Database Info

[Q] Help with battery usage / drain, how to increase battery life

Ive searched around and this seems to be a common issue, I tried the factory reset even the htc battery conditioning where you charge fully turn off then another hour back on for 2min off again and charge for another hour with no positive results, I read online some ppl are getting -1/-2 mah an hour I have never seen single digit in my phone.
I included screenshots of my battery drain even adjusted the app to read 1500mah, anything else i missed in settings? Also went into phone information in the Tests menu set it to auto instead of GSM, also with SetCPU I tried underclocking with little change to mah usage, running out of ideas...
Currently its rooted with GingerBreak, and CM7 with #48 nightly installed, any help would definitely be appreciated.

How many hours is your phone lasting on a single charge?

Lately between 5-7hrs one had about 8 and half hours a handful of times

it's true that if you constantly use the phone nonstop like watching youtube, browsing, playing games, etc. the battery won't last longer than 4 hours without getting an extended battery, heck just using moderateley the battery will be about 50% by the end of an 8 hour workshift, but what I found that will extend the battery life with moderate use are these...
1. Turn of wifi, bluetooth, gps, sync. (contrary to what ppl say on this forum I find that wifi eats way more battery than being on 4G)
2 Disable background data. (The only thing I actually need background data checked is to use the android market or maps when I need to, with it off it's a huge battery saver)
3 In settings choose to use only 2G (This will increase battery life 4x and Tmobile 2G is pretty fast, just like 3G)
4 Download Opera Mini (Since you'll be using 2G to save battery you'll want to surf the web with a browser that is super fast using slow connections, and Opera mini is second to none. You can always turn on 4G when you want to have fast video streaming but then you eat alot of battery again.)
5. Install Auto Airplane Mode (you can turn auto airplane mode on when you're not gonna be expecting calls such as at work or when you don't want to be disturbed, hell, if you just want to save as much battery as possible. Since Auto airplane mode disables the radio and data completey which is the number 1 cause of battery bleed with it on from a full charge unplugged you'll still have a 100% when you wake up your phone after a day.)
6 Install juice defender (free is fine)
7 Don't use Lookout Antivirus (I've found Lookout drains the battery quick, if you want an antivirus that doesn't eat the battery try AVG. I prefer AVG because I notice it does not drain my battery like Lookout.)
This has made my phone last more than a day on stock battery with moderate to light use. If I think of more tweaks I'll add later

This is ridiculous. If you have to turn off all those features, then don't even bother getting a smartphone.
My tips are:
1- Set brightness to auto.
2- Avoid Skype and other apps that usually appear as On going on the status bar.
3- Get rid of any task killer. They actually make the battery life worse. Don't worry about tasks running in the background, the OS takes care of them. If you wanna quit an app, try to look for a quit button by pressing the settings button when the app is on the foreground. Otherwise, just press the back button below the screen until you get back to the home screen (for some reason this seems more efficient than just pressing the home button.)
4- If you don't use IMs, get juice defender and set it to disable data when screen is off. It will turn data automatically on once you turn the screen on by pressing the lock button on the top of your device. Note that this is different compared to auto airplane mode, with Juice Defender you can still receive phone calls and text messages when the screen is off.
Last but not least, consider purchasing an extra battery and/or car charger.
Mine usually lasts for about 12 hours with moderate to high use. Almost all smartphones have short battery life if used heavily.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

risho said:
Lately between 5-7hrs one had about 8 and half hours a handful of times
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea that's awful. Do you by chance have your brightness set extremely high? And how is the cell coverage where you usually use your phone?

