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Getting a handle on Battery Impacts

badbri
over 5 years ago

So I know there are a bunch of battery threads already but the point of this one is to try to understand the impact of certain known features on battery life cycles.

For example, Garmin states that the 945 should get about 10 hours of life with both GPS and Music playing through a Bluetooth connection.  I've pretty well corroborated that assertion on my own over countless runs with music where I use battery at a rate of about 10% per hour.

Has anyone been able to substantiate battery drain standards for any of these other scenarios?

- Carrying a phone thus a constant Bluetooth connection

- 1 sec recording vs "Smart" recording

- Navigating a course with a map field included in available data fields.

- Navigating a course withOUT a map field included in available data fields.

- Using a Map field as an available data field but NOT Navigating a course.

- Climbpro?

- Autoclimb?

- Certain CIQ data fields?  Such as:  Stryd power?  The many multifield datafields like Datarun etc.

adding a few others after the original post:

- GPS vs GPS+Glonass or GPS+Galileo

- On board HRM vs External HRM

- Using a CIQ Watchface (but not having it displayed in the activity - strange I know, but I suspect it has an impact)

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Update on this thread, I did a field test of sorts this past weekend in a self-supported 110K trail run where I used my 945 as my primary recording device.  (I also had a 910xt and  Lezyne bike computer as backups).

    The 945 was set up similarly to my previous big test posted in this thread (connected to a Scosche 24 HRM, Stryd footpod, but with BT connection disabled through the widget).  Backlight turned off (to manual), but with navigation on (following a course) but only peaking at the map occasionally.  I was using a CIQ datafield "DR7co Datarun" but did not have it displayed for most of the run.  I turned vibrations fully off altogether, but audio alerts on (which was usually at autolaps of 1m).  I never use SPo2 and OHR was off anyway as I was connected to external HRM.  i can't think of any other relevant settings but I was NOT yet updated to FW 5.15 and was still on 5.00.

    The event took over 18 hours and i started with a tiny bit less than 100% battery as it was off the charger for roughly 5 hours before I started.  I displayed a battery % field and was amazed for most of the run that it stayed at 98% but figured something was wrong with the datafield when I neared the end and it was still showing 98% remaining.  

    After I stopped and saved (crossing fingers for no error/restart), battery remaining correctly showed about 10% left.  However, for much of the next 12 hours the battery % stayed at 10% so it "recovered" in a way.  I see this sometimes when a huge battery drain throws off the reading and it has to adjust towards the lower %'s.  In any event , 90% consumption in 18.75 hours equaties to about 20 hours of full use.  I'm guessing doing away with the map, navigation, and the CIQ datafield would increase the life to the higher number I've estimated in the previous "field test."

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Does looking at the map during activity use more battery?

    Also, how much battery life can I expect if I use GPS + GLONASS and navigation for my hike? I would mostly be looking at my data fields (6) and Climbpro with occasionaly looking at the map at the intersections. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Anže
    Anže said:
    Does looking at the map during activity use more battery?

    Absolutely.  Probably more than any other function I can think of offhand.

    Anže said:
    how much battery life can I expect if I use GPS + GLONASS and navigation for my hike? I would mostly be looking at my data fields (6) and Climbpro with occasionaly looking at the map

    This depends how long your hike is and if you're using auto scroll or scrolling the data fields manually.  If you're concern is more battery use using GPS Only vs GPS +GLONASS, the latter will use more battery, but not to the point that you'd even notice. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Anže
    Anže said:
    Does looking at the map during activity use more battery?

    In my experiences above, it seemed to have a significant impact.  In one case where I used the mapping (and navigation) I extrapolated out to about 20 hours of life, whereas when I did not use the mapping I was extrapolating to about 25+.  That's a fair difference, about 25% better longevity.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Anže
    Anže said:
    Also, how much battery life can I expect if I use GPS + GLONASS and navigation for my hike? I would mostly be looking at my data fields (6) and Climbpro with occasionaly looking at the map at the intersections. 

    They key part here is "navigation."  Do you mean mapping and following a course?  That will likely have more impact than the additional GPS source.  FWIW I only use GPS on mine, I don't really care much about the run's map being "pretty" as I use a Stryd to measure the distance anyway.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to badbri

    I'm gonna upload a GPX map and then follow the course on the map yes. It's also the only way to see Climbro. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Anže

    Okay if you use CIQ datafields, Ant+ sensors then you should expect a max of around 20 hours of use based on my experience.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to badbri

    Ok cool. That will be more then enough since my hikes usually last 9-14h. I will report back to this thread after I try it in the mountains. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Anže

    Thanks, I'm always interested in others' use cases as I continue to speculate I have a "bad" battery in my 945.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to badbri

    Oh, in case you missed it earlier in my previous posts - I also disabled bluetooth and any vibration (associated with alerts) on my device too in order to get to those estimates.