Battery Overheating (GPS in Car)

**shaw1234** · 03-21-2011, 04:50 PM

Would like to know if anyone else is using their TBolt as a GPS in the car mount. I tried it the other day for a 1.5 hour drive, and i noticed it felt very hot. I checked battery status to see that it was 64C (147F) and my widget said it was overheating. I had screen brightness on 100%, GPS navigation running, no streaming audio or phone calls. Was charging via the car dock. I shut it off and let it cool down.

Does that sound right? I mean, I held off on replacing my old GPS unit thinking I would use my nice new smartphone to replace it, and it just overheats? It feels a little warm when charging it, but nothing that makes it say overheating. I've had zero issues using it when it is unplugged.

I think I was using a lot of juice by having the navi running and the screen very bright, and charging at the same time heated it up, but this won't work for an extended trip. I can't use this as a GPS if I can't charge it in the car. Any ideas/suggestions/solutions?

**leehblanc** · 03-21-2011, 05:34 PM

Originally Posted by shaw1234

Would like to know if anyone else is using their TBolt as a GPS in the car mount. I tried it the other day for a 1.5 hour drive, and i noticed it felt very hot. I checked battery status to see that it was 64C (147F) and my widget said it was overheating. I had screen brightness on 100%, GPS navigation running, no streaming audio or phone calls. Was charging via the car dock. I shut it off and let it cool down.

Does that sound right? I mean, I held off on replacing my old GPS unit thinking I would use my nice new smartphone to replace it, and it just overheats? It feels a little warm when charging it, but nothing that makes it say overheating. I've had zero issues using it when it is unplugged.

I think I was using a lot of juice by having the navi running and the screen very bright, and charging at the same time heated it up, but this won't work for an extended trip. I can't use this as a GPS if I can't charge it in the car. Any ideas/suggestions/solutions?

First question: Is your phone mounted on or near a heat vent, and was the heat on? That would contribute.

Second question/suggestion: Turn the screen brightness down a little. I keep mine between 40% and 50% and the only time I have a problem seeing the phone is outside in broad daylight. Could you possibly turn it down a little?

**PJnc284** · 03-21-2011, 05:38 PM

Window mounts are useless. I had the same issues with an OG Droid and it would get so hot that it'd quit charging. Switched to a vent mount and never had anymore overheating issue and the battery wouldn't drain while using nav either.

**biff6789** · 03-21-2011, 05:42 PM

The sun beating down on the black chassis of your phone doesn't help keep temps cool... That's the catch of using a window mount

**shaw1234** · 03-21-2011, 05:54 PM

I thought it being in the sun would only hurt, so I moved it to the dash earlier today (it's now sitting in front of an A/C vent).

Strange part was, my wife has the OG Droid and we fired hers up to do the navigation the rest of the way after I shut mine off. She also has the window mount and her phone had no problems at all. Only the TBolt got really hot.

I'm really hoping that moving it solves the problem. I'll come back once I get a chance to take a long drive with it again.

**shaw1234** · 03-21-2011, 05:57 PM

PJnc284,
When you say the 'battery wouldn't drain' do you mean it was just holding the same charge while plugged in rather than charging? I think after I turned my phone on (after it cooled) the battery was lower than when I started. It seems crazy to me that these phones use power as fast, if not faster, than the charging circuit. Plugged in and losing battery...sigh.

**Chrisy** · 03-21-2011, 06:00 PM

I did a three hour road trip with phone in mount and plugged in. It did not overheat.

Never had my phones overheat using a window mount. I will add that I am in Florida.

**PJnc284** · 03-21-2011, 06:12 PM

Originally Posted by shaw1234

PJnc284,
When you say the 'battery wouldn't drain' do you mean it was just holding the same charge while plugged in rather than charging? I think after I turned my phone on (after it cooled) the battery was lower than when I started. It seems crazy to me that these phones use power as fast, if not faster, than the charging circuit. Plugged in and losing battery...sigh.

yeah, plugged in and in the window mount, it would hit 140-150F like clockwork and pretty much eat the battery. In the vent mount A/C on low, I barely went over 85F and had no drain while in the vent mount and plugged in. I'm thinking about grabbing a or a that I ran across a review for in the accessories sub-forum.

