Expedition mode in 8.80 ?

Can pls someone check with the 8.80 what the expedition mode does?

In the earlier FW, this was used to save battery power. It did not any logging, no BT or Wifi, less IR tracking points. Saving lot of power. I achieved nearly 100h in on test.

It was however possible to switch the unit on and use it for a moment and let it go back to the deep sleep mode.

Now I can switch the expedition mode on. 66i will enter deep sleep after 2min.

There seem to be no way I can wake it up temporary .  It will come up after 1-2 min displaying 'resuming', but it will in fact not resume anyting, the GPS will remain OFF thus no reasonable use is possible. There is no way send any msg (I did not attempt to use SOS) nor do any mailchecks exist. The unit seems to be simply dead.

Despite of this, the battery is drained much faster then in other 66i running in normal mode. After abt 10h, the 66i in normal mode has still some 40% charge left, the unit in expedition mode is at 5%.

Can pls someone switch on the expedition mode on unit with 8.80 and check what ist does?

The change log includes a change to expedition mode handling.

So far, 8.80 has not been offered for my 66i. I don't know whether this is a phased release, or if it has been withdrawn, or if my account has a problem, or what.

I am in europe, connected 66i to express and got the update to 8.80

The positive thing is, only one app is needed on the phone, but the expedition mode is virtually non existing, draining the battery much faster then any normal mode

>Fixed recording with expedition mode when auto-start is off.<

this could be the problem

recording in expedition mode was not really present before, as this would need permanent GPS operation. Therefore with 10min IR interval, I did some 70h of operation, with longer intervals, much over 100h.

Now there is recording switched on all time, just BT is off. The recording might need to be switched off manually.

The question remains: why does it drain the battery much faster then the normal mode.

It looks like version 8.80 is a step back. I recently installed it and was totally surprised how badly my device behaves now. Tracking? Forget it. Only the first point is recorded, after 2 minutes the device goes to expedition mode, but does not wake up for the next reporting point AND the battery depletes VERY fast. With previous software version the battery held up to 2 weeks without recharging (tracking every 4 hours with occasional points in between for manual position reporting to MapShare). Now I had to fully recharge it 3 times within a week or so. What's more at times I have to reboot the unit to get the signal, without rebooting the device just searches for satellites without finding any. And waking up from expedition mode is a joke. It takes around 2 full minutes (if not more) and it looks like normal powering on (with downloading maps, waypoints, etc). Before it took 20-30 seconds at most. Hopefully these issues can be fixed in nearest future as at present the device does nut fulfill its basic requirement - long-term autonomy and independence from external power source.

this is exactly my observation

at beginning it looks like it works, the green LED flashes sometimes and when unit 'resumed' it behaves as expected. After abt 30min in expedition mode, the unit become useless, only draining the battery.

with previous FW, setting 10min moving/4h stationary, the 66i did work some 70h.

Now max 10h

I am in correspondence with support now, as usual it is hard to convince them to test it.

Same problems here, and I am in the middle of an elk hunt: expedition mode drains about 4x faster (I also was hitting 100 hrs on backpacking trips;now barely a day). “Resume” in expedition mode either hangs up or takes over a minute to boot up instead of 10 seconds or so. Lost all satellites once and had to restart. And activity tracking shuts off each time it goes onto expedition mode. I’m short, 8.80 basically ruined the utility of my 66i. Mega-ticked at Garmin: I’ve run them for decades now and this is inexcusable, dangerous incompetence. In lawyer terms, with this update it is unfit for the use it is marketed for. 

Thanks for the update, Skyeye! My elk hunt runs through Thursday and I gave up on expedition mode—just running in normal mode and turning my 100 hour GPS into a fraction of that. Im dumbfounded that they made such a balled up release when battery life is such a key point for the 66i. Until now I loved mine, despite the whacky Garmin apps and having to go online for some things. Two summers ago we saved a young mountaineer through the SOS function. Anyway, I will call Support Friday and see what they say. Appreciate the work you did. 

Btw: Express did not offer me the 8,80 update, yet. Updated today via Garmin WebUpdater.