L950, Mozo back cover, Nokia DT-910 very, very slow charging!!!

[stoneshop]

This week I finally received the Mozo back cover for my L950. It looks great but I have an issue with charging the phone on my Nokia DT-910 wireless charging stand. With the original back cover charging was slow but it always got from 20% to 100% in an 8 hour night. With the Mozo back cover charging is way slower. When I go to sleep with 20% I must be glad when it is at 70-80% the next morning. Even a 10-12 hours night (I'm on holiday right now ) is to short to charge the phone to the max.

Anyone else having the same problem?

 

[Zachary Boddy]

Have you tried positioning your phone differently? The DT-910 is the stand, isn't it? Try setting it up there horizontally, or heck set it up there upside down.

 

[stoneshop]

The DT-910 is the stand indeed. Since I use the phone+stand as my night clock, positioning it horizontally or upside down would be no option. Well horizontally might be. But it's not that it is not charging but there is a huge difference between charging with the MS cover and charging with the Mozo cover. And that is strange because the Qi charging coils are in the exact same position on both of them. Could it be the quality of the coils used by Mozo (made in China)? It must have something to do with some kind of difference between the covers. Maybe the thickness? Mozo must be a bit thicker with the leather covered plastic shell. Just wondering if anyone else has the same issue or if I am the only one using this particular combination of hardware and noticing the difference.

Edit: I just tried but horizontally or upside down it doesn't charge at all.

 

[EMitchell]

I'm curious about this, I recently ordered a Mozo cover, the brown one. And I too use my L950 as my night clock. I haven't received my cover yet, I'll check it out when it arrives. I don't think the fact that the cover being made in China is the issue, since the MS cover is probably made in China as well. But the thickness of the cover could be an issue. The Qi wireless charging is dependent on being in close proximity, with a maximum distance between transmitting coil and receiving coil of about 40mm. Once the follow-on charging standard, A4WP, is implemented, this will be improved, because both the power will be increased and the distance will be extended to about 5cm. Not that this helps us now. :smile:

 

[Harrie-S]

The DT-910 is the stand indeed. Since I use the phone+stand as my night clock, positioning it horizontally or upside down would be no option. Well horizontally might be. But it's not that it is not charging but there is a huge difference between charging with the MS cover and charging with the Mozo cover. And that is strange because the Qi charging coils are in the exact same position on both of them. Could it be the quality of the coils used by Mozo (made in China)? It must have something to do with some kind of difference between the covers. Maybe the thickness? Mozo must be a bit thicker with the leather covered plastic shell. Just wondering if anyone else has the same issue or if I am the only one using this particular combination of hardware and noticing the difference.

Edit: I just tried but horizontally or upside down it doesn't charge at all.

If the phone is charging you can see in the battery setting how long it will take to fully charge. Please check with the Mozo cover and than change it with the original and check again. This should give at least a "measurable" difference.

 

[stoneshop]

Okay, I might as well make a full comparison then because I occasionally also still use the Nokia DT-900 wireless charger. Right now my phone is on 74%. According to the battery settings:

Standard fast charger: time to fully charge 0h27m
DT900 + Mozo cover : time to fully charge 0h27m
DT910 + Mozo cover : time to fully charge 0h27m
DT900 + MS cover : time to fully charge 0h27m
DT910 + MS cover : time to fully charge 0h27m

So that's weird. Both wireless chargers, with any cover, charge just as fast as the standard fast charger. I dare to say that cannot be right. And both the battery settings, as the Battery app I use, tells me more or less the same. With the only difference being the charging time according to the app is 1h32m. I think the only way to measure the time to fully load is to put it on a charger and just use a stopwatch to see how long it will take to fully charge.........................
....................and I did. So, some hours later.......here are the results. During charging I have not used the phone in any way but to check the battery level.

Standard fast charger : 75 to 100% in 0h35m
DT910 + MS cover : 75 to 100% in 1h15m
DT910 + Mozo cover : 75 to 100% in 1h45m

So the Mozo cover is definitely a lot slower charging the L950 than the original MS cover. The standard charger is yet a lot faster but that is to be expected. In this test I left out the DT900 because discharging and charging the phone three times in a row already took enough of my time. Luckily I have one of the few L950's with very good battery life :wink:

So, again my questions are, is anyone noticing the same difference between the two covers and does anyone know what might be the cause?

