Experiences and opinions about the integrated battery

Discussion related to the Garmin GPSMAP 66sr GPSr
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GPSrChive
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Re: Experiences and opinions about the integrated battery

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CheminerWill
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Re: Experiences and opinions about the integrated battery

Unread post by CheminerWill »

I see. I will run it down as suggested and report back. It makes sense I guess that if the screen remains lit after it reaches 100% and stops charging that after several hours with the screen lit, the % may drop to 99 or 98%. Or maybe it does not cease charging at 100% but keeps a trickle so that the 100% would be expected to remain as long as it is plugged in.

I'll install the widget also. Looks good.
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Re: Experiences and opinions about the integrated battery

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CheminerWill wrote: Wed Feb 03, 2021 12:10 am Or maybe it does not cease charging at 100% but keeps a trickle so that the 100% would be expected to remain as long as it is plugged in.
Correct.
rgschmidt
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Re: Experiences and opinions about the integrated battery

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CheminerWill wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 10:00 pm OK - Thanks. In the meantime what are people seeing when charging is complete. Does the screen turn off? Or stay on saying 100%?
Mine charges nicely to 100% and then the display stays on after that (no backlight) with the '100% battery image'.
Garmin GPSMAP 65S | Garmin GPSMAP 66SR | Garmin GPSMAP 66ST | Garmin Extrex 30
CheminerWill
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Re: Experiences and opinions about the integrated battery

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Update: I let it run down to 26% yesterday before plugging it in. It charged up pretty quickly by evening to 98% and stopped there. I unplugged it from the charger block and plugged in to my computer when I went to bed. Woke up once during the night, about 2 hours later, and it was at 100%. I turned it on and put it in a window where it could get satellites for the rest of the night.

Woke 6 hours later and it showed 8 foot accuracy and 61% left. So:

6 hours in the window = 61% remaining or lost 6.5% per hour

I then moved it outside on a table in a clear, open area.

7 hours = 56% lost 5% per hour
9 hours = 45% lost 5.5% per hour
10 hrs. = 39% lost 6%

These countdown percentages are from the widget I installed yesterday. The unit is just sitting on the satellite page. I will keep watching it and run it down at least to single digits and post back. But so far it seems obvious that I am not going to get anywhere near the advertised 36 hour battery life. We shall see exactly where it ends up but it is looking more like 16 hours tops. And that is just sitting on the table. I imagine it would be much less under normal usage going though pages and menus, recording a track, and with the backlight going on and off.

I know it says “up to 36 hours” so that has to be taken lightly. Still, I would feel better if it was close to that so as the unit gets older there is more of a buffer.

Just for fun, I did contact Garmin Support to see what kind of nonsense they might offer. Overall they did not have much. At first the rep said that the 36 hours is with the satellite reception turned off. I pushed back on that because it seems so absurd and the rep backtracked a bit but basically said they did not know for sure and if I thought there was a problem I should exchange it. Garmin usually exchanges for refurbished units so I am not too excited about that idea but since I have had it only a few days, and it is a new model, maybe they won't have refurbished ones and would send a new. If after more testing, I don’t see a lot better battery life that may be the only choice.
rgschmidt
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Re: Experiences and opinions about the integrated battery

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I am on an average of 7%/hr with geocaching (walking, direct routing etc.) with
- 30% brightness, 1min time-out
- No battery save mode
- BT on
- Wifi on
- ANT+ Tempe sensor on
- 0-5 degrees outdoor temperature

That should result in a 14hr autonomy for my 66SR. Just fine for my purposes :)
Garmin GPSMAP 65S | Garmin GPSMAP 66SR | Garmin GPSMAP 66ST | Garmin Extrex 30
CheminerWill
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Re: Experiences and opinions about the integrated battery

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Thanks! That is good information. Your time to battery depletion is about what I am seeing. So either we both have weak batteries or what we are seeing is normal and Garmin advertises the life to be twice as much as real usage shows. I agree that 14 or 15 hours will work fine for me as my backpacking days of being off the grid and as light as possible are long over. Just not the battery life I was expecting.
rgschmidt
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Re: Experiences and opinions about the integrated battery

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I would not have expected 35 hours but 20-25 would have been fine.

May I’ll try to run a test without connections, no backlit, battery save mode on, GPS only and see how the battery depletes. But I don’t expect too much and this probably makes the GPSr less practical for my use-case.
Garmin GPSMAP 65S | Garmin GPSMAP 66SR | Garmin GPSMAP 66ST | Garmin Extrex 30
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Re: Experiences and opinions about the integrated battery

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CheminerWill wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:25 pm Update: I let it run down to 26% yesterday before plugging it in. It charged up pretty quickly by evening to 98% and stopped there. I unplugged it from the charger block and plugged in to my computer when I went to bed. Woke up once during the night, about 2 hours later, and it was at 100%. I turned it on and put it in a window where it could get satellites for the rest of the night.

Woke 6 hours later and it showed 8 foot accuracy and 61% left. So:

6 hours in the window = 61% remaining or lost 6.5% per hour

I then moved it outside on a table in a clear, open area.

