How to not have my phone overheat while driving/navigating?

[bramweiser]

Hi,

When driving, especially during daytime hours, and especially in warmer months, my Samsung Galaxy S3 phone often overheats while it's working to navigate me and I'm hoping you, or others, might please have ideas of things I could get, or techniques I could try, to minimize/eliminate that.

I've been placing it in a mount and tried:
* attaching the mount to my windshield
* attaching the mount to the top of my dashboard
* attaching the mount to the front of a panel inside the car, in front of my gearshift
* opening windows
* opening the sunroof
* angling the vents (and mount) so as to try to maximize how much air is blowing directly on the phone to try and keep it cool(er)

...but, so far at least, nothing seems to be completely effective.

A brainstorm I had was to get some fabric and maybe some bendable plastic to put inside that fabric, and place that behind my phone in the mount so as to block the sun, but I wouldn't know where to get stuff like that, or even if it would do the job.

Do you have any ideas, please, about this?

Thanks,
Bram Weiser

P.S. Aside to Forum Moderators: While typing this question in Firefox on my PC, the browser window kept going dark continually (even though no other window would do this). Fortunately, I could at least refresh/reload the window and recover what I was typing, but it was VERY frustrating! Why was this happening, and can this please be fixed soon? Thanks!

 

[nahoku]

When you say "overheats", do you mean the phone gives you an overtemp warning, or perhaps shuts down?

Navigation will always cause your phone to run hot. It's a given... GPS and other radios are working hard, not to mention the CPU and GPU cycles to draw those maps. However, it shouldn't cause the phone to power down... at least, I've never seen it happen while navigating. When you think about it, what good is navigation if the phone can't take it?

For me, I basically have my car air conditioning on when I'm driving. The phone still get's hot, but at least the inside ambient air helps it. I would never place the phone in front of a vent blowing cold air as in a worst case scenario this might cause condensation inside the phone. Water! Admittedly, I've never seen this either as I don't practice what I described. I just normally try to keep the phone out of the sun as much as possible while navigating.

If your phone is getting hot, but not throwing up overtemp warnings or shutting down, then it might not be as hot as you think. Rather, it might be normal for your phone, and the phone is capable of handling it. If this is the case, then there's nothing for you to do except try your best to keep it out of the sun. You could also install Aida64 to check your temps. In the least, you'll be able to see just how hot it's getting and perhaps search Google for the temp range of your phone to see if it falls within those specs.

 

[bramweiser]

Hi, nahoku, and thanks for responding!

What happens is, yes, the phone gets warm to the touch (which, I agree, is to be expected when working hard as with navigation), but many apps (all but a select few...not that I was running many to begin with) will suddenly shut down without warning as a message pops up on the screen telling me that's what happened specifically because(!) the phone was overheating.

A few minutes later, though, I'm usually able to relaunch my navigation app...but it might well be forced to shut down again, and also without warning, if the phone overheats once more.

I hope this helps to answer your question,
Bram

 

[nahoku]

So, it's the nav app shutting down and not the phone? No warning dialogs? What phone do you have? It may be a hardware/specs limitation also if there are other things running at the same time you're navigating. You say you don't have many things running to begin with, but apps like Facebook, Snapchat, or any app that syncs or runs in the background can cause the processor to be working without you even realizing it. Even Google Play Services has been known to cause issues. By the way, you don't even need Google Play Services to be running to navigate. The only requirements are Google Search, Google Services Framework, and the Maps app... and of course Location and your Data connection. For sure when you attempt navigating, Google Play Services will give you a message that accuracy, blah, blah, blah, will be better, but in reality, it's not even needed.

This is a difficult thing to troubleshoot. You basically need to stop all things from running except what's required to use navigation. You need to see if other things are actually causing the issue. You could also try running your phone if Safe mode and then trying to navigate. I'm not sure nav will work in safe mode (never tried it), but it's worth a try as safe mode should disable 3rd party apps from running. Also turn off any syncing if it's running. Big hassle to test, but no other choice.

If nav works with the test above, then you'll need to identify what app, or combination of apps, may be causing the issue, and then modify your usage when you plan to navigate. I use a Note 4, which is a flagship phone for the year it was released. Specs on my phone are quite good, so I've never had a problem with nav... other than the phone does get hot for sure.

 

[bramweiser]

Thanks for writing back again, nahoku.

The phone doesn't turn off...but many apps (I think this includes those running "in front" as well as "in background" shut down automatically once overheating occurs, and a message appears on the home screen to tell me this. (Sorry but I don't recall exactly which apps are allowed to continue to run when this happens.)

This happens with NO advance warning.

My phone is a Samsung Galaxy S3 (or, if you prefer, S III).

