All I do is tweet, Google+, xda and browse during my 50 minute commute to college and my battery goes haywire.
I restrict background data, autosync and also use inverted rendering in the browser along with dark themed xda.
My question is how can I reduce this drain?
Sent from my GT-I9300
I think it may have to do with you phone connecting to different networks on your commute. You can't really do so much about that unless you sync 50 minutes worth of reading at home uith wifi pefore you leave. I've done that with some success with greader when i take my daughter to her riding lessons where I know there is no coverage. -rticles i find that I want to share get "starred" or saved and dealt with later.
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Hi folks
I've searched around the forums and have seen a couple of solutions out there for automatically terminating data connections (Bandswitch, WMLongLife, the registry tweak) but each seems to lack some of what I need and do a lot that I don't need.
Here's the lowdown:
- I've already tweaked the Comm Manager to add the 3G on/off switch so I don't need something that messes with that
- I use push email for business so I need the data connection to stay on during the "peak times" that I've set in Activesync (for me, that's 8am-11pm)
- Outside of peak times, I've got the phone checking email every hour. Right now, it seems to be leaving the connection on afterward.
- I want to keep the automatic updates for HTC Sense's weather and stock tabs. Not every 5 minutes, of course, but at least a couple of times a day. Also tends to leave the connection going when used outside peak hours.
As I understand it, the registry tweak won't work for the Sense tabs. Bandswitch and WMLongLife mess with the 3G radio and, as far as I can tell, don't let you set a timeframe (re: the latter - I suppose when you've got push mail going it pings the Exchange server regularly so in theory it shouldn't consider the connection idle, but why mess with it?)
So, in short, anyone got a solution that could switch off an idle data connection outside of the peak times set in Activesync?
If you just want to kill connections during certain times (ie, night time) try G-Profile. I have it set to kill data connections during the night, works fine for me although I am using a new beta version which is available from their site.
Looks interesting but reading through the manual it looks as if you can only set a profile to disable the data connection during certain hours. I'd like to leave the data available, just switch on auto-disconnect.
Plus, again, there's a lot of extra stuff in there that's really not necessary. I'm looking for something more lightweight...
I haven't tried it, but you might want to take a look at CommMgrPro.
It's also from the creator of Bandswitch.
PhoneAlarm can do this.
I had PhoneAlarm installed on my previous phone. True, it can do this.
But again, it's like using a tank to kill a fly. Sam with CommMgrPro.
Is there no lightweight solution?
+1 for this. It has to be possible, everyone just seems to lump the functionality in with a load of other stuff I'm not interested in.
Up, I'm looking for this also
+1
This kind of app is missing...
SO.... last night I left my charging cable at the office and I only had around 20% of the battery left at 11:00pm. For some reason, the thing kept opening the data channel even though it was outside of "peak" hours for push! I had to reset and turn manually turn off all data... couldn't have the phone die overnight as it's my alarm clock!
Any ideas here?
DialUp Enabler Disabler v06
What about this one
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=610657
I think this is a long shot but here goes:
I have an unlimited data plan so during peak times I've got Exchange email arriving 'as it arrives' and Gmail sending/receiving every 5 mins.
To help preserve the battery during off-peak times Exchange syncs only every 4 hours.
In addition to this I've also got Bluetooth and Wifi on pretty much 24/7.
Obviously this doesn't help the battery life, so I'd like to be able to configure when (i.e. what time of day) my connections are 'on' and when they are 'off'.
I'm aware of tweaks, mods and apps to cut the data connection after, say, 5mins. But that's not what I want. I want something which will schedule the data connection to turn off at a certain time, and reconnect at a certain time.
In addition it would be good to have the same thing for Bluetooth, Wifi ir any other item in Connection Manager for that matter.
Any bright young thing out there that can help?
Update: See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb416391.aspx for Connection Manager API description and architecture
Having decided against moving to Win Mobile 7 I got a Sensation a couple of weeks ago (from a HD2) and hence my first Android device.
All is going well apart from the data connection. On Win Mob 6.5 I had 5 business emails which the phone checked every 15-30 minutes. The phone would connect, check the emails and then disconnect. If I wanted to browse then when I opened the browser, it connected and disconnected when I closed it.
On the Sensation I seem only to have the option of data connection on or off. I have set the email to sync every 30 minutes but I have to have the data connection on all the time to let it do this. The battery drain is crippling.
I download Juice Defender Ultimate after reading another thread but after setting it up it only allows data for so many minutes in the hour and when I say that the browser should overide Juice it just says I have no connection.
I love Android but losing 75% of your battery in 6 hours because of business emails is not quite good enough.
So is there a way of getting the data connection to go on and off as required (both on demand and for scheduled automatic email syncs)?
And if not what Juice defender settings do I need to get it to do what I want?
Any help much appreciated.
I'm looking for an answer to this to, for the exact same reason. A "Data Connection Timeout" setting or something similar.
Switch to pushmail, saves you quite some data transfers and is more effective in the end. I have two hotmail addresses plus oen gmail on pushmail and I don't notice any more battery drain with data connection permanently on.
Settings>Mobile Networks>untick "Enable always-on mobile data.