 

[stoneshop]

No one? Then I guess either the Mozo cover/DT910 is a bad combination or my back cover is a faulty one. I will get in touch with Mozo and see what they say.

 

[wpctrlfan]

Pls keep us updated - I will do the same when I will receive my Mozo 950 XL brown cover. For me QI charging with 950 XL is already troublesome: alignment issues even with 3 coil chargers and heat slowing down the charging speed. At the moment I can only achieve perfect QI charging (linear charging with full power from 0-100% => 3:30 hrs total time) when I actively cool the setup with a USB fan.

I've never had such issues with Lumia 930, 1020 or 920.

 

[EMitchell]

Still haven't received my Mozo brown cover yet, so I can't run the same test. Will do, once it arrives.

 

[seventeenapg]

Guys, can I add to the mix?
I had a L830 which would charge perfectly everywhere except with the Nokia CR 201 car charger. Nothing I would do fixed the problem. However, those in the US ( I'm in UK) with the additional coil had no problems. When I received win 10 insider builds nothing changed until I installed the 10586 build and hey presto the L830 began ti charge perfectly.
I have the DT 904 and my L950 charges ok on it. On my DT 910 it charges very slowly just like yours. I can see the difference between the two without even taking measurements. Likewise the L950 will not charge correctly on the CR 201 car charger. It begins charging then stops after about five seconds. Then, five seconds later it starts again only to stop five seconds later. It continues this cycle when in the holder and the battery completely depletes if I am in the car most of a day. So, based on my experiences I believe it to be a software issue with the OS or firmware. Whilst the Mozo might be slower I believe it is really a MS issue for them to resolve.

 

[seventeenapg]

Last night my DT910 went from 7% to only 34% in 7 hours of charging. I believe that these charging issues are nothing to do with the back plate or how you position against a charger. I believe it is somewhere within FW of SW of the phone and needs to be addressed quickly by MS.

I say this because my L830 never charged on my CR201 car charger; that was until one of the very latest OS builds came to us insiders and then first thing I noticed was the charger began to charge t he phone.correctly.

 

[DoyoubiNoAme]

I noticed slow charging with Nokia CR-200 charger, which is QI car charger. It feels like it is underpowered. Not charging the phone, but like preventing it from draining

 

[seventeenapg]

But it is not underpowered really. There are many posts now on the poor charging of the L830 and the L950 with the QI chargers. The only way to effectively charge the L950 is with the power socket of its own cord to a USB 3.0 device. My L950 will not charge coorrectly on any of my QI chargers including the CR201 that I have. As I have stated in posts before my 830 would not charge in the car and in late insider builds for Win10 it began to charge perfectly which leads me to believe there must be some code witten in the OS to tell the baclplate how much jiuce to suck up from the QI charger. Hopefully MS will have a fix for this.

 

[wpctrlfan]

...which leads me to believe there must be some code witten in the OS to tell the baclplate how much jiuce to suck up from the QI charger. Hopefully MS will have a fix for this.

Absolutely true - I also believe that 950(XL) QI charging can be heavily improved by better code. Indeed the phone controls the charging rate and not the charger which simply supplies power.

 

[seventeenapg]

Yes , that is my belief as well specially after the fiasco with my L830 which now charges flawlessly with my CR201 car charger.

I just installed the latest FW in the UK using the WDRT and upgraded through windiws insider to .36. It seesm that the phone is now charging faster in the DT910 desk charger I have. I will run a test on the CR201 on my way home now and also the DT910 that I have at home to see if there is any noticable change and will let you know tomorrow. BTW , my FW is 15506.02015.

 

[wpctrlfan]

BTW , my FW is 15506.02015.

Interesting - I am on FW 01078.00027.15506.02029 for 2 weeks already (was pushed by MS before Christmas). After a bit of research it seems that firmware versions aren't easily comparable. Many users with very different firmware versions.

With FW 01078.00027.15506.02029 I usually charge around 4-4:30 hrs (full charge from 0%). I will now test a third QI charger by Anker and see how it performs. I still want to achieve a constant 3:30hrs (because why not - this would be exactly 1A charging like the QI standard specified and like Lumia 930 always charges with).

