Survey123 overheating phone?

Question

Hi there, I am using Survey123 to capture photos in the field. Our field crew is in the desert and they are saying the app is causing their phone to overheat. That being said, they are in the desert in August so it's hot. Has anyone else had an issue like this and did you find a solution? Location is one of my questions so I'm wondering if the location services are what are overheating the phone, or like I said, is it just the desert heat and not Survey123 at all? Thank you!

dougbrowning · Answer

We get this a lot as we also work in hot areas.  We have used/tried coolers, ice packs, and different cases (they make ones with fans in them now but we did not try that as it would just blow hot air we think).  We even met with Samsung on it to see if there was anything we could do.  But if its hot, its hot.

The metal backs seem to be worse.  Trying to keep them out of the sun helps, back to the sun, etc.

Interested to hear others ideas.

MollyCasey · Answer

Thank you, Katherine!

Katie_Clark · Answer

We have had this happen with some frequency when using iPads. They seem to run pretty hot compared to other devices.

From what I've heard from the field crew, their best bet was just to return to the car in the AC and let the device cool down a bit...sorry that's not a more helpful answer! 😞  I've seen some tablet cases that are supposed to be "cooling", but they were pretty pricey and there's no way we'd get those approved for all of our field crews. However, your budget/crew numbers might be different so perhaps you could look into those.