I will be traveling from California to New York starting this Saturday. I bought a universal dash mount so I can use my M8 for GPS. What I was wondering, how can I protect my phone from the sun or heat damage? Will having it in a case help it at all? Or will I be ok like it is?
Regards
As far as heat, I wouldn't worry about it too much. As long as the interior of your car is a decently comfortable temperature (running vents or AC, or windows open), your phone should not overheat. I'm just guessing that you don't like to make yourself excessively hot while driving? Anything remotely around room temp will probably be fine. And if you happen to have a phone mount that puts your phone near any AC vents, you will get some extra cooling that way.
I wouldn't recommend leaving the device in a hot car; and you probably wouldn't for security reasons anyway.
In terms of sunlight: in a broad sense, sunlight will breakdown most things over time. Although your car windows block out most UV (windshields more so than side and rear windows, from what I'm reading), which is probably the most harmful factor. Not sure what route you are taking and how long the trip will last. But I'm guessing a few weeks at most. And that degree of sunlight through car windows will probably not have a huge effect, I'm guessing. Plus, the exterior of the phone is mostly aluminum and glass, which aren't terribly UV reactive. The plastic antenna trips are probably the most vulnerable. A case (especially an opaque one) would certainly reduce any damage from sunlight. But may also make the phone a bit warmer (hold heat in).
Another thought, is that using the phone for navigation is very battery intensive. Not sure what app you intend to use. But at least when I use Google Maps (which uses both the GPS function and network data) most car chargers can barely keep up with battery drain. Meaning I hardly get any charging when using navigation. I'd suggest getting a QuickCharge 2.0 car charger (if you don't have one already) as it will charge your phone even when running navigation. Well worth the $15-20 for a QC2.0 charger, to be able to charge your phone quickly since you'll be spending a lot of time in your car; let alone using navigation intensively.
redpoint73 said:
As far as heat, I wouldn't worry about it too much. As long as the interior of your car is a decently comfortable temperature (running vents or AC, or windows open), your phone should not overheat. I'm just guessing that you don't like to make yourself excessively hot while driving? Anything remotely around room temp will probably be fine. And if you happen to have a phone mount that puts your phone near any AC vents, you will get some extra cooling that way.
I wouldn't recommend leaving the device in a hot car; and you probably wouldn't for security reasons anyway.
In terms of sunlight: in a broad sense, sunlight will breakdown most things over time. Although your car windows block out most UV (windshields more so than side and rear windows, from what I'm reading), which is probably the most harmful factor. Not sure what route you are taking and how long the trip will last. But I'm guessing a few weeks at most. And that degree of sunlight through car windows will probably not have a huge effect, I'm guessing. Plus, the exterior of the phone is mostly aluminum and glass, which aren't terribly UV reactive. The plastic antenna trips are probably the most vulnerable. A case (especially an opaque one) would certainly reduce any damage from sunlight. But may also make the phone a bit warmer (hold heat in).
Another thought, is that using the phone for navigation is very battery intensive. Not sure what app you intend to use. But at least when I use Google Maps (which uses both the GPS function and network data) most car chargers can barely keep up with battery drain. Meaning I hardly get any charging when using navigation. I'd suggest getting a QuickCharge 2.0 car charger (if you don't have one already) as it will charge your phone even when running navigation. Well worth the $15-20 for a QC2.0 charger, to be able to charge your phone quickly since you'll be spending a lot of time in your car; let alone using navigation intensively.
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Thanks for all the info, will help for sure. I'll take a pic to show where my phone will be mounted. It gets hit with direct sunlight, and the A/C vents are below the phone that was my concern. I didn't think about the quick charger, I'll pick one of those up for sure. Here is the pic I was talking about. http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j17/DemonExecutor1/20150527_072736_zpsvlbkm8wz.jpg
Hondo209 said:
I'll take a pic to show where my phone will be mounted. It gets hit with direct sunlight, and the A/C vents are below the phone that was my concern.
Here is the pic I was talking about.
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Sunlight, but through the windshield, which filters both UVA and UVB (probably even says this on the glass). Yes, you will also get a bit of light through the side windows; which are usually just UVA protected (not UVB), and the phone may even get some direct sunlight from the side windows rolled down. But I'd say this isn't any worse than most folks setup. True, its a little more direct light than my setup, since you have it on top of the dashboard, where mine is in front of it. But mine is still in sunlight much of the time.
Also, it seems you can point one of the vents up toward the phone, and get some extra cooling that way. It won't be directly blasting the phone, but should still send some cool air in the direction of the phone. Not really a "requirement" but not a bad idea, either.
redpoint73 said:
Sunlight, but through the windshield, which filters both UVA and UVB (probably even says this on the glass). Yes, you will also get a bit of light through the side windows; which are usually just UVA protected (not UVB), and the phone may even get some direct sunlight from the side windows rolled down. But I'd say this isn't any worse than most folks setup. True, its a little more direct light than my setup, since you have it on top of the dashboard, where mine is in front of it. But mine is still in sunlight much of the time.
