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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...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes! Can't believe I missed that one out. In the start id use the lowest brightness setting, which would be fine indoors. But outside it was impossible to see the phone because of its insanely reflective glass. Since we have an ambient light sensor I use it on automatic and it does a good job. Full bright strains my eyes abit thats why I dont keep it on full bright So for people really wanting to save the juice you can keep your brightness on the lowest level. Also when you take the phone out of your pocket and use it, its better to put the phone to sleep with the power button than let it timeout by itself. Those 10-15 seconds for each time you use phone count towards many minutes of unused display time in the end and does make a difference.
This is a very gd post with lots o useful info!! ok i have a qn, is using the phone a lot while the charging good for the battery? And if u let the battery charge even though its already 100 percent for an hour good? srry if it is noob qn...
androidlover123 said:
This is a very gd post with lots o useful info!! ok i have a qn, is using the phone a lot while the charging good for the battery? And if u let the battery charge even though its already 100 percent for an hour good? srry if it is noob qn...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Using your phone while charging does not affect your battery life, and is neither good nor bad. It is perfectly normal to use your phone while charging and is sometimes recommended while doing battery intensive tasks for example navigating while driving, wifi tethering, playing memory intensive games and finally outputing video through HDMI.
2. Overcharging was a phenomenom is older lithium ion battery. New batteries have bypass circuits. So when your phone reaches complete charge, it does not charge any further. So you should not be worried about overcharging your XT720.
Hope this helps.
Excelent article and good quality info. Thanks and best regards!
awesome article! Great information. Thanks a lot for putting that together. I have already started using a few of the tips mentioned.
u da maaan dude, thanks for a very detailed and informative article
I have been obessing over my battery stat page and am trying to figure out what exactly "Android System" is. It is usually consuming the highest percentage of battery power. I have tried everything to figure out what action exactly makes Android System get added to the battery stats page. I have disabled everything, every radio, syncing, deleted all widgets. I hardly have any apps as it is. It just seems rather inconsistent because sometimes Ill check the page after making a call and will find that Voice calls has consumed a small percentage of battery and Android System isn't even on the list. Other times I will take it off the charger and make a 30 minute call, but when I check the stats page 70% battery was used by Android System and only 3% was Voice Calls.
Can anyone tell me exactly what triggers Android System so I can make sure I cut down on its battery usage in any way possible
Sent from my Microwave
I assume you are looking in the settings > about phone > battery. You can select android system also and it will tell you more info.
Agoattamer said:
I assume you are looking in the settings > about phone > battery. You can select android system also and it will tell you more info.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see that but under more info its not very clear about what's using the batt.
Sent from my Microwave
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/seh6183/screenshot-1312932238053.png
Sent from my Microwave
Anyone have any comments on this?
Sent from my Microwave
Did a battery calibration and now android system isn't the number 1 thing consuming battery as usual. Weird:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/seh6183/testshot.png
This seems to be more in line with what normal battery usage should look like in my opinion.
Sent from my Microwave
I had this problem too until I did a calibration. Now cell standby consumes over 50% of my battery regularly, with android system consuming only 2%.
Sent from my HTC Inspire 4G using XDA App
Yea I did a calibration and all is well
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/seh6183/screenshot-1313102466360.png
Thank you
Sent from my Microwave
Aaaaaaaaand were back LOL
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/seh6183/screenshot-1313118381659.png
Sent from my Microwave
Its still occurring
What would you guys do?
Android system will occasionally use CPU as well, as shown in the following screenshots. Also! My good buddy let me see his Droid x recently. He had 42% battery life left and android system had only taken up 4% of that.
I'm pretty upset about this.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/seh6183/screenshot-1314312490137.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/seh6183/screenshot-1314312473018.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/seh6183/screenshot-1314312512785.png
Sent from my Microwave
If you asked me I would say all your values are a little screwy. Do you even turn the screen on, on your phone and use it? If you use your phone the Display should be by far the most used. To me it looks like you physically use your phone very little. That is why Phone idle and Android System seem to be the higher numbers.
Guessing you have many accounts syncing in the background. One of the biggies for Android System. So its not that Android System is using so much, the rest of the processes are using so little.
Oddly enough the same thing started happening with my phone recently too.
@Agoattamer
The system wouldn't eat most of the charge in less than 8 hours in normal circumstances. Also about your question concerning accounts, while I'm not seh6183, personally I only have my email account synchronizing and the very same thing happens.
Something is causing the CPU to remain awake, in my case stuck at 800MHz.
The factory reset will most likely solve it, but it'd be best to find the culprit to just try and rectify a specific anomaly rather than reinstalling the whole system.
