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Getting frustrated with unreliable battery life

Ok. Android phones are not blackberries, and I'm well aware of that. This Thunderbolt is not my first android device, so I am very familiar with setting it up and using it in such a way to make the battery last.
I'm not posting this to complain of the battery life sucking. I'm complaining that the battery is fine one day, and horrible the next.
So here's what happens. Yesterday, i unplugged my phone at 730am like i do every day. By 3pm with light usage, i was down to 40% or so. Charged it up before I left work, no big deal, lasted the rest of the night.
Today, unplug the phone at 730am, phone is completely dead, as in, won't even boot by 11am. Same apps, same usage, same location, same strong 4G signal, same everything. It has happened multiple times on consecutive days when i was rooted on the stock rom, and still on VirusRom. I just dont get why this happens. I am doing nothing different and my phone either lasts all day, or a few hours. It's getting to the point where I am finding it very hard to rely on this phone when i'm out and about. It makes no sense. Especially if i'm not really using my phone, just checking for texts once in a while, there is no reason why it should die. What if i need it? I couldn't even call or text my gf tonight while I was working because my phone battery was ZERO only a few hours after leaving the house with a 100% charge.
Is anyone else experiencing this?

yesterday I had abnormal drain on my battery. I get 18 - 24 hours on a charge normally, but yesterday I went from 100% to dead in 5 hours. Called VZW and they said it was a documented problem and they were working on it.
IDK, they are pretty good about pushing updates. Also, yesterday I kept dropping out of data. bizzare....

I burned through the extended battery in 9 hours yesterday, really hope they figure out some better power management soon,

Switch it to 3G cdma rev.a and see if that helps. The 4G radio is always being searched for. I love the tb so I can deal with no 4G til they get the bugs out.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App

You have to use current widget and see how much power draw your phone is pulling. Then use system panel monitoring to track apps using the highest CPU.

Definitely an issue and I'm glad that Verizon is aware of it. I've had this unusual drain happen four times now, all on 4G. Last time I noticed it (seeing the battery percentage drop like 2% every five minutes or so), went to the Market and snagged System Panel.
The offending process is "system." Had my CPU spiked at 100% for over an hour before I rebooted, which does fix it, at the cost of another 10% of your battery, of course.
Hope they get this ironed out soon. Love my Thunderbolt, but this is a major issue and seems to be happening to a lot of people.

The best thing to do is dial *#*#4636#*#* and turn the radio to CDMA auto (PRL) mode.
I am already seeing much better battery life, as I am in a non 4g area.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll have to give that a try. I got into the radio settings, and after flashing VirusRom, my phone defaulted to LTE mode only. I put it to cdma/lte auto, to see if that helps. If not, i'll just disable LTE unless i really need it.

No need to dial all of that crap. TeamAndIRC has a toggle app called "LTE OnOFF TeamAndIRC" that allows you to toggle between CDMA and CDMA + LTE/EvDo auto.
I found out two things dealing with my massive nighttime battery drain. One, wifi doesn't seem to work correctly. I've never had the problem before but for some reason it doesn't sleep correctly. What I've done is changed the sleep policy to "15 minutes" which allows it to switch back to 3G fifteen minutes after I turn off the screen. That allows me to have wifi while I'm using it but 3G while it's idle. This has seemed to fix my problem along with... Second, I am on the fringe of 4G/3G here on the outskirts of Cincinnati. At work I am solid 4G but at home it can't make up it's mind. Well, that has certainly played into the battery issue as it is constantly searching. So, what I do is as I walk in the door from work I use the app listed above to switch to "CDMA auto (PRL)" and it sticks to 3G. When I get to work I switch to "CDMA + LTE/EvDo auto".
So, to summarize:
I have eliminated my nightime drain by doing two things:
1) I use the Y5 app to automatically start wifi as I walk in the door but have changed the sleep policy to "after 15 minutes".
2) I use the app above to switch from 4G/3G auto to 3G only.