7 hours = 56% lost 5% per hour
9 hours = 45% lost 5.5% per hour
10 hrs. = 39% lost 6%

These countdown percentages are from the widget I installed yesterday. The unit is just sitting on the satellite page.
What are the device settings during this time?

Get it off the satellite page, that page requires constant re-drawing and hundreds of calculations every second are required to support re-drawing all those satellite positions and signal bars. If you are not looking at the Satellite page the entire time, you are just using battery power up for no purpose other than to have something to complain about!
CheminerWill wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:25 pm I will keep watching it and run it down at least to single digits and post back. But so far it seems obvious that I am not going to get anywhere near the advertised 36 hour battery life. We shall see exactly where it ends up but it is looking more like 16 hours tops. And that is just sitting on the table.
Again, what were the device settings?

There are so many things you can do the extend battery life without sacrificing functionality.

See: GPSrChive > GPSMAP 66sr > Operation > Power Supply > Maximizing Battery Life.
CheminerWill wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:25 pm I imagine it would be much less under normal usage going though pages and menus, recording a track, and with the backlight going on and off.
Define 'Normal Usage'. Not so easy. Different for each user.
CheminerWill wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:25 pm I know it says “up to 36 hours” so that has to be taken lightly. Still, I would feel better if it was close to that so as the unit gets older there is more of a buffer.
Employ some of the tactics listed at the page referenced above and you will get much closer to that run time!
CheminerWill wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:25 pm Just for fun, I did contact Garmin Support to see what kind of nonsense they might offer. Overall they did not have much. At first the rep said that the 36 hours is with the satellite reception turned off. I pushed back on that because it seems so absurd and the rep backtracked a bit but basically said they did not know for sure and if I thought there was a problem I should exchange it. Garmin usually exchanges for refurbished units so I am not too excited about that idea but since I have had it only a few days, and it is a new model, maybe they won't have refurbished ones and would send a new. If after more testing, I don’t see a lot better battery life that may be the only choice.
Your battery run-time is not a device malfunction. It may improve with future firmware versions, but it is most likely to improve after the user learns how to be more efficient while using the GPSr.

Are you using Battery Save?

What is the backlight time out?

Brightness while illuminated?

Wi-Fi Disabled? (don't need that in the wilderness).

ANT+ Connections?

Chirp Searching Status?
rgschmidt wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 9:55 pm I would not have expected 35 hours but 20-25 would have been fine.

May I’ll try to run a test without connections, no backlit, battery save mode on, GPS only and see how the battery depletes. But I don’t expect too much and this probably makes the GPSr less practical for my use-case.
30% backlight is pretty bright on this unit, and zero backlight is required for outdoor sunlight usage. Wi-Fi certainly is not required on the trail, and Bluetooth is really not needed either. Battery save mode enabled with a 15 or 30 second backlight time-out is effective and usable unless you always have your nose buried in the device while you are hiking. Keep Multi-GNSS and Multi-Band enabled, they are the whole reason for having this GPSr.
CheminerWill wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:57 pm Thanks! That is good information. Your time to battery depletion is about what I am seeing. So either we both have weak batteries or what we are seeing is normal and Garmin advertises the life to be twice as much as real usage shows. I agree that 14 or 15 hours will work fine for me as my backpacking days of being off the grid and as light as possible are long over. Just not the battery life I was expecting.
14-15 hours of real run-time before you have even fine tuned the settings is already twice as much run-time as a well configured GPSMAP 66s/st or any other 'AA' powered Garmin GPSr.
CheminerWill
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Re: Experiences and opinions about the integrated battery

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Put it back to charge when it reached 9% so will see if it gets up to 100%. Trying yet another charger. Average hourly drop today was 6.5%. Tomorrow I will repeat with the suggested changes and compare. Some of them are things I would not do when hiking but that is OK for this. Most days I would not need more than 3 to 6 hours of battery life to accomplish what I want so don’t anticipate any issues. And charging each night is virtually always an option so I should never have a problem. I just wanted to see how close I could get to the advertised 36 hours and assure myself that the unit did not have a problem. I am thinking it does not.

Following are how things were set today, I will change suggested other settings tomorrow and see.

Backlight was off except once per hour when checking the battery widget.
Backlight Brightness is 10% when on
Backlight Timeout is 15 seconds
Battery Save Mode was not on so will try it with it on.
Wi-Fi & Bluetooth were both on so will turn off. I do use Bluetooth when hiking to get notifications from my phone in my pack so I only need to deal with my phone if necessary.
ANT+ Sensors are off
Disable the magnetic compass. Not sure about this? Do you mean turn the compass from auto to off?
Multi-GNSS and Multi-Band are On. And this unit is very accurate!
Altimeter - Pressure Trending is 'Save When Power On'
Recording Controls on 'Auto'
Map Orientation is 'North Up'
I had it on the satellite page today so will change to trip computer for tomorrow. When hiking I have always used the Map page and likely will continue with that when hiking.
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