Gear S3 and Hiking

[Conarchcpl]

I am a pretty avid hiker/runner and I am debating getting an S3 Frontier. I have found some reviews of it for running but I have not seen anything regarding hiking yet. I would be mostly using it to hike known and mapped trails in the white mountains, usually for trips lasting no more than 3 days.
As a reference I have been using the gear fit 2 as a hiking companion and found it to be a very lacking product.

Some of the advertising and promo stuff I have seen for the S3 seems to imply that it would be a much better hiking tech piece, they specifically mention "keeping on the trail". I am wondering if anyone has any experience with it in these situations. Is the GPS and map utility actually that good? I am obviously never going to rely only on the watch, but having the information easily available on my wrist so I don't have to grab the map every trail junction would be great.

 

[jsk0703]

I don't think a suitable hiking app has been released yet. I would go with Garmin if you need something immediately for that use case.

 

[haus]

When I run with my Gear S2 and GPS on, battery drops about 1% per minute. Even with the larger battery of the S3, I would consider live GPS tracking a short term thing, not a multi-day prospect, but I'm curious to hear from people who have used one.

 

[Kalvin Kerns]

Not sure this is exactly the kind of watch you'd want to take on long hiking trips as it needs to be charged every couple days. I know it's being marketed as"rugged" etc, but due to it's short charge it just doesn't seem to make sense to me to try and truly on it for anything outdoorsy.

 

[haus]

I agree. Not to mention the charging cradle (vs plug or clamp) so charging requires a flat surface. I took the S2 backpacking once and it was tricky charging it at night. I've considered taking apart a spare charger to create some sort of clip, but in the end its just annoying having something to charge.

Still it would be cool if you could download offline maps and use a compass/GPS to track and record your hike in flight mode to preserve battery. But most hikers already have GPS units better suited to this if they are into that sort of thing.

 

[Willie RSA]

Re battery usage on S3 Frontier (non LTE). I did a 4 hr mountain bike ride with GPS and HR tracking in SHealth and it only used about 30% of the battery (i.e. 8 min per 1%). I also took a phone call and checked a few incoming messages on the wrist during that trip.

 

[Cameron Todd]

I have done a four hour trek with the frontier, s health on and heart rate and gps. Used about 40% battery.it tracked pretty well. I also had my Garmin fenix 3 on to compare. Would use my Garmin on anything longer than that though

 

[castone001]

once Endomondo is released for Gear S3, should be end of this month. Give it a look. I have used it for years on my Gear S and love it!!

 

[nicoryannie]

i bought the frontier specifically for hiking and how they advertised its use with trails. i couldn't find ANYTHING, even called Samsung, described the ad specifically, and they couldn't help me.

i ended up downloading on my phone an app called Komoot. you do have to pay for it. first i go to alltrails, and download the gpx file. then i upload it to Komoot. it does give you directions to keep you on your path . it's been working well fo rme.