Hero 7 battery drain [ New ]

[nickd1407]

I’ve noticed that when the 7 is switched off the battery drains in a few hours.
Is this normal? Is the unit in some kind standby? Bluetooth?
Can the camera be easily shut down completely to eliminate this or does the battery need removing?
Thanks
Nick

[jayr3438]

Hi @nickd1407,

I think you're right.

It's the wireless connection that's draining the battery on standby. 

Please try to manually turn it off also try to disable the wake up on voice command before shutting down the camera for now as a temporary fix.

Regards,

-Jay 

[boldhero5728]

Does the reply temporary fix above mean a fix is coming for this?  2 nights ago I left both options on and it went from 100% to 0% by the time I tried to use it.  Last night I turned the power on voice command off and it drained from 98% to 94% in 9 hours.  I am really trying to love this camera but man, there sure are a lot of issues for this to be the “save GoPro’s financial life” camera.

[stanleym7236]

GoPro's reward the user who learns their features and behaviors.    

Battery drain is certainly avoidable.

[mika7171]

When I don't use my camera, I turn off wireless communications. Voice command is also off.
I haven't used My camera for two days now and I just checked what the battery level is now. It has drained from 100% to 99%. 👍

I also have noticed that If I use some other usb-c cable than the one which came with the GoPro, it won't charge to full 100%. Charging or transferring files with other cables also tends to freeze the camera much more often.

[nickd1407]

I agree, I’m finding many glitches.
Hopefully to be resolved by an early firmware update?!

[nickd1407]

Maybe the manual should explain the battery drain?If you charge one evening and take out to use the next day to find the battery flat it’s not good.
Next firmware update should maybe have two power down options. Standby and full off?
Nick

[karnash04]

I have noticed that when I start recording by pressing the "rec" button while the camera is off, and then I press it back to finish record, somehow the camera stays awake at certain level because I get a 100% to 0% drain in a few hours. Lots of issues to solve, guys.

[aragon1006]

Hi @karnash04

Please check if the workaround posted by @samanthatroulis on this thread will work on your end.

https://community.gopro.com/t5/Cameras/Bought-my-first-GoPro-Hero-7-black-battery-life/m-p/254311#/M...

Thanks!

Ej

[ross70]

Same issue here. Battery indicator is not right and is very different when I use it. Please provide Us a solution. Tnx

[jayr3438]

Hi @ross70,

We'll keep you posted. 

This has been raised already 

Thanks,

-Jay 

[ross70]

Hi, at this moment om in Vietnam and using my Hero 7 black.
Still a tot the same issues with the battery drain.
Read al of the internet to learn whats wrong with my Hero.
I tried all the advices from the forum users here with no suc6.
Butt today i found out that the problem is 2 of my 3 batterys.
I got one with comes with the Hero and ordered 2 more with a chargeer. For me i have 2 faulty batterys and i Will return then soon as i get home. The batterys are used 4 times and 2 Months Old. Hope you guys Will check your batterys.

[coolriver44231]

Hello.

I posted this message firstly here.

I bought my GoPro Hero 7 Black about two weeks ago from a local shop in Italy (I also own a Hero 3+ Black).
I think I left it (by mistake) for about 24 hours with the QuickCapture on and ended up with an empty battery. That's how I got to this topic.

In the case in anyone is interested, here are some specs:

• Serial number: C328xxxxx;
• Version number: 01.51;
• SD card that I use: Samsung EVO PLUS 128GB MB-MC128GA/EU (which is listed on the supported cards page);
• Battery: GoPro official battery made by Dongguan Amperex in China.

The first problem that I had was while doing the update to version 1.51. It got stuck during the update and had to restart the camera. After that, it seemed to have installed the update — it showed the update steps 1/2, 2/2 on the front screen.

Now, about the battery. Firstly, my GoPro can charge the battery to 100% in about 2 hours either plugging it to a PC USB port, using a Huawei phone charger (5V-2A output) or using an Anker PowerCore. I have only used the USB-C cable provided in the GoPro box.

