Is there any practical reason to install these battery-saving apps? Most of them I have seen just tweak the menu options of your phone you can already access manually and give no additional functionality to the phone itself that you couldn't already do.
Is this any different? Or will it just sit in the background consuming battery life itself just to run its "function"?
I've always had horrible time with these "battery saver" apps
Just let android do its thing
Turn brightness down, turn off GPS, BT and 4G/LTE when not in use and lower the intervals of background updates (and by that i mean turn the time up higher lol) on apps and your battery should last longer
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2
I used Juice Defender for awhile and realized it wasn't what I wanted. I tried Easy Battery Saver and that really helped out a lot.
What it did was to disable all internet, GPS etc when not in use or screen locked. It really helped out a lot in helping to save battery
I don't find they help much anyway and will just drain your battery faster, I think they're kinda designed for the average user who keeps everything on and don't know how to do all the things alot of us who are more better with Android already do.
Just Another★Gamer said:
I don't find they help much anyway and will just drain your battery faster, I think they're kinda designed for the average user who keeps everything on and don't know how to do all the things alot of us who are more better with Android already do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, juicedefender ultimate saves me a serious amount of battery, no joke.
Sent from my LG-P930 using xda premium
I had a conpletely bad experience with juice defender. After using a little, came tto know that it of no use. It is battery drainer. :-/
Sent from my LG-E730 using Tapatalk 2
It offers some useful functions (such as the delayed screen lock), but I found that it messed up critical functions on my phone and didn't save much on battery.
rani9990 said:
No, juicedefender ultimate saves me a serious amount of battery, no joke.
Sent from my LG-P930 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All I had is bad experience with battery savers and they drain alot more then they save for me plus I already turned off all online stuff like Wifi, bt, 3G, mobile data etc.
Juice defender pro is doing a great job for me. Recommended! No joke at all.
Also it has come to my attention that it has a feature of learning. The more time you have it in your phone then it will do a better job to save you battery. Also alot of settings to do depending on how much juice you want to save.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
On my phone, I used to run Juice Defender all the time. After awhile, I realized all it was doing was turning 3G off when my screen was off and turning it back on when the phone woke up. Since I wasn't necessarily using 3G every time I woke up my phone, I got into the habit of just turning 3G off and on only when I need it and stay on Wi-Fi as much as possible. After uninstalling Juice Defender and growing accustomed to found this, my battery life has improved at least 3x and I have never looked back. Just my 2¢.
Sent from my AOKP Swagged Out Nook Color
Yep, I also stopped using JD a long time ago. There are much better ways of saving battery than adding one more application - if you know what you're doing. Using JD is less work, but it's not the best way.
If you are toggling wifi, data, gps etc by your self you dont need JD. I used it sometime but I have habit to control all toggles myself and just found JD interfering with my choice and it shows it saves some 1.8X battery but I didnt find it that much.
I have tried many of them; in my use/ my phone (Nexus S, unrooted, stock JB) is Battery Stretch far the best, really almost doubling battery life.. JD, etc did save some juice, but far less, than Battery stretch. Just my 2c.
Personally I'd call my level of use on Android to be near expert. Not really a developer here, but I'm a very proficient user.
I'd say Juice Defender is totally full of crap.
So what can it do? It turns off "3G?" I swear this misnomer came from the US or something. We somehow equate 3G with data. I thought it meant it would throttle me back to 2G while the screen was off, but all it does is turn data off. Now here's a question: What the hell is the point of a smartphone with its data off? If you like social networking, email, communication, you WANT those notifications to come through. So what does turning data off while your screen do? You might as well turn off data manually and then turn it back on when your screen is on.
Furthermore, if you're interested in saving battery, use wifi in places where data sucks. The minute you turn wifi on, data is switched off. You don't need Juice Defender to figure this one out.
I can see 2G/3G auto toggle being useful, but this can be installed separately as the 2G/3G toggle app for CyanogenMod.