ridobe said:
No need to dial all of that crap. TeamAndIRC has a toggle app called "LTE OnOFF TeamAndIRC" that allows you to toggle between CDMA and CDMA + LTE/EvDo auto.
I found out two things dealing with my massive nighttime battery drain. One, wifi doesn't seem to work correctly. I've never had the problem before but for some reason it doesn't sleep correctly. What I've done is changed the sleep policy to "15 minutes" which allows it to switch back to 3G fifteen minutes after I turn off the screen. That allows me to have wifi while I'm using it but 3G while it's idle. This has seemed to fix my problem along with... Second, I am on the fringe of 4G/3G here on the outskirts of Cincinnati. At work I am solid 4G but at home it can't make up it's mind. Well, that has certainly played into the battery issue as it is constantly searching. So, what I do is as I walk in the door from work I use the app listed above to switch to "CDMA auto (PRL)" and it sticks to 3G. When I get to work I switch to "CDMA + LTE/EvDo auto".
So, to summarize:
I have eliminated my nightime drain by doing two things:
1) I use the Y5 app to automatically start wifi as I walk in the door but have changed the sleep policy to "after 15 minutes".
2) I use the app above to switch from 4G/3G auto to 3G only.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LTEonoff is just a shortcut to the menu. In essence, it saves no time because you have to download it. If you're flipping it on and off all the time, then yeah, it might behoove you to just dl the app. But, as a one time thing, it's unnecessary.

^You are correct. I switch daily but I didn't see earlier that you were not in a 4G area.
I would highly suggest this to anyone who sees their data connection switch back and forth as I was in my house.

Battery life has been strong the past couple days now. I haven't had any unusual drains since i switched from LTE only mode to EVDO/LTE auto mode. I dont know if this was for sure the issue, but it seems to have made a huge difference. I haven't been plugged in for 2 hours and i still have 92% battery left.

Here's my interpretation of the issue:
There seems to be some kind of problem or bug with the radio which makes it drain an enormous amount of power from some towers (700mA+ is shown on current widget). Even with good signal, I'll repeatably drain a lot of power in certain areas. The "fix" is to disable mobile data or switch to wifi. This lowers the power usage back down to (slightly lower than) normal levels.
For some reason, the radio will not admit to drawing practically 90% of your battery in the battery use menu (nothing does, in fact ... it just looks like normal battery use).
I'm glad to hear that they are aware of an issue that maybe causing this.

I can't stand the battery life either other than that I love the phone
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App

Yeah i'm still at 83% battery after being unplugged for 4 hours, light usage.
Another thing i noticed is that when my battery was draining stupid fast, the phone would be warm to the touch even when it was just sitting on my belt clip. All seems well for now.

Mine is good
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App

My battery life has recently become terribly inconsistent. Last week I was actually getting through a 16 hour day with light usage, but this weekened I must have installed something because now the phone is lasting 3-4 hours with hardly any usage at all.
The battery information is pretty worthless because it's not showing anything except display using the battery and the display has only been on maybe 8 minutes.
Checked the partial wake info and nothing seems to be running in the background. The battery is just discharging like crazy all of a sudden. Guess Ill start uninstalling stuff to see what might be causing it

I am also having a weird battery experience today. I am rooted running Adrynalyne 1.9. Last few days I was doing great, moderate usage and was staying charged for 16-18 hrs. Today my phone has died twice during my 8hr shift at work. I KNOW something is wrong there. Hopefully a fix is found soon.

On all my Androids (4 of them currently in daily use), I've found that Words With Friends is often a HUGE battery killer...and I don't mean because you play it a lot, I mean leave it running and put your phone down, walk away a while, come back to the phone and it is HOT to the touch! Obviously killing the battery. Something to look at for sure.
I've got the extended battery and just went over 48 hours, with moderate to heavy use by my standards on a single charge. Pretty amazing and I guess I'm not in a bad radio area.
hammer4203 said:
Switch it to 3G cdma rev.a and see if that helps. The 4G radio is always being searched for. I love the tb so I can deal with no 4G til they get the bugs out.
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Click to collapse
The only thing I love about the TB is the 4G...everything else on it, been there, done that. I wouldn't keep the TB if 4G had to be turned off to make it usable in terms of battery life. Hopefully it will be fixed quickly!
Zshazz said:
Here's my interpretation of the issue:
There seems to be some kind of problem or bug with the radio which makes it drain an enormous amount of power from some towers (700mA+ is shown on current widget). Even with good signal, I'll repeatably drain a lot of power in certain areas. The "fix" is to disable mobile data or switch to wifi. This lowers the power usage back down to (slightly lower than) normal levels.
For some reason, the radio will not admit to drawing practically 90% of your battery in the battery use menu (nothing does, in fact ... it just looks like normal battery use).
I'm glad to hear that they are aware of an issue that maybe causing this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for that analysis. With that in mind, if it's accurate, could a Tasker app profile be set up that does your fix if the drain works that high? Would be a nice safety feature for those who aren't willing to have to look at their phone frequently to check battery life.

