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Charging battery while using TomTom 6 in the car

Hello everybody,
i wonder if any of you encountered the problem of not charging the battery in the car while using TomTom 6. It happened to me many times and it's quite annoying because at a certain point the phone will go off and it will need to be charged while off otherwise it will not work.
Since it happened in different cars it does not depend by the charger but has to be a software problem either of WM or TomTom.
Any suggestion?
Thanks!
Panco

Buy a decent charger with at least 2A.

2A? 1A should be more than enough...
(I'm not sure you'd be able to find a 2A USB charger as the USB2.0 spec requires connectors to be rated at 1.5A tops so if there was such a beast I personally wouldn't touch it)
Mathew

Do a careful inspection of the USB connector on the phone and the car cradles/leads - my money is on a piece of cloth/fluff etc breaking the charger connection.

Today, I tried using CoPilot (with a live internet connection going for Traffic updates), with bluetooth switched on (so that I could connect with my Parrot kit in the car), and the phone on charge.
On the journey back home, CoPilot was running (and on the screen) whilst I was on a call via the Parrot. And yet, the battery was still getting charged properly! I was actually impressed that the charging would work automatically once the cable was inserted - my MDA Pro needed the display to be off before I could see the red charging light come on and for the phone to start charging.
FYI, the charger was a cigar_lighter_adapter-2-USB_cable type.
I've got an MDA Compact IV with the original ROM (but TouchFlo tweaks, etc).
So, I'd say either there's something wrong with your adapter, cable, or indeed TomTom is using a lot of juice!

panco said:
Hello everybody,
i wonder if any of you encountered the problem of not charging the battery in the car while using TomTom 6. It happened to me many times and it's quite annoying because at a certain point the phone will go off and it will need to be charged while off otherwise it will not work.
Since it happened in different cars it does not depend by the charger but has to be a software problem either of WM or TomTom.
Any suggestion?
Thanks!
Panco
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, it does this with most GPS SW and the problem is heating preventing battery charging to avoid the battery to catch fire, especially with the the phone placed in the windscreen with the sun on it. At night the issue is no longer an issue. So when you have a break for coffee let the phone have a break too to cool down and recharge.

Or mount it infront of an air con vent

Nuri58 said:
No, it does this with most GPS SW and the problem is heating preventing battery charging to avoid the battery to catch fire, especially with the the phone placed in the windscreen with the sun on it. At night the issue is no longer an issue. So when you have a break for coffee let the phone have a break too to cool down and recharge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank for your post, i think you got the point with something (the heating of the battery+gps) preventing the battery to recharge; i'm convinced of this because the problem is not always present but it comes at certain conditions.
I'll try to let the diamond cool down at regular intervals and not to position too exposed. I also noticed that it's advisable to first connect the phone to the charger then after some minutes run the tomtom otherwise the problem is likely to happen.
Thanks to all.
Panco

There are many tool available to show you the internal temperature of the device - the battery monitor 'Batti' is one such tool (and it's free).
Give something like that a try then you'll be able to see if your problems bear any correlation with temperature.
Mathew

Im experiencing the same with Garmin, yes, it was hot...first I thought the cigarette-to-usb-adapter was not strong enough....
Will try to keep it cool

You need a USB car charger with at least 1A, as said in previous post, but with any USB cable the current limiting will be lways be 500mA.
Only the original Diamond cable will allow you to charge with currents over 500mA. To measure the charge current you can use several programs, like my TodayWarrior (as it is a plugin you will need to disable temporarilt Touch Flo or use Second Today).

It's not heating of battery, but just that when Using tomtom, with backlight, Full GPS usage, phone on and that VGA screen just pulls more than your charger can bring
Got the same issue, and yes, as said before, get a heavier charger.