Also, it seems you can point one of the vents up toward the phone, and get some extra cooling that way. It won't be directly blasting the phone, but should still send some cool air in the direction of the phone. Not really a "requirement" but not a bad idea, either.
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Thanks for the reply I'll try to point the vent towards the phone.
Related
Hi all,
I put my desire onto charge and as I picked it up and touched the outer casing I could feel this electric charge vibration on my skin, you can clearly feel it as you run your finger along the side of the metal part of the case.
What I want to know is.. Is this normal for this kind of phone or I have a dodgy one where something is touching something it's not supposed to be?
I had a laptop once that did the same, It had a metal lid.. A portege 3110 years ago and I assumed it was faulty.
I have the same thing, more so on the left side. Thought maybe everyone had it, be weird if they dont
It's perfectly normal. I would have thought that having a laptop that does the same would have confirmed that.
Fatriff said:
Hi all,
I put my desire onto charge and as I picked it up and touched the outer casing I could feel this electric charge vibration on my skin, you can clearly feel it as you run your finger along the side of the metal part of the case.
What I want to know is.. Is this normal for this kind of phone or I have a dodgy one where something is touching something it's not supposed to be?
I had a laptop once that did the same, It had a metal lid.. A portege 3110 years ago and I assumed it was faulty.
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Yeh I have the same, it's perfectly fine
Even my iPod Classic does the same, had it for 3 years and it's still going strong.
But yeh I wouldn't worry about it, tbh I get turned on from the electric charge from my BEAST
I am super sensitive to things like this, It actualy makes it difficult for me to use the device while plugged into the charger. I stuck my multi meter on it to check and I get a high reading from the outer part of the case that surrounds the screen, even with the phone off charge and just sitting on the table I can get a decent reading.. Is there a design fault with this phone that's causing it to leak charge into the case?
I've checked my old N95, O2 Zest & Moto Droid for the same issue, I thought the droid would be the same since it has metal casing too but it's not.
Are you 100% sure this is normal? And what are the side effects of being continualy pumped with current while using your phone plugged in?
no, you should not be getting charge in the case....it does sound to me like you have a problem.
Mine has no such feeling when charging.
I can't imagine there's any dodgy side effects, it's only 5v at 1A. that's less than sticking a 9v battery on your tongue, but it's still not right i don;t think.
If you do send it back to HTC, get someone to take a picture of you and the multi-meter clearly showing the charge on the case. it's just an extra bit of evidence in your favour.
I don't have any such problems.
riz157 said:
I don't have any such problems.
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For those of you that can not feel this, try the following.
When the device is being charged, very lightly run your finger along the "metel" edge part of the screen.
Its the same effect that i have when in bed with an electric blanket on and i lightly touch the brick wall!
On another note, there is no "tingle" when charging from from a pc.
Same problem here.
When i charge it on my Acer laptop with Windows or Linux, everything is ok. Today i connected it to my EEEPC with Linux on it, and after the battery was approx. 90% charged again, it started to "wobble" when you touched it. Maybe it was there before, dunno ...
I can feel it on the screen and on the bezel. If i hold the phone with 2 hands, i can't feel it. And yes, i'm very sensitive to electrical currents
I don't think it's "fine" ...
I have the same problem, just assumed it was a faulty charger as my sisters charger, and my car charger don't replicate it.
GF
I don't know if I am being paranoid, but I feel the slightest tingle/itch in my hand when holding the GNEX (gsm), this is not when the phone is charging just during normal use. Took it back to shop the guys there thought I was crazy
Anyone notice anything similar?
It might be the 3 pogo pins on the side of the phone. Try putting sticky tape over them and see if it changes anything. Some people are just more susceptible to getting shocked than others.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
Certainly can't rule out entirely the possibility that you're feeling something, but the chance is extremely remote.
The battery is a standard LiIon single cell @ 3.7V. When operating, it's probably around 3.5-3.6. That is well below the sensitivity threshold for virtually everyone on skin.
Further, if you were this sensitive, you would have encountered other low voltages that tingled your fingers/hand over and over, so you likely would know what this was already. Heck, if 3.5 volts gives you a tingle, handling a 9V battery would be rather uncomfortable!
It's likely psychosomatic, or maybe some peripheral nerve reaction to the pressure from holding the edge of the phone -- not uncommon when pressure is applied to a narrow ridgeline in the palm or fingers.
