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I unplugged the phone and got onto the bus. I read news with Captivate. Nothing fancy, just NY Times, Fox News etc. I got off the bus later, I only have 73% battery.
Yes, I just started my day and it's only 70% of battery.
#FAIL.
There are a few simple things you can do to increase battery life. Turn the screen brightness down and use a solid black background as a wallpaper. The screen uses the majority of the batter. so dimming the screen helps, when using a black background the amoled display does not light up black pixels so there is power drain.
I've been running on the same charge since 4pm yesterday. I've streamed music through pandora for about an hour while exercising, browsed the xda forums using the XDA App for 30 mins, made a few calls, browsed Facebook for 30 mins, surfed the web for a couple of hours before bed. Its now 10AM and I'm sitting at 36%. Not to bad really! The phone functions exactly the same at 36% as compared to 100%.
I wonder why everyone says to use a solid black background? Do most people use their phones primarily by staring at the home screen? I'm never at my home screen more than perhaps five seconds while switching apps
I've had pretty poor battery life as well, even after discharging, recharging, and deleting batterystats.bin. There are small tips here and there, like black background and screen brightness, but even following them all, my phone lasts me barely ten hours, and most of that time it's idle. For instance, I listened to local must (no streaming) with the screen off for about an hour and lost 10% of my battery life. What's up with that?
TimF said:
I've streamed music through pandora for about an hour while exercising, browsed the xda forums using the XDA App for 30 mins, made a few calls, browsed Facebook for 30 mins, surfed the web for a couple of hours before bed. Its now 10AM and I'm sitting at 36%.
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Click to collapse
I am also shocked and confused by how people can use their phone so heavily.
I already killed those unnecessary processes (e.g., all AT&T crap). I have a static wallpaper. I have screen brightness at 60%. And all I have been doing is just reading news and surfing the web. It literally cost me 1% of battery for every 1 min of use. It's just ridiculous.
You are probably on your home screen a lot more than you realize.
Anyway it's a smartphone, they all eat through battery time. you will never get superb battery life unless you crowbar a 3000mah battery into your device.
edit:
set the screen on its lowest brightness setting, the only time I've had to increase the brightness is when I am outside in the sun.
if you are on a bus, if you are not using wifi, turn off the radio.
TimF said:
Anyway it's a smartphone, they all eat through battery time. you will never get superb battery life unless you crowbar a 3000mah battery into your device.
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Click to collapse
You just said your phone is at 36% eighteen hours after charging! Compared to the 0% I'm at ten hours after charging...I'm not looking for superb battery life at all, just somewhat decent. I'm actually bringing a backup feature phone with me to college this semester in case I can't resolve this issue, because I will need to use my phone both in the morning and at night some days
TimF said:
edit:
set the screen on its lowest brightness setting, the only time I've had to increase the brightness is when I am outside in the sun.
if you are on a bus, if you are not using wifi, turn off the radio.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have Wifi, BT always off. And I don't listen to Pandora.
I think the key is you have the lowest brightness on your phone. It is going to save you a lot of battery 'cause half of the battery is for the screen.
But I just couldn't stand it. I wish I can set to 100% all the time. It looks so much better.
The phone radio is a huge consumer of battery - especially in weak signal areas. The bars are not that accurate either. that coupled with 3rd party apps that don't always behave nice, can equal rapid battery drain.
Putting the plain in Airplane mode is good way to see what battery life is like without the Cell radio always doing its thing. It is not a fix, but it can show that the battery/phone are not broken. There probably can be improvements and tweaks made by samsung, but I don't think the phones are defective.
mwxiao said:
I think the key is you have the lowest brightness on your phone. It is going to save you a lot of battery 'cause half of the battery is for the screen.
But I just couldn't stand it. I wish I can set to 100% all the time. It looks so much better.
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Click to collapse
This is what you would call a trade-off I like the bright screen also but I like having longer battery life more.
The screen is still pretty bright on it lowest setting and you gt used to the lower brightness after a while.
magicdanw said:
You just said your phone is at 36% eighteen hours after charging! Compared to the 0% I'm at ten hours after charging...I'm not looking for superb battery life at all, just somewhat decent. I'm actually bringing a backup feature phone with me to college this semester in case I can't resolve this issue, because I will need to use my phone both in the morning and at night some days
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how are you using your phone? What apps are you running, are you using any emulators.
