Seidio Innotraveler car dock

[Wongway]

Going to post a new thread on this, but I figured it out! (Please test on your docks to be sure)

Seidio's Car Dock has a manufacturing defect.

Currently, there's a bug that basically prevents the software keyboard from being useable at all unless you slide the Motorola Droid's Hardware keyboard out while in the Seidio Car Dock. For giggles, a Verizon wireless rep let me test out the official Motorola Dock to see if the software keyboard works while the phone was in it's dock. Lo and behold, the software keyboard works just fine.

The issue is the location of the magnet. Many of you could test it with a magnet from a phone pouch/case. You can activate Car mode with the appropriate magnet, however if it is not directly in the exact place it needs to be on the phone, the software keyboard doesn't work. (I tested this myself on the store's pda pouches)

If you slide the Droid out of the dock just enough so that you aren't charging it, you'll find that you'll still have Car Dock mode activated, AND the software keyboard works again.

What this means, is that to get full use of the droid in landscape mode while in Seidio's Car Dock, you'd have to void the warranty, and drill out about 3 millimeters so the magnet slides down that 3 millimeters to appropriately add full functionality of the Car Dock Mode.

 

[mzmtg]

Speaking of quirks (or defects), the 12v charger supplied with the Innotraveler doesn't work in my BMW.

The problem is that the very tip of the plug is too blunt. It doesn't fit all the way into the plug on my console. This is not a problem with my other vehicle, a Nissan.

Luckily, the car charging cable for my old Garmin Nuvi plugs into both the Innotraveler and my BMW without issue.

 

[Bret65]

Intalled Seidio car dock 3 days ago. Temp this last weekend was 80-95 here in Florida. I ran nav. mode everywhere just to see how it would act, No problems at all, V. keyboard works just fine and it never quit charging, although it did get quite hot. This was all with the windshield mount; my Pro fit dash kit arives Tuesday so things should be even better.

 

[Droid_2010]

A friend received her dock on last Friday from Amazon and I received mine from Amazon yesterday. Haven't had used it much except we did go on about a 20 minute drive last night (in the dark) doing navigation with pandora running and even received a few calls and the battery did charge at least 10% during that time. I could give a more exact figure but wasn't watching real close. And the on-screen keyboard does come up while in our docks. We were using it to do location searches and music searches.

I will say this tho... I had originally installed mine with the sunction cup on the windshield, but this morning after feeling how VERY HOT my phone got (without the charger even plugged in, or any apps going) from the sun shining on it thru the windshield after only about 10-15 minutes of driving... I have since taken mine down until I can come up with a better mounting position out of the windshields sunlight. One users photo a few pages back showed his stuck to the dash without the mounting arm even attached. I think I might also go this route.(Because of my dash arrangement) Also, both of our kits dock and undock very easily. So easy I thought I was doing something wrong, but it showed it was charging and navigation kicks in. It's worth noting we both use Seidio cases on our phones. I have to admit tho, when the kit arrived I was a little concerned/bummed that I wasn't going to be able to use my oem motorola charger with the kit. I really like that charger.

Without my friend being with me while installing mine, I wouldn't have realized (at least immediately) that the dock comes with an adapter in it for a "naked" droid, that has to come out before using with a Seidio case. Again...only used for a day or so, but will post back with how it goes. Knowing my luck, something will go wrong.:icon_eek:

 

[Droid_2010]

Below are a few images after I got the dock installed without the arm. Just so happens that it is partially in front of one of my AC vents so I can cool it down if need be. I've got the Keyboard up in the pics because there were some posts about a possible defect with the Seidio units that kept the on-screen keyboard from coming up while being pushed all the way down on the dock. As you can see mine works fine.




For what it's worth, I did a little experimenting with my Seidio car dock. I've seen posts saying the seidio cable won't even sustain the phone, let alone charge it. And also the posts about the on-screen keyboard not working while phone is fully inserted. Let me be clear, I do not doubt any of these claims or what they say at all. Seidio may have some cable issues or even hardware issues (earlier builds than mine?) and people need to contact them if they aren't even able to sustain their phone with the seidio cable. I'm just posting my results so maybe they will be of help to someone.

