Expedition mode in Fenix 5 series?

Hi guys. Is there any chance for the Fenix 5 series to receive the Expedition mode? I believe the hardware can handle it. Considering the inferiority of the Fenix 5 battery with Fenix 6's, a low power GPS mode would be necessary. Even breadcrumbs would be welcome. Initially there was only GPS mode, now there is a Glonass and Galileo, there were some implements along the way. Why no Expedition mode?

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mcalista over 5 years ago +1

The Sony GPS chipset that the F6 uses less power than the Mediatek chipset in the F5. This allows the greater battery life in the F6, not a superior battery. With different hardware, Expedition mode is…

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0 mcalista over 5 years ago

The Sony GPS chipset that the F6 uses less power than the Mediatek chipset in the F5. This allows the greater battery life in the F6, not a superior battery. With different hardware, Expedition mode is unlikely to make it to F5.

0 gauvins over 5 years ago

I'd say, why not? IIRC, GPS mode takes a reading once per second, ultraTrac once every minute, whereas expedition takes a reading every hour. Expedition is not specific to F6 -- it runs on MARQ. The MARQ has an autonomy of 25+ days in expedition mode. The F5, in contrast, has 15 days (at best) in watch mode, which would probably lose a couple of days if the expedition app were to become available.

Not entirely clear to me what the use case would be. Should be quite feasible to design an app that would take a snapshot of various fields, including location, at a set interval.

0 Ieslei over 5 years ago in reply to mcalista

You are right. I should have said battery life instead. I know the chipset and processor are different and more efficient. I just wish they could add that feature.

0 Ieslei over 5 years ago in reply to gauvins

The expedition mode can be adjusted to 15mins intervals, that would help me a lot in some situations in the jungle.

0 sis651 over 5 years ago

Why? Because, Garmin is a business company earning money selling new devices. Updating the old devices with new features won't be profitable as consumers won't want to buy new devices. This may be wrong but this is what I've learnt being a Garmin user.

For example, check Garmin Epix and Fenix 5X. They have the same main CPU, but 5X is more superior in software side. They've could updated the Epix line, too. Anyway, it wasn't a preferred watch while there were shiny, beautiful Fenix 3, not Garmin but consumers killed it. :D

0 Ieslei over 5 years ago in reply to sis651

sis651 That is sad to hear. I wish they could add another option in the Data Recording menu. Like 5 seconds or 10 seconds. Maybe that will improve battery, even its every minute.

0 sis651 over 5 years ago in reply to Ieslei

5 or 10 seconds will need the GPS to work continuously, they can just decrease the power needed to record to flash memory. So those modes can consume as much as smart GPS mode.

0 Ieslei over 5 years ago in reply to sis651

It makes Sense. Perhaps 1 to 10mins?