Gadgets For the Alps

This summer I was hiking in the Alps. As always — a fantastic time!

I’m a rather techy, but reasonable person. That means I do use gadgets. I do have a lot and am always interested in new ways to use them on the one hand. But, on the other hand, I do not buy or carry gadgets to be at the top of every individual category. Practically speaking, this means that I do not carry a professional camera and a professional GPS device like Garmin inReach and so on — I just use my smartphone.

This year my gear set was pretty minimalist:

Simple, inexpensive but light backpack
Inexpensive (about 20€) poles
Smartphone (Samsung Galaxy S21)
Smartwatch (Galaxy Watch 4)
Power bank

Below are some takeaways from this vacation I would like to share. They may be useful for some of you (if so — do not hesitate to leave a comment).

Route Planning , Navigation and Tracking

Komoot web is a great tool for planning and adjusting routes and it is free. However, sometimes I had a hard time understanding its algorithmic classification of track hardness.

You cannot rely on permanent internet connectivity in the Alps, therefore I bought a map of the region in Komoot. This gives me an offline navigation mode in ther area on my smartphone.

Following the trail with the Komoot android app works great. There are places where it could be improved, but these are minor things.

However, usually my hands were busy with the poles, and my smartphone was in my pocket, therefore navigation support on the watch would be really helpful.

Komoot has a wearos companion app (works only together with a phone — which is fine for me). But it is still too primitive. It shows the next turn and the distance to it, but does not show a map and elevation profile. I found myself taking my phone out of my pocket much more often than I would prefer, just because the information on my watch was not enough.
But still, the Komoot on my watch helped me on the trails.

I found that the tracks Komoot recorded on my phone was often far from great, especially in places where 5 meters left/right could mean 100 meters up/down.

Samsung Health on my watch did a better job here. It also showed me current elevation, time on the trail, and average speed on my wrist which I found useful. According to my older tests Samsung Health does not consume a lot of energy for this (read more in “A Long Hike with my Galaxy Watch”).

Therefore I usually started Samsung Health on my watch to track my hike and uploaded that trail to Komoot later instead of the one recorded by Komoot itself.

Camera

A good camera with video stabilization makes a huge difference in the photos and videos I bring back from my hikes and re-watch later on. I take photos and videos on the go, I cannot do things the “proper way”, moreover I often do not see what I’m filming because of bright light and reflections. And definitely a zoom feature is often needed in the mountains. And here the S21 cameras did a much better job than my previous smartphone did, which had a lot of megapixels on paper but delivered much much worse results in real life.

Another thing — in 99% of time I had to operate my camera (and the phone in general) using one hand — the same hand that was holding the camera. This could be surprisingly rather difficult to do with a high risk of dropping it. Samsung’s OneUI helped me out here:

I used the “floating” shutter button, which I placed in a place that was under my finger.
I moved the “recent apps” button to the right, so I can quickly and easily switch from Komoot to the camera and back using with one hand.

Samsung’s Good Lock app has even more one handed usage customization options, but I did not know about this app back then.
My advice here — prepare your phone for a one hand usage upfront.

Weather App

Weather app? Yes, weather app. The time I was in the Alps the weather was not stable. During the first two days I found out that there is no agreement between the different mainstream providers and the forecasts from the local sites are not truthful either. In the mountains a correct forecast plays a big role: it can ruin your day if you stay at a hotel due to an incorrect “bad weather” forecast, or it can cost you your health and even your live if really bad weather would surprise you on a rocky mountain.
Therefore it makes a lot of sense to research which weather provider/app is most reliable for that exact region. It does not need to have the best UI, provide the longest forecast, or offer the most comprehensive data set that includes UV index and air quality. It just must provide you accurate data for today and tomorrow about wind, rain and thunderstorms.

Secure your photos and videos

Taking a lot of photos and videos has two “issues”:

One needs to have enough space on the phone for them
One must be sure that if he/she drops his/her phone to a mountain gorge, the photos will not be lost with it. At least I want to be sure of that.

My phone does not support sd cards, therefore using sd-cards was not an option. I have a solution that solves both issues at once: I have a Synology NAS at home and have configured my phone to back up to it (only over wifi and only while charging). As a result, my photos and videos were backed up overnight and I could remove them from the phone’s storage when needed. This, however, requires a NAS (other NAS vendors have similar functionality) which can be reached from the internet — not a solution for everyone.

The best alternative I know of is using an external SSD that can be connected to your phone via USB cable, so you can simply copy all files to it and keep it safe at the hotel.

Just recently I read that Samsung has created a free unlimited size backup service that keeps files for one month — this service can be an easy to use solution to make sure that your vacation photos are safe even if you drop your phone in the ocean.

A Powerbank

Last, but not least. I almost always had a powerbank with me. Because of my intensive smartphone usage I rather often charged my phone on the go. But, I think this is nothing new.