I vote for a bad device. My 520 with PowerTap P1 and a Scosche Rhythm+ connected lasts forever. It is so much time, that I occasionally forget to recharge it. And, even when I get a low battery warning, it is good for another hour with GPS cranking.

bad device. mine lasts for a few rides before it needs a recharge.

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I see a huge difference with the backlight at different levels. When it is cranked to 100%, 3-4 hours till empty is normal. When it is at 0%, after a 2-3 hour ride I am still 75+%.

Sometimes I forget about that backlight, get the low battery warning, turn it Off and can still get a good ride in before it crashes.

The backlight is unneeded during daytime and too bright at night. During twilight, I'll bring it up to 50% or so. It'd be cool if it could use your location and sunrise/sunset times to auto adjust. That way, I wouldn't be riding around in the noon sun with it on full blast!

This. Or a bad device.

I don't have an Edge 520, but you might want to check the status of the bluetooth uploading. I know for my fenix2 there are options to have it connected to bluetooth and thereby syncing at the end of the workout, always, or manually. Having it always connected to bluetooth makes mine die really quickly

Awesome, thanks for the info!

Backlight/brightness and Bluetooth were set poorly (user error, but somewhat frustrated that the out-of-the-box settings are not optimal). Garmin told me to drop brightness down to 50% (from 100%) and enable the backlight timeout. Also disabled Bluetooth (no need for 520 to be connected to a phone). Doing an idle GPS test for a few hours, and we'll see what happens. Appreciate the help!

You can probably safely ignore BT as an issue. Bluetooth has not been a material battery issue on any device for years. The 520 will use BLE to connect to your phone, if available, which barely uses any power. You can safely leave BT enabled on all of your devices, and you will probably never notice the difference in battery life.

Just turn BT on and enjoy the features of the device. Otherwise, you will end up jockeying around every time you finish a workout and want to sync. I also have a 735XT, so I leave BT and Garmin Connect up for all of my devices. Life is good.

Same thing happened to me. The 'always on' backlight was pretty un-noticeable in daylight. At least it saves a device swap!

I've got my backlight set to 60% and always on. I do a lot of riding in the dark. Also have the bluetooth always on. Did a 6.5 hr ride on Saturday and by the end I was still at 48% battery. About 3 hrs was in the dark and 3.5 the sun was up and the screen seemed to have changed to daytime mode. Not sure if it turns the backlight off when in daytime mode.

Maybe it's a bad device.

Definitely backlight. I accidentally went on a ride once with it on 100%, got the low battery warning after about 3 hours. Dropped it down to zero and rode the remaining 1.5 hrs home without running out.

If I'm reading your post right, you say you are riding indoors using GPS tracking?

That is likely your problem there...when I'm on a trainer i turn off the GPS on my 520 ( I have a Garmin speed/cadence sensor on all my bikes to aid in tracking)

Next ride, try turning off the GPS and see how the battery does. It is probably searching and sync'ing over and over to find the satellites through your roof, which is one of the most compute / battery intensive functions

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" I take my gear out of my car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of of their lives shocks me. "
(opening lines from Tim Krabbe's The Rider , 1978

This recently happened to me with my 520, and I don't think it's a hardware/device issue...I think it's a bug in the new firmware. I'm getting so frustrated that I'm about to try wiping it clean and starting fresh. My map and GPS signal has been next to useless with the lag recently as well

Just when Garmin was starting to produce devices that don't suck...

I just called Garmin about this. They suspect a corrupt file on the device and walked me through a bunch of things to delete. Hopefully this works

Just started having this issue a few weeks ago, do you happen to remember what to wipe on it? Did it fix the issue?

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-Brad Williams
Website | Twitter: @BW_Tri |Instagram: @BW_Tri | Strava | Co-Founder & Coach at: KIS Coaching
Partnered with: Zoot Sports | Precision Fuel &Hydration | ISM

I have been having faster battery drain recently which I think is due to a firmware update. I would also like to know what to clean up on the device if that can help with the battery drain issue.

On some Garmin devices it matters how you charge it. Sometimes if you charge it via a computer's USB port or with a generic charger, the unit will "think" it's fully charged when it's nowhere close. Using the included Garmin charger eliminates this possibility.

The Edge 520 includes a USB cable, but it does not include a wall adapter.

This has just (the last 2 or 3 weeks) started happening with my Edge 520, too. I get the 'low battery' warning and less than 20% charge remaining after about 2 hours riding. I haven't changed any settings or the way I use the device, and used to get well over 5 hours before the warning. I suspect it's been brought on by a firmware update.

My 520 updated the firmware again when I plugged it in yesterday. It had been running 11.10 and now has 12.10 and after this morning's ride battery usage seems to be back to normal. I'll keep an eye on it.

Steve = : ^ )