Lately, I’ve taken to hiking and exploring trails around me. But as a novice hiker, I like to keep Google Maps open to get my bearings and stay oriented.
That means, anytime I’m on a hike, Google Maps stays open for hours. While I’ll use it to check my position and zoom in and out to see my location relative to the surrounding roads and terrain, largely, it’s just keeping pace with me and draining my battery.
Turns out, the satellite view that I’d been using had also been leaching more battery life than I’d anticipated. So, I switched it off.
It’s a small change in how I use Google Maps on the trail, and it can help me inspect my surroundings. But it’s far from essential when I’m following a trail where battery longevity matters more.
I only turn on satellite view when I actually need it
Keep the standard map as your default, then make the switch when the terrain matters
Google notes that satellite view uses more cellular data and that the extra screen rendering can negatively impact power consumption. That makes sense. I still use satellite view, but it’s not my default anymore.
Changing the default settings takes a few seconds. Buried within your profile settings, open Maps, tap your profile picture, select Settings, and look for the Start maps in Satellite View option under App & Display settings. You’ll want to turn this off.
That’s it. You can still tap the layers button to pull up the satellite view option whenever you want, but by default, Google Maps opens with the data and battery-efficient settings.
A standard map gives you nearly all the information that you already need. Think about things like locating the nearest road, your compass orientation, and mapped features. None of these need photographic views of the landscape.
There’s also the terrain option for topographical data that can come in handy in a pinch when you need to know about elevation changes. This is better than satellite imagery.
I only want satellite imagery when using the map doesn’t give me the answer I need.
Now, there are instances when you’ll want to switch. For example, on my last hike, I was at a junction point where two paths meet and couldn’t figure out which one I was supposed to take.
Taking a gamble wasn’t an option as they led in opposite directions and had different difficulty levels.
So, I switched to satellite view to trace the route on Google Maps. By spotting clearings, the shape of the terrain, and infrastructure around me, I could make a conscious call on which direction to head.
Similarly, it can come in handy when you’re starting on a trail which isn’t particularly well-marked.
The point is, I don’t need that level of detail all day long.
The battery savings add up on long hikes
Satellite view is often useless under dense tree cover
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Changing one toggle won’t double your battery life. That’s not how this works.
If you have Google Maps on all day, your phone’s GPS hardware is constantly looking for a signal, you probably have the display on, and you might be pushing the cellular hardware depending on how far into the woods you are.
Even though Google says heavier screen rendering and location updates in satellite view can be major contributors to power consumption, they don’t get anywhere close to the power consumed by those other factors.
But when hiking, those minor reductions in power use add up. I need to maximize battery life to last an entire day away from the charger, and I’ll take whatever power savings I can get.
Depending on where you are hiking, there’s one more benefit to switching away from the satellite view.
Most of my hikes are in the Himalayas, and the dense wooded cover means that satellite view doesn’t display anything worthwhile while I’m hiking.
Switching to terrain view or standard maps clears out the woods from the view and shows me information that matters.
It’s a simpler map, with limited cellular data usage and lower battery consumption. Win-win?
All said and done, it’s a small change that can make a noticeable difference in how long your phone lasts over the course of a day.
If most of your Google Maps use is in the car where you have access to a charging point, or while walking around the city where you can plug into a power socket easily enough, toggling off the feature won’t make much of a difference.
However, if you want to eke every drop of battery life out of your phone while you navigate the woods or are on a hike, toggling off satellite view and setting it to stay off every time you open Google Maps on your phone can be surprisingly effective.