You should be able to tweak your battery to max it out without the use of any 3rd party apps or rooting or anything like that. Tons of newbies install a bunch of apps and as a result here's what could be draining for example:
- Google+ instant upload
- Dropbox instant upload (wow way to duplicate Google+ and effectively double your data use and battery consumption)
- Pulse news sync
- Google currents sync
- Gtalk 24/7 push
- Google latitude
People always say turn off GPS but I ask why? Are you leaving your maps on for 10 minutes at a time? I use location services a few seconds at a time. Show up to work? Checkin at foursquare. Walk into a bar? Checkin to foursquare. About to go home? Take a look at Google Maps. All that takes 1-2 minutes tops. How much battery should that even consume? 1%? Turning off GPS means what? I consume 0.5%? Woohoo. BIG SAVINGS there bro. Furthermore you gotta remember to turn it back on if you ever want to use navigation, and if anything having GPS accuracy helps when using location services like for Foursquare of Facebook checkins. You could find that venue as one nearby rather than scrolling around trying to find it because the cell tower puts you a mile away. You save time like that too.
Screen is the big one. Autobrightness should work well on most stock ROMs and even most stable ROMs. IF you're using your phone outdoors expect that screen to drain like mad, but indoors it should be fine.
Honestly, JuiceDefender accomplishes its task by crippling your smartphone. That's not what a smartphone was built for. You should be able to use all its features and get through a day unless you're on your phone 5 hours straight surfing. Then expect it to die soon. No juicedefender will save you there.
I think the point of JD is that you don't need 3g data on all the time, you can set it to enable 3g data every min/5 mins/30 mins/hour etc for a set time, if background processes are sycn'ing (gmail, facebook, twitter etc) it will wait until the sync is done, this means its up to you when you sync data, I sync evey 15 mins and it works really well. When you switch the screen on, data is automatically enabled, i have set it to use wifi when in range, or 3g when out of range (again its automatic) JD does save you battery and it does it all on its own, millions of downloads can't be wrong
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And that's exactly what Battery stretch does - with a much smaller footprint/memory/battery load than JD!
Just give it a try - I have tried all of them- and judge it for yourself
Another one to check out is 3GBattery, very basic but maybe that was the point too
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...wxLDEsImNvbS5teXN0aXF1ZS50aHJlZWdiYXR0ZXJ5Il0.
Juice Defender is a fickle mistress. It does what you want, but it can get in the way. I use it when I know I'm going to be away from power most of the day and I either forgot my Sparq or it won't be practical. When properly configured Juice Defender bloody works. I usually end the day with a 2.4x boost when I use it. Normally my phone needs a pick-me-up after about 8-9 hours. With Juice Defender I had 35% left after an 18 hour day. The only difference was Juice Defender and using Screen Filter to drop the brightness. Had about 3.5 hours of screen on time.
Juice Defender's bread and butter is its data toggle tool, and there are some things to keep in mind with it to make the most of it.
When the data state on the phone goes from not connected to connected programs that can sync want to sync. This adds a lot of data use and cpu cycles. Because of this I've used the Application Specific control rather than having data toggle on at screen on/unlock. I don't want data coming on because I reply to a text. Data comes on when I call up an app that needs it, and data runs in the background for Music and Spotify only.
There's the argument of crippling a smartphone, but honestly, 99% of communications that come over the data network aren't urgent. Urgent communications are calls or texts. No power is more crippling to a smartphone than no data.
It's an absolutely fantastic app, but the memory footprint is huge! Even really fast devices like my evo lte slow down a little over time
Related
If you dont care about push email and syncing contacts (most of us arent that important) I highly recommend turning off "Always on data" in the wireless settings. This time of day I am normally around 60% battery left (sometimes less) when I have it on... with it off? Im hovering around 92% battery and my phone started at 97% this morning because of the charger bug...
Basically if you turn this off, your phones DATA radio shuts off after 10 minutes of sleep. Gtalk, Gmail, contacts, calendar will not auto-push at this point, nor will any of your other apps (but who cares the phone is off). The work around for GTalk is simple - use trillian or Beejive which utilize Google Push messaging. Basically when you wake your phone, you instantly get all the missed IMs since both chat apps save your IMs on the server until you are available to push to. Android is awesome with reconnecting 3G and it happens in less than 2 seconds.
