Charge Car Dock - Discovering Some Great Features!

[Richs10]

I've had the Charge and its OEM car dock for about a week or so and I've had some problems with it overheating the phone battery while charging and using Google Nav, but it only seems to happen if the sun is beating down on the dash.  I'm working on some solutions (like adapting the dock to an A/C vent mount) so we will see.  

But I've also figured out a neat feature of the Charge if your car has an Auxiliary input.  Mine does, so I bought a 3 foot, 3mm, male to male audio cable which I use to connect the dock to the car.  With the car radio switched to the Aux setting, the Google Navigation audio comes through the car speaker system rather than the phone which is awesome since I can never hear the instructions using the speaker in the Charge (or when I would use my old Garmin).  

But since my car radio is set to "Aux", I couldn't use the radio (or my iPod).  So I downloaded "Slacker" and the free app "TuneIn" to my Charge.  TuneIn allows you to pre-set and listen to your local stations (plus tons of other stations).  So now, I can listen to my local stations, or Slacker, or my iPod music I've loaded on the phone, while using Google Navigation.  The Charge also automatically mutes the music when the Navigation app provides driving directions.  To navigate or toggle between the Apps,  you can press and hold the home button (or use the phone's pull down screen if you already have the apps running).

Now I feel like I did pay that extra $2,000 for the factory Nav System in the car.  Pretty neat!  In spite of the some of the problems I've had, this phone is amazing!

Rich

[WCMack]

Dear Richs10,

It's good to see someone else on this forum who uses the car dock. Thanks for posting your discoveries...I will try them out!

[Ginsberg]

I do almost the same thing with my droid, but i drive a 2001 subaru so don't have the aux option good, solution for $5.00 you can buy those cassette adapters at walmart and throw in the cassete attach the cable to you head jack and your golden

[Richs10]

UPDATE AND A NEW APP/WIDGET FOR THE CAR DOCK:

About the battery overheating problem:

I'm beginning to think this only happens if it is a very hot day and the sun is beating down on the dash. Fortunately, I haven't had the problem repeat itself after the first two times, which were on hot summer days.   I tried an A/C mount, but because of the kind of vents I have in my car, this is not going to work for me.

I also found "Car Widget Pro" which is a very good App for the car dock. (I tried the free version, but most of the options were disabled). It has settings to automatically detect the dock, the car's BlueTooth, or the Aux Plug and will override the stock Samsung program (which you cannot customize and which defaults to VZNavigator). You do have to dedicate one of your seven home screens to the Widget App, but you can customize six different Apps on the screen.  So, outside the car I use the screen to access my maps and my music apps like Google Nav, Slacker, Music Player and TuneIn Radio. 

The Widget makes it so much easier to navigate between Apps when using the phone as a GPS in the car.   IMO, this App/Widget greatly improves the functionality of the device and the car dock. (This App might also be helping with the overheating problem, but I really don't know enough about the technical side to say for sure).

Rich

[Vin_Pantz]

I too have the dock, and I just experienced the "overheating" message this past weekend.  It only occured when the sun was fairly direct overhead.  The battery gets a little warm during charging (which is normal), so the combination of that heat plus the sun seems to be the issue.  I am not sure if there is even a way to fix unless they loosen their tolerances a bit on the battery warnings. 

In addition to the AUX option, a good Bluetooth FM transmitter can do the same thing, without wires .  It is definitely more pricey, but if you find a Speakerphoone+FM transmitter combo (Motorola sells one,) it is well worth it.