Hi
A friend of mine is endlessly complaining about the bad battery life on his stock nexus 5, the phone is off the charger at 7am and is all but dead at 4pm
Being a nice guy and all, I want to help him out by offering to install a ROM that optimises battery life.
Can anyone suggest a good rom for the task ?
If such a rom exists and battery life can be extended to 15 to 17hrs I might jump ship from my LG G3
None
roms have absolutely nothing to do with battery.
battery is determined by your personal use, your personal setup, apps installed, and very much the quality of your phone/data connection. there are other things that'll influence battery life slightly as well, but these are the main things that determine your battery life.
Turn off auto and set the screen brightness display to 15%!
galaxys said:
Turn off auto and set the screen brightness display to 15%!
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Autobrightness isn't too bad if your ROM allows you to change the values/levels
Also, "Lux Autobrightness" is useless for saving battery on an LCD screen since the backlight is still the same brightness. on AMOLED (aka not the Nexus 5) it would help, however.
simms22 said:
roms have absolutely nothing to do with battery.
battery is determined by your personal use, your personal setup, apps installed, and very much the quality of your phone/data connection. there are other things that'll influence battery life slightly as well, but these are the main things that determine your battery life.
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so we shouldn't expect any battery improvements when Android L is released ?
ipguy said:
so we shouldn't expect any battery improvements when Android L is released ?
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its possible, a small amount. but that would be from new code that makes something more efficient. but, i personally, dont expect much difference in battery life.
simms22 said:
its possible, a small amount. but that would be from new code that makes something more efficient. but, i personally, dont expect much difference in battery life.
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not sure I agree with you, project volta looks like a concerted effort from Google to do exactly that.
Funny. I always use Auto-brightness and get 4 hours SoT at least twice a week. Other times, I get a little over 3 hours or below.
The best battery life for me is with elementalx 1.05 kernel with a stock rom. 2 days stand by and at least 5 hours sot is the usual verdict.
But i think the problem here is how your friend uses his phone
Different ROMs do have different battery usage. Even with the same kernel. He could stick on stock with elementalx aosp kernel. Then mess around with trickster mod to suck out the most use. Only use the high power goveners when needed. Then switch back to low power for general use. Honestly, had my n5 for a month. Also had a n4 before. The n5 battery isnt much better. Biggest downside. Just doing nothing its fine, but if I play some games on the train it dies in no time.
Some ideas
Vanir
Slim
Purity
Cm11
Vanir with elementalx was good for me battery wise. But after a certain nightly I was getting alot of heat and battery drain. Im now using sabermod carbon with elementalx.
Turn Location off. It has the biggest Impact in Battery life time.
"Best" ROM.
There is no such thing as a best ROM. The question itself is ambiguous. "Best" is obviously a subjective term.
What I want from a ROM may well differ from what you want from a ROM, ergo - what is best for me could be worst for you.
If you are asking what the most popular ROMs are, or which ROMs people are using, you can see which threads stay around on the first few pages (and have the most posts) in the Android Development or Original Android Development forums. You can also see what other people are running by reading the What are you running on your Nexus 5 thread.
If you are asking which is the most stable, being a Nexus device - they're all pretty stable.
If you are asking which is best on Battery, ROMs only affect battery if they have a feature that is badly coded. You will likely be able to read about this in the ROM threads. ROMs do not impact battery life. The only impact to battery life are your apps, your settings, how you use the phone and mostly, environmental issues such as Phone Signal.
For tips about improving battery life, please read [Battery Life Help] Troubleshoot battery issues here!
"Best" Kernel
Also, please note that as above, "best" is still subjective. What we all want from a kernel is different. Again, many people have the misconception that Kernels affect battery life. Let's get this cleared up. Although Kernel devs will build in optimisations and efficiencies that will improve battery life, these are very, VERY tiny...and if 1 kernel has these optimisations, they likely all have.
