Garmin smartwatch battery replacement options

Watching this with interest as I'd like to replace my Vivoactive 4 battery. The watch is fine and does everything I need it to but the battery life isn't great. I can get by charging it a few times a week when I'm at my desk but it seems insane that it's not easier to replace the battery.

I was under the impression it was all sealed so could be replaced. If it can be done for £90 then that sounds like a bargain. I'm still getting 11 days with some tracking for walks...but the walks are only about a half hour at a time and only 3 or 4 a week. If I don't track I still get the 14 days between charges.

I replaced the battery on a Fenix 5s a year or so back and it was pretty straightforward. Needed a small torx to undo the four screws on the back and then it was just a matter of pulling bits out, disconnecting the battery, putting a new one in and putting it all back together. Got a "dodgy" battery from ebay, but it's working as well as the original one.

The other Garmins seem to be a bit more complex as they are glued rather than screwed together, but the Fenix was pretty simple.

After speaking to Garmin support they concluded for the instinct it wasn't possible

Thanks all, especially @roverpig - good to know (at least some of) the ebay batteries are decent. Have you got the watch wet since you changed the battery? I'm not a swimmer, but I can see it going on rides in the wet or worn when I'm doing the washing up.

I should really have provided some links, I think. And it's too late to go back and edit my post so to hopefully save some Googling:

Satnav Specialist - Repair listed for a similar watch. Battery brand not stated though.

Advanced Repair - Considerably more expensive option, but listed for the correct model and specifies the battery used.

iFixit Guide - for a similar watch.

I should point out that I do work with computers and electronics, so taking things apart and soldering connections doesn't worry me too much, though this is definitely at the fiddly end of what I could manage.

After speaking to Garmin support they concluded for the instinct it wasn’t possible

Have Garmin actually offered battery replacement for any products? I've not seen anyone reporting it offered as a service - only a refurb / discount being offered on a replacement.

no they don't offer the battery replacement

Colleague replaced a battery in an old fenix 3. It was never very good after that and he ended up replacing for a fr265 about 6 months later.

Ifixit is good for this sort of stuff.

Eg  https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Garmin+fenix+6X+Sapphire+Battery+Replacement/148356

I’d probably do it myself, if you don’t fancy it, sell it on eBay fully described to someone willing to do it?

Ifixit is good for this sort of stuff.

I’d probably do it myself,

That's fine, it doesn't look too dificult. However where would you get the battery to fit? From the above sample size of two, 50% of random batteries from the internet are great, 50% sound like they weren't much cop. I'd rather not end up fitting a battery that's no better and I don't think Garmin will sell me a genuine new battery.

I replaced the battery in my Huawei watch with one from replacebase.co.uk . Inclung shipping and a decent quality T2 Torx driver it came to about 17 quid. No idea about the Garmin but I can recommend them as a source for a battery.

Some non genuine batteries are slightly different voltage to the originals and there is a risk of failure when charging or in use.

Also a 6X is different to a 6 being a larger watch so batteries may be different.

And lastly I don't believe its possible to buy a genuine Garmin replacement battery so any labelled up as such are probably fakes

Satnav Specialist replaced the battery in my wife's Garmin Edge 130. Excellent service. Highly recommended.

I replaced the battery in my Huawei watch with one from replacebase.co.uk . Inclung shipping and a decent quality T2 Torx driver it came to about 17 quid. No idea about the Garmin but I can recommend them as a source for a battery.

Cheers for that, just the sort of place I was looking for a link to!

Some non genuine batteries are slightly different voltage to the originals and there is a risk of failure when charging or in use.

I'll admit that I'd seen people getting very wound up about that, but what I saw seemed to be rounds of Chinese Whispers from different people quoting voltage at different states of charge. Hmm, worth keeping an eye out for.

Satnav Specialist replaced the battery in my wife’s Garmin Edge 130. Excellent service. Highly recommended.

Ha! If you'd posted that an hour earlier, I'd probably have been swayed and just sent it off to them to be someone else's problem. However I've now taken the face off the watch and the circuit board out partially to confirm the part number on the battery matches the battery that replacebase list for the Fenix 5 Pro (I'd seen it mentioned that both the 5 Pro and the 6 Pro use the battery with part number 361-00097-00, but wanted to confirm before odering). I also wanted to make sure I could take it apart and get it back together again. While the connectors were smaller, there's nothing scary in there that would stop someone who was comfortable fitting parts in, say, a laptop, I don't think.