**Electric Mayhem** · 03-21-2011, 06:13 PM

I did a 2 hour down to Chicago this weekend using Nav, I had the brightness turned down a little but I was running satellite overlay in Nav which is constantly accessing the network plus I was in 4G. At no point did the phone get hot, warm yes but not hot but I was using the generic Verizon charger which couldn't keep up so I had to buy a 1amp HTC charger but I'm still pretty sure the phone never got hot. What kind of charger are you using?

**Green_Laser** · 03-21-2011, 07:01 PM

Mine got hot too. More hot than usual. This was on a 2.5hr trip with gps on and brightness set to a minimum.. maybe under 30%.
The device wouldn't charge either for a portion of the time it was on. When I saw I had 70+ miles to drive before the next turn I exited nav so screen can and device could chill some. I was driving at sundown and night time when this was happening.

I got the car mount from vzw (not bad BTW) and a griffin double usb cigarette charger which says its 1 AMP per usb.

I'll keep my eye on it. Was my first experience with Google maps nav which is 100% awesome!!

**brett328** · 03-21-2011, 07:20 PM

Might be your car charger. Saw this post in the sticky section, might be worth $5 to find out.

"USB car chargers only output 500mAh - regardless of their rated output. The TB will see it as a USB host (like a PC/laptop) and will not draw any more power than that. Use a 1A car charger like this $5 charger from Motorola. The Verizon charger is rated at 750mAh out. If you're in your car using Nav or more, 750mAh will not keep up. The wall charger pushes 1A - get a car charger that matches."

Amazon.com: Motorola Vehicle Power Adapter micro-USB Rapid Rate Charger: Cell Phones & Accessories

just a thought.

**shaw1234** · 03-22-2011, 11:10 AM

I was using the Verizon branded dual USB adapter that plugs into the 12V cig lighter in the car and a USB cord I had laying around. How hot is too hot for the battery anyway. When I was using it, it felt hot, my battery widget said it was overheating, but the phone itself didn't seem to care and was functioning fine. I believe I made it up to 147F for the battery temp. Maybe my widget (battery watcher) is being overly conservative?

**HawaiiD** · 03-22-2011, 12:35 PM

The highest temperature I have seen on my Evo while using BT and GPS while Driving was 112f with the charger plugged in.

147f seems quite high though? might want to check with Verizon
if this is normal?

Maybe the battery is defective or even the car charger? Do you have a spare battery?

If you do? try replacing the battery to see if the temperature
goes up that high?

**optimum5** · 03-28-2011, 01:01 AM

Originally Posted by shaw1234

Would like to know if anyone else is using their TBolt as a GPS in the car mount. I tried it the other day for a 1.5 hour drive, and i noticed it felt very hot. I checked battery status to see that it was 64C (147F) and my widget said it was overheating. I had screen brightness on 100%, GPS navigation running, no streaming audio or phone calls. Was charging via the car dock. I shut it off and let it cool down.

I have/had this same problem.

Was using GPS navigation for about 30 mins, while running music on Grooveshark, using only 3G, with the brightness set to 20%, on a vent mount, and I had it plugged into the car charger. Battery got really hot at the end of the trip, and proceeded to lose battery power a lot faster than normal.

I thought maybe I overcharged the battery, so I did the same test without the car charger. Same results.
Then I tried it again without the car charger, and without Grooveshark running this time. Same result.
Then I tried it again without GPS navigation, without the car charger, but Grooveshark is running again. Battery did NOT heat up abnormally that time. I was ready to blame GPS navigation for the battery overheating.

The next thing I tried was my wife's T-Bolt and used GPS navigation with it. Now surprising to me, her battery did NOT heat up abnormally.

So I was confused, is it or isn't it the GPS navigation's fault. Maybe my battery was faulty?

Only thing different between my Thunderbolt and my wife's at that moment was that I had recently installed an update for google maps, while she didn't. Could there have been a faulty code in that update that is overworking my phone's system to cook up the battery?

I uninstalled that update, and am running Google Maps GPS Navigation in it's factory setting when I got the phone. As I'm typing this, I'm actually still running the previous tests I made, except this time without the update. So far, my battery is NOT heating up abnormally.

