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I noticed a strange thing when I had navigon installed a few days ago. When the app was not used (and not running in the background), it still took away about 10% of my battery, according to the overview in the 'about' settings. I uninstalled navigon and installed copilot because of that; But now I notice that copilot is behaving in exactly the same way: it also uses 10% of my battery.
This makes me believe that it is not navigon or copilot's fault, but android's. I googled for this problem and it was reported a few times, but I can't really see where the problem might be: is it android, just gingerbread, or just gingerbread on my desire s? Is there someone else who noticed this or could you check for it when you have either programme installed? It only occurs when the applications was started after a reboot. When you reboot, it seems to be go away until it is started again.
stevennekens said:
I noticed a strange thing when I had navigon installed a few days ago. When the app was not used (and not running in the background), it still took away about 10% of my battery, according to the overview in the 'about' settings. I uninstalled navigon and installed copilot because of that; But now I notice that copilot is behaving in exactly the same way: it also uses 10% of my battery.
This makes me believe that it is not navigon or copilot's fault, but android's. I googled for this problem and it was reported a few times, but I can't really see where the problem might be: is it android, just gingerbread, or just gingerbread on my desire s? Is there someone else who noticed this or could you check for it when you have either programme installed? It only occurs when the applications was started after a reboot. When you reboot, it seems to be go away until it is started again.
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If these applications are configured to use your GPS for location detection then this makes perfect sense....GPS = Hungry battery consumer.
GPS is off, but I noticed that the location determination by cell network in the location settings was off too. Maybe it just occasionally checks in the background where the phone is using GPS? I just switched the cell network location on again. I hope this solves the problem...
Was this after using Navigation then closing it?
Also bear in mind a hot battery drains faster than a cool one. I usually find that after any period of Google Navigation the phone heats up. Then after I finish navigation and my car charger has kept me at 100% battery (making it even warmer) with all data and GPS turned off my battery drains from 100% to about 70% in an hour just sat in my pocket.
When I charge my phone to 100% before going to bed and it has 6 hours to cool down (in Airplane mode between 1am and 7am) before heavy use, it takes 12 hours to drop to 70%.
I have not noticed Navigation trying to activate any GPS or location info after I've exited it, either with stock or custom ROM. It shouldn't be checking where you are if you are not running it in the foreground. I'll open it, close it again, and leave GPS on to see if I can replicate your problem.
Did the battery actually last shorter? the 'about' setting has to be read different i think!
My phone shows at the moment that it runs for 19h on the battery, the percentage of the applications show what there part was from that 19h use.
count all those percentages and it will be around or slightly above 100%
navigation uses a lot of energy so the percentage of usage from the battery is high but if you do not use it the percentage will decrease as other applications will continue to use battery.
Well, I opened the app to check wether it worked (for about a minute or so), and closed it. Later that day I recharged the phone completely. When it was down to 60 percent again, the copilot/navigon app accounted for 10 percent of the battery use. Strange, isn't it? I still believe it is doing something in the background, although it is closed completely. It must be some kind of android bug with external navigation programmes, google maps/navigations doesn't seem to do it.
I turned on the location based on cell network now, and this seems to solve the problem. Now the percentage used by navigon is about 3 percent since it was charged, which seems normal, considering that I have opened it for a few minutes.
In other news, Garmin bought Navigon.
i'm 12hrs in battery and i haven't used gps or navigation for 5 days or more. i 've installed sygic aura, copilot ndrive and gps status. Android says that copilot and sygic have drained 3% each!
Can you explain this?
I get the same drain, 13% with Sygic... doing nothing. I don't even see any reference to it in processes/Services with Elixir.
Not good when you're a trip and need both cached maps for no data traffic and a battery that lasts.
If those percentages reflect reality that is.
Hey guys,
So after many months with the XT720 and alot of flashing and trying to get the most out of my battery, i've come up with a few conclusions about battery life in general and how to extend it. I thought I'd share here. This is mostly aimed at people who are new to android and have not experimented like some of the more advanced users we have on this forum. Hope you find this helpful and please feel free to make additions.
