High power consumption

VFRnav Support
1

Hello, I’m new to the forum and would like to ask a question.

I use a Samsung S10e for navigation.

Unfortunately the phone discharges during use despite being connected to the USB charging port (3A) and gets very warm. The battery indicator drops, e.g., in one hour from 95% to 65%.

Is there a way to reduce power consumption?

Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are already turned off; the screen brightness is, of course, quite high.

2

Hello Jürgen,

welcome here.
→ This is a general question now, which isn’t related to VFRnav, right?

  1. You should provide more details about your USB port or adapter.
  2. In my experience it’s 90% due to the charging adapter/port. I assume the phone is still okay.
  3. For car adapters I only recommend

this one

also to avoid possible radio interference.

Pilot greetings,
Karsten

PS: always my recommendation from the Stratux project!

3

Hi Karsten,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I already replaced the USB 12V/5V adapter, upgrading the output from (5V 2A) to (5V 3A).

The Samsung S10e smartphone, as well as an iPhone, also get very warm. With other apps, e.g., XCSoar and Google Navigation in the car, this is not nearly as pronounced. These apps also use the phones’ internal GPS.

It seems to me that VFRnav’s data processing (polling rate of GPS requests, map updates, track logging, etc.) is somewhat more intensive here, which leads to the high power consumption.

Maybe some features of VFRnav can be disabled to save power?

Best regards

Jürgen

4

Hi Jürgen,

Welcome to the forum :waving_hand:

VFRnav is developed with a strong focus on resource usage and device performance. In general, the app runs smoothly and reliably even on older devices, such as your Samsung S10e.

To narrow down the issue in your case, could you provide a bit of information about your setup? Some points that could immediately affect performance:

  1. Which — or how many — map sets have you downloaded?
  2. How many approach plates are displayed on the map?
  3. Are you using the ‘Color high terrain’ option?
  4. What is selected in the VFRnav settings under ‘External data source’ (even if you’re not currently using that function)?
  5. Is the ‘Simplify map rendering’ option enabled?
  6. Is an interface configured under ‘Device connections → Radio’?
  7. Is an interface configured under ‘Device connections → Autopilot’?

Clear skies
Hermann

5

Hello Hermann,

Thank you for the reply.

re 1.: all Germany maps and Austria - map storage: internal storage

re 2.: “There are no georeferenced maps available yet”

re 3.: “Hill shading” off

re 4.: NMEA-0183, Flarm, GDL90 — Status NOT CONNECTED, Source Serial, Device -No device-, Baud rate 9600
6

I think Hermann means the terrain coloring that changes with flight altitude. You can find that option in the map quick settings when you click the button below the compass icon in the map view. There’s also the option to simplify the map display there :grinning_face:

7

Sorry, my reply to Hermann went out too early. Here are further answers:

re 5.: I haven’t found the “Simplify map display” option yet

re 6.: Device connection Radio — no interface, Connected – no

re 7.: Device connection Autopilot — no interface, Connected – no

Best regards from Berlin

Jürgen

8

Thanks to FredNord77,

I’ve now changed the terrain coloring and simplified the map settings.

I’ll test everything over the weekend, weather permitting.

Best regards, Jürgen

9

@FredNord77 exactly, thanks :+1:

@JuergenLa

Hello Jürgen,

No problem!

Was the option “Shade high terrain” active? This does indeed require quite a lot of performance in flight.

Otherwise:

This selection is not optimal in the current implementation. Please choose “Network” as the source under “External data source” in the settings. This is the default value and harmless if you don’t use this option.

I’ll try to get an identical / similar device for testing and will report back when I have news. If you notice anything else, feel free to report it here :grinning_face:

Blue skies
Hermann

10

Hello Hermann,

the “Color high terrain” option was active. I also switched to “Network”.

Many thanks to everyone who helped — I’ll try everything out and report back here. No need to go to any further trouble until then.

Best regards, Jürgen

11

The thanks really belong to you in this case :grinning_face:

We simply can’t test our developments on every device available on the market. It’s precisely these kinds of tips, observations and feedback that help us continuously improve VFRnav and keep it stable and performant across as wide a range of devices as possible.

So any feedback of this kind is extremely valuable to us. :+1:

Blue skies
Hermann

1 Like
12

…have we already cleared the question here whether it’s only with this S10? Do you use other devices with VFRnav?

In my test scenarios I test everything down to an A10 2018 with Android 10

Maps of all Europe, both self-georeferenced and AIPs. …quite a few! …very many! All available options — everything that’s possible.

→ I haven’t noticed that yet. Of course the old A10 is slow when searching… for comparison to the S26.
Also on my two tablets, iDoCub and Samsung S10 lite, I haven’t noticed it.
All devices charge fully again on the aforementioned Titzi adapter.
→ Please believe me, I’ve done a whole lot of experiments with these 12V/USB car adapters regarding Stratux!!!

My conclusion: maybe also focus on the hardware.

Pilot greetings,
Karsten

13

Hi Karsten,

my brother is flying with the same VFRnav adapter on an iPhone running iOS 26.5.

there’s strong heating there as well. The charging current is lower than the power consumption.

I’ll split a USB cable and measure the charging current. First with the existing adapter.

Best regards, Jürgen