I think all of the advice above is valid and will save your battery. The question is to what extreme do you want to go? I tend to agree with donatello88 that there comes a point when you get so paranoid about battery life that you may as well not have a smartphone because you've turned off most of its features.
Get rid of any task killers, battery monitors, etc. They are simply churning thru clock cycles and that uses more battery. Set email, Facebook, etc to check for updates less frequently. Either use auto brightness or manually set your brightness to about 25-30%. That should b bright enough for everyday use unless your in bright sunlight a lot. Use juice defender if you like. And be wary of antivirus apps. I've heard some can suck ur battery dry.
If you do those simple things and are still getting only 5-6 hours then I'd be taking it back to T-Mobile ... unless of course you're on your phone without ceasing. In that case, what can you expect? Lol

Ok with the tips I just mentioned above, I got a chance to put it to real world test. I caught the bus to my son's grad ceremony and reached there at 4pm ceremony didn't start till 6pm so those 2 hours just surfing the web reading articles and forums I was down to 90% battery. Didn't know how long the ceremony was gonna be so called my sister on video chat using tango and spoke to her for about 20 minutes. Did some more browsing using opera mini set to only use 2g for another 2 hours, my don came out, I took some pics and video of him turned on 4g to video chat again with my duster for about 5 minutes, and after 4 non stop hours of consecutive use with screen on, I'm now at 71% battery life. I'm at the bus stop now on my 12 mile commute home and I'm confident the battery will give me more entertainment until I get home. Awesome! You don't have to believe me, just try out my tweaks and you'll be amazed.

Everyone thanks for all of the help and tips, today was the first day I saw 10hrs+(included screenshots), I had my screen on auto and after some reading saw that with CM7 it doesnt work well so I have changed it down to 20-40% depending on where I am, turned off background/auto sync only turn it on when I need it and uninstalled the app killer I was using also changed a few of the SetCPU profiles.
Im not really a heavy user just wondering if having 3email accounts set to update every hour would be a battery drain too? I mostly text/email during the day and talk about 1-2hrs depending how busy I am at work.
Again I thank everyone for pointing me in the right direction...unfortunately at home I have 1bar to none for service so I do depend on Wifi calling which im sure drains more juice, also at work since it in a high rise not too much cell signal so wifi on most of the day...

[Ultimate GUIDE] Increase your battery life on Android
risho said:
Lately between 5-7hrs one had about 8 and half hours a handful of times
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello risho,
I was having the same kind of battery life... After 3 months of research, I collected all valuable tips.
"Valuable tips" means: tips that do not need constant involvement from your side (you don't need to go switch on/off things, etc..) and also that leave you with a very functional phone (you have location when you need it, you have e-mails flowing regularly enough, etc...)!
With these tips, I am now lasting from 6am to 11pm and at 11pm, remaining battery is 10% at least!
Go and check my thread: [Ultimate GUIDE] Increase your battery life on Android!
Enjoy!

battery consumption when off

My tablet uses waaay to much power when its in standby or off. I use my note 10.1 intermittently, so this is frustrating. I cant help but notice that my daughters ipad can last a week on standby with virtually no consumption, but my note will die after a day a nd a half of doing nothing.
Ive already shut off wifi when in standby, anything else?

get rid of bloatware by rooting your device if you are up for it, bloatware is the main problem for battery drain, also use the power saver option in the settings and make sure the brightness is not on to high, my note last around 3 days on standby so there is something definitely draining your battery.

I'm not rooted and can still get about 3 full days if I'm not using it that much. You can just disable some of the bloatware, but rooting will allow you to remove all of it. If you go to -settings-application manager-all- it'll list all the apps on your phone. If you click on an app you can sometimes disable it. I, for instance disabled, "Google Music, as well as some of the samsung media apps" because I don't use them, but they were still using some of my mobile data.
I also use Juice defender ultimate to regulate wifi when the tab is sleeping. You can adjust how often the tablet will turn on the wifi to sync, then keep it off for the remainder of the time the screen it off. I also have it set to turn on wifi as soon as the screen turns on.
If you go to -settings-battery- you can see the percent that each app is consuming over any time period.
Also if you have a lot of widgets that need to constantly update that may also be part of the problem. While individual widgets are fine, when you have a lot it starts to add up.
You can also get "Wakelock" which tells you what apps are waking your tablet, and "watchdog task manager" to tell you if a particular app is out of control. These two apps will only tell you if a particular app(s) are contributing to the problem not fix it.
If the note is off, which I don't normally do, it'll last about 5-6days. There are a lot of other battery saving tips, but most of those are for when the screen is on.
It's funny, I always hear different things when comparing iWhatever to Androidwhatever, as far as battery life. I hear it both ways from people who have used both. I think with Android it's really dependent on what you have installed, where as with the iPad/iPhone it's more consistent.
One of the things I noticed with people switching for Apple to Android is that with Android you really need to install apps to get it work the way you want it to. With Apple it's ready to go out the the box, but you are forced to do it the way they feel is the correct way to do things. With Android you can get a more customized experience but you have to find the app that will do it through research, and trial and error.