Replace Base seem to list a genuine battery pulled from a new unit, which seems like a reasonable course of how a genuine battery is available.

I'll report back once it's arrived, I've fitted it and I see how the battery holds up. Thanks all!

OK, quick update. The battery arrived yesterday and I fitted it in the early afternoon and gave it a full charge. Since then the battery indecator has dropped from 21 days to 14, so at a rough guess this battery's going to last about three days, better than the previous one, but not good.

I'll give it a full cycle first though to see if that helps, if not I suspect I'll be asking for a return / exchange.

Fitting the battery was quite a lot more fiddly than getting to it to read the number off it. There's a tiny and very stiff connector on the battery itself and it requires quite a lot of force to release the battery from the glue, which is pretty nervewracking on a fairly soft battery full of nasty chemicals.

OK, another update as battery number 5 arrived today... Which probably gives you some idea that it's not gone smoothly. I am at least getting pretty proficient at taking it apart by now. Battery history as follows. For those where I quote how long a charge lasted, I've got just about everything disabled on the watch - no WiFi, no phone paring and not tracking any activities.

1. Replace Base - Apparently genuine Garmin (they're sold as pulled from unsold units which I have no reason to doubt). Dated 2017, 3 day life.
2. Replace Base Replacement ditto, but dated 2018. Slightly better, 3.5/4 days. I asked if they had any less old batteries, they admitted they didn't and gave me a refund.
3. eBay from China - appears to have Garmin logo and 2024 date code. Took 4 weeks to arrive. Fonts look slightly different, so unsure if genuine. Arrived very discharged. 2 days life. Using a smart lithium charger said it took around half the stated capacity to fully charged and it seemed to then lose a significant chunk of that overnight.
4. Aftermarket battery from eBay (seller is also at battery.uk.com). Best so far, about 7 day life (I've only just started the second charge cycle). If this keeps up it's usable. Marked capacity is around 10% down on the one that came out and it's Li-Poly rather than Li-Ion which I think means it's probably not quite the same. Hopefully the sturdy metal case of the watch will contain any fires ;-).
5. Replacement for 3 just arrived. Appears to be completely dead, I can't read anything other than 0V with a multimeter.

So all in all, it's not been a straightforward process. All the more frustrating that Garmin won't sell a replacement, fresh, genuine battery which would no doubt keep this watch running for another few years. I've got to the point where I've found the watch usable on battery number 4, so I'm probably going to stick with it.

Re water proofing.

You stick it back together with glue.

The name of which is something lik b-6000

And attack it with a hairdryer to soften it all when you open it.

They things are generally pretty easily the less screws the better!

This isn't great, is it? I'm slightly resigned to just replacing my smar****ches when they finally conk out; I've gone through a Polar and am just at the point where my Forerunner 735 has a noticeably shorter battery life. When I went to the Forerunner I did so because newer smar****ches had a load more features, and it's likely to be the same with the next one. While I'm not wild about a disposable watch, the impact is fairly tiny compared to buying/leasing a new car every three years, which seems to be A Thing.

This isn’t great, is it? I’m slightly resigned to just replacing my smar****ches when they finally conk out

No, it's not great - it's really frustrating. I had a more persistent go at Garmin support's chat, pointing out that jewellers already change batteries in many similar watches and the EU's right-to-repair calls for electronics manufacturers to offer spares for common parts; but unsurprisingly I got nowhere. It irks me that not only is an expensive item scrap after a few years for want of an easily replaced, cheap part - which is expensive to me, it's generating yet more unecessary e-waste. It certainly doesn't make me want to buy another Garmin.

I've found that Garmin have a sustainability mission here: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/sustainability/overview/ with a contact at sustainability@garmin.com. I may drop them a message pointing out that making a product even less repairable than the Apple equivalent is not only an achievement in itself, but rather undermines their claims to sustainability. I doubt it will do much other than making me feel a bit better.

The impact is fairly tiny compared to buying/leasing a new car every three years, which seems to be A Thing.