Has recently any core Google apps been updated? Email, Maps, anything?
I do agree that in 8 hours of non physical use your battery should not be going dead. So I couldn't sleep last night and I did some google searching. Here are some things I found out.
Do you have Googles Goggles installed? Seems it may have a bug where it keeps the camera on even when the phone is supposedly asleep.
Seeing that seh6183 always has his wifi active maybe it has something to do with wifi. I found this from Juri's TechBlog
couple of days ago I finally got the eagerly awaited system upgrade to Gingerbread on my Nexus One. The update went pretty well, although some Nexus One users reported about problems with the updating process. The only thing I noticed is that Dropbox didn't work after the upgrade.
A re-install solved the issue. All-in-all Gingerbread is great. Beside UI enhancements it feels also faster than Froyo. However, after trying it for two days now, I noticed a substantial increase in battery consumption. By looking at the system battery stats (Settings -> About phone -> Battery use), Android System was listed to consume 23% of the battery .
Apparently the problem is a bug in Gingerbread version 2.3.3 (you know there is 2.4 as well) on how the system handles the Wifi adapter. If you go into your Settings -> Wireless & Networks -> Wi-Fi settings, press the menu button and click on "Advanced", you'll see a menu entry "Wi-Fi sleep policy". Gingerbread seems to have a problem when that option is set to "When screen turns off". While that may sound to be the most energy-saving option, the bug turns it into a battery killer. If you switch the option to "Never", the Android system will only consume ~3% in the battery stats.
Obviously, in addition to this, the best battery saver is to just turn Wi-Fi off when you don't need it . Caution, if one of the future updates fixes this problem (which I strongly hope), you have to set the option back again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Something I didn't see but killed my battery on my windows mobile phone was instant messengers. Do you use any apps that are for instant messaging.
Found this thread also talking about the same bug with wifi
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=15057
So it seems that if you (cmdr001) also are a full time wifi user, you may be affected by the same bug. Check your wifi sleep policy and adjust your settings to "Never".
Install a battery monitor app from the market or spare parts to see what is using your battery. Install Juice Defender to stop all that excessive useage.
Excellent find!!!!!
Just switched the sleep policy to "never" (which ironically I've always used until very recently). Ill return with results after about 5 hours. The only thing is that I'm on android 2.3.5 not 3.3 so we will have to see if the bug was affecting me.
I also don't have Google goggles. And to the above poster, my phone regularly went into deep sleep so it wasn't my CPU that was staying active.
Oh and I've been using watch dog to look for rogue programs for the last 24 hours. I haven't got a single alert.
Sent from my Microwave
I guess the first question should have been what ROM were you using and to try a different one then. Needless to say it still has 2.3.3 components in it. And if you recently changed that setting then my bet is thats the issue. Goodluck.
Watchdog may alert you if you are using too much cpu at one time but I don't think it will let you know what is constantly using the cpu.
Ok there's a glitch somewhere in the battery tracking. I just checked it and android system was consuming 12% battery. I placed one 17 minute phone call and re checked it, I then had 57% android system consumption.
No way.
I'm using a cm7 nightly and I'm about to flash the stable version with a different kernel. Ill do a full wipe as well.
Sent from my Microwave
You could check your wakelocks.
After recharging my battery to 100% and wiping the battery stats, my android system consistently uses 2% of the battery, while the display sucks up around ~40%.
Hi all,
First time poster here, so hello! I've searched the forums and google but could not find an answer to this question.
Is anyone running a Nexus S on 4.0.4 ICS seeing lots of CPU usage at the 1000MHz frequency?
My phone is a Nexus S (i9020)
Operator: 02 UK
OS: Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4
Not rooted.
My phone goes into a deep sleep fine and battery usage seems to be little in this state. However, the moment I turn on the screen and start 'using' the phone, I see a battery drop of at least 1% every 5 mins or so. I'm not doing anything taxing, either scrolling through the home screens, or opening browser to read a web page for a few mins.
Higest three battery users are reported as:
Screen 37%
Android System 15%
Browser 7%
CPU Spy reports the following:
1000 MHz - 25.11 (30%)
800 MHz - 7.35 (9%)
400 MHz -3.34 (4%)
200 MHz - 6.26 (7%)
100 MHz - 6.56 (8%)
Deep Sleep - 33.29 (40%)
Total time: 1h23m13s
From what I've read cpu usage shouldn't max out unless you're running something intensive i.e. it shouldn't be at the 1000MHz frequency, when just reading an already loaded page.
I'm able to go from 100% to 50% in about 2 hours, just using the browser (on wifi) to read webpages and nothing more.
