I’ve no idea what the deal is here. I own two gen-2 Stages left only meters. One on a bike that is stored indoors 100% the time and one on a bike stored in the shed with variable temps.
I own a Quarq on my TT bike that is stored indoors 100% and may get hot in car during work hours.
I have a Garmin HRM-dual strap.
Every one of these devices roughly gets about 1/3 the battery life from the coin batteries as the places claim.
Right now, Google tells me the Stages should get 200 hours. Quarq search result seems to return 200 hours. Etc…Garmin HRM claimed “years” on battery life.
My average ride durations are 45min to 3 hours. Even if average ride is 2 hours, that’s 100 rides. I do about 6 hours a week.
-I’m having to change the Stages batteries about every 50 hours use, maybe, by far the worst. It may even be only 25 hours use.
-The Quarq is best at probably 100 hours. Fine by me.
-The HRM nowhere close to “years”…owned it for maybe 3 months after pulling the battery plastic off it brand new before it needed one.
What am I doing wrong? Is the fact these devices are Bluetooth and maybe I have Bluetooth on my iphone on or other devices with Bluetooth on in my house a problem? Even if they aren’t fitness devices? Or should that matter.
I’m also aware of the “bitter taste” coating issues and if a brand advertises that I’ll scuff up the surface some.
For Stages, I think it might have been Gen. 2 that had known battery life issues. I got mine upgraded to Gen 3 for that and other reasons (for a cost)
For my Polar HRM (H10), I had massive battery life issues. Turned out that it had some internal corrosion issues from sweat leakage, got it warrantied (Polar customer service was great). Maybe your Garmin has similar issues.
Where are you purchasing your batteries from? I have had issues with batteries from Amazon. They can be branded energizer or duracell and when the batteries arrive they look fine but the packaging is just a little weird. They seem fine at first but they seem to die quite quickly.
I think that you may have either fully fake batteries or seconds/thirds that never should have been sold because they are from a failed run.
I have a Gen 1 stages I’ve used for years. I think I get over 100 hours of use but doubt I get close to 200 hours per battery. For me that means changing the battery 2 or maybe 3 times a year. I’m ok with that.
Where are you purchasing your batteries from? I have had issues with batteries from Amazon. They can be branded energizer or duracell and when the batteries arrive they look fine but the packaging is just a little weird. They seem fine at first but they seem to die quite quickly.
I think that you may have either fully fake batteries or seconds/thirds that never should have been sold because they are from a failed run.
This may be the answer.
I had gotten the multipack through Amazon of their “in house” unbranded ones.
Back to name brand “legit” ones I guess through Walmart or something to make sure I get legit.
There are only two possible explanations: the batteries are not meeting capacity probably because they are knockoffs. Or the devices are using more power than they should, maybe because they aren’t entering power saver correctly, or maybe because of internal corrosion or leaky components or both.
I’d bet on former considering that you have three misbehaving devices. Get Duracell or Energizer from a reputable source (that means not Amazon) and see if there’s an improvement.
What cells are you using?
I very much doubt some of the low cost cells provide anywhere near the same capacity as the best - even if they have the same supposed spec. You can be sure the quoted lifespan is based on the best capacity cells they could find.
I have a newer dual band HRM that seemed to not go to sleep after use and was going through batteries quickly. I went back to the old Garmin plastic HRM that is Ant+ only and using that as my everyday HRM and haven’t had to change the battery in a couple years. Not sure if the issue is with my strap of Bluetooth, but my n+1 has been positive with just Ant+.
No idea about the PMs.
But for the HR strap, do you disconnect the ‘pod’ from the strap ?
I’ve found that seems to help ensure the hrm isn’t remaining on (and drawing power) after I’ve finished the session.