I have realised something with all the Samsung Android's I've used over the years.
When one has been in a known area with mobile data on, regardless of wifi state, like home or work, standby battery drain is normal, 1% per 1-3 hrs. However, when one begins to travel, with mobile data on, battery idle drain becomes 1% per 10-20 minutes pretty immediately.
This is regardless of whether Wifi is On or Off (obviously disconnected in both cases).
I have ran so many tests on this with the S3, S5, N2 and N3, and all the results are the same, battery drain goes wild when one begins to travel.
I have tried turning location on/off, syncing on/off and again results are pretty much exactly the same.
It's got to be something to do with how well the phones deal with handshakes from cell tower to cell tower, but it really shouldn't eat the battery so much. The iPhone for example performs much better in this situation.
Has anyone come across this and any ideas?
I will try to explain what may is the problem in simple words. I am studying computer and electronic engineering and we had a class this semester based on phone signals.
When you stay at home your phone is connected on the phone company's antenna. To connect you need to exchange some info so i think this will consume some power. Also one you are connected the amount of data receiving and sending are the minimum possible.
When you travel your phone has to keep connect on an other antenna and keep searching for signal. Many connecting tries may fail due to bad signal and based on the phone and the company, if your phone keep change on 3G for better signal this "change" is that consumes much power.
This is probably the reason. I may be wrong because we did only some base things over the wireless communications signals.
Different phones operate different on the signal density. Good density better signal = better battery life
Related
Ive been usng my phone for quite a long time without Wifi but ive noticed that recently, after I installed Eaglesblood (dont think the rom/its kernel made much of a difference) the battery life with wifi ON has been draining much slower than without wifi and the use of data only. I dont understand because ive been using it constantly and it has been yanking in data constantly but draining much slower. Normally data on lasts me about 11 hrs on a good day. I was home all day, so with wifi on, my batter is at 30% left with 14 hrs of usage now.. Can anyone explain to me why this is happening because I wud much rather have a slower drain on 3g data than wifi (Im not always home and data is used much more extensively in updating).
If you're using wifi, you're generally in good range and have an easy connection.
If you're using data, things like buildings and movement can interfere with your connection, meaning it has to do more "searching" for the proper signal. Even if your bars tell you that you have a good connection, all that tells you is the total amount of signal, not the available amount to you (so sometimes even if you have full bars it needs to search for a good connection).
Correct, if you're on radio (2g/3g/4g), the phone is constantly searching for a signal and will thus spend more battery.
Hence why people say, turn off your radios (airplane mode) when you're in an area with no signal...like out in the boonies, because it will spend time searching for a signal that's nonexistent.
Some people say that Wifi uses up more power than data because it has faster data transfer speeds, but that clearly isn't the truth.
NekoNyapii said:
Some people say that Wifi uses up more power than data because it has faster data transfer speeds, but that clearly isn't the truth.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Who said that? I've never heard it. Wi-Fi is known to use less batttery since day 1, clear and simple.
Generally speaking, my battery life is pretty good. However, at least half the day, I am in areas of poor cellular strength; I am usually in the -120 to -100 dBm range. I know this is eating up my battery, but is there anything I can do about it? I don't really want to manually go in and out of airplane mode, but I guess I will if I have to. I do turn off mobile data and stick to WiFi, but the phone radio is still sucking the battery juice.
Does anyone have any advice on how to save some battery in poor coverage areas?
When I am at parents I have no service (which destroys battery like you said) so I use Google voice and VoIP over WiFi. It greatly helps but a bit of a pain setting up. I know not perfect answer but it's all the help I have to offer
The radio on this device does not eat that much battery... on average my device spends most of the time over -100db signal and gets great battery life.
