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I had seen one too many posts about people asking and complaining about battery drain issues on their G1 phones and it gets tiring to read it every 5-10 posts. So I decided to create this thinktank to pool in ideas from the community and create a set of best practices to maximize mileage of our phones. I'm currently using a HTC Dream with stock battery and my battery life is pretty good with light to medium usage. I would like to contribute to the community by creating this thinktank thread. I hope this can help as a guide for myself and for people who have been having numerous battery drain issues on 5.0.7-DS and variants of this distribution.
This is NOT the ultimate end-all solution for your battery problems. These are just steps to tackle the problem. If you want minimum to no battery drain keep it plugged to socket or plug it in a car battery.
If you would like to contribute your experience, or make any corrections please do not hesitate to post and I'll include them if they seem fit and attach your name as reference. I'll also do my best to give credit where credit is due. Please see the references at the bottom part of the post. Please do not clutter this thread by doing "I'll try this" or "It doesnt work" post. Its more important for all of us to know WHY it work/didnt work. Stick to topic, and be constructive. Be intelligent. Think first.
0. Update your Radio
Updating your G1's radio to the currently-latest version (2.22.23.02) should give you better battery life as well as signal reception (you can always switch back to 2.22.19.26I if it doesn't work out for you)
1. Recalibrate
Take note that BATTERY STATS ARE WIPED whenever you flash a new rom. (since full wipes are required whenever changing ROMS, and /data is where the battery info is.) This usually leads to inaccurate battery readings.
Here's how you recalibrate properly:
- Charge your phone till the GREEN LED shows up. Leave it for another hour.
- While plugged, go to recovery and wipe your battery stats.
- Right after the phone is booted up and settled, unplug and use as per normal till it shuts off. Then charge as per normal.
2. Disabling some basic phone hardware functionality
Turn off GPS, WIFI when not in use. And brightness set to manageable levels. Even loudspeaker. This is self-explanatory. Automation software like LOCALE can be useful, but usually all it takes for you to turn off your ringer, or turn on wifi when you're at a specific area is just a press on the Power control widget.
3. Overclocked kernels
Running on full overclock speed (by default is 528mhz or even higher on some kernels) will drain your battery faster and you'll notice significant heat increase when you're using your phone along with 3G.
Although im using pershoots 576mhz overclock kernel, I do not max it to 576 unless needed. The reason why I use his kernel is due to its UNDERVOLT capability. I have set up my phone using SetCPU
MAXFREQ: 480,
MINFREQ: 176
CPU Governor : ONDEMAND.
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Click to collapse
Usually I would set my phone to 384mhz if im going to stay on it longer (texting/long browsing etc). On the sleep mode I set it to 122mhz to 384mhz.
4. Tame your widgets, minimize using them.
Widgets that constantly connect to the internet, or constantly refreshing on the screen to update data being shown on the screen at extremely small intervals would also give you battery drain. Minimizing widgets can help minimize applications running in the background (free up memory) and avoiding your phone going on "partial sleep". Also tweak your widgets to update as less as manageably possible. If for some reason you can't see the next suggestion.
Aside from that you might want to disable Background syncing and do manual syncing. Aside from saving your data plan, it also saves battery life. You can disable it by doing the following:
Menu > Settings > Accounts & Sync > Background Data - OFF
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Click to collapse
manually update your facebook widget or contacts/gmail by
Menu > Accounts & Sync > Facebook (or GMail) > Sync.
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Click to collapse
5. 3G, 2G, switch off, or automate it.
You'll notice that inside the default settings for mobile networks. Setting to 2G will "save battery" which is actually true. The connection will definitely be slower, but if you like your phone to last longer throughout the day, either switch to 2G or turn it off altogether.
Also, similar to juice defender, I use 2g/3g toggle and toggle data as and when needed.
