Hi all, I got my explorer+ last week and the battery life depletes very quickly. From full charge, I have 24-30 hours before it dies. Is this normal? I thought it was supposed to last a couple of weeks. The Bluetooth is disconnected, log time is 10 minutes and send time is 2 hours, so it shouldn't be a problem with over activity.... any advice is appreciated!
Are you using the map extensively? The biggest battery drain in any inReach is the radios - Iridium, Bluetooth, and GPS. You've pretty much eliminated the first two through your settings/usage pattern. The extended log time/send time minimizes GPS use for tracking. However, I suspect that the unit may use the GPS more if you leave it sit on the map screen. Either way, you may incur high CPU usage for redraws if you leave it on the map screen. This is particularly true if you have it zoomed way in and/or use "heading up" rather than "north up".
Also, indoor testing would be harder on battery life than normal use; GPS & Iridium are weak to nonexistent inside which would require a lot longer radio activity trying to find them.
I checked the map settings, and it was already set to 'north up'. I'm also outside most of the time. I did just change the tracking settings to 'extended tracking', although that disables preset messages and log tracking, which in my opinion defeats the communication purpose. Any other tips to try to save battery?
Even with North up, you need to stay off the map page when you're not actively looking at it.
Extended tracking should disable only the following features: Bluetooth (phone pairing), periodic message listens (you will have to check for messages explicitly), navigation (to minimize GPS radio on-time), and track logging (but track points are still sent on the specified schedule). It has no effect on the ability to use preset messages. This feature is really intended for lengthy non-interactive trips - such as a long sailboat cruise. It really is not intended for interactive hiking use.
One more setting: The backlight uses considerable power when on. Either us the automatic brightness setting, or manually reduce the brightness to the minimum usable level. Either way, reduce the backlight timeout as much as possible consistent with your usage pattern.
Not sure where you're located. I don't have curves at hand, but battery capacity is likely to be reduced at low and high temperatures. (Anything more than 20F or so from room temperature isn't a bad rule of thumb.)
Note that the claimed lifetime for the default tracking setting (10 minute send, 1 minute logging) is "up to 100 hours". That would be about 12 8-hour days. They do say "up to 30 days" in extended tracking mode with a 30-minute send interval. YMMV. Just quoting this so that you are setting your expectations appropriately.
I have one more suggestion. You can try conditioning the battery a bit. Let the unit sit until the battery is down to about 20%. Recharge to 85% to 90%. Repeat the cycle maybe 5 times, then charge fully and test. These are lithium-ion batteries. I don't think this is going to help, but it can't hurt. If you are still getting substandard battery life after that, I would contact support.
Twolpert, you’re correct. I was leaving it on indoors. I was treating it like a cell phone. That’s not the way these work. I spent time on the phone with a couple of really good guys at Garmin. It was just constantly searching for the network and searching for emails which kills the battery.
My big mistake was not knowing that the unit always wants to be in contact with that network and being inside makes that very hard.
What I didn’t realize is that this is something you turn on when you begin your adventure, turn off when you sleep in your tent and turn back on in the morning. Alternatively as an SOS device, leave it turned off, and just press SOS in an emergency which activates the whole device.
I got an education on the devices from Garmin support and I have to say that both *Matt and Robert* were very nice and very patient.
I think I may still want go with Explorer simply for battery life so that I’m not constantly, vigilantly, conserving energy. I’ll get the extra life in an emergency, or to send texts, etc. The weight is a non issue. It’s just so obvious with its size and color.
