Battery drain

[Con Hennekens]

@Gerrit-van-Kuilenburg, It is still not on par with most other navigation apps, but it has been mitigated quite a lot. Although the drain is still large in some (almost random) cases, the amount of users having to put the app aside because of it is much much smaller.

[Mopetenpit]

Here is my experience on the subject: the USB socket (BMW 1250 GSA, 2.4 A) can actually charge my iPhone XS Max while the navigation system is running. However, if I set the iPhone display to full brightness (=100%), the charging power is not sufficient - the iPhone then only lasts a few hours... Perhaps this information will help some MRA users.

[Anonymouse]

Just waking this thread up to see if there is any improvement in the works. MRA is pulling so much power that the phone goes into thermal protection mode and (a) dims the screen so we can't see anything; and/or (b) disables charging and the battery level plummets.

[Martin Wilcke]

I used consumer smartphones for navigation over several years, including both iPhones and Android devices. And yes, there were some rugged phones.
It never worked well; the most critical issue was overheating with all the effects you mentioned.
Besides all the information available regarding this topic, it was this one blog entry that opened my eyes:
https://www.thorkracing.com/android-nav-devices-reality/
(have a look at "The Battery Discharge Problem").
I'm not a technician and therefore can't judge the importance of the points mentioned there. However, after switching to one of these devices (I had an 8" first but stepped down to the 6"), all problems are gone. No overheating, no draining, no nothing. It's a "buy once, cry once" decision, but it's worth it.

[Corjan Meijerink]

Update 4.4.0 now in beta has the most significant improvements in battery usage up until now!
We see ~20% less energy consumption om all devices.

We expect it to be released to the public next week

[stuart marritt]

Lets hope this update doesn't break mine

Never had any battery issues using a samsung S20 in all sorts of conditions with the screen on full brightness. Always stays fully charged and never overheats!

[Marinus van Deudekom]

@Martin-Wilcke hi Martin
Since I am using the T865X there are no problems on my sidecar as well. When I go out riding with 50% battery, I come back after a day of riding with a fully charged tablet

[Martin Wilcke]

@Marinus-van-Deudekom

That's exactly my experience.

The supposedly high price puts off many users - but for the 6" device, you pay approx. €600 (EU price), including holder and power supply, providing a solution particularly designed for use on a motorbike. Compared to a corresponding setup, such as a consumer or rugged smartphone (or Garmin/TomTom, by the way), it's competitive.

You also get a lifetime licence for DMD2, which, in my opinion, is the best solution for "real" track navigation at the moment.

I am very pleased with the combination of T665, MRA and DMD2.

[Marinus van Deudekom]

I couldn’t agree more. Very happy with the T865X witch is €865. Things of great quality are not cheap. With the DMD2 you get the best Off both worlds

[Twan Verbeek]

With the latest version the power drain should have been reduced significantly. It got al lot worser on my iPhone the battery drain without using the app is horrendous.

[Anonymouse]

Version 4.4.0 has significantly improved battery drain in use … but I see that MRA is still drawing power even when the app is killed. Overnight it seems to be the only app on my phone doing so except for “Find My”, and MRA is using 15x as much as that.

Is this intended behaviour?

If I turn off “background app refresh” for MRA what effect on functionality would that have?

[Anonymouse]

Further to my post above, MRA seems to be draining battery when killed on my phone but not my partner’s phone. Is it because I have killed the app after day 1 of a road trip while it was navigating, so I can resume on day 2?

I can’t see why it needs to drain power when the app has been killed, whether or not there was a journey in progress when it exited.

[Anonymouse]

[CD130]

Same problem since last update. Shutting down the app completely when you are not using it is a temporary solution.

[Marinus van Deudekom]

@Anonymouse in case of an Android l Phone you need to manually shut down the app after using it. Otherwise it keeps draining power

[Anonymouse]

No it’s an iPhone, and I am seeing the drain despite having killed the app after using

[Anonymouse]

Further data on this issue: I turned off “background app refresh” in settings; rebooted the phone; launched MRA and killed it by swiping up. I confirmed that it is not running. I left the phone locked and idle.
It is still looking for my location constantly according to the IOS battery measurements. This may only be consuming a few % of battery but it is the only app on my phone which does this.