iPhone Battery Drainage Using Waze

by **AlanOfTheBerg** » Thu May 10, 2012 5:44 pm

llayden wrote:Interesting way of doubling your driving points. Cheat! (lol)

Curses! Foiled again!

In actuality, the other phone was logged in with my wife's account.

by **top_gun_de** » Fri May 11, 2012 8:19 pm

The iPhone (and the iPad Even more) are able to recognise a dedicated charger. the iPhone will draw more power from a charger than from a USB-port. The iPhone does not recognize the cheap standard-issue chargers with USB-plug, and will not draw it's optimum current of 1A from them. So, using a generic charger with an iPhone during navigation might result in a slow loss of charge. Even if the charger is able to deliver 2A, the phone is conservative and limit its input to the same 500mA a USB port can safely deliver.

With a dedicated iPhone charger or a good dedicated FM transmitter, the iPhone will load reliably, even with Waze or Navigon and MP3-playback in the background.

Best regards,

Detlev

by **cpragman** » Fri May 18, 2012 8:14 pm

I've kind of gotten used to the battery drainage aspect, by charging my phone a lot more times during the day. Not the most convenient solution, and not a workable solution for long car trips.
Today, I had my first Overheat message using Waze. iPhone shut itself down. Not happy about that.

by **Dave2084** » Mon May 21, 2012 8:39 am

In my wife's car we have a griffin car charger, this will charge the phone slowly while wazing.

My car has a Dension IceLink fitted to the head unit which makes it think that the phone is a CD changer. It charges the phone faster than the mains charger supplied by apple even when wazing. I can Waze for a 2 hour trip and it will add about 60% to the charge in that time. :-)

by **top_gun_de** » Tue May 22, 2012 5:35 am

Dave2084 wrote:In my wife's car we have a griffin car charger, this will charge the phone slowly while wazing.

My car has a Dension IceLink fitted to the head unit which makes it think that the phone is a CD changer. It charges the phone faster than the mains charger supplied by apple even when wazing. I can Waze for a 2 hour trip and it will add about 60% to the charge in that time.

Well, this does not exceed the results of your home charger, but it reaches the same level.

Again: The iPhone decides itself, how much current it draws from the charger. It can recognize a dedicated charger and even determine if the charger is on-par with the iPhone charger or the large iPad charger. If the manufacturer of a dedicated charger copies apple's wire signaling, the result will be identical to that of the original equipment.

On the other hand, even a 5A-generic charger without the signaling will only charge at 500mA because the iPhone will not draw more current. The iPhone knows three speeds: <500mA for non-dedicated chargers or USB-ports, ca. 1000mA for chargers with iPhone coding and more than 1000mA for chargers which signal iPad-compatibility.

Thus, you can charge reliably during navigation with a small charger if it's wires are coded correctly.

Best regards,

Detlev

by **bsc1080** » Thu May 31, 2012 9:24 pm

I have got in the habit of turning waze off once I get to where I am going and turning back on once I need it again. Turn off waze from the main menu.

by **fabricioemmerick** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 2:52 pm

I think it would greatly help to save the battery at least the maps were offline, it would be one less thing to use the internet and drain the battery.

by **RallyChris** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 2:59 pm

fabricioemmerick wrote:I think it would greatly help to save the battery at least the maps were offline, it would be one less thing to use the internet and drain the battery.

But the whole goal of this program is to collect usage data, both that can be shared by the community and hopefully provide waze with a way to pay for the infrastructure.

by **AlanOfTheBerg** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 6:23 pm

fabricioemmerick wrote:I think it would greatly help to save the battery at least the maps were offline, it would be one less thing to use the internet and drain the battery.

Yep, if you want to run without internet connectivity to contribute to the project as a whole (alerts, traffic jams, accidents, street speed, etc), then you are better off getting a different nav product.

by **top_gun_de** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 6:11 am

I do believe that fabricio does not want do disconnect from the Internet, but wants to keep the maps offline - reduced internet traffic reduces the batterie drainage. However, the map traffic is so low that I do not believe this to be a real issue. On the other hand, keeping the maps on the device would ultimately result in less frequent updates of the map-data in the device.

Working on the map and seeing the results in real life is the thing that makes Waze interesting for me :-)

Best regards,

Detlev