Impact of "Battery Saver" (screen) on battery life

Discussion related to the Garmin GPSMAP 66i GPSr
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GPSrChive
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Re: Impact of "Battery Saver" (screen) on battery life

Unread post by GPSrChive »

sky-eye wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 9:30 pm Currently testing this and that on 9.0
...
Found out that regardless of setting 'battery saver' , for given tasks I have abt 16h battery endurance, meaning the setting has no effect on battery.
...
Test done with and without battery saver and it was done with 2 66i at the same time.
So in one test the display went off after 30sec, second test display remained on all the time.
So, if I understand correctly, two identically configured GPSMAP 66i units were tested, one with battery save enabled, the other without, which resulted in one turning off the display after 30 seconds, while the other kept the display on the entire time, and they both still ran the same amount of time before the battery was depleted, about 16 hours?
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Re: Impact of "Battery Saver" (screen) on battery life

Unread post by sky-eye »

yes, this is correct

I can not find any significant difference
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Re: Impact of "Battery Saver" (screen) on battery life

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gpsrchive wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 10:39 pm So, if I understand correctly, two identically configured GPSMAP 66i units were tested, one with battery save enabled, the other without, which resulted in one turning off the display after 30 seconds, while the other kept the display on the entire time, and they both still ran the same amount of time before the battery was depleted, about 16 hours?
sky-eye wrote: Sat Feb 12, 2022 12:42 pm yes, this is correct

I can not find any significant difference
Interesting.

I can not imagine how, over a 16 hour period of time, two identical GPSr, one with the display enabled and the other with the display disabled for the entire duration of the test, could possibly use the same amount of battery power.

In all of our Garmin GPSr battery consumption tests, having the 'Battery Saver' feature enabled provided an average 20% power consumption reduction, and resulted in a substantially longer device run time.

There must be something overlooked in your testing procedures to arrive at the results you have reported.
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Re: Impact of "Battery Saver" (screen) on battery life

Unread post by sky-eye »

Just report of other test I just finished.
2 66i, fresh full reset, then with identical settings. Wifi ON, BT On and connected each to phone
both units outside under free sky, and activated
Both units did transmit and receive each 3 short messages during the test.

Both fully charged and one unit #1 with save-on, unit #2 save not on

after 10h
#1 40%
#2 38%

after 15.5h
#1 11%
#2 6%

after 16h
#1 9%
#2 5%
(test ended )

as measurements are done just by connecting to charger for short time and reading what it displays, it is considered just an estimation like on similar measurements on smart phones and other compact appliances. Numerical 4% difference is within uncertainty of such estimation and by no means significant.

I am in fact not surprised, as this save function seems only to blank the display, but all other functions are fully preserved. There is no apparent reduction of any processing tasks etc. Unlike display on smart phone, the simple trans-reflect display here does not need any extra power, it is a voltage driven not current driven device.
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Re: Impact of "Battery Saver" (screen) on battery life

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Test again, but with:

Wi-Fi Disabled
Bluetooth Disabled
ANT+ Sensors Disabled
inReach Disabled

This removes any interference by these wireless systems during test.

Disable Magnetic Compass
Configure GNSS for GPS Only
Disable WAAS/EGNOS
Make sure Altimeter - Pressure Trending is set for 'Save When Power On'
Map Orientation 'Track Up'
Display Timeout 15 seconds
Display Brightness 50%
Open Map Page

Test now one with battery save enabled, the other with it disabled.

These settings will allow the test to concentrate on the affects of the battery save feature while filtering out any potential interference created by the disabled systems.

I think your results for these test will be much different.
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Re: Impact of "Battery Saver" (screen) on battery life

Unread post by sky-eye »

First:
I have just done other test with same settings as before, but 'swapped' the devices, meaning the other one is now the one with save on.
after 15h the one with save on has 11% the one without 6%, meaning the relative difference if there is one is numerically 5% in this case.

Now to your suggestion:
Yes I can try to do this sometimes,
but this is not a test at all, as in such mode, the device does not work at all and can not be used.
This would even mean, that such device must not be activated as inreach device at all, as inreach can not be 'deactivated' otherwise.

Clearly, my tests are also not perfect, as I had no time to do it when moving, which would be in fact a valid test.
I just set the devices up so as they are used, to simulate to some extend the real life.

And yes, when I use only 10% of the functionality, then 5% is half. But this means also I am not able to use it for desired purpose.
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Re: Impact of "Battery Saver" (screen) on battery life

Unread post by GPSrChive »

There is never any reason to keep Wi-Fi enabled for battery testing 'real world scenarios', as there will not be any Wi-Fi available in most areas these devices are actually used.

Bluetooth is similarly not needed other than on those few occasions when some may want to check device status via their phone instead of on the device itself.

We are starting some of our own battery runtime tests this weekend, and will report our results in a future post.
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Re: Impact of "Battery Saver" (screen) on battery life

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To be clear, anyone can test anything anyway they desire, and they will get the results that match their testing methods.

The primary issue with sky-eye tests above is that controllable factors are not controlled, and are allowed to run unchecked and unmonitored, and this provides unreliable and inconsistent results. Having the ANT+, Bluetooth, and/or Wi-Fi radios enabled for the duration of the test creates a scenario where the final result almost certainly includes unknown levels of battery consumption due to unchecked radio transmitting and receiving activity that can not be factored into the final results in a meaningful way.

For more than 10 years, GPSrChive have tested battery consumption in Garmin GPSr by placing the device into a controlled and consistent state that can be repeated as often as desired without unknown factors interfering with test results.

We performed some testing with our GPSMAP 66i over the past several days, and those results are available here.
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Re: Impact of "Battery Saver" (screen) on battery life

Unread post by sky-eye »

after some time I came again to some testing with our 66i devices

This time it was more into expedition mode, compared with Mini in extended mode

I had off wifi, BT and ANT

but not inreach and other features, as they are needed for the operation
FW 9.0

With IR tracking interval 10min, log set to auto, but otherwise just rather little use, I reached some 60h of operation.
The mini was this time just abt 50h in same test with 10min tracking
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