True enough, but at least most cars go on to a further life after their initial lease. They're not just chucked in landfill because the manufacturer won't supply a replacement battery / filter / tyres etc.

I've had the same experience as you @toby. Garmin completely uninterested in repairing their watches. My Fenix 5 is currently with Satnav Specialist, just waiting for it to come back to me. Garmin were only interested in offering a 30% discount on a new watch. I don't think  Garmin are at all interested in sustainability, but I'll use that email address (like you, I'll expect it won't have effect, but it'll make me feel better.

Following this thread with interest 'cos my Forerunner 245 is three and a half years old now, and it's definitely starting to need charging more often. It's good for now, but it won't last forever.

Are there any sport watch brands that are built more sustainably? 'cos that's definitely a consideration if/when I come to replacing it.

I'm increasingly of a mind that Garmin is operating on the perception of being a premium brand rather than actually being any good. I've had a Garmin outdoor GPS back when they were a thing, a watch, a bike computer and a Garmin-powered satnav in the OEM head unit of a Honda Civic, and they've all been garbage to various degrees.

I bought my partner a Garmin smar****ch for her birthday (I had a thread here at the time); she hates it. £250 to be worn for a month and then stuffed in the Drawer Of Doom.

Apple are the same though, you cannot buy a genuine iPhone battery.

It’s for these reasons I refuse to buy electronic wearable devices, other than watches that I can give to my mate to replace the battery.

I understand that the Apple Watch doesn’t have a user-replaceable battery, especially the Ultimate, just because it’s so complicated, what with all the sensors, but could be taken back to Apple, but I just can’t justify the cost of buying one, and get maybe five years out of it, when I’ve got a quartz watch that’s forty years old and still working fine.

For balance I really like my Garmin (Forerunner 245) but I use it as a running watch, the smart features are just a bonus. It's barely been off my wrist for three years or so. I'd miss the tracking and monitoring features when I run.

The battery thing bothers me, though.

and they’ve all been garbage to various degrees.

I've sort of not wanted to admit it to myself, but you're probably right. The App and programmes are confusing -Express, Connect, Base all do different things, and why not have all the functions in one place? The UI on the App is pretty unfriendly to use, and God knows who's got my data after how many hacks is that now? Uploading rides or runs can be an exercise in frustration. The hardware is less cranky I guess, but the experience with older watches (ie none at all) leaves a sour taste when it's cost over £500.

I've an old Garmin that the boy uses but the battery only lasts about an hour. Thought about getting a replacement battery but then spotted a GPS watch at the petrol station for about £25 which would be vastly cheaper than fixing up the old one. In the end I did neither but it's disappointing new is cheaper than repairing.

Whilst I take your point, I can't imagine a £25 GPS watch from a petrol station being particularly stellar.

The reason I had a Garmin watch was because it was given to me after its previous owner got fed up with it being crap. My first in-car TomTom was - rightly - considered the best in breed at the time, and it took 15 minutes to acquire a satellite lock. Bad GPS exists and it's an exercise in frustration.

That said, for £25 I might be tempted just out of curiosity. Though I suppose that's exactly what they want you to do.

Apple are the same though, you cannot buy a genuine iPhone battery.

Not directly as a spare part, no. However a quick search suggests that I can take an Apple Watch / iPhone into an Apple shop and have the battery replaced with a new, genuine one (for a fee). Which to me is a big step up from "No, it's scrap, but here's a discount code on a new one which makes it about the same price as you could get it from other retailers." I'm not a user of the fruity nonsense though, so I can't confirm whether it acutally works in practice.

Another update: Battery #5 was not actually dead, I put it in the watch and eventually it charged enough to power on, so either I didn't poke my probes into the tiny plug well enough, or there was a protection circuit that had cut off the battery. However it's lost 4 days' worth of charge overnight, so doesn't look to be a good one.

It’s for these reasons I refuse to buy electronic wearable devices, other than watches that I can give to my mate to replace the battery.

There does seem to be an extra annoyance that it's actually fairly easy to change the battery, OK the connectors are fiddly, but the watch screws together and the battery is plugged in - there's no need to resolder it and the gasket looks like it should remain watertight. If I could buy a decent replacement battery, it would actually be a remarkably repairable item. OK, it's fiddlier than, say, a laptop to work on, but nothing that a high-street phone repairer would struggle with.