You have to use the current widget to record your idle power readings, its the only way to know what's going on. Then use system panel monitoring to see which app CPU is highest.

Battery Drain while using 4G data...

I've been working on improving my battery. I've noticed a big improvement by using cpu-editor and super saver app. I've also noticed that battery lasts a lot longer on WiFi than it does on 4g Since 8:30 this morning (7 hours), I've used 33% mostly on WiFi and I think that's pretty good.
So, I was wondering... what can be done to improve battery life when on AT&T? I've tried the new radio, I'm not sire that's made a difference. Maybe it has, hard to tell.

shgadwa said:
I've been working on improving my battery. I've noticed a big improvement by using cpu-editor and super saver app. I've also noticed that battery lasts a lot longer on WiFi than it does on 4g Since 8:30 this morning (7 hours), I've used 33% mostly on WiFi and I think that's pretty good.
So, I was wondering... what can be done to improve battery life when on AT&T? I've tried the new radio, I'm not sire that's made a difference. Maybe it has, hard to tell.
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If you're on LTE, you will inevitably use more power than just WiFi, that's just how it works.
If you can kick down to HSPA+ or UMTS you will see significant battery savings.

Hunt3r.j2 said:
If you're on LTE, you will inevitably use more power than just WiFi, that's just how it works.
If you can kick down to HSPA+ or UMTS you will see significant battery savings.
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Click to collapse
Thank you for your reply.
I'm in Albany, NY. I've been told we have one LTE tower here, but I've not experienced it yet. I should locate it and drive to it just so I can get a taste of how fast it is.
That said, I use HSPA+, unless I'm on WiFi.

shgadwa said:
Thank you for your reply.
I'm in Albany, NY. I've been told we have one LTE tower here, but I've not experienced it yet. I should locate it and drive to it just so I can get a taste of how fast it is.
That said, I use HSPA+, unless I'm on WiFi.
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Click to collapse
HSPA+ uses more battery than WiFi when actively using it for data, the change just isn't as significant compared to when using the phone on LTE.
Some things you'll want to do to really get battery life savings is to eliminate partial wakelocks, and turn down screen brightness either by using a custom ROM or managing settings manually, as HTC's autobrightness is terrible out of the box and doesn't properly turn down brightness when you need it to, or turn it up when you need it to.
After that, if you don't need to have push email all the time then you can turn off always on mobile data, or manually turn off mobile data when you aren't using it.

Our Russian LTE testers of HTC One XL reports about 1.5-2 hours of LTE tethering. Make your conclusions.

Hunt3r.j2 said:
If you're on LTE, you will inevitably use more power than just WiFi, that's just how it works.
If you can kick down to HSPA+ or UMTS you will see significant battery savings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can someone explain to me how to go from LTE to HSPA+ to EDGE? I've tried looking in the settings but all I can find is a "Mobile network" on/off toggle. There is no option to turn on/off LTE, or HSPA+ or EDGE. It's a bit frustrating. Then in my status bar, the 4G icon is always displayed even when "Mobile network" is off. No data but it still shows up. Is this how it is supposed to be?
BTW, I'm using the stock ROM with Apex Launcher. I do not want to root or use a custom ROM.

My Mom's GS3 is dying fast. I think it's LTE but I may be wrong.

