That’s like saying “don’t fall and break your leg”.
Anything can and will happen. MRT stats published last week, directly link an increase call outs to smartphone use. Dead batteries, dropped phones etc.
Like you, I use my phone. However, I have redundancy.
No it isn’t. How will you drop the phone if it’s secure inside your jacket or rucksack?
Unless it defies the laws of Physics (e.g. phones spontaneously jumping out of zipped pockets).
Yes, the hills are full of folk who have no mountaincraft skills. Aren’t we SOTA activators better than that?
Your dedicated GPS could also have a dead battery. Carry a power pack for your phone for long day’s out and multi-day treks.
I did 30-35 days thru-hikes with two kind of setup:
Both were working just fine, with 5-7 days of autonomy (plane mode + energy saver). Maybe 5 or 6 gps lookup per day + a few pictures, in average.
In the end I preferred the second solution because I converted all my electronics (headlamp, camera …) to usb-c, and the powerbank allows me to charge what’s really necessary, when it’s necessary. Sleeping with my batteries in the sleeping bag when temperature are freezing also helps.
Over the years, we are all conditioned by experiences in our home and working lives. As such, unsurprisingly, ‘attitude to risk’ varies widely among the population.
Those who have had professional responsibility for the Health and Safety of staff, especially involving potentially difficult and hazardous roles, usually become highly-tuned towards risk and associated mitigations. Indeed, organisational culture, and UK Law, typically encourage and require such behaviour.
Without doubt, many of the general public seem happy to entrust their personal safety and well-being to mobile phone companies. But in demanding professional situations, additional communication facilities independent of local terrestrial networks are commonplace eg, Garmin Inreach, Sat phones and so forth.
Within the UK, at an individual level, there is little to stop you putting your life at risk in all sorts of ways.
In the main, the cautious and the lucky are still here; others have been less fortunate.
Ultimately, you decide …
A GPS-based navigation app like OS Maps does not need a cellular network connection to function once maps are downloaded [Do it the evening before the day you set off as part of your equipment checklisting]. GPS itself works independently of cellular data, relying on signals only from GPS satellites. The phone uses these signals to determine your location, and if you have downloaded maps beforehand, the app can use the stored data for navigation without a cellular connection.
Dedicated GPS devices like Garmin are said to be designed for accuracy in challenging conditions, i.e. where getting a satellite ‘fix’ is difficult - like in tall dense forests and below & between high-rise buildings (neither of which are on my SOTA routes). Whenever I test the accuracy of my phone’s GPS by zooming in the display to maximum whilst standing next to an unambiguous feature in the landscape, the GPS spot is, ahem, spot on.
This is way more accurate than the traditional method ‘I grew up on’ of finding your position on a paper map by taking bearings of at least two known landmarks and plotting them on the map. Depending on various factors this is usually within 100m, which is fine for most navigation especially if there are features on the map you can confirm are nearby.
And actually, in most of the UK there are usually so many landscape features (stonewalls, crags, farm buildings, etc) marked on the OS 1:25k paper map you can often navigate the entire route without using a compass.
Garmin claims a position accuracy within 3-5m under normal conditions. Apparently, iPhone’s GPS position accuracy is also 3-5m in open areas with clear visibility to satellites. However, in urban environments or indoors, accuracy might decrease due to signal blockage or reliance on Wi-Fi and cellular triangulation, potentially reaching 10-30m.
Re the previously-mentioned advice from Scottish Mountain Rescue, it does not favour dedicated GPS devices over smartphones.
https://www.scottishmountainrescue.org/mountain-safety-advice/
“Always, always have a map and compass and know how to use it. Smartphones or GPS are excellent navigation aids but should not be relied on solely.”
I take my Garmin GPSMAP 65s to most summits. Have an Etrex 30 as well but the small joystick type function gizmo became unreliable and the on off button broke so water could get inside. I needed a small stick to poke inside to turn it on or off. That had many years of use though. I think for a slightly cheaper GPS from Garmin would be the simple Map 67 with the internal battery. I did not discover this model until after I got the map65. I mostly use it when hiking to SOTA to keep track of my ground speed on the hike to arrive at my Alert times. In my early days of SOTA some of my faithful chasers would phone me and ask “are you there yet”. as I bust my pooper slogging up hill. Most Garmin stuff is dear as poison and I think cost a lot of money and getting AA batteries that last all day can be expensive as well, I use eneloop pro rechargeable which are much more expensive than the usual super market shelf rechargeable but do give power a lot longer. That’s my recommendation also watch lots of YouTube as well in UK a guy runs a YouTube channel i subscribe to GPS training I think its called.
Regards Ian vk5cz …
Why being so dramatic ? and why would you put your life in the hands of Garmin but not Samsung ? All GPS are just a bunch of microchips receiving signals from the same satellites.
Here in Western Europe, people are mostly dying in avalanches, falling of cliffs / slopes, and because of hypothermia. Navigation mistakes are rarely in cause imo.
I’m glad to hear your phone never fell out of your gloved hand on an ice-cold day, while taking it out of your pocket when you stopped to use it for navigation. I didn’t have that luck.
As for battery pack, you can attach one to a GPS as well. Plus you can set a GPS usually to “expedition” mode, so the battery lasts very long. And no, that isn’t comparable to battery-saving mode on your phone.
