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OT - cell phones and rental cars
 

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April
Joined: 13 Dec 2003
Posts: 6593
Location: Westchester/NYC

2/22/19 10:10 AM

OT - cell phones and rental cars

Last time I rented a car, it has a USB receptacle. So instead of carrying a cigarette lighter plug, I could plug straight into the USB to charge my phone as I drive (nice to have for using the phone for navigation over long distance)

But then the car tried to "connect" with my phone in all sort of ways! Beyond just giving me power, it tried to connect the speaker, the microphone, even tried to display what's on my phone on the car's dash LCD!!!

Am I right to be a little worried about the security of my data on the phone?

Many hotel room also started to have USB outlets. Though I'm less concern about those as they have no "brain" behind the outlet (hopefully). But perhaps I should be a bit more cautious about those too?

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Steve B.
Joined: 19 Jan 2004
Posts: 769
Location: Long Island, NY

2/22/19 11:14 AM

Car infotainement systems, yes be concerned.

The head units don't know the car is really owned by Budget, thus assumes you are the owner and will do what it's programmed to do, which is make your life easy by dragging the info it needs off the phone to allow the head unit to operate as an extension of the phone - I.E. getting your contacts, so the BT system can route the calls thru the hands free system, etc...

My Subaru does this when a BT pairing occurs and it asks if I want to load over the phone contacts. I can choose no, but likely not all cars are set up that way. My car does not sync to the phone with a USB, all that does is allow music to be played, the USB won't even charge the phone.,

I wouldn't be as worried about USB ports in a hotel, those are typically just getting DC power off a transformer in the outlet and/or base of a table lamp, etc... I've never seen one with a data connection to anything, they just provide power.

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Sparky
Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 19068
Location: PDX

2/22/19 11:49 AM

I know droids above certain OS have setting to change the port state as to limit what the port will do. I do not recall what OS that is. If you are rocking and I-Phone I got no idea.

I suppose the easy fix is to use a cig lighter power adapter. The one in my car goes in the cig lighter and has to different amp output USB, my Port in the CRV has a Thumb drive with music on it so I do not use the port for the phone yada.

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April
Joined: 13 Dec 2003
Posts: 6593
Location: Westchester/NYC

2/22/19 1:10 PM


quote:
I suppose the easy fix is to use a cig lighter power adapter.

This is the "tech talk forum"!

It's like saying "the easy fix for you shifter indexing issue is to go to friction mode"! ;-)

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Steve B.
Joined: 19 Jan 2004
Posts: 769
Location: Long Island, NY

2/22/19 2:03 PM

"It's like saying "the easy fix for you shifter indexing issue is to go to friction mode"! ;-)"

The easy fix is to go Di2 or E-tap, LOL.

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Sparky
Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 19068
Location: PDX

2/22/19 3:39 PM

Lol, on both of the subsequent posts.

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henoch
Joined: 12 Jan 2004
Posts: 1690

2/22/19 9:33 PM

I think Sparky's idea is a good one, you can pick up one of those ligher to USB adapters at any gas station or such for like $5.

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Sparky
Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 19068
Location: PDX

2/22/19 9:50 PM

I brought up the AMPs of the adapter because, for example my wife's LG Stylo uses 2.4 AMP or it uses juice faster then too low AMP output charger can keep up with. Mine is 1.9 AMP I think.

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daddy-o
Joined: 12 Apr 2004
Posts: 3307
Location: Springfield

2/23/19 10:25 AM

This is a tutorial with macro photos that shows how to neuter a USB cable. It uses the large universal (A-connector) and ordinary tape.

Make a USB Cable 'power Only'

The URL of the web page sums up my notion of how casual phone hookups should be approached: "USB-Condom"

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daddy-o
Joined: 12 Apr 2004
Posts: 3307
Location: Springfield

2/23/19 10:37 AM

Only use 2.4 amp for emergencies, heat is the enemy of phone batteries and 2.4 A creates the most heat.

Here's just about the worst scenario: phone lying on a pillow, streaming video while connected to a fast charger / insulation, high load, high charging.

The latest I've heard is to charge slow and often. Let's say a phone can be charged 1000 cycles. The industry considers "100%" to be one cycle. But 10%+10%+10%+...ten times, is just one cycle.

There's also a "plug in before it's down to 20%, unplug before it's up to 80%" guideline.

And don't leave it charging all night, unplug before going to sleep and re-plug when you get up.

I've put a watch to it, my 1.0A Apple cube wall wart charges my iPhone 7+ at about 33% / hour, good for a rule of thumb, YMMV.

I charge my smart watch while I'm in the shower. It's been months since I've gotten a low battery, and it seems like I forget half the time.

My work here is done, come Tonto, I see smoke in the canyon!

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Sparky
Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 19068
Location: PDX

2/23/19 10:45 AM

"latest I've heard is to charge slow and often"

If you phone has removable battery, as My Galaxy does. I have an external charger that takes a long time in fact, hours. When my phone was in tether for like a year for out inet access [broadband now finally available out here in boonies] I have got 2 extra batteries and that wall charger.

If I used the charger into the phone while in tether mode it would get crazy hot and never actually charge faster than the power use/drain of the battery.

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daddy-o
Joined: 12 Apr 2004
Posts: 3307
Location: Springfield

2/23/19 10:53 AM

I miss removable batteries.

Way back when I wouldn't buy a "disposable flashlight" for $4 so buying a "disposable phone" for $400 is madness (cut to clip of the doctor at the end of The Bridge on the River Kwai for dramatization of "madness.")

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Sparky
Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 19068
Location: PDX

2/23/19 11:49 AM

removable batts.

When I was hacking/rooting my wife's AT&T phone to tether on T-Mobile after we changed over...

...it froze. Full charge too. I could either wait until the battery went dead for it to restart, or disassemble it to disrupt the circuit of the non removeable battery. Fully charged with no real draw, it may have been 3-4 days to restart.

Damn, some tiny screws in there... I thought Lap Tops were challenging to take apart and put back together.

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Brian Nystrom
Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 5096
Location: Nashua, NH

2/23/19 3:50 PM

Laptops are pretty easy, except for the really small ones. I can't tell you how many motherboard swaps and other repairs I've done on laptops and the only ones I hated doing were the 11-12" models, which had some incredibly tight wiring runs. Anything larger was a snap, as long as you organized the screws properly during disassembly.

Phones are more of a pain, as some are really not designed to be disassembled.

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Sparky
Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 19068
Location: PDX

2/23/19 4:04 PM

Yeah, i meant the yogas and other 10" shit. 13-15" a breeze...

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Brian Nystrom
Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 5096
Location: Nashua, NH

2/24/19 10:46 AM

I have an 11" Yoga that I only use when traveling. Fortunately, it hasn't needed anything other than some warranty service that was done by Lenovo. I'm not looking forward to having to work on it.

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Sparky
Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 19068
Location: PDX

2/24/19 3:19 PM

Wife dropped her i5 yoga and cracked touch screen.

I got a lower cpu version barely used for dirt and attempted the screen swap. Ribbon different placment, not same pn. So two apart and returned to how they were. Best laid plans, awry et al. I5 is the media server with remote keyboard. She uses slow one and only complains a little... ;)

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