When I first got the phone, a year ago, on Gingerbread, I'd be able to watch 1 hour of video, send calls and texts and make it from 8.30am to 5pm using around 40% battery. These days, I don't get close to that at all.
Noted to moderators: if this is posted in the wrong place or would be better suited in an existing thread, I'm sorry please let me know and I'll edit as required!
Thanks in advance for your time and assistance!
Screen drains most the battery. If there is drain while it's off there would be some kind of wake lock preventing sleep. You likely don't have this since it seems your phone sleeps nicely, assuming you had the screen on for moat the time in that screenshot.
The frequencies you show seem a little skewed to 1000mhz for web browsing. What cpu governor are you using, and what settings? I usually get around 40-40 between highest and lowest frequency with ondemand, 20% or less for the intermediate frequencies. This is while web browsing most of the time.
Harbb said:
Screen drains most the battery. If there is drain while it's off there would be some kind of wake lock preventing sleep. You likely don't have this since it seems your phone sleeps nicely, assuming you had the screen on for moat the time in that screenshot.
The frequencies you show seem a little skewed to 1000mhz for web browsing. What cpu governor are you using, and what settings? I usually get around 40-40 between highest and lowest frequency with ondemand, 20% or less for the intermediate frequencies. This is while web browsing most of the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand the screen drains the most battery, but I feel there is an underlying issue since light usage (like reading) can drain 50% in 2 hours, whereas before I could watch 1 hour video and lose about 10%.
I'm not sure what you mean by CPU governor and settings. I'm running the stock ICS 4.0.4 (got the OTA only a few days ago). I agree it seems skewed. It seems to use the 1000MHz frequency pretty much all the time the screen is on.
chillerz said:
I understand the screen drains the most battery, but I feel there is an underlying issue since light usage (like reading) can drain 50% in 2 hours, whereas before I could watch 1 hour video and lose about 10%.
I'm not sure what you mean by CPU governor and settings. I'm running the stock ICS 4.0.4 (got the OTA only a few days ago). I agree it seems skewed. It seems to use the 1000MHz frequency pretty much all the time the screen is on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First off, welcome to XDA!
The fact that you're not rooted + stock could only mean that there is probably a background app running while your actively using your phone. Have you checked into Settings > Apps > Running and noticed anything peculiar? For a fact, based on everything I'm reading here there is no way your phone should be at 1000 MHz for 30% of the time. At most for my usage, my phone is in the 1000 MHz state < 10% of the time.
If all else fails, you could always try doing a factory reset and seeing if the problem persists. If not then you can install your important apps one by one to find a culprit.
You could also try out this nify tool: BetterBatteryStats to give you more statistics as to what is eating your battery.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809
10 percent drain while watching a video is hard to believe.
That would equal 10hrs to drain the battery with screen on watching a video. Which is not happening.
Your battery drain now sounds normal. Maybe in the past it was not reporting it correctly or you're simply mistaken somehow.
The average battery should last along the lines of 4 - 5 hours worth of screen on time. Whether this is playing a game or browsing around hasn't made more than that much difference for me. 1% every 5 minutes would give you ~8 hours of screen on time, a feat very few (aLNG, looking at you) have been able to do without an extended battery. Anything more than this is not going to happen while maintaining a cell signal and watching videos. You may have been exaggerating the time on battery in the past.
Go to Settings --> Developer options --> Show CPU usage and tick it. Leave the phone sitting there with the screen on for a bit and let me know what the top CPU users are.
Which settings are the best for battery lfe? I have stock everything.
Harbb said:
The average battery should last along the lines of 4 - 5 hours worth of screen on time. Whether this is playing a game or browsing around hasn't made more than that much difference for me. 1% every 5 minutes would give you ~8 hours of screen on time, a feat very few (aLNG, looking at you) have been able to do without an extended battery. Anything more than this is not going to happen while maintaining a cell signal and watching videos. You may have been exaggerating the time on battery in the past.
Go to Settings --> Developer options --> Show CPU usage and tick it. Leave the phone sitting there with the screen on for a bit and let me know what the top CPU users are.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The list of things using the CPU changes quite often, here's the list of the ones that are at the top of the list for a while (I've also attached a screenshot):
system_server
com.android.systemui
surfaceflinger
com.jim2
kworker/u:1
kworker/0:0
dhd_dpc
wpa_supplicant
UPDATE:
7h 48m 34s on battery
Voice calls: 1h 39m (screen is off for most of the call duration)
Screen on: 1h 23m
Used browser and xda app for less than 5 mins each.
Haven't done much else with the phone and I'm on 44% battery (from full charge).
