[Q] Gaming and Battery life? - Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So ive recently been addicted to this racing game and play it constantly :S So after I play I usually stick my Nexus on charge as it drops like 20-30%, this could be at 50% 60% 30% watever, but will charging it so often have adverse affect on it? I heard that between 40-20% is the time to charge it and having it constantly drop to below 20% or waiitng till the phone dies isnt good for Li-ion batteries...
And my phone gets quite hot after 10-20 minutes, I keep thinking the circuits would fry or something as its hot and then theres a case on top of it so it just seals in the heat. Is that a problem?

Related

Longterm effects of temperature on battery life

Ok, so it is common knowledge that heat is your cell phone battery's worst enemy in terms of reducing its life. Heat causes lithium-ion battery packs to degrade much faster than they normally would. On top of that full recharge cycles accumulate much more heat than partial recharge cycles.
So keeping that in mind, I was wondering if cooling your phone to a degree while doing these full recharge cycles would make a noticeable difference in the lifespan of your phones battery.
This could be done via a custom phone cradle like the ones for charging your phone/spare batteries. Incorporate a small fan of some sorts or any other cooling method that would lower the overall temperature of our phones as they perform full recharge cycles. I know i do a full recharge almost on a daily basis with my G1's stock battery. And now that I have just installed an extended battery it will require a longer full recharge cycle, which I'm guessing will result in more heat. Not to mention I usually do this overnight so it remains connected long after it has fully charged.
Any ideas on all this? I'm half tempted to purchase a cradle and see what I can do as far as rigging one up, and using a good battery indicator app on my phone I can monitor temperatures throughout the whole charge.
I had the same worries on my eris. Whenever i am tethering my battery gets extremely hot and you cant charge it until the phone cools down. What i did is make a cradle of sorts with two computer fans.
went from 50C temps to around 35C.
All it is is a piece of plastic i cut out some circles to let air flow through it.
Lay phone on one side and superglue comp fans on the other.

[Q] Battery Discussion... Qi, usage tendencies, and other stuff...

