What voltage?

Pretty sure the cigarette lighter is typically 12V DV and the USB Adapters bring it down to 5V DC. Most standalone Sat Navs (mines a tomtom) are designed to be permanently powered – one hour is quite long (my TomTom is a few minutes without power). Don’t quite follow about the battery bank – is it any better at charging the Garmin?

I bought this last month:   https://tinyurl.com/y35lcwd3

It charges my Xperia L3 phone from the car 12v ciggy lighter socket* via the USB 3 flexy cable connector, but can also charge a USB 2 device, either simultaneously or separately, via the 2.4A socket in the body. It is very small compared to most such chargers I have seen, but it certainly does the job: I have used my Xperia as a satnav with Android Auto, while charging my USB 2 Lenovo tablet, as a test. Due to the 2.4 A output, that takes longer, but the Xperia is charged faster than from a domestic socket. It is left plugged in when used as a Satnav. I have relegated my Garmin Muovo 50 to the back shelf of my parts store: I got much less than an hour from mine Dwynne. I will use the Xperia on Android Auto as my Satnav from now on. I found this to mount it, but not at Amazon:

https://tinyurl.com/y5huvmqm

It is the best in car phone mount I have ever used, sits in the centre of the dash top out of my road line of sight. I leave it there permanently and it has never moved, does not vibrate. Myself and front passenger can see it clearly and it sits directly over a Cig lighter port below the dash centre. The small plastic lever protruding from the lower front, is the lock/unlock lever. I bought it at TK-Max, on the Clearance shelf: £3.99! I often go there when in Grimsby, there some good bargains to be had.

I look on my Garmin now as a device overtaken by technology advances. The batteries are krap! I could use the Garmin with the car mount: it pulls out enough. But why bother?

*We ought to have another name for that, now that very few smoke. I know one nicotine addict who will not smoke in his own car, to prevent the smell putting off the next buyer. I won’t let him in my car or house, smoking or not. He stinks of it!

Dave, I was responding to Tippon’s complaints that his devices were not reacting as he thought they should.

I have never used a Garmin so could not comment directly. The 1 hour operational life, with or without the car connection is rubbish and spoke to me of an error somewhere in the system. For Garmin to admit that their car connector is barely able, and in practice is unable to sustain the device let alone charge it on the go suggests a major failure somewhere.

The fact that the power bank has now shown signs of failure could be simply down to the fact that they do fail, or could indicate a risk that something, somewhere along the line was not functioning as it should. My understanding is that the source of power should ‘ask’ down stream device what they can accept, this should be fail-safe but if a cheap or otherwise unreliable or faulty device is involved all bets are off. Power leads have been found to be faulty or just too poorly made to function.

As a result of Bob’s comments, I can accept that the Garmin is possibly not worth the consideration its name once earned. Certainly, even using the announcer function on a mobile phone to ‘read out navigation instructions’ a travel life of rather more than one hour is achieved by my daughter using her phone tucked into its travel home. I do not think she uses a power adapter to achieve this range. This adds further confirmation to Bob’s view that the Garmin has failed to keep pace with modern needs.

However, I am still of the opinion that caution in making, (and breaking) connections between devices is justified.

Les, that was an interesting view. A while back I bought a replacement battery for a mobile. It was tagged as Duracel, but to be honest it did not have anything like the life I was expecting. So my view of their products became equally jaundiced. Something about their agents made me suspect that they are now just a badge stamper getting stuff from wherever they can and that quality is not longer a key feature, at least with some of the Duracel badged ‘other devices’ such as mobile power packs and the like.

Have you ever seen any of Big Clive’s YouTube videos? He dissects failed devices and jumper packs, battery packs come to explosive end of life in some of his sessions. Build quality is not always what you would hope to see.

How about something like the above ?

Dwynne, after rereading your second post: what would worry me about your Garmin is this:

“ … it still shows up a ‘battery low’ indicator and then re-sets. When it re-sets the route is lost so you have to enter it again.”

I haven’t used my Garmin for a few months since setting up the phone as Satnav, but I could switch mine off and it restarts the route from switch off point. If I have travelled any distance from switching off, it recalculates the route. I think there is a problem with your Garmin that is more than just short battery life. Sorry!

Bob, I wondered about that point; it does sound like a really poor bit of software if it forces some sort of reset every 60 minutes unless the faulty module or modules are not used. It appears only to be reliable when it is used in a stripped down form. I know we should all take regular breaks when driving, but a satellite navigation system that gives up and forces a break to re-build itself every 60 minutes does sound like something that needs a permanent bathroom break and no remission.

It sounds like some sort of fault or error condition arising in one of the modules that misbehaves when the device is run in full fat mode, (even with an external power source).

Is it even a reasonable item to market in its flawed state?

It is far more like an item unfit for sale because it is not of merchantable quality.

Bob Williams wrote:

but the tablet Android is only 6.0 and is not upgradeable, so cannot take A Auto.

Not strictly true Bob. Not officially, maybe.

Have a look here

Not sure why Android Auto won’t run on the tablet as is though, it should install but it’s possibly the lack of a data connection that’s the problem. Try hot-spotting it to your phones data connection then installing it.

If it just won’t install you might like to tr y this to grab the .apk from your phone then email, use a flash drive, whatever to get the .apk on the tablet and install from there, you will have to delve in the settings to enable installation from unknown sources, just switch it off again when your done.

Worth a go.