CPU Spy (measuring whilst phone was charging overnight, so deep sleep is high):
Total CPU time = 13h26m
1000 MHz = 40 mins (5%)
800 MHz = 17 mins (2%)
400 MHz = 12 mins (1%)
200 MHz = 26 mins (3%)
100 MHz = 56 mins (7%)
Deep Sleep = 10h52m (80%)
hi,
I can confirm chillerz's notice. My experience's similar. Last week I upgraded my (non routed) i9023 from GB via OTA (before the update I did a hardreset). My phone became a cityphone I always have to keep a charger in my pocket and looking for power connectors.. with GB I could use my phone at least 2 days but now I'm happy if I can survive my workday.. my best was 13h - in that case Android OS battery usage was 61%.. I still haven't try to use the music player.. but I don't see any sense to it.. I'm also interested in a thread which could help me out and I've found my self here.. what do you recommend? what to do? replacing my 7 months old phone?? I've jus loved my nexus and here I'm.. It won't be a good business strategy in long term..
I know about the issues of released ICS in December.. I was hopping the 4.0.4 will solve them.. now it's April.. I don't want to wait 4 more months again..
thanks in advanced for your helping!
I had horrible battery life after the 4.0.4 update, but it's been much improved after fully discharging the battery and then charging it to 100% with the phone powered off.
great news, I will try tonight and share the result!
thx
The latest usage results seem good and processes also seem standard. Phone calls tend to use a fair bit of battery, keeping and transmitting a constant signal, powering speakers, keeping the entire phone awake and so on. I wouldn't put it above the screen being on, so you should be able to squeeze another ~30 minutes before 44% in normal use but this depends on too many factors to list anyway and bad reception can make it all the more difficult to figure out.
Also, while making calls don't be surprised if the CPU does decide it needs to ramp up to a higher frequency (ondemand likes 1000mhz) but i havn't put this to the test. This could skew the results as in the OP.
hello futangclan,
since your solution the battery usage "normalized" 26h/17%. This workaround would be a great tip on a welcome srceen at the first boot of ICS
before the fully discharging battery I noticed the battery usage of Android OS decreased from 60 to 19%.. I'm thinking about whether the ICS does something "maintenance" in the background after the OTA upgrade the first days or not..
Once upon a time, I too was one of the sullied - one those unfortunates souls, plagued with poor battery life on a Nexus S (stock FTW), brought on by an innocent (and joyful) upgrade to ICS 4.0.4 from 2.3.6.
When I first discovered the trouble, with great gusto, I ran to the interwebs and dutifully followed suggestions of restarting the phone or draining the battery, but alas - it was all to no avail. There is, however, a happy ending to this story. With effort and perseverance, I've since significantly improved performance. Here is my brief tale of success.
After the upgrade, Android (praise be its name!) decided to start, in the background, every single application on the phone. Verily Snake '97 was indeed running all the time. The horror!!! The game is entertaining certainly, but hardly worth keeping alive at the cost of other, more critical apps.
I was not deterred and took matters into my own hands. Using Manage Apps -> All (not Manage Apps -> Running, mind you), I went about Force Stopping each application (including some Android core apps). It was tedious and frightening. I was very careful and hesitant, as you should be if you are affected by a similar malady.
By the next day, I saw much improved battery life (hooray!), yet I wasn't free and clear. The hold of evil had not been loosened completely.
I found within, a strange and dangerous lock (wakelock - was that its name?) keeping the Gallery in the list of active applications, even when I had not used it for some time. It refused to move to the cached apps list. Puzzled, I scratched my empty head. The interwebs were of no use this time - I was on my own.
(cue ominous music)
Peering within, in the Sync section I found the system was trying to sync photos on an account where the checkbox for syncing was not selected.
A quick off-on-off stopped the syncing. The app slinked off the Running apps list. Soon, I was overjoyed, for I was experiencing improved battery life!
I've now returned to performance much closer to that from days of 2.3.6. My Nexus S' battery now reaches 40%-30% in ~16 hours, with always-on 3G, Wifi and GPS, oft use of phone, contacts, messaging, whatsapp, twitter, foursquare and browser, and infrequent use of music, market, maps, camera and rarer usage of games like Angry Birds (which consumes vast amounts of battery) and gallery.
All is well with the universe.
Certainly, this tale may or may not be a mirror to your own. Should you be experiencing similar problems, I hope my tale brings you solace, and provides a means to the end of your troubles.
demarcolister said:
Once upon a time, I too was one of the sullied - one those unfortunates souls, plagued with poor battery life on a Nexus S (stock FTW), brought on by an innocent (and joyful) upgrade to ICS 4.0.4 from 2.3.6.