Also... I've seen posts where people say they have a very hard time getting the Seidio charger cable light to come on and that they have to really wiggle and move the adapter around to get it to come on. Well my truck has a regular cigarette lighter and it has dedicated device receptecle. I can barely get the cable to work in the cigarette lighter jack, like others I have to really mess with it to get it to come on. However, in my dedicated jack, the cable works great. I am not able to NOT get it to work in that receptacle. So for those with only a cigarette lighter receptacle, maybe go to radio shack or somewhere and get an adapter that will give you a better connection. There is obviously something very different about the two receptacles in my vehicle.

Anyway, below is the little experiment I did with my dock:

EXPERIMENT 1
21 MINUTES IN DOCK: Phone inserted with battery status of 50%.
WIFI=OFF, BLUETOOTH=ON, GPS=OFF. SYNC=OFF, with DISPLAY MANUALLY TURNED OFF THE ENTIRE TIME. No Phone calls.
--During the 21 minutes the phone's battery status went from 50% to 70%.

EXPERIMENT 2
21 MINUTES IN DOCK: Phone inserted with battery status of 70%.
WIFI=OFF, BLUETOOTH=ON, GPS=ON, SYNC=OFF, with DISPLAY ON HIGHEST SETTING AND ON THE ENTIRE TIME.
Was doing turn by turn navigation entire time, did numerous voice searches, and received a phone call.
--During the 21 minutes the phone's battery status went from 70% to 80% in these circumstances.

So my tests show that the dock does charge the phone and is able to charge even under load.(if you call what I was doing a "load") However I'm not to impressed with the charge speed.
My OEM Motorola cable is MUCH faster than this dock with the circumstances like they were in EXPERIMENT 1.

I just ordered a MOTOROLA SPN5400 OEM micro-usb charging cable and I am curious to find out how it performs hooked up to the dock.
EDIT: Just a note, just realized that they sell this cable here on the forum store.

I will let you know how it goes.

 

[pilot25]

Droid 2010,

How did you attach the sedio to your dash?

 

[Droid_2010]

Droid 2010,

How did you attach the sedio to your dash?

I used THIS. A slim double sided tape by 3M that is very strong. Just put 2 pieces(total) One on each of the 2 raised areas on back of mount about 1.5 inches long each. The mount is very sturdy and isn't going anywhere. I've used this tape before to mount things and have really liked it. If, or when you need to remove whatever you used it on, you need a hair dryer or a heat gun to just slightly warm the tape, and it removes cleanly. Rolls off is a better way of putting it.

You should be able to find it at any of your local auto parts stores. This tape is used by a lot of shops to attach vehicle molding.

 

[rancidcrab]

Any chance you could shoot some pics from the back/side showing how it is mounted. I'm getting mine this week and am looking for ideas.

Droid 2010,

How did you attach the sedio to your dash?

I used THIS. A slim double sided tape by 3M that is very strong. Just put 2 pieces(total) One on each of the 2 raised areas on back of mount about 1.5 inches long each. The mount is very sturdy and isn't going anywhere. I've used this tape before to mount things and have really liked it. If, or when you need to remove whatever you used it on, you need a hair dryer or a heat gun to just slightly warm the tape, and it removes cleanly. Rolls off is a better way of putting it.

You should be able to find it at any of your local auto parts stores. This tape is used by a lot of shops to attach vehicle molding.

 

[pilot25]

Thanks. I'm going to give it a go.

 

[Droid_2010]

Any chance you could shoot some pics from the back/side showing how it is mounted. I'm getting mine this week and am looking for ideas.

I actually grabbed the camera and took off outside to take the pics you requested and after getting into the truck I realized that I can't take the pics you are wanting. There is ZERO space between the dock and the dash. When you receive your dock and see the dock without the mount arm on it, you will see what I'm talking about.

Sorry I couldn't get the pics. Any other questions, let me know.

Thanks. I'm going to give it a go.

Cool. Good luck! Just take your time when installing. EDIT: Just thought I'd add that I spent most of my time holding the dock in different areas of the dash trying to figure out just where I wanted it. After I picked my spot I had to make sure my gear shifter wouldn't block it once it pulled it down into "D". Stuff like that.


On another note, used the dock quite a bit today and I do really like it.:icon_ banana:

 

[nightwo|f]

Regarding the slow charging, I'm willing to bet the cardock only supplies 500ma of 5v power. That is the standard USB spec, which works for most all devices. The problem is that newer smartphones such as the droid suck down more than that when doing things like navigation and such. It is for that reason when I bought several car chargers from monoprice, I opted for the 1000ma chargers. You'll notice that most wall outlet/travel/quick chargers output 1000ma and will charge a phone to full pretty quick.