If you care about battery, check this out. Id rather have battery last 2 days than auto syncing contacts and gmail. Plus you can setup the standard email app to check your email for you since that doesnt require push (will check email when you wake it up).
Anyone else had success with this? I have considered it but haven't pulled the trigger yet.
I tried different sync settings with time, moving between checking for emails every 15-30 minutes as well as hourly, wasn't too much of a difference. I've turned off background data, but I haven't checked to see if turning off all data works. If I can find this setting I'll definitely try it tonight
I'm going to try this in a few minutes...once I get off this call. I hate being put on hold!
Best way to save battery is to turn off 4G (run only 3G). Why would I want my data off all the time. With 3G only I get over 20 hours battery life consistently with data on.
Am I the only one that can't find this setting? I went to settings and wireless & networks but don't see always on data.Never mind I found it in mobile networks.
Click on mobile networks. It's in there.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App
I guess I am lucky, I have gotten great battery life even with 4g on. I have noticed if you are in a bad 4g area that toggles to 3g a lot this will kill your battery. I live in a great 4g area and never bounce back and forth.
I've done this on all my android phones, it makes an enormous difference. Android OS keeps an always-on data session, and all the Google services are constantly talking to their servers like gmail, market updater, talk, Google voice, etc. Turn off mobile data with a toggle widget until you actually need data is by far the best way to save huge battery.
Other phones such as the iPhone do not work this way. Instead the data session only initiates when you do some thing that needs it, such as opening the web browser. After closing the browser the data session terminates. Of course push email would keep it on all the time. But stock setup does not.
Android just keeps it on all the time.
What charging bug?
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App
psufan5 said:
If you dont care about push email and syncing contacts (most of us arent that important) I highly recommend turning off "Always on data" in the wireless settings. This time of day I am normally around 60% battery left (sometimes less) when I have it on... with it off? Im hovering around 92% battery and my phone started at 97% this morning because of the charger bug...
Basically if you turn this off, your phones DATA radio shuts off after 10 minutes of sleep. Gtalk, Gmail, contacts, calendar will not auto-push at this point, nor will any of your other apps (but who cares the phone is off). The work around for GTalk is simple - use trillian or Beejive which utilize Google Push messaging. Basically when you wake your phone, you instantly get all the missed IMs since both chat apps save your IMs on the server until you are available to push to. Android is awesome with reconnecting 3G and it happens in less than 2 seconds.
If you care about battery, check this out. Id rather have battery last 2 days than auto syncing contacts and gmail. Plus you can setup the standard email app to check your email for you since that doesnt require push (will check email when you wake it up).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will have to try this out. One thing Im missing on this phone that I had on my Droidx is power profiles. I made a profile that turned off data after 30 mins. This saved a crazy amount of battery. I cant bring my phone into work, so I leave it in the car.
On the Droid X, if I let it keep the data session always on, Id be down to like 50 percent battery with the phone sitting doing nothing all day (about 9 hrs). By having the data turn off after 30 mins, the phone would be at 80 percent at the end of the day.
I replaced my texting plan with Google Voice. This isn't an option for me.
I usually just leave it on 1X if its just sitting in my pocket and I don't need speed.
Are people seeing good battery gains with all the bloatware removed? I have root but I haven't gotten around to removing the Verizon bloat
edit: Now that I think about it, 1X could be a bigger power drain than EVDO. Hmm
I have to agree no need to turn of data. Use anycut to create a toggle widget and just put it on 3g. I use my phone from moderate to heavy and am still at over 60% on battery that's better than my Droid x. Let's face it 4G eats up battery but seriously when do you need besides when downloading things or for when netflix comes out or tethering. But for just normal use I don't even notice a difference when it comes to browsing.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App
this is the most retarded thread. why the f would i go and buy a smart phone that is meant for push email and fast 4g internet and disable all that ****. either live with the **** battery life, live with a thicker phone and get a extended battery or return the **** for a dumb phone.