When I first discovered the trouble, with great gusto, I ran to the interwebs and dutifully followed suggestions of restarting the phone or draining the battery, but alas - it was all to no avail. There is, however, a happy ending to this story. With effort and perseverance, I've since significantly improved performance. Here is my brief tale of success.
After the upgrade, Android (praise be its name!) decided to start, in the background, every single application on the phone. Verily Snake '97 was indeed running all the time. The horror!!! The game is entertaining certainly, but hardly worth keeping alive at the cost of other, more critical apps.
I was not deterred and took matters into my own hands. Using Manage Apps -> All (not Manage Apps -> Running, mind you), I went about Force Stopping each application (including some Android core apps). It was tedious and frightening. I was very careful and hesitant, as you should be if you are affected by a similar malady.
By the next day, I saw much improved battery life (hooray!), yet I wasn't free and clear. The hold of evil had not been loosened completely.
I found within, a strange and dangerous lock (wakelock - was that its name?) keeping the Gallery in the list of active applications, even when I had not used it for some time. It refused to move to the cached apps list. Puzzled, I scratched my empty head. The interwebs were of no use this time - I was on my own.
(cue ominous music)
Peering within, in the Sync section I found the system was trying to sync photos on an account where the checkbox for syncing was not selected.
A quick off-on-off stopped the syncing. The app slinked off the Running apps list. Soon, I was overjoyed, for I was experiencing improved battery life!
I've now returned to performance much closer to that from days of 2.3.6. My Nexus S' battery now reaches 40%-30% in ~16 hours, with always-on 3G, Wifi and GPS, oft use of phone, contacts, messaging, whatsapp, twitter, foursquare and browser, and infrequent use of music, market, maps, camera and rarer usage of games like Angry Birds (which consumes vast amounts of battery) and gallery.
All is well with the universe.
Certainly, this tale may or may not be a mirror to your own. Should you be experiencing similar problems, I hope my tale brings you solace, and provides a means to the end of your troubles.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You, my friend, deserve a cookie for such good writing.
@demarcolister Awesome first post here on XDA.
Great story too. Most will blame battery drain on the custom ROM/kernel they flash and fail to realize their battery drain is usually caused by a rogue app running in the background ...
I've never had good luck with the stock gallery app. I always freeze it via adb when I flash a new ROM. It seems much worse in ICS. It would always start back up.
Stock GB gallery was an absolute joke. Slow, missing thumbnails, weird background and hard to see what you're scrolling through. The stock ICS gallery i actually prefer over alternatives. Though i don't use picasa so that is disabled. Never an issue with it (besides always showing my damned album covers).
Harbb said:
You, my friend, deserve a cookie for such good writing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nom nom nom!!
AeroEchelon said:
@demarcolister Awesome first post here on XDA.
Great story too. Most will blame battery drain on the custom ROM/kernel they flash and fail to realize their battery drain is usually caused by a rogue app running in the background ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was quick to (negative) judgement too, but I figured that Google would not (certainly!) release an update that completely cripples a modern and high-selling device.
Harbb said:
Stock GB gallery was an absolute joke. Slow, missing thumbnails, weird background and hard to see what you're scrolling through. The stock ICS gallery i actually prefer over alternatives. Though i don't use picasa so that is disabled. Never an issue with it (besides always showing my damned album covers).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed! In fact, I'd accept, grudgingly, if album covers show up in the gallery (although, truly they should not), but I do not, under any circumstance, want to see the icons (tick for yes, cross for no, i for icons, etc.) used by an application in my Gallery. Idiocy!
What is the solution? I wish to remain Stock, so rooting and editing the equivalent of plist or config files is not an option. At least 'Camera' is the first option, always! That makes it usable, but as soon as I use picplz or camera360 or instagram their folders get shuffled in position. Is Google hinting at something!? *sigh*
Hey guys...
Sent from my Nexus S
Hi,
The battery life of my Nexus 5 has taken a dramatic hit since the 4.4.2 update. I think the culprit is Android System but the GSAM battery graph seems to suggest that the culprit is Android OS kernel. My Nexus 5 is on 4.4.2, unrooted, stock ROM and the build no. is KOT49H.