Then, as I mentioned before, I noticed a battery drain over a 24 hours period when I left it with the QuickCapture on by mistake. All the other things were off (all connections off, VoiceCommand off, GPS off). After that, I read about 35 pages of this topic and decided to do some full charges/discharges cycles to format the battery. I have also formatted the SD card using the GoPro menu.

Here are some things I noticed during the charges/discharges I did to format the battery.

• After draining the battery by doing a continuous 4K recording, I immediately plugged in the GoPro (hot at is was from recording) to my Anker PowerCore for charging (using the USB-C GoPro cable). GPS, WiFi, VoiceControl, QuickCapture were all on (to help drain the battery faster). It started charging but the red LEDs were turning on and off randomly. After 2 minutes it stopped charging -> I know this because the LEDs on the Anker PowerCore turned off as well (and those remain on during charging any device). I removed the USB cable from the GoPro, removed the SD card and then plugged the USB cable back into the GoPro. From this moment on, the charging went normally. After charging, when I put the SD card back in, the back LCD flashed one time.

• After another battery drain by filming continuos 4K but this time with GPS, WiFi, VoiceControl, QuickCapture all off, I plugged the GoPro back to the Anker PowerCore for charging, after letting it cool down a bit. The SD card was in. When I plugged in the cable into the GoPro, the back LCD flashed one time, it started charging (the Anker LEDs were on) but the GoPro red LEDs were off. After 2 mins I removed the cable from the GoPro and plugged it back in. No screen flash and from this moment on, the charing went normally.

• Another battery drain with 4K recording, another charge. This time, before the charge I removed the SD card. The charging went normal, no screen flash, the red LEDs were on from the beginning until the end of the charging.

After these cycles, I wanted to know how much the battery would lose after 24 hours.

• I left the battery at 100% in the GoPro with the SD into the camera, SD had recordings on it. After 24 hours and two very short power on/offs, it read 98%.

• Then I recharged the battery in the GoPro until the red LEDs were off. Turned the GoPro on, it read 99%. Took the battery out of the GoPro, left if for 24 hours, put it back into the GoPro, power on, 99% again.

Then I bought 3 x SmarTree batteries 3.85V 1220mAh 4.7Wh + SmarTree charger from Amazon. All made in China. I charged all the SmarTree batteries in their own charger. They all read 100% in the GoPro.
I left one in the GoPro with the SD card inside the camera (the SD had recordings on it). After 48 hours straight and 3 very short power on/offs to read the level of the battery, it still read 100%.

I do not think I can draw a conclusion but I just laid out here the data from my tests in case it helps anyone. I probably missed some test situations but I'm not working at GoPro so yeah.

I didn't do the manual update of the GoPro, I think I'll try directly manual for the next firmware update to avoid any issues from the start.

I will send this test results to GoPro as well (https://gopro.com/help/ContactUs and https://gopro.com/feedback) and I hope it will help them to identify and fix some bugs.

I do hope they will provide a steady firmware version in December that solves all these little glitches and bugs because I really like the video quality of the camera. If not, in the future I will consider turning to other action cams manufacturers because I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed.

[jakob1986]

do you guys still have those draining problems?
to me it happens sometimes... everything turned off... voice wifi etc. but the battery is still draining.... not everytime. sometimes it works fine for one or two weeks. but then its draining from 100 to below 40 below 10 within 5 or 24 hours..???

[ross70]

I have sent my Hero back to the retailer with te same problems. I hope to let you know soon of the issue had been solved.

[superbluff0475]

I'm getting this exact problem, and I can reproduce it at will:

- Charge the GoPro to 100%.

- While being powered off, start recording by pressing the record button (on the top).

- Allow it to record a few seconds, and then press the record button again (this should in theory stop the recording and power off).

- After 2 hours or so, the battery is at 0%.

I wireless and voice control are off.  I'm using the latest firmware available as of right now.