There's an app called Spare Parts, which will show you what is using your battery when the screen is off. Open it up and choose "Partial Wake Usage" from the drop down to see.
My Captivate appeared to drain battery very quickly, but with moderate to decent usage throughout a day I was trying to kill the battery it lasted me over 13 hours. I think it's a matter of the battery reporting taking a good while to calibrate properly.
I've had an issue twice now with absurd battery usage. Both times I charged the phone to full and disconnected it; after doing that the phone would lose 10% charge every hour sitting completely idle! Using the phone during that time drained it even faster. Both times powering the phone completely off and back on resolved the issue.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
magicdanw said:
I wonder why everyone says to use a solid black background? Do most people use their phones primarily by staring at the home screen? I'm never at my home screen more than perhaps five seconds while switching apps
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Click to collapse
In AMOLED, black pixels dont use power. This is different from LCD where even black pixels still use power.
Have you guys tried fully charging, then fully discharing then repeating this step 3 more times? It helps with the battery life tremendously.
You gotta do a factory reset. Many people as well as myself had the same issue. For me, a side effect was also that the att start up swoosh was stupidly loud.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
I only did the discharge thing once, last week, and today I am going on a 21 hours with 28% left.
2g app
I was told there is a 2g / 3g application. Has anyone tried this? Apparently it puts the phone in 2g when no data connection is needed and then updates to 3g when a data process is required...
i'm on day two of not charging mine... and i'm at 25%...
i unplugged it from a full charge yesterday (monday) morning before i left for work and today (29 hours later) i'm at 25%... this is with advanced task killer auto killing tasks when screen is off as well as being aggressive about it. i've been listening to music from my sd card, browsing facebook and taking some pictures (and uploading them to fb). i guess i'm either super lucky not to have any problems with GPS or the battery, or i'm a very light user.
I dunno what happened to the main battery thread?
I just got a new phone two days ago because of the restart issue. This one has the same battery issue. Drains 2-4%/hour just being idle. I have nothing beyond launcher pro and google voice installed. Everything is on lockdown in terms of batt usage. The only thing I haven't done is turn off the cell antenna.
I've tried the tricks I knew: factory reset, calibration trick. These didn't help at all. My last phone just needed a factory reset and it was all good. Now I'm sad again :-( will it just improve itself when the phone "learns" the battery or something? I wish I could teach it
Several things you can do.
1) Use WiFi if you can use it, it uses less power. If you don't have somewhere to use WiFi, leave it off.
2) Same goes for BT- leave it off if possible.
3) Use this to get rooted and remove all the ATT crap that sucks battery life. Applying the lag fix also means you spend less time with the screen on, so that can also help you out.
4) Use Auto Brightness
5) Disabling haptic feedback and the tapping sounds (I find it more annoying regardless)
6) Use a static black wallpaper- or something really dark. IMO it looks great black and plus the AMOLED... Black doesn't use power.
7) Use Advanced Task Killer. I have mine on Aggressive and Moderate security every half hour. This will make sure hung apps, etc get killed and apps you haven't ran. Make sure you whitelist the apps that run your widgets and such though.
That's the best things to do to.
Edit- above all, remember this is a SMART phone, not a feature phone like the iPhone is. The simple fact this full blown SMART phone can even begin to rival just a feature phone like the iPhone speaks volumes to how much more efficient it is than what you think it is.
starwolf256 said:
I've had an issue twice now with absurd battery usage. Both times I charged the phone to full and disconnected it; after doing that the phone would lose 10% charge every hour sitting completely idle! Using the phone during that time drained it even faster. Both times powering the phone completely off and back on resolved the issue.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I too have had issues with battery life but quickly realized what had been causing the issues, twice it had been snesoid not closing down all the way after use, and this combined with an app that was hurting battery life (word feud), I realized what my problem was.
I leave the brightness jacked all the way down. I believe the lowest it goes on the stock rom is like 15%, but there are ways to go lower than that.
I've not used my phone much the past two days since charging it, and i'm currently down to 35%, but most of my battery use is cell standby, with display being 3rd or so on the list.
You can always use a program like tasker to make the phone go into airport mode between certain hours of the day (IE: while you're sleeping) to help conserve the battery life.
There are also tons of other good tips in this thread.
And trust me, the phone can last; i've managed 3days on one charge
Love the phone. Only complaint that I have is the battery life. I only get about 10 hours of normal use before it dies.