I have the same problem using IGO8.
First point, using Full GPS in car will consumme a lot of energy.
So it's better to use a 2A/5V charger (5V is the important thing ... And for your information, HTC is selling 2A car charger for their last phones ...)
Second point, the GPS chip is badly placed in the phone, behind the battery.
So yes, when the GPS is used for a long time, it makes the battery hot and the phone stops the battery charging ...
The point is to use a good car craddle, one that lets the phone "breath" (one that doesn't cover to much the rear of the phone) ...

beemerTPPC said:
You need a USB car charger with at least 1A, as said in previous post, but with any USB cable the current limiting will be lways be 500mA.
Only the original Diamond cable will allow you to charge with currents over 500mA. To measure the charge current you can use several programs, like my TodayWarrior (as it is a plugin you will need to disable temporarilt Touch Flo or use Second Today).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The input sideon car chargers inclusive of HTC is 500 mA at 12 V and the output side 1A at 5V, which is what the phone requires and all car chargers I have do. But the important thing about ion-lit batteries is that they require very controlled charging conditions (contrary to the older Metal or Cadnium). E.g. If the battery is completely flat (2 V or below) it is extremely hard to recharge and will require several hours in the charger while building up the voltage to about 3.2V, only then normal charge will start. Sometimes the stand-by consumption of a phone makes it imposible to recharge it while in the phone, and requires an external recharger. This may explain the observatiobn that it is better to wait a couple of minutes before starting TT after connecting to the recharger to ensure correct initial charging.
Riel said:
It's not heating of battery, but just that when Using tomtom, with backlight, Full GPS usage, phone on and that VGA screen just pulls more than your charger can bring
Got the same issue, and yes, as said before, get a heavier charger.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the way to get a battery to explode, but fortunately the phone will not allow charging to take place and adding more amps will possibly increase heating and just worsen the situation. But correct as more power the device draws as hotter it gets and as sooner charging stops.
As Nani says there is an element of disign problem (cannot be a surprice to HTC that people actually will like to use the Navigation also on long drives), so if placed so it can cool will defenetly help. So will dimming the display to the minimum.

Dock wont charge.....

Hello all...Long time lurker, not alot of posts....Yes I searched. I sent in my N1 to HTC for alot of Dropped calls and overheating. Got new phone back and my dock wont charge the phone. Is there a setting I missed? Is it because of Froyo FRF91 is what I have? Does anyone else have this issue? I saw a guys car charger wont charge of Froyo....If i plug it in directly to the USB it will charge fine. Thanks in advance.

Wiggle it in the dock a bit, or hold it down.
The dock really sucks imho. I hate him. I can have it working fine, I get a txt that vibrates and it disconnects. Heck the phone fell off the dock one time cuz of vibrate.

Ive tried all of the above. And Im not crazy about the dock Either but I was about to get the car dock as well and .....Hell I paid 50 bucks for this thing!

I'm not a fan of the desktop dock either. I find I hit the power button to put it to sleep and as I take my hand away it shifts in the dock and wakes up again.
That said, the car dock is quite good. Holds the phone very solid yet is easy to get the phone in/out.
The built-in bluetooth speakerphone works fine ... sounds like a speaker phone but it works. Another feature is that it holds the phone in a way that leaves the camera pointing at the road ahead ... want to record that idiot driver ahead of you just fire up the camera.
The only issue I've had is that when using navigation in the hot sun while the battery is charging it has overheated a couple of times (i.e. rebooted without warning). Now I disconnect the charger unless it is needed and have not had the issue.
P.S. Neither dock work with cases ... probably fine with the skins though.

[Q] Modify car cradle to automatically enable car mode ?

Hi there,
I just bought an active car cradle for the Htc HD2 (Carcomm), no problem, working as expected.
Then I began wondering why the phone would not go into car mode when connected to the car cradle... If it's a car cradle, it should put the phone into car mode, right ??
So I was wondering what could possibly trigger the phone into car mode when connected to a charger.
Found this in another thread (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=767961):
To the person who wanted to know about connecting pins 2&3 to 4 to create a car doc? Looking at the USB spec datasheet It's not that simple. You need to insert a voltage divider across the data lines and tie it back into the 3.2v of the device. A little more trouble than it's worth unless you are doing it for the learning experience.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
and also from user dabigcheezze :
unfortunately it is a problem with froyo, whenever the phone is placed into dock mode, no matter what the charging input, it will only show up charging in usb mode, i have a homemade dock cable with pin 4 to ground, when i hook that up to my 1 amp charger it only shows usb, using a normal cable it shows ac charging, it has nothing to do with the HTC dock, it will happen whenever the phone is placed into dock mode, it also locks the vol output on the 3.5 jack 3/4 up....sooooo stupid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does anyone know about grounding pin 4 to enable car mode ? what about power, is the charger powering enough the phone while using BT, GPS and navigation ? Also, the limitations in Froyo are they gone in Gingerbread or could it be fixed ?
Thank you for sharing your experience, I would really like to have a car cradle working 100%

Nobody ?
Sent from my HD2 using XDA App

Come on, I'm sure somebody did the modification... or tried to do it
Willing to share ?