[phabi]

Dear GoPro Team, 

I have just bought my news GoPro Hero 7 Black Camera last week. 

And most of time i can not use it because my battery is empty ! 

It look as if  I have an issue : Sometimes, my camera is very hot. And my battery draining quickly.

What's happen ?

Thank you for your reply. 

[jayr3438]

Hi @phabi,

Sorry to know that. 

Have you tried installing the new update?

It was an issue before but it's already fixed on the last update. 

Please install the new update manually and make sure to turn off voice command and wireless before turning off the camera. 

Here's how to install update manually.

https://gopro.com/help/articles/how_to/software-update-instructions-for-hero7-cameras

Regards,

-Jay 

[hardypike52118]

I just upgraded to a Hero 7 Black and updated to the latest release 1.61 Dec 11).

I just discovered this issue where the battery discharges while the camera is turned off.  I checked the release notes on the manual update page and there is no mention of the issue being fixed.  It still occurs for me.

[jayr3438]

Hi @hardypike52118,

It is already fixed. 

Please try to update the camera manually. 

Follow the manual update steps here: https://gopro.com/help/articles/how_to/software-update-instructions-for-hero7-cameras

Regards,

-Jay 

[pesix]

Hello all, after studying this forums threads for many’s days and trying evry possible solution to stop the battery drain with manual updates, rests, all remote functions turned off sd card in sd card out ( from the recommended list) my 7 Black still looses charge when switched off. Is this widely reported issue going to be addressed by GoPro support or are we expected to keep faith by swapping units until we drop luck ??
Thankful Amazons service has been outstandingas this is my second unit since xmas. Looks like another conversation is about to take place ☹️

[enc3ladus]

Hi guys,

yesterday I was talking to my friend who got GoPro 5 and I asked him what about his battery while camera is in the closed for a long time... .. he promesed to check but it is not the point of this story.

He also said that battery slow drain is normal and must be.....he brought an example of his Mavic drone. He said, battery of his drone is slow discharging while is not use. So asked why ? He said is some protection of this kind battery to extend battery living to keep cycle of charge and discharge.....personally I don't get it but maybe it happend with GoPro.....to keep this life cycle or it is just rumor.

Here is a thread:

https://mavicpilots.com/threads/discharging-mavic-batteries.30300/

They said you can setup in app for Mavic 

"...........They will self-discharge to a safe level by themselves."

[phabi]

So what we have to do ?

Does GoPro Team will solve this issue ?

It is abnormal to spend more than 1200 USD for somethiong doesn't work correctly.

I am going to post this GoPro HERO 7 Black issue on HiTech review in France, for no more people's going corrupt by this issue.

I am so upste about GoPro. It was my first GoPro camera, and probably the last one if nothing is done for solve this issue.

Is that hard camera issue or firmware issue ?

For the last time my firmware was updated manually with the last firmware, My micro SD is a SAMSUNG EVO Plus 128Go (original one).

Thank you for your help.

[enc3ladus]

Hi @phabi

I know you are upset because of this issues, so do I. This is my 1st GP camera. I read a lot of threads here and belive me GP is looking solutions for this issue. They are looking for.... or at least check what is the cause of discharging. I think it is some how connected with turn on/off algoritm. I dont understand why this camera has so slow start and much slower off. I had/have many other video devices which starting like in a blink of an eye. Panasonic G6 - mirrorless, SJ4000 - faster than light. I supose that this camera has something like POST in motherboard - loading something in the background like operating system. Maybe here is a problem or maybe this camera checking some sum control of sd card.... really hard to say. I think GP engineers should check.

Anyway it is really high quality camera... I mean video quality and I really enjoy use it. Don't give up maybe next patch will help.We always should give 2 chance ;) last patch was 1st patch.

Have good day.

[wookierobo]

The issue isn't fixed, yesterday I bought a Hero7 Black, I did the manual update to 1.7 firmware, charged it to 100%, I did some testing and turned it off at 10pm at 86% charge. Connections off, GPS off, voice commands off. 

