Battery drain and other issues with MRA Next

[Filip Lecomte]

Over the past 3 weeks I have been using the MRA Next navigation app V4.1.2 305 (could also be a lower version as auto-update is enabled and I understand that V4.1.2 is the latest version but I have tried it with the latest version as well on 05/05/2024 with the same result) intensively in combination with Apple CarPlay in several cars. My iPhone 11 Pro with iOS 17.4.1 was being charged by a Magsafe charger connected to the car's USB interface but displaying CarPlay wirelessly.

However, with CarPlay and the phone's screen on, the battery drain is substantially higher than the power it gets through the MagSafe charger. Especially, when you make a few stops to take some pictures you end up with an empty phone battery by noon after hardly a few hours of driving. Moreover, the phone also gets very hot during its operation.

To save battery power I have tried to turn off the phone's screen and only use the car's built-in CarPlay navigation screen but on some occasions, the navigation then freezes on the CarPlay screen and thus becomes unusable. Consequently, this is not a real option either.

To compare I have done sections with Google Maps and Waze as navigation systems and this did not drain the battery neither was the phone hot. I can therefore only conclude that the MRA Next app is causing the drainage and excessive heat.

Additional issues encountered when using the MRA Next App:

• Offline mode does not really work to activate a planned route when no data roaming is available: For a trip to the USA I had downloaded the USA maps as well as the planned routes on the phone. However, my data roaming budget exceeded the allowed limit for the USA. I could still select the offline route but pressing the navigation button to start navigation led to a constant "recalculating route" message and did not allow me to start navigation.

• In case of a missed waypoint, MRA Navigation App immediately skips to the last waypoint of the route instead of directing to the following waypoint in the list. I am using the route and not the track version of the planned route but sometimes there are unforeseen roadworks on the road which force you to take another turn and then it all goes wrong. The only solution at that moment is to stop navigation, close the MRA Next App, restart the app and select the same route and skip individual waypoints until you have reached the waypoint that was next on your route. Maybe this behavior has to do with a combination of settings in the MRA Next App but I do not know how to avoid this.

A new feature request for the iOS version in combination with CarPlay: I like the possibility to switch between time and distance of the next waypoint or the destination on the phone's screen (just by tapping on it). I would appreciate a similar capability on the CarPlay Navigation screen as well as this is the main screen that is been looked at during driving.

As already mentioned in other posts, the MRA Web Application is fantastic and provides a lot of options. While I very much appreciate the efforts made by the developer team and see good progress over the last months, the Mobile iOS MRA Next App is currently insufficiently mature and still requires a lot of bug fixing before it can be considered as a reliable alternative compared to TomTom or Garmin. I really hope the team will continue its efforts to make it a best-in-class navigation system for custom designed routes.

[Rob Verhoeff]

@Filip-Lecomte Maybe I can address some pain points for you. When it comes to MagSafe chargers, there's quite a lot of chaff among the wheat, so to speak. Perhaps another charger (or preferably a wire to charge your phone) would be a better option for charging your phone? Yes, at the moment, that remains an issue with any charger. The map provider Here is responsible for a large part of that frustration. Behind the scenes, efforts are underway as we speak to tackle these problems.

Regarding accessing a route offline, it works very well with the app as long as you have that route available as a download on your phone. Also, the maps of the areas you're driving through should be available offline in advance!

Currently, as beta testers, we're testing a version that handles automatic skipping of waypoints less aggressively. This version should be available to everyone soon, if all goes well. This version is also much more stable (less crashes, or if I have to speak for myself: no more crashes at all!!).

As for your future request: not all options available on the phone can be directly transferred to CarPlay simply because Apple doesn't allow everything. I have seen your suggestion as a wish, but I'm not sure if it can be implemented as a possibility.

[Con Hennekens]

@Filip-Lecomte, concerning the "not being able to start a route offline": did you think of enabling offline mode in the app settings? Just downloading the route and offline maps is not going to do the trick, unless you enable offline navigation too.

Another thing is that you need to "make available for offline use" instead of downloading a GPX file. If you do that, you can start your route in offline mode from within the downloads map that is reached from within the app, from your profile menu.

[GT JWR]

@Filip-Lecomte said in Battery drain and other issues with MRA Next:

The only solution at that moment is to stop navigation, close the MRA Next App, restart the app and select the same route and skip individual waypoints

When you restart the app and are at the point where you want to start at a specific waypoint, long press that waypoint, a message will pop up 'Skip Waypoint', select 'yes' and your route will begin from that point....eliminates the need to individually select and skip previous waypoints.