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Tips for conserving mobile phone battery.


Bloodheart

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My phone wasn't top of the line when it was bought 3 years ago, so now it's getting on a bit the battery life isn't as great, but I can't afford to replace it right now so it has to do. When geocaching it acts as my GPS, map, loads cache details, camera, internet for research on puzzles or to keep people informed about where I am, and as an MP3 player.

 

With all these uses the phone battery drains within a few hours - yesterday I was only out a mere 3-4 hours, so not many caches found and missing out on some great photos. Fortunately as I don't go too far afield at worst this just means having to cut my trip short and doing without music on my way home, at least I don't have to worry about being in the middle of no where lost without a phone(!), but it's frustrating!

 

Is there any other way to conserve battery life? Or is there a cheap means of charging my phone when I'm out and about? Any other cachers out there that use mobile phones for caching and can offer some advice? It's probably a long short, but I thought it was worth asking anyway :)

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1) Get a car charger - $15

2) Get a portable charger - $20

3) Use the Open Source off-line map - FREE

4) Get a premium membership so that you can use pocket queries and don't have to use the Live Map feature - $30/year

5) Put your phone in airplane mode - FREE

6) Don't solve any puzzles in the field unless you absolutely have to (most field puzzles don't require a lot of internet research - FREE

7) Take your ear buds out and enjoy nature's music - FREE

8) Cache with a friend and you can take turns who is navigating - FREE

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Are you driving from cache to cache?

 

We've got a device that plugs into our cigarette lighter and provides a regular outlet. From there, we plug in another thing which converts the regular outlet to a USB. From here, we plug the phone cable in so I can charge while driving.

 

You could also buy a spare battery for your phone, perhaps from ebay.

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Forgot one

9) Use the Field Notes feature and upload all of your logs when you get home

 

Here's another. Get a handheld GPS and use that for finding caches and keep the battery in the phone charged in case you need to make an emergency phone call.

 

Perhaps they can't afford the handheld GPS right now?

 

However, as a mobile phone cacher due to not being able to afford the GPS I would agree that you could save the puzzle caches for at home, turn off the MP3 player too. Make sure you've got your wifi off too - that can burn battery. Try and keep the screen off as much as possible (so if you're heading to a cache and the path/road is really obvious just leave the screen off until you really need it). Try lowering the screen brightness too.

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Best gadget I ever bought - Google 'Anker battery' or search on Amazon/eBay. About $25-$35, depending on the capacity size you buy. Will recharge your phone up to 4 times while you are out walking. On a recent cachecation both my Android and my wife's iPhone got low and it charged both back up at the same time while we continued to hunt.

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Forgot one

9) Use the Field Notes feature and upload all of your logs when you get home

 

Here's another. Get a handheld GPS and use that for finding caches and keep the battery in the phone charged in case you need to make an emergency phone call.

 

This one gets my vote as well. Hand held units can be bought pretty cheaply on the big name auction sites. Until then, the suggestions above are all really good ones.

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1) Get a car charger - $15

2) Get a portable charger - $20

3) Use the Open Source off-line map - FREE

4) Get a premium membership so that you can use pocket queries and don't have to use the Live Map feature - $30/year

5) Put your phone in airplane mode - FREE

6) Don't solve any puzzles in the field unless you absolutely have to (most field puzzles don't require a lot of internet research - FREE

7) Take your ear buds out and enjoy nature's music - FREE

8) Cache with a friend and you can take turns who is navigating - FREE

 

9) print out maps and don't turn on the phone until you within a hundred feet of so of the cache.

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The numbered list above is perfect. Just some annotations:

• external chargers are not only available as simple battery packs, but as solar chargers or dynamo chargers as well, making you totally independent of other power sources. I have a solar charger, is loaded within one day in the sun and is able to load the phone ~2 times (-4000 mAh, if I remember correctly).

 

• I use "Looking4cache" as App on the iPhone. It is specially designed to conserve smartphone power, with using GPS only in map mode, adjusting GPS sensitivity depending on proximity to the target, offline cache data handling (including offline logging). It's available in a fully working free version, with full version they provide additional offline maps (recommended). The App is dual usable on iPhone and iPad, respects the better screen posibilities on the iPad, but not (yet?) available for Android or other OS's. I'm not related to the programmef, but an impressed and happy user...

 

BTW: Your 3-4 hrs phone battery capacity are relatively normal, seems the battery is still in fair condition.

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If possible, turn the screen brightness down. That makes a HUGE difference in battery life on my iPhone.

 

+1 on the the car charger. Bought mine on Amazon for $5

 

+1 on the portable battery. New Trent makes a nice line of portable USB batteries. I never leave home without one.

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I bought a solar power supply specifically for this. My cell GPS takes about 20 minutes to lock on and the screen tries to sleep while locking on, which stops it trying to lock on. :mad: That's why I only use it for backup and offline logging.