People will often say "Kernel x is better than kernel y for battery life". This is actually wrong. Kernels respond to user settings. Setting up the governor to favour either battery life or performance is simple enough to do, you just have to do some learning. The reason people think Kernel x is better than y is because developers set their kernels up with their preferred governor settings. This is what we refer to as out-of-the-box settings. The out-of-the-box settings for kernel x may well produce better battery results than the out-of-the-box settings for kernel y, which favour performance. The fact is, you as the user have the ability to tune kernel x or y to perform the same, be that battery or performance - so start learning how to do this yourselves - that way, you can choose the kernel based on the FEATURES you want, and not the fictional performance benefits of one kernel over another.
Hope this helps
rootSU said:
"Best" ROM.
There is no such thing as a best ROM. The question itself is ambiguous. "Best" is obviously a subjective term.
What I want from a ROM may well differ from what you want from a ROM, ergo - what is best for me could be worst for you.
If you are asking what the most popular ROMs are, or which ROMs people are using, you can see which threads stay around on the first few pages (and have the most posts) in the Android Development or Original Android Development forums. You can also see what other people are running by reading the What are you running on your Nexus 5 thread.
If you are asking which is the most stable, being a Nexus device - they're all pretty stable.
If you are asking which is best on Battery, ROMs only affect battery if they have a feature that is badly coded. You will likely be able to read about this in the ROM threads. ROMs do not impact battery life. The only impact to battery life are your apps, your settings, how you use the phone and mostly, environmental issues such as Phone Signal.
For tips about improving battery life, please read [Battery Life Help] Troubleshoot battery issues here!
"Best" Kernel
Also, please note that as above, "best" is still subjective. What we all want from a kernel is different. Again, many people have the misconception that Kernels affect battery life. Let's get this cleared up. Although Kernel devs will build in optimisations and efficiencies that will improve battery life, these are very, VERY tiny...and if 1 kernel has these optimisations, they likely all have.
People will often say "Kernel x is better than kernel y for battery life". This is actually wrong. Kernels respond to user settings. Setting up the governor to favour either battery life or performance is simple enough to do, you just have to do some learning. The reason people think Kernel x is better than y is because developers set their kernels up with their preferred governor settings. This is what we refer to as out-of-the-box settings. The out-of-the-box settings for kernel x may well produce better battery results than the out-of-the-box settings for kernel y, which favour performance. The fact is, you as the user have the ability to tune kernel x or y to perform the same, be that battery or performance - so start learning how to do this yourselves - that way, you can choose the kernel based on the FEATURES you want, and not the fictional performance benefits of one kernel over another.
Hope this helps
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with this guy
I used about every rom and kernel.... And my battery life for me, with my lean setup and usage was always 24 hoursish total and usually over 6 hours screen time on all of them.
So no one will ever convince me that different kernels and especially different roms affect battery life any more than in the smallest ways. Definitely not enough difference to base a choice on solely.
?
rootSU said:
"Best" ROM.
There is no such thing as a best ROM. The question itself is ambiguous. "Best" is obviously a subjective term.
What I want from a ROM may well differ from what you want from a ROM, ergo - what is best for me could be worst for you.
If you are asking what the most popular ROMs are, or which ROMs people are using, you can see which threads stay around on the first few pages (and have the most posts) in the Android Development or Original Android Development forums. You can also see what other people are running by reading the What are you running on your Nexus 5 thread.
If you are asking which is the most stable, being a Nexus device - they're all pretty stable.
If you are asking which is best on Battery, ROMs only affect battery if they have a feature that is badly coded. You will likely be able to read about this in the ROM threads. ROMs do not impact battery life. The only impact to battery life are your apps, your settings, how you use the phone and mostly, environmental issues such as Phone Signal.
For tips about improving battery life, please read [Battery Life Help] Troubleshoot battery issues here!