This usually helps the battery drain a lot, especially if you don't have things that are always using data, like pandora and the like. If you have things set to specific intervals, then it should work like your WinMo devices and connect then disconnect as needed.
Admittedly the droid likes to be more automated than WinMo, and you have much less control than 6.5. (Never used Phone7, so I can't comment on that.) But, once you learn the tricks to using it (just like the tricks to 6.5) its just as powerful as WinMo was for the business geared user, as far as I can tell. The battery is something that takes some finessing as well, so keep working with it and keep learning. There are some pretty good guides available that can tell you steps to take, even a few here on XDA for the searching.
Good luck with your new droid device, it will become second nature in time. It took me a month to quit tapping the icons in the task bar. LOL.
Thanks for the replies
I think the fact that the HD2 and the Sensation both use Sense helps and therefore it has been fairly easy to get to grips with Android.
I have already unchecked the 'always on' option but I never seem to get any emails unless I open the email program up...even when its running in the background. Win Mobile 6.5 used to check without the email being open.
I have had another play with JD and seem to have sort of got what I want but sometimes the data connection won't wake up after the unlock screen without a data toggle on and off.
Is there any better email apps from the market?
I have already unchecked the 'always on' option but I never seem to get any emails unless I open the email program up...even when its running in the background. Win Mobile 6.5 used to check without the email being open.
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Strange because when I do that I get a lot better battery life and my push Gmail arrives in 2-3 minutes instead of isntantly. also Google Talk won't stay connected with this setting. Other than that it seems to work really well for me doing exactly what you want.
Is it possible to set up the HOX to only sync certain things when on wifi? I have it set this way for my Dropbox ap and I love it...I don't have to worry about data usage (limited plan) for that. I was having a problem with the calendar ap drawing extremely high data usage, but if I could (for example) set that up to only sync when I wifi, then I could start it back up. If there isn't already a setting for this, I think the developers would do good to design one. There are probably many of us that have wifi most of the time throughout the day but the commutes back and forth or while out running around draw extra data for something I could just wait for when I'm on wifi...For example, if I'm syncing contacts, I don't need it done RIGHT THEN. If it waited until I was on wifi, that would be soon enough for me...Any ideas?
mmoffitt9241 said:
Is it possible to set up the HOX to only sync certain things when on wifi? I have it set this way for my Dropbox ap and I love it...I don't have to worry about data usage (limited plan) for that. I was having a problem with the calendar ap drawing extremely high data usage, but if I could (for example) set that up to only sync when I wifi, then I could start it back up. If there isn't already a setting for this, I think the developers would do good to design one. There are probably many of us that have wifi most of the time throughout the day but the commutes back and forth or while out running around draw extra data for something I could just wait for when I'm on wifi...For example, if I'm syncing contacts, I don't need it done RIGHT THEN. If it waited until I was on wifi, that would be soon enough for me...Any ideas?
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If you use Tasker I'm sure you can set it up to turn on sync when wifi is on and turn it off whenever you turn off wifi/lose connection
I bought Tasker...I'll give it a shot...but it looks a bit intimidating...
mmoffitt9241 said:
I bought Tasker...I'll give it a shot...but it looks a bit intimidating...
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You can do some pretty ridiculously complicated things with Tasker, but for most basic tasks like turning things on and off it's pretty easy. The hardest part is just sifting through the categories until you find what you're looking for.
Hi everyone I'm new to the forums and smartphones. But I got a razr hd from fido a few months ago. I've never compared the battery life and could get 3 hours of screen time on one charge. At first I thought it was great but then I used my friends razr (non maxx like mine). But I could watch 3 hours of YouTube videos with max sound and only used 50% of the battery. I got the warranty from future shop that will replace my battery, but since the battery isn't removable they will replace it with another phone of the same retail value. I turned off all apps, apex launcher, and avg, and used only what he had, JuiceDefender Ultimate and SwiftKey. My battery was about the same.
I don't get even get three hours of screen out of mine with brightness at around 40% and I have the maxx. I game a lot on mine though and talk a lot on the phone. I think the battery figures were obliviously under the ideal circumstances, so in the real world that's pretty good what your getting.
Do a side by side with both devices and see what the difference is.
Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using xda app-developers app
Mines just a normal RAZR HD. I'm not in an LTE area like you so I stay on 3G and throttle up to H+ when its transferring data.
I don't game much; my heaviest game is Angry Birds Star Wars which I don't use much so usualy its just Words With Friends.
I don't use it often for phone calls but I do use it. I'm a guy so I'm not talking for hours and hours.
I always get a full day out of it, and by full day I mean 16 hours or therabouts, until I put it to recharge while I sleep.
I'm not using anything to save battery.
I run Apex Launcher opposed to stock.
I run Tasker and have it looking for cable plugged in, orientation, change in wifi connection (nothing major, just gets the SSID and MAC and stores them as variables), and have it looking for screen unlocked and Display off (for ADB toggle).
In the background I'm running NG call recorder, LMT, WhatsApp, Lookout, LocateMyDroid, Words With Friends, TEAM battery bar Pro, Go SMS
Pro, Calengoo, BetterBatteryStats, ModemFastdormancyMonitor, SmartCardService, Google Services, Google Play, and Notification Toggle.
