Nexus 4 doesn't last when used as GPS
!!11oneone
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As per title, if I use my Nexus 4 as in-car GPS, the battery doesn't last more than an hour or two even when it's plugged in to charge. Is this normal?
I assume it's because the screen is sucking all the power. I can use it to stream radio in the car and it will even slowly charge up, but I'm using Navigation I don't have a chance! Very frustrating that a device can't pull enough power to keep itself running, when the in-car power supply is perfectly adequate for the job.
I assume it's because the screen is sucking all the power. I can use it to stream radio in the car and it will even slowly charge up, but I'm using Navigation I don't have a chance! Very frustrating that a device can't pull enough power to keep itself running, when the in-car power supply is perfectly adequate for the job.
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It should be doing at least 4-6 hours with the screen on.
I tend to have wifi off and have taken to not streaming music or using any other features beyond navigation.
However, I'd have thought you could get several hours with the charger in, even if it's only making it discharge more slowly rather than actually increasing it.
What do you reckon? Factory reset?
sounds like your in car power supply isn't feeding enough to power to the device.
i had an older usb adaptor for the car and had to replace with a more powerful one for the nexus 4.
check the amp rating of the usb plug.
That was my first thought.
I have a Bluetooth hub that has a USB power output which I had been using. I guessed that wasn't supplying enough current, but the hub takes up the power socket. So I tried a splitter, with the hub in one socket and a Powermonkey car USB adapter in the other. Still seems to be an issue.
GSMArena tests show it doing 4.75 hours web browsing and 6 hours playing video on battery - both obviously requiring the screen to be on.
GPS/Sat nav usage should be less CPU intensive than video, though might use more network data which consumes lots of power.
http://blog.gsmarena.com/nexus-5-grinds-through-our-battery-test-routine/
Any ideas?
EDIT - I'm talking Nexus 4 not 5, by the way
Definitely something wrong, quite exactly what could require more troubleshooting.
I have Llama to switch phone states, but this never appears in the battery stats.
Plus I have the standard Google Play Services battery hog (nearly 2 hours wakelock today). I know this is usually down to location reporting, but of course you can't turn off the location service when using GPS and it's a total ballache for Maps to throw you into settings to toggle it on if it isn't already.
I do usually have Android System as the 2nd item behind Screen, so I guess it's something that's just reporting as System. But no idea what it could be.
Other than that, I don't do much that's out of the ordinary. It's twitter and browsing mostly!
Seemed to do the trick and it now charges while gps, tom tom and blue tooth streaming from Spotify. Does take a very long time to charge with all that running though
GPS Sat Nav is quite intensive as you not only have the GPS running but all the route navigation, screen time (brightness) and data signal.
If it says "Charging (USB)" then it will be draining more power than it is charging; if it says "Charging (AC)" then it should be OK.
If it says Charging (USB) then you need a USB adapter which tells the phone that it can charge at the AC rate.
I have a Nexus 4 plus a Belkin USB adapter and my phone charges as if connected to AC, but that's a few years old so you may need to experiment...
On a nexus 4? are you having a laugh? in the real world 4 hours is a great SOT with a Nexus 4
the splitter might not be supplying enough power though.
as i said, check what amp the actually USB port is supplying.
my thoughts are that it is too low.
It's not the best phone for battery life but there's plenty of people getting 5-6 hours even with other use, where the main drain isn't coming from the screen.
It is, as been stated, charging over USB or car port/charger doesn't draw enough power than if it's connected to the mains.
It isn't a fault but rather it's designed to be like this.
I'm not sure if you can buy an adaptor that's been modified to fix this?
On the Desire thread i was following someone was experimenting with connecting two of the pins together to make it think it was plugged into the mains.
I'm not sure whether a mainstream solution has been found but it does seem a ridiculous state of affairs when you can use your phone as a sat nav but the cable won't allow you to draw enough power to keep it charged.
yeah you just need to buy a good quality USB car adaptor that supplies the required power.
i have a belkin one and it works as expected.
my previous one was an older belkin one with lesser power output and that wasn't good enough.
So either software is causing an issue (background process or GLS bug), or the battery is starting to die. How old's the phone? Have you noticed it needs recharging more often recently / doesn't hold its charge so well?
The phone isn't actually that old, I only got it last summer so only about 6-7 months. There's no way the battery itself should have a problem, and I don't really notice a huge problem day to day (though it can be erratic and some days it just doesn't last - these usually coincide with odd apps showing up as a big drain).
The USB charger displays Charging (AC) when I'm plugged in, so it's not to do with that - unless it's still somehow not providing enough.
But my issue is restricted only to using Navigation and having screen on. I do three things in the car:
1. Streaming iplayer via Bluetooth, plugged in, screen off. The battery does not drain and can actually charge.
2. Using Navigation, screen on. The battery just pours away.
3. Trying both together, which gives me very little hope of making it through the journey.
In both use cases, I'm connected to the car hub via bluetooth, Llama is running to switch profiles, Location Services is active (can never be bothered to disable) and I have a car mode launcher (CarHome Ultra, with SMS+Car to read out notifications/messages).
Thing is, I'm *sure* I used to do number 3 without too much hassle... but I can't quite remember...
They normally go to some lengths to avoid using GPS too often but some Apps (satnavs for example) are going to need it switched on all the time.
GPS is entirely passive, and uses barely uses more power than an FM radio.
As a example which took me no time at all to find
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/509176/cloud-powered-gps-chip-slashes-smartphone-power-consumption/
"The biggest power hog inside a smartphone is the GPS chip. This component can take 30 seconds just to acquire the satellite data necessary to get the information it needs for an initial location fix; it then has to churn through the downloaded codes to calculate its location precisely."
Nor does it actually "track" 20 of these at once either, again if you had a clue you'd know it just feeds all the received data into a single FIFO buffer without tracking anything.
Oh dear!!! I know more than I should about the detailed internal workings of GPS and your "single FIFO" is just plain total rubbish!
Believe whatever hogwash you wish! Smartphone operating systems don't try every possible trick NOT to use their GPS chip for a reason!