OK, so my wife and I both have GS3's through T-Mobile and our batteries last very long. I'm a heavy user and get a fully day while my wife is a light user and easily get's two days. My Mom on the other hand has her GS3 through Verizon and her battery is dying in roughly half a day. She is not a heavy user at all. In fact, her old Droid 2 would last longer than her GS3 which really has her frustrated.
I think it may be due to the fact she doesn't get a good 4G signal at work and at home. In fact, she gets 1 bar at work if she's lucky. She also said the phone is constantly bouncing back and forth between 3G and 4G while at work. She took it to Verizon today and they swapped SIM cards to be sure that wasn't the problem. Obviously that didn't work because I'm posting here. I will see her on Thursday and she want's me to look at her phone.
Do you guy's think this is most likely the reason as to why her battery is draining so fast? Also, if it is. Would there be a way I can show her how to disable 4G so her battery lasts longer?

It's most likely 3G and 4G switching back and forth or a rogue app. For to turn off the 4G it can't be done without rooting I'm pretty sure.

No, it's because you have task running. I had the same thing happen to me. If you exit an application by pressing home, the program will continue to run in the background. I had gallery take up 38% of my battery life. If you press the back button, it will FC the application.
Good bye HTC Rezound, hello Galaxy S3!

jrwingate6 said:
OK, so my wife and I both have GS3's through T-Mobile and our batteries last very long. I'm a heavy user and get a fully day while my wife is a light user and easily get's two days. My Mom on the other hand has her GS3 through Verizon and her battery is dying in roughly half a day. She is not a heavy user at all. In fact, her old Droid 2 would last longer than her GS3 which really has her frustrated.
I think it may be due to the fact she doesn't get a good 4G signal at work and at home. In fact, she gets 1 bar at work if she's lucky. She also said the phone is constantly bouncing back and forth between 3G and 4G while at work. She took it to Verizon today and they swapped SIM cards to be sure that wasn't the problem. Obviously that didn't work because I'm posting here. I will see her on Thursday and she want's me to look at her phone.
Do you guy's think this is most likely the reason as to why her battery is draining so fast? Also, if it is. Would there be a way I can show her how to disable 4G so her battery lasts longer?
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I'm on verizon as well and I find that my battery dies extremely fast. Full charge in the morning and by bedtime its just about dead, that's with moderate use. Some things that I have found to help is I generally keep bluetooth, and gps off unless I need either. I keep power saving mode on, and really minimized what Sync's through my accounts.
It's not exactly the answer you were looking for but it should help you until a more long term solution can be figured out.

Does anyone know how to turn 4G off?
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium

Low tower signal will kill the battery very fast. Frustratingly fast. I have Verizon GS3, have very low signal at work, and I burn 8% battery per hour when phone is idle. With almost no use, my battery is down to 30% by time I go home.
At home I have good tower signal and my battery drops very slow in idle, maybe 1% per hour. At both work and home I have WiFi connected and set to keep WiFi on during sleep always. Therefore I don't think it's data traffic / sync causing the issue. Instead its hyperactive radio hardware or firmware killing itself as it constantly finds/loses tower connection. The only thing I've been able to find to reduce the drain is going into airplane mode... which is obviously a terrible option.
Hope Samsung can improve this self devouring nature in the future!

jrwingate6 said:
Does anyone know how to turn 4G off?
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium
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go to the playstore and download "phone info" open it and go to device information
Swith the " lte/cdma/evdo" into cdma auto (PRL)
I also turn off 4g at work due to weak signal
VERIZON GALAXY S 3

I believe its a signal search at where she spends most of her time. At my work the signal is very bad and the phone goes from 100% to 20% in 10 hours without even touching the phone. Now I turn on airplane mode and it never drops the battery.
She can disable the data and find out how much that would save her

First make sure it's not a rogue app by going into Settings -> Battery, your top 2 battery usages should be Screen and Cell Standby. As long as you don't have some random app eating away at your battery then it's definitely signal strength related. Does she have Wi-Fi available at work? If so make sure she connects to it. I have a Verizon S3 and the battery life on this phone is better than any Android phone I've ever owned (and I've had a lot). I leave GPS and Bluetooth on all day and can easily get a full day with mid to heavy usage. The biggest thing would be to get her on Wi-Fi if available. This will stop the phone from constantly trying to poll data off a poor signal and significantly increase battery life. If no Wi-Fi available, then the above post would come into play, Phone Info app and switch into cdma to keep it locked into 3g will help, but only if there's a decent 3g signal. If the 3g signal is weak also, then you're not going to help anything, and she will just need to remember to turn data sync off while she's at work.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

Try switching batteries to see if she has a defective battery. If thats not the case, then make Verizon give her a replacement S3.