6 in the morning wouldn't turn on, plugged it to power and battery was at 0%. I live in South America and for me is impossible to get a refund or replacement from the store I bought, so if it can't be fixed it's 450$ wasted.

My SD card is Samsung 64GB EVO Plus UHS Class 3 (the 128GB version is the recommended by GoPro), and I know you'll say: "Get a supported card", well, that's more than 50$ extra that I'd have to spend simply to test if it works.

Please find a fix, the video is really smooth and great but I can't be worrying if my camera will work or not when needed.

[superbluff0475]

Thanks for testing this issue on the new 1.7 firmware and posting your results.  I come to find out that this issue is random in nature, it doesn't always happens, but very often.  You may think that the workaround is simple: "just install the battery when ready to use".  But the problem is bigger than that.  I go to ski starting with a full battery, record a clip for a few minutes, then stop the recording (pressing the record button again, which should also shutdown the camera).  Then an hour or two later, I try to record some more, but the battery is dead.  This happens to me around 50% of the time (not always).  GoPro must find a solution for this, not knowing if your camera will work the next time is a huge deal.

[puttyuk]

Got a 7 last week and it too randomly drains the battery overnight.  Voice and all connections are off, and latest firmware installed. 

Heres what happens yesterday 

I kept a log of time v drainage, here goes.
Sunday 16.30 full 100%
Sunday 16.50 99% played with it for a bit
Sunday 17.40 98% left alone
Sunday 20.30 98% left alone
Sunday 22.30 98% left alone time for bed
Monday 06.30 95% though was ok.
Monday 17.00 home form work, from felt warm and battery dead FFS.
New battery and charger arriving today, at least I can check supplied battery with new one.
I love the unit, but its shortfall on battery issue is beginning to make me wonder if I should have dropped £400 on it.
Seems to be a common issue for a lot of us. 

My forst venture into GoPro is not filling me with confidence.

ADMIN is there a fix coming? I want to,leave a battery in the unit ready for me to use, not swap in and out for an obvious fault.

should there not be a product recall, as there is clearly and issue. 

[enc3ladus]

Hi, my test result:

24 hour after I turn OFF 100% charged camera:

1. FW 1.7
2. Samsung battery
3. Samsung 64GB microSD card - recommended
4. 2 small videofiles on card
5. All systems OFF - GPS\WIFI\BT\VC

Result: Battery still 100% 

I assume that Sandisk sdcard could be a cause but it is just my theory.....

[flaj]

GoPro Hero7 Black

SanDisk Extreme PRO 64GB

Samsung EVO PLUS 128GB

Settings:

GPS 0FF

Voice commands OFF

Wireless conn. OFF

QCapture ON

Usualy 3 days and camera keep 100-99% battery

Randomly (around 1 to 10 times) cant even turn ON the camera... the battery is completly DEAD.

Checked with two branded and GP sugested memories.

Same story with my old three GoPro5 Black's.

The GoPro Company seems to not see the problem. I'm pretty sure that someone from GoPro will add post in reply that I should manualy upgrade the camera to 1.70, do factory reset, or reset bla bla bla... You now... I did. And it's not problem of that.

It's something wrong in the camera by itself and it needs realy serious firmware upgrade. Something that will completly cut off the battery from device.

I gues that the camera is doing some background things even when it's OFF and it fails, got freez and stay freezed till it's dead.

GoPro, if you don't know how to make things working, then just give us switch button to completly TURN OFF any sign of life for your cameras. Some... "long term storage mode" or something... I don't know... something... It's your problem - FIX IT!

[aragon1006]

Hi Everyone!

We appreciate all your efforts in trying to isolate where the trouble is.

We are also working on getting this issue addressed.

Hi @flaj @puttyuk @pesix @wookierobo @phabi @superbluff0475

Would you mind doing a test recording? This is to check how the battery fares when it's in use.

Make sure you are using a recommended SD card.

