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Bad experience in big trekking with sending points and detailed track "deactivated"

Alberto
over 2 years ago

I just came from a trip to Morocco. In total 13 days of effective trekking. I discovered on the way back (unfortunately for me), that if you activate the sending of points (every 10 minutes), even if you have the detailed track activated, it really takes several points almost together every 10 minutes , making a terrible straight line between those groups of points and the next one, 10 minutes later.

Let's see if I explain it in another way: I always deactivate the sending of points (I have the Safety plan) and activate the detailed track. That combination works perfectly and the track is very detailed and I already mentioned that it is VERY accurate (compared to my mobile).

For this trip, I upgraded the contract to Recreation (good experience changing the plan within the contract). Since they were free, after a few days of trekking, I decided to set sending points every 10 minutes (while keeping the detailed track). My unpleasant surprise on the way back is that, from that moment on, there is no longer a detailed track, but straight lines that join points separated by 10 minutes of walking.

I think it's a Garmin bug. I add that I am a technological person very used to handling maps, tracks, etc. In fact, I am an editor of OpenStreetMap and with those detailed tracks I wanted to introduce new data and corrections in those Moroccan routes (Toubkal and Mgoun).

As for the rest of the experience with the Mini 2, wonderful. All the messages were sent, received, even in the Mgoun canyon, with very, very deep areas... it gives a lot of peace of mind to go through those areas without coverage.

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    I have a nasty feeling that this is by design. Although I cannot find one at the moment, I think you get the desired result (an actual detailed "activity") if you choose high detail - even while sending points.

    Are you sure you did not revert to standard detail when you enabled sending?

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Yes, I'm sure I kept the detailed log (which I always do). Thanks for your comment.

    I've been digging deeper into the track and I think I see what the problem is and it shows in these pictures. Initially I had point submission disabled and detailed logging enabled. As always, that was fine. Starting from the second night, I decided to turn on sending points every 10 min (and didn't change the verbose logging settings). Each day it didn't end tracking, but simply turned off the M2 (to save battery life); I also wanted to have a continuous track of every day.

    In the images it can be seen that, from that moment in which I activated the sending of points, what happened is that it made a "detailed registration mini-section" when it coincided with a sending of points, leaving that detailed registration on standby between those 10 minutes and resulting in an ugly straight line.

    Well, as I have returned to the Safety contract I am not going to do any more tests now and I have no intention of sending points, there will be no more of the problem, but... I think it is a small software error. Surely it works correctly if it is activated from the beginning shipping + detailed tracking, I have not tried it. A pity for me.

    The rest of the experience: battery life, sending messages in complicated conditions (cannons,...), sending times,... all wonderful. I have not noticed a difference in battery life configuring sending every 10 min to having it deactivated; In both cases, the battery duration is 5 days aprox.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Alberto

    It sure looks like it could be a small bug to me.  I also noticed some similar odd behavior with my Mini 2 related to the Activity Recording setting when changing the Send Interval, and I also have the Safety Plan.  After first updating to latest FW after I got my unit, I initially left the default 10 min Send for a short hike, paid the $0.10/point and with Activity Recording set to the default Standard, but got a detailed log recording in my activity.  Then I changed to 30 min Send for another short hike, paid a few more $0.10/point and still got a detailed activity log recording even though the setting was still Standard.  Then I switched Send off (to zero) and found that the Standard log recording was very rough as you saw.  I changed Activity Recording back and forth between High Detail and Standard over another single hike and found that High Detail worked as I wanted.

    The most precise doc I've found is this: https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=bHHxYUy5b550KiUUP1LXb9 which is still not all that precise.

    For your case, I assume your FW is updated to latest and Auto Track is set to ON?  I wonder what would happen if you turned Activity Recording to Standard, and then back to High Detail, after turning Send Interval to non-zero.  I also wonder what would happen if you manually stopped tracking each time before turning off the unit (could there be a cache flush issue or something?)

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    It sounds plausible. Is possible that, if I had done that thing of changing the logging mode manually to standard and then setting it back to high detail, I think it would have worked. Well, everything is learned

  • 0 over 2 years ago

     It sounds like you are referring to the tracking (send interval) and the activity. Instead of the log interval on the previous devices it is now an activity that is recorded. Please see the following links for more information on the two options. Getting Started With Tracking on an inReach Mini 2 // What are Tracks, Routes, Waypoints, Activities, and Courses on Garmin Outdoor Handhelds?

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Garmin-Leslie

    , yes correct.  You do realize that the first link is the same support link that I sent above?

    However, this support page is both incomplete and incorrect.  The support page says:

    5. Select the desired Activity Recording setting:

    • Standard: Logs the location every 10 minutes by default. If the Send Interval has been customized, it will match that same interval for standard recording.

    But if the Send Interval has been customized to zero, Standard level Activity Recording does not match the same interval of zero.  What it is set to in this case is apparently undocumented.

    What I found in practice is that Standard level Activity Recording is much more frequent before the Send Interval is customized: roughly every 30 seconds.  I found it was also more frequent than 30 minutes initially after I customized the Send Interval to 30 minutes (GPX shows log entries still about every 30 seconds).  It wasn't until my 3rd activity recording when I set the Send Interval to zero, that Standard level Activity Recording started to log less frequently, about every 10 minutes.

