Roav SmartCharge Car Kit F2 Review

#21

That helps a lot man

#22

It will be released on November in the UK:grin:

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#23

Awesome. I’ll wait a month instead of buying junk :yum:

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#24

Hi,
Is it possible to connect 2 phones at the same time?

Thanks

#25

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to. I had to disconnect one to be able to sync with the other. Or do you mean charge two phones at once? Charging, no problem. But connecting 2 phones to the Smart Charge, no.

#26

Are you new here?

#27

Been here over since the Power Station went live but been more active recently.

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#28

yeah, I did something similar. Good to see you back!

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#29

Thanks. I also changed my avatar. Maybe that’s why I look new lol

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#30

That’s what threw me off at first was when you changed your pic

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#31

I won’t change this one now (unless there is a competition lol) hehe

#32

It would be awesome if this had the ability to play music via the USB cable too and not just bluetooth.

#33

Anyone there using the Anker Roav SmartCharge Car Kit F2? I’m specifically interested in the car location feature.

I’ve read the review by @Nhi on the community and while it mentions the feature, it doesn’t go as deep as I wanted to.

It the feature reliable? How well does it work inside buildings - such as an internal garage? How does the GPS on the charger communicates with the app?

To be honest, from reading the description I’m not even sure the product has a proper GPS or if it just pins your current location on the app once you park the car. If it’s the latter, does the user have to actively push the location or the charger senses the car turn off and automatically send the location to the app?

Thanks for your help!

#34

From what I understand there is no GPS built into the kit itself. It uses your phone’s GPS and sync’s your last location to the app (via BT). When you are locating your car you are using the last reference point in the app alongside your phones GPS.

Perhaps another member can confirm this?

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#35

Yeah, that’s my understanding too. Would you know if the charger communicates the app automatically to pin your parking location - like Apple Maps does - or the user has to manually demand the pin after parking?

#36

Can’t honestly say as I have not used but I would guess it was a manual pin, otherwise how would it differentiate between parking or stopping due to lights/obstructions etc. Perhaps @Nhi can confirm this or you could drop an email to support@goroav.com for confirmation (live support currently offline).

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#37

My android phone automatically pins where I park my car if I remain in the same vicinity for more than 30 minutes. Maybe this does the same and is based on the phones GPS relaying your location after a set amount of time in any given location

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#38

Eventhough it’s a great feature of the F2, unfortunately, it still needs a bit of work. How it works is it pins your last location, therefore, no “real” GPS. As in my video, I found it to be a bit disappointing. I was quite excited about the car location feature. There were times where I would literally be standing next to, if not, be inside my car and the locator would say that my car was somewhere else. Don’t get me wrong, when it works, it works well. When it’s working, it shows you the exact location on a map. And you can take a picture of the location, say, parking structure in a mall. But overall, hopefully, there will be a firmware update that would make this feature more accurate.

I recently had my unit exchanged out. As usual, Roav/Anker were very helpful in troubleshooting with me. They sent me out a replacement and had me send in my old unit. Unfortunately, good ol’ post office lost my return… wasn’t even scanned in so we don’t know where it is. :frowning: But Cathy from Roav was very understanding and helpful. I exchanged my old unit out due to a display issue… sometimes it would come on and other times, it did not. I haven’t had much time to test out the replacement but will so this week. On a side note, being able to charge 2 devices while using the F2 is a real plus. I usually have my Roav C1 Dashcam and iPhone 6s plugged in. Streaming feature works well. Calls work well. Btw, a couple of days ago, there was a firmware update. Hopefully, this is what is needed to get a better reading for the car location feature. [quote=“tiagomota, post:1, topic:55733”]
does the user have to actively push the location or the charger senses the car turn off and automatically send the location to the app?
[/quote]

The location works via the Roav Charger app. When you turn on your car, the unit connects to your phone’s bluetooth and notifies you that you are now connected. And that’s how it knows when you’re driving or whatnot. When you turn off your car, it pins your last location.

Hope that answered your questions. Let me know if you have more. :slight_smile:

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#39

Thanks a lot Nhi! It completely answered all my questions. :slight_smile:

#40

@tiagomota Ok, so I finally had a chance to go out to my car and play around with the F2 since the app update. I’m happy to report that with the app update, one can turn off the “automatically play music” feature. This made my day because I was always concerned that my iPhone’s battery was draining in the background, even when I didn’t have the car stereo on for streaming… before, as soon as the charger connected to my phone, it would stream even if the radio wasn’t on. How did I know? When I went into my Music app on my iPhone, I could see that it was playing but no sound was coming out of my iPhone’s speaker. It was a pain in the butt to have to go into my phone to turn this off.

The location feature seems a bit better with the update. This time, when I was actually sitting in my car with the engine on, it knew that I was “in the car.” Unfortunately, when I got out and walked across the street to see if it could locate my car… let’s say it still needs a bit of work. Yes, it is correct that my car is across the street BUT my locator (pin for me), pointed me in the wrong direction. My car was parked North and I was facing West. So unfortunately, I still stand by what I said about the location feature that I made in my review video. And that is, it still needs work. I think perhaps if the F2 actually had a built in GPS system/chip, or whatever you call it, it would be more accurate.

And one important thing that I found out this time around too… if you get the pop up message telling you that your GPS is not turned on (iPhone), even though you have it on, it’s because you need to allow location access to “ALWAYS” vs just the “while using the app.”

Other then all this, I’d still recommend the F2 for music streaming, making calls, and being able to charge 2 other devices while using it. And if you just want a “general” idea of where your car is. For the price, you’re getting a lot of features. You never know, maybe with the next app update, the Find My Car feature will be even better. :slight_smile:

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