Add me to the list of people who think its the signal search in low service areas.. I disabled 4G with the Phone Info app and my phone lasted way longer than before..
Since you pointed out she has a low signal, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the culprit..
Sent from my Commodore 64..
READY.
load"*",8,1

Pagaldesi4life said:
Try switching batteries to see if she has a defective battery. If thats not the case, then make Verizon give her a replacement S3.
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This is what I did, kept the old battery too...then they swapped me for a w S3. My battery is doing much better now.

The5Venomz said:
This is what I did, kept the old battery too...then they swapped me for a w S3. My battery is doing much better now.
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Click to collapse
Ahhh so it wasn't the battery itself?
When you got a replacement S3, did you go back to the same store where you had originally purchased them from or tried a different store?

I disabled 4G today at work with my stinky cell signal and my battery nose dived like usual. Therefore, if you have no signal, 3G/4G doesn't seem to matter. The radio hardware will still destroy itself happily.

Anyone know of a widget my Mom could use to disable data completely while she is at work?

jrwingate6 said:
Anyone know of a widget my Mom could use to disable data completely while she is at work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pull the task drawer down and uncheck mobile data. Why do you need a widget?

You might have a system process called "gsiff_daemon" draining the battery. I have that problem and others have reported that process has been draining their battery as well. Or it could be other have mentioned already, signal switching, rogue programs, etc.

Today at work I ran with mobile data off. I still had a really bad battery drain. Therefore the voice 3 g radio must be responsible. Not much we can do about that unless a new firmware comes out.

Another battery tip...
Scrappy1 said:
Today at work I ran with mobile data off. I still had a really bad battery drain. Therefore the voice 3 g radio must be responsible. Not much we can do about that unless a new firmware comes out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's also an option in the settings>developer options to restrict how many processes are running in the background, and to kill an app after leaving it. The only problem I've noticed with the second option is that the fb app won't allow you to post a status, I think because it causes it to start a new activity, which kills the main fb activity when you leave it. But limiting the background stuff seems to have saved some more juice on top of only using 3g.

getheart mcliar said:
There's also an option in the settings>developer options to restrict how many processes are running in the background, and to kill an app after leaving it. The only problem I've noticed with the second option is that the fb app won't allow you to post a status, I think because it causes it to start a new activity, which kills the main fb activity when you leave it. But limiting the background stuff seems to have saved some more juice on top of only using 3g.
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Click to collapse
Naw man, at home I have good cell signal and have almost no idle drain. At work I have terrible signal and it drains like nuts. It's not an issue with apps, processes, services, etc.

Lte vs 3g battery life

Will the phone have a longer battery life if the cell modem is set to 3g vs lte?
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

Bump
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

Yes, in my experience with the S4 it's a pretty big difference UNLESS you get a very strong LTE signal. I'm on tmobile and now have the N5 and use the 3G setting which is HSPA/+ Plenty fast for me for what I do. When I want some extra speed I'll kick on the LTE

Does anyone have a more detailed answer for this? I just got this phone yesterday so I haven't been able to find out myself yet, just with 5hour battery life from 100% to 4% on what will only be half of its normal day I'm looking for anything to help right now till I get a battery case. This phone is one of only two to have a LTE radio that is supposed to use 30% less power than usual so I'm wondering if that makes it as efficient if not more than 3G for idle in your pocket to light stuff like FlipBoard.

