To those who have a hardwired GPS set-up. Did you wire into a switched or unswitched source? If you chose unswitched, have you had battery drain problems due to continuous demand from the GRS' charger?

 

I'm just using the ugly lighter adapter mine came with

 

Does your GPS' battery stay charged, since it only charges when car's switch is on?

 

spreadhead-
I'm no expert since I just bought my first GPS. So, answering from the user's manual of my Tom Tom One XL, this unit has a NIMH battery that will run the unit for two hours on a charge. Most of the time it is being used in the car connected by cable to the power port, so the battery stays charged. But it also stores photos to display on the 4" diag. screen, so the battery would be used for other purposes outside the car. Again, I assume that other GPS units of other brands have similar features.

 

My experience with NIMH batteries is that the intermittent charging of being attached to a switched source of a car is not enough charge time to keep these batteries charged. If you never use the GPS outside of the car it makes no difference. I was really hoping someone here had their GPS wired to a nonswitched power source and could give me their experience with their set-up. Thanks for the replies.