I have it rooted and I have installed Juice defender and setCPU. I have no idea really how to use either of these apps though.
Can anyone please help me to install and set up the apps that I need to get the best power/battery life ratio for this phone?
Thanks.
A really helpful tip is to use black backgrounds. This reduces the amount of pixels on the screen requiring power on the Super AMOLED display, and will improve battery life significantly. Tower reception is also a big one, just turn off mobile data when you get to a low signal area.
I suggest turning down the brightness to the lowest indoors and then bringing it up a little outdoors. 10 hours is really good compared to the 4 hours I got on my old 4g.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App
I second the black background.
I also installed widgetoid, created a widget with a shortcut to the mobile network settings.
I have Network Mode set to GSM only (Edge Network) throughout the day. This is fine to keep my email syncing and for phone calls. If I know I'm going to start browsing the internet/ streaming music/ etc then I go and set the network mode to Auto to allow 4G connections.
With a few phone calls and a little bit of internet usage I still had about 60% battery life left after 12 hours off the charger.
juice defender works wonders. Set profile to extreme. Choose carefully and let app do this rest. It auto shuts off data when not using 4 apps. I have been off charge 9:40 mitutes with 79% battery remaining. I've been on the market made a few phone calls, browsed the internet and getting and receiving text + emails coming in. Have settings GSM only until I need 4G speed. I don't need a charger because I get through the day easily.
Thanks
I just wanted to say thanks everyone for the tips! I know more is coming from other users but i'm new to android i switched from Windows Mobile 6.5 and android is better so far or atleast for the week i have had this device. i was getting upset with the battery life and always taking my charger with me(i never had to do that with my custom Rhodium. the black backround idea does work very well. I have also found if you set your backlight timeout to 1 min it helps a lot.
Kafluke said:
Love the phone. Only complaint that I have is the battery life. I only get about 10 hours of normal use before it dies.
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Click to collapse
you call 10 hrs a problem??
I can tether my Xoom for 2 hrs and listine to pandora over bluetooth for another 3 before it dies... my last phone could berly stand 45mins of pandora over bluetooth before crapping out
Always hated the idea of black backgrounds on beautiful 800x480 screens. Anyhows I had the very same quick battery death too and fixed it. One get Juice Defender, very worth while, second run device in portrait mode [I was an old n900 user so I had it in landscape mode, it did not like staying in that mode]. If things get really bad turn off the WiFi when not in use and change the autosync features to off or disabled. ALOT of power is comsumed by adware communicating with various entities while your away from the device. Genuinely suprused by the sheer amount of adware on the device, nearly ever "free" app is adware [meaning you pay with your usage pattern's etc]. YMV but that all I had to do to get the battery under control.
Im a moderate user and my battery is still going strong
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App
orionshock said:
you call 10 hrs a problem??
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Click to collapse
Yep, I'm more than happy getting 10-12 hours of at-office use with WiFi on constantly (including M$ push and personal email) and a moderate amount of browsing during the day. I keep the brightness at "0" as much as possible.
Beats the pants off my N900 which would die in under 4 hours under the same at-office usage patterns.
OEM battery and charger is ~$25 or a Zagg Sparq2 (4 Ah, I believe) for watching hours of video and Angry Birds on those trans-Pacific flights.
You are doing something wrong guys. . .
I'm on a Vibrant /w Froyo 2.2.1 and a 1500mah battery that is now 7 months old.
Battery left says total battery life per charge is 23 hours, 15 minutes.
Now mind you I am a relatively moderately/heavy user. I have 5 homescreens with 15 widgets total on them that refresh every 2 hours, and an intensive live wallpaper.
I use the phone a lot for reading RSS feeds, facebook, texting, and LOTS of music. Total screen-on-time per battery charge is around 3-4 hours with Automatic brightness.
Obviously you have something going on with your phones if you are only getting 10 hours. My phone is also overclocked to 1.4Ghz with overvoltages and I STILL get this good a battery life with all my usage...on an old battery mind you.
Check for rogue apps?
PS: I have Wi-Fi on 100% of the time but NEVER use 3G/HSPA for data since I don't use a data plan. The Wi-Fi is connected 90% of the time the phone is on though since I am always at places with Wi-Fi.
I am running current widget. This phone is a beast and eats 250mA while idle while my OG droid only was taking 20-30mA. no wonder this sucker dies in 4 hours
That shouldn't be that high when idle. I'm doing idle power tests right now, all the time in fact, on my nexus. Checked the thunderbolt and inspire at the store. At least they seem more efficient with screen on, hitting around 430mA at max brightness. My nexus will hit 750mA which drives me nuts.
