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Waze Is Now Causing a Battery Nightmare on iPhone and CarPlay

Waze might be one super-advanced way to beat the insane traffic in the crowded cities that we live in, but on the other hand, the experience with the app has been far from flawless lately.
Waze for iPhone 6 photos
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Waze for iPhoneWaze for iPhoneWaze for iPhoneWaze for iPhoneWaze for iPhone
Not a long time ago, CarPlay users have started encountering an audio bug that first showed up earlier this year and which made it impossible to adjust the music volume in their cars. It was all because of Waze, as using the volume controls, even if the app wasn’t running, only adjusted the navigation guidance and not the music itself.

And now it looks like Waze is causing a massive battery drain on the iPhone after the latest updates.

The first time I noticed that Waze was eating up more battery than before was earlier this week after a 1-hour drive with the iPhone connected to my head unit and CarPlay running on the screen. I typically use Waze when driving in the city, so the app was configured to provide traffic information to my destination.

However, I observed that the iPhone was getting unusually hot, and later the same day I figured out why it happened: Waze used quite a lot of battery during my 1-hour drive, even if the phone was connected to a USB cable this whole time.

I came across a few similar isolated reports after searching online for more information, but now more people have started complaining of similar problems, explaining that in some cases, simply starting Waze and leaving it to run in the background has pretty much the same result. So if you hit this issue too, just make sure that Waze isn’t running at all on the iPhone to avoid the battery drain.

At this point, I believe that the culprit is iOS 13.7, as this is the most recent update that I installed on my iPhone. The latest Waze release is version 4.66, but this one was released on August 19 and everything has been working just fine since then.

There’s no word on a fix just yet, so it remains to be seen if the next Waze update resolves the whole thing.

Unfortunately, Google Maps doesn’t seem to be a better choice these days either. The app has allegedly sent drivers on a steep tractor road, with many ending up asking for help after they got stuck.
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About the author: Bogdan Popa
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Bogdan keeps an eye on how technology is taking over the car world. His long-term goals are buying an 18-wheeler because he needs more space for his kid’s toys, and convincing Google and Apple that Android Auto and CarPlay deserve at least as much attention as their phones.
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