Could that really be it? I'm going to do this test to and from work for the next days, so I'll come up with a conclusion one way or the other. It's either that or I go back to Best Buy and tell them they sold me a faulty unit.

**Malefickus** · 03-28-2011, 04:43 AM

With mine, I stream music from Slacker all day long while driving, use the GPS in Google Maps, and the screen is set not to shut off if in either of those apps. My dashboard has this nice little slot in it where I can set the phone and it stays upright the entire time, so no real need for the car dock (yet). While I do have a widget that can/will tell me the battery temperature, whenever I've touched the phone while it is doing all of this it has never felt abnormally warm.

Side note - I wish Google Maps had commercial truck routing. Not looking forward to paying $150 in the Marketplace for the navigation app for that.

**Green_Laser** · 03-28-2011, 04:15 PM

Originally Posted by optimum5

I have/had this same problem.

Was using GPS navigation for about 30 mins, while running music on Grooveshark, using only 3G, with the brightness set to 20%, on a vent mount, and I had it plugged into the car charger. Battery got really hot at the end of the trip, and proceeded to lose battery power a lot faster than normal.

I thought maybe I overcharged the battery, so I did the same test without the car charger. Same results.
Then I tried it again without the car charger, and without Grooveshark running this time. Same result.
Then I tried it again without GPS navigation, without the car charger, but Grooveshark is running again. Battery did NOT heat up abnormally that time. I was ready to blame GPS navigation for the battery overheating.

The next thing I tried was my wife's T-Bolt and used GPS navigation with it. Now surprising to me, her battery did NOT heat up abnormally.

So I was confused, is it or isn't it the GPS navigation's fault. Maybe my battery was faulty?

Only thing different between my Thunderbolt and my wife's at that moment was that I had recently installed an update for google maps, while she didn't. Could there have been a faulty code in that update that is overworking my phone's system to cook up the battery?

I uninstalled that update, and am running Google Maps GPS Navigation in it's factory setting when I got the phone. As I'm typing this, I'm actually still running the previous tests I made, except this time without the update. So far, my battery is NOT heating up abnormally.

Could that really be it? I'm going to do this test to and from work for the next days, so I'll come up with a conclusion one way or the other. It's either that or I go back to Best Buy and tell them they sold me a faulty unit.

Interested find. Please keep us updated.
I did do the gmaps update and do experience heating issues.

**zero neck** · 03-28-2011, 04:24 PM

Just drove from NYC to atlantic city NJ abt 2.5 hrs each way. Used the verizon store igrip window mount, but have it set up on the dash. Screen brightness was 100 percent, and i used the gps the whole way, and it was daytime with a good amount of sunshine. The phone was warm, but not so much that I would become concerned.

It was actually very convenient, except for when i lost gps signal it would say "searching for gps" endlessly, and i had to exit out of the navigation session and re-enter my destination all over again, and it would grab the gps back in a second after that.

**shaw1234** · 03-28-2011, 04:33 PM

I ordered some extra batteries and will try them to see if its any different. I did install the maps update, so that is something to consider. Might be onto something with that. My wife's OG Droid had no issues, and I do not believe she installed the updates. I don't have many 'long' drives, but I will report back with the results of using the new batteries on the next trip I take.

**swamp** · 03-28-2011, 11:47 PM

Similar problem. I have the 1 amp rated Boxwave Versacharger Pro (AC & DC). That is the same rating as the HTC AC adapter that comes with the phone. When I got into the car I had a low battery so promptly plugged it in. Turned on the Google voice navigation. Screen brightness was pretty low, I think around 20%. At the end of my short trip (~20 minutes) I noticed 2 things. 1. A very warm TB especially on the back battery cover. 2. A very close to dead battery. By the way my trip was at night, it was cool and dark so no solar effects. I find it almost impossible to believe that my 1A charger could not keep up with the drain. It is also supposed to go into the battery saving mode at low charge levels. Seems that did not help much. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