Another suggestion that I just found out recently is the use of Juice Defender app [d]. It automatically turns on or off your APN settings at intervals. You might want to try to look at that app if you cannot do #4
6. Disable live wallpapers. Auto Updating Sense
Remember that 2.1 isnt actually built for our old phones. and livewallpapers do require cpu/gpu processes. These are also running in the background and may run while your phone is asleep. So turning them off will benefit you.
7. Refrain from using Automated task killers and choose what you kill.
If you see that the app you had been trying to kill a few times keeps coming back. Stop killing it. Everytime you do, and whenever it respawns, CPU flies to 100%. Go back to #4.
8. Disable Market notifications.
- Open the Market application.
- Select the Menu key.
- Select Downloads.
- Select the Menu key again.
- Select Notifications.
- Select the Do not notify me radio button. press [Ok]
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Click to collapse
9. Make your phone sleep.
Open your spareparts application, Go to End button behavior. Select "Go to sleep"
10. Under the hood tweaks
10.1 Extending Wifi scan intervals
Edit the wifi scan interval in /system/build.sapphire.prop (or build.trout.prop if you have a G1)
# Time between scans in seconds. Keep it high to minimize battery drain.
# This only affects the case in which there are remembered access points,
# but none are in range.
wifi.supplicant_scan_interval = 45
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Click to collapse
Changing this number to just 90 second will half your wifi scans. Obviously larger numbers can mean less wifi scans which means more battery life, though it may take a little longer for your phone to pick up a remembered access point when in range. This is not just a CM/Eclair thing, it can also work for Donut phones.
This setting needs a reboot after editing the file. Edit it with Root Explorer, or nano as root if you have CM5, or pull the file with adb then edit it then push it back.
11. Remove your phone from your pocket whenever you can.
Body heat deteriorates battery life no kidding! there had been already studies to back it. I keep my phone either on my hand or outside of my pocket to keep it cool. Do whatever is manageable in your environment. If you're using your phone as a music player streaming using streamfurious and stuff. dont let your body heat add to the heat already been generated by your phone itself.
References / Updates :
[a] cyanogen recalibrating batteries : http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php/Troubleshooting#Battery_recalibration
thanks to mejorguille for correction on /data and wiping.
pershoot UV kernel: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=666850
[c] SetCPU main site : http://www.pokedev.com/setcpu/ - Thanks also to ShadowCH for tip.
[d] JuiceDefender : http://www.latedroid.com/2010/01/juicedefender.html -
- Thanks to shohid1234 for 3G-2G toggle
[e] Thanks to Jaymzz for tip on disabling market: http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?/topic/94-i-fixed-my-battery-drain/
[06/02] thanks to Arkain2k for tip #0
[06/04] Thanks to Foo_Blyat's tip for disabling background sync and manual updates for fb/gmail (item 4) http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6670907&postcount=36
[06/04] Thanks to Super Jamie for tip 10.1 extending wifi scans http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6684954&postcount=49
reserved in case something nice comes up
10. Remove your phone from your pocket whenever you can.
Body heat deteriorates battery life no kidding! there had been already studies to back it. I keep my phone either on my hand or outside of my pocket to keep it cool. Do whatever is manageable in your environment. If you're using your phone as a music player streaming using streamfurious and stuff. dont let your body heat add to the heat already been generated by your phone itself.
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really? isnt warmth charging batterys? in my old gameboy years i always put my batteries on the heater when the drained completely and after an hour i could play again with the old batteries.
1. Recalibrate [a]
Take note NOT TO WIPE BATTERY STATS whenever you flash a new rom and your battery is less than 90%. This usually leads to inaccurate battery readings. If you already wiped your battery during one of your flashes, here's how you recalibrate properly:
- Charge your phone till the GREEN LED shows up. Leave it for another hour.
- While plugged, go to recovery and wipe your battery stats.
- Right after the phone is booted up and settled, unplug and use as per normal till it shuts off. Then charge as per normal.