I'm comparing ginger bread idle power, and Google seems to have made enormous improvements. Idle current draw is now at 8 mA, where on froyo for me its around 18mA. More testing needed.
But I feel that slcd screen is way way better for power than the amoled since most uses show white color anyway.
RogerPodacter said:
That shouldn't be that high when idle. I'm doing idle power tests right now, all the time in fact, on my nexus. Checked the thunderbolt and inspire at the store. At least they seem more efficient with screen on, hitting around 430mA at max brightness. My nexus will hit 750mA which drives me nuts.
I'm comparing ginger bread idle power, and Google seems to have made enormous improvements. Idle current draw is now at 8 mA, where on froyo for me its around 18mA. More testing needed.
But I feel that slcd screen is way way better for power than the amoled since most uses show white color anyway.
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Click to collapse
well its pretty consistent idle power draw of 200-250. i have 4G on and syncing on as well. When i am using the phone with the screen on i average around 450-500. when i turn of 4G and have good 3G signal i can get the phone around 45mA
45mA is still high. I just wiped my phone because I'm averaging 50mA idle all the time no matter what. On this clean install I'm now at 15mA very consistently. But what's driving me nuts is I loaded stock ginger bread, and that ROM stays dead even at freaking 4 - 7mA. It's beautiful, my battery lasts incredibly long on it. But switching back to cyan7 I can't get below 14mA, and its driving me mad.
I just swapped ROMs again a few hours ago to do more tests. I hacked the nexus battery driver to do some useful tests. Wonder if the thunderbolt uses the same driver.
My idle draw is an average 40 with 4G. I'm using the current widget.
It also draws the same on airplane mode. Something is screwed up somewhere...
Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk
Your posts aren't very informative for someone trying to compare.
What apps are you running background, which services (sync, location, etc), which radios on (wifi sleep policy, BT on, 4G/3G area, etc), screen brightness settings? Even the app will have an impact on draw, since keeping a log file will cause some juice drain each time the log is written, so update interval is probably necessary for the discussion to be meaningful.
You're getting your numbers from the log and when the phone is actually truly idle (ie. untouched, screen off) for a while?
Not criticizing at all, but these kind of discussions can end up just frustrating folks because of ambiguities...kind of like the posts where someone says (I get 5 days on my battery with "moderate use", and it turns out that guy's idea of "moderate use" means it sits untouched all day except a couple of minutes browsing).
I just installed the current widget out of curiosity, so not much data to go on, but with the screen on 50% brigthness, wifi on, BT on, sync on, several apps having been opened I saw about 140mah. Turned the brightness down to minimum and it dropped to 76, then 45. Let the phone idle scree off for a few minutes, and it was showing 32 when I first turned it back on.
My log shows that during the idle period for a couple of minutes, the phone was drawing between 30 and 40 each pull (every ten seconds).
A lolcatz haz rited yor subjekt...
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App
distortedloop said:
Your posts aren't very informative for someone trying to compare.
What apps are you running background, which services (sync, location, etc), which radios on (wifi sleep policy, BT on, 4G/3G area, etc), screen brightness settings? Even the app will have an impact on draw, since keeping a log file will cause some juice drain each time the log is written, so update interval is probably necessary for the discussion to be meaningful.
You're getting your numbers from the log and when the phone is actually truly idle (ie. untouched, screen off) for a while?
Not criticizing at all, but these kind of discussions can end up just frustrating folks because of ambiguities...kind of like the posts where someone says (I get 5 days on my battery with "moderate use", and it turns out that guy's idea of "moderate use" means it sits untouched all day except a couple of minutes browsing).
I just installed the current widget out of curiosity, so not much data to go on, but with the screen on 50% brigthness, wifi on, BT on, sync on, several apps having been opened I saw about 140mah. Turned the brightness down to minimum and it dropped to 76, then 45. Let the phone idle scree off for a few minutes, and it was showing 32 when I first turned it back on.
