USB port not charging my phone

I hope you have better luck than me with your LG - mine died 6 weeks outside the 12 month warranty. Not worth fixing, I was told.

Charging my Samsung with an in-car charger plugged into the 12V outlet is much quicker than USB? Can you disable any functions (eg Wi-Fi) to reduce drain?

 

Perhaps the Prius supports only the standard USB current draw and your phone wants a higher draw like an iPhone does?
Just a guess.
Just looking quickly in the manual, I do not see where they say you can use the USB port for charging. Your Four has the wireless Qi charger, though. The manual does warn against using a portable device while it is charging, for safety reasons.

 

iPhone only wants 1 amp to charge

 

What's wrong with just plugging a charging cable into the round (12V) Plug? I have the old iPhone 5s. I don't even mess with that wireless charging pad because it doesn't work anyway. I just plug the cable into the 12V plug and everything is fine. My phone charges very fast. (and the wire doesn't bother me because I don't have anybody in the passenger seat.)

Please don't do distracted driving and texting.

 

F

For standard USB 2.0. low power is 100mA (0.1 amp) & high power is 500 mA (0.5 amp)
USB in a NutShell - Chapter 2 - Hardware

 

This is not an unusual situation.

The stock entertainment heads in a really LOT of cars don't supply much power to the USB device.
My 3 vehicles pretty much work like that; so have a few rental cars I've used recently.

And "simply using Bluetooth" has a transmitter enabled full time so it uses a lot of power.....relatively.

I think you need to get a new power adapter for the 12 V (cigarette lighter) socket.

 

It

It must supply some power for USB drives to work. It only needs to supply 1/10 of what an iPhone needs, though.

 

OP has an LG V10 not an iPhone. Apples and oranges people!

 

and it likely needs more than 100mA to charge, plus they were streaming audio using the phone.
The charger for this phone outputs 2.1A.

 

Sorry, but I don't think that will do it for you. Better to go with something like prodigyplace identified, but there are many similar ones on Amazon. Remember that cheapest is not always best and neither is most expensive. I've always found 5* reviews can be biased and 4* reviews more honest.

 

Actually the standard lighter charger should work. For some reason, the Amazon link showed an image of a lighter charger, but the link was actually for a 120V home charger.

 

No, that wouldn't help - it just rates the switch for 2 amps - but it it's only getting 100mA (for example) in one end of the cable, that's all it'll get out the other. [sort of like at home, if your water pressure is low, putting a high pressure capable tap won't improve your water pressure]

 

My old iPhone 5s came with the car charger plug-in wire. Whatever you call it. I'm glad the new Prius still has the cigarette lighter plug.

 

Me too. I use the cigarette lighter plug on the back of the console (the one that is designed to service the back seat) with a 2' cord.

Easy to find the end for the phone when I need it and the cord falls between the seats when I don't.

 

I had this problem, too. You need to test your charger AND your cables AFTER it gets into your phone. Most older USB ports (on computers and chargers) only supply 500 mAh. Download an app like Ampere and measure the input of of each and every cable and charger port (ya, each port on the same charger may deliver different charges) and make sure your are getting 1200-1600 mAh. I got new chargers and new cables and all my charging problems went away. Generally speaking the "smart" chargers with the high watts, and the thicker USB cables, deliver more power (FYI: having tested many, this is not always the case).

 

A USB port does not "provide power." It doesn't work that way.

USB devices DRAW CURRENT from a USB port. The USB Spec only permits a device to draw half an Ampere of 5V current. Since smartphones and tablets consume more than half an ampere will provide, their batteries can actually deplete as they charge.

So the phone makers implemented proprietary signaling protocols which let the phone determine that 1 amp or more is available. And of course Apple and Samsung use different discovery methods. By the way, with most phones, this discovery doesn't happen until the phone boots up. This is why a phone with a fully dead battery can take so long to charge up; it draws only half an amp.

The solution to this long story: Buy a cigarette lighter adapter which allows a current draw of 1 amp or more, and make sure it is compatible with Samsung phones and not iPhone (or both).