it would depend on the quality of the data connection. im in brooklyn nyc, and use lte on my nexus 5 exclusively, used to use it on my nexus 4 as well. with 3g(hspa+), on both my n5 and n4, i average about 4-4.5 hours screen on time. when using lte, i average about 5-6 hours screen on time on both my nexus 5 and 4. after noticing this difference, i use exclusively lte on both my devices, as i average an hour more screen on time when using exclusively lte.

herqulees said:
Does anyone have a more detailed answer for this? I just got this phone yesterday so I haven't been able to find out myself yet, just with 5hour battery life from 100% to 4% on what will only be half of its normal day I'm looking for anything to help right now till I get a battery case. This phone is one of only two to have a LTE radio that is supposed to use 30% less power than usual so I'm wondering if that makes it as efficient if not more than 3G for idle in your pocket to light stuff like FlipBoard.
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Click to collapse
Serious battery drain can have many reasons. One is having LTE on, syncing on(if you just booted it up, and input your Google account and let all your apps sync and download, its gonna drain your battery fast the first time), having locations on and wifi enabled. If you are in an area with poor reception, your phone will drain more trying to find connection.
Sent from a potato

simms22 said:
it would depend on the quality of the data connection. im in brooklyn nyc, and use lte on my nexus 5 exclusively, used to use it on my nexus 4 as well. with 3g(hspa+), on both my n5 and n4, i average about 4-4.5 hours screen on time. when using lte, i average about 5-6 hours screen on time on both my nexus 5 and 4. after noticing this difference, i use exclusively lte on both my devices, as i average an hour more screen on time when using exclusively lte.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the information. That's what I was wondering but I couldn't find anyone that had already tested this with these new radios. If I get the time this weekend maybe I'll do my own test in detail to compare LTE to 3G. Am thinking of using a TV episode on Netflix and see which makes the battery drop faster over the 30 or so minutes.
Slightly off topic, does anyone's WiFi show as always on in the battery monitor even if its been off? Still trying to figure out my battery drain issue, if it even is an issue with just me, I bought this phone knowing it had a small battery.

herqulees said:
Thanks for the information. That's what I was wondering but I couldn't find anyone that had already tested this with these new radios. If I get the time this weekend maybe I'll do my own test in detail to compare LTE to 3G. Am thinking of using a TV episode on Netflix and see which makes the battery drop faster over the 30 or so minutes.
Slightly off topic, does anyone's WiFi show as always on in the battery monitor even if its been off? Still trying to figure out my battery drain issue, if it even is an issue with just me, I bought this phone knowing it had a small battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
go to the main phone settings, wifi, 3 dots on the bottom right, advanced, then disable scanning always available..
ill be interested in seeing your results

simms22 said:
go to the main phone settings, wifi, 3 dots on the bottom right, advanced, then disable scanning always available..
ill be interested in seeing your results
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems that's a whole other debate on weather leaving that on or turning it off helps battery life. Apparently if you turn it off then apps that want your location will turn the GPS on and waste battery (looking at you Facebook...), but if you leave it on the phone just tells the app your location from WiFi networks around you.
One thing I didn't think about is I had added my work WiFi yesterday but it wouldn't connect to it, wouldn't tell me why but I'm assuming it's because of bad signal as I'm a valet outside and the WiFi is from a bar across the street so I forgot about it but WiFi was left on with that network saved, my Nexus 7 can connect to it on most days and any laptop has no issues but with this being a phone I guess it doesn't have a big enough antenna. So I'm wondering if now that I deleted that WiFi network, and I always have my phone set to not notify me of public networks, if my battery won't die so fast today.
And now I'm just rambling but I just looked at my screenshot I took yesterday of battery use before plugging in at 4% and WiFi isn't even being shown on top six things that used the battery, lowest one being shown is a Chrome process using 3%.
EDIT: Well off to work now with my phone 100% charged, will have screen 100% (am outside in the sun), BT off, WiFi on (disconnected, no saved networks nearby, open network notifications off, always on during sleep, scanning always available, avoid poor connections, and WiFi optimization), LTE on/connected, NFC off. So lets see how things go. It will have tons of screen on time as all I do at work is read through FlipBoard, then if I run out of things on there I move to FB. Lets see how this goes...

http://www.qualcomm.com/media/docum...envelope-tracking-technology-3g4g-lte-devices
Nexus 5 has it and its doing its job saving battery

Sorry for digging up such an old thread, but with LTE my Nexus 6P, it switches between HSPA and 3G. When turned to 3G, nothing changes. Would that mean I would save battery?
Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[Q] Poor cell signal draining battery? How to get those 8+ hour OST?

