Phone gets hot on wireless charging pad?

[andrusoid]

Took delivery of my FE this week. I LOVE it!

I am a bit curious if anyone else is experiencing issues with their wireless charging pad?

my admittedly wonky (lately) iPhone 12 Pro Max gets very warm to downright hot when I leave it on the center console wireless charger. Doesn’t seem to charge much either. I am using Apple CarPlay while driving, but can’t imagine this is functioning as intended with the heat & very little charging detected. It shows that it is charging on the phone & on the SYNC touchscreen but never seems to add much to my phone’s state of charge.

not sure if this a device issue or a Bronco issue. I don’t normally wirelessly charge at home or work so I don’t have a point of reference to compare it to.

I'm using Apple's MagSafe round charger in my base. Works fine, charges the phone. Bronco complains that it is not compatible, but it works fine. My Subaru would say similar things about lightbning charging cables, but no harm done.

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[AaronW]

I believe the issue is due to lack of coils. From what I can tell it is a 3 coil system. So not even bringing enough energy to compensate for the draw from wireless CarPlay. I wonder if replacing the 3coil with 5 or even 7 would be a better solution.

 

[j_anderson]

I believe the issue is due to lack of coils. From what I can tell it is a 3 coil system. So not even bringing enough energy to compensate for the draw from wireless CarPlay. I wonder if replacing the 3coil with 5 or even 7 would be a better solution.

I decided not to go with the lux package just to gain the few things I actually wanted like wireless charger heated wheel and garage door opener. The cost was too high use and I thought I’d just find a way to retrofit the options.

So, I’m thinking of ways to mount the apple magsafe charger to the underside of the charge mat. Maybe 3D print a piece that would allow the MagSafe puck to clip in securely then lay the OEM rubber mat on top. I tested and my phone will charge through the rubber mat but the magnetic hold isnt the strongest.

It would be great if someone would design an upgrade for the OEM charge module to build-in magsafe. The magnets would keep the phone optimally aligned. Maybe include higher power for increased charge rate. I’d buy an upgraded unit and wire it to power if it was avaliable.

 

[icd70]

I drove 450 miles yesterday and this is how my wireless charger preformed.
Phone: samsung s21 ultra in otterbox thin case.
Synced phone ran waze place phone still in case on charger. Drove for about 1 hour and fifteen minutes and received a message that the wireless connection was lost. Picked up phone hot as hell.
Took phone out of case blew on it and a minute later connection was reestablished. Waited 30 minutes and place phone on charger without case.
30 minutes later lost connection and phone was hot. Battery lost power, did not gain power, although it was a lot lower decrease than if it was not on the charger.
I will try the charger tomorrow without running a app to see I I get a different response. That trip will be 750 miles.

 

[Bubbabow]

I have been working on this issue and here is what I found out. If car play is turned on, your phone will get so hot in charger after a while it cuts off cutting off the Nav that you might be using. If you do not put the phone in the charger and have car play on it still sucks the power out of the phone. If you use the ford nav and have car play turned on it sucks the power out of the phone. The only way to charge and not take off power or for that matter just have your phone in the car and not have the nav take off power is to cut car play connection off and just use the Ford Nav which does not take power off the phone and the charger will charge the phone. Additionally as some one said not only if you have car play on does the phone get hot but it will still deplete the power in the phone if it is in the charger, car play takes more power off than the car play takes out of the phone. Found all this out by messing with it on a 6 hour trip experimenting with combinations until I figured it out. I just finally gave up on car play unless I am around town and in car for short periods and then at that I just gave up and just use the Ford system.

 

[Bubbabow]

One additional note. The only other way to eliminate this car play issue is to just plug the phone in to power if using car play and forget the charging spot then no issues.

 

[wilbersk]

I believe the issue is due to lack of coils. From what I can tell it is a 3 coil system. So not even bringing enough energy to compensate for the draw from wireless CarPlay. I wonder if replacing the 3coil with 5 or even 7 would be a better solution.

Any idea if this is even possible?

 

[Daktari]

sure would be nice if Ford would actually replace what ever they built in with something that actually works - or refund that part of cost of the LUX package. Yeah, I know, dreaming, but it's a sunny Saturday afternoon, so why not, LOL

 

[Rex21c]

wireless charging uses an electromagnetic field and microwaves to transfer power from the charger coils to the phone's coils to charge wirelessly. your phone will already get little warm from charging with a cable, that's just what happens when transferring energy. Now, instead use microwaves to transfer electricity, that makes it warmer. Your battery will also get warm when it discharges as well. depending on brand and the load being put on the phone, but it will. NOW add in the discharge of trying to use AA or Car Play! The processor crunching data, bluetooth sending signals, GPS etc. Now you have electricity going in and out making heat both ways, plus microwaves bombarding the coils in the phone. It will get HOT. Having more sending coils in the bronco would help, but wireless charging is still pretty inefficient so I'm willing to guess that it would still get hot, just not as much. I plan on not using the wireless charging at all, I don't even use it at home if I can help it. The extra heat shortens the battery life. Batteries no likey heat

One of the reasons many new phones have non replaceable batteries and wireless charging. So they can release a new model every year with very little feature changes and still sell units.

 

[GreenMtnBronco]

I believe the issue is due to lack of coils. From what I can tell it is a 3 coil system. So not even bringing enough energy to compensate for the draw from wireless CarPlay. I wonder if replacing the 3coil with 5 or even 7 would be a better solution.

I have a bunch of hockey puck wireless charging pads by Samsung from when I had one of their phones. It works on my Iphone XS which got excessively hot and shut down with the Bronco pad.
took one of the samsungs and short USB cable, phone charges, works with BT/carplay and doesn't get hot. Such a waste that I can't use the one that's built in. Major fail in my eyes on Fs part.

 

[WuNgUn]

I'm glad I didn't spring $3k for a 5W wireless charger that probably can't keep up with the battery drain from wireless Android Auto....
Sorry y'all are having issues

 

[Merc4x4]

I'm glad I didn't spring $3k for a 5W wireless charger that probably can't keep up with the battery drain from wireless Android Auto....
Sorry y'all are having issues

$3k for a wireless charger!?!?!
Man, dealers are scumbags!!
Or, is that Canadian dollars?

 

[sstainba]

I just picked mine up today and noticed the same thing with my OnePlus 8 Pro. I use wireless charging for it at home and it works fine though... I thought about trying to replace it with a better charging pad... or just disconnect it completely somehow.

 

[_finack]

I just picked mine up today and noticed the same thing with my OnePlus 8 Pro. I use wireless charging for it at home and it works fine though... I thought about trying to replace it with a better charging pad... or just disconnect it completely somehow.

I don't think the issue is the charging pad, it's wireless charging + wireless Android Auto or Apple CarPlay at the same time.

Android Auto and Apple CarPlay basically do a remote screen share on the infotainment screen. So if you are doing that wirelessly that means you are using the Bluetooth radio, cellular radio, probably the GPS radio, the phone CPU & GPU, and wirelessly charging all at the same time. It's just going to get hot. No way around it.

It's a bummer, but it is what it is. Maybe one of these days a car manufacturer will create some sort of cooled area for this.

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