Thanks guys. I think I probably am a bit extra sensitive to dc current. I'm just worried that I might have a defective unit. I've been to few shops and the demo units are housed into anti-theft devices so u can't actually hold the phone.
ok, I found that when input the phone in airplane mode I don't feel the tingle. it's got to be a faulty unit. I am going on Holliday in a few hours for a week, will take back to the shop when I return and get them to exchange it.
Its been getting cold and I have the vent mount for my GNex. Just wondering if the constant heat coming from the vent will damage the phone??
any ideas? i've heard/read that a/c will not cause any problems because it actually cools the phone down but the heat is opposite??
Heat is bad.
Yeah heat is bad, and can damage your electronics depending on how hot they get. In addition, battery life suffers in heat as well.
Please allow me to revive this thread. I have a similar problem.
A friend drives a Mercedes A, where the central dashboard vents emit hot air when the heating is on. She also has a Galaxy Nexus.
Unfortunately, the relatively small car has no other good place to attach the phone holder, so I am trying to think through all the consequences when putting the phone holder to the central air vent.
I rule out a suction cup holder, because it has too many severe problems, in my experience, like being in front of a bright background, blocking part of the view, not sticking well in freezing temperatures, being too far away from the eyes, etc.
So what are my options? I have to re-check the car to find out whether it is feasible to close the central vent or close only the lower part of it that would blow towards the phone. But that would reduce the heating performance and is therefore less than optimal.
Another question is, which temperatures are we actually talking about? The phone certainly withstands quite a bit of heat and even heats itself up when constantly working, like when navigating. If the air from the vent is not as warm as the phone, it would even be cooling the phone. Since the car is not a sauna, the air from the vent may only have to be something around 30°C (86°F) and, I hope, less than 40°C (104°F). These are not phone-killing temperatures, as they are normal in hot places. I am sure that the Galaxy Nexus would not cease to operate at 40°C, because otherwise it could not be used in tropical countries. I regularly use mine in Africa in thin air and at high temperatures and have never had any failure so far.
But I would be very interested in any actual experience with a smartphone in front of a heating air vent in a car. Please report here, if that is what you have.
First, some context since I find that product reviews, especially mobile products generally miss the mark on framing the thoughts they're about to lay out for you.
I spend an unhealthy amount of time on my phone, not gaming, or YouTube so much but the actual phone. My job requires that I take calls that can last well over an hour, a few times a day. Additionally I travel for work, so this means I regularly start my day at 5:00 and end after 1:00. These days are especially brutal on power consumption. Emails, phone calls, podcasts, web -- I'll be down to 50% before my first flight takes off at 8AM.
A normal day in the office, I bump charge my Pixel 3 generally twice, when I travel, I'm always nervous that I won't have an outlet and/or a window of time to top up.
Naturally I travel with a few chargers and at least one battery pack (generally two). This has gotten me by, but it is undoubtedly a compromise.
The notion of a battery case that I can throw in my bag and slip on as a safety net when I'm heading out of the office, or my hotel for dinner/drinks is immensely appealing.
Enter the Zero Lemon Pixel 3 Battery Charging Case
The first thing you'll notice when you look at this case is the odd reflective matrix pattern on the back. Put bluntly, I hate it. I've spoken to their team and understand they may address it/offer an option -- and I hope they do. A flat, matte black would be such an improvement. I don't want to draw attention to my phone case. It is a utility, not a statement. Sure, this is personal preference but its a strong preference.
Moving on, the case is a single piece, made of flexible TPU material and it feels nice in the hand. Despite the obvious bulk it adds, it remains pocketable. It is thinner, lighter, and much less rigid than other battery cases I've used, all of which were two-piece.
The male USB-C port inside slips into the phone easily, and the flexible material pulls over the top of the phone without much force. Worth noting that the power and volume buttons remain clicky and easy to use.
All of that out of the way, lets talk about performance.
In short, it does exactly what I need it to do. A press of the button on the back lights up the charge indicator LEDs and starts to push power to the phone. The Pixel reports a rapid charge, though I find that to be inaccurate. With the phone down to 1% charging to 97% (which was the best I have gotten from the case) takes roughly 2.5 hours, assuming normal use continues over that period of time.
In other words, when you charge your phone you may plug it in and leave it -- the idea here is that I don't have to be without the phone while I wait for it to charge. I'm sure it would refill faster if I were to put the thing down... but that isn't the point.
The case allows power pass-through, so if you leave it on and connect a charger, it will charge both the case and phone. I will say that I woke up once with the case on, connected to a charger over night with the case battery full but my phone at 83% -- it remains unclear what happened there.
Sadly the case does not allow data transfer, but this is only a seldom and minor inconvenience.