Battery drain when off = hardware fault .
jje

hanexs said:
My tablet uses waaay to much power when its in standby or off. I use my note 10.1 intermittently, so this is frustrating. I cant help but notice that my daughters ipad can last a week on standby with virtually no consumption, but my note will die after a day a nd a half of doing nothing.
Ive already shut off wifi when in standby, anything else?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not normal. Are uou running stock . Any strange stuff running in background. check in settings what is using your battery.

That's not normal at all. My tab has been on connected to wifi for over 3 days and is at 72% remaining. Root, install collective v6, then use better battery stats from the play store and monitor your applications. You probably have a few things like news apps auto refreshkng every 15 min or half hour. Make sure that all apps that have a sync option are set to like 6 hour intervals.
Not much Use over the past Couple days, just my game for a bit And some e-mail but this is what you should be at with light use and mainly stand by. I don't use juice Defender, Or any thing that turns off my wifi / GPs / Bluetooth. Power save is off because it disables the IR Remote app. Auto- Bright, and s-Pen is Always On because I have 3 of them SO I Dont always remove my pen.

HUYI said:
get rid of bloatware ... bloatware is the main problem for battery drain
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bollocks. So-called "Bloatware" almost certainly has NOTHING to do with this. Other than my kernel, I only run Stock ROMs and no apps I don't actively use ever show up on the battery stats.
Rooting, however, will allow you to run "Better Battery Stats", which will allow you to figure out what app is either preventing wakelocks from letting your device go into "Deep Sleep" mode, or waking it up enough that the drain is kiling your battery.
Also, depending on the AP you're running at home, the "beacons" it sends may be waking up the WiFi stack on your Note all the time- I had this problem with a D-Link AP once. (My custom kernels (search for 'em, once you decide to root) have minimized this problem, BTW.)
One other thing to consider if you have a 3G/LTE version is the radio- not only is it always drawing, but in low-signal areas it will positively murder your battery as it spends a lot of power telling the cell stations where it is.

hanexs said:
My tablet uses waaay to much power when its in standby or off. I use my note 10.1 intermittently, so this is frustrating. I cant help but notice that my daughters ipad can last a week on standby with virtually no consumption, but my note will die after a day a nd a half of doing nothing.
Ive already shut off wifi when in standby, anything else?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Reset, if still does it then take back or send for repair.
Mine is stock no root and full of,"bloatware". It will standby over a week or more, and runs on net probably 10 hours. No differnt rom is going to fix your problem.

Lolol my note sits there for weeks at a time on standby and when i pick it up weeks later, it still has 30-50% left...
Bloatware.. Or aliens.. Are causing your battery drain
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app

(TIP) Saving Battery Life on Galaxy Note 3

Didn't see it posted so I though I be the first, If it was sorry.
How to Increase Battery Life on the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 or Simply how to make it last longer though out the day. Have another Tip? Leave a comment and let me know, Ill add them.
My Top 10 Tips for saving Battery Life.
1- Enable power saver
2- Disable unnecessary features & gestures
3- Turn off WiFi & Bluetooth when not needed
4- Delete unused widgets
5- Close applications that you are not using
6- Toggle From 4G to 2G
7- Disabling Background Data:
8- Changing Application Sync Settings:
9- Set Brightness to ” Auto ” and lower Timeout Duration:
10- Avoid Live wallpapers, instead set Dark wallpapers.