I have been reading alot about others complaining of poor battery life, others trying new kernals and such but still having issues, I also have been experiencing my battery life is not as good as it used to be, has anyone considered the fact that most of our M7's are getting older and the batteries are simply getting weak? even if sprint gave you a replacement, it is a refurb....batteries have a life cycle and will deteriorate over time.
mcerk02 said:
I have been reading alot about others complaining of poor battery life, others trying new kernals and such but still having issues, I also have been experiencing my battery life is not as good as it used to be, has anyone considered the fact that most of our M7's are getting older and the batteries are simply getting weak? even if sprint gave you a replacement, it is a refurb....batteries have a life cycle and will deteriorate over time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've had decreased battery life in my M7 over the last couple of weeks. It's bone stock, no mods at all. I can tell you though, the refurb process, I believe, includes a replacement battery. More than likely, if you receive a refurbished unit, it's got a new battery in it. They can't refurb batteries because they do deteriorate over time.
Something I've speculated is that due to Sprint's signal generally being very poor (everywhere) the phone uses way more battery than typical to try to maintain a cell tower connection. If you have s-off enabled, it reports that it is in (essentially) a diagnostic mode where more functionality/usability data is sent regularly to HTC. If more data is being sent to HTC it's keeping the data active for longer, which combined with Sprint's moderately awful signal makes for a lot of battery being chewed up.
Regularly going s-on/s-off regularly is a real pita to try to determine this, but one test I've done is disable all cell connections and stick solely to around the house wifi (no sprint signal, no phone/sms/mms, not 3g/4g, etc). I hit just a smidge over 5 hours of active screen on time (doing actual internet stuff). If I use wifi as the default connection when available, but leave normal cell signals on, I'll get maybe 2 hours of screen time before a full discharge. If I disable wifi (off, but also all wifi scanning off) and stick with Sprint I'll probably hit 75-80 minutes of screen time (3g). We all know leaving sync on eats up the battery life because data is being kept alive, so this is really just an extension of that.
[completely stock no roms, s-on and s-off at various times, minimal background apps]
I've seen reports of gsm and verizon HTC One users getting 3-4+ hours of screen on time and wondering wtf they are doing to pull it off. Pretty sure Sprint suckage is a large part of it.
While being s-off probably makes it worse, s-on wouldn't matter much because excessive battery is still being used for the radios.
Battery degradation is definitely a factor too, but if my hypothesis is right, poor battery life caused by a bad signal will hasten the demise much more quickly simply because the battery is depleted much more regularly.
It's hard to really test all that, but my anecdotal experiences with different phones and carriers and geography make me consider.
I'd be curious to hear battery life from somebody with an unlocked sprint device who is now using gsm with their m7wls
http://blog.laptopmag.com/tmobile-phones-longer-battery-life
Sent from my kangaroo powered Inverted ViperONE using Tapatalk 2
pbassjunk said:
Something I've speculated is that due to Sprint's signal generally being very poor (everywhere) the phone uses way more battery than typical to try to maintain a cell tower connection. If you have s-off enabled, it reports that it is in (essentially) a diagnostic mode where more functionality/usability data is sent regularly to HTC. If more data is being sent to HTC it's keeping the data active for longer, which combined with Sprint's moderately awful signal makes for a lot of battery being chewed up.
Regularly going s-on/s-off regularly is a real pita to try to determine this, but one test I've done is disable all cell connections and stick solely to around the house wifi (no sprint signal, no phone/sms/mms, not 3g/4g, etc). I hit just a smidge over 5 hours of active screen on time (doing actual internet stuff). If I use wifi as the default connection when available, but leave normal cell signals on, I'll get maybe 2 hours of screen time before a full discharge. If I disable wifi (off, but also all wifi scanning off) and stick with Sprint I'll probably hit 75-80 minutes of screen time (3g). We all know leaving sync on eats up the battery life because data is being kept alive, so this is really just an extension of that.
[completely stock no roms, s-on and s-off at various times, minimal background apps]
I've seen reports of gsm and verizon HTC One users getting 3-4+ hours of screen on time and wondering wtf they are doing to pull it off. Pretty sure Sprint suckage is a large part of it.
While being s-off probably makes it worse, s-on wouldn't matter much because excessive battery is still being used for the radios.