"Best" Kernel
Also, please note that as above, "best" is still subjective. What we all want from a kernel is different. Again, many people have the misconception that Kernels affect battery life. Let's get this cleared up. Although Kernel devs will build in optimisations and efficiencies that will improve battery life, these are very, VERY tiny...and if 1 kernel has these optimisations, they likely all have.
People will often say "Kernel x is better than kernel y for battery life". This is actually wrong. Kernels respond to user settings. Setting up the governor to favour either battery life or performance is simple enough to do, you just have to do some learning. The reason people think Kernel x is better than y is because developers set their kernels up with their preferred governor settings. This is what we refer to as out-of-the-box settings. The out-of-the-box settings for kernel x may well produce better battery results than the out-of-the-box settings for kernel y, which favour performance. The fact is, you as the user have the ability to tune kernel x or y to perform the same, be that battery or performance - so start learning how to do this yourselves - that way, you can choose the kernel based on the FEATURES you want, and not the fictional performance benefits of one kernel over another.
Hope this helps
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Well said. I hope you don't mind but I've linked your well written response in a Reddit post. Users there argue daily over which ROM or kernel is best for battery life despite my best efforts.
bblzd said:
Well said. I hope you don't mind but I've linked your well written response in a Reddit post. Users there argue daily over which ROM or kernel is best for battery life despite my best efforts.
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You can lead a horse to water.... Etc... Etc. ?
bblzd said:
Well said. I hope you don't mind but I've linked your well written response in a Reddit post. Users there argue daily over which ROM or kernel is best for battery life despite my best efforts.
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Not at all. I'm just copying and pasting it wherever needed now.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
ipguy said:
not sure I agree with you, project volta looks like a concerted effort from Google to do exactly that.
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we will see.
Related
My wife uses a rooted Bolt running Virus' Eternity ROM with Sense 3.5. I'm open to trying new ROMs and other less drastic measures as well. I've thought about switching to an AOSP ROM that might free up more memory. I personally use Liquid Smooth and have been trying tweaks to see if my battery life improves before trying to change hers. She uses the FM Radio a lot at work which is the primary culprit of her battery consumption. It's generally fully dead after 6 hours. What options do I have that might increase that life a little longer?
You may wanna take a look at THIS THREAD
Thank you much. I'm not sure how I've missed that thread as I've spent a good bit of time on those forums as well looking at different tweaks.
I'm using current venomxl Rom with elemental kernel (all default other than max 1.5ghz and flu overclock off) and getting what I feel are amazing results on battery life. On phones of the past, aosp style roms pulled better battery life, but I saw here in the forums people were getting better battery life with sense roms? Is that true? I posted a screenshot below of my battery life, sorry couldn't figure out how to get jpg link from dropbox app.
https://photos-1.dropbox.com/t/0/AA...g/d7MN66kx-qjvYssSKvKrYLP2xrN6GZy7R6-COot-8wM
Would be nice to hear what Rom/kernel combos others are using and what kind of battery life you are getting.
Put the picture in your public folder. Right click on the picture and click copy public link, or something to that effect then paste the link in your thread.
In any case, the only things you could do to get even better battery would be to undervolt your processor and maybe underclock as well. Some phones become unstable however and while I noticed the general ui and most apps run fine with a clock speed of about 1.2ghz, some, more CPU intensive apps do lag a bit. You can also disable radios when not in use. I actually use juice defender to do this for me automatically, which is pretty handy though not everyone likes the idea of having an app do that for you.
Last but not least, if your radio signal seems low most of the time, you can try flashing different radios to give you a better signal which will, in turn, increase your battery life.
Hope this helps, maybe others have had different experiences?
I use viper and bulletproof right now ad I wanted a stock kernel with swipetowake
And this holds up damn well in terms of battery life. Never used elemental for long though so not sure if it's better or worse.
*edit* I forgot to add, you can also turn off fastboot. Your phone will take longer to power on but saves some battery life.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda app-developers app
badhabits727 said:
On phones of the past, aosp style roms pulled better battery life, but I saw here in the forums people were getting better battery life with sense roms? Is that true?
