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Battery Life Good for 50k Run? Chest Strap + iPhone + watch

P

phantasms

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 3, 2010
16
13
Brewster, NY
Hey all,

I've got a 38mm series 2. I know that if I'm only using that I'd have no shot it lasting for a full 50k ultra run. I'm curious if I use my chest strap heart rate sensor and carry my phone with me how much longer will the watch last? With the chest strap it wont need to use the internal heart rate and with my phone will it be able to use the phone GPS and automatically shut down it's own internal GPS? This is my first time running a 50k and I'm uncertain how long it will take but my guess would be about 8 hours.

Anyone have any experience to share?

Thanks!

Best,
Gene
 
I'm not an expert on this, but I think you'd be able to make it. The watch uses about 20% battery life for each hour working out using stored music, heart rate and gps. Offloading the gps and heart rate should buy you a lot of extra time since those use a lot of battery. I don't think 8 hours is unreasonable.
 
Last edited:
I'm not familiar with how the 38mm battery's life holds up in workouts, but if you're using a chest strap for HR monitoring and the phone is with you for GPS, then I think there's a chance it could last for 8 hours.

FWIW, I recently did a 6.5 triathlon with a 42mm Series 2. Opening with a 50 minute swim with HR & GPS running took close to 25% of the battery, but for the bike and run I kept an old iPhone strapped to me (which the watch was paired to) and HR was still going. Watch ended up dying very close to the end, around 6 hours and 20 minutes. This was with HR going the whole time and GPS for the first 50 minutes.
 
Any apps can do ultra trac or is that a hardware feature?
 
Zxxv said:
Stick it on and try. You dont have to go for a run.
Click to expand...

Duh. Thank you! :)

mk313 said:
I'm not an aunt Corey on this, but I think you'd be able to make it. The watch uses about 20% battery life for each hour working out using stored music, heart rate and gps. Offloading the gps and heart rate should buy you a lot of extra time since those use a lot of battery. I don't think 8 hours is unreasonable.
Click to expand...

Thank you!

profets said:
I'm not familiar with how the 38mm battery's life holds up in workouts, but if you're using a chest strap for HR monitoring and the phone is with you for GPS, then I think there's a chance it could last for 8 hours.

FWIW, I recently did a 6.5 triathlon with a 42mm Series 2. Opening with a 50 minute swim with HR & GPS running took close to 25% of the battery, but for the bike and run I kept an old iPhone strapped to me (which the watch was paired to) and HR was still going. Watch ended up dying very close to the end, around 6 hours and 20 minutes. This was with HR going the whole time and GPS for the first 50 minutes.
Click to expand...

A good sign. Thank you!

mrklaw said:
Your phone probably won’t
Click to expand...

Huh? Is this an iOS11 crack or something more? My 7+ seems to have near infinite battery life. Should I be concerned?



Lastly...if I’m carrying my phone with me but am running Strava on my watch will my watch know to grab GPS from the phone or is there a setting somewhere that must be selected much like needs to be done for the chest strap?

Thanks!!!

Best,
Gene
 
phantasms said:
Lastly...if I’m carrying my phone with me but am running Strava on my watch will my watch know to grab GPS from the phone or is there a setting somewhere that must be selected much like needs to be done for the chest strap?

Thanks!!!

Best,
Gene
Click to expand...

It will use phone GPS. This is Watch function and it's automatic. Even if Strava want to use watch GPS, it can't.
[doublepost=1507295663][/doublepost]
mrklaw said:
Your phone probably won’t
Click to expand...

Ha ha. Good one.
 
phantasms said:
Duh. Thank you! :)



Thank you!



A good sign. Thank you!



Huh? Is this an iOS11 crack or something more? My 7+ seems to have near infinite battery life. Should I be concerned?



Lastly...if I’m carrying my phone with me but am running Strava on my watch will my watch know to grab GPS from the phone or is there a setting somewhere that must be selected much like needs to be done for the chest strap?

Thanks!!!

Best,
Gene
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be concerned about the phone. When I did that long event with the GPS on the phone running for ~6 hours the phone was fine - and this is a 2 year old 6s with relatively bad battery life.
 
If I had to run 50k my watch and phone would be the least of my problems. My last 13.1 mile run nearly killed me lol. But to answer your question I took my phone and watch that day and did ok considering I had used my watch and phone all morning. If you start out at 100 percent charge I think they will both make it. It will be closer on your phone than your watch especially if your also listening to music. On my run I had runkeeper going, native app on my watch plus music. I had to kill the music around the 1/2 way point to save battery.
 
Keep us updated, I have a couple of Ultras in January and February next year that I'm currently wondering what to do about....
 
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