Suunto Vertical battery modes

[surfboomerang]

In the previous S-series Suunto offered the possibility to change the battery mode which extends battery life during your activity. Mainly because of the GPS recording interval that changed between 1s, 10s or 60/120s (not really sure).

There was one hidden caveat however if I remember correctly. If you selected a mode other than Performance, followed a route and had the navigation screen open, the watch would use performance mode as long as the navigation screen was shown.
This means that eventhough you had selected endurance mode for your activity, but kept viewing the navigation screen the whole activity, you basicly selected performance mode.

With the SV, I noticed the description below:

Only Tour mode has a fix rate of more than 1 sec. Does this mean that if I select Endurance of Ultra and keep the map screen open during the whole activty, the watch does not use as much battery as in Performance mode?
Or will it also secretly switch to the same battery drain rate as Performance mode?

[EzioAuditore]

@surfboomerang said in Suunto Vertical battery modes:

ch battery as in Performance mode?

I’d guess yes since the performance is dual band and the other no?!

[surfboomerang]

@Hristijan-Petreski Yes, but it seems to me that dual frequency isn’t mandatory for using the map and routes

[EzioAuditore]

@surfboomerang certainly not

[Fenr1r]

@surfboomerang said in Suunto Vertical battery modes:

There was one hidden caveat however if I remember correctly. If you selected a mode other than Performance, followed a route and had the navigation screen open, the watch would use performance mode as long as the navigation screen was shown.
This means that eventhough you had selected endurance mode for your activity, but kept viewing the navigation screen the whole activity, you basicly selected performance mode.

Also if you had waypoint distances/ETE/ETA fields enabled (regardless of whether you called up the nav screen). Did that ever change?

[surfboomerang]

@Fenr1r Good one. I totally forgot about that one.

[isazi]

@surfboomerang at least for endurance and ultra, I think that having navigation enabled does not switch you back to performance, because the refresh rate for GPS is already 1 sec. Cannot comment on tour. I also think that maps do not work on any other mode than performance (I may be wrong, but I tried and map is not working in any other mode than performance. I did not try custom).

[surfboomerang]

@isazi Custom does work. I have hiking set to “GPS: Good” for example and maps still work.

I don’t know if it secretly switches to Performace. Last time I tried I had sigificant battery drain but a S+ was active also.

[Spree]

Looks like the relevant FAQ is finally out https://www.suunto.com/Support/faq-articles/suunto-vertical/how-do-i-get-the-most-of-battery-modes-with-suunto-vertical/

[surfboomerang]

@Spree nice find!

This leaves me with even more questions…

Battery mode selection is memorized in the watch: the last battery mode you selected with a specific sport mode will be suggested to you the next time you launch that same sport mode.

Seems clear, but apparently this is not how it works.

For example:
I select my running profile and it defaults to performance mode as described in the faq. I change to endurance and start an activity. I then discard the activity and start a new one. Performance is the default again.

The only way to use endurance as default (kind of) is to set GPS mode to good in the custom battery mode. It isn’t possible to replicate endurance completely because backlight setting is set to normal and not customizable. If the custom mode differs from the performance mode then it is selected by default for a new activity.

NOTE: Using maps will significantly increase battery consumption, resulting in shorter battery life compared to the values shown above.

Does this mean that having the maps setting to something other than OFF increases battery usage? Even when you do not actively select the navigation screen? Or does it only affects battery life when you select the map screen during an exercise?

Also map setting is a global setting for all sport modes. To me this seems not very logical.

[isazi]

@surfboomerang said in Suunto Vertical battery modes:

Does this mean that having the maps setting to something other than OFF increases battery usage? Even when you do not actively select the navigation screen? Or does it only affects battery life when you select the map screen during an exercise?

Maps consume battery only when you are in the map screen. After like 15 seconds that you are out of that screen the storage is powered down.

[Spree]

@isazi said in Suunto Vertical battery modes:

Maps consume battery only when you are in the map screen. After like 15 seconds that you are out of that screen the storage is powered down.

This is correct.

[babychai]

so we should to switch to other screen/display if we want to save more battery when we don’t need to refer to the map?

[gone troppo]

Just to follow up on this I found I had to change my battery mode from endurance to performance (dual band) otherwise the maps wouldn’t work?? Someone mentioned earlier that you should be able to use maps in endurance mode? I couldn’t make this work.

In the how to get the best out your battery guide it contradicts itself in the part with the colours for each battery settings with black background it says only in performance is map enabled then in the writing below it says “with suunto vertical you can therefore activate navigation In performance , endurance and even ultra battery mode? Opposite of what it says directly above it ??

[freeheeler]

@gone-troppo
if it states “navigation” it is independent from “maps”.
maps are the background layers of the navigation screen and of course will use more battery.
maps are available only for performance node, but if you need to optimize battery life and you must have maps accessable without hassle, I recommend to select custom battery mode and change from “best” to “ok”. estimate battery life seems to be almost as good as with “ultra”.

[gone troppo]

@freeheeler said in Suunto Vertical battery modes:

@gone-troppo
if it states “navigation” it is independent from “maps”.
maps are the background layers of the navigation screen and of course will use more battery.
maps are available only for performance node, but if you need to optimize battery life and you must have maps accessable without hassle, I recommend to select custom battery mode and change from “best” to “ok”. estimate battery life seems to be almost as good as with “ultra”.

Thanks mate the first part of your reply I understood but not so much this part

“ but if you need to optimize battery life and you must have maps accessable without hassle, I recommend to select custom battery mode and change from “best” to “ok”. estimate battery life seems to be almost as good as with “ultra”.

[freeheeler]

@gone-troppo
you could select ultra for your activity and omce you need maps change to performance mode to enable maps, which is cumbersome.
if you select custom battery mode and within custom you can select best, good and ok. as they correspond relatively well to performance, endurance and ultra, you will benefit from more battery life when selecting “ok” but still have maps accessable if required. of course battery life will be less if you stay on the maps screen all the time.
does this explain it a bit better?

I recall your jungle adventure and see the usecase: maximize battery life but having maps available anyway

[gone troppo]

@freeheeler

Thanks mate that’s much clearer wow I didn’t realise the custom battery mode could do this I haven’t used custom battery modes. Yes in my recent adventure I did exactly what you say I had endurance mode on and every time I needed maps I would change to performance mode then turn map on and then when finished with map change back to endurance.

I will have to play around with the custom battery mode in future i generally leave things pretty basic ie I don’t use suunto apps or anything like that as the usual screens give me all the data I need.

Thanks

[surfboomerang]

@freeheeler said in Suunto Vertical battery modes:

maps are available only for performance node, but if you need to optimize battery life and you must have maps accessable without hassle, I recommend to select custom battery mode and change from “best” to “ok”. estimate battery life seems to be almost as good as with “ultra”.

It seems that the battery impact of the maps isn’t that much. If you replicate the Endurance profile in a Custom profile but with maps on, the expected batterylife is roughly the same.

[isazi]

@surfboomerang 15 seconds after leaving the map screen, storage is powered off, so maps are negligible when not on the map screen. There is a battery cost in being always in the map screen (of course, I do not do 80 hours activities, so I use the map screen pretty liberally and still have great battery life).