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Such reports are often just anecdotal and very subjective. Like you, I've also seen people claim better life on AOSP or certain ROMs on various devices, but never really experienced it in any consistent or meaningful way. Battery life often has more to do with the radio and reception in your specific care, than anything. Sure, various ROMs on various devices may have some subtle difference in battery life. But unless you are very methodical and scientific about comparing them, there are just too many variables involved, and you are often just left with subjective reports and placebo effects.
Can't open your pic. But if you are satisfied with the battery life (enough to call it "amazing"), I'd just go with the ROM that has the features you like the best, and leave well enough alone.
I realize this device has only been out for a very short time, but are there currently any stable/semi stable kernels that improve battery life? I've looked through a few kernel threads, but many seem to be unstable (which is to be expected) and optimized for overclocking. Are there any kernel developers focusing primarily on battery life?
jetrii said:
I realize this device has only been out for a very short time, but are there currently any stable/semi stable kernels that improve battery life? I've looked through a few kernel threads, but many seem to be unstable (which is to be expected) and optimized for overclocking. Are there any kernel developers focusing primarily on battery life?
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Stock kernel is fantastic. If you're having issues, we need a BetterBatteryStats log from you.
Aerowinder said:
Stock kernel is fantastic. If you're having issues, we need a BetterBatteryStats log from you.
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BBS is not compatible with 4.4 yet. Sven is working on it.
On topic: stock kernel is good. I'm getting excellent battery life, 4+ hours screen on time is no exception. It's a common misconception a custom kernel is a magical battery life extender.
jetrii said:
I realize this device has only been out for a very short time, but are there currently any stable/semi stable kernels that improve battery life? I've looked through a few kernel threads, but many seem to be unstable (which is to be expected) and optimized for overclocking. Are there any kernel developers focusing primarily on battery life?
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Both faux and franco kernels seems to be maturing fairly well. I can't personally vouch for franco, but I've been stable on every iteration (betas and stable releases) of faux's kernel, with the exception of some aggressive undervolting, which is not a really reflection on the kernel. Battery life has improved, particularly for sleep mode. Can't say the screen on time has improved dramatically, if at all, under these kernels.
FWIW, I have been fortunate enough to have a phone with adequate sound output, so I have not played at all the the sound mods available through faux, only the CPU/GPU/memory settings.
Petrovski80 said:
BBS is not compatible with 4.4 yet. Sven is working on it.
On topic: stock kernel is good. I'm getting excellent battery life, 4+ hours screen on time is no exception. It's a common misconception a custom kernel is a magical battery life extender.
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Franco kernel on the N4 gave me 1.5 to 2.5 hrs. extra screenontime compared to stock Thats a fact and no placebo.
gee2012 said:
Franco kernel on the N4 gave me 1.5 to 2.5 hrs. extra screenontime compared to stock Thats a fact and no placebo.
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I tried all popular kernels on my GNEX. And by trying I don't mean flashing a new one every other day, used them for a couple of weeks at least. None of them produced any noticeable increase in battery life. That's a fact as well. I only used them for their options.
I'm curious what makes people think what the mechanism is behind hours of extra screen on time with a custom kernel (where custom is 95% or more original AOSP code).
Petrovski80 said:
I tried all popular kernels on my GNEX. And by trying I don't mean flashing a new one every other day, used them for a couple of weeks at least. None of them produced any noticeable increase in battery life. That's a fact as well. I only used them for their options.
I'm curious what makes people think what the mechanism is behind hours of extra screen on time with a custom kernel (where custom is 95% or more original AOSP code).
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Read some Franco N4 pages and you`ll see my statement confirmed. The Gnex (which i only owned for a very brief period) is not the N4.
gee2012 said:
Read some Franco N4 pages and you`ll see my statement confirmed. The Gnex (which i only owned for a very brief period) is not the N4.
