Android - Track recording inaccurate or has spikes: New Comment

There are a couple older posts about track recording being inaccurate but I think it is worth a further comment. I recorded a track going off road but we had taken a couple wrong turns and had to backtrack. I decided to record the return trip as a new track.

When I started recording the return there was a message that battery saver could cause the GPS information to be inaccurate. I don't remember the exact message. I checked my Android phone's battery level and it was 48% so I didn't think battery saver could be a problem.

A short way into the return trip the GPS location indicated was very far away from where I knew we were located. As the return trip progressed, the GPS location jumped all over the place, sometimes over 1/2 mile from our actual location. We were on a forest road so there was no doubt about our true location. I had pressed record, but no track was recorded. The time stayed on 0.

Looking back, I presume that battery saver, which I didn't even know was set to On, was the problem. My point being this inaccuracy could be life threatening bepending on circumstances. A little inaccurate and dramatically inaccurate are very different.

It seems the app should be more proactive about warnings if the GPS location is jumping randomly from track point to track point. Maybe the app could sound a tone and popup an option to turn off Battery Saver, not just one message when starting to record a track.

If you are recording a track but not watching your screen, at what point would the track stop recording or become useless?

This experience has raised serious concerns about the reliability of GAIA and maybe any Android GPS app. I'm looking again at a dedicated GPS device.