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Click to collapse
This is true, but since battery stats are stored on the data partition, a data wipe also deletes the battery stats. A lot of rom's require a full wipe, meaning data and dalvik, so battery stats are deleted whether you select the option or not.
Since001 said:
really? isnt warmth charging batterys? in my old gameboy years i always put my batteries on the heater when the drained completely and after an hour i could play again with the old batteries.
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Click to collapse
Hi!
Yes Im very familiar with that practice because i do that too. The reason might be because of the composition of the battery (alkaline, non alkaline). Usually we put it under the sun so that the heat will help change the composition of the compound inside the battery in order for it to lower down its resistance. Leading to a "charge".
But now we are using Li-Ion batteries, and I do not suggest putting them under the sun because it will deteriorate your battery capacity holding charge and its lifecycle.
reference: http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm see figure 1.
samaral said:
Hi!
Yes Im very familiar with that practice because i do that too. The reason might be because of the composition of the battery (alkaline, non alkaline). Usually we put it under the sun so that the heat will help change the composition of the compound inside the battery in order for it to lower down its resistance. Leading to a "charge".
But now we are using Li-Ion batteries, and I do not suggest putting them under the sun because it will deteriorate your battery capacity holding charge and its lifecycle.
reference: http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm see figure 1.
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Thanks, that makes sense.
Made me lol to see that there actually is a "battery university"
Thank you! this post is noted
mejorguille said:
This is true, but since battery stats are stored on the data partition, a data wipe also deletes the battery stats. A lot of rom's require a full wipe, meaning data and dalvik, so battery stats are deleted whether you select the option or not.
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Noted. I have edited the guide to reflect your insight.
Thank you very much
how about going to setting - about phone - battery use?
there you can find out exactly whats killing your battery and take appropiate action.
Also, similar to juice defender, I use 2g/3g toggle and toggel data as and when needed. Using these two widgets i have no battery issues.
Post noted and added on top
shohid1234 said:
how about going to setting - about phone - battery use?
there you can find out exactly whats killing your battery and take appropiate action.
Also, similar to juice defender, I use 2g/3g toggle and toggel data as and when needed. Using these two widgets i have no battery issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Noted. Your suggestion is added on top.
change preferred network type helped for me increasing battery life
Hello all,
as describe in post
forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6432560&postcount=1
changing preferred network type worked for me.
default setting: WCDMA preferred drains my battery in a few hours, crazy
within CM 5.0.7-test7 I was able to change to: GSM/CDMA auto and it worked
But now in the final release 5.0.7-DS I can not select this setting. Perhaps it correlates to the this (PRL) info in brackets.
It seems that no "auto" setting want be working so I am trying WCDMA only right now and will see if I have a network in 2G networks too.
Bye morT
Hhmm let me think…
Running a prrocessor that's massively overclocked with software that was never meant to run on our g1's I have an idea.
****** off back to stock or get over it
I mean seriously people come on, we have set cpu for power profile management, basic battery usage which is dim screen, turn off wifi and 3g when not in use blah blah blah same **** written in every guide about battery life for ANY roms from cupcake to eclair.
As I said, get over it or go back to stock.
[highlight]Mod Edit: Please watch your language and don't flame others.[/highlight]
im sorry does turning on "display battery status" in spare parts still effect battery life? TIA
Ive noticed that bluetooth is killlllling battery life, but dont know if its normal. I charged to 100% and turned everything on, leaving screen on the whole time and what not.
While I was actively using the net over WiFi, I had nothing using the bluetooth, and both seem to eat up 20%..