I think if it were me, after five batteries I'd either be re-evaluating my expectations or binning it.

I think if it were me, after five batteries I’d either be re-evaluating my expectations or binning it.

Yeah, by now it's somewhere betweeen a technical challenge that at least to start with was a bit of fun, and bloody mindedness that it *shouldn't* be e-waste for want of a consumable part. Partly, having gone through all this, it seems worth documenting in case anyone else comes along in a similar position.

Battery #4 seems to last ~ 1 week with the watch used as intended, so that's probably Good Enough.

As to the device itself, it does what I want - it's a bit of a nudge to walk about a bit more and go to bed early. It shares heart rate with my (Lezyne) bike GPS and gives me soem other health / excersise data to obsess over. Do I really want yet another thing to nag me every time I get an email? Not really, but then I'm old / grumpy enough to regard email as something you should sit down and check once a day, not some semi-real-time chat. I'm quite happy if I can get a cast off to soldier on for a bit, but I wouldn't go out an spend several hundred on one, I don't think. (That said, the fact that my wife's Fenix 7 Pro has a torch on is quite tempting ;-). )

Interesting Thread, you've gone further down the rabbit hole than most would with this by now.

I've briefly played with battery replacements on old Edge 520s, but gave up after some similar experiences to yours OP. Reward isn't quite there for the effort of sourcing and fitting replacement batteries (IMO).

I have recently been mulling the idea of flogging my pretty much fine ~2.5 year old Instinct Solar (V1) to get an Instinct 2 Solar, they're probably about to go down in price as the Instinct 3 has just been announced.

It's not because I have any issue with the Instinct Solar (I really like it TBH), but just so I can stay ahead of battery degradation. It's going to happen, the question is do I just accept that fact and wait till the device is coming up for it's 5th birthday with a properly failing battery and just write the cost of replacement off, or try to flip on an otherwise decent watch now and recover a wee bit towards it's replacement, while still remaining a generation behind (and knowing I'll end up doing the same again in a couple of years).

I understand bloody-minded, I'd be the same, I damn well will fix this.

But, a week's battery life is "probably good enough"? What are you doing, sleeping in it?

But, a week’s battery life is “probably good enough”? What are you doing, sleeping in it?

Well yes, how else would it tell me how well I slept ;-).

Sorry, I fear I wasn't clear there, I mean I'm almost certainly going to stop messing about and stick to the best of the batteries I've tried so far at this point. It's still not great - it's only about a third of the battery life it apparently should have. But unless someone points out a genuine OEM battery at a reasonable price, it's usable and not worth buying any more random batteries on the offchance IMHO.

I think I'd be buying a separate sleep tracker if I cared sufficiently.

I dunno, maybe it's just me but for all that I love tech I strip it out when I go to bed. The Kindle is a concession. I'm sleeping in the spare room currently (a chronic sinus infection means I'm snoring like a muddyfunster), I can hear my partner's phone plinging away all night from the other room and it gets right on my nips.

This one popped up ion my feed yesterday: https://www.unawatch.com/
Usual caveats that it's a kickstarter and so on, but it looks quite promising and certainly addresses a lot of our worries about repair and replacement, which is a good thing. I'll be keeping an eye on it.

This one popped up ion my feed yesterday: https://www.unawatch.com/
/blockquote>
Yeah, that looks good, in fact it looks remarkably similar construction to the Fenix. However it only lives up to the promises if they keep trading and making parts available. Also would it suffer from the economies of scale that seemed to plague the Fiarphone - it ends up over priced and the design / specs can't keep up with the big players who can afford a redesign every year?

It's a nice idea, though. More of this; Less of not-this!

 

Watch has come back from Satnav Specialists. Took a week, (actual work was just a day), if you need it faster you can pay an extra tenner for it. Watch looks no different at all, but switched on straight away and has lost 3% of charge after wearing it all day. Test will be when I go for a run, and see what the score is then, but initial impressions are good.

This one popped up ion my feed yesterday: https://www.unawatch.com/
/blockquote>

Remarkably cagy on pricing, unless I'm being blind.

