Tips and Tricks to Extend Your Garmin Cycling Device Battery

By Team Garmin

As Garmin associates and avid cyclists, we have the pleasure of not only working on Garmin devices but also using them. We know the frustration of taking a long ride and having your battery die. With cycling race season approaching, we want to share our tips and tricks to extend your Garmin cycling device battery life to help you achieve your race goals.

1. The backlight can be a top cause of battery drain. Garmin cycling device displays are all designed to be visible in daylight, and the backlight rarely makes a significant difference in screen visibility. To maximize your Garmin battery life, turn the backlight off and/or ensure it has a 15-second time-out, even if you have a device with an ambient light sensor.

• If you usually have your phone connected but will not be bringing it with you on your ride, be sure to turn off your Bluetooth or phone connection setting on the cycling device.

• Use Battery Save Mode! You can manually start “Battery Save Mode” on your Garmin device, which puts the display to sleep after inactivity. Tapping the screen will wake it up, so you can see essential notifications like course directions or Varia Radar updates.

• In your bike GPS settings, select just GPS instead of GPS+GLONASS. The GPS+GLONASS mode provides better positional accuracy, which works best in challenging environments such as in heavy tree cover or urban canyons. If you’re looking to maximize battery life, using only GPS is worth the trade-off for a long day under the open skies.

• Use the Garmin Charge Power Pack. This accessory integrates directly with select Garmin devices as an external battery pack with the right USB charging cable.