I am not in a 4g area but with my screen brightness turned down and the HTC weather sync turned off I am easily getting a day. I noticed when I look to see what is taking the juice its mainly the screen.
ddarvish said:
this is the most retarded thread. why the f would i go and buy a smart phone that is meant for push email and fast 4g internet and disable all that ****. either live with the **** battery life, live with a thicker phone and get a extended battery or return the **** for a dumb phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You turn it off for times when you know you need to save power. If I'm out drinking at the bar for 4 hours, kill data and my phone is still at 98% after 4 hours. If I turn it off during a work day I still have 85% after 9 hours. The saving is enormous.
Since its only a 1 click toggle on your home screen, it makes no sense to avoid using this advantage.
Of course 99% of the time I leave data on. But when I know I'll need it, I use it.
ddarvish said:
this is the most retarded thread. why the f would i go and buy a smart phone that is meant for push email and fast 4g internet and disable all that ****. either live with the **** battery life, live with a thicker phone and get a extended battery or return the **** for a dumb phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great post, I can see you will be a helpful addition to this community...
Back on topic, guys this phone has been out for what? 2 weeks? Relax, trust me, kernel development was great on the INC, I could easily get a day & a half out of my phone on the stock 1300mah battery. Once we get the kernel source for the TB, and the devs start to work on that, you will notice battery life improve significantly. Until then 4g is a big reason, so keep that off if you don't need it. Syncing always has been, either make it manual sync, or keep it at long updating intervals.
Great post, I can see you will be a helpful addition to this community...
ROTFLMAO!
Definitely gonna try this out.
Hi which activity in anycut do i have to use for this to conserve battery?
What settings do you use for Juice Defender. I've been messing with this app but is unsure on what is the best settings to use.
I had it on balanced and it said it was saving me 1.22x batterylife and one day I switched it to custom and I swear I changed very little and now it shows 1.89.
Give that a try.
I am a bit skeptical on these battery saving apps. They run in the background, using more memory and battery.
I'll mess with it a bit more...
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e
I only use Juice Defender to shut off mobile data when Wifi is turned on and when certain apps run... otherwise, I dont let it shut off my data or wifi because the phone has fantastic battery power, so I let it stay on 24/7.
I use it to turn WiFi and data on or off by location.. night mode and on custom stewing and get about a day and a half on a charge with pretty heavy use
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
caliber177 said:
I only use Juice Defender to shut off mobile data when Wifi is turned on and when certain apps run... otherwise, I dont let it shut off my data or wifi because the phone has fantastic battery power, so I let it stay on 24/7.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mind sharing your settings?
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
Actually juice defender does a very good job for the battery life mainly on stand-by. If you are unsure of the settings i suggest using the ,,balanced,, option. But here are some of my tips (i use a lot of 3g internet on my phone, so the settings are a little more internet-permissive )
About tab: I selected here turn data network on screen wake-up ( i use the friends stream network, mainly for twitter updates and i like to have a 3g connection rigt after i wake-up the screen (default is turn on 3g when you unlock)
Control tab: I didn.t change here anything, the default settings are good
Schedule : I choose some peak times here ( from 12 - 16 weekdays) when the 3g stays always on, even if i turn off the phone - i recive alot of emails during this time (also i set up mail peak times during this interval to 1h update)
This is what i changed on my device. It may not suit you or any other user, but as i said, personally i noticed a good change in battery life in standby (this is what Juice Defender actually does by turning off data connection when not needed, simple but effective)
I use the dim screen option, set at 55%, and min at 80%, max at 150% and enabled the dimmer option under about
I'm using mainly the default settings and so far so good.
The only issue i have found is that i could not install an .apk from SD card when juicedefender is active. I had to disable it in order for the "install" button to work! Any ideas?
I love juice defender, it says it gets me 1.90x more battery.
i use custom setting and i have night time where it disables most things between certain times when im asleep, the apps i tell it turn things like twitter and stocks not to access internet at all, as i dont even use them.
its very clever and i have just looked at the advanced options and there is so much more you can do. need to learn a bit more about it before i used advanced.