General Battery Info
The XT720 was my first android phone, and I came from a long line of typical nokia phones whose batteries would last for ages. I had no idea the kind of power an android device would use. When I started out using it, i was surprised at how quickly the battery would die. You'd think with advancing software we'd have better batteries but sadly batteries are lagging behind in technology. Generally speaking you can expect the following battery life from your XT720.
Heavy use: 10-14 hours
Moderate use: 16-20 hours
Light use: 1 day - 1 day 12 hrs.
Note: New batteries improve with each charge cycle. It is recommended to go through a few complete charge cycles when you buy a new phone. After that, complete discharges are not recommended and its smart to start charging your phone when it hits the 20-25% mark.
How to improve battery life
1: Battery Calibration
If you've ever flashed a new ROM, you must have noticed a sharp decline in battery performance. This is partly due to old battery statistics left behind from your old ROM. Android is a smart OS and collects information over time. The more you use it, the more accurate it gets. In the same way it collects information from your battery usage and reports your battery percentages according to that. When you flash a new ROM, sometimes android thinks that your battery is 100% when its really lower than that and that causes relative reduced battery performance. To deal with that it is recommended that you use a nifty free app called Battery Calibration from the android market. What this does it removes the old battery stats and allows your new ROM to create its own battery stats. Charge your battery to full, use the battery calibration. Drain once till phone turns off by itself and charge to full again. You will notice a sharp increase in battery life.
2. Battery Managment
We all know that android has its own battery management built in but it usually doesnt give complete information about the phone. For that you need to dive deeper into the settings. Usually if you experience battery drain its because of a rogue app and believe it or not some common apps you wont think off drain unnecessary battery. To see your complete Battery Stats input this code into the dialer.
Code:
*#*#4636#*#*
This will take you to a bunch of options. What you're interested in is Battery History. When you tap that it will show you two drop down menu's.
1) Other Usage
2) Since last unplugged
Other usage shows you how long your phone has been running and how long it has been asleep. Also shows you how long your wifi has been on and running and how long your screen has been on. It is important to see how long your phone has been running. For example if your phone has an uptime of 20 hours and its been running 5 hours out of that. Your run time is 25%. Which is very good. Sometimes an app can run even when your phone screen is off. This will represent a longer run time even when you have your phone lying on a desk or something. See this setting and correlate with the amount you have used your phone. Does it seem normal? If no then use the first drop down menu and select
Partial Wake:
Partial wake is basically, any app which takes your phone out of sleep mode to use the CPU even when youre screen is off. These are apps which need to sync or use the phone resources. In this you will see a list of apps and how much they have caused a partial wake lock. See anything unsual? For me one app that caused unsual drainage was latitute. Yes, i had simply signed into it and i didnt know it was updating my location every 5 minutes. Extreme battery drain for me even when my phone was idle. See which app was draining your battery and either tweak the settings or remove altogether.
GPS, Sensors, CPU:
You can also see these in the first drop down menu. Certain apps like screeble use the sensors alot, and hence cause drain. Obviously games, camera, will stress the CPU. See if anything is causing drain in that and adjust accordingly.
Miscellaneous Information
After you have dealt with rogue apps that you don't use that drain youre battery your battery life will depend on how you use your phone. But hopefull these tips will help you with increasing your battery life. I do have some more information on different settings and supposed battery saving applications.
Autosync: When you enable auto sync, you allow google and other accounts to sync on a regular basis. This is important for people who need to use push email etc. It does not drain battery IF you tweak what you need synced. In google for example you can have your contacts, calendar, google+, google reader, gmail all to sync by default. If you just need email, please untick the rest. This will help you save battery life. Increase your update times for facebook and google+ if you dont recieve many updates all the time or turn them off altogether. If you have many services syncing at the same time you will get battery drain.
Wifi Sleep Policy: This is sort of a hidden menu. If you go into wireless & networks >> Wifi settings >> settings key >> advanced >> wifi sleep policy. This has three settings. Never close down wifi, never close when charging, or close with screen off. If you choose never your wifi will always be on, which will in turn crunch the **** out of your battery. If you use it off with screen off, remember it takes about 5 minutes to turn the wifi off. I personally use the never with plugged in. Its an intermediate. So when im plugged in wifi always stays on and when im not it follows the screen off protocol.
