Bought the base, didn't even considering Touring much after knowing the differences which to me not worth the additional 2.5-3K. If Touring had a sunroof, I would certainly go for it. I'd rather spend the difference on some accessories like I'm now thinking to get the Tuxmat. Have leather seat on 2 other cars before and now, the only reasons were one is convertible so it's better to get easy cleaning seats in case something dropped from above and the other was the only car in stock among all dealers that had every options I wanted. During summer, I have to put seat pads on the seat or it's burning my bottom. The Clarity base's cloth seat are really nice "cloth" seats which has mostly synthetic leather/vinyl around but only center is cloth for air flow (especially compared to the cloth seats which were so 90s in my similar priced 2012 Wrangler). I didn't see a real good reason to go for leather seats and I'm fine with manual seat adjustment, none of my previous and current cars have power adjustment anyway. Also don't need the navigation. By using cell phones I have my choice of map app to use and can also use offline maps.
Someone in CivicX forum also had the same observation (see attached screen shot). I am thinking about wrap my phone in the foil paper and put it down under the seat while using Android Auto Map to see if it still get GPS signal or not.
If you try it, let us know, I noticed that my phone doesn't get as hot when I'm using Android auto with GPS, whereas before in my old car I would have my cell phone in a mount with its internal GPS on and it would get quite hot after about 5-10 minutes.
I am not at my car for awhile , will report when I done my "test". Your cell phone is not hot when using Google Map on AA (which is the same to me) is a evidence that AA used Clarity's GPS for Google Maps.
I was hoping for some confirmation on the material as the brochure says “leather wrapped and trimmed” but there is also material that says it’s eco friendly synthetic ..etc. BTW, I picked the base because it’s the Canadian version.
Until somebody proves me wrong, I think the only real leather in the Touring is the small perforated area. Buts that’s OK with me because I wanted the powered seat with memory more than the leather.
Today I tried to made a "Faraday shield" for my phone by wrapping it in 3 layers of foil. I used a long cable to connect my phone to the car and put it under the drive seat. I downloaded offline maps in to my phone and was using Google Maps offline. I am not sure if the GPS signal was completely blocked from the phone with this method but the result is the Google Maps still works well during the test.
Base. The only minor annoyance to me is the cheap feeling fabric on the back of the seats. Everything else is so nice it seems out of place. We have to adjust the seats but that’s definitely not worth 2-3k for me. I was glad car play came with it - I was considering the accord hybrid and would have wanted car play but no sun roof which didn’t exist.
You need to connect the foil to ground for an effective RF drain. What you have might work on it's own, but if it doesn't, that's why.
I wanted the touring for the ability to tilt the seat cushion, takes pressure off my back. the other things that came with the touring were a plus. Base model is not really a stripper model so I do understand those that pick that instead.
I followed this instruction, it doesn't require to ground the foil: The simplest and cheapest way to build your own Faraday container is to use heavy duty aluminum foil. By completely wrapping an item in several layers of foil, you can protect that item from damaging effects of EMP. Keep in mind that every side of the item needs to have a minimum of three layers, so by the time you’re done wrapping it in the foil, some sides may have more than three layers. This is fine, so long as you have no less than three layers of HD aluminum foil between any part of the item and the open air. https://thesurvivalmom.com/skill-of-the-month-make-a-faraday-cage/
The Faraday shield will protect your device from an EMF pulse, but you might find you need a drain to sink all the rf energy from outside the shield with some kind of ground. It's been a long time since I worked with electronics, but rf shields always needed a fairly large braided connection to ground to be effective. It's possible that there's not enough rf energy under the seat to get past 3 layers of foil anyway.
Not needed to ground, at least for cell phone signal, GPS signal seems to be even weaker. I've been doing mobile development for over 15 years, we made our own Hoffman box using metal cookie tins and stuff foil inside. It works well for blocking cell signal. I also use signal jammer if I need to be sure.
Not 100% sure about the Clarity, but I do know that my 2016 Accord uses the car's external GPS antenna when the phone's own GPS antenna yields a weak GPS signal and my phone is plugged in to the USB so I can see Android Auto / Google Maps on the Honda display in the car. The car doesn't substitute its "own" GPS, but does use a much better antenna mounted on the roof of the car to give the phone a stronger GPS connection.
I believe that the Android Auto on Clarity used it own GPS to run Google Maps. My phone is not too hot when watching movie, surfing web... but it is very hot when using Google Maps or Here map which GPS is enabled but when connect to the Android Auto and use Google Maps it isn't hot anymore.