Thanks for the replies. I'll mess around and test it a bit more.
*Disclaimer* This is all from a personal experience and testing/research from a long time android user, what I have discovered over time and has helped me and some friends. This will work whether your rooted OR not. I kept it as basic as I can so everyone can benefit. If you dont like what you read and disagree, or want to add something PM me, Ill change/add and give credit to you. Hopefully, this can grow with the community.
*Rooted Section Will be Added*
*When I charge my battery I usually drain it all the way down or as much as i can (around 20% left) then charge plugged in till green, then power down and charge for another hour or so. Not sure if this matters or not but seems to help me out try it!*
This guide will help you if your rooted or non-rooted, all the apps I talk about I honestly have no ties to the devs. I don't use any SUPER AWESOME AMAZING BATTERY SAVER 5000 apps or anything like that. Those mostly just turn ur radios off and on and kill apps in the background. In my experience a lot of them cause syncing issues with my e-mail and other notifications. I like to receive my information instantly not have an app waiting for me to turn my screen on to check for updates.
About my personal setup: Basically, I want my phone to last me all day but still perform well with a heavy use, WITHOUT needing to constantly change settings to save battery. With what I have here Im able to keep my Sensation running for a full day of moderate-heavy use (7:30am to around 10pm) with its STOCK battery (Did damn well on my Evo 4G too). Days of very minor use Ive gone into the second day with 60% + battery. Yes, I use all my home screens and have a good amount of widgets, I love sense and its widgets. I play games, surf the web, do a lot of texting, listen to a lot of music, decent amount of fbing and email, usually take a few pictures a day. Half my day is wifi/other is mobile data.
Here goes the real basics, mostly common sense here not trying to insult anyone. Feel free to browse thru it quick (green text) if your not totally new to the android scene, whats after it will be a good read for noobs and vets.
*I use the power control widget, make getting to a lot of settings quicker. Why waste battery digging thru menus?*
Basics:
-Screen brightness: (duh ) these pretty screens eat battery brighter=quicker drain naturally and from my experience leaving it on Auto Brightness kills more battery too. Each time your phone pulls information from the sensor to decide on how bright it should adjust itself too.
-GPS: If GPS is on it should not effect battery unless an app is using it and you see the GPS icon on your notification bar. I noticed a very slight increase in mA discharge when i had it enabled, to be safe leave it off if you dont use it extremely frequently.
Location thru mobile networks: Not to hard on battery. I leave mine on it does add drain but it takes away from my weather widgets updating when Im traveling.
-Bluetooth: Moderate battery drain. I honestly don't use it at all myself but if you do try your best to keep it off when not in use.
-Wifi: Android has gotten a lot better at managing wifi over the past few years. It doesn't drain that bad on battery and it shuts off/on periodically on its own when screen is off depending on whats using it.
Google Back-Up: Takes a little juice here and there no biggie. I dont use it just because I like to fresh install my apps when I try a new rom, run into less problems that way.
2G/3G/4G: This varies phone to phone, the slower speed the better battery life. If you know your not going to be using 4G for a while turn it off. I leave mine on 4G or wifi all day with my sensation. When I had Sprint and my Evo I would leave it off most of the time. Depending on your carrier and how their data works this is a big one. T-Mobile seems to handle well, Sprint and Verizon's 4G Ive seen eat an insane amount of battery.
Sync/Background Data: I lumped them together because sync is pretty much reliant on background data. These kill a lot of your battery in general. It syncs your apps (email, facebook, google data, contacts, etc.), the periodic checks your apps do to check for and download new emails and notifications, using background data (data still transmits when screens off). I always leave these on and still manage great battery life, I like things instant if I wanted to wait Id just wait till i got in front of a PC. Sync and Background data are the settings most battery saving apps control because they really can help your battery if you turn it off. You can control what core apps sync in settings>accounts and sync. Or the power widget that 95% of android phones have has it on there. I recommend minimizing the amount of apps you allow background data with, example: WeatherBug first launch it asks if it can automatically update itself in the background for apps were thats not necessary hit no.
