Bare minimum needed for Versa to record all data from a run?

[Qofcheez]

I am running a marathon in less than two months and have been having issues with getting enough phone battery power to ensure that all of the data for my run is recorded.  I need the battery to last at least 5 hours.

Since Versa needs the phone for the GPS data, I have no choice but to bring it along.  There are two options:

1.  Use phone only for fitbit and listen to music on the watch  or

2.  Listen to music on phone using bluetooth headset, and connect to fitbit for the GPS

I have been using option 2 and the battery will definitely not last, so I need to turn things off

So,

What is the minimal the phone needs to be connected to to record the run?  Can I use airplane mode? Can I turn off the network and keep everything else on?  If I listen to music on the Versa instead, will the battery last long enough to record a 5 hour run AND listen to music via Bluetooth?

Thank you!

[SteveH]

Do you really need to use GPS - you know how far you run as it's a measured distance and your versa will happily track steps, calories, active minutes etc without GPS

You could then not take your phone and perhaps listen to music on your versa

[Qofcheez]

Hi, thank you for answering.  While I don't care that much about the route since I know it, that additional data gives me the pace analysis.  Also, it'll upload to Strava, which it won't do without the GPS 😞

[SteveH]

Ahh, good points. (as you may have spotted, I'm not a runner)

[Rich_Laue]

Are you asking about the life of the versa battery as well as the phone bartery, @Qofcheez

I find heasphohea connected to the versa do consume the battery 

2.5 hours helped drain the battery in 24 hours.

Do I have an answer, not really, I suggest trying different combinations before the rum

[Qofcheez]

Thank you.  I've suspected that playing music for a few hours would significantly reduce the battery tim, I just wasn't sure by how much.  Looks like I'll have to do a trial run as an experiment

[Julia_G · Accepted solution]

@Qofcheez, although you have two options, you also have two problems.  My experience is that using your phone for GPS takes a lot of battery and for many phones you will struggle to get 5 hours GPS, even without music.  

It's a lot more money, but for a serious runner like yourself, you might want to invest in a Fitbit with a built in GPS chip.  That would be the new(ish) Ionic or the old (more than ish) Surge.  You can probably get a Surge pretty cheap on Ebay; if it has been well looked after it should cover you for your 5 hour run -- I have a 3 year old Surge and it will give me way more than 5 hours with GPS turned on.

The more expensive option would be the Ionic, which will definitely cover you for the full run.   I do love mine.  However, I have not checked whether it would handle both GPS and music; I'm guessing not.   But if you have a Fitbit with built in GPS, if your Fitbit is handling your run stats, then your phone can handle the music.  I am pretty sure you will want to have your phone with you for a marathon, so that won't be a problem.

Another idea would be to pick up an old iPod on eBay to handle the music and leave your Versa + phone to do run stats -- as long as you are confident that your phone will do the distance.  I bet you can get one of the older,  little  iPods (iPod nano) pretty cheap and then load you can load your bestest marathon music on that. 

In that case, you will still need to make sure that your phone will hold out for 5 hours GPS connected to your Versa.  It isn't really a matter of the Fitbit battery -- I am confident that Versa can handle it, but can your phone?

Also (and now I am speaking as someone who ran London Marathon, though quite some time ago, before Fitbits or even iPods) for training I degree that some distraction is really essential -- I had a tiny transistor radio (I know that sounds impossibly old).  But on the day of the run, distraction won't be so important.  You'll also want to focus on the atmosphere around you and that will help a lot.  So you may find that  on race day your Fitbit tracking is more important than your music.

Just some things to think about!

And many congratulations on the marathon venture.  Please let us know how it goes.

[Julia_G]

Sorry, to answer your specific questions, you can turn on airplane mode as long as you make sure that Bluetooth is turned on.  (Depending on your phone you may need to turn Bluetooth back on once you have activated airplane mode.)

My experience is that "Connected GPS" will work with Airplane Mode turned ON (as long as you make the initial connection while you have a data connection); however, if it loses connection, it may not reconnect with Airplane Mode on.  

I have had a fair bit of experience running using "Connected GPS" without data or wifi connection (Airplane Mode) and I have to say that the results were pretty hit and miss.  Admittedly these were not with the Versa -- I used the Blaze and the Charge 2 , both older Fitbits so it may very well have improved -- but I often came home to find that the connection was lost and only the first few minutes were recorded.  I would be pretty devastated if that happened to me on a marathon.

You should definitely do some test runs and consider a few alternative solutons so that you feel confident on the big day that your technology will work!

[Qofcheez]

Thank you for the information, it's fantastic!  I wish I could accept both as a solution.  I'm thrilled you have marathon experience to draw on.

It's pretty much what I feared.  I think I'll either have to forgo the music entirely, or ration it out at the least.  Your ideas about a used fitbit or iPod is an interesting one.  I wonder what a second hand ionic would cost.  I wish I'd known more about integrated GPS when I bought the Versa.  Why add Strava to a device that can't properly use it?

Thank you so much again.  I'll experiment with the short runs and see if the connected GPS on airplane mode gives me consistent results