This might be normal, might not be, but thought it was odd that it being on, but not in use, ate up just as much as functioning, in use, wifi.
whats funny to me is as soon as my phone dies i plug it up reboot it a few times and my battery is at 70%
.... i think its not reading correctly .. i mean fully charged play talk text browse till it shuts off .. plug it in turn it right back on then reboot ..
and my battery is back at 70% which is weird ... anyone else notice that???
also wifi, gps is on screen brightness is standard !!!
batteries really seem to be the least developed technology in our high tech phones. feels like a sportscar with a one gallon tank...the fun's over quickly...
turned off my 3G and got a lot of additional battery life. with bad 3G reception (like in the place I live in) the phone was sometimes sucked empty in just a few hours, now I get two days.
another thing that really helped me extend my battery life was turning on airplane mode when I went to bed.
how about dont use overclock or any other cpu speed up tool....maybe the speed they are factory set to is there for a reason...Hmmmmmmm
dcowboys2184 said:
whats funny to me is as soon as my phone dies i plug it up reboot it a few times and my battery is at 70%
.... i think its not reading correctly .. i mean fully charged play talk text browse till it shuts off .. plug it in turn it right back on then reboot ..
and my battery is back at 70% which is weird ... anyone else notice that???
also wifi, gps is on screen brightness is standard !!!
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Click to collapse
You should go through a battery recalibration - steps on the first page.
Best Practices for Improving Battery Life for CM 5.0.7 (and variant ROMS) is to use this ROM, Thanks.
Do whatever you like, show or hide battery status in the Spare parts, calibrate or not....the battery remains....for loOng....enough time....
hot/cold controversy
Since001 said:
really? isnt warmth charging batterys? in my old gameboy years i always put my batteries on the heater when the drained completely and after an hour i could play again with the old batteries.
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Click to collapse
Since I have a background in electrical theory and chemistry, let me end this debate once and for all: heat makes atoms (and therefore molecules) move faster. Lack of heat (cold) makes them move slower. In general, fast-moving atoms in batteries mean MORE power, not less. The reason your car doesn't want to start when temperatures are subzero is that the battery acid (electrolyte) molecules are moving too slowly to oxidize (give off e-, electrons) and turn back into positive ions. The same is true for the ol' Gameboy AAs -- put them on the heater, the dry cell warm up, and more electrons are transferred to the anode by anions, the positive ions (cations) are more able to travel to travel back to the cathode (in the case of dry/wet-cell rechargeable storage batteries). Heat acts as a catalyst to produce electricity. Some of you may have even taken your car battery indoors if the electrolyte froze in the winter. Some of your cars may have battery blankets or even battery heaters if you live really far up north. In addition, the process of charging a Li-Ion, Ni-mH, or even lead acid battery will produce heat, because chemical conversion is bi-directional, but anyway . . . you charge the G1, it gets hot. You use it heavily, it gets hot. You know you're spending electrons somewhere when it gets hot period. Keeping the phone cool will not increase battery life or make it charge fast. What lower battery temperatures will do is lengthen the battery's overall life. What happens if you leave meat out in 100F/30C temperatures? It goes bad quickly. Same principle in Li-ion. The rechargeable battery is ideally an efficient, closed system of ion exchange that should work for many (hundreds) of duty cycles, but eventually heat plays a role in deterioration of the electrolyte and chemical catalysts inside.
So put your extra charged batteries (but you don't want a Li-ion or Ni-mH battery to sit very long in an discharged state, so be careful here) in the refrigerator in an airtight bag (rotating on a daily basis) if you really want them to last a long time, but don't charge them frozen (ka-boom!) and remember cold batteries charge slowly. Car batteries in sub-tropical areas are replaced at a rate of about once every 24 months, but in Sweden? Maybe every five or six years. Cold temperatures slow down chemical deterioration just like cold keeps that steak from becoming maggot food.
Again, a hot G1 may weaken its own internal components and batteries over time, but putting it on ice won't give you an extra 6 hours to oogle Miley Cyrus' vBlog
Hope this helps.
For me, unless I'm expecting a text or a call always have my phone on airplane mode. I turn it off every hour or so to see if I got any unimportant texts, and then turn it back on
I have to charge my phone 2 or 3 times a day any recommendations on how to make my battery life longer that are simple and easy
Jawdude said:
I have to charge my phone 2 or 3 times a day any recommendations on how to make my battery life longer that are simple and easy
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I'm a truck driver and I'm a heavy user.