Thanks for the tips. But if I follow that, what's the point to use such an advanced smartphone?

Kisses99 said:
Thanks for the tips. But if I follow that, what's the point to use such an advanced smartphone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Samsung crams SO many features into their phone I doubt you or really anyone uses all of them regularly (it's not like you can't turn anything you want back on). Also some of these are just temporary when you really need to conserve power; like Power Saver, which really degrades the performance of the processor and GCU or switching to 2g data.

Tip No. 11 Turn your Phone Off...

Thanks a lot.. But if turn off the device saves a lot of battery jeje.
Enviado desde mi SM-N9005 usando Tapatalk

Awsome
... [email protected] now Free

- Turn off mobile data when you're not using it. This can save you about 3 days of battery live. In one go.
- Turn off Auto Sync. Did you seriously think something that connects to the internet all the time did not drain your battery?
- Don't use Auto modes. Yes, this includes brightness. IT'S A SENSOR, GENIUS. Sensors require power. Just turn down the brightness yourself. (30% is more than sufficient in ordinarily lit rooms.)

Kisses99 said:
Thanks for the tips. But if I follow that, what's the point to use such an advanced smartphone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well have you every been stuck without a way of charging? There's times I know I wont be able to charge my phone and it might die so i do these things in order to improve and prolong my battery life.

Take a brick charger with you :laugh::laugh:

Unless you mean to do this when you're running low once in a blue moon, then ok.
Otherwise what's the point of the phone?
I do the literal opposite of your list.
Full brightness (unless I'm in a dark room)
4g
Syncing 4 gmail accounts
Syncing Microsoft exchange calendar
Power saving mode off
Facebook connected
I do have a fully charged original note 3 spare battery on me at all times though.
But I rarely need to use it before 7 pm (12 hours after taking it off the charger in the morning).

blackout720 said:
Well have you every been stuck without a way of charging? There's times I know I wont be able to charge my phone and it might die so i do these things in order to improve and prolong my battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I do have. My solution is tha I will carry 3 oem batteries...plus a 10000 mah battery power bank.

I only got the spare battery yesterday.
I was still running on full mode before the spare battery. I made sure my phone was always charging (while at office, car or home).

blackout720 said:
Well have you every been stuck without a way of charging? There's times I know I wont be able to charge my phone and it might die so i do these things in order to improve and prolong my battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed... I do 7 hours a day by train, in which I have a 70% chance that I might have to spend half of that checking the travel advisor for an alternative route. I know what it is like all too well....
To me battery life is more valuable than knowing my neighbour managed to write a Q on her visit to the bathroom.

Is there any way to turn off data when the screen is turned off in the settings? Similar to the htc ones power saving option

NoFanboy said:
Is there any way to turn off data when the screen is turned off in the settings? Similar to the htc ones power saving option
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think juice defender does that.

The thing I like about the Note 3 is that battery life is not an issue anymore, provided that I can charge it overnight.
Today, I've been on battery for 17 hrs straight, including phone calls, 90 minutes of navigation, Internet use etc. And there's still 28% battery left.
My point is: if the battery life is much less, there's something wrong, and you should investigate that before turning to measures like in the first post. Use an app like Wake Lock Detector or Better Battery Stats to check what is draining your battery.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using xda app-developers app

I don't actually have a Note 3. Still on Note II but I check in here for feedback.
I would suggest people to purchase the Android Tuner app. It ain't cheap unless u buy it in a sale, but it crams many utilities into one program meaning you don't have to run several different apps. These include battery information/tweaks, overclock/undervolt, ram management, screen off tweaks like disable data or wifi when there's no network activity such as streaming music, backup options like titanium pro, etc etc and much much more of varying complexity depending on how far you want to delve into it.
All in all, a wonderful app and worth every penny.

crislevin said:
I think juice defender does that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah. But I was hoping it would be built into the settings

Yeah the features are there for us to use. And betteries to drain
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk 4

could someone clarify this for me?
when you turn off
"Auto Sync"
or enable
"Restrict Background Data"
what does it do exactly?
does it mean I would no longer get notifications for WhatsApp, Twitter, Gmail?