Format your card through the camera's menu. Preferences>Reset>Format> Format SD Card

Set your camera to 1080/30. Turn off Voice Control, GPS, Wi-Fi, and ProTune.

Fully charge your camera using a Recommended Charger.

Record a video with your camera.

Let us know how it goes. Please indicate the specific card used and how long the recording lasted.

We look forward to your responses.

Thank your very much!

Regards,

Ej

[flaj]

GoPro Hero7 Black

Samsung Evo PLUS 128GB - did format

PT OFF, Voice ctrl. OFF, GPS OFF, Wi-Fi OFF,

NTSC 1080p30 Wide

Battery charged up to 100% with GoPro dual charger - GP Battery, GP charger, GP cable

Made 1h03mins video

Battery status 41%

Quite warm

Here you go. But I don't know whats the reason for this test when problem randomly happens when camera is completly...

                                                             >>>>>>OFF<<<<<<

[ragnor]

I also had this issue a couple of times. I try to turn the camera on, and it doesn't work. Sometimes I have to remove the battery, put it again, and then it states that the battery is 1%.
My connections and voice command is always off, and updated to last firmware manually. The SD card is the one supplied with the camera.
It is really annoying because its just random. Travelling and going to a beautiful place and not being able to record because of some stupid firmware bug is really, really annoying. Especially when you paid more than 400euro for a camera. I wasn't this annoyed with this was happening to my Yi camera, as it was a lot cheaper.
I bought this expecting to have a better quality, and I still found a lot of bugs (also the incorrect time, or not being able to turn it on without removing the battery and putting it in again).
GoPro doesn't seem to care about their users. I was defending this company, but if that's their policy, this will be my last GoPro.

[im35461]

My one does the same.

Went out today ready to make a video and Hero 7 Black would not turn on.

Tried taking the battery out as once before that helped but no luck.

Put it on charge when back and noted it was showing up on my WiFi network (I had not tried powering it on so WiFi started all by itself when the battery charger a bit).

I have now disabled the option and hopefully next time I may actually be able to use it.

[bompelbob]

I still have the same problem even after a replacement camera. Camera gets hot randomly when switched off and drains battery very fast. No, actually it's not totally random - in my experience that happens mostly on Wednesdays (yeah, yesterday too). Weird.

I recommended the camera to a friend and his camera shows the same behavior. Now I feel sorry for recommending it to him.

Yes, voice command, wifi and GPS are switched off.

[percepto]

This is absurd!
I have the same issue but haven't done a controlled test yet as I only just got the 7 Black.
Thanks to everyone making tests and posting results, but GP are seemingly killing themselves with this issue.
GP gave me a good discount on a 7B as compensation for having to replace (RMA) 3 (YES, 3!) Hero 4s.
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me! (not sure what "fool me 4 times consists of!)
It cannot be that we have to jump through hoops just to use basic operations without the battery draining. This is nowhere to be found on the page which tells you what an amazing cam the 7B is.
Come on GP, make this right!

[flaj]

At least we still can remove the battery from the camera... so I feel so sorry for H7 silver and white users. They have to deal with everything built in :P. I hope that GoPro will solve this problem in other way than "RMA replacing and repeat".

One thing is good. They can't tell that everything is ok and it's fault of some bad units. This problem is global and I only don't know if they are working on it or just know about something that literaly can't be fixed so they only "manage the dammage" and keep smiling to us.

[arn1999]

Así es, yo tengo la Silver y no puedo sacar la batería.

Así que cuando no la uso siempre está perdiendo batería; lo peor de todo, es que en el chat oficial de GoPro me dicen que es normal perder un 10-15% de batería al día estando la cámara apagada... ¡vergonzoso!

[flaj]

Hey, Hombre... English...