I did too before I made the changes below. These all work with the Stock Rom.
1. Installed No Lock (so that I don't have to swipe the screen to unlock, just push the power button)
2. Set screen to turn off in 30 seconds.
3. Installed Brightness Widget (allows changing the brightness from the home screen
4. Installed Screen Filter (lets me really darken my screen at night.
Try those and see how you do.
5. I then flashed the Infused Rom (I now get up to 10-14 hours)
Jawdude said:
I have to charge my phone 2 or 3 times a day any recommendations on how to make my battery life longer that are simple and easy
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Click to collapse
Custom kernal and rom
Running refused and infusion 1.8 rom and I get 14 hours with heavy data use
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA Premium App
Also, Turn off GPS and Wifi when you're not using them.
Battery
After much experimenting and monitoring of battery use I find that the biggest drain is the screen display, so go to settings-->display-->brightness and lower the screen brightness as low as you comfortably can. Also when you you are not using the phone make sure the screen is off, I have trained myself to automatically hit the power button every time I put down the phone. If you listen to music through your phone make sure the settings on your music players allow the phone to play when the screen is off and turn the screen off while it plays.
GPS also drains the battery, so I keep it turned off when I don't use the Nav. When I use the Nav I know the battery will drain at a rapid pace, nothing you can do there, even if I have the phone plugged in to car power while using Nav it still drains the battery! Drains slower than unplugged navigating but still drains.
If your watching videos then your S.O.L. there's really nothing you can do that will increase battery life enough to make a difference during video playback.
I get 10-12 hours with regular use and stock rom. Worst was 8 hours best was 24.
Thanks for all the advice this has really helped my battery
Truckerglenn said:
I'm a truck driver and I'm a heavy user.
3. Installed Brightness Widget (allows changing the brightness from the home screen
There was a recent post that showed a shortcut for changing the screen brightness from the homescreen without any additional software. First, turn off auto brightness. Second, tap and hold the menu bar at the top. Third, slide left to reduce the screen brightness and right to increase screen brightness.
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menzoom said:
After much experimenting and monitoring of battery use I find that the biggest drain is the screen display, so go to settings-->display-->brightness and lower the screen brightness as low as you comfortably can. Also when you you are not using the phone make sure the screen is off, I have trained myself to automatically hit the power button every time I put down the phone. If you listen to music through your phone make sure the settings on your music players allow the phone to play when the screen is off and turn the screen off while it plays.
GPS also drains the battery, so I keep it turned off when I don't use the Nav. When I use the Nav I know the battery will drain at a rapid pace, nothing you can do there, even if I have the phone plugged in to car power while using Nav it still drains the battery! Drains slower than unplugged navigating but still drains.
If your watching videos then your S.O.L. there's really nothing you can do that will increase battery life enough to make a difference during video playback.
I get 10-12 hours with regular use and stock rom. Worst was 8 hours best was 24.
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How does it drain your battery when its plugged into the car? I have never seen that on any cell phone. That my friend is messed up if true.
reissy said:
How does it drain your battery when its plugged into the car? I have never seen that on any cell phone. That my friend is messed up if true.
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It seems that Samsung ****ed up and included phone CPU/screen/etc usage when measuring battery charge current.
This means that the 600 mA stock battery charge current limit isn't just going to the battery, it's split between battery/screen/CPU. If screen/CPU/etc go above 600 mA (Navigation at full brightness seems to be the most common way), battery starts draining.
It also means that unless there's something I'm missing (which I could be since the MAX8998 datasheet is super-ultra-secret), our phone isn't going to be able to do proper charge termination - if the screen is on/CPU is running, it will cause a falsely high battery charge current reading, which will cause charging to fail to terminate.