In short, my phone does not seem to have a wakelock issue but I can't verify because 4.4 does not allow wakelock access without root. It sleeps fine at night and in daytime when it is not in use. I only lose around 5% or less overnight with 2x battery turning off the data connection and only turning on data connection once every night. The problem is the Android System which drains at least 17% (sometimes 25%) of battery everyday and routinely sits on top my of battery usage chart with or without me actually using the phone. My usage per charge is typically around 6-7 hours with around 1 hour 45 minutes screen on time. I had extraordinary battery life before the update to 4.4.2 (lasting more than 1 day with over 3 or 4 hours screen on time). Now my battery life is completely shot. The battery graphs attached already represent one of the better days. Some days the Android system will drain at 25% or more. You will note my phone relatively slept fine without draining at night in the first 7 or 8 hours and then the battery drain started to take a nose dive after I woke up. I feel that whenever I start using the phone (with the screen being turned on), the battery drain will occur. My observations are as follows:
1. I use LTE but the reception at my home and work for LTE is not good so the radio jumps between LTE and H+ from time to time however I do not think the radio jumping contributes that much to the drain. The drain stays the same even when I am at a place with good LTE reception. I use wifi at home but i cannot connect to wifi at work (which sadly is another issue). The wifi is always off unless i use it at home. I do NOT have wifi scanning in the settings. I have wifi battery optimization on. I never use bluetooth.
2. My google now is off. My location setting is completely off with no location reporting etc..
3. My Google + auto back up is off. I do not use Facebook, Facebook messenger, Instagram, snapchat etc. I mostly use Feedly, Whatsapp, Gmails and look at stock quotes every day. I seldom take pictures, videos or listen to music.
4. I only have one widget dashclock widget. I have removed feedly and stock quote widgets from the home screen but they don't seem to affect my battery usage that much.
5. I use Automateit but only have a few rules such as setting vibrate on weekdays etc.. I do not have any profiles which are related to GPS or location which i understand would drain battery. I also use Dynamic Notification, Light Flow, Lux, Nova Launcher, Notification Toggle and the memory in general is always below 65% in the background. I also use 2x battery to save battery which is set at switching off data after I turn off the screen and it will only turn data in the background every 10 minutes.
6. I have tried safe mode and 9 out of 10 times the Android system drain remains the same. The only way to lower the Android system drain (albeit temporary) is when I turn off the phone and plug it in for a charge, then turn it on when it is full and still plugged in. After I unplug it, the Android System drain will lower to say 7 or 8 % but it will slowly creep back up to 20% within an hour or so.
7. The CPU usage overlay routinely has 9 + readings on the top when the screen is turned on (but with no app running). I think it means very high CPU usage.
8. I do not think Feedly is causing any problems. I deleted the app and the drain remains. I also do not think GSAM is that useful as pointed out by another member here. It points to one app. You delete that app and then the drain remains it will point to something else.
9. I have been using Greenify (non-root) but it does not seem to help with my battery drain as the drain might be caused by system apps or processes within the OS.
I don't know what else to do and this problem has been troubling me for more than 1 month now. Please help !
Update on 24/2/2014:
I have given up and factory reset my phone. After I reset my phone, the apps were installed via Google Play automatically. I also switched to ART. It was fine initially for at least one day. The apps were there but I did not use or enable most of them as I wanted to transfer all my data and tweaked the settings in one goal. I mostly just used Feedly, Whatsapp and Maps for navigation. Even with Maps and high accuracy GPS on, the Android System would go below 10% even though it would temporarily increase to say above 20% during navigation. This morning, I thought the battery seemed ok so I enabled Lux, Dynamic Notifications, Lightflow, Automateit, Nova Launcher and restore the settings to most of the apps.
The Android System drain came back within 2 hours and hit 25% of the total battery drain. My phone's battery dropped from 100% to 40 % in less than 5 hours and the screen on time was only around 1 hour! I never did any battery intensive actions. The most was turning on the phone to check my battery and whatsapped less than 10 messages back and forth ! Since the drain re-appeared, I have turned off completely the location setting, Google Now, sync for Google Plus, auto-backup for Google Plus. I have removed all widgets and disabled Dynamic Notifications, Nova Launcher, Light Flow, Lux. The drain still remains the same at 23% or more.
This is driving me absolutely crazy and I am sick and tired of spending so much time and energy on sorting out the cause for drain (and to no avail!) I spent a lot more time on trying to fix the phone than really utilizing the phone for my benefit !! I just sent an email to the Google tech support and hope they will help instead of sending me generic self-help sheet. Thanks all for listening and trying to help. I am just really disappointed with Google this time.
Use bbs to get wakelock info.
Feedly has got to go too
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
rootSU said:
Use bbs to get wakelock info.
Feedly has got to go too
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your reply. My N5 is not rooted so I do not have access to wakelock stats anymore.
I have removed Feedly but the android system drain persists.
Not a lot that can be done without knowing the cause. Consider factory reset?
