Frustrated with Charging the HTC One in the Car

First, a thought about chargers. I've tried many car chargers, new, used, dedicated car chargers, and plugs with USB connections. I still can't get a charger that keeps up with nav battery discharges. And yes, with each charger/charger-cable combination, I checked that the phone is charging AC. Some showed charging USB, and those were discarded or returned. But for all those saying you need a particular charger, if a charger is capable of charging other devices at over 3 amps, you'd think the "pipe" would be capable of delivering only 1 amp to my HTC. Next I'm trying a power inverter in the car with the factory charger/cable - I'll report results. But anyway...

Today I removed my HTC One from the Otterbox case before navigating. I was thinking maybe it would dissipate heat more efficiently, and allow the charger to keep up. Power Saver mode, no other apps running, and it discharged at a rate of about 1% every 5 minutes. That might be slightly better than being in the case, but if so, not much. However, when I put the uncased phone directly in front of an air conditioner vent, it stopped discharging. It didn't gain, but it didn't lose. I'll be ordering a vent mount, but that won't help much in January here in Nebraska.
 
You don't really need those cables. Note that tjgartner had the same charging rate on the factory supplied AC wall charger ~ 800 mA as on the car charger. I have observed the same thing with my measurements with Battery Monitor Widget using the HTC cable or other regular micro USB cables. With the HTC One you will never get more than around 900 mA of charge current no matter what charger. Power Save helps some to speed up charging while running, but I find I cannot see the screen in the car on a sunny day with it on so I have mostly given up on that setting.

The factory a/c chargers only output 1 amp of current.

Sent from my Coconut Wireless HTC One
 
First, a thought about chargers. I've tried many car chargers, new, used, dedicated car chargers, and plugs with USB connections. I still can't get a charger that keeps up with nav battery discharges. And yes, with each charger/charger-cable combination, I checked that the phone is charging AC. Some showed charging USB, and those were discarded or returned. But for all those saying you need a particular charger, if a charger is capable of charging other devices at over 3 amps, you'd think the "pipe" would be capable of delivering only 1 amp to my HTC. Next I'm trying a power inverter in the car with the factory charger/cable - I'll report results. But anyway...

Today I removed my HTC One from the Otterbox case before navigating. I was thinking maybe it would dissipate heat more efficiently, and allow the charger to keep up. Power Saver mode, no other apps running, and it discharged at a rate of about 1% every 5 minutes. That might be slightly better than being in the case, but if so, not much. However, when I put the uncased phone directly in front of an air conditioner vent, it stopped discharging. It didn't gain, but it didn't lose. I'll be ordering a vent mount, but that won't help much in January here in Nebraska.

I did a test yesterday with mine. My battery started out at 99%, and I drove about 35 minutes with the nav on, Spotify streaming over bluetooth, and PowerSaver off. My phone was in its case (cimo grip) and sitting in a cupholder. About 20 minutes into the drive, it finally got up to 100%, so the phone was charging slightly faster than it was discharging. It sounds to me like something is wrong with your phone.

I used this charger with a standard USB cable: Amazon.com: PowerGen 2.4Amps / 12W Dual USB Car charger Designed for Apple and Android Devices - Black: MP3 Players & Accessories
 
UPDATE:

Today the weather is rather cool, so I did not have my AC turned on and pointed at my phone. To my surprise, the phone did not overheat even though I had navigation and music running.

Perhaps this is a good sign for the winter months.

Posted via Android Central App
 
You need a charger with a higher output. Had the same problem with my Nexus and nabbed a Motorola car charger that put out 1000 (don't recall output, but think it was milliamps?) which is the same as if it were plugged into an AC outlet. My old charger put out 500, which is a USB output.

The new charger keeps up even with the screen / GPS on and charges it to full at the same time.

Posted via Android Central App
 
The factory a/c chargers only output 1 amp of current.

True, but it is also true as was noted above the HTC One will NEVER charge at more than about 900 mA. So you could have a charger capable of 10 amps at 5 volts and the HTC One will still draw just under 1 amp. The charging logic in the HTC One itself controls (and limits) the actual current draw. My experience has been that if you have a charger that causes the HTC One to go into AC charging mode it will do so with any cable. If you have a charger that only reports as USB charging no cable will change that. You can see this mode in either in the Power page of settings or with the Battery Monitor Widget app.
 
Drove today with mine in power save mode and kept the screen on the whole time. It constantly charged. I should probably just keep it in this mode all the time since the phone works great with it on. Never lost a percentage at all and it was always going up so that's a good sign!

