Has anyone used Ionic at Philmont Scout Ranch?

[paubin]

Hello:

I'll be going to Philmont Scout Ranch in NM this July with my son and his boy scout troop. This is 12 days in the mountains, backpacking. Packing light is the name of the game, but I am bringing a portable battery to keep my ionic powered. I am hoping to track and record our entire 65 mile trek. I have some questions that I was hoping the community could assist me with:

1. Ideally I am hoping to use the GPS on my Ionic to track our hiking. But when I have run it for local practice hikes, it does put quite a drain on the battery. My portable battery is pretty good, and I am hoping that it will be up to the challenge of recharging me after each day's hike.

2. If this proves not to be the case, and I did not use the GPS, would the steps and floors still give me a pretty accurate picture of the hiking activity? I assume I would only get step and floor count, but no map in my history right? 

3. It says that the tracker can store up to 7 days. What happens on day 8? Does it throw out the oldest day? Or does it reset everything? If there is no Internet or WiFi, can I still sync and therefore download my data to my phone about halfway through the trip? (My phone will be powered off most of the time, but I figure that the battery on the phone will be sufficient to do a quick sync here or there). 

4. Are there any other battery saving tips that I can do while on the trail? If I wanted to maximize battery for GPS use, are there other settings that I can disable? 

Thanks very much 

[Rich_Laue]

Your steps will be recorded. If you don't have external power and want to use GPS my thought would bring a battery backup with a solar charger. 

Without GPS your ionic and the backup battery will work. 

Your tracker will only store 7 days of detail steps and sleep so you probably will want to somehow sync a couple of times. This will need WiFi or cellular connection. 

If not then the extra days, up to 23, will only record daily totals for steps, calories, floors, and distance with no sleep for these days 

Have fun, I went there back in late 1960's.. I forget what the disease was but the whole camp was quarantined and we where not allowed to leave for a month. 

[LZeeW]

@paubin   In this Help article, Fitbit specifically says not to use an external battery pack to recharge your device.

[paubin]

Thanks for the reply. My battery does have solar. So hopefully it will work out. I also understand that we might get a connection here or there, so I am planning to be strategic about when I turn on my phone to try. 

And "YIKES" on the month-long quarantine. I certainly hope that nothing like that happens to us! 

[paubin]

Hi @LZeeW hadn't seen that article till now. That is unfortunate. It does not say why, but I assume it has something to do with variable current or something along those lines. But since I bought the Fitbit specifically for this trek, I think I will have to  take my chances. I have already tested it with my battery a few times and it charged fine. We'll see what happens I suppose. Thanks for the reply and flagging that issue for me. 

[Rich_Laue]

Yes I understand @LZeeW but as someone who has been playing with electricity since the age of 2, maybe 1 I can assure you that it is safe to use an external battery pack. 

5volts is 5 volts. You do want one that will deliver at least 1000 mAH and @paubin I would try before taking off to philmont, some of these units will auto shut off when the charge rate gets low. Sometimes the Fitbit will not draw enough current to keep the charging going. 

[paubin]

Hi @Rich_Laue thanks again. I think I am all set with the one I have. I have charged the Fitbit on it a few times now. Here is what it says for specs

Thanks again 

[Rich_Laue]

If we can believe those specs, that has some umph. I like that it has USB C output. 

Recently I bought two "1 TByte" USBs for 12 dollars knowing that there was no chance of getting 2 terra bytes of data, just to see what it really stored. There are several reviews on you tube but let's say I was correct in my assumption. 

[paubin]

Just wanted to follow up on this thread. I am back from Philmont and the trek was wonderful. Our itinerary covered over 66 miles on the southern part of the Philmont and surrounding properties over the course of 11 days. I am happy to say that the charging device I noted above worked flawlessly! Since I was using the Hike feature on my FitBit Ionic, I ran the battery down everyday. I was able top charge my fitbit each evening to about 85 - 90% and that was usually sufficient for the next day's trek. There were two days when this was not enough. We had some days where we hiked over 10 miles and those days ran my charge all the way to zero. I also was able to find a spot or two on the trail to get Internet for my phone long enough to sync data. So I have full data with stats and maps for everyday of the trail except one. (Not sure what happened on that day, it was probably the first day when the battery went to zero, or perhaps it was day eight when I synced, not sure). This battery was a champ. Not only did it charge my FitBit everyday, but also charged my phone once and my son's phone once. Even though some posters pointed out that this is not "officially" supported, it worked great for me and my FitBit seems fine. So I am happy. Your results may vary... 

Thanks again to anyone who offered advice.