[Q] Poor battery life [with answer] - HTC Sensation

Could not understand why my new device was burning through it's battery like it was a desktop computer. I can't remember where but I stumbled across the application OS monitor and took a look to see anything untoward.
Well I have an exchange email server that I use to sync all my contacts/calendar and emails.
It would appear that the inbuilt google mail app tends to CONSTANTLY drain power whilst it is set up, I did have push mail activated and it was set to do background data et al.
Removing this has fixed my battery drain issue and I'm now using Touchdown to manage my email exchange, with push mail activated and having no such problems at all!
I'm not suggesting that everyone switches to Touchdown but it is definitely worth trying a different client if you are having problems with poor battery performance!
Hope this helps someone as it was REALLY beginning to annoy me, not even lasting a night out!

Did Google show up under your battery use?

hah2110 said:
Did Google show up under your battery use?
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Click to collapse
Not quite sure what you mean? OS monitor showed the system using a few resources every now and again but mail was using 30-40% almost constantly draining the battery!
Also found that leaving WIFI enabled uses VERY little battery and so I've kept that alive so that the current mail app I'm using doesn't poll and get no connection all the time (personally what I think was happening is due to me living in the middle of nowhere there was no signal and so it kept polling until it could find a signal which was using up resources).

Related

very basic battery question

I'm not new to the world of ppcs by any stretch of the imagination...but i have one question which has always puzzled me. How much strain does checking email every 5 minutes have on my battery? I have a gsm touch and can't seem to hold a charge for more than a day with very minimal usage. A typical day for me is 2 or 3 short phone calls and several texts..in addition to checking for new email every 5 minutes. Would I be correct in assuming that to check for email my touch is awakened from standby..thus causing the drain?
Js
You are correct, but also consider that when it connects to check email it is using the radio to connect to the network. So essentially you are having the radio on almost ALL DAY. Similar to a voice call all day. Battery is then drained by the radio usage to talk to the network.
does the same apply to a push mail setup?
well...am i essentially doing the same thing by having GPRS always on? In other words, is this going to drain my battery at the same rate whether i'm checking for mail every 5 minutes or every hour?
No it is not the same for Push email. Push email wakes the device and delivers the mail when there is some. As opposed to the device connecting and querying for mail, the device gets woken (sp?) up and gets delivered the mail for Push. Push is a much more effective way of getting your mail... I forward all my mail to my hotmail account which then gets pushed to my device via Windows Live.
Regarding the always on GPRS... yes and no. Yes you are connected and draining the battery but just being on doesn't use as much as actually pulling or sending data. The difference is negligible and really irrelevant. I would say that you turn off GPRS all the time if you are trying to save on battery life.
Make sense?
You may want to install Battery Status and turn on the current drain option. While a bit of a catch 22, considering the screen has to be on for you to see what the drain is, thus causing a higher than idle drain. At least you can get an idea of what your device is draining and see if changing settings makes a difference.
Link to Battery Status (not sure if this is the current version)
http://www.chi-tai.info/cs_BatteryStatus_XDA_Neo_WM5_iM_cs.htm
The other suggestion is to consider changing ROMs. I have a GSM Touch and the factory ROM was really poor on battery life. I have been using the Blue Touch ROM version 2.10 (not the newest version) listed in the Elf upgrade section. I can now go more than one day without charging the battery, with push e-mail activated.

windows live question

hey guys, i just set up my hotmail to download via windows live. i noticed under the sync schedule that there is an option to download "as emails come in" kinda like push email. my question is this; is this true push or is it just constantly polling the servers, thus draining my battery very quickly..
It's push. Your battery is safe. (Other than, of course, all the other mysterious battery-draining quirks these phones have.)
cool, i had no idea, thought it was gonna be constantly polling and kill my battery. good to know, thanks
i believe it's a constant polling. i was reading on that earlier and the windows live "help" says that the alert when it arrives mode requires a constant connection.
here's the exact quote from the help/FAQ:
Q: How can I improve my battery life when using the software?
A: Windows Live for Windows Mobile requires a permanent data connection if you have your "Sync Frequency" set to "As Items Arrive," resulting in potentially high battery drain on certain devices if you receive lots of e-mail. If you experience excessively short battery life, you can take steps to increase it. To improve your battery life, you can set your "Sync Frequency" to something other than "As Items Arrive." This action will extend battery life, though "your mileage may vary" depending on how you use Hotmail and how much mail you receive.
ha hmm... who to believe.... but i think ur right mputtr... i might try it out and see how it affects my battery.. thanks for the heads up tho
omaralt said:
hey guys, i just set up my hotmail to download via windows live. i noticed under the sync schedule that there is an option to download "as emails come in" kinda like push email. my question is this; is this true push or is it just constantly polling the servers, thus draining my battery very quickly..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what version of windows live do you have running? i've tried a few for the fuze and haven't had any succes. if yours is the WLM with msn messenger do you ming posting it?
hey, i also tried multiple versions, and none of them worked. however, when i flashed romeo's rom it had windows live working perfectly on there. i have no idea how to extract it....
mputtr said:
i believe it's a constant polling.
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Click to collapse
There's a difference between constant polling and a constant connection. In order to have push mail you have to have a constant connection. Polling means you connect, poll for mail, and disconnect.
The push in Windows Live is similar to Active Sync with Exchange.
so does that mean it doesnt drain the battery constantly? are you saying its constant connection or constant polling?

