Rapid battery drain, overheating, force shut-down

[xendula]

Anyone experience this?

In the past 3 days, my Gear S went from 100% to 13% in less than an hour, with no usage whatsoever except one run on one day. It even went from 100% do not disturb mode whilst tracking my sleep to below 20% 6 hours later - that's not normal.

I have not installed anything new, other than the new firmware a few days prior to this issue.


It is connected to my Note via BT, no apps running in the background, no GPS/data/wifi.

When I tried to use it to track my run yesterday, it again would not pick up GPS signal, with or without the phone, finally GPS kicked in 15 mins into my run with the Gear S in stand-alone mode. The watch gave me an alert message of being overheated and shutting down, at ca. 13% battery, down from 97% when i started my run!

Same thing ever since. The darn thing discharges rapidly and I get a message that it's shutting down. WTF?

It does feel hot to the touch, so I checked and HR monitor was not on.


Any ideas other than calling Samsung for (un-)support?

 

[Rukbat]

Still under warranty? Have it replaced.

 

[drjosephkim]

I experienced something like this today as well. I wonder if my long sleeve jacket was activating the screen and pushing random buttons. I don't think my jacket is conductive, but I'll have to do some experiments.

 

[xendula]

The battery drain continued going from 100 to 15% in about 1 hour without usage. It was getting very very hot to the touch on the back (the part that lies against your wrist).
What seems to have fixed mine was a hard reset: keep power button pressed until it goes off, then you see the boot loader, then let go of the power button.

I did this as a last ditch effort before factory resetting it, and thank goodness it seems to have fixed the issue.

 

[ShaggyKids]

I'm having battery drain issues after the recent update. I went from being able to use my gear all day long like 24 hours to only having 8 to 10 hours before I have to plug it in.

If you have to stop midway through your day to plug it in your pedometer readings are going to be totally off.

And then there's the fact I've become rather attached to my gadget and I don't like not having it on my wrist when I am awake.

 

[alan44]

I guess the update drain is likely to be remediable with future updates from Samsung / Carriers

Yeah I'm also getting used to / liking it there on my wrist MOTT

I've had no practical problem taking off the watch & topping up the battery when at my desk or wherever - this has in fact rarely been needed but offered a safeguard - given the tininess of the charging cradle plus ubiquity of microUSB leads and all the new Samsung "chargers" I seem to have acquired recently.

but (slightly off topic) today cradle clip No1 finally broke off - the charger thing still snaps into place using cradle clip 2 but i guess it won't be long before that breaks off as well & battery-life vs on-the-hoof recharging will become an issue for me

 

[xendula]

Ever since I started this thread, the isssue with rapid drainage has been reoccuring every now and then. It totally sucks when you suddenly hear the dreaded ploink ploink of the battery alert while you are out and about. Hard resetting it seems to fix it for a few cycles.

And: I also got used to waking up wearing it, and since i sleep like a rock, it's one of my five alarm that go off in the morning. Wish the alarm sound could be changed.

I

but (slightly off topic) today cradle clip No1 finally broke off - the charger thing still snaps into place using cradle clip 2 but i guess it won't be long before that breaks off as well & battery-life vs on-the-hoof recharging will become an issue for me

That's the reason why I try to only charge it when it's about to die. My cradle is still Ok, but I hold my breath (literally) every time I connect/disconnect the Gear S from the charger.

 

[foxbat121]

I found whenever I use the S Health to track my run/walk, I will end up with a lot of battery drain long after I closed those apps. So, I always reboot my watch after that. I'm on AT&T and still don't have firmware update yet

 

[xendula]

I think I finally figured out what is happening!
I had not realized it (very busy at work today and yesterday), but my Gear s somehow had disconnected from my phone even though both had BT on. As soon as I connected the Gear S to my phone, battery started draining like crazy. Disconnected again and battery drainage stopped.

I'll continue to play around with connections and report back if that's indeed what is causing it.

I think that last update f'ed with my Note. Foxbat, be glad you never got the update!

BTW, I also restart my Gear S after the my runs. I have a feeling something is draining the battery even if I manually shut down all connections after the phone and the watch are back together again.

 

[ShaggyKids]

Mine is connected remotely 100% of the time so Bluetooth connection is not the issue with mine anyway.

 

[foxbat121]

Mine is connected remotely 100% of the time so Bluetooth connection is not the issue with mine anyway.

8-10 hours on remote connected is pretty amazing battery life consider that it will be affected severely by the signal strength, especially if you are on Verizon and it needs the 3G CDMA signal, not the 4G LTE signal.

If you want better battery life, use BT. At the end of a busy work day, mine still have 75% battery left when on BT all the time.

 

[ShaggyKids]

I wasn't aware of that thank you for the info. Unfortunately I cannot use Bluetooth at work.

 

[fbcltd]

hard reset worked for me. hold the button down till you see rebooting.. then let go. I also restarted BT on phone and watch.

 

[Michael Love3]

Anyone experience this?

In the past 3 days, my Gear S went from 100% to 13% in less than an hour, with no usage whatsoever except one run on one day. It even went from 100% do not disturb mode whilst tracking my sleep to below 20% 6 hours later - that's not normal.

I have not installed anything new, other than the new firmware a few days prior to this issue.


It is connected to my Note via BT, no apps running in the background, no GPS/data/wifi.

When I tried to use it to track my run yesterday, it again would not pick up GPS signal, with or without the phone, finally GPS kicked in 15 mins into my run with the Gear S in stand-alone mode. The watch gave me an alert message of being overheated and shutting down, at ca. 13% battery, down from 97% when i started my run!

Same thing ever since. The darn thing discharges rapidly and I get a message that it's shutting down. WTF?

It does feel hot to the touch, so I checked and HR monitor was not on.


Any ideas other than calling Samsung for (un-)support?

 

[Michael Love3]

I left in on tha charger over nite and won't turn on

 

[mountainbikermark]

I left in on tha charger over nite and won't turn on

Have you tried pressing the power for about 20 seconds? Mine "froze while asleep" once and that soft reset unfroze it and it's been fine since.

 

[sherryzinn]

I am only on BT and my battery does not last the day. I have to always take mine off to charge and then lose my sgear stats.