**Green_Laser** · 03-29-2011, 07:15 AM

Originally Posted by swamp

Similar problem. I have the 1 amp rated Boxwave Versacharger Pro (AC & DC). That is the same rating as the HTC AC adapter that comes with the phone. When I got into the car I had a low battery so promptly plugged it in. Turned on the Google voice navigation. Screen brightness was pretty low, I think around 20%. At the end of my short trip (~20 minutes) I noticed 2 things. 1. A very warm TB especially on the back battery cover. 2. A very close to dead battery. By the way my trip was at night, it was cool and dark so no solar effects. I find it almost impossible to believe that my 1A charger could not keep up with the drain. It is also supposed to go into the battery saving mode at low charge levels. Seems that did not help much. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Thanks for your input as I was really considering getting those moto 1amp car charger (instead of the griffin usb I have now which mention a 1amp rating for each of the 2 usb ports) to help solve this, but I see problem still exists even with a 1amp rated charger.

At the very least, I'd expect mine to hold the charge, but yesterday I experienced a drop in batt level too, only from some city/suburban use.

I saw a belkin cig adapter plus an Apple cable at Target a couple of days ago and I think it either said 1.5 or 2amp rating (i believe its for an iPad). I think price was around $45. If I have to, I don't mind paying that to use the cig adapter and giving the cable to my bro for his iphone, but, would that be too much juice for our tbolts to handle? (in thinking its too much)

(Next time I pull the batt I need to remember to peek at the max input levels)

ALSO, I tried to look for an app in the market yesterday that could possibly give me a reading on incoming power V & A, but all I saw were apps that depict batt info and not input info. I was hoping I could measure my griffin usb cig lighter adapter to see if it really puts out 1amp like they mention. I then tried measuring via my digital multimeter but had no luck since the testing rods were too big to make a good point of contact when measuring the micro usb part of he cable (which was attached to the griffin usb cig lighter adaptor).

**optimum5** · 03-29-2011, 04:07 PM

Originally Posted by Green_Laser

I did do the gmaps update and do experience heating issues.

I've been doing my tests over and over again, and it's weird how uninstalling the Google Map Update seems to be my working solution to the over-heating problem. I'm not 100% confident to say "case closed," but I'm just happy that my battery is not over-heating anymore.

**konstantph** · 03-31-2011, 07:07 AM

I had a similar problem with a different app. Droid In. I was in the city on Saturday so had 4G all day. Phone in coat pocket during a play. Battery went to 48 C by intermission. I suspect chatty apps at 4G speeds.

Something to watch out for?

**cadzilla74** · 03-31-2011, 08:37 AM

Vent mount is the only way to go here in TX. Need that AC blowing on the phone to cool it while charging/navigating. Putting it in a windshield mount is an invitation to internal component cookery. I've had radar detectors fail due to overheating here.

Having read the whole thread though, there may be something to the Google Maps Update possibly overtaxing GPS trying to maintain a signal lock. I haven't had my TB long enough to put it through its paces on a long road trip yet. I have been using the Google Nav to compare to VZW Navigator on my old BB Storm and have been very happy with it insofar as its ability to Navigate but nothing further.

As a result of what I'm reading here I plan on using Google Nav even if I don't need it to guide me just to see if I can help reproduce what has been reported here. Good thread folks. This is how we can all contribute to app debugging.

**cheeta186** · 03-31-2011, 10:41 AM

Originally Posted by shaw1234

PJnc284,
When you say the 'battery wouldn't drain' do you mean it was just holding the same charge while plugged in rather than charging? I think after I turned my phone on (after it cooled) the battery was lower than when I started. It seems crazy to me that these phones use power as fast, if not faster, than the charging circuit. Plugged in and losing battery...sigh.

This actually depends on the car charger you are using. I used my droid 2 for a navi before this and I had the standard VZW car charger which only has a 750(some unit of electricity, I knew sleeping through physics would come back to haunt me) and my phone would drain, slowly, but the charge rate was not enough to keep up with my energy use. Now I use a motorola charger I bought off amazon for $5 and it has a 1Amp output which is what you would normally get from a standard wall charger, so it is able to charge the phone while using it as a navi, while others are not.

**prijo** · 06-30-2011, 06:11 PM

Just noticed this today, got the flashing red/green telling me it overheated and the back of the TB was HOT. I was only using it for about 20 minutes. It was laying on a console not in view of the sun, so it was all the TB. Using the Verizon micro usb charger. Wondering if anyone else solved this. Still searching.