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Experiences with SatIQ?

derek87
over 2 years ago

have some of you been using SatIQ? any thoughts on how well it works and if it's a good choice for overall battery consumption.

in theory, it sounds like an awesome feature, but i wonder what it's like to use in practice. i have only now have updated to FW12, so i don't have any experience yet and wondering if should explore it or just stick to what is working and i'm currently happy with:

when i first got my watch, i tried out the 3 different options. GPS only, for some reason, acted wonky on me for a couple of runs so i didn't pursue it any further (lost track a couple of times and gave me inaccurate data). i tried multi band a few times and was impressed with the results, but found that All Satellites appeared almost as good (i couldn't really see a huge difference in my use applications with some portions of my runs and hikes under tree cover), so i have stuck with All Satellites for all of my activities for the past 3 months. i seem to concisely average about 3%/hour burn time on my 955 Solar (noting that the solar is probably helping a little there, although many of my runs are just before sunrise so the solar insolation isn't appreciable). this burn rate is almost entirely using a chest strap (OHR presumably off), but i haven't seen the OHR hit to be that much during the occasional run where i don't wear a strap.

i guess the best way to test this out be to pay for DC Rainmaker's Analyzer to see what the burn rates look like for SatIQ vs the other three options. anyone done that? ;) 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Heikoo

    SatIQ wasn't on the 955 when it was released, so it wasn't included in his review.  He did review the function when it came out on the Enduro 2

    www.dcrainmaker.com/.../garmin-enduro-2-gps-watch-in-depth-review.html

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to rmullins08

    Very interesting, thanks! So in Rays example the SatIQ distribution was about 80/20 (GPS vs. Multiband). This would correspond roughly with a 10% drop in battery life compared to GPS only (42h*0.8+20h*0.2). 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Heikoo

    Wish it could be set to to alternate between All Systems and Multiband.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Just turned 1sec recording, left GPS to auto, happy with it. 

    Looks around 8% an hour (with connect iq single field and light off, in general use 10% light after dark), never measured correctly but with my use (6+7hrs/week) lives 9 days, which is more then my ex935, 1 year old (lived around couple of days less, with light 5%)

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Aslam

    Why would you like to limit SatIQ to All Systems and Multiband only? If GPS is accurate enough in some ideal situation, then it's the best since it uses least battery. Or if you meant that SatIQ would only use GPS or Multiband, that doesn't seem to be the case based on what I read (for example, dcrainmaker wrote: "The SatIQ feature essentially rotates through these three GNSS modes: GPS-Only, All Systems, All Systems + Multi-band")

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Bitti

    especially since „All Systems“ is more or less BS, in my opinion. Provides no perceptible additional accuracy but increases battery consumption. There may be edge cases for justifying this setting but i never encountered them. On the other hand, multi-band at least shows a true advantage (even though the cost/value ratio is also not great).

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Heikoo

    in my experience, All Satellites gives me much better instantaneous pace when i am running through tree covered areas than GPS only. i didn't see any significant improvement doing those same runs with Multiband so All Satellites has been my default choice.

    YMMV

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to derek87

    interesting, good to know. I never use instant pace so maybe that‘s why i didn‘t notice. I remember from years ago there were numerous conflicting reports (when Glonass and Galileo were introduced) about sometimes even decreasing accuracy with this settings. I then tried from time to time, didn‘t see any improvement and went back to GPS only. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Heikoo

    Since I dont often use instant pace, I will have to agree that all systems just brings a battery hit with no perceivable advantage.

    Perhaps on a rainy day in the jungle, it could improve accuracy...

    Meanwhile I often wonder how come my wife's 255S and my own 955 have roughly the same battery burn rate with GPS only and similar overall configuration...Must have something to do with maps, because we both use breadcrumb navigation but my 955 gets a map overlay.

    The 255S is amazing miniaturized kit.

    I've zoomed in and verified the GPS tracks are nearly identical on both watches so it's not sampling frequency or GPS accuracy difference etc.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to hassan987
    hassan987 said:
    Perhaps on a rainy day in the jungle, it could improve accuracy...

    I notice a considerable increase in accuracy in multiband mode when running in any area with tree cover or adjacent tall buildings.

    I don't think Manchester UK could be described as a jungle, but we are known for our humid climate (which is why cotton processing happened in this area in the 1800s/1900s).