Vertical Titanium Solar - battery performance after june 2025

surfboomerang

I can’t confirm this.

I purchased my Vertical Solar on it’s release date and I am on the latest firmware.The watch is losing 2-3% per day on days without sufficient sunlight
The last time I charged the watch is 2 days ago, I did an hour of running and the watch is now at 96%.

I do have sleep and 24/7 HR disabled.

mickywickyftw

@surfboomerang said:

I do have sleep and 24/7 HR disabled.

That makes a huge difference though.
I would really like 24/7 HR disabled except for sleep and HRV.
Anecdotally I do lose more % per day than I used to - my watch is from Nov 2023, so it is to be expected. But I always wonder whether some firmware update made it worse.

thanasis

@surfboomerang said:

I can’t confirm this.

I purchased my Vertical Solar on it’s release date and I am on the latest firmware.The watch is losing 2-3% per day on days without sufficient sunlight
The last time I charged the watch is 2 days ago, I did an hour of running and the watch is now at 96%.

I do have sleep and 24/7 HR disabled.

Disabling those 2 does probably change a lot…if you enable power saving mode it can be even greater , but the watch is supposed to be much more energy efficient with those things enabled . Actually the 2-3% was the normal discharging level at the beginning when everything was On

Milan Šádek

@thanasis My SVTiS battery life has also dropped significantly. Below you can see my tracking data showing the daily consumption percentage. I only started logging this after I felt the battery was getting worse.
Even without GPS use (blue dots), the daily drain matches what my watch used to consume including GPS tracking (red dots). I received a warranty replacement last September, but both units have had similarly poor battery life on the same firmware.

fedequei

@Milan-Šádek It is therefore quite clear to me that this issue is related to the firmware updates, and I can say that it started in June 2025.

For the next update, if there ever is one, my only wish would be to see this issue fixed. In my opinion, the watch does not need any new features, it already does everything I need perfectly. However, I don’t think it is acceptable to sell a watch with a claimed battery performance that simply does not match the actual battery life users experience.

KSGravelJunkie

I hate saying it, but my battery life woes (Suunto Race albeit) and seeing the same problems on other models have me looking long and hard at a switch to a MIP based, solar powered Garmin watch. I held out for a long time due to the price increase of switching to Garmin but I feel like I don’t get what I am promised with a Suunto and I can’t trust faceplate specs, specifically battery life. The only thing that would make me reconsider would be the reintroduction of a solar powered, MIP based Vertical 3 (or some new model?), which I highly doubt will happen.

mickywickyftw

So, I’ve been suspicious - my current battery drain with no activity is higher than it used to be. For example I started at 99% at 09:00 and 11 hours later I’m sitting on 96% - no activity recorded.
If this really began after the June 2025 update… did anyone downgrade their firmware and check? I don’t even remember what recent features I would give up by doing that.

thanasis

I have started decommissioning the vertical some time now … but tested it again Today for a 2 hours hiking … the battery dropped like 6% which is quite high, like 2x (the expected based on specs would be like 2.5- 3% given it is supposed to offer 85hours …)

I don’t get it. Many of us do complain but get zero valuable information . It’s really sad

mickywickyftw

@thanasis I’d be careful with the official specs, tbh. If you were in the sun the whole time at the right angle also the whole time, and not using the map screen much, then 85 hours becomes a useful reference.
So looking at 60 hours instead, 2 hours = 3.33%, which is still much less than the 6% you report.
Where I notice the difference is not in GPS activities, that is still very good - it’s idle battery usage. I was at 99% last time I charged, and 75 hours later I sit at 80%.
During this time, zero sun exposure to the watch, I’ve: tracked GPS for 20 minutes, and used a 10-minute activity with regular vibrations.
That gives roughly 6%/day of idle usage, consistent with others’ findings = 16-17 days in daily mode. Not 30 days.
BTW the 60 days is with 3 hours of max solar charging per day, which is unrealistic for most in the northern hemisphere right now.

jedfromNZ

@mickywickyftw
New vertical 1 owner since June, love the watch.

Have noticed the same behaviour, amazing GPS on battery life and I only use it in Performance mode so less draw again.
It’s definitely the normal watch mode that eats battery fairly hard, 24/7 OHR, notifications turned off, SPo2 turned off.

26TH October
Hard reset and charged to 100%

Activity since full charge
28min run
22min indoor cycle
34min run
1hr 5min run

4TH November
Charge at 36% and we are coming into summer in New Zealand so it’s definitely getting some small gains there.

Confused but could try a factory reset or maybe even a firmware downgrade but I’ll have to read up on that.

mickywickyftw

@jedfromNZ I’ve gone back and looked at the new features introduced since the suspect update, and no, after all, I’d rather stick with the latest firmware than lose the more recent functionality.
Plus a hard reset, given how much I’ve customised the watch, means a few hours of laboriously restoring all my activity screens…
A firmware downgrade for a test would be v useful, if you decide to do it:

get a solid baseline, e.g. charge to 80%, wear it for 24 hours (or better yet, 48 or 72 hours), no activity, check the charge %. Should be about 6%/day if consistent with mine and others’
repeat after the downgrade. Back in the day 2.5-3%/day was normal, but batteries have aged slightly since then.