 

I use my GPSr to find caches mostly, since locking on with it takes only 5 minutes at most.

Edited by AutisticMajor
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My phone wasn't top of the line when it was bought 3 years ago, so now it's getting on a bit the battery life isn't as great, but I can't afford to replace it right now so it has to do. When geocaching it acts as my GPS, map, loads cache details, camera, internet for research on puzzles or to keep people informed about where I am, and as an MP3 player.

 

With all these uses the phone battery drains within a few hours - yesterday I was only out a mere 3-4 hours, so not many caches found and missing out on some great photos. Fortunately as I don't go too far afield at worst this just means having to cut my trip short and doing without music on my way home, at least I don't have to worry about being in the middle of no where lost without a phone(!), but it's frustrating!

 

Is there any other way to conserve battery life? Or is there a cheap means of charging my phone when I'm out and about? Any other cachers out there that use mobile phones for caching and can offer some advice? It's probably a long short, but I thought it was worth asking anyway :)

 

Lots of good stuff already but for the most obvious is to stop using it as an MP3 player. You don't need music while you're out, and your options are either to find a way to charge your battery (which will take some money, even if not much) and/or use the thing less.

 

Charging the battery could be as simple as a clip with four rechargeable AA cells in it and a clip to connect to your phone, or a dedicated USB battery that you charge from a USB socket and then use to charge your USB devices. They come in a range of capacities and can be pretty cheap.

 

Using the phone less will involve turning off the MP3 player, turning off wi-fi, only downloading data if you really need to, turn off the 3G signal and use 2G (this will make a big difference to battery life), cache maps as best you can beforehand (they'll be terminally slow to load over 2G), and write field notes so you're not going online to log in the field. Do you really need to keep people informed where you are if you're only gone for three hours? If you're under 18 you might want to let your parents know you got to your destination but much more than that seems like a classic case of the modern obsession with sharing your every move with the world via twitface. The world isn't going to come to a shuddering halt if you don't tell people that you just found your third cache, or that you're two miles further down the road than you were 30 minutes ago, or that you just took a timeout to buy a cold drink, etc.

 

Pocket queries will mean you download all the caches before you leave. That means you don't have to download each individual cache as you go but the price you'll pay is that if one goes live while you're out you won't see it. That kind of thing used to happen to me a lot. It still happens, but since I don't go out caching as much these days it's less frequent (and since I'm not so much into the FTF thing I don't care any more).

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I bought a solar power supply specifically for this. My cell GPS takes about 20 minutes to lock on and the screen tries to sleep while locking on, which stops it trying to lock on. :mad: That's why I only use it for backup and offline logging.

 

I use my GPSr to find caches mostly, since locking on with it takes only 5 minutes at most.

 

Are you exaggerating a little with your times? Because my phone locks on with in 5 seconds and GPS location stabilizes within another 30 seconds.

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I bought a solar power supply specifically for this. My cell GPS takes about 20 minutes to lock on and the screen tries to sleep while locking on, which stops it trying to lock on. :mad: That's why I only use it for backup and offline logging.

 

I use my GPSr to find caches mostly, since locking on with it takes only 5 minutes at most.

Are you exaggerating a little with your times? Because my phone locks on with in 5 seconds and GPS location stabilizes within another 30 seconds.
FWIW, if I'm somewhere with a data connection, then my phones have behaved as Dr H0rrible describes: I get a lock quickly, certainly in less than a minute even if I've moved hundreds of miles.

 

If I'm somewhere without a data connection, then my phones have behaved as AutisticMajor describes: It takes a LONG time to get a lock, and the phone can time out while I'm waiting for a lock. It helps to get a lock somewhere with a data connection, and then keep the phone navigating to the location without a data connection, but that isn't always practical.

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I use "Looking4cache" as App on the iPhone. It is specially designed to conserve smartphone power, with using GPS only in map mode, adjusting GPS sensitivity depending on proximity to the target

Also a good tip for saving power: Use the compass (and the heading map) only if needed. The Compass on iPhone 4 and above needs a lot of power. L4C detects if no compass direction is needed and switchs it off. Maybe other Apps also.

 

but not (yet?) available for Android or other OS's. I'm not related to the programmef, but an impressed and happy user...

I have no plans to develop it under a other environment than iOS (too much work..). Nice that you like it!

 

Best, Thorsten

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Turn off wi-fi - your phone is constantly looking for connections, and so it could be draining the power that way.

 

I use an iPhone 4S, and I managed to pick up a relatively cheap battery pack/case hybrid which I've used a few times for caching and found it to be very good even if it runs a bit warm when it is taking power out of the pack.

 

You also might be surprised just how low older second hand GPS units go for on eBay.

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