So I picked up a Nexus 5, and I like it, but being that it has a sealed battery I'm a little OCD over prolonging the life of it. After doing some digging, I have come up with the following tips to follow (and some of these are common sense with regards to a lithium battery):
Don't let your battery dip below 20% often
NEVER let it die completely (unless you have to calibrate your phones battery readings)
Charging to 100% isn't the best for it, and especially don't let it sit at 100% due to heat issues
Don't charge it in subfreezing temperatures, or especially in 100+ degree weather
Generally speaking, small charges spaced out (adding 15-30% or so at a time) is better than ~75% at a time due to heat issues
Very, very small charges done in rapid succession (adding 5-10% - A.K.A. "bump charging"), is bad
Qi supposedly heats the battery too much
OK, so that's what I've established in doing some research... Anyone disagree with this?
So generally speaking, what I should do to maintain maximum battery health is use my phone from 90% back down to 20% (and back up to 90%) regularly, correct? Obviously this is in a perfect scenario, but it's good to know.
Well I had a few side questions of my own:
If you get a quality Qi charger that runs (acceptably) cool, will it still be too hot to use day in and day out for optimum battery health?
If you do shorter charges on Qi (say 15-30% as mentioned above), would that be OK at that point?
What if I want to go use my phone heavily (lets say play a game for an hour), is it less stress on the battery to use it while on the charger (and get hot), or just let the battery cycle on it's own and charge it multiple times in the process? Basically, does using the phone while plugged in (whether charging, or trickle-charging at 100%) cause more degradation than cycling the battery multiple times?
Is letting your phone off the charger at night (cycling the battery, even if just a little bit) really better than leaving your phone plugged in at 100%?
This is an interesting topic to debate, and I want to hear what you think!
rytymu said:
So I picked up a Nexus 5, and I like it, but being that it has a sealed battery I'm a little OCD over prolonging the life of it. After doing some digging, I have come up with the following tips to follow (and some of these are common sense with regards to a lithium battery):
Don't let your battery dip below 20% often
NEVER let it die completely (unless you have to calibrate your phones battery readings)
Charging to 100% isn't the best for it, and especially don't let it sit at 100% due to heat issues
Don't charge it in subfreezing temperatures, or especially in 100+ degree weather
Generally speaking, small charges spaced out (adding 15-30% or so at a time) is better than ~75% at a time due to heat issues
Very, very small charges done in rapid succession (adding 5-10% - A.K.A. "bump charging"), is bad
Qi supposedly heats the battery too much
OK, so that's what I've established in doing some research... Anyone disagree with this?
So generally speaking, what I should do to maintain maximum battery health is use my phone from 90% back down to 20% (and back up to 90%) regularly, correct? Obviously this is in a perfect scenario, but it's good to know.
Well I had a few side questions of my own:
If you get a quality Qi charger that runs (acceptably) cool, will it still be too hot to use day in and day out for optimum battery health?
If you do shorter charges on Qi (say 15-30% as mentioned above), would that be OK at that point?
What if I want to go use my phone heavily (lets say play a game for an hour), is it less stress on the battery to use it while on the charger (and get hot), or just let the battery cycle on it's own and charge it multiple times in the process? Basically, does using the phone while plugged in (whether charging, or trickle-charging at 100%) cause more degradation than cycling the battery multiple times?
Is letting your phone off the charger at night (cycling the battery, even if just a little bit) really better than leaving your phone plugged in at 100%?
This is an interesting topic to debate, and I want to hear what you think!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First off, BUMP!
Second, here are some results I've had. While idling, the battery life is RIDICULOUSLY good, however, whenever the screen is on the battery is terrible... It's like a Toyota Prius with a V10 hybrid-drive; around town it is very efficient, but get on the highway and VROOOOOOOOM!
The phone was at 42% charge after two days. Granted, there was only 37 minutes of screen usage, but I did quite a bit of Bluetooth / Spotify streaming. Wifi was on and connected almost the entire time. I do notice that my idle drain goes from .2% to .6% lost per hour on wifi, to 1.5% to 3% lost per hour while on HSPA+ / LTE.
rytymu said:
So I picked up a Nexus 5, and I like it, but being that it has a sealed battery I'm a little OCD over prolonging the life of it. After doing some digging, I have come up with the following tips to follow (and some of these are common sense with regards to a lithium battery):
Don't let your battery dip below 20% often
NEVER let it die completely (unless you have to calibrate your phones battery readings)
Charging to 100% isn't the best for it, and especially don't let it sit at 100% due to heat issues
Don't charge it in subfreezing temperatures, or especially in 100+ degree weather
Generally speaking, small charges spaced out (adding 15-30% or so at a time) is better than ~75% at a time due to heat issues
Very, very small charges done in rapid succession (adding 5-10% - A.K.A. "bump charging"), is bad
Qi supposedly heats the battery too much
OK, so that's what I've established in doing some research... Anyone disagree with this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most of those aren't really wrong, they're just massively over-exaggerated.
A. Heat only matters if you're getting the battery up to like, 50C often. Note that the phone will actually stop charging if it hits these temperatures.
B. Small charges don't really help or hurt.
C. Qi doesn't heat the battery itself that much.
Overall, you're overthinking it way too much. Just don't leave your phone on the car dash in the middle of the summer sun, don't leave it on the charger for an entire week without unplugging it, and try not to drain it completely to 0%.
Li-Polymer batteries are far more resilient than people give them credit for. Even if you used your phone absolutely perfectly, over the course of a couple years you'd be lucky to get an extra 5% of life out of it. It's not worth your time and stress at all.

changed battery, cooler, faster, longer.