Who should buy this? Anyone who finds themselves worried about finding the opportunity to charge your phone and would like a convenient way to refill without having to leave the phone tethered to the wall, or have a loose battery and cable hanging from, or awkwardly crammed into your pocket.
I suspect that women who carry a bag with them may have an easier time with portable battery packs and the cable required to use them but when pockets are all you have to work with, Zerolemon's solution is for you.
I will note that they supplied me with a unit to test, but at forty bucks or less, the peace of mind this thing offers is more than worth it.
In conclusion, this case will be an essential part of my travel bag... until they make one with a more professional design that is. ;]
I'll be taking it to Barcelona in a couple months for Mobile World Congress, a week that is absolute HELL on phone batteries. I plan to follow up afterward with how it impacts my experience there.
Grab it on Amazon here.
Okay, hello XDA Forums peoples! Ive been lurking here for like a decade. I feel bad for bothering you nice people, but now I'm at my wits end with this phone.
Okay, so, long story short:
Z Fold 3, let it run the One U.I. 4 update, bricked the whole phone, wouldnt come back on. This happens a week away from being out of warranty. So i get samsung to agree to let Asurion/uBreakiFix repair it (I almost always fix my own electronics, I hate Asurion, I've had problems dealing with them before, but its free so whatever). Well they get it working, i asked what they did and they were basically like 'uhhh idk'. I assume it was just an 'unplug the battery and plug it back in' kind of thing.
Anyways fast forward to a couple months ago. Im walking along the creek, i always keep my phone in my backpack for safety. Zipper on my backpack comes open some, phone falls out and directly into the water for about 3-5 seconds. Goes black within 15 minutes. Alright, so it seems like maybe the boys who worked on this didnt seal it back properly. Whatever.
I let it dry for about 4 or 5 days. Comes back on, everything works except the front screen's digitizer(which is cool for me, because the inside screen still works fine) and its reporting too cold to charge, so now once the battery runs out i have a new foldable brick! Yay! I check the battery temperature thats reported in settings and its completely fine. I hit it with a hair dryer for like 5 minutes to try and trip the thermometer, and nothing happens.
I tried some cheap shots in the dark, i replace the USB charging board, i replace the wireless charging coil, both of which have thermistors on other older samsung phones, so i figured it was a decent guess. Still too cold to charge.
So I find a schematic, or not exactly a schematic, but like a boardview, i guess. So at least i know where the thermistors are to check them. Theres about 10 thermistors on the main and sub boards. 5 of which are covered by metal shielding which i am just terrified of trying to remove, mainly because i havent done it before. So i check the other half.
The thermistors used in these phones are like inverse, so they have less resistance for higher temps and more resistance for lower temps. If one of them is dead, it will have like "maximum resistance", right? Which would report the coldest possible temperature, right? So that all makes sense, to me at least.
The 5 i can get to with my meter to check, they seem to work completely fine. From what research ive done they seem to be like 100k resistors when measured at ~70 degrees f, and i can watch the resistance go up and down when its cooled or heated past that temperature. Okay, perfect. That all checks out.
Because the other ones are under some metal shielding, i assume theyre most likely fine because any water would have a harder time getting in there. So i skip to the most expensive option so far: i buy two replacement batteries. The schematics do not include the battery, so i dont know where the thermistors are on my current batteries to check them, if that was the problem.
Well, batteries came yesterday, i pop them in, still too cold to charge. I've already ran the phone dead checking it, so i cant do any further diagnostics with the phone on. And now the most i get is a Yield sign with a thermometer in it when i plug it in.
Okay, so... Idk?? This problem is starting to get over my head. What do y'all think? It seems like my options are becoming more limited and expensive.
I can try and put a big blob of solder on the top of the shielding and pull it off to check the remaining thermistors, which seems to be how people remove those things. I also have have hot air at my disposal, which is always risky with tiny things because too high airspeed might blow components away on the board and then i'll probably cry.
It could just be a connector somewhere on some flex cable? Maybe? I mean like maybe what if one of them is for reporting temperature, and water corrosion is stopping it from sending a signal through???
Im fine with doing whatever, but i just want a charged battery first so i can recover my data before i do anything that drastic. I mean, back in the day they had 4 big pads on a removable battery. You could buy a universal samsung battery charger or rig a USB cable to charge it, but I have literally no idea what to do here. Does anyone know of some specialized battery charger that will connect to these flex cables?? That would be a gigantic help right now. Or if i knew where to get a Z Fold 3 just to pop it open and charge my battery with? Or maybe just sit there for 2 hours holding two wires to the positive and negative pins?!??!?? I dont know. Someone throw ideas at me, please!
Might be worth buying a bench power supply and either injecting voltage through the phone or connecting it to the cells to trickle charge them back up? Im not an expert it these just throwing ideas