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I've read dozens of people claiming Franco, GlaDOS, Faux, Trinity, etc did wonders for their GNEX battery life. They never did for me, despite I used their recommendations and setup. I've yet to stumble upon actual proof (and I don't mean screen on time screenshots accompanied by opinions of users) a custom kernel actually uses less current than the stock one. If you have some, I'm very curious to read it.
Petrovski80 said:
BBS is not compatible with 4.4 yet. Sven is working on it.
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There is a beta version posted on XDA that works with 4.4 http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809
BBS beta has been available in the forum for weeks. It's almost always on the first page, somehow people keep overlooking it.
As far as kernel battery life goes, I think it can matter in certain cases. For instance, I came from the S3, and I don't know about other phones, but the battery life on the CM 3.4 kernel was absolutely terrible (3.0 was fine). Custom kernel was needed not only to tame the battery drain, but to improve stability (fix hotbooting, etc.). Support for that device has been sub par for a long time on the AOSP front. If it weren't for KT747 and leanKernel, CM wouldn't have been usable at all (3.4+). Though, there is still a very valid argument that it wasn't usable anyhow. So custom kernels can make a difference in some cases.
Sleep is an issue with the stock kernel? I get 0.2%-0.4% drain per hour while idling. Zero issues here. If you want proof, I'd be happy to attach a BBS log for you guys to inspect. I don't disable sync or GPS. Never have and never will. You need to be in control of the apps on your phone.
Perhaps I should have clarified: my battery life is actually very good. I don't have any major complaints, and my idle drain is insanely low (the 0.2% - 0.4% figure claimed by Aerowinder isn't too far off). I'm coming from a Note 2 though, so although the battery life is good, I'm always looking for something to make it a bit better . I've been watching Franco and Faux kernels, but they seem hit or miss based on what I'm reading and the personal experience of my friends. I may wait a while longer for a stable release.
Just wondering what kernels are showing best battery?
ElementalX
Best kernel and ROM plzz tell guys as not happy with stock OOS 5.1.8
Franco Kernel works best for me.
Definetly franco kernel in terms of battery life. But everyone have to decide by themselves which kernel is best.
For every different user, every kernel will yield different results.
All i can say atm is that every kernel out there is amazing, stock is better for some users but has less options.
I recommend you to try it out few kernels out there and see what's better for you, as i said earlier its different for every user...
Usage patterns have a far larger impact on battery life than kernels do. A kernel that gives good battery life to someone who is gaming all day and sees 5+ hours of SOT isn't necessarily going to be be best for someone one doing mainly email and messaging with the phone in deep sleep 90% of the time. From what I've seen here, usage patterns are all over the map, so someone else's recommendation isn't likely to be of much use to you.
Just try them all and see what works best.
Smurf kernel with Helix_Schedutil as governor
So I just picked up a pixel 3 and the battery life is fairly mixed but I guess I was spoiled with my previous device (Oneplus 5).
Will installing a custom kernel improve my battery life? I haven't really bothered since my Galaxy S2 which was a shambles.
If so, are there any specific kernels which aim to do this by default?
My opinion is that this is all imaginary.
android8bit said:
So I just picked up a pixel 3 and the battery life is fairly mixed but I guess I was spoiled with my previous device (Oneplus 5).
Will installing a custom kernel improve my battery life? I haven't really bothered since my Galaxy S2 which was a shambles.
If so, are there any specific kernels which aim to do this by default?
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A custom kernel typically gives you the option to customize the way it behaves. Increased battery life will come at the expense of performance. But even then you won't see a major difference. The biggest battery killer is poor cell service. Also, eliminate apps that run in the background, at least the ones you don't need running all the time. Screen brightness is another large battery user. Google does a pretty good job of optimizing the kernel out of the box.
Sent from my [device_name] using XDA-Developers Legacy app
They used to, quite a bit. But most of that went away with O. There just isn't that much left to optimize anymore. Now they are about extra features.