iPhone Battery Drainage Using Waze

[Karrows]

Amperage is not put out, it is drawn

But you can't draw more than can be put out. Draw or supply, your going to get the smaller of the two.

Typical computer USB port = 0.5 amp
iphone charger = 1 amp
New ipad charger = 2 amp.

I have a new ipad(3rd gen) and a iphone 4. The apple ipad charger charges my iphone quicker then the apple iphone charger. So if you want power, I'd look for a 2amp car ipad charger.

When the ipad is on, it will not charge on anything less than a 2amp charger. It will charge while turned off when plugged into a smaller charger.

[llayden]

I don't know the specs off-hand, but I've been happy with the Belkin dual USB car phone charger. It keeps two iPhones charging under normal use. It can keep both phones charged if one is running Waze, but it is unable to charge one iPhone while the other is running Waze. That's a lot of power it needs to put out to do that.

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

[nnote]

I'm getting overheat warnings on my phone quickly and the charger barely keeps up. What I do sometimes is plug my 120v converter into the cig lighter and then plug in my phone's AC charger into the converter. I still get overheat quick but much more charge.

[RallyChris]

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.

[RyanTheDon]

This seems to be common in Android phones too such as the Samsung Galaxy S II. Even with a normal car charger, the GPS drains the battery so much that the charger just slows the drain rather than charges. I think phone manufacturers will have to rectify the issue if people are going to be using resource hungry things like a GPS.

[top_gun_de]

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

[top_gun_de]

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

[top_gun_de]

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

[wine4sure]

You need to have it permanently connect to an in-car charger - it's as simple as that. Same with any GPS app for the iPhone. Pressing the sleep button does not stop Waze but does turn the screen off and allow the unit to cool down a bit and use a bit less power.

My in-car charger died today, of course. Didn't matter since I was getting routing server timeouts anyway (as usual - sigh).

[wine4sure]

Remember you can press the power button and the screen goes blank but you still get your audible directions from Waze. Would be nice if it had an optional setting to do that automatically, actually, and switch back on as you approach your exit or some other turn you have to take. That would be good for those routes where you do 100+ miles with nothing happening.