Battery Drain Culprit = HTC HUB

Found HTC HUB kept syncing every 3 minutes. This may be a bug in Sense 3.0 but not sure. My battery is no longer losing 4/5% per hour without use. Not saying this will solve everyone's battery life problems but give it ago. Also turned Facebook sync off.
Hope this helps some of you guys.
recklesslife85 said:
Found HTC HUB kept syncing every 3 minutes. This may be a bug in Sense 3.0 but not sure. My battery is no longer losing 4/5% per hour without use. Not saying this will solve everyone's battery life problems but give it ago. Also turned Facebook sync off.
Hope this helps some of you guys.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As a general rule, sync management should always be in play...especially on a brand new phone. This includes email. Push email eats battery badly. Also included in this is location settings and brand specific apps. Very few people think of HTC hub.
alodar1 said:
As a general rule, sync management should always be in play...especially on a brand new phone. This includes email. Push email eats battery badly. Also included in this is location settings and brand specific apps. Very few people think of HTC hub.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually Polling email affects the battery more than push. Polling your phone will connect every X amount of minutes to poll the server for new mail so it's constantly using data every time it checks. Push email the emails are only pushed to the phone when there are new messages so data is only used when the server pushes the message to your phone instead of your phone connecting to poll your email account every 15 minutes or every hour, sending data to the server, the server checking if there are messages, then pulling the data down.
There has been debate on this but think about it.
if you poll for email every 15 minutes the phone is opening a data connection to the server every 15 minutes even if there are no messages. with push you only use data when the message is pushed to you.
recklesslife85 said:
Found HTC HUB kept syncing every 3 minutes. This may be a bug in Sense 3.0 but not sure. My battery is no longer losing 4/5% per hour without use. Not saying this will solve everyone's battery life problems but give it ago. Also turned Facebook sync off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
where do you check the settings for the HTC HUB syncing?
piimp said:
where do you check the settings for the HTC HUB syncing?
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Click to collapse
Settings - Accounts & sync - HTC Sense
jlevy73 said:
Settings - Accounts & sync - HTC Sense
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Click to collapse
i was doing this before but i wasnt seeing HTC Sense thats y i asked, but i just realized its because it wasnt added to the list yet, so i just dint add it since im not even using it
Yeah i turned it off and im lasting a day and a half now. I like it but it's not worth all that battery life.
Sent via Motorola Xoom Wi-Fi only tablet powered by Android 3.1 Stock Honeycomb using Tapatalk Pro
HTC Hub is useless anyway. I don't know why anyone would want to use it.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App
When you have the two check boxes to sync htc hub and htc sync checked what info does it sync anyway?
seatown1two said:
When you have the two check boxes to sync htc hub and htc sync checked what info does it sync anyway?
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Click to collapse
my guess is the hub is to let you know of new widgets & crap & htc sync is is for their online site that can locate your phone, backs up your contacts/sms, & all of that
Honestly the screen is the culprit of battery drainage on my phone. I turned it all the way down and its been 5 hours and my battery is still 93%
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
Jackasaur said:
Honestly the screen is the culprit of battery drainage on my phone. I turned it all the way down and its been 5 hours and my battery is still 93%
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
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Click to collapse
Mine too. I found that friendstream was the actual culprit. Even though it said "Display" i discovered that that includes widgets also. Took friendstream off my desktop and unchecked the HTC HUB & SYNC and I'm perfect now.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
graffixnyc said:
Actually Polling email affects the battery more than push. Polling your phone will connect every X amount of minutes to poll the server for new mail so it's constantly using data every time it checks. Push email the emails are only pushed to the phone when there are new messages so data is only used when the server pushes the message to your phone instead of your phone connecting to poll your email account every 15 minutes or every hour, sending data to the server, the server checking if there are messages, then pulling the data down.
There has been debate on this but think about it.
if you poll for email every 15 minutes the phone is opening a data connection to the server every 15 minutes even if there are no messages. with push you only use data when the message is pushed to you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you misunderstand push vs pull in this context.
Pretty much all home WiFi routers as well as many mobile operators put your phone behind NAT. Also, every time you change networks your phone may end up with a different IP address. This means your phone is effectively unreachable for push messages in the way that you describe: sitting idle waiting for a message.
To be addressable by the push server it will need to poll each time it changes IP. To work around the NAT issue it will need to poll frequently regardless of IP changes, just to keep an open channel. (This because NAT mappings time out after a short while.) Push in the traditional sense is cool just because your message arrive instantly.
The idea that push saves battery is really just because of how Apple introduced push. They don't allow other apps to poll or to keep a traditional push connections open in the background. Instead they force all apps to use their push system, which results in a number of battery savings:
* Keeping 1 channel open with Apple's server vs. tons of poll/push connections with various servers is more efficient, simply because there is much less activity.
* That 1 channel is kept open with a specifically designed and very efficient protocol. It's not exchanging a lot of data just to keep the connection alive. (E.g. when you poll your e-mail you have a TCP handshake, an SSL handshake, an IMAP login and then a message list; much less efficient than the simple poll done by Apple.)
* Since no apps are pushing or polling themselves, they can be terminated or suspended completely without running stuff in the background. They don't wake up until the user responds to an Apple push message.
Elvis_Freshly said:
Mine too. I found that friendstream was the actual culprit. Even though it said "Display" i discovered that that includes widgets also. Took friendstream off my desktop and unchecked the HTC HUB & SYNC and I'm perfect now.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
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Click to collapse
I don't use hub or sense (though Sense is always listed in my running apps). My question is my screen is always 95% of the drain. You indicate that widgets are also included in the mix. I have Pure Messenger widgets, doubletwist (which is ALWAYS running even when its not a widget or activated by me), FB for android, Twitter, Twidroid and Friendcaster as widgets on my screens. However, I have Fcaster, Twitter, Twidroid and Pure messenger (for g-mail) polling every 4 hours. I am getting killed when I perform any extended action like taking a few pics and talking on the phone. If I open up any FB app I can watch the battery start to tick backwards like an odometer. Are these widgets responsible for this, though they are are scheduled for polling?
xnpu said:
I think you misunderstand push vs pull in this context.
Pretty much all home WiFi routers as well as many mobile operators put your phone behind NAT. Also, every time you change networks your phone may end up with a different IP address. This means your phone is effectively unreachable for push messages in the way that you describe: sitting idle waiting for a message.
To be addressable by the push server it will need to poll each time it changes IP. To work around the NAT issue it will need to poll frequently regardless of IP changes, just to keep an open channel. (This because NAT mappings time out after a short while.) Push in the traditional sense is cool just because your message arrive instantly.
The idea that push saves battery is really just because of how Apple introduced push. They don't allow other apps to poll or to keep a traditional push connections open in the background. Instead they force all apps to use their push system, which results in a number of battery savings:
* Keeping 1 channel open with Apple's server vs. tons of poll/push connections with various servers is more efficient, simply because there is much less activity.
* That 1 channel is kept open with a specifically designed and very efficient protocol. It's not exchanging a lot of data just to keep the connection alive. (E.g. when you poll your e-mail you have a TCP handshake, an SSL handshake, an IMAP login and then a message list; much less efficient than the simple poll done by Apple.)
* Since no apps are pushing or polling themselves, they can be terminated or suspended completely without running stuff in the background. They don't wake up until the user responds to an Apple push message.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So traditionally push would usually take up less battery life? (with Apple, Blackberry) but with Android it eats more battery? hmm I like to get my mail pretty quickly so setting my email to poll every 15 minutes takes up less battery then if it was pushed? It just seems odd that it would eat more battery with android but the opposite on apple and BB devices (I only know about BB never owned an iphone or ipad, never will)
Elvis_Freshly said:
Mine too. I found that friendstream was the actual culprit. Even though it said "Display" i discovered that that includes widgets also. Took friendstream off my desktop and unchecked the HTC HUB & SYNC and I'm perfect now.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How much of a battery increase did you notice from removing friend stream? I had the friend stream widget and just removed it. Hopefully that will help. I also use the HTC calendar widget, mail widget, weather widget and message widget
graffixnyc said:
How much of a battery increase did you notice from removing friend stream? I had the friend stream widget and just removed it. Hopefully that will help. I also use the HTC calendar widget, mail widget, weather widget and message widget
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Click to collapse
I go from generally...well..let me give u today's numbers.
5:11pm Unplugged at 100%
8:54pm 74% with moderate usage. (Tweetdeck, 47 texts, Google Talk non stop, 5 phone calls about 15 minutes or so a piece)
I only have Engadget, Bookmarks, Google Music and power Widget on Display and I am doing great... i generally recharge once a day now.
So I am 100% sure Friendstream is the Display killer for battery and HTC Sense is the other culprit...Disable these 2 and you will see what I mean.
Elvis_Freshly said:
So I am 100% sure Friendstream is the Display killer for battery and HTC Sense is the other culprit...Disable these 2 and you will see what I mean.
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Click to collapse
How do you disable HTC Sense?
galaxys said:
How do you disable HTC Sense?
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Click to collapse
I think he meant to disable HTC Hub from sync as mentioned earlier. If you use an alternative launcher I think you can use a task killer or app like android assistant to kill HTC Sense at start up. because even if you use another launcher it still runs in the background
graffixnyc said:
I think he meant to disable HTC Hub from sync as mentioned earlier. If you use an alternative launcher I think you can use a task killer or app like android assistant to kill HTC Sense at start up. because even if you use another launcher it still runs in the background
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Click to collapse
I was kinda thinking the same and will be trying Zeam...thanks