My log shows that during the idle period for a couple of minutes, the phone was drawing between 30 and 40 each pull (every ten seconds).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ill post a copy of my Log later on. Right now the results wouldnt be fair because i am at my parents place and their house is made of some material where you go from 3 to 0 bars of reception when you walk in the door. But usually my general setup is 3g/4g on wifi off, BT on but not connected to anything, GPS on but not actively lookin for sataillites, and then a bunch of my regular apps. I mean let me put it like this. in my first post i discuss the difference i have seen in current consumption between the TB and my OG droid. The phones are set up EXACTLY the same with the same programs running in the background. The only difference is the TB has that extra 4G radio. I live in West LA so generally the coverage should be 100% 3g/4g. anyhow ill get a copy of the log.
my currentwidget is almost always above 100mA and ive got 4g off, wifi off, gps off, BT off, no apps running etc. very frustrating to see this phone die in 6 hours no matter what
This has been my experience also. my history from last night showed a peak of about 400mah discharge and a min of about 120 mah discharge. Not sure what is going on.
I have wifi off, bt off, gps off(using vzw location services though), with words with friends, double twist, battery booster, goog voice, lookout, bat indicator service, myphonemrules, simple service, craigs checker service, weather toggle widgets, nobars, night time service, battery monitor widget, and swiftkey, the rest are vzw bloatware services or htc processes in the background. Backlight is at about 30-40, and timeout is set to about 1 min. Since the last restart I have gotten as low as -50mah and max is about -350. I can't say what all was running during the night because I changed few things this morn to try and fix my drain, which as seemed to help, but not a lot.
Attached is a copy of my history since 3/24.
Once we are able to undervolt our kernel, our idle usage should drop significantly. Until then, I'm keeping a charger handy and waiting for my eBay batteries to get here, lol.
I have the extended battery, which I can't use with my case of course, if I really need it. But I like having a case on my phone because I shattered the screen on my D2 a week after I got my last one. Not trying to do that with the TB.
so to revisit this post a couple months in.. i am on the new GB leak. still idle at 40mA still sucking power like nobodys business.. wtf
Ive searched around and this seems to be a common issue, I tried the factory reset even the htc battery conditioning where you charge fully turn off then another hour back on for 2min off again and charge for another hour with no positive results, I read online some ppl are getting -1/-2 mah an hour I have never seen single digit in my phone.
I included screenshots of my battery drain even adjusted the app to read 1500mah, anything else i missed in settings? Also went into phone information in the Tests menu set it to auto instead of GSM, also with SetCPU I tried underclocking with little change to mah usage, running out of ideas...
Currently its rooted with GingerBreak, and CM7 with #48 nightly installed, any help would definitely be appreciated.
How many hours is your phone lasting on a single charge?
Lately between 5-7hrs one had about 8 and half hours a handful of times
it's true that if you constantly use the phone nonstop like watching youtube, browsing, playing games, etc. the battery won't last longer than 4 hours without getting an extended battery, heck just using moderateley the battery will be about 50% by the end of an 8 hour workshift, but what I found that will extend the battery life with moderate use are these...
1. Turn of wifi, bluetooth, gps, sync. (contrary to what ppl say on this forum I find that wifi eats way more battery than being on 4G)
2 Disable background data. (The only thing I actually need background data checked is to use the android market or maps when I need to, with it off it's a huge battery saver)
3 In settings choose to use only 2G (This will increase battery life 4x and Tmobile 2G is pretty fast, just like 3G)
4 Download Opera Mini (Since you'll be using 2G to save battery you'll want to surf the web with a browser that is super fast using slow connections, and Opera mini is second to none. You can always turn on 4G when you want to have fast video streaming but then you eat alot of battery again.)
5. Install Auto Airplane Mode (you can turn auto airplane mode on when you're not gonna be expecting calls such as at work or when you don't want to be disturbed, hell, if you just want to save as much battery as possible. Since Auto airplane mode disables the radio and data completey which is the number 1 cause of battery bleed with it on from a full charge unplugged you'll still have a 100% when you wake up your phone after a day.)
6 Install juice defender (free is fine)
7 Don't use Lookout Antivirus (I've found Lookout drains the battery quick, if you want an antivirus that doesn't eat the battery try AVG. I prefer AVG because I notice it does not drain my battery like Lookout.)
This has made my phone last more than a day on stock battery with moderate to light use. If I think of more tweaks I'll add later
This is ridiculous. If you have to turn off all those features, then don't even bother getting a smartphone.
My tips are:
1- Set brightness to auto.
2- Avoid Skype and other apps that usually appear as On going on the status bar.