Juice defender
I found that juice defender helped my battery and i just use the free version it's a great app
I used Iphone 3g 3gs 4. None of them drain battery like this one. First time use Android phone and getting a bit disappointed of this phone. It's draining 2% every 5 mins and im using stock Rom.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App
Install a ROM. Infused v2 nearly doubled my screen-on battery life and tripled my screen-off battery life.
sweetboy02125 said:
I used Iphone 3g 3gs 4. None of them drain battery like this one. First time use Android phone and getting a bit disappointed of this phone. It's draining 2% every 5 mins and im using stock Rom.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
That's excessive... Rogue app maybe?
ptgptg said:
Truckerglenn said:
I'm a truck driver and I'm a heavy user.
3. Installed Brightness Widget (allows changing the brightness from the home screen
There was a recent post that showed a shortcut for changing the screen brightness from the homescreen without any additional software. First, turn off auto brightness. Second, tap and hold the menu bar at the top. Third, slide left to reduce the screen brightness and right to increase screen brightness.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks I never new that
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997R using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
look in about phone battery use to identify the biggest battery user, it should be the screen. anything else and there is a problem.
the cell standby may go high on froyo rom, turning on flight mode and turning it off will correct that, it's an android bug.
on gingerbread the android os or android system may hog battery occasionally. some think it is the wifi sleep policy but it pops up on me without setting the sleep policy. the fix for that is to pull the battery for a couple minutes and put it back in and restart the phone.
next manage the screen brightness
install a custom rom, there are issues with certain firmware keeping sensors active wen they shouldn't be.
turn off unneeded sync options (i find that auto fetching my email uses a lot especially with my gmail already set to sync),
use wifi when you use the internet if possible, turn it off when out and about.
monitor cpu useage of apps that are cached in the task manager
kill apps that use cpu
if needed turn the max cpu clock down to 800mhz
set "use wireless networks" for location when possible for general location (limited to city level at times)
Dani897 said:
look in about phone battery use to identify the biggest battery user, it should be the screen. anything else and there is a problem.
the cell standby may go high on froyo rom, turning on flight mode and turning it off will correct that, it's an android bug.
on gingerbread the android os or android system may hog battery occasionally. some think it is the wifi sleep policy but it pops up on me without setting the sleep policy. the fix for that is to pull the battery for a couple minutes and put it back in and restart the phone.
next manage the screen brightness
install a custom rom, there are issues with certain firmware keeping sensors active wen they shouldn't be.
turn off unneeded sync options (i find that auto fetching my email uses a lot especially with my gmail already set to sync),
use wifi when you use the internet if possible, turn it off when out and about.
monitor cpu useage of apps that are cached in the task manager
kill apps that use cpu
if needed turn the max cpu clock down to 800mhz
set "use wireless networks" for location when possible for general location (limited to city level at times)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, high cell standby is OK if the phone is screen-off often.
Cell standby is always my top user - but my phone is sitting on my desk with the screen off frequently, in a location with weak signal. Weak signal makes cell standby usage go WAY up.
Syncwifi application is awesome for extending sync settings to gain more battery
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA Premium App
Using titanium backup I froze drm content 2.2.1 and this significantly increased my battery life.
Sent from my Infuse. It is what it isn't.
JuiceDefender!!
I agree JuiceDefender works!! I had to charge in the middle of the day. Now with moderate use it will last all day Im on stock Rom.
I easily get 2 days out of my Infuse, no idea how some of you are managing to only get 8 hours. After rooting my phone and freezing the bloat i easily get twice the battery life of my prior iPhone 3GS.
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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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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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
can anyone help me how to fix this problem of mine in my HD7? I've been searching all this time but all i see is for HD2 battery tweaks thread..anyone?
A) Define "poor" battery life. Smartphones typically get half a day to three days, depending on usage and network quality. My HD7 typically gets about 16-40 hours, depending on whether I use it a bit more or less than normal. I leave it on the charger every night and never run out of battery now unless I'm playing games on it.
