rlown wrote:How long does your battery last and how often do you turn the unit on?
Russ' question is very important. A battery in a phone is not like a long lasting battery in a GPS unit. Even then, any battery can fail.
AlmostThere is correct, these conversations are public, and for the many others who may read this, one should never go into the wilderness depending solely on GPS. They fail. Batteries fail. These things should only serve as a complement to map and compass skills.
One good thing that Apple did was to change the OS to allow the GPS chip to operate while the phone is on airplane mode. That vastly extends the life of the battery over what it used to be. But after doing an experimental track on Viewranger on a day trip, it still ate half the life of the battery to keep it running and take occasional pictures. The additional charging devices I've seen to charge phones via USB cables are not going to let you keep it charged more than a few days, and solar panels may do some charging but they aren't as effective/reliable as the second battery/device option.
I still take a point and shoot camera. The batteries are much lighter and last much longer than the phone battery. The GPS units that take AA or AAA you can easily pack a set of batteries per day/two days (however long your unit lasts, I have a Magellan that we're lucky to get 6 hours out of a pair of AA batteries) and be careful about turning it off when you stop for the day.
And Lithium batteries last longer than alkaline AA/AAA in the cold. My Samsung S4 will stay charged for about 10 hrs of normal use. A lot longer in "Airplane" mode. Either way, my batteries usually sleep with me when not in use. My Rino 530 GPS will last 8 days but that's only sporadic use.
Using Gaia on my iPhone 7--maybe 10-15 times per day, plus taking 10-20 pics per day, I can get around 5 days on a full battery. This is with the phone on Airplane mode. I bring a backup battery brick if I plan heavier use.
I was thinking of a GPS last year and then came across this blog post. I followed it and worked like a charm for using my IPhone, plus managing/extending battery life:
Insaneboost, if you still want a dedicated GPS unit, I have a Garmin Etrex 30 I am getting ready to sell. Great little unit and you can add a map chip to it. PM me if you are interested.
I have owned several different GPS handhelds since the 90s. I have an etrex 30x. Last season I started using Gaia on my iPhone. I don't think I can say which is simpler or easier since it does depend a bit on you and I can list strengths and weaknesses on both from a usability standpoint. I don't think you would go wrong on either one. Do plan to spend hours familiarizing yourself on finding maps, downloading maps, and getting to know the machine. Get to know whichever you pick. The etrex i'd rank as more rugged than my iPhone in Otterbox case.
This subject has piqued my interest today, before finding this thread. One thing I've read is that with an iPhone, you can not only switch to airplane mode, but go into the battery options and turn on low power usage. I've known about airplane mode, but low power mode is new to me.Those two options can really help conserve battery life i've read.
eric
fresno, ca.
Last edited by ericZ on Fri Jul 07, 2017 10:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
I take a map/compass but I also like having a GPS to mark locations when I'm scouting for photo locations during the day that I may have to hike back to/from when it's dark out. I use Gaia GPS on my (android) phone but I usually only bring up the map and find the location when I'm dropping a pin to mark a location and that saves a lot on the battery versus leaving it in tracking mode full time. I can get a good 5+ days using it this way.
I also have a Suunto Traverse watch which I use both to log my route and also to load and follow a route. It has a "breadcrumb" feature where you can follow your route back to where you started which I've found helpful when heading back to camp in the dark after a sunset shoot. The watch has three different power savings modes and I typically use the one that drains the battery the fastest, which gives me about 8 hours of tracking. It also shows elevation which I use quite a bit.
I am "I-phone ignorant". I thought you had to have cell coverage to use the I-phone. Half the time or more I have no cell coverage. That is why I do not bother to take a cell phone. I thought GPS units access via satellite and thus are more reliable, yet there are still places where you cannot get adequate lines to satellites.
With my cell phone, I have found that there is a vast difference in getting coverage based on your carrier. We have ATT&T which is terrible in rural areas. Evidently Verizon is better.
I disagree that old maps from the 1970's are just fine for the Sierra. I would buy the updated maps since it is incrementally a small cost compared to the total cost of having a GPS.
Trails marked on maps are simply over-simplifications of the real trail. Do the trails show up on a GPS or I-phone as someone's actual GPS track or just as scanned lines? When you say Google Earth is used by an application, does that then overlay the Google Earth data on the map? How is the image/vs map projection distortion problem solved?
All too iffy and complicated for me! I will stick to my old paper maps.