I don't have an Innotraveler yet (my gf wants to get one for our droids, but I'm hesitant after reading this thread) so I'm not sure if swapping out the charger for a 1000ma mini-usb charger would fix the problem or not. If there is something within the dock unit itself that acts as a power hub or splitter, that will likely prevent a swap from working around the issue, but if it a simple pass through it may work.

 

[solar]

Regarding the slow charging, I'm willing to bet the cardock only supplies 500ma of 5v power. That is the standard USB spec, which works for most all devices. The problem is that newer smartphones such as the droid suck down more than that when doing things like navigation and such. It is for that reason when I bought several car chargers from monoprice, I opted for the 1000ma chargers. You'll notice that most wall outlet/travel/quick chargers output 1000ma and will charge a phone to full pretty quick.

I don't have an Innotraveler yet (my gf wants to get one for our droids, but I'm hesitant after reading this thread) so I'm not sure if swapping out the charger for a 1000ma mini-usb charger would fix the problem or not. If there is something within the dock unit itself that acts as a power hub or splitter, that will likely prevent a swap from working around the issue, but if it a simple pass through it may work.

Beware that there is a good probability that you will have issues with it. It could be the charger itself, or it could be the internal components. I never tried another charger with the unit, I just got fed up with it not charging and did a dirty mod so as to be able to use the original moto charger with the unit. (bypassing their components alltogether). The thing wouldn't even give a decent charge when there was nothing else running on the phone except standad background services. I posted a few pics of my dirty mod in this theread ( http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...idio-innotraveler-car-dock-12.html#post438302) You may be able to get a peek at the component, although I had severed the wires before I took the pic.

Like I said, beware that you will likely have to fiddle with it to make it work on your own, so keep that in mind when. If she has an innocase or extended batt like I do, its the only thing you can do. It just sucks to pay for something that doesn'tworj to essentially just buy a plastic shell. Seidio is good about sending out replacments so at least they have the customer service going for them, but the engineering needs work....

 

[kenbarnum]

Been using mine for a month now. My touch screen keyboard works perfect, the charging seems perfect and it does get sort of hot but I run a profile on SetCPU that lowers my droid back to 550 mhz when in the dock...

Seems to work perfectly...knock on wood!

 

[Droid_2010]

Regarding the slow charging, I'm willing to bet the cardock only supplies 500ma of 5v power. That is the standard USB spec, which works for most all devices. The problem is that newer smartphones such as the droid suck down more than that when doing things like navigation and such. It is for that reason when I bought several car chargers from monoprice, I opted for the 1000ma chargers. You'll notice that most wall outlet/travel/quick chargers output 1000ma and will charge a phone to full pretty quick.

Could you post a link to the charger you bought at monoprice?



BTW, I made a mistake in a previous post. I actually ordered the Motorola P510 charging cable and I'm waiting for it to arrive.

Also, I just got the Motorola T505 bluetooth visor device with built-in FM transmitter and I must say that it and the Seidio dock work great together. Plus no more plugging in the tape adapter cable every time I dock. The T505 actually came with a motorola mini-usb cable, and after examining the cable I found the specs to be:
Sallda4,75-5,25Vcc
0-650mA
-------------------
Entrada:10,8-33Vcc
0-450mA

Not sure what the specs on the Seidio are because unlike all the other cables I have, it doesn't give any mA specs. I'm not very unhappy with the Seidio cable because like I showed in one of my previous posts it charges the phone, even under load. I would just like to get a cable that charges more like my OEM Droid car charger, which is faster. I'm tempted to try the T505's cable on the dock while waiting on the other cable, but surely the Seidio cable is at least 650mA? Or am I being overly optimistic?

Also, a friend of mine has the seidio dock in her car and I checked the status of the battery when I got in and it was 60 percent. She had Pandora going and was talking on the phone almost the entire time and later on (Approx 45 minutes to an hour) the icon went green.(fullly charged) I didn't have stopwatch going for that time tho, so sorry I can't be more exact.

Well hopefully within the next week or so we'll find out if a different cable makes a big difference.

 

[nightwo|f]

Could you post a link to the charger you bought at monoprice?

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?p_id=3523

The image and the product ID match what I ordered, and even though it says 500ma/1A I'm sure this would indeed supply 1A and charge faster than most standard car chargers.