3- Get rid of any task killer. They actually make the battery life worse. Don't worry about tasks running in the background, the OS takes care of them. If you wanna quit an app, try to look for a quit button by pressing the settings button when the app is on the foreground. Otherwise, just press the back button below the screen until you get back to the home screen (for some reason this seems more efficient than just pressing the home button.)
4- If you don't use IMs, get juice defender and set it to disable data when screen is off. It will turn data automatically on once you turn the screen on by pressing the lock button on the top of your device. Note that this is different compared to auto airplane mode, with Juice Defender you can still receive phone calls and text messages when the screen is off.
Last but not least, consider purchasing an extra battery and/or car charger.
Mine usually lasts for about 12 hours with moderate to high use. Almost all smartphones have short battery life if used heavily.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
risho said:
Lately between 5-7hrs one had about 8 and half hours a handful of times
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Click to collapse
Yea that's awful. Do you by chance have your brightness set extremely high? And how is the cell coverage where you usually use your phone?
I think all of the advice above is valid and will save your battery. The question is to what extreme do you want to go? I tend to agree with donatello88 that there comes a point when you get so paranoid about battery life that you may as well not have a smartphone because you've turned off most of its features.
Get rid of any task killers, battery monitors, etc. They are simply churning thru clock cycles and that uses more battery. Set email, Facebook, etc to check for updates less frequently. Either use auto brightness or manually set your brightness to about 25-30%. That should b bright enough for everyday use unless your in bright sunlight a lot. Use juice defender if you like. And be wary of antivirus apps. I've heard some can suck ur battery dry.
If you do those simple things and are still getting only 5-6 hours then I'd be taking it back to T-Mobile ... unless of course you're on your phone without ceasing. In that case, what can you expect? Lol
Ok with the tips I just mentioned above, I got a chance to put it to real world test. I caught the bus to my son's grad ceremony and reached there at 4pm ceremony didn't start till 6pm so those 2 hours just surfing the web reading articles and forums I was down to 90% battery. Didn't know how long the ceremony was gonna be so called my sister on video chat using tango and spoke to her for about 20 minutes. Did some more browsing using opera mini set to only use 2g for another 2 hours, my don came out, I took some pics and video of him turned on 4g to video chat again with my duster for about 5 minutes, and after 4 non stop hours of consecutive use with screen on, I'm now at 71% battery life. I'm at the bus stop now on my 12 mile commute home and I'm confident the battery will give me more entertainment until I get home. Awesome! You don't have to believe me, just try out my tweaks and you'll be amazed.
Everyone thanks for all of the help and tips, today was the first day I saw 10hrs+(included screenshots), I had my screen on auto and after some reading saw that with CM7 it doesnt work well so I have changed it down to 20-40% depending on where I am, turned off background/auto sync only turn it on when I need it and uninstalled the app killer I was using also changed a few of the SetCPU profiles.
Im not really a heavy user just wondering if having 3email accounts set to update every hour would be a battery drain too? I mostly text/email during the day and talk about 1-2hrs depending how busy I am at work.
Again I thank everyone for pointing me in the right direction...unfortunately at home I have 1bar to none for service so I do depend on Wifi calling which im sure drains more juice, also at work since it in a high rise not too much cell signal so wifi on most of the day...
[Ultimate GUIDE] Increase your battery life on Android
risho said:
Lately between 5-7hrs one had about 8 and half hours a handful of times
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello risho,
I was having the same kind of battery life... After 3 months of research, I collected all valuable tips.
"Valuable tips" means: tips that do not need constant involvement from your side (you don't need to go switch on/off things, etc..) and also that leave you with a very functional phone (you have location when you need it, you have e-mails flowing regularly enough, etc...)!
With these tips, I am now lasting from 6am to 11pm and at 11pm, remaining battery is 10% at least!
Go and check my thread: [Ultimate GUIDE] Increase your battery life on Android!
Enjoy!
Hi,
I'm trying to figure out what options would keep my battery life up on the s2 3g.
I've had the watch for a couple days now and I'm trying to figure out which features drain the most battery.
I would like to keep 3g on (but it's not really necessary when sitting at my desk all day), bluetooth, and always on. I don't mind keeping the screen at a brightness of 3, and my watch face is a dark background, I have 6 apps selected for notifications.
I do not have gps, or wifi on.
