Battery drain
-
Hi!
Many are having issues with their battery drain. I’m making this post to use it as a work around your watch. A hard reset every day isn’t what you want.
Main question: What is causing the battery drain and how do you cope?
I think the models that are affected are mainly Vertical 1, Vertical 2 and Race 2. But all other watches are welcome.
You can share your experience. Details matter. Sorry for the lack of my details below. Try to avoid big discussions, which could make the thread less readable, but you can ask for more details and give tips, of course.
Special thanks to @segi_pn who made many charts as well, which is encouraging to make this post.
I logged on of my cycles (14th - 28th of november).
I haven’t got much time to analyse.
Vertical 2 - Titanium
Settings:- Raise to wake - display only
- Brightness - low
- notifications off
- Airplane mode on and off
A few observations:
- Most of the times my vertical 2 gets it’s 5% per day
- Soft reset doens’t help always. Tried it many times when after my first run the battery kept draining. That’s why I tried the Airplane Mode.
- Airplane Mode does always help, and it’s amazing. I get 3,7% per day. But you should think about the next things: turn it on for a longer period (I used at least 6 hours), toggeling doesn’t work. And turn it on and off in the settings, not via control panel). So here is a feature request: update only a few times per day.
- No use of a HR-belt helps! But I think it’s a big miss. It doesn’t work always. It seems like there could be a drain after a run without HR-belt (H10)
-
I am attaching my observations and measurements.
I have already completed two cycles from 100% charge to the next charge.In the first cycle, there was an interesting break in consumption after the first recording of activity with the Suunto Smart HR Belt (I later bought a new chest strap).
In the second cycle, the exact opposite phenomenon occurred: after a sharp discharge, a change occurred and the discharge slowed down.
In addition to the soft reset, I removed the old paired HR belt at that time, as during one activity, the connection with the new HR belt did not start up.
I would like to add that before the last update (2.48.16), when using the watch a little more, I charged it after 10 days when the battery level was slightly above 30%.
Otherwise, I didn’t change my usage. I had continuous heat measurement, sleep tracking, smartphone notifications, brightness = medium, and Raise to wake = Low turned on. -
I’m now down to a cycle without obsessive looking at the battery.
It’s been 10 days and I’m at 22%, I’ll do a run this morning and charge it.Vertical 2 - titanium
- Normal daily use: 6% per day
- Maximum daily use: 12,5% per day
- Running without HRM: 2+% per hour
- Acitivity time: 6 hours (4 times of running)
I think it’s good. The first 48 hours I used the watch intensively using the flashlight a lot. I also wanted to measure an improvised hottub (which got to 40 degrees Celsius), so the screen was a lot of time on. In those 48 hours it lost about 25%. So that’s 15% extra (keeping in mind it should drain 5% per day).
The rest of the week I was using the ‘Simplicity Analog’ watch face and R2W - Fully activated. I do this since I like Analog watchfaces more, but I do dislike the AOD-versions of the analogs. Notifications are on, but only when I’ll be called.
I’m loosing like 6% per day without sports and not so intensive use. I think that’s what it supposed to be like.
In sportsmode it’s a bit different. Running 1 hour drains 2 %. The third percent mostly comes within an hour. So it drains a bit more than expected. IF I would ever do an 40h event I would bring my charger. Doesn’t really care if I use navigation or not at all. In januari/februari I’ll do a 2-day hike. That should make things more clear on this subject. I do not dare using the HR-strap again until the next update. I’m done with the whole resetting.
So the drain is OK for me. Still not really blown away. I was hoping to get easily over 14 days. I have to fight for that. Still it’s far above my user case. Next charge after today will be just before Christmas
-
H Horizontal_2 referenced this topic
-
On the Race 2 Titanium, I think the battery is excellent.
I charged it to 100% on 28/11/2025, and it reached 27% battery on 08/12/2025. During this time, I did around 20/22 hours of sport with GPS in performance mode. I also used the sleep tracking feature.
With the following settings:
Raise to wake - display only (on 75% of sports activities, 25% AOD)
Brightness: low
Notifications off
Airplane mode off
SPO2 off
HRV & sleep tracking on
HR24/7 on
With Suunto smart belt for 8/9 hours of exercise throughout the test periodI have not noticed any excessive battery drain on my part.
-
Posting my experience here too. I continue to monitor in my next charging cycle. I have a feeling that the slight drainage increase that I experienced in the last day or so of the previous cycle continues but too early to tell for sure.
Here is my recent battery experience with my Vertical 2.
Over the past 14 days (and a bit) I managed to do 19.5 GPS+HR activities and drain 91% of my battery.
I built a simple prediction model for battery drainage rate assuming that there are three different drainage rates: During GPS+HR activity (running and cycling in my case), during sleep (DND) and while idle (with notifications and raise to wake variations). Under these assumptions I tried to approximate the drainage model as close as possible to the battery levels and activity times I recorded during the day and came up with the following numbers (they imply slightly less than 5% per day without activities and more than the spec 65 GPS hours):
Sleep tracking rate: 0.11%/h
Non activity rate: 0.25%/h
GPS Activity rate: 1.16%/h
Flashlight rate: 20%/hThe above model worked very well during most of the two weeks until the last day or so when the battery got to about 20%. From that point it seems to drain faster than my model allowed. In fact, until that point, the model showed about 1.07% drainage per GPS hour which I updated to the higher number above to compensate for the end.
Settings:
AOD OFF
Raise to wake: Display only
247 HRM
Notifications ON
No external BT connections except Android Suunto App (6.4.7)
Wireless OFF
BT discovery OFF
Brightness LOW
DND from 22:00-5:40
Sleep tracking on with HRM but without SPO2
NO USE OF FLASHLIGHT
-
I am attaching a graph from cycle 3.