S6 Battery Life - Terrible

I've been using the TMO S6 for a couple weeks and my battery life is terrible.
I have used greenery to hibernate everything I can, but as you can see in the attached picture the Android system is running overtime. I am lucky if I get 4 hrs of battery time. I also have the screen brightness set to less than 50%.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Myta said:
I've been using the TMO S6 for a couple weeks and my battery life is terrible.
I have used greenery to hibernate everything I can, but as you can see in the attached picture the Android system is running overtime. I am lucky if I get 4 hrs of battery time. I also have the screen brightness set to less than 50%.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have no idea why google thought it was a good idea to make battery stats less accessible in kitkat and above, so it's hard to find what causes it. It's probably easiest to factory reset and start clean and then start adding a few apps at a time, to see if you have one misbehaving one

Thanks. I am able to see the apps and utilization using gsam battery app, but unable to look at which android system apps are draining/running, as per the picture.

Turn off WiFi calling and voLte

Myta said:
Thanks. I am able to see the apps and utilization using gsam battery app, but unable to look at which android system apps are draining/running, as per the picture.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problem is that when app X hold a wakelock it doesn't show up under app X but under Android System!

I agree, battery life in general is a huge step back from the S5.

guaneet said:
Turn off WiFi calling and voLte
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Factory reset then do these two. Also, disable T-Mobile bloat then use Greenify or Shut App.
I can get about a day and a half or two days battery with very minimal use. Don't expect to get more than 4 hours screen on time with this phone. Average is probably around 3.5-4.5 hours but you SHOULD get at least a full day's use with it.

Wifi calling pretty important for some of us

Hi guys I'm using s6 for few days ...battery drains too quickly. ..pls help me need help ...after one call or one song battery drains 2-3% ...I'm too upset pls temme what to do ...would be great if ul help

Really bad battery life

Hello all,
I just bought a new galaxy s7 silver (exynos variant) around 3 days ago and my battery life seems to be really bad. I've only managed to achieve 1h 56m screen on time and I'm already at 41%! I keep auto brightness on and leave always on display off and don't keep things like mobile data active. If anyone can suggest how to fix this it would be phenomenal .
I was quite sad considering I have heard of people who can achieve 5+ hours screen on time with regular usage and not having to compromise on switching everything off .
Thanks for the help in advance

Do you have Google Chrome installed? And can you see something like "media server" in you battery usage log as a high power consumer?

crash_194 said:
Do you have Google Chrome installed? And can you see something like "media server" in you battery usage log as a high power consumer?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would send you a picture of my battery statistics but for some reason every time I try to upload a picture I get "network error"
My top consumers are :
Screen 31%
Android system 19%
Android OS 9%
Cell standby 7%
Mediaserver 4%
And Also I do have Google Chrome installed

Good day.
Try this and see if it works:
-In settings -> privacy and safety -> location -> improve accuracy - Turn off wifi scanning (The phone turns on and off wifi regularly for location purposes and it uses some battery)
-In settings -> Display - Turn off smart stay
-In settings -> Advanced features - Turn off pop-up view gesture, Smart capture, palm swype to capture, smart alert and easy mute.
-In settings -> Accounts - Turn off auto sync
Turn off hardware step counter at S-health app.
Use Greenify to hibernate samsung and google play app and services.
And if you want to stretch it more have a look at this (http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s7/how-to/touchwiz-bloatware-save-to-remove-list-t3330241)
Hope it works for you.