I guess what would be helpful is basically a list of the most battery draining items on the watch. It would also be great to have a battery management app (for the developers out there) that could quickly turn on/off certain items. Right now there's a battery saving mode, a do not disturb mode, and airplane mode... these are all in different locations, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to have some more quick control over all these types of items and additional ones to just manage all the battery draining items, like the pedometer and other "ometers"... is there a way to turn those items off?
Overall I love the watch, but it would be nice to not be thinking about the battery so much... and just use it.
I'm wondering the same thing. Turned it on at around 6am, have brightness set to 1. Haven't used it that much. Wake up gesture is on but not screen always on. I'm at 30% at 2:41pm....with my gear s I was able to get through a 6am-9/10pm day on auto brightness and still have a little battery left (that included a 2 mile walk in the morning using some health exercise with gear s.) I haven't even used the exercise option in this (other than the pedometer) because I'm afraid it will drain the battery.
I love everything else about the s2 though
I'm suppose to get mine this week and battery is my biggest concern. I plan to use this to run for up to 2.5 hours and play mp3's. I might cancel based on what you 2 are saying.
I do have nfc on, 3g on auto switch, and WiFi set to on (only switches on if I walk out of bt range) I did get a lot of espn notifications, texts, email...but not any more than I did on the gear S. I have the screen set to stay dark and not turn on for notifications. With my gear S I had the screen set to turn on full screen with every notification. I'm going to try tomorrow with nfc, 3g, and WiFi off....but, I shouldn't have to do that...I should be able to use all those, if needed, and still be able to get the 14-16 hours+ that I was getting with my Gear S. Like I said, I do really love everything else about it!
Try a restart
I had a terrible first day, with the Watch dying after 8 hours. I suspected that some of the app installs were having and draining it so I restarted both phone and watch.. The next day, I got 15 hours and still had 40 percent left. I have NFC and wifi turned off, network to autoswitch (with me leaving phone home and relying on 3g for 2 hours), turned off "always on" screen (because the wake gesture is SO much more accurate than with Gear S), and a white watchfacer with brightness set to 7. Very happy so far. Suggest restarting watch and phone after Gear app installs or updates
Thanks! I'll try that. Is your location/gps set to off? I also had s voice set to a voice commands and have now turned that off. Is a white watchface or black more draining? (I would assume white would drain the battery more)
I think the NFC, GPS, Always on being turned off have been a huge help with the battery life, and I understand why those things would drain a battery, but it would be nice to be able to have everything turned on and at least get a day's use.
In general I assume the first day you get the watch it his heavily impacted by the app downloads... I let it drain to zero and then fully to 100%... I also stopped playing with it every ten seconds. BUT as I mentioned earlier, this should be usable for a day minimum with normal usage. If Samsung has a "normal" usage setting in mind that will allow for a day (or the 2 days advertised for the 3g version), there should literally be an option in settings called "normal usage" that should get you the 2 days.
diamondjon said:
I think the NFC, GPS, Always on being turned off have been a huge help with the battery life, and I understand why those things would drain a battery, but it would be nice to be able to have everything turned on and at least get a day's use.
In general I assume the first day you get the watch it his heavily impacted by the app downloads... I let it drain to zero and then fully to 100%... I also stopped playing with it every ten seconds. BUT as I mentioned earlier, this should be usable for a day minimum with normal usage. If Samsung has a "normal" usage setting in mind that will allow for a day (or the 2 days advertised for the 3g version), there should literally be an option in settings called "normal usage" that should get you the 2 days.
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I absolutely agree! I was able to get 14-16 hour day (with some left) on my gear s, with all the options that I wanted turned on. This this new and improved device should, at a minimum, give me comparable battery life! I'm also having an issue with the activity tracker telling me I'm doing light activity when I'm sitting on the couch watching TV....that is definitely not light activity.
AmyMejlak said:
I absolutely agree! I was able to get 14-16 hour day (with some left) on my gear s, with all the options that I wanted turned on. This this new and improved device should, at a minimum, give me comparable battery life! I'm also having an issue with the activity tracker telling me I'm doing light activity when I'm sitting on the couch watching TV....that is definitely not light activity.
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Maybe in Korea "light activity" means "couch potato"?
Yea, we'll see what happens with future updates. One of the big draws to this watch (aside from all the other enticing factors) was the battery life... I guess time will tell.
Use close all apps feature on gear s2 3g to save battery life
Dhern said:
Use close all apps feature on gear s2 3g to save battery life
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How does one get to this 'close all apps' feature?
Go to Apps and select blue circle. I think, it is last opened apps. There You can select Close all.
