Hiking with battery mode Ultra

surfboomerang

@brad_olwin I would understand it if GPS is only on best the first 20 minutes for the FusedAlti mechanism, but a difference after 3-4hr I don’t get.

What if I start my activity with 12% battery left and I get a notification at 10% asking me if I want to switch profiles? I would expect it would go in effect immediately instead of taking a couple of hours. With a battery drain of 3-4%/hr that would mean that my watch is empty before the Ultra mode kicks in.

That also would mean that a lot of reviews/tests on the internet are wrong, because most of them test the fusedtrack technology on a 5 km run or so.

What about selecting GPS mode OK in a custom battery profile? Shouldn’t that go into effect immediately?

zadow

@surfboomerang One more question - do you have any ETA/ETE/remaining distatance fields on your display? If so, then watch automaticaly switch to best GPS as they are trying to calculate ETA/ETE. Just like when you switch to navigate display. so, as @Brad_Olwin suggested, check the accuracy after 20 minutes, and make sure that there no any fields referring to ETA/ETE or remaining distatnce to POI or to end. If you have any of those field on your current display, even when there is no route for navigation loaded, watch switch to GPS best.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

At the first x minutes until Fused Alti kicks in the watch is in Best GPS mode.

After that it will switch.

One should never test on battery consumption with 1-3hours of activity.

Hiking due to slow speed wont use fused track

surfboomerang

@dimitrios-kanellopoulos Check!
I never expected fusedtrack to be active. I just wondered how bad/good the track would be with a 2 min interval.

surfboomerang

@zadow Never thought of that. I do have ETA and ETE fields on one of the displays.

surfboomerang

Ladies and gentlemen… we have a winner! @zadow

I removed the ETE/ETA fields and gave it another try. After 15 minutes the Ultra kicked in and GPS was recorded every 2 minutes.

Learning something new every day

zadow

@surfboomerang I was doing exactly the same test in the past. And exactly for the same purpose - just to see, how it works And I ran exactly into the same situation as you did. I asked here in this forum as you did and I got a great explanation from @Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos. So, thanks but all the credits goes to @Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos

Fenr1r

@zadow It seems odd. I wonder why the presence of data fields that will continue to report null values requires (or was chosen to initiate) precision tracking. Is there something obvious?

zadow

@fenr1r Well, better ask @Suunto, I am just a messenger, not a designer

Fenr1r

@zadow OK. Just wondering if you’d been told the “Why” as well.

Mff73

@fenr1r said in Hiking with battery mode Ultra:

@zadow It seems odd. I wonder why the presence of data fields that will continue to report null values requires (or was chosen to initiate) precision tracking. Is there something obvious?

maybe the glass is not half full, but half empty (or vice versa ), maybe it is by design that, if there is one field or screen that needs “best” precision, then, best precision is set.
Effectively, it could be the opposite : if user doesn’t set best , then all data needed would have been “blank” or “null”, and then users will ask why

surfboomerang

@mff73 Maybe it is just how we interpret things.
The manual describes the following note in the battery power management section:

If while exercising you start navigating or use navigation data like estimated time of arrival (ETA), the GPS goes to Best, regardless of the battery mode.

I read that note, but it never crossed my mind that ETA could interfere when you’re not navigating a route or if you turn the Navigation to “Off” in the activity settings.

Now, with the background knowledge it is obvious, but before it wasn’t.

Fenr1r

@mff73 Those were the only answers I came up with, too.

It seems peculiar that the existence of null-display capable ETE/ETA fields could possibly (and in the background) override two explicit user setting choices: GPS mode and (not using) navigation.

An override that the user would only discover afterwards. Or when the watch battery died early.

It’s mentioned as a Note in the User Guide, to be fair.

Effectively, it could be the opposite : if user doesn’t set best , then all data needed would have been “blank” or “null”, and then users will ask why

I don’t think the user would lose needed data (nav wasn’t selected), he/she would discover extra data (trackpoints) at the cost of battery power.

Fenr1r

@surfboomerang TBH, it seemed so strange to me that I thought it might have been a typo.

surfboomerang

Now that I think of it… what about this situation?

You create a route and send it to your watch.
You start a hiking activity with the ETA and/or ETE fields configured and start navigating the route.

After a while your battery reaches 10% and the watch asks you to switch profiles.
You switch to Endurance or Ultra, but that is never going to work because you have selected ETA/ETE as datafields.
So you can never preserve battery in this situation. Not even if you turn navigation off.

Fenr1r

@surfboomerang Does the App allow you to create a sport mode with ETA/ETE fields AND GPS mode set to anything but Best?

surfboomerang

@fenr1r You don’t define GPS mode in the app. It happens in the watch.
You can add ETE/ETA fields without a warning. When you select the sport mode and adjust GPS mode to OK in the watch, it also gives no warning.

Fenr1r

@surfboomerang said in Hiking with battery mode Ultra:

You can add ETE/ETA fields without a warning. When you select the sport mode and adjust GPS mode to OK in the watch, it also gives no warning.

And that neatly answers what would have been my follow-up. Thanks.

zadow

@surfboomerang Hm, now I am not 100% sure, but if I remember it correctly, watch switch to BEST GPS every time, when ETA/ETE/destination field is in ACTIVE (current) display. Therefore, as long as on your current active display are none of navigation related fields, GPS stays in ULTRA. As soon as you switch to display with any of those fields, watch switch to best in order to give you info what you are requesting - ETA/ETE or remaining distance… you can look at it, note it and then switch back to display without these fields. watches should switch back to ULTRA. This is how I understand how it works. So, pretty smart, IMHO.

Brad_Olwin

@zadow @surfboomerang I am awaiting confirmation from Suunto about this but…
AFAIK:

Navigation screen will invoke Best GPS only while on Nav screen.
Distance to waypoint/End on any screen will invoke Best GPS no matter battery settings or active screen if route is active.
ETE/ETA fields in any screen will invoke Best GPS no matter battery settings or active screen if route is active.
Altitude profile screen does not invoke Best GPS settings (not sure about this, will test but what I was told).

I will update this when I know more. I also plan to test this as I have 2 S9 baro watches.