 

[Alexander Long]

How Qi charging work is to prevent over charge or repeals charging battery, it will slow down when it reach 95% then stop when reach about 100% , and will only reactivate when it reach down to certain amount. And different phone might handle slightly different like in Lumia 830, it would reactive when back to 80%.
That's why you might always feel that wireless "fully" charged phone battery life are shorter than wired fully charged phone. And very often the phone 's battery even went further down when you pick up your phone from Qi charging pad in the morning thought it was 100%. Some of the earlier Qi phone also suffer this "issue", I am using quote sign over 'issue' here since it is how Qi mechanism was designed to prevent damages to battery.
Another thing is that both Lumia 830 and 950 the Qi pad is on the removable back cover, with two metal connected to the phone, so it could be issue when you didn't push the back firmly all the way. And Mozo case is a little ticked than the Microsoft cover, so it might also why it is slower.

 

[seventeenapg]

Thanks Alexander for your useful info. And you are right in what you say. I am a Windows Insider from the programme started. I have had the experience of my L830 not charging on the CR201 charger and it is documented elsewhere. My cover is correctly fitted etc. But, here is my update... On my way home for the first ten minutes the phone charged in the CR201 holder correctly so I thought happy days. Then the screen lit up so I knew it had stopped charging. Ten seconds later the sctreen lit up again as it began to charge again. The phone continued in this loop for the remaining twenty minutes of my journey time. When I began the trip my battery was at 52%; thirty minutes later whilst in the CR201 QI charger it was at 47%. Now, when I got home I placed it in mt DT910 charger overnight. At the beginning the battery was at 22%; this morning the phone was dead with absolutely no charge (still sitting on the DT910) and I had to use the wall charger to get it fired up again. So, even with the new FW and .36 SW the phone (for me anyway) will not charge correctly over QI. And, as I said before, I firmly believe this to be a MS issue with alogarithms or code or something like that . Its almost hilarious to watch the phone's antics in the CR201 car charger. It just coninues to start then stop then start again for as long as it is in the charger.

 

[wpctrlfan]

Tnx a lot for sharing! To support that firmware theory I bought another QI charger: Anker Wireless Charger PowerPort Qi.

This charger stayed very very cool during the whole charge (max. 32?C) and charged very very quickly in the beginning. Then all of the sudden with zero reason the phone decided to reduce charge rate to a very slow one. In the end the charge took 9 hours! This is almost 3 times slower than it should charge (1A = QI standard). I will repeat the test and I already know that this Anker will be able to charge in 3:30hrs if the phone wants too.

I know own 5 different QI chargers from various brands, all with min. 4 star rating on amazon, single coil and 3 coil chargers. They all work fine with my previous Nokia Lumias. But the 950 XL charging behavior is totally inconsistent.

Yes it does charge in my case and for many this is enough (over night - 100% reached) but I dont find it acceptable that this phone doesnt want to consistently draw 1A out of the QI charger while all previous Lumia phones did so.

Tests with Lumia 950 XL (.29 OS version, new firmware, stock cover) using a Anker 20W 2-Port USB power adapter (5A max!) and a USB amperemeter to verify power consumption / charge rate:

Anker Wireless Charger PowerPort Qi (1-coil): 9:00hrs, max. 32?C screen temperature, draws 6.96W from power adapter


EasyCHEE? T900 Ver.2 QI stand (3-coils) - phone placed vertically: 4:30hrs, max. 37?C screen temperature, draws 8.12W from power adapter


EasyCHEE? T900 Ver.2 QI stand (3-coils) - phone placed horizontally: 4:00hrs, max. 34?C screen temperature, draws 8:20W from power adapter


EasyCHEE? T900 Ver.2 QI stand (3-coils) - phone placed vertically with active air cooling: 3:50hrs, max. 25?C screen temperature, draws 8.16W from power adapter


Testing ongoing:
- EasyCHEE? T300 3-coils
- Anker PowerPort Qi Wireless 1-coil
- Nokia DT-900 1-coil

 

[seventeenapg]

That is great info and prooves the point. MS need to recalibrate ( or whatever it may be called) the whole QI charging system on the 950 line. I have 2 DT910 desktop chargers and neither of them will charge my L950. In fact the charge constantly drops over time; around 1% every 10 minutes or so. Interestingly with the FW I have now (which ,again is different to yours) my car charger CR201 odes not stop/start any longer. It shows a continuous charge now but still the battery depletes even though it sits on glance screen. I hope MSFT are reading these threads.