Hassan1610 said:
Hello all,
I just bought a new galaxy s7 silver (exynos variant) around 3 days ago and my battery life seems to be really bad. I've only managed to achieve 1h 56m screen on time and I'm already at 41%! I keep auto brightness on and leave always on display off and don't keep things like mobile data active. If anyone can suggest how to fix this it would be phenomenal .
I was quite sad considering I have heard of people who can achieve 5+ hours screen on time with regular usage and not having to compromise on switching everything off .
Thanks for the help in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi mate,
The 2nd guy in this post touched on it. When you see Mediaserver on your battery stats it's normally a sign that your phone, since being on, has got quite hot and there has been substantial battery drain. I've had this same issue before too. Factory resetting etc wouldn't help. And the phone would get so hot. Eventually I read and found a link between Google chrome and Mediaserver. I deleted chrome and mysteriously the issue left, that was on my last s7. My current s7 I got yesterday and haven't got this issue once, despite using chrome right now.

sstanton86 said:
Hi mate,
The 2nd guy in this post touched on it. When you see Mediaserver on your battery stats it's normally a sign that your phone, since being on, has got quite hot and there has been substantial battery drain. I've had this same issue before too. Factory resetting etc wouldn't help. And the phone would get so hot. Eventually I read and found a link between Google chrome and Mediaserver. I deleted chrome and mysteriously the issue left, that was on my last s7. My current s7 I got yesterday and haven't got this issue once, despite using chrome right now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I did notice that the phone was heating up rapidly and my battery life was falling heavily. I will delete it and give an update to see if it works.
Thank you

Right I tried it and at first I thought that it worked but then today I am down to 25% with only 2h 5mns screen on time. Anyone got any other ideas?

Sorry read that wrong lol I read 25% battery for 2 hrs screen on time!
Accounts syncing in the background could be a culprit or some of the fancy software functionality that Samsung cook in to touchwiz. I generally don't have anything working or syncing that I don't use.
Might be worth going through all of your settings one by one. That's what I did when I first got the phone.

crash_194 said:
Sorry read that wrong lol I read 25% battery for 2 hrs screen on time!
Accounts syncing in the background could be a culprit or some of the fancy software functionality that Samsung cook in to touchwiz. I generally don't have anything working or syncing that I don't use.
Might be worth going through all of your settings one by one. That's what I did when I first got the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll give it a shot , how does your battery life seems to do? also, do you use power saving mode ?

At this moment in time I've had 2 hours 44 minutes of screen on time and I've got 53% battery left.
The majority of that usage has been on WiFi though and I do have auto brightness enabled. One thing I have noticed about the s7 screen is, it is very good quality and incredibly bright. I have spent a good amount of time tweaking the auto brightness so the screen isn't any brighter than it needs to be in various light conditions.
I was suffering from rapid battery draining and the phone getting overly warm when I had Google Chrome installed. I've removed it, and it has taken those issues away completely.
I have come from a nexus 6p and don't miss the extra 500mAh of battery to be honest.

3hr 28 minutes of screen on time now with 43% battery left. Still on WiFi but have been playing a bit of order and chaos 2, reading the news, browsing forums and general Internet surfing. I don't have much on in terms of push notifications other than Gmail and have my Samsung Internet app syncing and some stuff related to my Google account.
If it's of any help at all, my phone is on the 3 network in the UK running the stock 3 branded firmware.

crash_194 said:
3hr 28 minutes of screen on time now with 43% battery left. Still on WiFi but have been playing a bit of order and chaos 2, reading the news, browsing forums and general Internet surfing. I don't have much on in terms of push notifications other than Gmail and have my Samsung Internet app syncing and some stuff related to my Google account.
If it's of any help at all, my phone is on the 3 network in the UK running the stock 3 branded firmware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes my battery life does seem to have improved considerably. I am at 50% charge with 3h 35mns screen on time so so far so good

Good news mate!

Alright all was going well regarding batteey life until recently when it began to slack off again. I hopped in to srttings see what was consuming all of my battery life and it said android system. Anyone know what that's all about?