Who uses the 1 sec recording over the smart recording?

For me i'd really love to only have to charge once a week if possible. Since my 220 used smart recording (GPS) and i was fine with that, that's what i've started out using with my 235. If i have issues with pace or HR i'll switch over, but it's all good so far. So to begin with i've gone with smart recording to maximise battery life.

I switched to smart recording since it makes HR graph much smoother. 1sec recording makes things really spikey :)

1 sec

The saved runs take up a lot more space on your watch due to the increase in data.

I use every second. It's most useful if you want to use third party apps like Strava. Every second makes for more accurate segment times for instance as Strava can only compute these from the data it is presented with.

One thing to note that it is common myth that turning on every second recording makes the data more accurate in terms of GPS accuracy or distance recorded or even your HR values. GPS & HR is still "sampled" every second in either mode and calculations based off those samples. It is just not "recorded" every second when in smart mode.

That said if you take the recorded track and do your own analysis on it - say plotting your route or looking at the HR trace then there will be of course be more "resolution" in every second mode. As such you might think in Smart mode that it "cuts corners" but all that is actually happening is that there are less points recorded when you turn.

It is true that the file sizes are bigger but these days that is much less of a problem than earlier devices with less memory in the watch and the painfully slow ANT stick transfer mechanism.

Another thing to be aware of is that even if you upload an "every second" activity to GC then it will only the plot the track in a sort of "Smart" way. So again, if you think corners are being cut try importing to another program (e.g. Google Earth or http://www.mygpsfiles.com that seems to show all the points.

I use every second. It's most useful if you want to use third party apps like Strava. Every second makes for more accurate segment times for instance as Strava can only compute these from the data it is presented with.

One thing to note that it is common myth that turning on every second recording makes the data more accurate in terms of GPS accuracy or distance recorded or even your HR values. GPS & HR is still "sampled" every second in either mode and calculations based off those samples. It is just not "recorded" every second when in smart mode.

That said if you take the recorded track and do your own analysis on it - say plotting your route or looking at the HR trace then there will be of course be more "resolution" in every second mode. As such you might think in Smart mode that it "cuts corners" but all that is actually happening is that there are less points recorded when you turn.

It is true that the file sizes are bigger but these days that is much less of a problem than earlier devices with less memory in the watch and the painfully slow ANT stick transfer mechanism.

Another thing to be aware of is that even if you upload an "every second" activity to GC then it will only the plot the track in a sort of "Smart" way. So again, if you think corners are being cut try importing to another program (e.g. Google Earth or http://www.mygpsfiles.com that seems to show all the points.

Thanks Tim. Makes sense.

One thing to note that it is common myth that turning on every second recording makes the data more accurate in terms of GPS accuracy or distance recorded or even your HR values. GPS & HR is still "sampled" every second in either mode and calculations based off those samples. It is just not "recorded" every second when in smart mode.

So i'm confused now. Are you saying that the battery drain should be the same for 1-sec vs smart recording?

I agree about file sizes; i'm not worried about that. Everything goes up to the cloud anyway.

My understanding is that there is no difference in battery life. The watch is still taking measurements, but just discards the readings if they are the same as the previous second, so only records if there is a change in heart rate, pace or direction.

I always just use 1s intervals since it seems to provide slightly better GPS tracks.

Fascinating. Also just checked with DC Rainmaker: https://twitter.com/darrencroton/status/680085183203160065

Guess I'm switching over!

When I tested battery consumption difference between smart and every second recording on a 920 there was some extra battery consumed by every second. If you were needing to save every last minute of battery then I would use Smart but otherwise probably you are not going to notice any difference.