    I sent this info months ago to Garmin Support (<< Ref:21690014K1 >> Re: Bug report: saved activity anomalies & bad GPX files exported <Q#:1003700>) and I still have saved the original Send Interval tracks at the default 10 min and 30 min intervals, and the exported GPX activities showing much more frequent logging.  I also ran a subsequent test:  during a single tracking session with Send Interval at zero, I alternated between standard and high detail recording to verify that the behavior was different, and indeed it is.  But nothing so far explains why the first two activities I recorded seem high detail without me actually setting that mode and after I did customize the Send Interval for the 2nd recording.  And no documentation I've seen so far supports the behavior Alberto is seeing, with very infrequent recording even at High Detail.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    7 months later = is this sorted now? Or at least understood?

    My understanding of the intended function:

    Activity Tracking = "Standard" = matches send interval (ie. when the unit powers on to take a fix for a send point it also uses this for the activity log), with conflicting information elsewhere suggests that if this send interval is set to LONGER than 10 minutes it will revert to 10 minutes for the activity log (so if this is the case the device will always be getting a fix every 10 minutes regardless of send interval).

    Activity Tracking = "High Detail" = GNSS receiver always hot (hence increased battery drain), with the number of points logged depending on fluidity of the route (ie. device attempts to log enough points to accurately depict route), similar to "smart recording intervals" on many other Garmin devices, certainly much more frequently than every 10 minutes / whatever the send interval is set to (unless crawling up a straight road!).

    ..though what actually happens in practise? I'm still using a Mini 1, considering an upgrade but if this feature doesn't work as expected then that's once less reason to do so.

    Edit: scanning firmware changelogs and nothing seems to be mentioned.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to SpikySimonW

    I have a Mini 2 for a couple of months now, and I never changed the settings. I set it initially to High Detail and 10 Minutes tracking interval. And for not obvious reasons to me, the recording is sometimes very detailed and sometimes very rough (straight lines over longer distances).

    I attach a screenshot of an area where I am now, and I always paddle the same route (the blue, detailed one). But even with no settings change, you can see that the lines are sometimes detailed, sometimes not.

    The Mini 2 is always in the same position, on my chest, on a life vest. Always good sky view and very low speed.


  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Once upon a time, all the iR devices allowed you to specify the "logging interval" explicitly (1 second, 5 seconds, 30 seconds, whatever). This is no longer true. At least on the M2, you are stuck with "standard detail" or "high detail". Either way, the device somehow decides when (or if) to log a point. I am sure that the point is try to minimize battery drain due to GPS radio use for logged points. 

    The net result is that your "logged track" may well be trash. Even if the thing is working "as designed", whatever that is. It does sound like there might be a bug involved here (clusters of points around the 10 minute send interval, with long gaps in between is probably not what YOU wanted - but it MIGHT be what Garmin wanted).

    A lot of non-iR Garmin handhelds have this "feature" for activity logging. In my limited experience, it works better on those device than what the OP describes here.

  • 0 11 months ago

    I recently acquired one of these and the problematic tracking behavior described in the initial post is spot on. The device behaves inconsistently and the erroneous Activity tracking behavior results from a combination of the inReach Tracking being enabled, and the state of the Auto Track setting.

    Testing here on a device with latest version 4.22 shows the following:


    1. inReach Tracking Enabled and:
    If Auto Track is ON (to automatically initiate tracking at power on):
    Standard recording will log track points every 10 minutes. It will do this regardless of whether the Send Interval is set to 10, but also incorrectly if set to 20 or even 30 minutes.

         
    High Detail recording likewise will also incorrectly log track points every 10 minutes regardless of whether the Send Interval is set to 10, 20 or 30 Minutes. High detail should log continuously regardless.
    The inReach send intervals of 10, 20 & 30 minutes were respected in regards to the transmission of trackpoints to Mapshare.
    I didn't try longer send intervals.
      
    If Auto Track is OFF, and Tracking is manually started:
    Standard recording will still incorrectly log track points every 10 minutes regardless of whether the Send Interval is set to 10, 20 or 30 Minutes. 
    High Detail recording now does behave and will continually log highly detailed trackpoints throughout and irrespective of the send interval e.g. it results in what would be considered a "normal" track. 
    I only tested this on 10, 20 & 30 minutes and didn't try longer send intervals.

    2. inReach Tracking OFF
    Activity tracking works continually as expected.
    It works fine either with Auto Track set to on and after powering up, or if tracking is manually started.
    Standard recording results in a continuous but rough and sparsely populated track (but significantly better than 10 minute intervals). *Edit* subsequent testing shows this continuous logging only lasts for 24 seconds before it reverts to the 10 minute interval recording as stated by Garmin.


    High Detail recording results in a continuous "normal" track that faithfully shows most twists and turns.

    So the bottom line is that if you want Activity tracking to work correctly you may have to disable Auto Track an/or inReach tracking. They currently will not work together properly. 


    The are also other issues, for example with Standard detail selected more than one Activity point is logged each send interval. Multiple Activity points (clusters of 4-7) are logged through a ~20 second inReach tracking point send window. This extra activity is probably not helping the intention of the Standard setting saving battery power, and it also results in a messy track file.

    I've also experienced another flaky issue similar to the previous post where the level of Activity tracking detail intermittently changed. In this example it was set to Standard and was logging at the send interval of 10 mins, then immediately after I sent an inReach message the tracking changed midstream and the device proceeded to log a continuous track with track points every few meters...even though the internal setting remained at Standard detail and Send Interval 10 at minutes.