Recently changed my battery for no real reason but the fact that I had another fully charged and couldn't be bothered plugging phone in.
So off for the rest of the day I went, noticed instantly that battery was lasting longer. At 60 percent I had exactly 2 hours screen on and by the end I had gotten well over 4 hours. My old battery used to get that but after update to 4.3 I was getting less (approximately 3 hours). Getting less battery time after the update was normal to me as not many people know that from 4.2.2 to 4.3 samsung removed the brightness reduction profile used in specific apps like chrome/browser to conserve battery (80% of full brightness setting). This was done to get battery life points at release date.
On top of that I noticed the phone was cooler and more faster, this however was not major just a more stable sense of feel.
Now the point of this post is to find out why, now I know there are issues with batches of battery's but unsure of its implication.
Another possible theory is faulty battery causing higher heat output and power loss which could also have at times caused throttling of phones performance to prevent damage (which we all know it does, quick example is using phone heavily while charging)
What you people think
Battery Very HOT!
I am pissed at Samsung. My phone nearly burned a hole in my pocket and lost its juice inless then 30 minutes when it approached 30% battery. I went to the battey tab and took a screenshot of its discharging curve! No surprise! The battery was hot and lost nearly all of its power in less than 15 minutes. I have yet to take it to Samsung to get a new battery before it catches fire!
Any recommendation on how to prevent that from happenening?
Michael Ceitlin
SG4-I9505 4.3
MCEITLIN said:
I am pissed at Samsung. My phone nearly burned a hole in my pocket and lost its juice inless then 30 minutes when it approached 30% battery. I went to the battey tab and took a screenshot of its discharging curve! No surprise! The battery was hot and lost nearly all of its power in less than 15 minutes. I have yet to take it to Samsung to get a new battery before it catches fire!
Any recommendation on how to prevent that from happenening?
Michael Ceitlin
SG4-I9505 4.3
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Buy a other battery, you can get one cheap on ebay (Don't buy one that is really cheap, they are mostly ****ed up) :highfive:
MCEITLIN said:
I am pissed at Samsung. My phone nearly burned a hole in my pocket and lost its juice inless then 30 minutes when it approached 30% battery. I went to the battey tab and took a screenshot of its discharging curve! No surprise! The battery was hot and lost nearly all of its power in less than 15 minutes. I have yet to take it to Samsung to get a new battery before it catches fire!
Any recommendation on how to prevent that from happenening?
Michael Ceitlin
SG4-I9505 4.3
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That isn't the battery's fault; there is something on the phone that is using up 100% CPU (explaining the heat and rapid battery drain).
yuuuuuuuu said:
That isn't the battery's fault; there is something on the phone that is using up 100% CPU (explaining the heat and rapid battery drain).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed. Although, the battery could be the start. My phone gets extremely hot. I check the CPU usage and it's being occupied no matter how many times I clear the RAM.
If I'd be you, I would start from the battery callback... I would look if my battery is not swollen, if its serial is starting with BD...
but, it is me. I have a strange behaviour to start from looking if similar problem occurred for someone here in the past...

Battery lifespan tips?

I have a Lenovo laptop and its got a great software that helps to maintain the battery lifespan. Is it the same for phones where you should once in a while drain the battery to empty, also should you only do a full charge rather than topping up?
Im into emulation but that tends to be a battery killer so advice would be really helpful.
Nope just keep charging it. Don't drain it completely
You sure, in the two weeks Ive had Ive already started to notice a difference.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/02/ask-ars-what-is-the-best-way-to-use-an-li-ion-battery/
Interesting. What about when doing battery intensive stuff like playing games or using emulators, would you suggest playing with the charger plugged-in or to instead recharge when the battery goes low (obviously not too low).
I don't think ot really matters, just don't be afraid to put the thing on charge whenever you want realistically
Thanks again. Last question, after a whole day usually my battery is quite low (below 30, usually below 20). Is it better in those cases to do a half charge and then do another half charge later, or is that the same as doing a full charge in one go?

Battery instantly dead now when phone gets cold and drops fast below 40%

Hey guys, so last winter I had no issues, snowboarding and taking the phone out, it was cold but battery was good. I noticed the past month or 2, now I noticed when battery drops to about 40% it drops fast! And when it dies if I plug it in for a short time it'll bump up to say 30% fast and discharge slower. I ran the battery discharge app, it drained down fast to about 2% then slowed, stayed at 1% for about 18 mins in the app before the phone finally shut off... , when it gets even a bit. Cold, say i left it in a 5 degrees celcuius location for 15 mins, it'll die. I thought huh? Plug it in for 5 mins and bam 68% percent. Today I was out snowmobiling, about - 2c or about 26f? The first half the ride it was ok, airplane mode on it had 85%, then get back to the vehicle and look at it, it was off, try and turn it on, it showed 0% and shut off. Let warm up and bam back to 80%....
What's going on? I think a battery mis calibration? It's bizarre and I've Googled but havent found a fix. Thanks!
Well, I'm thinking a few things:
1. Batteries hate the cold, and can be very sensitive to temp changes/certain temps where they really drop off efficiency. Age and cold can certainly add to their stressed unreliability.
2. If your battery is doing well in more normal temps, drops to say 40%, and then drops fast, followed by a recharge to 30%,where it discharges slower, maybe because the charging heated it a bit... ? So it's performing a tad better ?
3. Seems less possible that there is a short, but could be a temp sensitive short. I have seen those in electronics and cars, though the initial description has the feel of a battery going south.
If it remains stable to 40% and higher, and either the 40% lower threshold or temp get's it, perhaps changing out the battery would be a safe bet.
Thanks for the reply. I got reading a theory that as the battery ages, internal resistance goes up and when it gets cold it really shows, but who knows. My. Best bet I think is just to replace the battery.

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