Battery life when hiking

I know there are a lot of discussions around battery life on a 5 Plus. I've had mine for about 8 months now, and while I'm mostly happy with battery life day-to-day, I have a question around settings to conserve battery life.

I went on a 10 hour hike yesterday. I started the Hiking activity and only paused it twice - accidentally. When I started the watch was at 92%. When I stopped the hike 10 hours later the watch was at 36%. I have wrist-based heart rate on. I have phone notifications off (My phone was in airplane mode anyway). Backlight on gestures is turned off.

What other settings can I look at to reduce battery usage? I am planning on some upcoming multi-day 6-10 hour hikes without the ability to re-charge. At this rate my watch won't last more than a day and half.

Thanks for any advice!

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0 OEAGLEO over 5 years ago

Have you thought about a portable battery pack? I have an ANKER Astro E1 that is 6700 mAh, that will do at least a couple recharges. Not bad for $23..

www.amazon.com/.../ref=sr_1_3

0 9895957 over 5 years ago in reply to OEAGLEO

I have been looking into the Anker battery packs. I will end up getting one, but still thought the battery usage was more than I'd expect for 1 day of activity.

0 RobKenjiwhe over 5 years ago

Gps is on I assume? That's it per the specs. Put it in ultratrac for hiking, that will drastically improve autonomy. Heart rate measuring is not an issue at all, nor are smart messages.

0 9895957 over 5 years ago in reply to RobKenjiwhe

Great - thanks Rob. I'll give that a shot. Are you saying turn off GPS and put it in Ultratrac?

0 RobKenjiwhe over 5 years ago in reply to 9895957

Yep, goto hiking settings, gps, choose ultratec

0 Ocean5 over 5 years ago in reply to RobKenjiwhe

I wouldn't recommend using UltraTrac to anyone since it's accuracy is pretty bad. Garmin needs to sort this out.

0 JanH over 5 years ago in reply to Ocean5

I second that. UltraTrac is useless the way it is currently implemented.

0 RobKenjiwhe over 5 years ago in reply to JanH

What do you mean unusable? I've used it plenty and it tracks good enough unless your counting millimeters. Recorded tracks have been good enough to track back.

0 JanH over 5 years ago in reply to RobKenjiwhe

I used it once and the GPS track was 20km, while the real distance was 10km. Maybe I was just unlucky, but this made me write what I wrote.

0 Dr Phil over 5 years ago in reply to 9895957

9895957 You don't turn off GPS to use Ultratrac. You select Ultratrac. It then takes a GPS fix every once in a while using accelerometers in between times to get a 'rough idea' of your track. Reports about its usability are varied.