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
rootSU said:
Not a lot that can be done without knowing the cause. Consider factory reset?
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am hoping I don have to resort to factory reset and can wait for the 4.4.3 update but I guess my patience is running out.
Thanks for your help.
My missus' LG-P880 has exactly the same problem. Just started happening one day. It seems to be wakelock locator alarms according to bbs but there doesn't appear to be any reason for it. Its been driving me mad too. Luckily tho she's rooted so using app opps i disabled Google services location and it's kinda helped
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Did you try another kernel ? When I changed to franco kernel, my battery life is better.
having weak LTE signal kills the battery but it should not be this bad.
Maybe you should try a factory reset and see if the problem still persist, if not then you have an rogue app somewhere.
You can use the process of elimination.
Start with disabling Dynamic notifications and Light flow as those have high potential for battery drain.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Elias_grodin said:
I am hoping I don have to resort to factory reset and can wait for the 4.4.3 update but I guess my patience is running out.
Thanks for your help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Restart your phone in safe mode, and see the battery drainage...maybe it can help you.
It seems good for me
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
I had this same problem the other night. Get app ops starter from the play store. In there turn location off in Google play services and android system. Note, this may impact other apps. I don't use any that I need location for so it works for me.
Sent from my Nexus 5
I had a similar issue as well. For me I turned off a couple things and it really helped:
1. Turned off Cerberus, I believe checking location too often or incorrectly or something.
2. Turned off Account sync for Play Newstand. Noticed when a sync would occur, it would hang on Newstand for much too long which I think was waking device and keeping device awake during it's long syncs. Everything else would only take a min or two total.
3. Set G+ photo sync to only sync when on wifi and charging.
4. Removed Yahoo Weather app. Noticed yahoo weather app staying alive a lot too.
5. Removed Whatsapp. Probably unnecessary really, but any of those messaging/weather/location apps that I don't use often (if ever) I removed to make sure they weren't checking location in the background.
So far, I'm at 78% battery today when I would have been at around 30-40% usually, so that combo has made a huge difference.
It's going to be different for everyone I think, but basically just make sure you don't have any excess apps checking location in the background. And at least for me there seems to be something wrong with Play Newsstand sync hanging for long periods of time.
Yea... Even i had the same issues... Latest version killes ma deep sleep mode nd also some of a rules disappeared....
I was having similar issues and was able to narrow it down to syncing Google Services...
I found that often times Google Drive would get hung up when syncing in the background and chew up my battery.
What Google Services do you have set to auto-sync? I would narrow it down to the ones you only really need to have synced in the background and have the others sync up for you when you open them.
Also, in regards to your LTE/H+ signal, have you tried to flash another radio to see if there is any improvement? A poor signal can have a pretty significant impact on battery life as well.
Lastly, as mentioned by another user, Better Battery Stats, though requiring root, will make it a lot easier to track down the culprit of the issue if it indeed a rogue app somewhere.
Try different keyboard. I've a suspicion that latest Google Keyboard is the culprit.
I was having some unexplainable with BBS (no locks, etc.) battery drain. Which can only be resolved (though temporarily) with reboot.
So, I installed alternative keyboard (Swype in my case) and using it. So far, second day I don't have battery drain.
Update
Please refer to the OP for update. Thanks all.
battery after reset
After a second factory reset, I did not install a lot of the apps which I suspect have something to do with my drain - including Swype, Dynamic Notifications, Nova Launcher, LightFlow, Task Manager, 2x battery, Lux, Notification Toggle, Dash Clock, Automateit. I have also set my location to device only with no location history and history. I have also disabled Google Now. I have not restored my photos, music and videos to the phone yet. I have disabled sync for Google Plus, Google Drive etc.. I have also disabled auto back up for Google Plus. I am on ART.
The battery life (with around 25 % left) was around 6 hours 30 minutes or a bit more but with close to 2 hours 40 minutes screen on time. The screen was the biggest draw. Android system comes in second with around 13%. This is obviously better than before where I managed to squeeze maybe a hour or 30 minutes more but with 2x battery turned on in the background. I mostly used the phone for battery checking, whatsapp, Feedly, web surfing. I played games for around 20 minutes. I was not on wifi most of the time. Is this battery performance normal?
Thanks in advance.
Replacement offer by Google
Elias_grodin said:
After a second factory reset, I did not install a lot of the apps which I suspect have something to do with my drain - including Swype, Dynamic Notifications, Nova Launcher, LightFlow, Task Manager, 2x battery, Lux, Notification Toggle, Dash Clock, Automateit. I have also set my location to device only with no location history and history. I have also disabled Google Now. I have not restored my photos, music and videos to the phone yet. I have disabled sync for Google Plus, Google Drive etc.. I have also disabled auto back up for Google Plus. I am on ART.