I sync Gmail and Contacts.
I have frozen Acoustic Warning, Audio Effects, Calendar, Calendar Storage, Email, Facebook stays frozen but unfreezes and runs with GPS off when I run a script but I don't use it much and the same for Maps but GPS on obviously (Maps made a differance for me and needed to be refrozen on every boot as well as the ROM seems to unfreeze it at boot time), Google Caledar Sync, Google Play Books/Movies/Music, Google+, Homescreen (default launcer), Moto Chinese Input, Moto English... infact almost everything starting with "moto or Moto is frozen", Quickview, All of Smart Actions, Swype, and Telstra One (specific to my ROM). Of everything frozen, the only things that I think make a significant impact are the way I have Maps and Facebook handled, that they stay frozen and then are called by a script that unfreezes and runs them and refreezes them on exit.
The Motocare may make a differance however I think its something that's needed to see when you have updates.
This list is very specific to my ROM as I'm on Telstra Austrlia which is (so I've gathered) one of the most bloat free ROMs, and freezing is always going to be carrier specific from what I've read about the phone from other people's carriers.
In adition to the freezing, I've stopped heaps of stuff in Autostarts. I don't reccomend messing with this as its easy to get lost and forget your settings. There is no undo or restore to default, so if you get lost then you're only sure fire way is a factory reset. If you feel safe using it though, then its worth having a look through what's starting up (start with just the stuff after boot) and disabling things that aren't needed. There's heaps of apps that run that really don't need to; non system apps I mean. If you get comfortable with it then the next greatest place they like to start up is when new apps are installed or old ones updated but there needs to be some care taken here as some apps do need to know this while others are just spying and wasting resources while doing so. If in doubt, just don't mess with it at all as there's no "set back to default" option.
I don't use Juice Defender, that's something that stuck out at me, is that I don't know how its being used in one of the posts stated above, but in the case of my ROM, the power management seems to be as good as I'm going to get it on its own. Toggling wifi in particular is something that I tried out with Tasker and it was better to leave it alone. I did try an app... I can't find it now but apparently I didn't back it up before uninstall. Its the beta app made by the chip manufacturer that runs in our phones (or so I read anyway) and it spent time in the background collecting data then tried to optimise power management. I think it was okay but I didn't see anything significant. I was hoping it would end the wakelocks that turn the wifi on but it ended up just leaving my wifi on most of the time and then turning it off when I actually was at home, and I couldn't manually turn it on and get a connection. It may be quite helpful for others though... Its the same thing for Juice Defender; I reckon that the way I would use it would be less helpful because of the wifi handling. I've gathered that wifi doesn't so much turn off but just goes into a power friendly state, and that a full toggle on and off takes more power so I ended up leaving that alone entirely. For people with other power issues, for example I stated that I don't use LTE or 4g in my area, then perhaps it could be useful... I can't give advice on that.
...
...but to answer your question, that's how I use my phone and I get at least 6 hours screen time in a 16 hour day. In fact I always get that much (assuming its used that much) and usually more if I need it. I have battery left over but it does admitadly go down quickly after it reaches a point. I would be dissapointed if I got less. I came from the S2 with the Samsung extendable battery (just under %20 more juice than out of the box) and would get 4 or 5 hours on that before it was dead. I think that you have a genuine frustration on your hands, but that you should deal with it slowly and one step at a time, and that the first step is diagnosis and if it were me I would start by switching it to 3g/2g and seeing how that goes for a few days... let it settle in like that and see if it makes any differance after at least a few days later and a few charges of the battery.
By the way, Location services work fine with maps frozen. Another thing I neglected to mention is that I don't use Google Now. All of my apps that use fine or course location work fine (Google ones and third party) with Maps frozen.
Oh... One more edit; I also have DroidWall or some other equivalent firewall installed. I forget which one at the moment but if you use one, make sure it simply is a front end to iptables as there's almost zero resources used in this fashion. As I don't have 4G in my area, I don't know what is best suited for that. Mine is very simple and has a checkbox for wifi and for data, however it makes a lot of sense that a lot of these firewalls may not be updated to be detecting the interface that 4G is running on. This doesn't make a huge difference on my phone and I don't think I would notice any battery savings if I didn't have it but it may be of help if you were hell bent on using 4G, as its supposed to be power hungry, because you can prevent a lot of apps from making a connection to report the crap they discover (Contacts, numbers dialed, etc) and block ads in some games that don't otherwise need the internet to be played. At the same time, I'm honestly not sure if the results would be good or bad... for example if an app persistently tries to make a connection and isn't programmed to give up when the connection is timed out then that would be bad. I still thought I'd throw it in there. It would actually be one of the last additions I'd make to my phone after being finally satisfied with the power management. Its also something that you need to be aware of, for example if you can't play a game or use an app, it can cause you (me) to uninstall and reinstall only to find that I had firewalled it when it needed to have a connection. Some apps need to connect to check the validity of their licence as well and you just need to be aware and enable it when it shows up.