Wifi Vs Mobile Data: Having mobile data on all the time, does not drain battery. The only time the battery gets drained is when the data connection is active i.e you have many apps on autosync youll see your battery going down. If you arent doing anything and your phone is connected to Edge or 3G your battery will drain regularly. 2G networks drain less than 3G keep that in mind. If you are actively using your connection, wifi will take less battery because speeds are faster and you will be using it for a little time. Also your signal strength has alot of effect on battery. If you have crappy 3G signals your radio will actively be searching for a connection the same goes for wifi. That is important to keep in mind.
Control Background data: By selecting this option you can allow or disallow apps to connect to data without any permission. Some apps require this like the android market. If you uncheck this apps wont be able to sync automatically in the background.
Milestone Overclocking: This is fairly obvious. The higher you overclock with higher vsel the more battery drain you will have. Some use set cpu with profiles but I found that if i set the setcpu too low while idle It takes time for the cpu to charge up when i recieve a call or turn the screen on. Ringtones lag etc etc. I let android do my CPU management and its fine. and comfortable setting would be 850 MHZ, 56 vsel but you can change according to your phone usage.
Juice Defender/ Screebl / Task killers:
In my personal experience with juice defender ultimate I found that with the above precautions juice defender didnt make much of a difference and actually used more battery. First off theres an extra process going on in the back. Second activating and deactivating the connection everytime the screen goes off uses more juice because your radio has to search for the signal hundreds of times as compared to not having it in the first place. Screebl is good if you dont want your screen to annoyingly turn off while youre doing something but it surely doesnt save battery life. Task killers are a no no for android. They kill tasks which start up anyways, its better to use autokiller memory optimizer which tweaks androids internal memory settings and allows for more free ram without killing processes without reason.
System Apps:
Some system apps run uselessly in the background specially with stock ROM's this is called bloatware. Remove all unused system apps with titanium backup to stop them from running in the background for no reason at all.
A final word
Finally after all this tweaking, just use your phone as normal. Dont worry about the battery all the time checking how much its drained, itll mess your head up and make you enjoy your phone less. Battery temperature also changes battery life. Keep your phone out of the sun or in hot places.
Thanks, good article.
Very detailed and useful
Sent from my Milestone XT720 using XDA App
Thanks for this interessting article!
Could you make a list of the bloatware that can be safely removed?
I figured this would just list all the usual stuff I've heard. I'm glad to say I was wrong! A bunch of useful info here I now plan to put to use. Many thanks
Might want to mention the display being the biggest drain of battery on this phone. Setting it to automatic brightness or lower will increase battery life. I love the screen at full brightness so I don't really follow that, but for those looking to squeeze some extra time and don't mind less brightness...
Thanks guys, glad you people found it useful.
syrenz said:
Might want to mention the display being the biggest drain of battery on this phone. Setting it to automatic brightness or lower will increase battery life. I love the screen at full brightness so I don't really follow that, but for those looking to squeeze some extra time and don't mind less brightness...
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Click to collapse
Yes! Can't believe I missed that one out. In the start id use the lowest brightness setting, which would be fine indoors. But outside it was impossible to see the phone because of its insanely reflective glass. Since we have an ambient light sensor I use it on automatic and it does a good job. Full bright strains my eyes abit thats why I dont keep it on full bright So for people really wanting to save the juice you can keep your brightness on the lowest level. Also when you take the phone out of your pocket and use it, its better to put the phone to sleep with the power button than let it timeout by itself. Those 10-15 seconds for each time you use phone count towards many minutes of unused display time in the end and does make a difference.
This is a very gd post with lots o useful info!! ok i have a qn, is using the phone a lot while the charging good for the battery? And if u let the battery charge even though its already 100 percent for an hour good? srry if it is noob qn...
androidlover123 said:
This is a very gd post with lots o useful info!! ok i have a qn, is using the phone a lot while the charging good for the battery? And if u let the battery charge even though its already 100 percent for an hour good? srry if it is noob qn...