B) There are lots of things you can do. Turn off push email, and instead check only every few minutes. The HD7's screen may actually get a slightly better battery life on the "Light" theme (the backlight runs anyhow; darkening a pixel takes more power). Set the phone to turn off the screen earlier. Dim the backlight. Turn down the volume (especially if you listen to music).
C) There's a setting (added in Mango) called "Battery Saver" that does some of the changes mentioned above (some quite aggressively - for example, it turns off all automatic email sync). You could use it, or at least tell the phone to use it automatically.
D) Change your usage pattern. Games, GPS, and cellular data are all huge power hogs. Play fewer games (or only play them when plugged in, or play ones without lots of graphical effects, etc.). Don't leave GPS apps running; check them then back out. Don't stream music (although I do, through Zune Pass, and still get decent battery life for a smartphone), movies, etc.
E) Switch the data mode to 2G instead of 3G, at least most of the time. 3G is power-hungry, and often harder to get a signal through so the phone hs to use even more power. Turn WiFi on (yes, on, not off; it's more efficient than the cellular radio when transferring data) unless you have no usable WiFi nearby, in which case turn it off. WiFi automatically turns off when the phone's screen locks, so no need to worry about it using power constantly at idle.
you're absolutely correct! I've done all those steps..if i will define poor battery I'll say it easily drains. I only use my device for SMS and battery drops 5-10% in 1hr? sometimes when I'm charging it whole night and when i woke-up i see the light indicator that it is full charge but the battery indicator is not (86%) i don't know if my battery is defect or there's something wrong my battery calibration or indicator..this suck!
If the light was green (fully charged) but the indicator showed partial charge (I assume you're using something built-in, not the app? The app isn't totally reliable due to multitasking limitations), then you've got a defect. It's possible that it's in software, but much more likely to be in hardware - either the charging circuitry or, more likely, the battery.
to check the percent of my battery I'm looking at setting>battery saver. If its a software problem how could i fix it? Is there a tweak in registry that can make the battery last longer? I've tried different custom roms but only Eburon rom gave a 2 days life battery but when I flash my hd7 to latest Eburon my battery returns to its old state where its easily drain so flash it back to old version of eburon.
Which is the best battery-saving app 2012?
Mugen power
Sent from my GT-S5660 using xda premium
Hi,
In my little experience, there is no software that makes alot of diference, normaly what i do is:
disable motion
insert *#9900# and disable Fast dormacy - check is your network needs this
disable sync for accounts
disable GPS
disable wifi gps
disable wifi when not using
set brightness level to auto
set wifi sleep policy to when pluged in
Of course there are a couple more things you could do, and again this is what i do cant say it will work as good for you.
rooting.
Tasker
With it one can automate almost everything on the phone.
It's almost like programming i use it all the time and there are a lot of examples on this forum. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1110775
Juice Defender Ultimate + Battery Saver Pro (by Antutu).
I tryed a few battery saver apps but no longer use them as i found if i turn auto sync off, change wifi sleep policy to never, untick network notification, and use task manger frequently to kill unused apps my battery lasts a lot longer. I also use easy task killer and set it to kill all apps every 30 mins. im using king cobra v1.1 for evo 3d gsm and the battery life is amazing!! just swapping battery's over now and its nearly 9pm!!
If any one needs any help rooting or unrooting the evo 3d gsm hboot 1.4.9.0018 let me know as i have done it a few times now. I unrooted my phone back to ***locked*** s-on with no traces of rooting, then checked for ota updates, wouldnt of installed them tho even if there was one!! then downgraded back too 1.4.9.0007 and rooted it again with revolutionary.
---------- Post added at 09:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:05 PM ----------
forgot to mention auto brightness is a must. and i also calibrate battery after installing roms . can anyone please tell me if calibrating the battery every time it gets to 100% is good or bad? thanks.
