Race S: Extremely high battery use rate

2b2bff

@elbee I mean all the Race S people say: It is fixed. Then a guy with a Vertical 2 says: no it is not.

There are other Battery drain topics, but this one has been for the Race S.

atoponce

@Tieutieu Not for me. I’m still seeing 20% drain per day.

sky-runner

@2b2bff said in Race S: Extremely high battery use rate:

@sky-runner this thread is in the Race S forum and has Race S in the title. I guess it is related to the Race S then?

I know this is a thread in Race S forum because it was me who started it.
I suspect this is a software issue so it is likely the same across all models. Anyway, I haven’t had a chance to verify this with Race S. Perhaps I’ll do that next week. Currently I am using Vertical 2 and Race S is unused.

2b2bff

@sky-runner said in Race S: Extremely high battery use rate:

I suspect this is a software issue so it is likely the same across all models.

Indeed as software issue, but maybe connected with the changed HR sensor algorithm? In that case it is a solution solely for the Race S. But who knows…
Interested about your results…

André Faria

@atoponce said in Race S: Extremely high battery use rate:

@Tieutieu Not for me. I’m still seeing 20% drain per day.

With new firmware and not in airplane mode i get like 12% per 12h without any activity. No phone notifications . Seems a bit high no?
I get the watch very recently and in the past firmware i used a lot airplane mode

Óscar Luño

Same problem here, charged last night 97% 24 hors later with two hors of trail running and map navigation. 63% I am having this issue since march.

gone troppo

My suunto vertical also experiences this extreme drain. You won’t get much out of this forum other than people posting to say how great their watch is. This is a an issue suunto no doubt know about but are in denial about or don’t know how to fix.

snow*

@gone-troppo I think reporting both cases is not wrong and may be helpful to further diagnosis. Last fw fixed my 20% drain per day.

sky-runner

@snow said in Race S: Extremely high battery use rate:

. Last fw fixed my 20% drain per day

It might have fixed it for now just because the watch was restarted and the watch state was reset. It might reappear again. In the past I had this issue on and off. I suspect this issue is connected to external HR sensors but perhaps it is more complicated.

fedequei

In my case, with the Vertical 1 Titanium Solar, I’m confident the issues started with version 2.43.12 released in June 2025. I had been monitoring battery consumption, which increased from about 3% per day during normal use to around 7%. It’s not a dramatic spike, but it reduces battery life from roughly 21–22 days down to no more than 14–15 days.
Wouldn’t it be enough to check what changed between version 2.40.44 and 2.43.12?

elbee

I recently disabled sleep tracking and it makes a huge difference on battery usage. Now with my usage (no aod, 7 - 10 hours gps usage a week) the battery last for over a week, were I used to charge it every 4 of 5 days.

I find sleeptracking not that useful so I don’t miss anything there.

What does puzzles me is that disabling sleep tracking also disables hrv. But that is also a minor loss. The day after a training hrv is lower and after a rest day it is higher. No surprises there.

sindavide

@elbee
Still, before the latest upgrade battery lasted substantially longer with sleep tracking enabled

dreamer_

I have been reading this as I’m somehow very interested in the Race S. If I understand you, with the Q1, HR accuracy is somehow fixed but at the cost of very high battery life consumption.

With the new firmware, what is the estimation of battery life using dual band GNSS in activity?

I do ultra trail races but I’m thin with small wrists and the thing is I have tried my wife’s Run and I find that watch super comfortable. At the end, in the longest races I can somehow play a bit with powerbanks at aid stations when needed.

elbee

@dreamer_

I can only share my experiences with my race s.

Heartrate sensor isn’t great before or after the update. But I haven’t had any watch with great heartrate sensor. If the sensor in your current watch works for you, the one in the race s will probably do also. If your current watch doesn’t work for you, don’t have your hopes on an other watch. My experience is that it is more person related than watch.

Battery life is doable for a modern watch. During activities (with highest gnss settings, because I use maps during navigation) I use about 5% battery per hour. With my typical usage of 7 - 10 hours of running a week, I have to charge every 4 or 5 days. A bit better battery life than my previous garmin forerunner 965 but a lot worse than my watch before that, a forerunner 935 (well, before garmin added a nasty bug to it, and of course the 935 doesn’t have dual frequency gnss, which you don’t really need, no maps which is a nice to have, and mips which is the better choice for a sport watch)

dreamer_

@elbee thank you so much for the very detailed answer. That 5% per hour with dual band and using maps is not that bad. It seems better than I thought. I understand that before the update battery life was more similar to the numbers Suunto says.

sindavide

@sky-runner
It seems we all have the same problem.
One night sleep with sleep monitoring uses ove 10% battery.

sindavide

@elbee
Wrist HR has greatly improved since last update. However, in general i agree that wrist HR is not great. Previously, though, it was really horrible.
I don’t think that battery, as it is after last update, is acceptable, especially considered that previously tomthe firmware update it laster substantially longer.

sindavide

@Tieutieu
How and when?
It doesn’t look like at all

Tieutieu

@sindavide said:

@Tieutieu
How and when?
It doesn’t look like at all

Could you quote or specify ?

Adrian.S

I can only confirm (Vertical 1) that some watch faces are more “batter-usage” than others.

Therefore I avoid watch-faces with animations like moon-phases, earth-animations, north-arrow, classic seconds-arrow etc.