Hi
I tried searching Google, but get a lot of different answers.
I live in an area with a very bad cellular coverage. I always have 1 out of 5 bars and when I turn mobile data on, it is mainly LTE, but jumps a bit between LTE and Edge and rarely H and H+.
Can that cause a lot of battery drain? As I just factory reset my phone to get rid of every change I did. I enabled Stamina Mode, surfed the web for 15 minutes and my phone was at 95%. Is that normal? Because if my math is right, that shouldn't give me more than 5 hours of screen time, while I heard people getting 8+ without Stamina Mode.
Am I missing something or is their some very needed settings to be changed? Sync off, GPS off, bluetooth, Brightness is as low as possible, NFC off, black background (less power consumption), Wifi off and Wifi constant searching off.

U can easly check urself how cell signal draining battery ,first Check how it is with normal H+/LTE then charg it again for 100% and use ur smartphone with plane mode acivated ,now subtract result from 2 "experiment"

Also of note is that black backgrounds mean diddly on our displays. We aren't on OLEDs.
Also, if you ARE in wifi area it's better to be connected to wifi. Wifi is closer than the cell tower and data disconnects when wifi is connected.

On AMOLED/OLED black background helps because each pixel is individually lit (Black means those pixels are off). In LCDs there is a backlight providing illumination for the entire LCD so as long as your screen is on it won't make a differrence what colors are on your screen.

I'm having a similar issue. I have very low cell reception at work, and I can get maybe 4-5 hours SoT throughout the day and am at 10% when I get home. I've tried uninstalling/disabling apps that use a lot of battery, so hopefully it helps. I'll update if by the end of today I'm able to get 7+ hours SoT (which it seems it's on track to doing).
Edit: For clarification, the apps I've uninstalled that I believed to be using a lot of processing power/ram/battery were Facebook, [Facebook] Messenger, and Words with Friends.

festizzio said:
I'm having a similar issue. I have very low cell reception at work, and I can get maybe 4-5 hours SoT throughout the day and am at 10% when I get home. I've tried uninstalling/disabling apps that use a lot of battery, so hopefully it helps. I'll update if by the end of today I'm able to get 7+ hours SoT (which it seems it's on track to doing).
Edit: For clarification, the apps I've uninstalled that I believed to be using a lot of processing power/ram/battery were Facebook, [Facebook] Messenger, and Words with Friends.
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Just use an app like Greenify to block apps running in the background when not in use so you dont havr to uninstall them.

Brightness can have a lot to play on this one. I tend to go with manual brightness so there's no ambient sensors working all the while the display is on, and if you are doing anything where you can cope with lower brightness then drop it.
Keep an eye in battery stats for "google play services" as this can go nuts. When this happens sometimes clearing data can help.
I also found that using google+ to backup my photos caused a lot of battery drain.
I have not found facebook or whatsapp etc to affect my battery much personally. I use stamina mode when i'm out and about to keep the phone at sleep while the screen is off.

ssj_jaypee said:
Just use an app like Greenify to block apps running in the background when not in use so you dont havr to uninstall them.
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No root. WIthout Greenify is just annoying.

Jonathan-H said:
Brightness can have a lot to play on this one. I tend to go with manual brightness so there's no ambient sensors working all the while the display is on, and if you are doing anything where you can cope with lower brightness then drop it.
Keep an eye in battery stats for "google play services" as this can go nuts. When this happens sometimes clearing data can help.
I also found that using google+ to backup my photos caused a lot of battery drain.
I have not found facebook or whatsapp etc to affect my battery much personally. I use stamina mode when i'm out and about to keep the phone at sleep while the screen is off.
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Deleted Messenger and Facebook just for the sake of it. I don't have the need to be online all the time and the people that want to contact me, have my number.