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Click to collapse
1. Using your phone while charging does not affect your battery life, and is neither good nor bad. It is perfectly normal to use your phone while charging and is sometimes recommended while doing battery intensive tasks for example navigating while driving, wifi tethering, playing memory intensive games and finally outputing video through HDMI.
2. Overcharging was a phenomenom is older lithium ion battery. New batteries have bypass circuits. So when your phone reaches complete charge, it does not charge any further. So you should not be worried about overcharging your XT720.
Hope this helps.
Excelent article and good quality info. Thanks and best regards!
awesome article! Great information. Thanks a lot for putting that together. I have already started using a few of the tips mentioned.
u da maaan dude, thanks for a very detailed and informative article
Hi to all,
after a lot of test I can confirm I haven't the dock draining issue, but I've some (application) what's consuming my battery...
You can see some notes to the attached image.
How can I know what's eating my battery? The 10 hours before, the tablet was in sleep mode (no using)...
Thank's in advance!
you leave it on the dock while sleeping?, get system panel or similar to monitor device usage
During this 2 days and a half, the tablet it's always on the dock (docks battery expressly empty, 3-4%)
When I arribe at home (one hour), I take another screenshot, but basically shows... (aprox.)
Android System 40-45%
Wifi 25-30%
...
In an hour I post more info.
Thank's.
the other screenshot attached
It looks likes you system is never going into a deep sleep.
A couple of suggestions to track down what is effecting you.
1) You have pretty high Wifi usage. Do you install any applications that periodically check for data (some news apps do this). Also, is Wifi set to run off when the screen goes dark.
2) Are you running apps that use the GPS like Google maps or a another mapping app.
Thank's for answer...
Yes, I also noticed the wifi it's ON too much time... I have the option "When screen turns off" on Wi-Fi sleep policy... seems that didn't work??? In any case, if you look the first screenshot, on the middle, you can see a long time periode where the wifi it's on but the battery remains with a good rate of discharge.
I'm not sure if I've some apps using location but I'm sure the GPS it's OFF.
Have you enabled latitude under maps?
Hi, lately I use alot of GPS with Waze app (delivery), and my battery drops pretty fast.
I wanted to know if there's a way to allocate all the phone's resources to Waze,
like closing everything else in the background, especially data transfer.
I would simply turn off the 3g and save alot of battery, but Waze needs it to find addresses.
I use stock 4.0.4, unlocked but not rooted. anyone have a creative idea what can help me?
Thanks
Maybe Watchdog can help, I believe its used to set a limit on CPU usage from certain apps. Maybe you could limit everything else's cpu usage except waze?
stellar said:
Maybe Watchdog can help, I believe its used to set a limit on CPU usage from certain apps. Maybe you could limit everything else's cpu usage except waze?
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Click to collapse
but then I'll probably need in each time to set the cpu usage app by app no?
Buy a car charger. Problem solved.
Really nothing is going to help you save battery with a app that does all this. Screen on/gps/network usage for traffic maps etc.
Only battery saving tips is really turn off the screen or use a lower brightness setting while you do use it
albundy2010 said:
Buy a car charger. Problem solved.
Really nothing is going to help you save battery with a app that does all this. Screen on/gps/network usage for traffic maps etc.
Only battery saving tips is really turn off the screen or use a lower brightness setting while you do use it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can't use a charger cause I work in food delivery (with a scooter)
But yea I figured there's no other solution for that.
It's just I see apps like whatsapp and other games keeps popping out messages and notifications while my battery already draining from the GPS, and I know they run in the background and drains battery too. So I thought perhaps there's a way to close all apps except Waze, but I guess there isn't.
hi
i have a new (3 months old) unrooted nexus 5 update to latest OS version which is showing some very odd stats wrt battery consumption.
first i had heavy battery drain but then i disabled the scanning options in the location menu which helped. but still even with brightness at only 18%, battery saver on 95% of the time, location & mobile data off all the time & wifi only used for short bursts it still seems to drain quite quickly.
app usage stats as reported by the inbuilt battery stats option differs quite a bit from other battery management apps (du battery saver, battery doctor, gsam battery monitor)
for eg. inbuilt battery stats doesnt even show wifi consumption in the stats even if i use it for few hours (then suddenly one time it showed up with some excessive consumption stats - 1500mah for 2 hours usage; photos attached). very often it shows gravity screen app as the biggest consumer of battery while other apps show gravity screen as consuming very little power. otoh gsam shows battery doctor as consuming the most of all the apps.