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4
 
Drove today with mine in power save mode and kept the screen on the whole time. It constantly charged. I should probably just keep it in this mode all the time since the phone works great with it on. Never lost a percentage at all and it was always going up so that's a good sign!

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4

Same results for me. My one charges up when in power save mode with an after market charger and charge only cables

Sent from my Coconut Wireless HTC One
 
One of the reasons I returned my One was because of in car use performance. I had the Verizon version and like one poster mentioned HTC or Verizon decided to not put on the battery saving mode so the phone has terrible battery compared to an iPhone or S4 IMO so the phone constantly needs to be plugged in while driving. Furthermore the battery charges slowly to begin with but when plugged in and using a heavy application like GPS/Maps it will suck out more power then the charger can refill. Also my One got so hot plugged into my car it reset twice. I eventually got a new one but that one had gap issues so I traded it for an S4.

A great article on the One's battery life is

AnandTech | The HTC One Review

Overall great phone but they need to tune the software more, add power saving mode on Verizon, and use lithium-ion polymer batteries because HTC has never had good battery life
 
One of the reasons I returned my One was because of in car use performance. I had the Verizon version and like one poster mentioned HTC or Verizon decided to not put on the battery saving mode so the phone has terrible battery compared to an iPhone or S4 IMO so the phone constantly needs to be plugged in while driving. Furthermore the battery charges slowly to begin with but when plugged in and using a heavy application like GPS/Maps it will suck out more power then the charger can refill. Also my One got so hot plugged into my car it reset twice. I eventually got a new one but that one had gap issues so I traded it for an S4.

A great article on the One's battery life is

AnandTech | The HTC One Review

Overall great phone but they need to tune the software more, add power saving mode on Verizon, and use lithium-ion polymer batteries because HTC has never had good battery life

Battery Saving Mode is built in to the phone and switches on at around 14%.... although I only use my GPS at about an Hour at a time iv not had any problems you describe-. even while listening to Rad.io while using the GPS iv not had any problems with over heating or discharging. untouched my one will stay in the 90% battery range for half the day...also I get all day use out of my HTC ONE with moderate to heavy use-.

I wish you good luck with the S4......
 
Today I had to take another long trip. I used a 2.1 amp charger made specifically for HTC phones. It charges in AC mode. I also had my phone on Power Saver mode the entire time.

After about 90 minutes of using navigation and listening to an audiobook, my phone overheated and stopped charging. I was forced to blow the air conditioner on the phone to cool it so it would begin charging again. Of course, that led to a rather uncomfortable trip since the outside temperature was only in the mid-60s. I was hoping the overheating problem was limited to hot summer days. This doesn't bode well for the winter months.

I just do not understand how HTC could build a phone in which a core functionality (navigation) is essentially crippled for any long distance trips. Don't they test? I have to go on an 11 hour trip at the end of October. I'm screwed.
 
While I appreciate that there are inconvenient ways to deal with the problem, that is entirely missing the point.

Posted via Android Central App
 
Agreed - I already have a TomTom, which is utter toss, but as a 'solution' to useless charging via the official HTC cradle and charger, its rubbish. WHat's going to happen when I buy the bluetooth aux audio device as well? Mind you, it's all academical anyway, as HTC car app/Google Maps crashes constantly rendering it useless anyway.... and has remembered ONE 'previous' place from about a hundred destinations so far. Say what you want about the iPhone, but mine never crashed like this.... sort it out HTC/Google!!!!
 
While I appreciate that there are inconvenient ways to deal with the problem, that is entirely missing the point.

Posted via Android Central App


I think I understand the point... question is "" what now "" ......every problem in life must have a solution. hence the ""what now"".... so I ask tj. what now??
 
I think I understand the point... question is "" what now "" ......every problem in life must have a solution. hence the ""what now"".... so I ask tj. what now??

I don't know what I'm going to do now.

Posted via Android Central App
 
One of the reasons I returned my One was because of in car use performance. I had the Verizon version and like one poster mentioned HTC or Verizon decided to not put on the battery saving mode so the phone has terrible battery compared to an iPhone or S4 IMO so the phone constantly needs to be plugged in while driving. Furthermore the battery charges slowly to begin with but when plugged in and using a heavy application like GPS/Maps it will suck out more power then the charger can refill. Also my One got so hot plugged into my car it reset twice. I eventually got a new one but that one had gap issues so I traded it for an S4.

A great article on the One's battery life is

AnandTech | The HTC One Review

Overall great phone but they need to tune the software more, add power saving mode on Verizon, and use lithium-ion polymer batteries because HTC has never had good battery life

Since all versions of this phone have power save except Verizon... I'd say it's safe to say Verizon had it taken out.

Sent from my T-Mobile HTC One using AC Forums.