Reducing Gaia GPS Battery Drain
Gaia GPS has worked well for me for years, but recently iOS has been reporting it as the reason my phone’s battery has been draining quickly. Of course, this is somewhat expected when I’m actively using the app, but the high battery use continues for days after I’ve stopped recording a track. The first set of battery tips that I found was not relevant. I need to have the iOS location permissions set for it to always be able to access my location because, when recording, I want it to keep updating even when I switch to another app such as Camera or Messages. Eventually, I found that the solution is to hide the compass.
With the compass enabled, I guess Gaia GPS is constantly asking iOS for location information so that it can update the live display on the map, even though I haven’t actually looked at the app in days. I wonder whether something has changed in iOS or in Gaia GPS because this never seemed to be an issue before. But, with iOS 16.4, it’s essential if I want to get through even half a day with my aging iPhone 12 mini.
Previously:
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I use myTracks to record GPX tracks. It has settings on how often to poll GPS and how precise the location needs to be. Setting it to only record every few seconds makes the battery drain negligible. I am not sure if Gaia GPS has similar settings.