Hi !
Just wait I can contact the guy I wish to buy that second hand HD2 first, then find an appropriate car charger craddle, and I'll look for a solution.

Don't know how to automatically enable car mode, but just solder the 2 middle wires in your USB cable together and you'll get 1A instead of 500mA, which charges way faster. Your car charger needs an output of 1A, of course, else it's just gonna remain 500mA.

StephanV said:
Don't know how to automatically enable car mode, but just solder the 2 middle wires in your USB cable together and you'll get 1A instead of 500mA, which charges way faster. Your car charger needs an output of 1A, of course, else it's just gonna remain 500mA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your reply. Yes, it's true. I've seen this small hack to enable AC charging for cheap chargers that are charging with USB mode (400mA I think).
My charger was good enough to provide AC charging (1A), which is great, but not enough to enable the car mode...
What I would like to confirm is if grounding pin 4 will really put the phone in car mode when plugged into the car cradle, before doing it myself...

Do not hack the hardware!
Use a software
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=8178010

Thank you for your response.
But... is it a software for windows only ?
I run Android on my HD2

Unfortunately, the software only runs on Windows Mobile :-(
So you have to try that:
http://translate.google.at/translat....cz/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=73&p=1037#p1037
seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx0zPFQtyxs
I personally ordered the original car holder from htc and it is really a very good one!

Excellent !!
I think that if the mentionned modification works with a HD2 AND a Desire HD, the official Htc android software should work also, like the windows software in the video.
Thank you, it's great ! I will post here my results when done

Even easier - try using PhoneWeaver (can't add a link as a noob)
It's basically an app for setting your phone's parameters, based on all sorts of external influences, such as time, date, power source etc.
So, for example, I have the following settings:-
6:15 am - turn phone on, set volume to Normal
8:15am - set volume to low (for when I'm in the office - its a personal mobile)
4:45pm - set volume to Normal
6:45pm, turn wireless on (as I'm at home, and browsing is much faster)
10:00pm - turn phone / wireless off, set volume to low, start SPB Time (my alarm clock)
Additionally, I have the following:-
If external power is detected AND Activesync isn't running (ie it's not connected to a PC) then turn on Bluetooth and increase volume (this is because the only other possibility for this environment is when its in the powered car cradle)
If external power is detected AND Activesync IS running, turn Bluetooth off, but turn wireless on
It's completely brilliant - never fails and I never have to remember to do anything

is there an app that does this ??

OK,,
so I need an app, which will auto-switch the phone to speaker mode when i plug in a charger, and then auto switch it off again when i unplug it..
Any ideas ???
Ian

wall charger or your car charger ?
edit:
it doesn't matter, found it:
http://www.sbsh.net/products/android/phoneweaver

both really mate, my in car set up is basically a bracket for the phone to fit into and then the car charger plugs into the phone. it is not hard wired to the car, just in the cigarette lighter.
Then on the desk, by the bed at night i have a charger stand, again plugging into the bottom of the phone.
Would just be good to have an app which switches the phone speaker on and off when the charger is inserted / removed.
does that make sense ????

Ian_4614 said:
OK,,
so I need an app, which will auto-switch the phone to speaker mode when i plug in a charger, and then auto switch it off again when i unplug it..
Any ideas ???
Ian
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use Lite Setting Profiles (think that is the name), which is free from the Market, to do exactly what you are wanting. It enables me to use the phone as a speaker phone when it is on the desktop charger, and when it is plugged into the car's charging holder. Set up a profile so that it reverts to speakerphone whenever it is plugged into the mains.
The free Lite version enables you to have one profile running at a time, the paid for app enables you to have multiple. You just need the Lite version for what you want.

peterc10 said:
I use Lite Setting Profiles (think that is the name), which is free from the Market, to do exactly what you are wanting. It enables me to use the phone as a speaker phone when it is on the desktop charger, and when it is plugged into the car's charging holder. Set up a profile so that it reverts to speakerphone whenever it is plugged into the mains.
The free Lite version enables you to have one profile running at a time, the paid for app enables you to have multiple. You just need the Lite version for what you want.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks so much, this is just what I was looking for, fits the bill 100%,, thanks mate.