[superbluff0475]

Removing the battery from the camera would not solve the problem, since you cannot keep doing that once your activity begins.  I'm able to reproduce this all the time...... I go skiing with a full battery (100%), I start by recording a few minutes clip (I properly stop the recording and the camera turns off), then an hour or so later the battery is dead.  I believe this is a combination of low temperature or something.  Temperature is upper 20's (F).  I never had this problem with the GoPro 5 or 6, not a single time I ran into an unexpected dead battery.  With GoPro 7 Black it happens all the time.  If I'm at home at room temperature, I don't see this problem.  I have multiple genuine GoPro batteries, and it is the same, so I'm positive that the problem is NOT on the batteries.  I completely understand that battery performance decreases in lower temperatures, but in upper 20's F temparature?, come on.  As it is, the GoPro 7 is completely useless for skiing or other winter sports. 

[guillos]

yes, It happens the same to me Solution ? Is it a battery or software? regards

[flaj]

I'm 99 000 % sure it's bad software. The real question is, are they working on it?

[brentb57153]

turning everything off does not fix the issue  twice now I have also struch this only to go to power up the camera after a day to find it totally flat this is a serious issue that needs resolving I normally use it twice a day but on those two ocasions I did not use it for the whole day needs resolving promptly and as a precaution I usually remove all files from the sd card but this does not seem to help either

there are enough posts about this issue to warrent a serious look by the gopro technical team

Cheers,Brent

[guillos]

Hi.
The day of yesterday was the maximum, crossing on a motorcycle, I put the battery 100% charged and active quickcapture, at the end of 1 hour I was exhausted, I had only captured 2 videos of 1 minute, I put another battery also original gopro and after 1 the same thing happens, I never had this, always using active quickcapture and I use all day without problems, I hope that soon solve the soft problem.

regards

[koenlau]

Same issue here with the gopro hero7 Black. Gopro should give us our money back. We can't use this camera. Useless.

[mariustanya]

Hello Everyone. We appreciate you providing us results of your tests. Such results give us a better understanding of what is going on. We have raised the issue to the team and we are waiting for an update or a fix. 

If what you are experiencing is battery drain only when the camera is off, have tried the recommended steps-to-fix to no avail, and are getting the expected battery life as determined through the short record time test , let our Support team know so they can create a case for you, and help with the next steps. You may reach the team by phone or chat through https://gopro.com/help/ContactUs . 

Thanks!

[brentb57153]

Further to my last post 2 days still read 100% each day however the third day we were at 97% this isn't bad but if it were to cintinue  we would see a considerable loss after a week comparison th my panasonic lumix genuine batteries in my G85 I still see full reading after 4 weeks but as I said one of the gopro batteries seems to self discharge faster than the other whilst in use I have no issues with recording time not that I have run the recording longer than 30-45 minutes I haven't suffered any more total battery drains whilst turned off since the last 2 I mentioned that were totally random after shutting down the camera I suspect this issue may be hard for the team to diagnose since it seems to be random and once we power off the camera and the screen goes blank we cant see what is happening internally and there is no indication of leds blinking or anything  an uncased bare camera with power monitoring etc will tell eventually

Cheers,Brent

[fayz0]

Has this issue being fixed? My camera just drained its battery to from a full charge 0% while I didn't even take it out of my pocket for the whole day, what's the expected stand-by time? 

[hardypike52118]

I think I have managed to stop my 7 from discharging the battery while off by using the app to turn off GPS. I turn this feature on only when I want to use it.

[jayr3438]

Hi @fayz0,

It might be due to voice command and Wi-Fi standby. 

But it should not drain it completely. 

Try to reset the camera to factory settings and then make sure to turn off voice command and Wi-Fi when not in use. 

Regards,

-Jay 

[bompelbob]

Aaaand it's Wednesday again - another freeze. Not kidding, the freezes only occur on Wednesdays on my GoPro. Not every Wednesday though, but no other day.

I used the camera this morning at 8 am. But the GoPro getting hot started at about 3 pm. I removed the battery, inserted it back and started it up. 55% battery left. I switched it off again which took about 10 or 15 seconds until the screen went dark.

Please fix this issue!!! I also have cheap china knock-off cameras which work perfectly fine! What's the problem? Why does it take so long?Is the problem not reproducable?