what could be the issue?
gsam shows average battery life with screen on as 3h 42m. is that ok?
was also wondering if the optimization options of the battery management apps work or are they gimmicks? for eg both du battery saver & battery doctor show 'x' number of apps consuming power in background & when you press the optimise/close apps button it shows some cool effects of shutting down those apps but you come back after a few hours & the same apps show up in the running in background.
also, the front camera is very grainy. cant believe its that bad in what was a flagship phone. is it just my phone or is that the how it is for other users?
anyone with any inputs?
You got nearly 5 days on a single charge??? Yes, your battery consumption is fine. Nearly 4 hours of SOT is fantastic.
The graininess of the camera will depend a lot on the lighting. Unless you have a light shining directly on your face, the picture is probably pretty dark. That said, it's "only" like a 3MP camera. It's well known as a sub-standard front camera (I'm not a selfie machine so I don't really care). When you think about how microscopic the light sensor is on the front camera, it's no wonder the picture is grainy.
exninja said:
You got nearly 5 days on a single charge??? Yes, your battery consumption is fine. Nearly 4 hours of SOT is fantastic.
The graininess of the camera will depend a lot on the lighting. Unless you have a light shining directly on your face, the picture is probably pretty dark. That said, it's "only" like a 3MP camera. It's well known as a sub-standard front camera (I'm not a selfie machine so I don't really care). When you think about how microscopic the light sensor is on the front camera, it's no wonder the picture is grainy.
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Click to collapse
thanks for your reply exninja
that 5 days was a one time thing where i barely touched the phone & then only to test it. i wish it were that good LOL. normally i get about 2 days with very conservative usage (brightness at only 18%, battery saver on 95% of the time, location & mobile data off all the time & wifi only used for short bursts, 0 talktime)
is 4 hrs SOT that good? i see a lot of people getting 5 to 6 hours + & that too without those conservative usage patterns.
the thing that got me worried is the strange battery usage stats reported in the stock settings.
Honestly I wouldn't worry that much about what each app says is using energy. They're each consuming very little anyways. I'm not familiar with gravity screen so I wouldn't know about it.
I haven't heard of many people getting 5-6 hours of sot, especially since lollipop. I got 4 hours on KitKat, then dropped to 3 or less on lollipop. Now it's usually around 2 hours.
@fguy76
First of all, just to let you know, recently Google Play Services have been acting up. Sometimes I get normal battery drain overnight when I sleep, and sometimes it drains like crazy. For now, there is nothing we can do about Google Play Services.
However, if u noticed that WiFi has been turned on the whole time via the battery history chart, despite the fact that you did not even turn on WiFi at all during that period, then this can only mean one thing. You must have enabled WiFi Scanning (the famous Scanning always available bug in Lollipop & KitKat).
To disable WiFi Scanning, go to Settings first. Then on the top of settings, there is a search bar. Type in "Scanning".
Then u will see the following options. Make sure u disable WiFi Scanning.
Having said this, there is another annoying bug. This bug is when you have left a WiFi hotspot and forgotten to turn of WiFi. So after awhile u realised it and u proceed to turn off WiFi. But hours later, u check your battery stat, and it still shows your WiFi have been active the whole time despite turning it off. For this, the only workaround is to reboot the phone. To avoid this bug, always turn off WiFi b4 u leave the WiFi hotspot area.
@pcphobic i have wifi scanning off & i always remember to turn wifi off when not using it so that second scenario is not an issue with me
fguy76 said:
@pcphobic i have wifi scanning off & i always remember to turn wifi off when not using it so that second scenario is not an issue with me
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Click to collapse
@fguy76
The other solution that I can offer is under Location settings, go to Google Location History and make sure it is turned off.
You can still use GPS based apps with Google Location History turned off.
I suspect that if u find intermittent wifi showing up in your battery history, it could only mean that Google Location History is periodically waking up and using wifi to get an approximate location. I used to get this until I turned off Google Location History.