Odoslané z SM-N910C pomocou Tapatalku
Was also curious about everyones setup.
First 2 days i didnt take into account battery because i was playing with it alot.
Today, booted watch at 7am, booted, got on, checked in 15 minutes, and was from 100-69%
Current setup,
display at 3%
about 10 apps that alert,
S Health
3G/4G is at auto
GPS-off
NFC-off
WiFi-off
i did have a Power Ranger face(which i loved) but it had alot livewallpaper action, blinking lights, and pieces that moved etc, changed to the default one with the stars in background with digial.
i am currently at 33% from 7 1/2 hours of usage
no music, have not taken any calls, havent responded to any messages, literally looked and swiped away.
Would a rooted Sam N4 have any effect on the performance of the watch?
I was on stock, but was horrible after the lolipop update.
Still on stock ROM, just rooted and bloatware removed, nothing special.
Ok, good thing there is a thread on this already.
So first day I didn't take battery into consideration, because you always fiddle with it too much. Then I had to work for two days, and my job is heavy construction, so I don't bring my watch, I left it on the charger for two days straight. I put it on Friday night, and didn't charge it till Saturday night. Today (Sunday) I was at 15% by about 12pm, and I took it out of the charger by 9am. This doesn't seem right. Did leaving it on the charger for too long mess up my battery? What is going on here?
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Were you on just 3g...instead of bt? My battery life has improved with turning a lot of the options (wifi, nfc, heartrate monitoring) off. If I'm on 3g it is a whole different story....accidentally left my phone home the other night and was remotely connected between watch and phone....dropped down 40% in less than two hours. Has anyone else had a similar issue?
I don't have the 3g model, I have the classic. Yesterday it was good for the whole day, but to be honest I didn't check the battery when I took it off the charger this morning. I went to bed at 2am,so maybe between 2 am and 9 am it didn't have time to fully charge?
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I think the variant of the 3g gear s2 and your network is key for battery life.
I have a tmobile carrier gear s2 and the battery life for the first two days was at about 18 hours off the charger each day and ending up with 15% at the end of each day before charging.
Mind you this is with 3 email accounts getting maybe 10 emails per hour, Answering texts and even taking a call or two on the watch, and also controlling my spotify for my note.
The tmobile watch has auto on/off 3g for when you disconnect from bluetooth or WiFi to your phone. I've heard that not all gear s2's have the auto on/off 3g feature?
Overall highly satisfied. But just turn off what you don't need when you don't use it has always been the name of the game when it comes to any mobile battery life. Nfc doesn't need to be on if you don't use samsung pay consistently. Neither does WiFi. Bluetooth and or 3g should be all anyone really every needs for true daily usage imo
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I agree. I have had the 3g version since 2 days after its launch on T-Mobile. I had a white one and returned it b/c I was convinced something was wrong with the watch. I got a second one (black one) two weeks later and have the same issue. If I turn off all of the functions I wanted the watch for -- i.e., 3g, Wifi, NFC -- I can get a day of use. This is really disappointing b/c I have the classic as well, and it lasts twice as long with the same amount of activity. I hope Samsung does not something to extend the battery life on the 3g version.
I also have the Tmobile Gear S2 and on the first full day, I only got about 10 hours of battery life with very little use using all of the watch defaults. On day 2, I opted to turn off wifi and the cell radio and now I have great battery life. In excess of 17 hours if not more. On day 3 I decided to turn on wifi and bluetooth only. Battery life is still fantastic, once again in excess of 17 hours if not more. Next test will be all three radios on again, then just the cell radio only.
Hope this helps,
GP
What are you guys doing with your watches that you need 3g and wifi on all the time? I have mine setup with bluetooth on and 3g auto with wifi, gps, and NFC turned off. I also have the heart rate monitor turned on and set to take my heart rate as often as it will. I have screen on all day and display is at 3. I can make it a full day (630a - 10p) and still have about 40% left. I basically use mine while at work to check notifications so I'm not constantly picking up my phone just to clear a twitter notification. I know they made it so that you can use these for content consumption, but I don't think it was ever meant to be it's primary function, that's what the $700 cell phone in my pocket or the 400 tablet in my backpack is for. That being said, if you wanted to use it for a run and listen to music, do it. Just know that you may need to throw it on the charger later on when you are relaxing on the couch. To me, a full days use on any device is fair, but that's just my 2c.