But, to each it’s own. For me it made more sense to keep my old phone (at that time) and buy a dedicated GPS while it was on sale.
73, Martin JL1EFV/5 (PE1EEC)
I don’t think it’s down to luck, but to one’s procedure.
I have dropped my phone being careless in the house (whilst walking about) and in the car but being in its leatherette case with Velcro clasp there was little chance that would have cracked the screen or otherwise made the phone unusable.
When hillwalking - as mentioned above - I’m more careful about how and where I remove the phone from a jacket pocket. I don’t wear touchscreen gloves so I have to take a glove off to type in the iPhone’s unlock code. So, I take off one glove before removing the phone from my pocket even on an ice-cold day - 20-30s exposure is no problem even at my age.
I don’t activate in really cold summit weather (e.g. below -5C ambient). If it’s too cold to take my glove off to read my phone then it’s way too cold to use my Palm Pico twin paddles for 45 minutes of CW at the summit (and yes, I have tried it whilst wearing thin gloves but a) it doesn’t work error-free with my gentle fingering/thumbing on those small paddles and b) those thin gloves are pretty useless at keeping my old fingers warm).
Me too… one of my friends gave it a name, which stuck
“Clever Fred” 
This
You fall against a rock. Smashed phone inside pocket.
You can speak for your own skills. Don’t begin to assume anything about anyone else.
Yup. I carry a power pack that will serve my phone, GPS and sometimes even my handheld radio.
Experienced climbers, Munroists, hill walkers and mountaineers have all died on the hills. People trip over a kerb, fracture their skull and die on a city street. We can prepare the best we can, that’s all. Attitude to risk, weight of pack, ease of use, skill, fitness all play a part. You can make your choice and I’ll make mine. No-one is right or wrong, Andy.
Wayne is class (I don’t know the fella, just going by his teaching videos). His waffle videos are ace too.
That was one of the last early generation consumer handheld devices and was quite high end. In 2006 or so there was a step-change improvement in the consumer Garmin devices with the eTrex Summit, Legend and Vista models. There were different levels of performance and sophistication but the most important changes were colour screens, super high sensitivity GPS radios and fluxgate compasses and aneroid altimaters. And… lower power consumption that came from using new smaller geometry transistors and advances in onboard CPU.
After cracking the welding on my sporran I bought a Vista HCx for about £200. That’s the high sensitivity, colour, compass and altimeter jobby. A set of 2400mAh NiMHs (from IKEA) will last well over 18hrs continuous use and often 1 set has lasted for 4x 6hr walks.
I remember comparing the improved sensitivity with Brian (sk) G4ZRP’s earlier non-mapping eTrex. They both recorded trackpoints as we came down a summit but as we entered dense Pine wooodlands, my HCx still recorded trackpoints but at about 30% the rate of before and Brian’s had no reception till we were out onto a wide forest road such was the improvement in receiver sensitivity. And you could hear the electrons being sucked out of the batteries!
Modern stand alone GPS devices have faster processors and many more features in software. I played with Gerald G4OIG’s GPS 64(65? 66?) and it has a bigger and brighter screen and draws maps much, much faster. My phone has 2x 2.2GHz 64bit applications CPUs and 6x 1.8GHz 64bit application CPUs so it can extract SVG data from a topomap and draw a lovely detailed map on a 720x1600 pixel screen with almost no delay. The Vista HCx does take a few seconds to draw less detail on a 176x220 pixel screen (30x less area!!!). However, its update rate is fast enough to keep up with me when walking or riding a bike, maybe not in the car.
Now, GPS chips are a cheap commodity item to be added to a PCB or more often integrated into a custom SoC. Ublox NEO 6 devices which have all the navigation info you to embed in your gizmo about £10. I’m not sure how much chips that handle GPS, GLONASS and Gallileo cost but I have a very cheap Android phone (£150) and its navigation handles GPS, GLONASS, Gallieo, Beidou & QZSS so the chips cannot be pricey!
Like all microelectronics, the improvement in performance and relative drop in cost is remarkable.
I use Polar Vantage V3 for general fitness. Rarely the build-in map features though I tried that once in SOTA activation. The optical heart rate monitor alone is not very good and can take long time to lock-in to the cardiac rhythm - bought finally the chest strap. It has two wire EKG and optical SpO2 for infotainment - medical EKG uses several electrodes for heart activity electrical field vectors.
73, Jaakko ac1bb/oh7bf
Agreed.
Years ago, a fellow rock climber tripped and broke her hip… on her way to the crag. Similar terrain to some of the hikes that we make to summits. Just one missed step is all it takes.
Also, in the mountaineering club, we lost a member. He arrived early for the weekend trip and went for a walk solo, without telling anyone. He fell, but wasn’t found for a few days. A gust of wind is all it takes.
In December, when I thought that I might be at risk due to the challenging terrain and risk of falling, I activated my beacon (it sends my position every few minutes) and contacted a few friends to keep an eye on my location; also delineating the call-out time if nothing was heard from me. It all worked out in the end, but it was worth doing just in case.
A bit of insurance doesn’t hurt: Having the right kit just in case, as well as telling others about your whereabouts.
It’s not difficult.