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Help Battery Life with GPS Navigation

P

pmontanarella

Lurker
Hi all,

I bought a Galaxy Nexus a few months ago and I've noticed major problems with the battery when using GPS navigation.
I plug my GNex in to the car charger and start Google Nav and everything is fine, however, as I'm driving my battery drains (even though it's plugged in, charging, and the lightning sign is on the battery indicator). Anyone know why this happens? Is it all Android phones? I do not have 4G LTE on when using maps. Anyone else have this problem? Any fix?

Thanks a lot,
Pietro
 
Hi, welcome to AF! (Android Forums)

I've got the LTE Nexus on Verizon and I've had other phones and I can tell you for sure it's not just your phone. The screens on these devices are so large now that the current draw on them is the major use of power in your phone. GPS is another big power. So most likely, what is happening is you are using your nav in daylight which puts your phone's screen at max or near max brightness and your GPS is eating up some power too, so power usage is really high. Mostly likely it is higher than the output your charger is providing. I know for certain it will be higher than the charger output if you are using a 500mA charger, and even with the higher output ones for tablets at 1A and 2A, it might not be able to keep up.

Check to see if your phone charger is a 500mA or 750mA, if it is, do yourself a favor and buy a full 1A charger or even one meant for tablets at around 2A. Your phone will draw what it needs up to 1A and if it is still using more than that, then there's nothing you can do except turn the screen off to reduce consumption. At the very least, with a 1A charger, you'll drain more slowly.
 
MSUgEEk said:
Hi, welcome to AF! (Android Forums)

I've got the LTE Nexus on Verizon and I've had other phones and I can tell you for sure it's not just your phone. The screens on these devices are so large now that the current draw on them is the major use of power in your phone. GPS is another big power. So most likely, what is happening is you are using your nav in daylight which puts your phone's screen at max or near max brightness and your GPS is eating up some power too, so power usage is really high. Mostly likely it is higher than the output your charger is providing. I know for certain it will be higher than the charger output if you are using a 500mA charger, and even with the higher output ones for tablets at 1A and 2A, it might not be able to keep up.

Check to see if your phone charger is a 500mA or 750mA, if it is, do yourself a favor and buy a full 1A charger or even one meant for tablets at around 2A. Your phone will draw what it needs up to 1A and if it is still using more than that, then there's nothing you can do except turn the screen off to reduce consumption. At the very least, with a 1A charger, you'll drain more slowly.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the tips. I don't remember the mA on my charge but i remember it was quite low. Any idea how to check (an app?) how much power is being used by the device? I'll probably try getting one that has an higher power and try it out.

Thanks!
Pietro
 
There's really no way to tell how much power your device is drawing exactly without placing an ammeter between your battery and device on a test bench. If you're running your screen at max brightness (typically so in daylight) then you are almost definitely drawing more than 500mA with just the screen alone. Not to mention GPS and any data usage.
 
I used to use my Nexus to get around, as well. I would plug it into my car charger and run ONLY the Navigation on my trip to work and I would still be down battery when I got to work. It is pretty brutal, but I didn't have any better luck with my Thunderbolt or Incredible.
 
Hi everyone,

I just got a 1000mA car charger and tested it out. I started at 76% and within 20 minutes it was up to 80%! I had music streaming via Google Play, GPS on and max brightness (to see if it could handle it). I guess the power in the car charger really makes the difference!

Thanks for your help,
Pietro
 
Yes. Something to remember... if you are using maps/nav not only are GPS and screen two of the biggest battery hogs, but Google's map service requires a data connection. So you've also got a constant data connection....which if you are on 4g is a huge drain itself... and 3g isn't much better. So you've got the three biggest battery users running simultaneously. Turning the screen off and using voice directions helps... but as mentioned, if you don't have 1mah charger you can forget about it.

By the way all chargers are labeled with the voltage and amperage. Just be careful with dual USB chargers as sometimes they list the combined amperage and my have two .5 mah ports.
 
I have had several Android phones and on most of them In have used the navigation that comes as part of Google maps and this does seem to use a fair bit of power. My current Galaxy Nexus is no exception. For me having the phone connected to a car charger and using the navigation seem to completely offset each other, i.e. the battery is not noticeably more or less charged at the end than at the start. By comparison if I don't use the navigation the phone charges well in the car.

As others have said, check the charger. There is a convention implemented by chargers of shorting together the USB data pins to indicate to the phone that it can take more than the 500mA allowed by the USB spec. You would expect the tablet chargers to do this and also some car chargers. My car charger is the one built into a brodit dock.
 
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