Battery drain

[Con Hennekens]

@Andrew, I cannot speak from experience, but I think that chance is very small. For most people the heat due to the drain alone would be enough to keep the battery temperature in the charging window.

Is that really a thing for phones? I heard likewise for electric vehicle below minus 20 degrees Celsius, but never for a phone...

[Drabslab]

@Con-Hennekens said in Battery drain:

I heard likewise for electric vehicle below minus 20 degrees Celsius, but never for a phone

A battery does not know where it is installed, but does in all cases react to temperature. For phones this is usually not a problem because we usually carry it in our pocket and we act as heating system.

It also depends on the chemical composition of the battery, some are more impacted by cold or heat than other types.

[Con Hennekens]

@Drabslab, True of course, but also dependant on the implemented systems. For an EV in northern Norway it can be meaningful to limit chargeing below certain temperatures. Also they can have electrical warming available for rising the temperature of the battery before charging. For a phone battery it seems not very likely to have implemented lower temperature limits.

Anyway, if my car refuses to charge underway, I would very much like to be able to call someone...

[Drabslab]

@Con-Hennekens said in Battery drain:

Also they can have electrical warming available for rising the temperature of the battery before charging.

This would not be a complete novelty.

In very cold area's they used to have electrical heating installed in the oil can of cars to keep the oil warm when being parked;

and there are systems working on diesel to heat up the water of engines (and the interior of the cars for the same purpose.

However, the battery technology is still evolving at huge speed. A company is now claiming they have an optimised chemistry allowing very fast charging and not having any influence of temperature.

Internal combustion engines have evolved over 100+? years and have only achieved a 25% efficiency.

Battery electrical vehicles, after a few decades of development are already beating those ICE cars in many aspects (efficiency 95%, unreal acceleration, low maintenance ...) and work is being done to overcome the weaknesses.

[Drabslab]

@Con-Hennekens said in Battery drain:

For a phone battery it seems not very likely to have implemented lower temperature limits.

its a question of the battery internal chemistry mainly.

[Con Hennekens]

@Drabslab, haha, I completely agree with all of that, and as far as I know heating of batteries in EV is already a thing in some EVs. I am all for EV, and in due time also for motorbikes. But let's not wake the anti-everything-movement and pollute our nice forum with it.

[Mario Ivancic]

My experience is that using dark mode and slightly dimming the screen solves the battery drainage issue. It's an illusion to think that you can drive for hours with any navigation without needing some charger. That's just not realistic, and such technology hasn’t been invented yet. The problem, as I see it, is actually quite simple. HERE has decided to use a lot of white in their display, which particularly burdens phones with large, bright screens. Other apps are not so "white" and consume less energy to illuminate the screen. I would say that some designer is to blame here, rather than the developers themselves. The developers probably did as they were instructed. And now it turns out that some low-resolution, dimly lit, small-screened “shitphone” performs better than top-of-the-line phones. Maybe I'm wrong, because it surprises me that nobody else has noticed this "whiteness". If I'm on the right track, and the folks at HERE haven’t noticed this design flaw... well, it won’t cost them much, I’ll drink a beer on their tab.

[Con Hennekens]

@Mario-Ivancic, your colorful opinion does not explain why for example the equally white Google Maps app does not suffer from the drain... It has already been established that the rendering engine is the SDK is to blame. Whether a dark theme helps or not is dependant on the type of screen you have in your phone.

Also the issue is not about draining the battery in hours, but draining the battery in hours DESPITE being charged simultaneously.

[Mario Ivancic]

@Con-Hennekens

Well, at least to me, Google Maps seems darker. This is probably due to my professional bias since I work with printers and printer applications. Without actually testing the darkness level of both examples (yes i have tools for that), I would say, just by looking, that Google Maps is darker and would use more toner if printed in the same format. (Toner's like cash, so the darker sometnihg is, the more it itches me. )

In any case, using a darker background will undoubtedly result in energy savings. Just like dark mode solves the problem for me.

Clearly, optimizing the code itself can't hurt. But changing to darker colors is a relatively simple solution. And can make some savings on energy that screen uses, for sure.

[Con Hennekens]

@Mario-Ivancic said in Battery drain:

But changing to darker colors is a relatively simple solution. And can make some savings on energy that screen uses, for sure.

I am not denying that, it is just no solution for the battery drain due to a bug in the rendering engine. I'd say it is small beer compared to that

[GT JWR]

@M-Schrijver this definitely does not affect my phone...it is a pig on drain on the most meticulously planned route (no alterations, no recalcs, followed to a 'T') as it is with a simple A-B route planned last minute with mulitple detours. And now that the ambietn temp outside (Texas) is getting very spring/summer like, it is even worse - screen becomes so dim (yes, brightness, etc, all the way up), it is virtually illegible to see, making using the app a waste of time. Very frustrating.

[Drabslab]

@Con-Hennekens said in Battery drain:

small beer compared to that

even a small beer is still a a beer

Point remains that this should be solved urgently as it affects many users, and leads to negative publicity for the tool.

[Con Hennekens]

@Drabslab, Yes, I think we agree on that!

[Andrew]

Went out on my bike yesterday with AA Carplay for a 240 ml run when I came back the phone still had a 99% charge well pleased with that, hope this continues. And the app know has not dropped out for the last 3 times I have used it.

[Simon Ferrari]

Not sure if it's related but I can't follow a route for more than about 2 hours before my iphone overheats and won't display anything in the car. I'm using wired car play so the phone is charging at the same time so I don't have battery drain but I suspect the app is causing pushing the hardware (v4.1.2-302).

Obviously it makes the app pretty useful for any journey > 2 hours. I don't have this problem with inRoute, Apple or Google maps.

[M. Schrijver]

Here seems to be aware of this problem. The app HereWeGo has the same problem.
But the real question is..... When will Here fix this.