy with the watches barring the battery drain issue.

Something is going on that we all had this occur within the last week. I’ve not added anything new or behaved any differently in 18 months of owning this watch. I went from 95% to 0 in under twelve hours today. 

Mine started right after the 6.60 firmware installed. Prior to that I was getting 4-5 days on a full charge, with usually at least one GPS tracking activity each day.  Now, I have to charge morning and evening, because I only get around 10-12 hours on a full charge.  

So, after this morning's sensor update, it is a bit better - it's been about 7 hours since I took it off the charger and I'm only down to 72%, whereas I was usually at or below 50% by now.  Better than the past two days, but still a far cry from the battery usage prior to 6.60.  

Yup same battery drain issue here everything great since the purchase of Vivoactive 3 in Jan 2018.

Always had stellar battery life of about 4 days. that includes 2 x 20 mins of GPS and the built-in cycling app at least 4 days a week.

Never had any other issues with this watch.

The watch has only ever had the standard Garmin apps on it, with the exception of one watch face, which has also been installed since the first week.

No changes to watch except firmware updates.

Then along comes firmware v6.60 and bang, battery life now about 20 hrs.

The watch is now pretty much unusable!

Anyway below is the email exchange I have had with Garmin so far. What an appauling support team they have here in the UK. They basically work from tick sheets and only give standard stock corporate replies. The idea here is to place the onus of support onto the customer and to avoid Garmin having to own the problem at all costs. Keep drip feeding the customer things to do and try, this buys time and means Garmin never actually have to resolve anything.

Basically what they are saying is the battery will last a lot longer if you don't use the watch!

My First Email To Garmin:
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Software update v6.60 kills the battery life from 4 days to less than 24 hours, no other changes to watch software either before, or after installing v6.60. Many many occurrences of this issue on the Garmin Forum at below link: https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/healthandwellness/f/vivoactive-3-3-music/167456/vivoactive-3-s-w-6-60-just-hit-my-watch?ReplySortBy=CreatedDate&ReplySortOrder=Descending The suggestion is that this affects some early hardware versions of the Vivoactive 3. I either want to be able to roll back the software to pre v6.60, or have the watch replaced, as others have had, as the later hardware appears to resolve this issue.

Garmins Reply:
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I'm sorry to hear you are having trouble with your device. 
I'm afraid we are unable roll back software updates. 
Do you have an Connect IQ app installed on the device at all? 
Would you be able to try the following in this article - 
Maximizing Battery Life
Kind regards,
Lauren
Garmin Europe

My Reply To Garmin, bear with me it's a bit windy...
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Hi Lauren,
Thanks for your reply.
Here are the facts:

1. The watch has had no new apps installed for well over a year and no changes to the configuration whatsoever. In fact the only non-Garmin default items ever installed are a single watch face.

2. The battery life has always been stellar, never less than 4 days, even with using GPS twice a day for 30 mins each time, for 4 days a week. brilliant.

3. Then the watch auto-updates to software v6.60 and immediatly the battery life is now reduced to less than 24 hours!!!

4. This appears to be an extreemly common issue with the software v6.60 update judging by the forum on the Garmin website.

There has only been one change to the watch and that is the software v6.60 update.

As a qualified Software Test Engineer with IBM I can absolutly assure you the issue is with the only thing that has changed and that is the software v6.60 update.

I have had a look at your stock reply and have pasted it below so we can all have a good laugh!

Basically what this is saying is if you don't use the watch at all the battery will last for ever! What utter nonsense. Please don't patronise me with these corporate tick-list replies.

• Reduce the backlight timeout (Backlight Settings).
• Reduce the backlight brightness (Backlight Settings).
• Turn off Bluetooth^® wireless technology when you are not using connected features (Turning Off the Bluetooth^® Smartphone Connection).
• Turn off activity tracking (Activity Tracking).
• Limit the smartphone notifications the device displays (Managing Notifications).
• Stop broadcasting heart rate data to paired Garmin^® devices (Broadcasting Heart Rate to Garmin^® Devices).
• Turn off wrist-based heart rate monitoring (Turning Off the Wrist-based Heart Rate Monitor)

I Want my battery life restored to pre software v6.60 update levels. I don't care how You achieve this, but it is Garmin that own this problem, so don't keep putting the issue back on the customer.

I look forward to your further reply.

Another VA3 user checking in with the same problem since auto updating to 6.60, as average drain time went from 4-5 days down to about 24 hours, with no changes other than the software update. My watch is coming up on 2 years old and I was thinking of upgrading to a Fenix 5 or 5+, but not if Garmin doesn't own and fix this issue.  We're weeks into the problem with no acknowledgement. I can get 2-3x this time between charges with a Samsung and its much prettier AMOLED display.

I have same problem with my Vivoactive 3 watch after system update. It started 4 month ago. 

Mine is about the same age. Wondering if your battery life has improved? 

Yes! The replacement watch doesn't have the battery drain issue. Did you try removing the three folders mentioned in my previous post. Also, please call support. They are very helpful. Even though mine was out of warranty by a couple of months, Garmin replaced it.