When you use an xperia mini pro like me, with just 970 mAh, you get to try all possible battery savers... and unfortunetly no one of them makes the exception... actually as said evilchild, they don't make difference...
just disable everything that may drain your battery, your launcher effects too can be in cause, get rid of unuseful apps, put your brightness to lowest levels or just get it to auto if your rom use it... choose the best profile for your CPU... and with this you are good for 10 new hours in your daily battery life.
I'm not sure a 'battery-saving' app is real.
They just disable some features that we can manually do that. They just make it automatically disabled.
But, 2x Battery is good. It could disable Wifi or mobile data while the display is off.
one touch battery saver is awesome. create a widget to enable/disable wifi,gps,sync,brightness,bt,data ect with one touch!. free on google play
lonestrider said:
I'm not sure a 'battery-saving' app is real.
They just disable some features that we can manually do that. They just make it automatically disabled.
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+1
SmXtrem said:
+1
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Yeah. There's a thread somewhere which gives real battery saving tips
I tried some apps, but I didn't found one which really improved the battery.
In my opinion the best method is to reduce the brightness.
juice
Juice Defender Ultimate + Battery Saver Pro
lonestrider said:
I'm not sure a 'battery-saving' app is real.
They just disable some features that we can manually do that. They just make it automatically disabled.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
From the apps I tried out and used, almost all of them just disabled certain things, or tweaked settings that I could have done on my own, and eventually did do.
I found it easier to just go on a sub forum for the phone I had at the time and look up tweaks, tips etc.. I'd say doing this helped me more than any app I found previously, and was easy to do.
Dolphin companion is good and gives more remaining of time.
I use juice defender and the setting: "Only 2G"
3G takes a lot of battery..
Matheus-007 said:
Juice Defender Ultimate + Battery Saver Pro (by Antutu).
Click to expand...
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i try yah friend.. i use script exacly but not best i think... thanks..
Sent from my GT-S5660 using xda premium
None. There are no working saving battery apps, not a single one.
What a battery saving application can do is to change the phone configuration to a lower energy one, just like lowing brightness, disabling data packages and such, to sum up, things you can do by yourself and you'll save the battery that that application consumes.
The best way to save battery is to make a proper use of your phone:
-Disable gps when you don't need it.
-Turn off bluetooth when not needed.
-Keep screen brightness low at all time.
-Disable data packages before going to sleep and enable them again when you wake up.
-Keep your phone clean by periodically uninstalling apps that you don't use anymore and that make unnecesary use of memory, cpu and battery energy.
-Check your battery use statistics and keep an eye on applications that are using energy unefficiently, and replace them with better alternatives. Facebook and facebook messenger are clear examples.
-Some people say that connecting to 2G networks instead of 3G helps as well.
-Activate wifi at home, it seems to eat less battery than connected to 3G.
There are more tips out there, just gogle it and make a responsible use of your phone. Keeping phone clean and lowing brightness will probably make the biggest difference.
Moreover, if android S.O. is on the top of the list of battery use, your phone's software entered a weird condition. Reboot it and if it persist, consider a factory reset.
I hope this helps
I just started evaluating Juice Defender Ultimate to see if it can save battery life, but there are many options that I don't fully understand. I have attached a screenshot of the Notificatin pulldown window from my Galaxy Nexus which shows the JD status. There are 9 objects just to the right of the JD shield. They include 3 icons, 3 colored circles and 3 lines of text. Can anyone explain what each of them mean? I have checked the JD online info, without luck.
My best guess is:
the up/down icon represents mobile data
the red circle next to the up/down icon means mobile data is disabled
the radiation icon represents WiFi
the green circle next to the radiation icon means WiFi is enabled
the 3G icon represents 3g mode
the red circle next to the 3g icon means 3g is disabled and 2g is enabled
As mentioned, these are just my best guesses. I have no idea what the 3 lines of text mean?
Pete