Garmin releases new smartwatch beta update after battery drain issue flagged

The changelog lists the addition of a Jump Rope activity and support for male audio prompts, which requires you to download new audio files, both seen in the older update. Plus, bug fixes for music beginning to play at random, high battery drain when the heart rate tool is switched off and a problem with Golf activity scoring were also seen for version 9.19. After installing update 9.19, many users complained of further battery drain issues in the Garmin Forum, which are not linked to the heart rate feature. One customer noted that their smartwatch lost 50% of its battery in just 3 hours, despite the company advertising an 11-day expected runtime for the wearable.

The Garmin team suggested that users who experienced a faster-than-expected battery drain after the update try a hard power down to resolve the issue, holding the power button for 15 seconds before restarting the device. Unfortunately, whether version 9.24 will fix these problems or have the same issue is currently unclear. If you own a Garmin vivoactive 5 smartwatch and are enrolled in the Beta program, you can download the update from the Main menu > Settings > System > Software Update.