Expedition mode in 8.80 ?

well, this is the kind of things I experience so often

Sometimes I have the feeling, nobody is reading, just some standard answers are copy-paste

I am just surprised, as Garmin is also supplying whole aircraft cockpits and avionics, do they apply the same amount of quality control in this software too?

There are many serious bugs in the SW of 66i.

I reported them to the support and was always told that I am using old firmware. Finally they asked me to make a video where the issue is seen. I did it, but the answer was again that they do not believe there is a problem ...etc..etc in endless loop, I should update....I should reset....update...reset...

I am also surprised how seldom people from Garmin participate or at least read their own forum like here. Recently I pointed the support to check here, the answer was: ...at least you see you are not the only one with this issue....

We are currently aware of the issues with expeidition mode on the GPSMAP 66i. If you are experiencing the issue it is best to contact support directly so we can work with you on the issue. GPSMAP 66i Contact Support

@Garmin-Leslie  As I explained above, I've contacted support directly, and have been told that "there are no known faults with these, which can cause this", followed by no further response to my reply. So there is (at best) extremely poor communication within support and between support and customers.

yes, we are in contact with support because of this, responses difficult to understand

An update: soon after my last post Garmin offered my a replacement for my GPSMAP 66i. The replacement has now arrived and appears to be working fine. However it doesn't have 8.80 installed, and I'm not planning to update it any time soon. (Replacing hardware to solve what appears to be a software issue is a somewhat 'nuclear option'...)

I'd be inclined to not update firmware until they come out with the next iteration after 8.80: I'm still having problems with Expedition mode--it sporadically stops tracking, so that I have segments which are straight lines where there should be a reasonable track of my actual route. On the other hand, most of the major problems I had with the firmware update slowly disappeared, and I subsequently did a hard reset and reinstall of the software hoping to eliminate this last glitch. But I NEVER heard back from Garmin on the initial problem and the supposed efforts to fix it, and my last interchange with support was not very pleasing; he jacked me around a long time before making any effort to troubleshoot the problem. At least for me, I had ZERO problems with the old 8.50 version, so my suggestion would be to sit tight as long as things are working for you.

Have you heard anything from Garmin?  I tried expedition mode yesterday (a simulation).  I started with a 100 percent battery and simulated expedition for 9.5 hours.  When I was done (after 9.5 hours), I checked the battery level and I was at 53 percent.  So that would give me around 20-22 hours of expedition on a full battery with inreach active and tracking 30 minutes in expedition mode.   I sent a couple messages from computer to the 66i during simulation and they worked fine.   I’ve had this 66i for about a week so it’s quite possible I don’t know what I’m doing yet.  I’m still playing around with it.  I don’t leave for my trip until March 1st so I have some time to figure it out.  I made sure Wi-Fi,Bluetooth,and ant+ radios were all disabled on 66i before I started expedition simulation. 

nothing special from Garmin, except they know abt the issue.

It might or might not be corrected in next FW.

I can just tell, regardless what your settings are or if you send any track points or not, in expedition mode under 8.80 FW the battery will be drained faster then in the normal mode. Before, the expedition mode was somehow useful, thought some other smaller problems were existing. Now, with the attempt to fix some problems, the expedition mode has much more issues and is fully useless in terms of power saving.

Thanks. 

The absolutely unsurprising answer is OF COURSE I HAVE NOT HEARD FROM GARMIN!  Sorry about the all-caps, but America relies on Garmin for everything from warfighting to golf games, yet Garmin's customer service is the worst I've seen in any industry. So as they say, "to ask the question is to answer it." Of course Garmin hasn't followed up. That said, your experience is NOT normal for expedition mode. When I still had v. 8.50 on my 66i, I was hunting for about 12 hours a day with the device in expedition mode/10 minute interval during that time, with typically 1-2 check-in messages sent. Like you, I leave bluetooth and WiFi off.  I'd wake it anywhere from 4-12 times during the day to check the map. With that regimen, I'd use 8-12% battery a day. In short, before the 8.80 "update" the device worked as steadily and reliably as it has since 2019. As my other posts indicate, most of the severe issues caused by the 8.80 upgrade mitigated over time, either as an electronic mystery or after repeated hard resets (and hours wasted). But tracking STILL drops out during expedition mode, leaving segments as straight lines rather than the 10 minute breadcrumb trail. Unfortunately I've been a bit down and out after doing my civic duty and catching Covid, but next day or two I will test again. The one helpful thing the last Garmin guy said was that downloading to Basecamp and sharing that with the support people provides additional data for analysis. Of course, there is irony in that Garmin long ago dumped support for Basecamp, supplanting it with the inadequate Explorer app, but that's another story.