Bionic Not Charging When in Windshield Dock and Nav Runs

[pwscott]

I thought I was imagining this with my Bionic, but I would get in the car and pop it into the Moto Windshield Mount/Dock with the battery at say 30%. I'd search for a location, drive there using Navigation app and when I got there I might still be at 30% or only at 40% after an hour of being plugged into the cigarette adapted thru the car dock. What??

So I read the list of Bionic Issues posted here Tips Official known Bionic problems reported from Verizon - Android Forums and I see this:

"....o 9/22/11 Google Maps & Car Chargers:
If using Google Maps with the Satellite layer enabled, a car charger will not fully charge the XT875.
Action: No work around required.
Resolution: No resolution required, working as designed and approved by Verizon Wireless. ...."

WHAT? WHAT? Come on seriously, you can't charge your Bionic when you are driving around if you decide to use Google Maps with Satellites??? And Verizon says that's '...working as designed...' and there's '...No resolution required...'

That is not OK to me, that's a major use case for the phone. Does that torque anybody else?? (And I have 2 standard batteries and the extended, but still....I can't charge in the car and navigate? WTF.

 

[csimme01]

Read thrpoigh this, it will solve your problem.

http://forums.androidcentral.com/dr...-faster-than-i-can-re-charge.html#post1286315

 

[pwscott]

Thanks...will look into this.

Two questions:

- any real risk of damage to the phone with more Amps??

- What's the lane departure app you run??

 

[csimme01]

My thought is the phone/battery should be smart enough to take care if itself. So far I have not had ANY issues using this including starting with a dead battery, putting it in the car dock, launching nav and Drivea (the app for collision warning/lane departure) and then driving 2 hours using both. At the end of the two hours the phone was at 90% charge. I guess moto might give you grief but like I said, the phone should protect itself. The high current chargers exist because of this problem on tablets so this is not totally unexplored territory.

 

[Dubbin1]

- any real risk of damage to the phone with more Amps??

No, the phone will only pull the amount of amps it needs.

 

[csimme01]

No, the phone will only pull the amount of amps it needs.

That is pretty much what I see..
At times up to 1600ma when running hard

 

[fdisker]

Add me to the list of folks who aren't having this problem. I purchased a high output (1 amp/hour) charger which has never failed to charge my previous Thunderbolt and current Bionic when in the car dock no matter which apps were running. If your phone isn't charging when in the dock you need to upgrade your car charger.

 

[dberthia]

As an aside, if the Bionic behaves like my original Droid, the phone will stop charging if it gets too hot. This happened to me quite a bit when I had it mounted on the windshield and it was in the sun.

 

[trailblazen]

Yeah I just picked up a 2.1A car charger last night and advertises fast charging. I will get to test 4G/Navigation here at the end of October so will be able to report more but my coworker who just got back from Vegas told me the same thing about the navigation drain so I don't see me having any problems with this new charger.

 

[Tom in Bristol]

csimme01, Does the Drivea app use the Bionic camera or is there another one in use? If the Bionic, I may have to rearrange where I mount it for that purpose.

 

[csimme01]

csimme01, Does the Drivea app use the Bionic camera or is there another one in use? If the Bionic, I may have to rearrange where I mount it for that purpose.

Drivea uses the Bionics camera. The moto car dock is made so the camera is not obstructed. I had created a custom mount for my car but after finding Drivea i had to mod it to hold the phone 2 inches higher so it could have a better view of the road.