[caption id="attachment_60608" align="aligncenter" width="903"] Battery Gauge CIQ App on Garmin.com app store[/caption] Garmin - improve battery charging and longevity, what the company needs to do This post is about changes Garmin need to make to battery charging to improve battery life expectancies for its Lithium ion batteries. This will save you money, extend the life of your watch and be more eco-friendly to boot. It's a win-win for almost everyone except Garmin. Here are the WHYs, WHATs and WHEREFOREs. Note: I will be referencing Apple a bit here as Apple provides greater clarity on battery performance than Garmin. Most smartwatch companies use very similar battery technologies so I assume similarities between Apple and Garmin. Battery Life Cycle You can keep using a battery until it will no longer charge. However, from Day 1 the battery's chemical performance begins to degrade. Broadly speaking, the more times you charge it up and subsequently drain it of power, the closer that endpoint comes. Normally we would expect to see the number of complete charge cycles quoted as a figure for the life expectancy of a battery. Garmin doesn't provide that figure but Apple says this about the Apple Watch: "Your battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 1,000 complete charge cycles." - Apple Garmin only says this: "Rechargeable batteries found in Garmin devices naturally lose capacity over time due to charge/discharge cycling. Under normal operating conditions, batteries should retain approximately 80% of their original capacity after a few years of frequent charge/discharge cycles." - Garmin Battery Capacity As a Garmin watch owner, you might not be too worried if your battery capacity drops to 80%. After all, the battery life is already great, so having 80% of that in a few years should still be sufficient, right? Well, not exactly. Apple shares some information about how it manages its batteries. If you check this link, you'll see that Apple uses the reduction in capacity as an explanation for both actual speed/performance decreases and a decrease in overall capacity. Maybe Garmin does something similar? I don't know. For Apple Watch owners, this becomes a significant concern. Apple suggests that an Apple Watch is good for maximum speed for about 1,000 charge cycles. If you're using your watch daily and charging it every day, it's reasonable to assume that 1,000 charge cycles translate to roughly 1,000 days or 3 years. After this period, Apple may artificially slow down the performance, and the battery degradation continues. Personally, both my Apple Watch and iPhone, both older than 3 years, don't perform as well as they used to. Now, the dilemma is whether to replace the battery or the entire device. For Garmin owners, the situation isn't as dire. My Garmin watches easily go 4 or more days between charges. Therefore, a direct comparison to the Apple Watch scenario doesn't look as concerning. The battery life of a Garmin watch could be over 4 times longer than that of an Apple Watch, and even the Watch Ultra might last twice as long. This could potentially extend Garmin's battery life to 12 years, which, if that's the only consideration, is reasonable enough to last until end-of-life. Confounding Factors I know my Forerunner 935 is significantly less than 12 years old yet is MUCH slower than when new. Maybe the software updates slow its performance or maybe other factors are at play? More: cleantechnica.com Several things can speed up how quickly your battery loses its capacity, and they include: High temperatures Using the battery when it's almost empty or almost full Leaving the battery completely dead for a long time or always keeping it charged to 100% Charging the battery quickly In short, it's generally a good idea to keep your battery level between 20% and 80% most of the time. Occasionally going beyond these limits is okay, but if, for instance, you leave your watch on the charger all week, that's not good for the battery. However in real life, it is extremely difficult for you to manually manage your battery life to keep it between 20% and 80% Some Battery Capacity Software Innovations We've Seen So Far If you have an EV you may already be familiar with some of the charging techniques it employs. Apple has publicised clever ways for you to leave the battery on charge overnight but wake up with a full charge for the day ahead. [gallery columns="4" ids="76627,76628,76629,85251"] Here's how it works with Apple: the watch figures out or is told when you usually wake up. It also knows how fast it's charging. When you put it on charge overnight, it automatically goes up to 80% and stops there. But at a calculated point later in the night, it goes beyond 80% and charges up to 100%, just in time for when you usually wake up. It's a smart move, but it doesn't help with tracking your sleep stats since you're not wearing the watch :-) The iPhone 15 has a related feature. You can adjust a setting so that it only charges up to 80%, but very occasionally it goes up to 100% to self-calibrate. The idea is that going beyond 80% can cause more damage, and anyway, having an 80% charged battery should be good enough for a decent battery life. So What Should Garmin Do? 80% charge limit: Garmin should let us choose to limit the charging to 80%, mimicking Apple's approach. 20% warning: Garmin should remind us to charge the battery to avoid it dropping below 20%, when not used during exercise. [alerts exist to some degree for this] Customizable fast charging: Garmin should allow us to adjust fast charging settings and disable it overnight or permanently. Overnight charging strategy: Garmin could follow Apple's method of charging watches to full capacity just in time for when we usually wake up. The reason for Garmin to consider these changes is to show that they care about the environment. While Apple's eco policy encourages battery replacement and recycling, Garmin doesn't really offer battery replacements. Making these adjustments may not be as crucial for Garmin as it is for Apple because Garmin's batteries generally last longer. On the positive side, this move would make Garmin appear eco-friendly. Regardless of one's stance on environmental issues, it's generally not good to waste resources without any real benefits. However, there's a downside for Garmin: if our watches last longer, we're likely to be more satisfied with them and may delay upgrading. Additionally, as consumers, making these changes could help us waste less energy on unnecessary recharging. While the individual cost savings might be minimal, the real benefit lies in having a device that performs as expected for an extended period.