Radio/Airplane Mode: Pretty self explanatory, turns off your connection to your wireless provider. No point in ever turning it off in my eyes, your phones no longer a phone.
What has really helped me with my battery life (non-basics):
There is a lot to be said when it comes down to 2.2+ android phones and whether they need a task killer anymore or not. Since Ive had a lot of android phones and a few now that are 2.2+ Ive done a lot of testing. I usually go about a 2 weeks on one idea or new task killer and keep a close eye on battery drainage using Battery Monitor Widget, free app in the market. It tells you exactly how much of your battery is being drained without killing battery itself. Each phone/rom settles at a different average mA lower the better. In my experience if I can keep my phone anywhere under 100mA when idle im doing good. This held true on both the Evo 4G and my Sensation. Some ASOP roms i could get down to the 30's but for sense under 100mA is good. Keep in mind you will get the occasionally spike here and there its just android and/or apps in the background. You can view the a chart of the battery data in Battery Monitor.
Instead of boring you guys with each task killer Ive used and its results, Ill just get down to what I found out in the end.
Basically, the way android 2.2+ works it really isn't necessary to run a task killer it does a decent job removing apps from memory when you need more memory. But at the same time I found running a task killer periodically (BUT not killing frequently used apps) results in a lower average mA drain leading to overall better battery life.
The best application I have used has to go Automatic Task Killer , trust me Ive used a lot from the top free ones to a few of the more popular paid ones. What this task killer does is kill a selection of apps you allow it too every time your phones screen shuts off and goes idle. On Automatic Task Killer's first boot your shown a screen of every application that could at some point run in the background on your phone. This part sucks a little bit but it is worth it, you need to select which of the apps you want to allow it to kill automatically. It does not kill foreground apps the ones you currently have open on the screen aka a browser or a game. Example your playing NFS: Shift and your boss walks by so you quickly pause and hit the power button turning off the screen, next time you turn the screen on it will kill all other allowed background apps but your game will still be up front and center.
Now the trick is to go thru and set it to kill apps you know your phone won't automatically just restart or you don't use 90% of the time. So don't select things like Dialer, Contacts, Clock, Calendar, Messages or apps you constantly use/check such as a third party SMS app or your main E-Mail Client or third party keyboards (various by person and what you use most). Letting the app automatically kill those is just going to lead to worse battery life because your phone will just restart it each time leading to more CPU cycles (not what you want and part of the reason some consider task killers bad things).
Also, when using any task killer and killing the proper apps sense runs smoother, a big deal with sense 3.0.
So hopefully with a little messing around you can get a good setup where your phone lasts you all day without having to constantly keep changing settings and watching your battery life. All while everything stays syncing and instant. Hope this helps!
*ROOT Section (now that we have s-off )
Everything posted above can be done on any rom, rooted or none. There has been a lot of posts on "freezing apps" that you dont need or typically use, which does in fact really help battery life. Since, we (by we i mean sensation users) now have a permanent root this is my tiny second part of the guide for rooted devices.
I dont freeze my apps I prefer them to be gone for good if its something I dont see myself using or its bloat that came with my phone/rom. Since 98% of us will be using custom roms now this usually isnt an issue since most dev's r good at what they do and remove all the bs we dont need or normally use. Still there is some apps we may not want on our phones so for that I use SystemApp Remover . Its a great App for people who dont want to have to worry about going in manually and getting rid of system apps.
Its just basically an Uninstaller that allows you to access any and every app on the phone for you to uninstall (thats y roots needed). For me I just go in an drop the apps I know i wont use. A lot of roms come with carrier add-ons and such, those I normally delete as well as a few HTC sense widgets and apps I see no need for. It will free up space and increase your phones battery life with most things you delete.
Now, be careful. You are prompted upon opening SystemApp Remover that messing in system apps is dangerous and it is. If your not sure what something is DONT touch it, simply do a google search or ask around to see if its safe to remove first.
Re-calibrate Battery: After you flash a new rom or start using a new battery, you should use your recovery (CWM or other) to Wipe Battery Stats. Before you do this make sure your battery is at 100% and has been on the charger for over an hour with the fully charged green led on. This will allow your device to better drain your battery and can really help battery life.
