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Apple CarPlay and Android Auto Make Your Phone Hot. Here’s How to Keep It Cool
Android Auto and CarPlay have transformed the way people drive.
Rather than putting up with whatever infotainment systems car manufacturers have put together, we're now able to interact with our phones from our car dashboards—with our contacts, our music, our podcasts, and our mapping apps all available. And the list of supported vehicles just keeps growing.
Both the Google and Apple solutions for this are really simple to use too. Most of the time they'll connect up automatically once you've done the initial setup. What you might not realize, though, are the demands that Android Auto and CarPlay put on your phone. Your handset is essentially doing all the regular phone stuff and then powering a large tablet-like display at the same time. That typically includes constantly updating a map in real time.
With that in mind, your Android phone or iPhone can quickly start to lose battery life and heat up when it's connected to your vehicle, which you've perhaps already noticed. To keep your handset cool and your battery in good shape, here's what you need to do.
Wireless Android Auto and CarPlay are convenient, just like wireless charging is convenient, but it puts more stress on your phone. If you've got the option of a wired connection, that's preferable—but that introduces a new potential heat problem, which is that your phone will always be charging up.
To counter that, you can set charge limits (Battery and charging from Android Settings, Battery > Charging from iOS Settings), or simply make sure your phone is kept in a cool, dark spot of the car.
This wired option has the added bonus of letting you switch to airplane mode on your phone, which will go a long way to limiting heat. Again there's a trade-off though: No one will be able to reach you, and you'll need to have your maps, music, podcasts, and whatever else you need downloaded to your device in advance.
If you do stick with wireless Android Auto or CarPlay, try to avoid charging your phone at the same time, especially on the wireless pad built into the car’s dash (which generates more heat). You don't want to end up with a dead phone half way through the journey, so you may have to compromise at certain times.
As mentioned above, where your phone is in the car makes a real difference to how hot it's going to be. If you have your phone's interface up on your car dashboard, then you don't necessarily need to have it fixed to the dashboard, too, possibly under direct sunlight. The glove compartment will do just fine.
If you have a mount for your phone, think about attaching it in front of one of your car's air vents. Blasts of air conditioned air will significantly reduce how hot your handset gets, working like a DIY cooling system.