I don't run Facebook, etc., as ongoing apps, but the phone DOES check Gmail often, as well as Messaging, and surely other things are running out of view that I never actually engaged with.

I agree, what you suggest would be hard to test...and I don't believe I ever knew that Android phones HAD a "Safe Mode", let alone how to get there (e.g., as in hitting, I think, F11 while booting up a Windows PC).

My first (best?) hope was to either find (or create) something from fabric to cover the back (and top?) of the phone so that it can sit in the mount and not absorb the sun's rays...at least not as strongly as it does now...in the hope that that will either significantly delay, if not totally preclude, the phone from overheating in the first place...but I'm open to other things if they seem workable, and likely to succeed.

Thanks again,
Bram

 

[nahoku]

THIS is a Verizon link on how to boot your phone to Safe mode. To get out of Safe mode, simply restart your phone normally. I don't know your carrier, so if it doesn't work, try doing a search on Google. This method works on my VZW Note 4, by the way. Safe mode is very good for troubleshooting. It can also be used to uninstall stubborn apps like when an app doesn't allow you to remove it as an administrator. Good to know stuff.

Yah, it's tough troubleshooting this kind of problem. I'm actually surprised your S3 even has this problem given it's not a slouch phone in any sense of the word. I don't know what else to recommend for you except killing sync and running apps while navigating. Your "shade" idea may help though.... anything is better than nothing. One more thing... are you charging the phone while navigating? Heat from charging might be a contributing factor. Also, I did some searching and perhaps a Google maps update might be the issue. I know right now, there are a lot of Google Play Services problems mentioned on the forum, so any Google update could be suspect. Reaching here, as I really have no idea. Believe it or not, none of my Google apps have been updated since I bought the phone 18 months ago. Whenever one updates, I uninstall it after I'm done with whatever caused the update... like when visiting Playstore. My nav (and the rest of my phone) works just fine with all original Google version apps.

Sorry couldn't be of much help, but you're welcome in any case.

 

[bramweiser]

Thanks, nahoku. To answer some of your most-recent points:

* My carrier is Verizon Wireless, too.

* It's not that I DON'T use Google Maps, but I'm more fond of Waze as a navigation app, in case that matters (though I presume it doesn't...not for this discussion anyway).

* Of course I charge the phone during navigation. If not, then my battery would probably drain in maybe an hour-and-a-half or so.

* I also don't recall major problems with Google apps specifically.

* I also don't know about the Safe Mode/Troubleshoot-apps-one-by-one idea. I don't typically add apps frequently to my phone though I do try to keep things updated not THAT long after the Google Play Store tells me the updates are available. Also, such a process sounds pretty cumbersome and time-consuming, and I'm really trying to resolve this temperature issue in this situation (note: my phone doesn't typically overheat on hot days when it's in its pouch on my waist or in my hands doing whatever, but, then again, when navigating during daytime hours, it's directly exposed to sunlight for an extended period of time) as opposed to finding a bad app as this has been happening with my phone for a year or more (if not much more).

Thanks again...if anyone else has insightful ideas, including (but not limited to) pursuing that "fabric shade" concept I spoke of earlier, please post them here.

Bram

 

[nahoku]

Well, the reason I mentioned Safe mode was to try to get your phone back to "stock" as much as possible. If you can run navigation in safe mode, and it doesn't overheat, then it might give you a clue. You say it's been doing this for over a year or more... but has it done it from day one? If it hasn't then something might have changed, either in apps or hardware. Safe mode testing would be easier than factory resetting the phone (back to stock) just to test how nav would run to see if it still overheats.

 

[bramweiser]

Thanks, again, nahoku.

I can't say for certain (I've had this model for, I think, a little more than three {3} years) but yes, I believe that, under circumstances similar to what I described above (i.e., daylight driving in warm weather), the phone has generally been prone to overheating all along.

Please note, though, that driving in other conditions (nighttime or in cooler weather) has found the phone less prone to overheating...that's why I came up with the "fabric shade" idea as it'd be something to try to combat direct sunlight with external (atmospheric) heat along internal (CPU-generated) heat, too.

I DO know that it's not a brand-new thing for me, if that's what you were trying to find out.

Thanks once more,
Bram

 

[nahoku]

It surprising you say you've had this problem basically all along. I wouldn't have expected that. Well, I guess you can just try your shade thing the next time you navigate to see how it goes.

 

[bramweiser]

Thanks...I'd love to...if I had something I could use for it

I've seen sun shades at Amazon but (1) they seem to be only for Landscape orientation and I tend to keep my phone in Portrait, and (2) they seem to cover the screen (as in, shield it from glare)...I was hoping for something that could be behind the phone and above it as well.

If you (or anyone) has seen something like that, please point me in its direction.

Thanks again,
Bram