So hopefully with a little messing around you can get a good setup where your phone lasts you all day without having to constantly keep changing settings and watching your battery life. All while everything stays syncing and instant. Hope this helps!
Thanks to people who have contributed:
-JadeSoturi
thanks for sharing the experience
i'm trying Automatic Task Killer
devine might said:
thanks for sharing the experience
i'm trying Automatic Task Killer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no problem. let me kno how it goes for you
very good info! would also help if you specify which versions of android.....
Thanks for the info, hope it will increase my battery life to last a day
Airfaire said:
very good info! would also help if you specify which versions of android.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im on my sensation so 2.3.3. Been getting a lot of hate on the sensation forums since task killers are officially deemed no longer needed, but this method really helps me with battery life hoping itd help some of u too
Watchdog> then any task killer
ADR6300
Hmm, ill try auto task killer as well, tried a few others.
I use JuiceDefender, I like it. It manages my connectivity pretty well and it does help.
This is excellent, many thanks. As a converted WM 6.5 user I have to say, I am enjoying android considerably more and I prefer it to the Metro interface of WP7. It's nice to know the little tricks to get the most out of it. Thanks again. ^_^
DarkSwanKnight said:
I use JuiceDefender, I like it. It manages my connectivity pretty well and it does help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
same here, JD works pretty good
TastyTorge said:
same here, JD works pretty good
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Worth getting the full one or will the free version do?
Sent from my HTC HD2 running TyphooN CyanogenMod 7 via XDA Premium App
Thanks
Thanks for the info, and for sharing, i will try the different methods
i havent really bothered with task killers but ive found reducing the brightness and disabling data and sync makes my battery last alot longer. i just re enable when i need them.
also, i downloaded setcpu and added a profile for while the screen is off. that helps alot. the drain is about 5% with the screen off after every 3 or 4 hours.
Very good info thanks
You had me impressed until you mentioned task killers. Absolutely horrible...
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G
Martin_Toy said:
Worth getting the full one or will the free version do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Full version is much better.
It's killer app indeed. I think many of it's features should be natively included in android.
Options like "Turn off 3G/EDGE when connected to Wi-Fi", "Turn off all radios when screen is off", "Turn off Wi-Fi after x minutes if it doesn't connect to a network", "Set screen brightess to minimal when battery is low", etc....it wouldn't be that hard to implement and battery life, perhaps most criticized aspect of Android, would improve immensely.
fpu
floating_point_unit said:
Full version is much better.
It's killer app indeed. I think many of it's features should be natively included in android.
Options like "Turn off 3G/EDGE when connected to Wi-Fi", "Turn off all radios when screen is off", "Turn off Wi-Fi after x minutes if it doesn't connect to a network", "Set screen brightess to minimal when battery is low", etc....it wouldn't be that hard to implement and battery life, perhaps most criticized aspect of Android, would improve immensely.
fpu
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your mobile network DOES turn off when connected to wifi, and if all radios turned off when the screen went off, how would you ever get calls or emails with the phone in your pocket? The wifi after x minutes would be a nice feature, but I don't like things touching my screen brightness.
Thank you for your information.
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
Hello everyone!
I was just wondering between these two apps...
Which one works better for you and if will be great if you can share your configuration!!
Also, does anyone knows is any of these two disable whatsapp and gmail notifications?
Many thanks for sharing!
Cheers!
IMHO
I can answer about Green Power Premium:
It doesn't have such option like disable notifications. He does such thing like disables data connection for amount of time you chose (for me it is 15min) and then enables data connection for amount of time you choose (for me it is 2min)
Now my Galaxy Note works 2 times longer (from 10h to 20h)
katinsh said:
I can answer about Green Power Premium:
It doesn't have such option like disable notifications. He does such thing like disables data connection for amount of time you chose (for me it is 15min) and then enables data connection for amount of time you choose (for me it is 2min)
Now my Galaxy Note works 2 times longer (from 10h to 20h)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WOW! double time!!
thanks for sharing!
