LTE Live Track doesn't resume reliably

This past weekend I did a long triathlon and wanted to use LiveTrack via LTE.

I was worried about battery life so enabled Power Save and also forced LTE off before the swim - in the past I consistently see the battery drain by ~30% during OWS with LTE on.

In T1 I enabled LTE via the 'Controls' menu (press and hold power).

The watch seems to have connected, backfilled swim data and initial bike data and sent Live Track e-mail and Strava Beacon e-mails, however it seemed like one of the next scheduled connections (5 or 10 minutes later?) it no longer updated any data. I kept seeing a popup about Live Track Not Connected on my watch throughout the day, but was unsure what I could do to help it.

I let it do this until into the run when I forced LTE off again as it was annoying - and I later realized - useless since no actual data had been sent since shortly into starting the bike.

I want to blame LTE signal, but the bike course loops back on itself and the run was in a populated city (near where I had the initial successful connection).

Bummed for several reasons -

OWS battery drain with LTE enabled is still a problem after ~15 months.
The indication of LTE Live Track working is confusing and seems to not recover on it's own - whatever it was doing this whole time.

0 erockem over 1 year ago

Congrats on IMWI which is what I'm guessing it was. My OWS doesn't drop like that thankfully, I drop maybe 10% per hour at a consistent rate . I have settings set to smart recording with live track updating when ever it does and live event sharing sending messages every 10 minutes. IMWI 70.3/2021 I dropped just over 60% in under 7 hours. Worked flawlessly for both tracking and sharing the whole time.

Watches seems quirky with the 945lte series from watch to watch compared to my 935.

0 nord0296 over 1 year ago in reply to erockem

Thanks for the message, it was indeed, and it was brutal out there. Glad to have completed it, promised myself I'd never consider another now but even a few days later my memory must be short because I'm already thinking it wasn't "that" bad.

I typically have LTE on for all of my activities, but only really end up relying on it (during training) for a few activities a week (outdoor rides and long runs I carry a phone which is then used instead for Live Track). It's been odd with the OWS drain, I consistently see it... I wonder if it has something to do with my precise usage - whether my wrist is out of the water too long or too short before starting my swim (i.e. did it get a good initial connection or not... or something).

I didn't have the event sharing option turned on this time, only live track. I wonder if I would have toggled LTE off and on again mid-bike if it would have corrected.

I continue to wish for some additional control over power usage around the topic (and general reliability). It seems like I often don't see issues with my normal run usage, but I have occasionally had it just stop working for numerous runs until I power cycled the watch. I suspect most of my issues are caused by forcing LTE off and on periodically, but it should be able to correct itself - seems like some bugs remaining.

0 erockem over 1 year ago in reply to nord0296

Again congrats, brutal. 27% DNF announced at the monday after meeting, only 1800-1900 started out of the normal 2400 or so slots on top of it.

LOL, same I always forget the struggle and jump right back in.

That's an excellent point on wrist position. Thinking back with my 935 I had a OWS tracking issues in the beginning.

I was taking a master class for tri swimming but the coach was a pool swimmer, taught you to enter in early, glide, and just kinda scoop like a pool swimmer. Maybe 20% out of water and 80% in water for the stroke. Tracking was all over and zig zaggy and off by a lot in OWS.

Later on I got with a multi IM finisher / OWS coach and taught me to extend my arm all the way before entering the water, catch/pop the elbow and sweep though. Wrist is really 50% in water and 50% out of water. The wrist is only forearm deep in the water on top of it. Tracking on the 935 improved immensely and maybe is why my LTE is similar now.

I only use the actual LTE for races for spouse tracking me so she 1) knows where to be to cheer 2) knows when she can sight see, hit the BnB or hotel so I don't have the in-depth expertise you do on it in general.

IMWI 2019 started full rain, delayed start due to fog and not seeing swimmers, and 1ft waves cresting over your head. Then cloudy on the bike at upper 50s with occasional mist, run was warmer with sun/rain/sun/pouring/repeat. 2021 was really beautiful, so maybe 2023 or 2024 will be a gem again

0 nord0296 over 1 year ago in reply to erockem

Ironically it was ugly but I think knowing the weather was so bad let me just not care about bike time and ride for safety / finish. I think it helped me run better and ended up in the middle of my previous 2 full races (2011, 2013).

My swim has been fairly consistent over the years, but this race I felt I lost about an hour on the bike (but bested my previous best IM run by about 20 min).

Unsure if I’ll ever be back at Wisconsin, did 2011, have watched it a handful of times and volunteered prior to family etc. Watched my sister do 2019 and Wife do 2021 so having seen those years was somewhat jealous (in general) of the all day rough weather this year.

Live to tell a story I guess…