Discussion: 305 battery life????

I'm finding that my 3 yr. old Forerunner 305 holds a charge for about 90 minutes. To be honest, I have never gotten the 10hrs out of it that is supposed to happen. Did I just get a lemon? Is there any cure for this?????

I remember other discussions about Forerunner batteries, so maybe one of these threads will help.

Your alternative is probably to send it back to Garmin for a replacement battery; I think some folks say it's not too costly.

If you're running in 1-second recording instead of smart recording you will take a hit, but you should certainly be getting better than 90 minutes, at least double that ... I got > 5 hours last fall in 1-second mode (but the track was truncated).

Garmin's Out of Warranty Repair for FR 305 is $79 (that's a complete refurbish, I presume it includes a battery): http://www8.garmin.com/support/outofwarranty.html

You could also replace the battery yourself if you're moderately handy:
http://community.runnersworld.com/blog/garmin-fore...

You could UPGRADE the battery to 1.8x the life (1300mAh!) at the same time (there's a link in that article)!

You could also send it to Nova Scotia for an inexpensive replacement (there are several of these services on EBay):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Battery-Replacement-Garmin...

Good luck! Let us know what you end up doing and how it goes.

Mine is 5+ years old and the battery still lasts for at least 6 hours (I haven't tried using it for anything longer than a 6 hour rogaine lately.) How often it is used/charged and conditions under which it is used may have more effect than the actual age of the watch.

Read the DIY linked above - nice presentation, very helpful! (now to keep track of where to find...).

Last fall mine dropped abruptly from ~9 hours to power off to giving a low battery warning after 30 minutes. It was only 3 years old, but got near-daily use.

Mine was down to 20 minutes before it finally fell to pieces - although I treated the poor thing very badly, including taking it swimming a few times.

I'm having the same issue. Mine's about 3.5 years old and gets a lot of use. On a trail run this past Saturday, it stopped after an hour. I'm probably just going to get some sort of replacement.

Three years is not early failure in my experience, I have at least 2 that went about that long. I have gotten 11.5 hours on at least one occasion.
One thing that you should do to extend battery life is to keep it charged all the time you are not wearing it. The Li-O batteries do not take kindly to sitting around discharged. I keep mine on the charger whenever I am not running with it (not that the charger, my computer is always on).
I have had a $79 refurbish, actually I am 99% sure they just send you another one as the turnaround time seems to be about 1 day!
Having issues with HRM not reading right now. Two watches and 4 HR straps and I cannot get any combination to work reliably.

Is that a real thing, Jeff? Is that the same for all my gadgets with Li batteries? Is it true there's no harm leaving it plugged in all the time? I vaguely remember when this was not a recommended practice, but I don't really know anything about electronics.

I can't speak to the harm part, but if I want my 305 to last six hours, I keep it charging as close to the event start as possible. Otherwise, it loses charge rapidly while off.

It was recommended practice with Ni-Cd batteries that if you did not let them discharge all the way, they would get a "memory" of a shorter life. I think after some time that was debunked, but then it didn't matter as we went to Ni-MH batteries and now Li-O.
I am pretty sure I read that Li-O batteries lose their life if they are left around discharged, usually it reads something like, "Always keep battery charged".
It would appear from this article
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_...
that leaving it on the charger may not be a good idea either!
(also note 3-5 years is expected life)

Upon further reading it would appear that heat (>30C,86F) is the main detriment to life, and that less than fully charged (>40%) storage is OK.

I think the Garmin out of warranty $79 for the 305 is the best deal. You get pretty much a new watch and you will hardly need more than what 305 offers for orienteering, running or cycling.