The battery life (with around 25 % left) was around 6 hours 30 minutes or a bit more but with close to 2 hours 40 minutes screen on time. The screen was the biggest draw. Android system comes in second with around 13%. This is obviously better than before where I managed to squeeze maybe a hour or 30 minutes more but with 2x battery turned on in the background. I mostly used the phone for battery checking, whatsapp, Feedly, web surfing. I played games for around 20 minutes. I was not on wifi most of the time. Is this battery performance normal?
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have reset the phone three times. After the third attempt, the battery drain for Android System would go back up to 20% plus. By the test of elimination, I thought I narrowed down the possible culprit to Light Flow and Dynamic Notifications. I uninstalled both of them but the battery drain remained 20% plus.
Google was willing to replace my device. I asked them whether the battery drain is likely a hardware or a software issue or a combination of both. They said (to my surprise) it is hardware issue. It seems they have come across quite a number of similar cases. I always thought it was a bug within 4.4.2 or in the google apps such as Google Play Services etc. and could be fixed by a patch or something. The phone also means a lot to me as it was a gift from my gf. I just don't want to go through the hassle of replacing the device if it is a software problem but I guess I am running out of choices unless I decide to wait for the update. What do you guys think?
It's definitely not a hardware issue. If you Google it there's threads all over the place with all different makes and models of phones having the same problem and no one can figure out why, apart from it definitely seems something to do with Google services (GmsCore.apk)
Your best option is to root your phone and use app ops and turn location access off for every app that doesn't need it. (pretty much everything apart from maps and weather apps)
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Hello everyone!
So this thread is for those guys that are still having the standby drain even after trying everything and got no help.
My Device Is not Rooted​Since last 2 weeks my device was having super standby drain and I couldn't help that.
First I thought that it was due to the battery wearing out. But I had this phone(exynos version) for around eight months and that is not enough time for the battery to drain out fast. So I started looking for the fixes in the xda threads but none of them had a mass effect on what i was suffering from.
Then I read about that app named the "Better Battery Stats".
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.asksven.betterbatterystats&hl=en
I used this app to monitor the usage that was being done by different apps.
Most of the battery i.e 61% was being consumed by the apps that were running in the background. And the second big consumer was the android system. So as was mentioned in most of the posts what I tried.
1) Settings> Display> Resolution> Fhd to hd
2)Settings> Device Maintenance> Battery> Save Power and All apps put into always sleeping apps.
3)Setting> Connections> Location> Google Locaation History and disabled it.
4)AOD Disabled.
5)Sync Disabled.
6)Wifi> Advenced> Keep wifi turned on while sleep and set it to never.
7) Reset> Reset network settings
8) Boot into recovery and wipe cache patition
9) Reset factory data(Wipe everything).
And after doing all these steps nothing much changed my battery life since when i after resetting my phone again updated all apps from play store and resetting battery got an SOT of around 3 hours.
Then I again started searching for the problem.
I installed the accuBattery app from play store.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.digibites.accubattery&hl=en
And saw that phone was not entering deep sleep for hours that was causing the standby drain!
The major reasons for the drain were.
1) TOUCHWIZ HOME!
2) Google Chrome.
3) Facebook app.
To fix that I applied Lawnchair as my default launcher.
set the theme to dark. Disabled the location permission in the facebook app. And disabled google chrome.
Other settings that also helped were
Change the resolution to hd. Disable google location history.
And boom.... It worked Like a Charm....
Now to add an extra something to the battery life i switch to MID Power Saving mode. That Also helps alot when phone is not being used as it stops background data usage by apps.
Now the average sot that i get from my phone is around 6 to 7 hours.
And the phone sleeps like a baby. 5% Drain in 10h and wifi was on for the whole night. Deep sleep for 9h 41m.
PS: I use most of the time my phone for gaming and heavy usage.
Hope this will work for you guys too.
Screenshots Are attached for the proof!!
Thanks for this man
How are your notifications? I'm having a lot of trouble with delayed notifications, emails/messenger/etc just wake up when I take the phone and I don't even have to wait more than 5-10mins for what seems to be doze to kill everything.
I get whatsapp calls that I miss because the phone never receives it.
And STILL my battery life is far from great.. borderline bad I'd say. So sad
In settings go to device maintenance and hit battery you'll see an option for "always sleeping apps" enter any apps you don't want to run in the bsckground, which will probably be most of them. Saves a lot of data and a lot of battery.