Phone sat nav advice...

[qska]

Hey.

I'm using my Galaxy S5 for a number of years now as a sat nav, always plugged in in the car, on a 3.5h commute (round trip).

The phone is old and knackered, on its fifth battery, I think the car charging just kills the batteries.

Now the conundrum - get a new phone, or keep the beater... The trend of irreplaceable batteries is ridiculous, I have very limited options, just a few Lag handsets offer a user swappable battery...

Anyone else with this problem?

My S5 lost almost all chrome, and is heavily dented. I paid £120 for a new screen about 3 months ago, the old one cracked when dropped for the tenth time

[qska]

DoubleD said:

You could always buy a sat nav from Halfords or similar.....

Waze doesn't work on it, plus still a faff to remove or a theft risk....

[qska]

sebhaque said:

Why not buy an el cheapo Android handset and just use that as a dedicated nav? You won't need to worry about battery life and if you hotspot your own phone you won't need a sim. Just a thought.

That's what I'm leaning towards.

But laziness prevails, would need to disable wifi, enable hot spot every time....

Maybe just get a Pay as you go mobile SIM with lots of data... and keep that in the car as nav.

[qska]

Snappy89 said:

I use a Note 4 at the moment, with both Waze & Tom Tom Go which look fine on the 5.7 inch screen.

You can also get Android based head units for various cars now, which would allow you to also have the same apps on them, albeit you'd need a separate sim card unless you don't mind removing the one from your handset.

My dash looks fine (E350)

Although yes, having a thing glued to the windscreen is not that great either.

The car itself has Audio 20 with no navigation btw.

[qska]

ashleyman said:

If you're on Android read up on NFC tags and tasks.

Ooooohhh.... the geek in me loves that idea. Will check that out, thanks.


Overall I was I guess looking to compare experiences around charging in the car killing the battery, that surely has to be a very common problem, particularly with these stupid phones where you can't just replace it. I blame Apple

[qska]

mygoldfishbowl said:

Fair enough but I drive a lot & disabled the traffic info because I found it less than useless on my garmen ( I think there is more than one service available though). If I'm not using it for directions I must admit to leaving it on just for mobile camera locations.

What I originally getting at was, you do get people who buy the, must have item, even though they don't really need one. Not suggesting the op is that way inclined but I think a lot of people are.

Yes, it works very well on Waze - basically I have a choice of 4 routes home, and choose one depending on the traffic conditions that day.

On days, where all suffer problems, Waze directs me using back roads in London to get to the M40, again, using one of typically 2-3 routes.

While I'm sure the time gains aren't that great (few minutes I guess, usually), I got used to relying on it, as when M4 goes bad, it can go REALLY bad

For the time being I replaced the battery (yet again), and found some headsets suitable:

LG G5, Samsung J7, although they're not faultless (J7 being a bit of a downgrade from S5).

I also disagree with not keeping the phone connected when fully charged, I don't think that's an issue (as an electronics graduate and software developer ;-).

Notably, 2 USB out, 2A Garmin cigarette adapter can't quite keep up with the discharge rate of the phone itself, so it never actually gets to 100% anymore. If I disconnected the dash cam it would.

I think the root of the problem is charging + discharging at the same time, plus the amount of charge cycles - I effectively triple the amount of them (night, way to work, way home). In addition the charge cycles are interrupted (arriving at the destination).

Oh well..