Tasker In-Car power issue

I have built a Nexus 7 into my car and I have a small issue.
I need a tasker profile:
When I turn the car on, the screen turns on and music plays.
When i turn the car off, the music stops and the screen turns off. (along with other stuff)
I have created a "test" version of all this so when I connect a power cable (i.e when charging) it turns the screen on and plays music.
When I disconnect the USB (i.e. stops charging) the screen goes off, music stops, bluetooth off etc and all this works fine.
However, the USB will always be connected with power coming through so I cannot use this option. I need another way to detect if the car is on and when it turns off so I can run the correct tasks.
One option i thought of is buy a wireless charger and build it into the car. When my phone is placed on the charger, send a text message to the tablet to turn it on, and when i turn the car off the charging will stop, then the phone will send a text to the tablet to turn the screen off etc.
However after purchasing the wireless charger, i realised everytime i get a call or take my phone of the charger for whatever reason, the screen will go off and music will stop, so this isnt an option either.
So the question is, what can i do so tasker can detect that the car is on or off so the nexus can perform the tasks?
Hope that makes sense

idi_idi said:
ISo the question is, what can i do so tasker can detect that the car is on or off so the nexus can perform the tasks?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You do realize that you really have two problems, right? The Nexus 7 will not know when the car is started, or stopped. Unless you can disconnect the power, manually etc.. If you can do that, you can send a command in fastboot to force the N7 to power up when power is connected, otherwise you'd have to boot it up manually.
You could unplug the USB charger.. Or have the tablet turn off after N hours of inactivity, although how do you detect "new" activity if there's no change when the car is started.
If your car has bluetooth, you could detect that as the "turn off" task perhaps, but turning on is probably your bigger issue.

Will the wireless charger idea work?

idi_idi said:
Will the wireless charger idea work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No idea what you mean by wireless charger (2012 model has no wireless charging), or how you'd control it with the phone. And unless your tablet is a 3g one, I don't know how you'd directly communicate with it either.

I just put my phone back to stock so I had to uninstall Tasker, however your tablet does not pull power once the car is off correct? I had a power based one as well, I remember testing it with a surge protector. I could leave the USB connected but flip the surge protector on and off (to mimic power to the phone being halted). To my knowledge when the car is off your USB shouldn't be drawing power therefore you could run the profile off that. Export the profile and post here. I'd like to help test it.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

elpeterson said:
To my knowledge when the car is off your USB shouldn't be drawing power therefore you could run the profile off that. Export the profile and post here. I'd like to help test it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My last four cars (current and previous of wife and my cars) the lighter plug stays powered when the engine is off.
I think it's getting increasingly common for the plugs to stay powered. So there's no way for the tablet to know the car is off unless the car has bluetooth and you can look for that.

khaytsus said:
My last four cars (current and previous of wife and my cars) the lighter plug stays powered when the engine is off.
I think it's getting increasingly common for the plugs to stay powered. So there's no way for the tablet to know the car is off unless the car has bluetooth and you can look for that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have actually found the exact opposite to me true. My wife's 2014 Pilot goes off as well as my 2012 Veloster whereas my 2001 Sable and her 2007 Passat left them on. I'm not sure if you can resolve your issue then. I'll keep looking into it. You could trigger it based on speed I think
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

elpeterson said:
I have actually found the exact opposite to me true. My wife's 2014 Pilot goes off as well as my 2012 Veloster whereas my 2001 Sable and her 2007 Passat left them on. I'm not sure if you can resolve your issue then. I'll keep looking into it. You could trigger it based on speed I think
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suppose that could work.. Find out the speed for several periods in a row, if it's zero, assume it's time to shut down. But that'd mean it's playing music etc during that period etc.
IMO bluetooth, or a plug he can turn off, is really the only way if his USB is powered up all of the time.
Also remember, he has no way to know when to power UP either. I still maintain that's the bigger problem, especially if it's a fixed install and he can't poke the power button

