Quadlock wireless induction charger.

Nick Carthew

I have just fitted a wireless (induction) charger to my Quadlock iPhone 11 mount.
I have read that others are having problems with their phones using more power than their wireless chargers can deliver when using the navigation app.
So today I wanted to test this myself. Previously I had plugged my iPhone 11 into the USB socket without any issues, ok in the dry but not good if it rains. A recent tour to Wales in the rain where my iPhone refused to charge anymore because it had detected water in the charge socket persuaded me to upgrade to the wireless charger.
I planned a route of about 100 miles, I downloaded it for offline navigation and turned the tracking on, but in our eagerness to go for a ride, I forgot to check the battery percentage when we left. An hour later we stopped at the side of the road to make a coffee and I remembered to check the battery, it was at 63%. I then received a phone call from a friend that I hadn’t seen for a while so we decided to change our route to visit them. I had paused the tracking and I closed our original route. 5 minutes later, I had made a copy of our original route and adjusted it to visit our friend. With the new route downloaded and open for offline navigation I clicked to start from route point 9 (our next route point) and turned the tracking back on. After my phone activity, phone call, planning a new route etc the battery was now at 51%.
An hour later we arrived at our friends house and the battery was at 82%.
So my findings today were:
It’s very easy to change your route when you have a 4G signal.
Continuing the tracklog after pausing and a change of route was a seamless success.
Starting a route from a chosen route point was perfect.
But most importantly for me is; my phone continued to charge while navigating and tracking.
I also experienced no lag of the position indicator that others have reported, maybe this is because I was also tracking my route.

Offline navigation
Tracking
Change route
Start from
Charging

richtea999

Ah - so there is a real world use case for wireless chargers. Well done for finding it Nick!

I've avoided them for years, never understanding why on earth anyone would want to charge at a slower rate just because they can't be bothered to plug their phone in. Now I know.

The Quadlock charger delivers up to 10W, i.e. 5V at 2 Amps, which is what you get from a basic/plain cable charger - so that's pretty good power delivery. (the iPhone only takes 7.5W, about 1.5 Amps but that's still plenty.)

And I'm suprised that it was sunny Wales that pushed your iPhone over the edge, eh. Ho ho.

Nick Carthew

@richtea999 Ha ha yeah, nobody ever visited Wales for the weather

Corjan Meijerink

Bloody hell the weather was shite

Nick Carthew

@Corjan-Meijerink said in Quadlock wireless induction charger.:

Bloody hell the weather was shite

And it was your Quadlock charging head that sold the idea to me. Great bit of kit

Marinus van Deudekom

@Nick-Carthew I use à quadlock wireless charger as well but in my case the charger can”t keep up. If I use MRA on thé phone combined with thé track log. It drains thé battery of thé phone. If I leave with a full battery and drive thé whole dag I end up with about 30% leeft in the battery.
So thé battery use of thé app still Needs some improvement. I know it”s work in progress and hope for a fix

Lynchy67

@Marinus-van-Deudekom

I’m using a Samsung S21+
I never log in to the actual Samsung Account as all that Bixby shite will constantly be running background routines.

Using a Dual 2.1A Din plug (I only ever use one USB Port) and the full Quad Lock set up, my phone is always showing a positive battery increase.
I also never use voice prompts.

Marinus van Deudekom

@Lynchy67 I normally can get trough the day with one charged phone. While driving and using MRA the battery get drained, That's a known issue. The quadlock can't keep up with the power consumption of the MRA app. I hope the problem will get solved in the near future. For now I accept that the battery get drained. It's a phone that I use to the max so I accept the downside of that use.
I was just curious if others have the same issues with the power consumption and the problem of keeping the battery charged with the quadlock

richtea999

@Marinus-van-Deudekom said in Quadlock wireless induction charger.:

The quadlock can't keep up with the power consumption of the MRA app.

Temporarily (and for the benefit of other users who want to know!) you could try running the app in dark mode.

With AMOLED/OLED* screens like your Samsung S20FE and more recent iPhones (X onwards) you can save energy** since the black pixels use no power.

The other thing to try is to decrease the screen refresh rate from the 120Hz(?) default to 60Hz or 90Hz which also decrases energy consumption. It will be a choice somewhere in the phone settings, but I think it's a system-wide choice not not per-app, unfortunately. My gut feel is that the savings are much less than dark mode, but there might be another few percent or so to gain.

*(this doesn't help on cheaper LCD-based screens where the black pixels are blocking the light rather than turning power off)

**https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2021/Q3/dark-mode-may-not-save-your-phones-battery-life-as-much-as-you-think,-but-there-are-a-few-silver-linings.html
"The Purdue study found that switching from light mode to dark mode at 100% brightness saves an average of 39%-47% battery power."

On a bike in daylight you can expect the phone to being running quite bright since you're not indoors, but whether you get enough saving, who knows. Please tell us!

Marinus van Deudekom

@richtea999 I'll give it a try thnkx

D A Wakefield

@Lynchy67 I am thinking of using a Quadlock along with the Nav app as a backup to the erratic BMW Connected app. My concern is the heat generated by the phone and how clear the display is as I also have a Samsung S21 Ultra. How are they with yours?

Lynchy67

@D-A-Wakefield

Mine is the S21+ not the Ultra but they are similar in size I think.
I have the screen brightness set to 50% in Android which is still bright enough for me.
I have the phone offset on the far left and high so it is always in free air flow on the bike.
I have not experienced overheating.
As mentioned in the previous post I never use voice prompts and I never log in to the Samsung Account.

richtea999

@D-A-Wakefield said in Quadlock wireless induction charger.:

@Lynchy67 I am thinking of using a Quadlock along with the Nav app as a backup to the erratic BMW Connected app. My concern is the heat generated by the phone and how clear the display is as I also have a Samsung S21 Ultra. How are they with yours?

I can't say specifically for an S21 Ultra but my cheap-but-still-AMOLED Galaxy A54 certainly got hot enough to darken the screen on one ride. I switched to dark mode, and haven't had the problem since.

I've actually found I prefer dark mode (with a nice red position arrow for contrast), but that's just luck!

Lynchy67

@richtea999

I never even looked at Dark Mode but I’ll give that a try too.

Marinus van Deudekom

@richtea999 I tried it but the results are disappointing. Battery still draining and on top of that the visibility in broad daylight is poor
So I'm waiting for a solution from the developers.

M. Schrijver

Wireless charging is all i do. I especially select my phone on it. On a motorcycle wireless charging has multiple advantages.

No visible cables to the phone. Pure esthetical but still.
No more change of breaking your charging port.
No more change of short circuit while charging in the rain.
Easy mount and unmount the phone from the bike. Just as easy as a Zumo or Rider.
No more fiddeling with cables. Your wireless charger has a permanent place on your bike. Because of this you can hide the powercable (USB cable) of the charger.

About the heat of the phone.
Try to mount the phone in such a place it catches enough airflow while riding. Bikes like a GS have a perfect spot above the main dash. It catches enough airflow even at 35 degrees (celcius) but still pretty good protected from other bad things like rain and bugs. Other bikes have similiar spots as well.

Neil Bartlett

I have an iPhone 14 pro Max and with the Beta version, I never had a problem with overheating or lack of charge with the Quadlock wireless charge, even on long, all day rides. Not yet tried the current version on a long ride but don't expect that to have changed.

My reason for the comment is to say, make sure to add the QL vibration damper to the system to save camera issues.