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Is it possible to manually use GPS during a non-GPS activity?

remarkov
over 2 years ago

Hi everyone,

I configured my Walk activity to "GPS off" as I walk the same route every day, don't need any tracking and prefer to save battery. But sometimes I need to save my current location while I'm walking. Whatever I tried, I can't do so unless I completely stop the activity. I thought the long-press of GPS button will force enable the GPS but it does not, I've got the message "GPS is off. Turn on GPS in the activity settings, or choose another activity". Of course I can go to activity settings and temporarily enable GPS there and then disable it back. But that's quite a lot of buttons for a quick location save.

I tried the other way round and disabled GPS in System settings. And if I long-press the GPS button I've got my GPS functions working which means overriding is possible. But if I then start the Walk activity, GPS is no longer allowed. This is so frustrating that I even stupidly started to abuse the MOB function for that purpose, see my other thread, but kind people here fairly proved me that this is the wrong path.

I would be grateful is someone could point me to a better workaround.

  • +1 over 2 years ago

    Unfortunately I do not know about any perfect solution, but there are some possibilities:

    1. You could try either the UltraTrac mode, powering the GPS once a minute, or the Expedition activity, powering the GPS every 60 minutes (optionally from 15 to 90 minutes), or manually.

    2. You can long-press the menu button while the activity is in progress and turning the GPS on whenever you want to record the position, and the turning it off again, once recorded. The position will be recorded automatically, and saved with the activity, so you do not need to save the position manually.

    3. You could stop the activity, use the option Change Sport to a GPS enabled activity for a few seconds, to record the location, and then changing the sport back to your GPS-less Walk. You can also copy the Walk activity profile, having so two instanxces - one with GPS and the other one without it, and toggling between them.

    4. You could try searching the Connect IQ store for a suitable app
  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to trux

    Thanks a lot for your input!

    Today I also came up with idea to try the method you describe in point 3. It worked more or less, but I didn't like it was synced back as a Multisport activity (consisting of two Walking legs) and the timer/distance were reset after I switched back to the Walk activity.

    1. Regarding UltraTrack, I tried it but didn't like. Due to bad GPS accuracy during the startup fix, it showed me that I moved 20 km while I walked about 100 meter and my avg. speed went up to 300 km/h. I walk fast but not that fast :) But I really like the idea of using Expedition activity with manual GPS, maybe I will copy it as new one and adjust the data screens to what I use in my walking activity. Would be awesome if that works!

    2. Yes, that's what appears to be the cleanest way but that's really slow as you need to navigate through the settings two times.

    3. See above, works but far from perfect.

    4, I'm trying to avoid external apps and I'm afraid those apps will be restricted in GPS usage as well. Or you mean the app to track walking without GPS? That's an option, I will get back to this if your idea with Expedition won't work for some reason.

    And honestly I hope Garmin devs will allow to force use GPS with GPS button even if the GPS is turned off in the Activity setting, that would just make perfect sense and won't require any workarounds.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to trux

    Yeah, it appears the Expedition idea has failed as well. First, you can't copy the Expedition activity to make a custom one based on it, seems it is a special one. Second, there's no option to set the update interval to None/Manual, only 15 to 90 minutes. Ok, I'll try to find some app in CIQ. Thanks again!

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to remarkov
    remarkov said:
    Second, there's no option to set the update interval to None/Manual, only 15 to 90 minutes.

    You can keep it on the default 60 min or change it to 90 minutes - it won't have any noticeable impact on the battery. The manual option Add Point is available when you press shortly the GPS button, once the Expedition is in progress. 

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to trux

    I didn't like that I can't copy the Expedition activity and didn't want to mess up the original Expedition activity.

    But in the end I finally found a way that more or less works for me. For those who interested, here is what I've done. Created a Power Mode named "No Track" with all options unchanged except GPS which is set to Disabled. Then set this Power Mode as default for Walk activity. Now when I start Walk activity my GPS is off as I wanted. When I need to use GPS, I open the Menu and temporarily switch the Power Mode to Normal, use the GPS and switch back to No Track. It is much quicker than changing Satellites setting for the activity and does not require me to interrupt the activity. The only drawback is that because GPS is getting accessible to the activity for some time, it draws a short awkward track for the Activity in Garmin Connect which cannot be removed. Still far from perfect but that's the best solution I could find so far.