At the moment, its connected so when the car turns on, the USB is powered up and when the car turns off, the power in the USB stops. So at the moment, my tasker profile works on "when charging" do Task A, when not charging do Task B. And it all works fine at the moment.
However I am having issues with charging, (The device is not charging fast enough when turned on and the battery drains over a couple of days) so i planned to keep it always charging, so the power in the USB will always be there regardless of if the car is on or off. So i cant use the "when charging" on tasker anymore. So i needed a new way to it to figure out when i got in the car.
Here are my ideas:
1. Have a wireless charger in my car for my phone. (Not the tablet). When i get in the car, i could put my phone on the charger, have the phone send a text to the tablet to turn it on. When i remove the phone from the charger, send a text to the tablet to turn it off. Simples
2. Connect a wifi router in the boot or something and have it start up only when the car starts, and turn off with the car. It doesn't have to be connected to the internet, it just needs to power up. Then i can do a 'When wifi near' on tasker to see if the car is off or on, and turn the screen off accordingly.
3. Connect the tablet to my phones bluetooth. Whenever i get in the car, they will connect and the tablet will power on. when i leave the car, it will power off. (Not the best option since it will stay on even if i am near the car)
4. Similar to option 1, but have a nfc sticker in the car. when i swipe my phone on it, it communicates with the tablet and turns it on, n then off when required. but i dont want to do this since i know i am going to forget to turn it off one day.
I don't really want to do the speed option, since i want it to turn on as soon as i enter the car, not when i start driving, and i want to be able to park up and use it when i need to put an addess in the sat nav etc.

idi_idi said:
However I am having issues with charging, (The device is not charging fast enough when turned on and the battery drains over a couple of days)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If your charger isn't charging fast enough, you're using a crappy charger or one that isn't designed for Android. If your car has a built-in USB port, those are usually super slow, maybe 500mA, most less.
Anyway, glad to hear that your power follows the car state, that makes it all simple.

khaytsus said:
If your charger isn't charging fast enough, you're using a crappy charger or one that isn't designed for Android. If your car has a built-in USB port, those are usually super slow, maybe 500mA, most less.
Anyway, glad to hear that your power follows the car state, that makes it all simple.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried about 20 different chargers, up to 2.5amps. The problem isnt the charger. The problem is i dont drive the car long enough to give it time to charge. So if i drive the car for about half an hour a day, for the other 23.5 hours, its on standby. so the battery is always going to go less. So thats why I plan to connect the charger directly to the battery so it will always be charging.

idi_idi said:
I've tried about 20 different chargers, up to 2.5amps. The problem isnt the charger. The problem is i dont drive the car long enough to give it time to charge. So if i drive the car for about half an hour a day, for the other 23.5 hours, its on standby. so the battery is always going to go less. So thats why I plan to connect the charger directly to the battery so it will always be charging.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, I thought you had the tablet turning off when the car went off. If I were you, I'd set up a profile that turns off the tablet if it hasn't had power in a few hours, pretty simple to do. On Power, set a time var, every so often check that time var to see if it exceeds your threshold, and power down if so.
If you don't have much installed, it should be a fairly quick power-up, especially the plug goes hot when you start the car.
BTW I hope you're considering cold and heat if you're leaving the tablet in the car. Leaving it in the heat all summer will will the battery.

You can use Timur's kernel, it senses power to turn N7 on or deep sleep it.
Also charges N7 while using OTG.
It;s designed for car install.

khaytsus said:
If your charger isn't charging fast enough, you're using a crappy charger or one that isn't designed for Android. If your car has a built-in USB port, those are usually super slow, maybe 500mA, most less.
Anyway, glad to hear that your power follows the car state, that makes it all simple.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree, you need to get at least a 2A charger for your car. My wife would watch Netflix on long drives and my car USB port or the normal USB charger I got for the cigarette lighter worked until I up'd it to a 2A charger. I can have screen on for hours while streaming video and still fully charge the tablet in a reasonable amount of time.