If you are worried about the poor battery life of your Garmin smartwatch, then this article is for you. In this article, I have compiled 18 proven tips to increase any Garmin Smartwatch battery life in 2021. These are simple but powerful tips that you can quickly implement through the Garmin Connect Mobile app or the smartwatch itself.
Even implementing a few tips helps you improve your smartwatch’s battery life significantly. This is extremely useful when you go hiking, long runs, or cycling.
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18 Proven Garmin Watch Battery Saving Tips
Garmin Smartwatches offer longer battery life than other smartwatches from Apple or Fitbit. Like all of you, we are also great fans of Apple watches. However, when we compare Garmin and Apple watch over sport tracking features and battery life, the Garmin devices were the ultimate winner.
These battery-saving tips help you increase the battery life of Garmin smartwatches further. Without further ado, let us jump into the article.
1. Reduce the Display Time out
Reducing the display timeout helps you save some battery juice. You can adjust this in the backlight settings.
2. Reduce the Backlight Brightness or Display brightness
Increasing display brightness gives you better visibility in the outdoor lights. But it put an extra burden on the battery. When it is not necessary, decrease the backlight brightness in the settings.
3. Use a Simple Watch Face
Using an animated or bright watch face consumes more juice from the battery. To avoid this, use a dark-colored watch face with limited widgets or no animations. I use a built-in watch face on my Garmin Fenix 6 Pro, and it helps me extend the battery power for a few hours.
Also, using a simple watch face without secondhand helps save battery life as it does not update them very frequently.
4. Turn Off Bluetooth
Turn off Bluetooth when you are not using the connected devices or features. But make sure you synchronize the device with the smartphone to save it on the Garmin Connect. Even though the smartwatch work without a smartphone, you won’t be able to use some features such as phone notifications, music streaming, live track, connect IQ, etc., to name a few.
Pro tip: Garmin smartwatches have an option to turn off Bluetooth in the settings. Many other smartwatch makers, such as Fitbit, do not have an option to turn off Bluetooth.
5. Enable the “Resume Later” feature when you stop an activity
Garmin smart wearables come with automatic activity detection. However, this feature varies from device to device. So, make sure you enable this feature to save battery when you stop an activity.
6. Limit Notifications
Limiting smartphone notifications helps you save battery life. Enable smartphone notifications only for high-priority apps such as SMS, primary email, reminder, etc. I could extend battery life for at least 30 minutes just by disabling social media and email notifications on my Garmin Fenix 6 Pro (I was getting hundreds of notifications every day from my various social media business pages and email accounts)
You can customize smartphone notifications easily in the Garmin Connect App on the smartphone.
7. Stop Sharing Heart Rate Data
If you are forecasting your heart rate to a connected Garmin device through Bluetooth, stop sharing it to save battery.
8. Transfer Music over Wi-Fi
This is a helpful tip for saving battery on a smartwatch with music. When you transfer music to a smartwatch, do it over a Wi-Fi connection rather than on a cellular connection. Also, make sure you keep the smartwatch closer to the modem while transferring music to the smartwatch. This will decrease the music transfer duration and thus helps you save some extra battery.
9. Stop Music Streaming and Music Playback
Most of the advanced Garmin Smartwatches have music streaming or music playback features. Most runners prefer a smartwatch with music as it allows them to leave their smartphone at home while running.
Unfortunately, it consumes a lot of battery as it put an extra burden on the battery. So, if you are out for a long trip, stop using music features on your smartwatch.
10. Turn off Your Earbuds or Headphone
Turn off your earbuds or headphones when you are not listening to the music. Even if you are not listening to music, your smartwatch has to spend a battery charge to maintain the connection with the output device.
11. Disable Key Tones
You can save some battery if you turn off alerts and tones on the keypress. You can do it at the watch settings.
12. Disable Wi-Fi
When you are not using connected features, turn off the Wi-Fi. This also helps you save battery by preventing data transfer between the Garmin Connect App and the Smartwatch.
13. Choose GPS over GLONASS or GALILEO
If you are not concerned about precise location accuracy, turn ON GPS-only mode and turn off other navigation features like GLONASS and GALILEO.
14. Enable UltraTrack
Advanced Smartwatches like Garmin Fenix 6 Series come with UltraTrack GPS mode. When you enable UltraTrack mode, the GPS data sync only once in a minute. This helps to save battery life for a long time.
15. Turn Off Heart Rate
When it is not necessary, turn off the heart rate monitoring feature in your Garmin Smartwatch. But you should remember that if you disable the heart rate monitor, the smartwatch no longer tracks heart rate, blood oxygen (SpO2), etc.
16. Enable Manual SpO2
Many Garmin Smartwatches come with real-time SpO2 monitoring. This consumes a lot of battery. To save battery, enable manual SpO2 monitoring on the smartwatch settings.
17. Choose a Solar Powered Smartwatch
If you don’t want to recharge your smartwatch frequently, you should go for a solar-powered smartwatch-like Garmin Fenix 6 Solar or Garmin Instinct Solar. The latest smartwatch, the Garmin Enduro, can go up to 65 days on expedition mode. Solar-powered smartwatches are helpful for people who are active outdoors, such as hikers, marathon runners, cyclists, etc.
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18. Use Original Charger
Always use the original or Garmin recommended charger to charge the smartwatch. Using a third-party charger might dame the smartwatch battery sooner or later.
Conclusion
You may not be able to implement all the Garmin battery-saving tips simultaneously on your smartwatch. However, even if you implement 4 to 5 tips on your smartwatch, you can extend your Garmin Watch battery life for a few hours. If you find these Garmin battery-saving tips were helpful, comment your thoughts below.
