I'm not new to the world of ppcs by any stretch of the imagination...but i have one question which has always puzzled me. How much strain does checking email every 5 minutes have on my battery? I have a gsm touch and can't seem to hold a charge for more than a day with very minimal usage. A typical day for me is 2 or 3 short phone calls and several texts..in addition to checking for new email every 5 minutes. Would I be correct in assuming that to check for email my touch is awakened from standby..thus causing the drain?
Js
You are correct, but also consider that when it connects to check email it is using the radio to connect to the network. So essentially you are having the radio on almost ALL DAY. Similar to a voice call all day. Battery is then drained by the radio usage to talk to the network.
does the same apply to a push mail setup?
well...am i essentially doing the same thing by having GPRS always on? In other words, is this going to drain my battery at the same rate whether i'm checking for mail every 5 minutes or every hour?
No it is not the same for Push email. Push email wakes the device and delivers the mail when there is some. As opposed to the device connecting and querying for mail, the device gets woken (sp?) up and gets delivered the mail for Push. Push is a much more effective way of getting your mail... I forward all my mail to my hotmail account which then gets pushed to my device via Windows Live.
Regarding the always on GPRS... yes and no. Yes you are connected and draining the battery but just being on doesn't use as much as actually pulling or sending data. The difference is negligible and really irrelevant. I would say that you turn off GPRS all the time if you are trying to save on battery life.
Make sense?
You may want to install Battery Status and turn on the current drain option. While a bit of a catch 22, considering the screen has to be on for you to see what the drain is, thus causing a higher than idle drain. At least you can get an idea of what your device is draining and see if changing settings makes a difference.
Link to Battery Status (not sure if this is the current version)
http://www.chi-tai.info/cs_BatteryStatus_XDA_Neo_WM5_iM_cs.htm
The other suggestion is to consider changing ROMs. I have a GSM Touch and the factory ROM was really poor on battery life. I have been using the Blue Touch ROM version 2.10 (not the newest version) listed in the Elf upgrade section. I can now go more than one day without charging the battery, with push e-mail activated.
Related
Hi guys and gals,
I ve been using pushmail for a week or so now and have noticed from the first day of using it that my battery drains so much faster when im using pushmail on my HP 6828.
My HP6828 used to last at least two days but now with pushmail enabled it lasts just till the evening of each day...
Is this a known bug? are there any fixes for this issue?
Thanks in advance for any help
NR
This is not a bug, it's a feature!
Yesterday I did some googling to find out how push mail works. I found an article (sorry, couldn't find the link again - not in history for some reason) where they found that push mail sends 400 bytes every 120 seconds to keep the connection alive.
Even if those numbers are inaccurate, the principle is the same: your device keeps an open GPRS connection to the Exchange server, and every once in a while sends data (even if there are no changes or new mails) so the radio is draining the battery.
Your bigger concern should be the phone bill, unless you have unlimited data you might get a large charge at the end of the month. In the article they calculated push mail to use approx 12MB per month.
levenum said:
This is not a bug, it's a feature!
Yesterday I did some googling to find out how push mail works. I found an article (sorry, couldn't find the link again - not in history for some reason) where they found that push mail sends 400 bytes every 120 seconds to keep the connection alive.
Even if those numbers are inaccurate, the principle is the same: your device keeps an open GPRS connection to the Exchange server, and every once in a while sends data (even if there are no changes or new mails) so the radio is draining the battery.
Your bigger concern should be the phone bill, unless you have unlimited data you might get a large charge at the end of the month. In the article they calculated push mail to use approx 12MB per month.
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Click to collapse
BUMP!
and yes im using unlimited EDGE access for 15 USD/month.. so the cost is fixed.. but now my battery wont even last a whole day! bloody microsoft.
Hi Nutdhanai!
I've been using push mail on my Jamin for almost two weeks now, and noticed that the battery drain is almost double the usual. It will last about two and a half - three days on standby and of course any use will reduce that time.
Still haven't seen any solution, but fortunately for me push is not a necessity. I can always set up my account as IMAP and set it to check mail once every hour or so which will reduce the load.
Hope you find a better solution for your self.
I think the best solution is to set a schedule in activesync to check on your email every 30 min, or every hour. you'll save a lot of power that way. hope that will help.
lsnizzle said:
I think the best solution is to set a schedule in activesync to check on your email every 30 min, or every hour. you'll save a lot of power that way. hope that will help.
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Yes that way does decrease the amount of battery being drained.. no offense but it really defeats the objective of being pushed mail..if we set it to check every xxx minutes then its really pulling mails not pushed .. argg..
However, what i have noticed is that the battery is draining faster using push mail over GPRS/EDGE because the phone wont go into full power save mode (backlight and screen off) but it only goes to partial power save mode (only backlight is off but screen is still on) when the phone is idle, BUT if you do push mail over WiFi the phone will go to full power save mode when idle. Both tests (GPRS and WiFi) with sync option of 'as items arrive' NOT every xxx minutes.
Maybe there is some bugs on the GPRS/EDGE power saving mode..
(atm, I have set mine to check mail every 15 mins)
The battery drain wouldn't be so bad if the server scheduling worked. But it doesn't; I have tried to configure mails to be obtained 'as they arrive' duing work hours (which means server push) and once every hour outside work hours, but its all or nothing - the push mail doesn't turn off at the end of work hours, so the battery is being drained equally all day.
Hi,
My Raphael is set to poll for email every so often. This is fine, but it always keeps the data connection open...
Will this have a negative impact on battery life? (As it is just using the mobile signal) ?
If so, is there a way of making the connection shutdown automatically after inactivity, so it can be started again only when actually needed?
