Preventing battery depletion by setting a fixed position of GPS
Posted: September 15th, 2021, 4:24 pm
Hi All,
Is it possible to set up the Unleashed to use a fixed position of GPS coordinates when your photo shooting situation is on the same location the whole day?
Nowadays the Unleashed remembers the location when the GPS data drops, and is remembered for about 30min (settings).
But it came to my thought that you can save battery life by feeding the Unleashed only once a fixed position of GPS data and then turn off the smartphone or external GPS device, and configure the Unleashed in the App to hold that location for a period of time (also configurable), so that the BT connection between Unleashed and external GPS device can be dropped completely.
I know that BLE doesn't use much energy, but dropping the BLE connection sure makes it use even less energy.
You could configure the Unleashed and Unleashed App to do the following:
1. Set the location data once using a smartphone or external GPS device and leave the Unleashed operating stand-alone (without a smartphone or external GPS device attached with BT) so that it has the exact GPS location, but never drops it until the user changes the App settings again, or an timer in the App reminds the user of this fixed position to not forget the Unleashed is set in a fixed location situation.
2. Set the location data every 30 min (for example) and let the Unleashed fetch the location data once in a while over BT, not having a constant BT connection. So that the battery saving comes from having no or not so frequent BT connection all the time. You could set a timer with the Unleashed to get every 30 min a new location data just before the expire time of the location data is reached. That way you let the Unleashed contact the external GPS device over BT to fetch the latest location data, while the external GPS device still has a fix. This saves battery life on both sides: Unleashed and external GPS device, or Unleashed and smartphone, because the BT connection is not established, or a lower battery consuming BT connection is established.
This way the Unleashed can save on BT connection time and thus save battery energy. It would require a App trigger/reminder and a LED color combination in the Unleashed to remind the user that the Unleashed is not getting live fresh data, but that the data is fixed or is fetched delayed.
Thus three options:
1. Live data (as it is now). With an expire time of 30min (configurable) before data is marked as invalid and no longer is fed to the camera.
2. Semi live data. Pending / Timed / Polled data. With a configurable fetch time, not being the expire time. So that the fetch time can be any time and the expire time be the same as above. Example: set the expire time to 30min, and the fetch time to 2 hours. Meaning: every 2 hours the Unleashed has no BT connection to the external GPS device, but just after 2 hours it establishes a new BT connection, fetches the latest GPS data and drops the BT connection again. And repeats this over and over every 2 hours. Until it cannot fetch new GPS data and the expire time starts running. And when the expire time is running it tries several repeated fetch moments to outrun the expire time, so it can reset the expire timer before it runs out and the GPS data becomes marked as invalid.
3. Fixed data. The Unleashed connects once to the external GPS device (which has already a GPS fix) or to the smartphone, and then gets programmed to hold that location position for a fixed time (let's assume 1 day). After that specific fixed time, the Unleashed automatically falls back to the data acquisition method described in #1. The location data does not expire within 30min, but in the time the data is marked as valid within the App (for 1 day for example). This way, the Unleashed does feed the camera with GPS data and can keep the lowest profile concerning the battery usage of the camera (and of the external GPS device and/or the smartphone). The GPS time can then be extracted from the camera instead of from the satellite info. The syncing of the camera time and GPS time can be determined by the diff on both times. Same as with the date.
This way, the Unleashed can save even more energy and becomes extremely efficient in power management. Especially in occasions where the camera is residing at a fixed location/position, there is less need for a fulltime BT connection.
Just an idea.
Greetings,
Unfoolishly
Is it possible to set up the Unleashed to use a fixed position of GPS coordinates when your photo shooting situation is on the same location the whole day?
Nowadays the Unleashed remembers the location when the GPS data drops, and is remembered for about 30min (settings).
But it came to my thought that you can save battery life by feeding the Unleashed only once a fixed position of GPS data and then turn off the smartphone or external GPS device, and configure the Unleashed in the App to hold that location for a period of time (also configurable), so that the BT connection between Unleashed and external GPS device can be dropped completely.
I know that BLE doesn't use much energy, but dropping the BLE connection sure makes it use even less energy.
You could configure the Unleashed and Unleashed App to do the following:
1. Set the location data once using a smartphone or external GPS device and leave the Unleashed operating stand-alone (without a smartphone or external GPS device attached with BT) so that it has the exact GPS location, but never drops it until the user changes the App settings again, or an timer in the App reminds the user of this fixed position to not forget the Unleashed is set in a fixed location situation.
2. Set the location data every 30 min (for example) and let the Unleashed fetch the location data once in a while over BT, not having a constant BT connection. So that the battery saving comes from having no or not so frequent BT connection all the time. You could set a timer with the Unleashed to get every 30 min a new location data just before the expire time of the location data is reached. That way you let the Unleashed contact the external GPS device over BT to fetch the latest location data, while the external GPS device still has a fix. This saves battery life on both sides: Unleashed and external GPS device, or Unleashed and smartphone, because the BT connection is not established, or a lower battery consuming BT connection is established.
This way the Unleashed can save on BT connection time and thus save battery energy. It would require a App trigger/reminder and a LED color combination in the Unleashed to remind the user that the Unleashed is not getting live fresh data, but that the data is fixed or is fetched delayed.
Thus three options:
1. Live data (as it is now). With an expire time of 30min (configurable) before data is marked as invalid and no longer is fed to the camera.
2. Semi live data. Pending / Timed / Polled data. With a configurable fetch time, not being the expire time. So that the fetch time can be any time and the expire time be the same as above. Example: set the expire time to 30min, and the fetch time to 2 hours. Meaning: every 2 hours the Unleashed has no BT connection to the external GPS device, but just after 2 hours it establishes a new BT connection, fetches the latest GPS data and drops the BT connection again. And repeats this over and over every 2 hours. Until it cannot fetch new GPS data and the expire time starts running. And when the expire time is running it tries several repeated fetch moments to outrun the expire time, so it can reset the expire timer before it runs out and the GPS data becomes marked as invalid.
3. Fixed data. The Unleashed connects once to the external GPS device (which has already a GPS fix) or to the smartphone, and then gets programmed to hold that location position for a fixed time (let's assume 1 day). After that specific fixed time, the Unleashed automatically falls back to the data acquisition method described in #1. The location data does not expire within 30min, but in the time the data is marked as valid within the App (for 1 day for example). This way, the Unleashed does feed the camera with GPS data and can keep the lowest profile concerning the battery usage of the camera (and of the external GPS device and/or the smartphone). The GPS time can then be extracted from the camera instead of from the satellite info. The syncing of the camera time and GPS time can be determined by the diff on both times. Same as with the date.
This way, the Unleashed can save even more energy and becomes extremely efficient in power management. Especially in occasions where the camera is residing at a fixed location/position, there is less need for a fulltime BT connection.
Just an idea.
Greetings,
Unfoolishly