I have been trying both, and while both of them seem to deliver a noticeable reduction in power draw (actually in my case a dramatic reduction), of the two I'd have to give my vote to GreenPower (I'm using the full version). The power reduction is at least as good as Juice Defender Ultimate, and the premium version is significantly cheaper.
Both work by turning various features (mainly Wi-fi/3g/BlueTooth) on and off automatically, but as result can cause delays in things like receiving push-mail and that kind of thing. With Juice-Defender I found this to be quite noticeable, but I'd have to say that with Green-Power I haven't really noticed it slowing down messaging or anything else.......
I've used them both - and deleted them both. I'd rather manage power myself.
i am using 2x Battery for me this is the best. simple and clean.
I usually use JuiceDefender but decided to try out Green Power. I really like it but I have a hard time getting my phone to sleep properly on GP.
i use widgetsoid and just enable my connection when i want it (wifi/3g)
i could never find the proper app that did exactly what i wanted- rather just have control.
going that was and using the phone an average amount my battery goes from 100 -> 75 from the time i wake up (7am) to the time i got to bed (12-1 am)
the 2500mah battery is pretty good!
With JuiceDefender I can get my phone to sleep 95%+ of the time but with GreenPower, my cpu is only sleep 40%+. Can anyone give me tips to get my cpu to sleep more to preserve battery?
katinsh said:
I can answer about Green Power Premium:
It doesn't have such option like disable notifications. He does such thing like disables data connection for amount of time you chose (for me it is 15min) and then enables data connection for amount of time you choose (for me it is 2min)
Now my Galaxy Note works 2 times longer (from 10h to 20h)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just out of interest, what happens when you browse the web and GreenPower has turned off the Data Connection?
Or you're watching a youtube video and it decides its time to turn off data?
Tried both versions and found green power premium to work better for me. (Price was a good point too.)
However the next day I found that if I left my phone for a while (Around 1 1/2 to 2 hours), the display would not turn on and If I called the phone it would not ring. Only way to fix this was to press the power button for 10 seconds to reset the phone.
Uninstalled green power to see if this was the cause and hasn't happened since.
Was wondering if something similar has happened to other people?
I had to go back to JuiceDefender since I couldn't get my phone to go into deep sleep with GreenPower.
Hi, i went for Green Power. I found it simpler to configure, more focused on the job. Juice Defender has to much possible settings and complexity, this makes it a great tool but might also lead to poor efficiency.
I have never used green power before but im on juice defender. I have experienced auto turn off by the note due to a set cpu settings that govern lower clock to cpu at a certain condition. Due to the big display on note i think lower cpu clock wont do it. Because of that the device turned off itself. Upon failure to operate. Hope this solves your problem
I have tried JuiceDefender but ultimately prefer to do everything manually. Some how I always feel the auto manage apps will have everything off precisely when you need it. I use the SwitchPro widget to quickly enable/disable the various radios from my home screen and it works great.
@ Aldragor
I have/had the same problem. In the beginning I thought that my launcher would be the cause for this problem, but after I disabled my Green Power Premium it hasn't happend since now.
Juice defender ultimate, the feature of switching 2g 3g on stock ROM alone was worth the price!
After figuring out how to config GreenPower properly, I went back to it.
I used JuiceDefender and thought it was great.... when it worked. However, I used it mostly as a scheduler with about 15% battery saving which I took as the icing on the cake.
I want all connections on during the day (peak) so I can take skype calls, etc.. When I'm home, I just want to periodically check for mails, etc (so have connection enable every 15min) and when I go to bed I don't want to be disturbed by emails, messages, etc but still want phone/sms on in case there is an emergency. And most of all, I didn't want to have to manually do that every day.
Problem was that it never really stuck to the schedules. This was the ultimate version but it was a crack as they never offered the ultimate on a trial. I wanted to evaluate the ultimate and buy if it did the job. So, it might have been a bad crack which caused the problem, but I guess I'll never know as I don't want to risk wasting the money if the schedule problem persists.
I am a lover of juice, it keeps he juice in and right