Since the improvement in consumption in cycle 2, it appears that this trend is continuing and battery life is the same as before.
I conclude that this is due to the removal of the paired chest strap and then a soft reset (holding the top button for 10 seconds).
-
@Horizontal_2 said in Battery drain:
sportsmode it’s a bit different. Running 1 hour drains 2 %
Isn’t it supposed to last 65 hours, which should be less than 2% per hour, closer to 1.5%. Even my Race 1 uses less battery per hour. During a recent race It used 27% in 16 hours, and that is in the most accurate GPS mode.
-
@sky-runner AOD, Navigation and I suspect BT to an external device (e.g. HRM) can increase battery drain. From my experience, without the above you can actually achieve better than 65 hours (on V2).
-
@gkaempfer My numbers were with navigation and Bluetooth, but without AOD. I think AOD would have a greater impact.
-
Update on my battery consumption model:
Some of my GPS activities seem to consume relatively more battery than others. In particular, it seems that Mountain biking consumes more than running or bike commuting?
Vertical 2, firmware 2.48.16 ran from a full charge down to 7% in 12 full days with 28:45 hours (!!) of cumulative GPS activity (biking, running, mountain biking).
The corresponding model that was very close to this (and my previous charge cycle):
Sleep tracking with DND rate: 0.11%/h
Non activity rate: 0.24%/h
GPS Activity rate: 1.50%/h
Flashlight rate: 20%/h
Settings:
AOD OFF
Raise to wake: Display only
247 HRM
Notifications ON
No external BT connections except Android Suunto App (6.5.9)
Wireless OFF
BT discovery OFF
Brightness LOW
DND from 22:00-5:40
Sleep tracking on with HRM but without SPO2
NO USE OF FLASHLIGHT -
I can provide a summary of battery consumption on Vertical 1 from the last cycle (the third cycle).
Mode Consumption Notes Activity 20,492 %/day (0,854 %/h) mainly GPS, HR/OHR, no maps Day 6,794 %/day (0,283 %/h) notification, OHR Sleep 3,959 %/day (0,165 %/h) DND, OHR -
I hear a lot about battery problems, but (fortunately) I don’t think I experienced those.
I use AOD, notifications on, HR on, Simplicity analogue watch face, DnD at night, no sleep tracking. The watch lasts for about a week. E.g. last week I charged on Sunday, did one 6 h Alpine skiing, 2 2h alpine skiing, 1 2h XC skiing (with HR belt) , 5 indoor exercises (HR, but no GPS). On Friday night, the battery level was 30%.
I am not sure what should be my expectations for the battery life, but 6 days with a number of activities using GPS is not that bad.
I am on the most current f/w level (2.48.16)
-
@gkaempfer So, your watch seems fine? You’ve inspired me to create a model. What is your reason you drain it till 7%? I assume it’s not good for the battery life (long term) to drain it that low, isn’t it? My charging strategy is this: drain it till 20%, do a run and charge it when I do have the time.
I’m on my second non-obsessive battery cycle. I’m on day 12 and have about 5,75 hours of GPS-activity (running).
My battery right now: 30%, prediction is 31,78%.
- Model: daily-drain: 0,21 %/h
- Model: training-drain: 1,54 %/h
Things that increased the battery drain:
- Use of flashlight a few times a day
- Use of maps around 50% of the time running.
- I’ve used around one day (18 h) AOD with an analog watch face
- Fiddeling around with Maps and compass. Also use of thermometer in a swimming pool and measuring depths of the swimming pool
Things that decreased battery drain:
- Turned on the Flight Mode (10 h) because I thought the drain was too high.
I didn’t use the HR-belt. I don’t like resetting my watch all the time. I’ll wait for the next update.
So, I think I’m fine as well regarding the specifications! And I do lose my charging cable all the time. I don’t know where it is right now, haha
-
@Horizontal_2 I agree it probably isn’t good for the battery to drain too low. I don’t know what level is best to allow (10%? 20%?).
I try to minimize charging as that is also a process that isn’t really healthy for the battery AFAIK so there is a slight conflict there.I didn’t use any navigation nor flashlight nor AOD. They all consume quite a bit more and at this stage I tried to minimize distortion to the model and setting a benchmark that I found reliable.
Indeed, I think that the result is great. I believe it outperforms any of the competitor watches I considered and with an excellent display when I need it (I would even like it to be less bright in the dark).
The latest model I got is also completely on par with the specs (20 days with OHR without activities / 65 hours of GPS+OHR).
-
@gkaempfer I see the conflict there. But keep in mind this is the advantage of a large battery. Suunto gives warranty for 1 year or 300 charging cycles (300 cycles is something you’ll get in 11 years! Based on a charging cycle of 14 days)
https://www.suunto.com/en-nl/Support/Product-support/suunto_vertical-2/suunto_vertical-2/care-and-support/battery/Influence of the low charge is equal. If you compare a battery which lasts 1 day or 20 days, and you drain both to 0%, the time below - let’s say 20% - is equal.
- For the small battery it’s more frequent, but shorter.
- For the bigger battery it’s less frequent, but longer.
So, I think keeping the battery healthy has more impact by draining it less than charging it less.
Also, I think a 14 day cycle is acceptable and most conveinient if you have a regulary week schedule. So if my battery is 20%, 16% or 14% - I don’t really care, and it’s still an acceptabel percentage to do a run
EDIT: by the way, I don’t think you should be worried about it too much. Probably calander aging is the biggest enemy and we just can’t stop time. The sweet spot would be 20 - 80% charge. But you’ll give up 40% of your capacity (that’s 8 days!) to keep your battery optimal for 20 or 40 years. That won’t happen