Faspaiso said:
it is mainly LTE, but jumps a bit between LTE and Edge and rarely H and H+.
Can that cause a lot of battery drain?
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At my house I get just enough LTE to cause our S3 to constantly switch to LTE then loose it and switch back to H+. Battery life couldn't make it thru one day. ATT removes the screen that let's you control network mode but I found a backdoor method to lock the phone out of LTE. The phone now stays on H+ and battery life easily jumped 40%. That's the primary reason I held out this time for an unlocked non-ATT-crippled phone--so I can easily turn LTE off.

Well, tried have my phone on over night (for a change to test it).
Everything off (mobile data, gps etc).
Used 7% of my power and every app was closed. When I looked at battery drain, 55% was from cell standby and 40-45% was from Phone Idle.
Tonight I will try charge it to 100% again and then let it be in Flight Mode to see.

I struggled to flatten the battery on my phone the first day 70% of the day with the screen on, no wifi enabled or stamina.
Another test would be to change mobile settings to 3G or 2G to see what difference that makes. Under settings, wireless & networks, select more, mobile networks, then network mode.
I would try the above first before making your phone completely unavailable, especially the 2G.

danw_oz said:
I struggled to flatten the battery on my phone the first day 70% of the day with the screen on, no wifi enabled or stamina.
Another test would be to change mobile settings to 3G or 2G to see what difference that makes. Under settings, wireless & networks, select more, mobile networks, then network mode.
I would try the above first before making your phone completely unavailable, especially the 2G.
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Just did the tests.
Flightmode - 100% after 8 hours (sleep)
Edge - 99% after 8 hours (sleep)
4g - 93% after 8 hours (sleep)

Faspaiso said:
Just did the tests.
Flightmode - 100% after 8 hours (sleep)
Edge - 99% after 8 hours (sleep)
4g - 93% after 8 hours (sleep)
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Nice, thank you! Care to check hspa too?

Fruktsallad said:
Nice, thank you! Care to check hspa too?
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What is that? H/H+?
GSM - Edge
WCDMA - H/H+
LTE - 4g
But I think 4g uses less power than edge, but it is more than in my area there is 1/5 in 4g coverage, 3-4/5 in H/H+ and 5/5 (always) if using edge.
As I see an better connection gives better batterylife, but 4g uses way less than 3g/edge if same cell signal.
But is going to try it next time I get down to my dad. He got 5/5 in LTE signal. So gonna see if it can stay at 100% over night.

Faspaiso said:
What is that? H/H+?
GSM - Edge
WCDMA - H/H+
LTE - 4g
But I think 4g uses less power than edge, but it is more than in my area there is 1/5 in 4g coverage, 3-4/5 in H/H+ and 5/5 (always) if using edge.
As I see an better connection gives better batterylife, but 4g uses way less than 3g/edge if same cell signal.
But is going to try it next time I get down to my dad. He got 5/5 in LTE signal. So gonna see if it can stay at 100% over night.
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Hehe, ok I understand. But HSPA = 3G. [emoji4] I haven't done any rigorous testing, but I think my stand by times are much better using edge (2G) compared to 3G.

Fruktsallad said:
Hehe, ok I understand. But HSPA = 3G. [emoji4] I haven't done any rigorous testing, but I think my stand by times are much better using edge (2G) compared to 3G.
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I see. But if you change between those, you probs have an better cell signal with 2g (in your area), right?

Faspaiso said:
I see. But if you change between those, you probs have an better cell signal with 2g (in your area), right?
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Nope, coverage is about the same. Generally speaking though, 2G > 3G > 4G when it comes to battery life. That's been the rule for years, but as of late, newer radios have become more efficient with 3G and 4G, thus making the difference less noticeable. YMMV. Would be interesting to see your drainage on 3G as well. ☺

Fruktsallad said:
Nope, coverage is about the same. Generally speaking though, 2G > 3G > 4G when it comes to battery life. That's been the rule for years, but as of late, newer radios have become more efficient with 3G and 4G, thus making the difference less noticeable. YMMV. Would be interesting to see your drainage on 3G as well. ☺
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Well could try it tonight.