Garmin

1 lurker | 219 watchers

larkim May 2022 12:06pm, 5 May 2022 17,805 posts	0 larkim If you put the HR widget into Broadcast mode I think the HR stays "alive" until a different screen is selected. Just tested it and it seems to work (with a nice big display of the HR number) on my FR645, so would have expected similar on a Fenix.
larkim May 2022 12:12pm, 5 May 2022 17,806 posts	0 larkim Probably a similar number of button presses though, but I suppose you could choose to have one of the nice displays of which zone you're in etc etc if you use the activity route.
fazmo May 2022 12:18pm, 5 May 2022 147 posts	0 fazmo Brilliant cheers larkim… Broadcast Mode is something I hadn’t heard of but it seems to be working … like you say huge numbers!!
larkim May 2022 12:23pm, 5 May 2022 17,807 posts	0 larkim Broadcast Mode is so you can use your watch's HR and pair it to another device (e.g. a treadmill or a cycle computer). Seems it has a useful quirk too!
Steve NordRunner May 2022 3:28pm, 5 May 2022 1,573 posts	0 Steve NordRunner AFAICT if you select an Activity that has a heartrate field on it, then the HR stays live even before you press Start. So you could just leave it there.
Sam Jelfs May 2022 3:54pm, 5 May 2022 1,141 posts	0 Sam Jelfs If you select an activity but don't start it then the watch will go into power save mode eventually.
K5 Gus May 2022 4:13pm, 5 May 2022 5,115 posts	0 K5 Gus Yep, what Sam says - Power Save Timeout. If you go to an activity and don't press start then after 5 minutes it will exit the activity and return to the watch face. There's an Extended option which increases this to 25 minutes, so depending on how long your gym session is, you could go for that option. I use Extended all the time, means that before the start of a race I can go the Activity screen and not worry that it's going to exit back to watch face just as the race is about to start
larkim May 2022 4:09pm, 9 May 2022 17,841 posts	0 larkim I'm walk-running the Sandstone Trail with my better half this weekend, which is 34 miles long. On a lowest common denominator basis, we'll be going at her speed which will probably be around 16min miling, so 9+ hours. My 645 is reasonably new, so I'm hoping to get as close as possible to not needing to charge it (GPS 14 hours it says in the blurb, but I'm cynical!) I'm planning on a single screen visible, turning off HR, turning off BT, not using navigation, but not wanting to use the disaster which is UltraTrac which will have us walking through Wales and then East Anglia if my last use of it is anything to go by. Any other system hints / tweaks to get best lifespan out of it? (I will also have a USB battery with me and a cable, but would prefer to avoid using it).
K5 Gus May 2022 4:42pm, 9 May 2022 5,131 posts	0 K5 Gus I went out on a long ultra training run a few weeks ago, and had forgotten to charge up the watch and it only had about 10% left I realised after about mile 1 - I switched it to UltraTrac ( I think ) which gave me loads of spare time. One of the things it did ( as well as not polling for the satellites as frequently ) was to switch the screen display off, ie the screen was blank and if I wanted to see it it would come on at the press of any button, stay on for about 5 secs and then go blank again. Not sure if that's a setting you can put it to without going to UltraTrac - if you think of it, 99% of the time you're not looking at the screen, so don't need it to be burning juice on the display. Just realised I meant to check that option out, but never did so
um May 2022 4:44pm, 9 May 2022 6,053 posts	0 um larkim - how many snack stops, drinks stops etc? I used to find a 15-20 minute boost from a USB battery, if you remember the unique charging cable for the Garmin model, restored at least 50% plus of the watch battery. And best to do when you stop, rather than when you need to. So no real hassle if you are having breaks Otherwise, does smart recording vs 'every second' make any real difference?