Battery degradation is definitely a factor too, but if my hypothesis is right, poor battery life caused by a bad signal will hasten the demise much more quickly simply because the battery is depleted much more regularly.
It's hard to really test all that, but my anecdotal experiences with different phones and carriers and geography make me consider.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you are dead on with battery life and sprint service. I think along with sprints weak signal, the metal body further degrades connection! One thing im confused about, what feature are you referring to when using s-on & s-off? don't see a connection between those terms and batt life?? (s=security) thx.
I've had this thought for a while, but haven't found any practical way of implementing it, perhaps having it out to the broader public may help.
LTE or 4G, as we all know, is fast and great, but it also demands more on our batter than good old 3G.
These are some of the scenarios in which I would love an app, or OS be able to make smarter decisions about the network.
1. When connected to WiFi - When connected to WiFi, our battery life improves when compared to 3G or 4G, but I find sometimes that even though I'm connected to WiFi, my cell network is still connected to 4G (at home, my 3G signal is full bars, but 4G is 3/5), thus, wasting a bit of battery.
2. When phone is in low data use state, or lengthy sleep - Often, when I'm in the office for example, my phone sits there in standby for hours at a time (my emails come onto PC, plus I wear a moto360 so i check notifications there). In these modes, LTE is of little use for me, yet it can often spend hours in LTE standby.
I've looked into IFTTT, and messed with other software apps, but I always end up with the same conclusion, that is, this would have to be manually done...
does anyone know a way?
If you have a root you can do with with xposed and gavitybox (smart radio). I think some other modules can do it as well.
sephstyler said:
I've had this thought for a while, but haven't found any practical way of implementing it, perhaps having it out to the broader public may help.
LTE or 4G, as we all know, is fast and great, but it also demands more on our batter than good old 3G.
These are some of the scenarios in which I would love an app, or OS be able to make smarter decisions about the network.
1. When connected to WiFi - When connected to WiFi, our battery life improves when compared to 3G or 4G, but I find sometimes that even though I'm connected to WiFi, my cell network is still connected to 4G (at home, my 3G signal is full bars, but 4G is 3/5), thus, wasting a bit of battery.
2. When phone is in low data use state, or lengthy sleep - Often, when I'm in the office for example, my phone sits there in standby for hours at a time (my emails come onto PC, plus I wear a moto360 so i check notifications there). In these modes, LTE is of little use for me, yet it can often spend hours in LTE standby.
I've looked into IFTTT, and messed with other software apps, but I always end up with the same conclusion, that is, this would have to be manually done...
does anyone know a way?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let me guess, not on Telstra. Battery life on mine with Telstra is superb, even with 1-2 bar signal. I guess that would be because it is a stable 1-2 bar, unlike the issues I had previously with Optus, were my phone would drop signal very often in built up areas
danw_oz said:
Let me guess, not on Telstra. Battery life on mine with Telstra is superb, even with 1-2 bar signal. I guess that would be because it is a stable 1-2 bar, unlike the issues I had previously with Optus, were my phone would drop signal very often in built up areas
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, not on Telstra, but that is besides the point here. This is not an AU specific thing. I travel internationally a lot for work, and this would be the same when I'm overseas. In fact, not complaining about battery life at all, just think that the way the phone manages its connections could be improved - this is not a problem on the Sony, but on most phones.
se1000 said:
If you have a root you can do with with xposed and gavitybox (smart radio). I think some other modules can do it as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good tip. Not rooted, not intending to.
I own an LTE through TMob. I don't do alot on it - I get text, email, use GPS when I run, A little bit on the phone but not alot. My battery life is erratic. Mostly its connected to trying to find a signal when I'm traveling outside coverage areas - at least I think so. When I do that my battery life drops about 10% every 15-20 mins. Anyone have any ideas on how to prevent it from constantly searching for a signal? Current I have to remember to switch it to airplane mode when I'm in the sticks then remember to turn it back on later.
Even on my phone I cut the GSM signal when I am in no coverage zone
Well I guess that's that. Thanks!