 

You have to dig for it, it's about £191 - converted form their $ price of $234 but only if you sign up for it now.

Satnav Specialist, thanks, top tip.

How old are the watches that need a new battery? I’d have thought a Fenix should be good for quite a long time. Weekly charging for 10 years is 500 cycles which isn’t that many. Less than my phone over 2 years.

Sadly me Epix needs charging twice a week but I’d still hope for 5 years

@toby is it possible you’re watch is knackered and has a drain

@ampthill I'm following this thread with interest as my wife is using a 5 year old VivoActive 4 and I've just upgraded from a Fenix 6 Pro Solar to a 7S Pro Solar after allmost 3 years of use and neither of those older devices are showing any noticeable decline in battery performance.

My Fenix 5 was bought in Sept 2018, I've no idea when it was made. So 6 years for mine to start to go wonky. Interesting point about charging cycles though.

This isn’t great, is it? I’m slightly resigned to just replacing my smar****ches when they finally conk out

Well yes, but this is what you get from companies and an economic system focussed on continuous growth and 'innovation' and a customer base who want the latest gizmo. There is no incentive for brands to make it easy to repair and sustain products when it's far more profitable for them to tell you something's unrepairable and you should simply buy a new one. It encapsulates why the world is going to hell in a handcart.

When the bearings on my 2017 Kickr wore out, it turned out that the tool to remove the toothed ring that hides on the main pulley-wheel bearings is simply not available anywhere. Nor is the actual insert, so you can't even destroy the ring, swap out the bearing, and then replace the ring afterwards. Effectively, in Wahoo's book, an item that originally cost around £1,000 is scrap because there's no way of replacing a £5 bearing. I managed to fix it anyway, but they'd far rather I spend £1k on a new Kickr than £30 on bearings and a tenner on a new belt.

See also phones, cars etc. At least bikes are mostly home repairable, or were until the industry invented e-bikes...

@toby is it possible you’re watch is knackered and has a drain

Yup, it's possible, and it's something I've considered. However with a variation between about two days and a week, it's also clear that some of the batteries are better than others. The only one I've actually hooked up to a smart charger took just over half the stated capacity to charge fully and as I say lost significant charge overnight. I'm pretty certain that there's something wrong with many of the batteries being sold.

How old are the watches that need a new battery? I’d have thought a Fenix should be good for quite a long time. Weekly charging for 10 years is 500 cycles which isn’t that many. Less than my phone over 2 years.

Well the original battery had an August 2018 date code on so 6.5 years. Charge cycles aren't the only thing to consider with Lithium batteries, they do deteriorate with age, particularly if left flat (Such as the unsold ones stripped for parts after 7 years almost certainly were).

Well yes, but this is what you get from companies and an economic system focussed on continuous growth and ‘innovation’ and a customer base who want the latest gizmo. There is no incentive for brands to make it easy to repair and sustain products when it’s far more profitable for them to tell you something’s unrepairable and you should simply buy a new one.

To be fair, if there's a demand, aftermarket spares will hopefully be brought out. Unfortunately some people will also try and cash in on a demand and sell some stuff that's not much cop. Hopefully sharing experiences will help someone else later down the line.

FWIW, battery #5 (replacement from Chinese seller on ebay) actually seems to be pretty decent, while it's not a direct comparison without a full reset and testing the battery live without things like phone paring, WiFi and tracking any activities, it's looking like about 5 days or so in day-to-day use. Again pretty usable.

ETA: And yes, for anyone wondering, I do wish I'd just sent it off to be somoene else's problem 😉

This just popped up on Instagram.

Presales for Unawatch.

Apparently a Scottish based company. Looks Edinburgh based.

https://presale.unawatch.com/?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaY-zmKxCWwu-FOI9rla65K8kJaCT1MfRG_gMVs_7wqDa69ZBcO9Z8tSw3w_aem_gIaKHGUenlHHTDz65lM4Jg

No ideaabout them their website is a bit sparse but apparently it's repairable / upgradable

Update; I had a replacement battery fitted about 3/4 weeks ago by Satnav Specialist, but watch has died today and is isn't recovering. Maybe a faulty battery, but who knows I'll contact them and see what the gig is, but not massively impressed.