Need to be able to control track log interval
Not planned
Although Gaia has automatic thinning algorithms to reduce the size of track logs, they can still be very large. The user needs some control over this process. The normal way this is done is to allow the user to control the track log interval. For example, one point every 20 meters.
Even if you rely on thinning algorithms, the user would need some control over the parameters that govern THAT process. But the simplest is to let the user configure the distance interval, and in that way the user knows what is going on.
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I have the same request. I like to set the track interval to 10m in my current GPS so I get the most accurate track without too many trackpoints. If I want very accurate tracks (but using more space, I will set it to 1m. The antenna in my phone may not be accurate enough for that, but it would still be nice to be to control the interval. a 2s interval is another good option if one doesn't stop too often. Thanks!.
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I'd also like to see this. I'm happy with the accuracy of the GPS on my phone as far as navigation is concerned, but the track logs tend to have lots of wiggle (or even small loops) when I'm actually traveling in a straight line. Allowing me to Increase the distance between points would minimize this.
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Same request, motivated by need to conserve power, thus I mainly need longer (and selectable) intervals (2 - 10 min?) . Distance algorithms that still sample GPS at a high rate would still gobble the power. My main reason is power saving. I use Gaia on multi-day trips (6-8, as much as 10 da) and have noticed how the battery drops as I track. So now I turn off location services between infrequent short tracking segments... and some times forget to turn them on (or make a mistake). I'm an IOS user but for this question that's not an issue. Thanks for listening.
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I find that the single simplified setting for track point intervals to be almost completely useless for hiking- just too large. It looks good when you are in the field with a good aerial photo- seems like great resolution- yes, I just went up this particular stream braidly. However, when you save the track, current Gaia simplifies unacceptably, which older versions did not do. Sure it looks good at 1 km resolution, but if you want a realistic track at 100 m resolution it becomes misleading and looks (and is) not accurate. I understand that not everyone needs such great resolution, but I (and others) do. Have had to go to different solution for general tracking. It's such an issue for my type of recreation and work that I can no longer recommend Gaia whole-heartedly to my friends and colleagues like I used to- and I was the initial big cheerleader among them several years ago!
Surely Gaia could figure out how to let the user adjust distance and time intervals for trackpoints. The memory issue seems trivial- some people with a lot of memory really want the short intervals and don't mind the amount of data. Dumbing it down to the lowest common denominator makes no sense to me- people know how to adjust settings, and if they don't they can easily learn.
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Bumping this thread to say the feature is still needed. It's pretty standard on back country GPS devices to have 10min+ intervals for battery life over multi day treks. If nothing else at least add a breadcrumb feature so you can backtrack. With that feature you could get away from any other GPS device. Maybe Gaia could partner with Zoleo which only does Sat. texts and SOS without mapping that would put a huge dent in Garmin market share.
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Would be great to have a feature to reduce battery use. Used my entire Samsung S9 battery in a 10-12 hour day in the mountains. On multi day trips, even with a batter power pack, charging the phone every day would not be feasible. Will keep using my Garmin GPS for anything more than a day trip
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Since I started this thread 3 years ago, I read with great interest the posting by ubernerdsteve. I run the Canadian Mountain Encyclopedia (https://bivouac.com) and we have a discussion on GPS Track Log Power Consumption, particularly for long treks 5-6 days. I've been doing a bit more research into this subject, which may help Gaia and backcountry users in general. What I want to know is: how much power can you save in Track logs by setting the time interval to something like 2 minutes, and minimum distance to 20 meters? The defaults in Backcountry Navigator are 5 seconds and 5 meters.
My assumption is that those settings would mean the GPS only consumes power once every 2 minutes to check if you have gone more than 20 meters, and if so, record a point. I'm assuming it would only need to be powered for less than 1 second to do that check. (a Hot fix?). I'm assuming that to record a point both Interval and Minimum distance are in effect, and both of them must be satisfied to record a point. The experiment needs to be done over a period of a day with each setting, and I will do it with BCN on my next trip. But I would really like to hear from anybody who has some more theory of how GPS works or has done more experiments.
Here is a link to the discussion at bivouac:
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