Smartphone Electronic Compass Accuracy - Is it important?

[Jim Dow]

I'd like to take a poll (using the forum) to determine how important smartphone compass accuracy is to the deer hunters on this forum.
How important is smartphone compass accuracy to your deer hunting success, convenience, and safety?
Not at all!
Low?
Medium?
High?
Essential?

Thanks for your time and consideration.

 

[yoderjac]

Not at all. I don't use one. We only own a few hundred acres and I know which direction north is from just about anywhere on it.

 

[Drycreek]

I would have to say low. I hunt on my own place and two different leases but I know all three very well. Now, the wind compass is a different story. I use that very often to reaffirm wind direction. I’m so paranoid about wind direction that I not only use a puff bottle, I use two different phone apps for wind direction. This is in addition to the daily weather forecast.

I told y’all I was paranoid about wind direction !

 

[TreeFan]

My phone compass saved me from a panic lost in the woods situation at night and I use it to determine the exact southern exposure for tree planting.. High importance in that regard..

 

[T-Max]

The compass, no. The GPS? Invaluable with OnX.

 

[RGrizzzz]

If I'm going somewhere that I'm worried about getting lost, I take a handheld GPS unit. Phone batteries don't last nearly long enough, and get wiped quickly if there's no cell signal. So, I don't worry about my phone's compass.

 

[yoderjac]

The compass, no. The GPS? Invaluable with OnX.

I use apps that use the GPS constantly at the farm. Whether I'm figuring out the size of a field for planting, or measuring firebreaks for reimbursement, there is always something I'm using the phone GPS for.

If I'm hunting in places I don't know well (which is rare since we bought the pine farm), I use the phone GPS for location, but I always carry a physical compass that doesn't have a battery for emergency purposes.

 

[HuronMtn]

I'd like to take a poll (using the forum) to determine how important smartphone compass accuracy is to the deer hunters on this forum.
How important is smartphone compass accuracy to your deer hunting success, convenience, and safety?
Not at all!
Low?
Medium?
High?
Essential?

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Mixed answer regarding smart phone compass ...

Medium Importance:

In a low risk convenience situation (hiking in an area with defined boundaries where the consequences of being disoriented/lost are very limited) I will use it if I happen to have the phone out for another reason, such as taking a picture. Otherwise, it is usually easier to glance down at the compass pinned to my shirt pocket.

Low-to-No Importance:

When it really counts (wilderness excursion, marine navigation when shoreline is not in sight) I don't fully trust anything electronic for directional navigation, unless I have an old fashioned manual compass as backup. Why? Because I don't want to get myself into a bad situation and the batteries die, and I don't want to take the risk of being misinformed by a low quality direction when the unit is out of calibration. In these situations if I use an electronic device, it won't be a smartphone, it will be a dedicated GPS unit and I will be using it in a mapping mode not a compass mode, and verifying orientation with the manual compass.