[Closed] Sports GPS watch with long battery life

Instinct solar should be able to do that, especially if it's sunny. You can drop how often it records GPS to boost it further. My Everest took 17 hours with Bluetooth and heart rate monitor connected, normal GPS recording, and it was showing 12 hours tracking remaining. Sunny day but a shady course.

Instinct solar +1

They were going cheap recently I think? 🤔

I've had the 935, and it's an excellent watch. Sold it two years ago to a friend, and it's still going strong.

I upgraded to a Fenix 6 Pro, and the battery life of the Fenix (and the equivalent 945) is waaaay longer - supposedly up to 36 hours. Just looked at my newly charged Fenix, and I've got 27 hours on GPS with no battery mitigation.

How did you find the battery life on the 935 CheshireCat? I'm guessing that the ultratrac mode should be sufficient for normal activity tracking.

Love my vivoactive 4, battery lasts around something like a week or longer😔... not 100% sure as it’s rare I have to charge it and don’t remember when I did last exactly

Vivoactive 4 won't get anywhere near 24hrs.

I did use mine for a 24 hour ride once, but had it plugged into a powerbank which was in a wee fuel tank pack, with the watch mounted on the bars, attached via one of those disc shaped chargers.

Worked great, finished with 100% charge! 😄

They were going cheap recently I think? 🤔

We need an STW version of the QI Klaxon 😁

My Lad has a Coros Pace 2, and he really likes it, does everything he needs for multisport and the claimed battery life of 60hrs general use is an underestimate.

Panda

I have Coros Pace 2 and the battery life is often 2 weeks depending on how lazy I've been, you should expect minimum 1 week with regular GPS and constant HR use. Also has barometer which is handy, but it is more of a runners watch.

If battery life is priority then the Garmin Enduro seems head and shoulders above the rest (at a price)

Supposedly the upcoming Fenix 7 will be similar

I binned my Garmin for a simple Polar watch. I love it. I will never buy Garmin again.

Turn off the Bluetooth connectivity on your Garmin and it will last ages. I did sdw in one go in 2020 and was surprised to see 60% battery remaining. That's the 945

The above recommendations look great

I definitely notice an increase with BT off too. Not sure whether that translates much to running/GPS usage time though or is just because no constant vibrating notifications saves a lot of juice over a week.....

It's certainly a very good trick for bike computers. If you have a long day, BT off absolutely gives a couple hours extra on an edge.

My Polar Vantage can last a week before needing charging.

My fenix 6 Pro does 36 hours with GPS tracking on.

Fenix 7 being announced tomorrow so possibly some good deals incoming in the short term. I don’t think the 7 will bring any meaningful improvements over the 6 except for more solar integration, and the battery life is already excellent to begin with.

I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for Suunto watches and their 9 watch does up to 120 hours depending on settings. I used mine on an ultra which was a shade over 12 hours and still had lots left even with GPS and HRM on.

Fenix 7 being announced tomorrow so possibly some good deals incoming in the short term. I don’t think the 7 will bring any meaningful improvements over the 6 except for more solar integration, and the battery life is already excellent to begin with.

I’m holding fire on buying the 6 until I see the specs on the 7, chances are there won’t be enough there to justify the extra cost especially with some of the deals already around…but you never know…

Thanks for the recommendations and advice so far.

I should perhaps have been clearer in the title that it's long battery life for a single tracked activity that I need.

My current Vivoactive HR will do about a week between charges in regular use but won't go much past 12 hours for a single activity.

How do people find Garmin's UltraTrac mode and the Coros equivalent. Does it do the job for most uses or are there significant drawbacks?

i have a 935 which i've been very happy with but i think the later garmins have moved to a different GPS chipset that are more battery friendly, they've introduced different HR monitors, and also pulse ox (the last probably not of great interest to your specific event but maybe useful for training and general well-being) on later models. of course also solar is appearing too.

you'd be best advised to take a look at dc rainmaker's site - more information than you knew you wanted but the definitive source of information on this stuff i think and very readable.

I turn off pulse ox, that drained the battery. When I used mine for sdw, it had wrist based hr/optical on and didn't use ultra trac. I might have been using smart recording, can't remember, but turning off bt hence all the Comms to phone was the biggest win.

I've got a Garmin instinct solar (I did look at other brands but already having an edge 530 cycling computer, I wanted to use the same app for them). Battery life is fantastic I find, doing no activities it's 25 days or so without any solar charging, it's also great when doing runs/rides with gps tracking. It allows a huge number of activities to be tracked, it's like a mini fenix.

Only thing about a solar watch is walking around day to day I've generally got a jacket or long sleeve top on which covers the screen and tucking sleeves behind the watch isn't comfortable and probably messes with the HR monitor.

Following a tip from the other Garmin thread I have ordered a Fenix 6 from Blacks. With the discount code and 16% cashback via Quidco it came out at just over £250.

Hopefully will tick all my boxes - battery life for a single activity said to be up to 36 hours before you get into Ultratrac mode etc.

Was a bit concerned about the 935 being quite out of date now and wasn't quite ready to take the plunge for a Coros!