Battery drain

kosmoplan

@Mff73 great advice, that Q1. Thank you!

StanAjax

Hi everyone and happy sportive new year to all !

First, thanks to everyone here for providing feed-back on the issue, be it the regular users or the mods that can also provide information from Suunto.

I will add my “case” to the topic, though I am not sure I can provide more information in order to help solve the issue…

I’ve bought a Race a bit less than 2 monthes ago. Ironically, it was both a birthday present and a panic buy because my 2-year-old 9 Baro suffered a battery drain 6 days before I did my first marathon ! The issue was solved with both a soft and hard reset (didn’t have time for too much testing !), thanks to my readings on the forum, and I finally used the 9 Baro for the marathon.

The Race is great, and, to me, is the perfect upgrade on my 9 Baro. Though, from the first discharge cycle, I noticed it was discharging too fast (being a bit sensitive on the topic at that moment…).
I didn’t charge it when I received it (it was >80%), so, maybe that’ the reason I said to myself. First charge, download maps, and following a bit more the battery discharge, I noticed that it was discharging too fast, especially at night. It seems especially true the night after an activity, though I wasn’t fully monitoring then.

So, I contacted the Support Team and followed their advices for parameters, that have already been described here multiple times (though, outside activites, I am always in Airplane / Eco mode). Also did the factory reset as asked and started monitoring after a full charge.

Support Team asked me to send the watch to a Service Center for it to be repaired. It was a bit longer than expected due to a UPS strike here (can’t blame them, just before Christmas is when they have a better negotiation power !). Quickly, the Service Center sent me a replacement watch, that I started monitoring just after I got it on Christmas Eve.

Everything was perfectly fine (~2% battery loss per day in Airplane / Eco mode and ~2% per hour in Performance mode seems very in line with the watch specs’) until 2025 arrived…
20% loss overnight !
Not after a day with an activity though, but when the battery was a bit lower, which is a different behaviour than the previous watch (battery started to drain the first night, though it was after a couple charge cycles).

I tried to contact the Support Team through mail and chat today, but though it is not announced that they are closed for the holidays, I guess there is less staff available today and tomorrow…

My return window is opened until January 15th, so I am not waiting longer and sending it back for a refund. It is truly a shame as the watch is really exactly what I was looking for (just not sure of the durability of the crown button), though I will wait for Suunto to solve the issues before buying another one and use my 9 Baro in the mean time.

Hopefully, 2025 will bring better news than my January 1st drain "gift’ and you will all be able to enjoy your Vertical / Race (S) / Peak (Pro) at their full capacity !
Good luck to the Suunto IT team in their research to correct the issues in the firmware / software of their watches.

larrybbaker

@StanAjax keep in mind this is a Vertical forum and not Race. I am not seeing any difference on the change of the year and with the last FW update my Vertical is back to great battery life.

StanAjax

@larrybbaker Thanks, I know that this is a Vertical forum.

Which is a shame (not to have a cross-watch topic on this issue, guess we have to deal with how the forum is built) because the same issue seems to affect Vertical, Race (S) and 9 Peak (Pro) from what I read (including the 709 messages prior to mine and the closed-by-admin-and-redirected-to-this-topic messages on the Race forum. So, I just wanted to avoid that step as admins seem to gather all battery drain issues that are related to the same software used by the different watches.

By the way, I finally had contact with Support Team through chat this afternoon.
Nothing new to test (suggesting a hard reset on a watch just sent and tested by Service Center), but I was told that a software / firmware update is scheduled for January. No precise date yet.

Hopefully, that solves the issue for everyone and all watches this time. Fingers crossed !

Pavlas

Hi, If I understand correctly, the discharge problem is still not solved? What is your experience with the Vertical’s endurance now? For me, it’s around 5% in 24 hours with HR and notifications (I don’t have many of those, only call notifications) and no activity.
It still seems too much to me.
I had the Ocean on test now and the endurance was similar - 5-6% in 24 hours with the same settings.
Ocean and Race don’t seem to have that problem. Is the problem only with the Vertical?

Ars Vitae

@Pavlas For me, the last two updates have completely solved the problem, so it must be a matter of either individual settings or individual procedures for dealing with the problem. I don’t think, given my and others’ experience, that this applies specifically to a particular watch model. This is just my opinion.
I use the notification rarely on expeditions, only when the phone is hidden in the bag and I want to be up to date on who is trying to contact me. From what I remember, battery consumption is then higher (also for the phone). But I guess that’s normal, the devices run in the background maintaining a constant connection.
My daily battery consumption without notifications, HR and workouts is about 1 - 1.5%. In my experience HR adds about 1% of daily consumption, I only turn it on at night for sleep monitoring. Adding active notifications I think you are probably within the optimal range of battery consumption.

larrybbaker

@Pavlas For me the latest FW has greatly improved the battery issues I was seeing with the Vertical.

