Mini 2 Tracking Issues

Hi, use High Detail, it has minimal effect on battery consumption, but you will have a detailed record of the route. After 20 hours, the battery has 58%. I sent about 30 messages. I note, this is the first charge.

Yes.  Yesterday, I went on an out and back hike.  I stopped tracking when I got back to the parking plot which had clear lines of sight.  However the track itself showed the final point being somewhere I was approximately 9 minutes prior, so I am guessing that I happened to get back just before the 10 minute egg timer.  In Standard detail, there were no additional points after after the one that was ~9 minutes prior.  It seems like a bug to me as well.  An obvious scenario that should have been covered in testing IMHO.

[ Oh, and I never turned the unit off, so it wasn't power that prevented it sending an end of track marker]

As for battery, I haven't had enough time with the M2 to know how it really does.  I have noticed that the loss curve is rather odd, going down in more fits and starts.  Slowly, more rapidly, slowly again, etc.  This is with it just sitting there on my chest as I am moving.  I was suspecting it was related to detail and logging extra points on elevation or direction change, and this is why I was a little concerned about Hight Detail.  That was a wild guess though....

Thanks Gorozdos.  I will switch to high detail.  If I get similar results, it will give me 4 days on through hikes (turning off at destination).  That is pretty close to what I managed to get with the Explorer+.  I did say 3 days with Explorer+, but it was more like 3-4 days, depending on whether I would leave it on at camp for a while to get messages sent etc.  Hoping that High Detail will solve the terminus issue as well.

Power consumption depends on a lot of stuff - some obvious and some not. The biggest hogs are the the display backlight and the various radios, particularly the Iridium modem. But even BT and ANT+ contribute to power consumption.

The iR modem comes into play whenever you send something - "sent" track point, message, weather request, or whatever. It also comes into play when you actually receive a message. Finally (and, for most people, unexpectedly) when the device does an "active" message check. In an active check, the device contacts the iR satellite network and proactively asks if there are messages waiting. If so, it proceeds to receive them. Active checks happen on power up, and automatically once an hour while the device is on.

Challenging conditions can contribute to substantial power drain. Once the device attempts any operation, including an active check, it will try VERY hard to complete it. In challenging conditions, this can result in a lot of retries, which sucks battery.

To your example, perhaps the higher consumption intervals corresponded to more challenging conditions on the trail?

Edited to add: Higher resolution activity logging may well result in more on-time for the GPS receiver. I don't know enough about the algorithm to have an intelligent opinion. Based on the warning generated by the M1, I would GUESS that a result with points at intervals more frequent than once every 30 seconds would result in higher drain. 30 seconds is the threshold on the M1 for "keeping the GPS receiver on continuously".

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.  That's probably it.  I was in and out of tree cover and along some steep faces.  Screen was off 100% of time.  No incoming or outgoing messages either. So probably terrain related consumption variances.  Based on Gorozdos experience, it seems like high detail will be just fine for me.  Fingers crossed.  Still, it would be so much nicer if I could just configure it.  E.g. Let the current setting of Hight Detail be "Auto High", let Standard be "Auto Low", and give me a bunch of fixed logging interval choices, like older devices.  Sigh...

I haven't tested myself yet, but I'm also hoping that Mapshare gets the higher detail.  Otherwise, the point is a little lost, as higher detail would be important for safety, potential search and rescue, etc.  I generally look at higher detail being more important for others than myself.  I generally know where I am...  :-)

The "activity log" will not appear on the web until after you sync. It is not transmitted by satellite like "sent points".

For safety purposes, the goal is to activate SOS so that SAR has a precise location and can communicate with you. Continuous tracking, even at the standard 10 minute interval, provides backup in case you are incapacitated to the point of not being able to send the SOS. Once somebody reports you missing, SAR will use the last track point to launch a search. Unless you are in a vehicle, the resulting search radius should be tractable. This is also why a stationary device will continue to transmit points at 4-hour intervals.

I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the M2. I just ran another test with it on a run to Costco, tracking with High Activity Detail.  Costco is about 10 minutes from my house.  Overall my results were similar. I got a very detailed activity track, but it terminated just after I left the parking lot and does not show any detail for the rest of my return trip home.  It seems to have lost the final 8-10 minutes of data or so once again.  

My theory is that when the 10 minute trackpoint egg timer expires, the M2 gathers up the activity log data then, perhaps in an effort to conserve power and do as much as possible during a more intensive waking event. I suspect that one of two things is happening when I stop tracking:

1.) Either, it's not sending a final track marker, and thus not gathering the last series of activity log points leading up to it for the activity track.

2.)  Or,  if I don't have GPS/iR connectivity at the time I end tracking, it just disregards obtaining a final trackpoint AND the activity points leading up to that, simply closing out the track, at the last trackpoint. 

The problem with either theory is that the endpoint of the Activity Track and Actual Trackpoint Track (comparing the two that get uploaded), don't match, and I would expect they would If the theory is correct. Regardless, those are just some theories... In the end, It shouldn't be a customer problem to diagnose what is wrong with the M2 device.  About ready to return it and ask for full refund.  It keeps truncating my tracks and it's really pissing me off.  I suppose I could try to always wait 10 mins with a clean line of sight before ending a track, but that's a PIA and I like to get in my vehicle and go.  I wouldn't want that associate vehicle travel with my hiking track either...

No point in speculating. Open a support ticket. You'll need to do that if you want an RMA anyhow.

I used the Garmin support webform to submit, but unfortunately it doesn't provide an actual ticket number or way to reference.  Hopefully, track truncation is a known issue with the M2 and a fix in the works.  Otherwise I will need to RMA...

In case anyone who reads this is interested, I converted an activity track to a route so I could edit and see how points were collected in High Detail Mode.  It's definitely some sort of an algorithm of speed and direction, as it's not a fixed interval.  However, for the test I ran, the average interval seemed to be ridiculously frequent.  The log points were taken about every 3-5 seconds on average.  I sure wish the they would bring back the old fixed interval options.  Oh, and for those that like to create and edit routes from tracks, this amount of detail might complicate that scenario due to another Garmin limitation in the number of points that can be in a route.  E.g. If I were going on an 6 hour hike and I wanted to create a route from my track later, I might set log frequency to say 2 minutes, to stay under the 200 point limitation that explorer once (still?) had/s. 

So far, I am finding the 10 year old DeLorme technology purchased by Garmin to be superior to current Garmin technology.