I use bandswitch to close connection. Used it on my tytn and now touch pro. A great piece of software
http://www.commmgrpro.com/jsp/main_frame.jsf;jsessionid=2F30C7CCFABAB708C39B06DAD6E91839
Matt
Mewcenary said:
Hi,
My Raphael is set to poll for email every so often. This is fine, but it always keeps the data connection open...
Will this have a negative impact on battery life? (As it is just using the mobile signal) ?
If so, is there a way of making the connection shutdown automatically after inactivity, so it can be started again only when actually needed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Providing you are not transmitting any data, it should not have an impact on battery life. I leave my data connection open all the time as it speeds accessing the internet up as it doesnt have to re-negotiate with the network. Also if you are using hotmail with the sync period set to "as mail arrives" or using imap ilde (gmail) then leaving the connection open reduces data traffic as it does not have to "sign in " each time to receive mail (sorry gone off topic!)
ardsar said:
Providing you are not transmitting any data, it should not have an impact on battery life. I leave my data connection open all the time as it speeds accessing the internet up as it doesnt have to re-negotiate with the network. Also if you are using hotmail with the sync period set to "as mail arrives" or using imap ilde (gmail) then leaving the connection open reduces data traffic as it does not have to "sign in " each time to receive mail (sorry gone off topic!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree...I leave mine open at all times, and it has minimal impact to batter life (when compared to my wife's unit, which doesn't really pull data except once or twice a day as she updates weather). It does make any data needs easier to get up and running. Running it this way doesn't really make me sad that I don't have 3G on this phone.
I have tested on my HTC Touch Pro, when my data connection is on, on a night I loose more than 10% of battery on a night.
When the data connection is off, I loose less than 1%. (battery is still at 100% on the morning)
So to me it has a significant impact...
hey guys, i just set up my hotmail to download via windows live. i noticed under the sync schedule that there is an option to download "as emails come in" kinda like push email. my question is this; is this true push or is it just constantly polling the servers, thus draining my battery very quickly..
It's push. Your battery is safe. (Other than, of course, all the other mysterious battery-draining quirks these phones have.)
cool, i had no idea, thought it was gonna be constantly polling and kill my battery. good to know, thanks
i believe it's a constant polling. i was reading on that earlier and the windows live "help" says that the alert when it arrives mode requires a constant connection.
here's the exact quote from the help/FAQ:
Q: How can I improve my battery life when using the software?
A: Windows Live for Windows Mobile requires a permanent data connection if you have your "Sync Frequency" set to "As Items Arrive," resulting in potentially high battery drain on certain devices if you receive lots of e-mail. If you experience excessively short battery life, you can take steps to increase it. To improve your battery life, you can set your "Sync Frequency" to something other than "As Items Arrive." This action will extend battery life, though "your mileage may vary" depending on how you use Hotmail and how much mail you receive.
ha hmm... who to believe.... but i think ur right mputtr... i might try it out and see how it affects my battery.. thanks for the heads up tho
omaralt said:
hey guys, i just set up my hotmail to download via windows live. i noticed under the sync schedule that there is an option to download "as emails come in" kinda like push email. my question is this; is this true push or is it just constantly polling the servers, thus draining my battery very quickly..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what version of windows live do you have running? i've tried a few for the fuze and haven't had any succes. if yours is the WLM with msn messenger do you ming posting it?
hey, i also tried multiple versions, and none of them worked. however, when i flashed romeo's rom it had windows live working perfectly on there. i have no idea how to extract it....
mputtr said:
i believe it's a constant polling.
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Click to collapse
There's a difference between constant polling and a constant connection. In order to have push mail you have to have a constant connection. Polling means you connect, poll for mail, and disconnect.
The push in Windows Live is similar to Active Sync with Exchange.
so does that mean it doesnt drain the battery constantly? are you saying its constant connection or constant polling?
Hi there!!
A question concerning perfomance of active sync on HTC Touch Pro T7272. The problem is how to deactivate this application. It seems that it works automatically and I wonder whether this has any connection with the fact that the battery power is consumed very quickly. The application is on even when there is no computer or other device around. Anyone having any suggestions how to turn it off?
Thanks.
PS: The battery is consumed within 7 hours, is this normal?
Your battery consumption is around that of mine. 7 hours with some talking, texting and surfing and music. New batteries of course hold their charge for longer. Now that the Fuze is about a year old we see about a 25% drop in total talk time, at least I do.
If you are setup to use 'exchange' than activesync will be running a lot. Is this the case, do you have exchange running for google or your work email? In that case just reduce the frequency of email collection to increase battery life and reduce activesync from running.
Let me know...
Could not understand why my new device was burning through it's battery like it was a desktop computer. I can't remember where but I stumbled across the application OS monitor and took a look to see anything untoward.
Well I have an exchange email server that I use to sync all my contacts/calendar and emails.
It would appear that the inbuilt google mail app tends to CONSTANTLY drain power whilst it is set up, I did have push mail activated and it was set to do background data et al.
Removing this has fixed my battery drain issue and I'm now using Touchdown to manage my email exchange, with push mail activated and having no such problems at all!
I'm not suggesting that everyone switches to Touchdown but it is definitely worth trying a different client if you are having problems with poor battery performance!
Hope this helps someone as it was REALLY beginning to annoy me, not even lasting a night out!
Did Google show up under your battery use?
hah2110 said:
Did Google show up under your battery use?
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Not quite sure what you mean? OS monitor showed the system using a few resources every now and again but mail was using 30-40% almost constantly draining the battery!
Also found that leaving WIFI enabled uses VERY little battery and so I've kept that alive so that the current mail app I'm using doesn't poll and get no connection all the time (personally what I think was happening is due to me living in the middle of nowhere there was no signal and so it kept polling until it could find a signal which was using up resources).