Do you prefer use Apple carplay / Android Auto or the built in bluetooth?

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

I may have to stop using AA. On my phone, the Pixel 4, if I am using AA + Google maps, the wireless charging can't keep up and I lose battery power.

I'm still experimenting. I think if I use AA w/o any navigation running, it won't have this issue.

If I take off the phone case maybe it will charge faster too, I don't know. Lots of experimenting required.

GPS is a major power drain.

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[Accord07]

I may have to stop using AA. On my phone, the Pixel 4, if I am using AA + Google maps, the wireless charging can't keep up and I lose battery power.

I'm still experimenting. I think if I use AA w/o any navigation running, it won't have this issue.

If I take off the phone case maybe it will charge faster too, I don't know. Lots of experimenting required.

Sadly this is in line with my experience from the test drive.

My daily driver is a Honda Odyssey minivan released four years ago, its Qi charger can slowly charge up my Galaxy Note 10+ while Android Auto is running navigation and Spotify - the vehicle did not come with wireless Android Auto functionality and I bought the van knowing that Honda would never add it; however, last fall I pitched in to support a crowd funded project and earlier this week received the finished product: a 2" x 2" x 0.5" "puck" that stays in the van's USB port at all times, it acts as the intermediary between the head unit (making it think an Android phone is plugged in) and the phone (making it think it is talking to a head unit with wireless Android Auto support). It is seamless, and the USB port is inside the console so no one else knows it is even there.

It is a minor complaint and did not prevent me from placing an order, although it is very disappointing that Mach-E's Qi charger is delivering less power than the one Honda selected for its vehicles four years earlier. Someone dropped the ball during the development process.

 

[zhackwyatt]

Someone dropped the ball during the development process.

Maybe. Without being able to measure specific charge rate in both options that's quite a statement.

I want to experiment w/o the phone case. That, plus the rubber mat increases distance/interferance between phone and charge coil.

 

[zhackwyatt]

GPS is a major power drain.

Yep. One problem is that maps always starts when AA starts, so its a pain to turn it off every time.

 

[MachE2021]

I prefer the built-in Nav but CarPlay for music. Unfortunately when using CarPlay it won’t tell me if I get new text messages, so I need to switch over to the CarPlay interface to check. It’s annoying. I wish there’s a way to get notified of incoming texts while using the built-in Nav and connected to CarPlay.

 

[Accord07]

Maybe. Without being able to measure specific charge rate in both options that's quite a statement.

I want to experiment w/o the phone case. That, plus the rubber mat increases distance/interferance between phone and charge coil.

Sigh...net charging current is not a secret in Android, the data is provided to any app that wants to read it. I have reported numbers in another thread, tested while the two vehicles were parked side-by-side, because during the Mach-E test drive my phone's net charging current was negative (battery was discharging) so I wanted to make sure the phone was not sliding on the charging pad. The phone pulled some 200mA more from my van than from the Mach-E I test drove, it doesn't seem like a lot but when my phone logs only ~100mA net charge when running wireless Android Auto with Google Maps and Spotify (and the screen turned off) in my van, that 200mA makes all the difference in the world.

When Honda released the Odyssey four years ago, its USB data port was seen as a standard downstream port so any device compliant to standards would never request more than 500mA from it, even though the port is nominally rated for 2.5A. I was able to prove it by using an extension cable that has the data pins shorted to fool the phone into thinking it was a dedicated charging port and the phone pulled 2A instead of some 400mA. The end result is exactly what everyone is experiencing with wireless Android Auto in the Mach-E now, although the underlying cause is somewhat different. One would think that for a vehicle with Android Auto and CarPlay compatibility as an important feature would have this ironed out during the development process, but it slipped through. The fact that it was rated for 2.5A and my phone was able to pull 2A when data pins were shorted made me think it was a software/firmware issue rather than a hardware limitation. Complained to Honda about it. It was fixed in an OTA update over a year later, although it was not listed among bug fixes in the release notes.

 

[zhackwyatt]

Sigh...net charging current is not a secret in Android, the data is provided to any app that wants to read it. I have reported numbers in another thread,

Yep, not a secret. Didn't know you already had hard numbers, good to know!

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