Skip to main content

Battery Saver

← All Topics

Navigation apps use a lot of battery. Scenic is no exception. This is because:

  1. Use of your phone’s GPS receiver is energy-consuming
  2. The screen is constantly on (typically at full brightness as we ride in full daylight)
  3. The map, navigation instructions, and distance and time to turns and destinations are constantly updating, thus requiring constant calculation. In other words, your phone’s CPU and GPU are constantly working.

If you don’t charge your phone while riding/driving, your battery can go from full to empty in just a few hours, depending on your phone’s battery capacity and health.

This is why Scenic has a Battery Saver feature.

What is the battery saver?

The battery saver is a screen that replaces the map while you are navigating or just tracking.

It looks like this (if it’s on AUTO):

or this (if it’s on MANUAL):

As you can see, it shows only the most crucial information: The next turn (if you are navigating a route), the speed limit, and your current speed, and, if on AUTO, some buttons to disable it for a set amount of time.

How / why does this save battery?

Two reasons:

  1. On modern iPhones*, black pixels use much less energy than white pixels. So, Scenic saves a lot of energy by showing the screen mostly black. *In this context, ‘modern’ iPhones are iPhones with OLED screen technology (as opposed to the older LCD technology). iPhone X and newer have OLED technology, except for the iPhone XR and iPhone SE’s. Here is a full list.
  2. Because the map is not visible, it doesn’t need to be updated constantly as we move. This saves a lot of GPU processing and thus saves energy.

How to activate and deactivate it?

The battery saver has two modes: AUTO (default) and MANUAL.

AUTO

  • In AUTO mode, the battery saver will only work if you navigate a route or to a destination. It will NOT work if you are just tracking.
  • The battery saver will appear automatically if your next turn instruction is more than 1,5 km / 1mi away
  • It will disappear automatically if
    – The next turn is getting close (closer than 1,5 km / 1mi away)
    – You detour from your route
    – When a safety camera gets near
  • You can disable it (temporarily or permanently):
    – If you tap the screen anywhere, it will be disabled for 15 seconds
    – If you tap one of the buttons at the bottom, it will be disabled for the length indicated in the button text
    – If you tap the lower right button “Off Forever” it will go to MANUAL mode and will never show again unless you want it to
    – If you press one of the buttons on your handlebar controller (if you have one), it will be disabled for 15 seconds

MANUAL

  • In MANUAL mode, the battery saver does not appear automatically at all. It will only appear if you manually activate by tapping the ‘battery saver’ button in the navigation menu:
  • It will not disappear automatically, either. Simply tap the screen to disable the battery saver. This will turn it off until you manually activate it again through the navigation menu.

How to permanently disable the battery saver?

There are two ways:

  1. Tap the “Off Forever” button at the bottom right when the battery saver appears. This will deactivate the battery saver and switch the mode to MANUAL. It will not show again until you switch it on manually or switch it to AUTO again through the battery saver button in the navigation menu.
  2. By switching it to MANUAL through the battery saver button in the navigation menu. The battery saver will appear one last time. Then tap the screen and it will not appear again.