Mail issues w/ Exchange

I've noticed that my Mail app - which I only use for corporate exchange email - occasionally causes extremely heavy battery drain, enough to kill 40-50% battery life halfway through a day. I've found no pattern for the problem, but here's what I've noticed so far when having the issue:
-Mail using upwards of 50-60% of battery consumption
-Outgoing Mail hangs up and requires multiple resend attempts and/or killing the mail service and retrying a few times.
-Settings>Apps> Running list shows 2 mail apps: EASAppSvc and EASDirectPush, running for different durations of time. (typically only shows EASAppSvc when functioning 'normally.')
-Task Manager always shows just the one main Mail app.
-Killing DirectPush seems to help the problem, but not sure if this is directly related or just triggers something else.
I can't tell if this is related to my corporate server or my phone, but while I'm at work, I've noticed my desktop email application (Outlook) working as expected but the phone Mail app having the apparent sync connectivity issues.
Currently fully stock on the OTA version of 1.85. Had the same problem on fully stock 1.73, as well. Any thoughts on how to fix this connection issue or at least what may be the root of the problem? Has anyone else had this happen? There are a number of posts about activesync delays, but all of my mail is coming in on time and as expected, it's just the sending and constant battery drain that seem to pop up for me.
Other settings of note:
-Push email during peak (not smartsync).
-Peak time set to 7am-10pm. Off peak sync set to every hour.

Mailwise battery drain

I'm using Mailwise on my S6 and have noticed a big battery drain. About 30%. I have 4 accounts - one imap on manual sync, and one imap and 2 exchange all on 15 minute sync. This is an unreasonable drain right? Has anyone else had this issue and found a fix?
MrPez said:
I'm using Mailwise on my S6 and have noticed a big battery drain. About 30%. I have 4 accounts - one imap on manual sync, and one imap and 2 exchange all on 15 minute sync. This is an unreasonable drain right? Has anyone else had this issue and found a fix?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depends, if you haven't really used your phone all day, then it would be normal for this app to read a high percentage of the total use...
Yeah, that was with my phone down to 11% after 11 hours. I had hoped for better!
High battery usage after installation
Dear MailWise users,
When you install MailWise for the first time and add an account (or more than one) there is a large amount of work initializing your account properly. We do not use any server and therefore all processes are taking place on your mobile device. It means that when you first use MailWise we expect that there will be a high CPU usage that will drop after about 24 hours.
How is your battery usage rate now?
If you still experience that issue - Could you please send us a message via Menu --> Help --> Contact us ( type "Problems and Defects")?
Please describe your issue in a few sentences - we will get system logs in the message we receive and analyze them.
Best Regards,
MailWise Team

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