Kramble

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos @SuperFlo75
Since the last update I did a full charge battery and a soft reset then after two weeks of testing, my average battery consuming per day is about 3% with OHR 24h / sleep tracking/ usual notifications and no activities (against 5% after this summer update)
Everything seems to go back normal now , and I can say that for my solar vertical the little drain battery bug is fixed .
Well done Suunto !

Mff73

@Mff73 said in Battery drain:

@Mff73 said in Battery drain:

@Mff73 said in Battery drain:

Fully charged mine yesterday from 0%
9% lost in 24 hours without any activity.
No soft reset, just charged.

[edit]
24/24 HR on
notifications on
Sleep tracking on
SPO2 on
everything like when i purchased it at launch

today’s stats :
Charged from 0% to 100% on Oct 6th.
Today : 22% left --> 78% lost in total in 12 days
17% battery lost in 9h36 of GPS activity
So 61% lost for 12 days, non include GPS activity (avg = 5% / day)
.

today’s stats :
Charged from 10% to 100% on Nov 11th.
Today : 15% left --> 85% lost in total in 10 days
32% battery lost in 17h50 of GPS activity
So 53% lost for 10 days, non include GPS activity (avg = 5.3% / day)

today’s stats :
Charged from 7% to 100% on Jan 5th.
Today : 38% left --> 62% lost in total in 12 days
17% battery lost in 9h37 of GPS activity
So 45% lost for 12 days, non include GPS activity (avg = 3.75% / day)

SV with latest 2.39.20 FW.
My battery consumption improved (i feel it). Btw, i just checked and change two settings (linked or not, i don’t know) : Coinnectivity / Discovery & Wifi : on --> off

let see how many time my current 38% will last

MarioPedraza

I’ve been studying the battery consumption of my Race for some time. I have the “Battery Levels by Activity” field in Intervals and I can see that until September 3, the battery life exceeded ten days and suddenly, from that date on, it has never exceeded 8 days. Firmware version 2.37.34 came out on September 4. Right now it does not exceed 6/7 days (with the same configuration and use of the watch). I did a factory reset, and it doesn’t seem to have improved, 12% battery lost daily without GPS activity.

MarioPedraza

@StanAjax
I don’t expect any battery improvements after the January version. For Suunto the battery problems are solved. It is not our case. I hope I’m wrong.

OnlyoneKenobi

@MarioPedraza I too am in a position to say that the race’s problems are not solved.
just bought, November 2023 I lasted almost 12 days with training and about 20 without training. Now in any configuration it does not reach the week. Furthermore, recharging has become a challenge, constant disconnections, etc.
I have already sent it to the support who returned it to me in third world hygienic conditions (dirty and smelly to the point of even having to change the strap) and without solving anything because according to them there are no problems…
moral of the story today I took it off my wrist, threw it at the charity market in my city and went back to my Spartan.

GKnoll

For the Suunto Vertical is there an option to display the battery % or hours remaining during an activity such as running?

I’ve looked at the Sport Mode Customisation options and could not see it there.

I need this option for some events so I can plan for re-charging the battery in good time.

SamuelP

@GKnoll just long press the lower button to acces the “control panel”. It shows “battery %” and “hours left”

BrunoH

@Samuel-Pirttikangas a quick reminder. Not all of us have Control Panel configured to the lower button long press. I used to have, but I had to change it because of the Control Panel carousel rendering problem. The problem stopped when I moved it to mid button short press. Weird, I know!

Sportsfreund

@BrunoH er meint wenn du die untere Taste während einer laufenden Aktivität gedrückt hälst.

SamuelP

@BrunoH i ment if you hold down the bottom button during an ongoing activity then you get battery stats.

GKnoll

@Samuel-Pirttikangas Thank you!

MarioPedraza

@OnlyoneKenobi Oops, sorry. Mine goes to technical support on Tuesday. I’ll cross my fingers.

Abu bakar Umar

@Klaane said in Battery drain:

The battery on my Suunto Vertical Solar has dropped from fully charged to 55% in only two days. Last night it dropped by 15% while I was sleeping with the watch on.
I have mobile notifications and 24/7 HR turned on but it still shouldn’t drain that fast, right? Standby backlight is off and I’ve used GPS for less than 10 minutes during those two days.
Do I have a defective battery or could this be some other issue?

It sounds frustrating! While mobile notifications and 24/7 HR can drain the battery, a 15% drop overnight seems excessive. Try resetting your watch or updating the firmware. If the issue persists, contacting Suunto support might help.