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Okay so I noticed my Captivate seems to lose a lot of battery while in standby. To test this, I left it unplugged when I went to bed last night. I checked the battery level right when I went to sleep and then again when I woke up...
My battery drained from 64% to 31% in about 7 hours!!!
I know other threads discuss bad battery life. A bright screen and a 1GHZ processor can cause this so I can understand why the phone won't allow me to browse the web for 10 hours straight. But is everyone else getting an almost 5%/hour drain in battery while in standby?
Here is a little info about my setup:
-I took off an animated background and put one that is relatively dark (Screen is off during standby so I would think this doesn't matter)
-I have WiFi and Bluetooth enabled.
-I use both wireless networks and GPS for location.
-I have 1 Gmail account setup to check every hour.
-I have the Daily Briefing set up to check every 3 hours.
-I have the Slickdeals widget set to check every 2 hours.
-I have the Latitude widget running (you can't set how often it refreshes).
-I have the ESPN ScoreCenter widget running.
That's about all I did that I can think of that can possibly affect battery. I know I would get better battery with less background widgets, but all of this is in line with the amount of background services I had running on my last phone (Tilt 2) and that thing would last for several days with light use.
So, what I'm trying to find out is whether or not this is normal behavior that everyone is seeing or perhaps if one of the background widgets I'm using is known for draining a crazy amount of battery. Maybe I need to hard reset the phone? Thanks in advance for any ideas on how to lock this down.
In poor reception I could see that. But I'm good area that's too much. Like 2% every hour is good... 5 is too much....
Thanks for your reply. I had 3 bars of service where I was last night. Also, this isn't the first time I've noticed about 5%/hour for standby, just one example...
So it sounds like I'm getting worse drain than normal? Now, how to fix it?
Well...with all the email checks and having various Widgets check for updates..it will definitely drain the battery. I have been able to easily get twelve+ hours on standby without GPS on and turning off wifi when not at home or in a place with wifi.
Definitely can't go days without charging like I could with previous phones like my blackjack II buy I can get 12-16 hours with light to moderate use and 10-12 with somewhat moderate use of Facebook, wifi, various other apps.
EDIT: the Bluetooth as well will drain the battery.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
I have very similar battery usage to use. About 5% an hour not doing anything. I am always around a wifi and leave it turned on. I have nearly an out of the box setup. Between the poor battery life and crappy GPS, I may very well be taking this thing back.
Under Settings > Wireless and Network > Wi-Fi settings > Bring up the Advanced menu and set the Wi-Fi sleep policy to "Never".
This has helped my battery life immensely, since I am around Wi-Fi most of the time. This way all your data happens over Wi-Fi instead of 3G when the screen sleeps. I disable Wi-Fi when I'm not around any APs I normally connect to.
Pulled phone off the charger at 6:00AM yesterday morning. Streamed an hour and half to 2+ hours worth of Pandora over wi-fi getting ready for work and then some in the car. Did some web surfing during the day, various other things. (No phone calls really, except a brief wrong number). 4 e-mail accounts checking every 30 minutes (one an Exchange server). Also have Touchdown running push e-mail for another Exchange mailbox along with the Touchdown widget. Played around with some GPS apps (new google maps, Places, etc for a few minutes). Battery was down to about 16% by about midnight last night.
My phone charged fully overnight (with power off). Was turned on at 7AM, it is now 11am, and am at 90%.
I do not use GPS, have nothing running, no emails or social networking status updates.. The phone is on standby on my desk. I only do a few text messages and 5 minutes of voice calls / day.
So this means I get 40hrs of standby time? That is a little ridiculous.
I chatted with AT&T tech support and they said that the AT&T stores don't have battery replacements yet, but I could get a full phone replacement since I am within the 30 days still.
But from what I am hearing, it seems most people are having the same issue if not worse, correct?
I really don't want to set everything back up AGAIN. I am coming from using a Samsung Eternity - understand it isn't a true "smartphone" - but I use it the same, and would easily go 3-4 days without needing a charge.
with GPS off, wifi off, BT off, no data sync or background data turned on, i charge it fully at night -
last 3 nights in a row, at midnight it was showing 100% and at 7:30AM it would show 97-98% remaining, and that was using the alarm, set to loud and probably ran 2 minutes before i'd hit the off button
From 7:30am-11am, I have used 4% of my battery. I have these things going on:
-Exchange sync (real time)
-Facebook sync (once every hour)
-wireless off, bluetooth off, GPS not being utilized
-Weather.com and a Google search widget
The battery use shows this:
-Cell standby: 48%
-Phone idle: 36%
-Display: 8%
-Android System: 3%
-Email: 3%
-Android OS: 2%
I've barely used my phone this morning, so I'd think 4% of use in 3.5 hours is quite acceptable. It sounds like you need to make some modifications to improve your performance.
firehazard - what modifications have you done? I have wifi/bt off, background data off, no email syncing - display brightness all the way down..
To anyone who is having very poor battery life, I suggest a factory data reset when you exhaust other options. My phone wasn't lasting me more than about 8 hours on a full charge, with light to moderate usage. After a factory reset, I just ran nearly 24 hours with similar usage.
I can't tell you what changed or what got removed, maybe it was an app that was running and draining the battery that I didn't see, but battery life is MUCH better now. Hell, everything is running much better, even the GPS.
I went from wanting to throw this phone at a wall and return it for my iPhone 4 again, to loving it in less than 24 hours.
born_fisherman said:
firehazard - what modifications have you done? I have wifi/bt off, background data off, no email syncing - display brightness all the way down..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm referring to him running wifi and bluetooth when he's not even using his phone. Stuff like that.
Just for recording keeping, when a phone company says their phone can last XXXHours in Standby this means, that all wireless transmitters are off. this means (for the most part) airplane mode, with bluetooth, and wifi OFF.
these continuous wireless transmitters are why you didnt get the 200Hours or what ever it is in standby mode.
I recently took my phone back to BestBuy for a replacement since my battery was trying to kill itself overnight as well. I did the full charge when I first got it and purposely ran the battery down to quickly get it to turn itself off at 0%. Did a full recharge and repeated this process about 3 times and last night my battery only went down 3% over 6 hours. Compared to the 30-40% that was draining before, I'd say the full discharge/full recharge works that people have been talking about in the battery threads works. Thanks, everyone! I use Y5 to have it automatically connect to my WiFi at home when it's in range. Not much more than the usual was left to sync (although JuiceDefender may be working to turn stuff off when my screen is off) such as Gmail, Beautiful widgets, facebook, and one rss feed.
Either that or I had a crappy battery before
Seems like some folks are having the same problem as me, while others are having much better results. Firehazard's situation and drain while not in use is pretty much in line with my expectations of the phone. With my old Tilt 2, I left WiFi and Bluetooth on all the time and still got great standby time out of the phone. When those connections weren't in use, they weren't really draining my battery in any way. I'm going to try to disable them though and see if that helps. I'll also try to monitor the battery usage screen and see how much power is going to wifi and bluetooth when I have them on.
I've been suspicious of my battery as well, tracking it casually today.
Took it off the charger approx 8:30am, immediately went to 99%.
Watching it over the last hour it appears to be losing 1% / 10 minutes.
Running services:
SnsService
GTalkService
DMService (Device management)
Swype
TransactionService (Messaging)
org.npr.android.news (NPR)
Battery Widget
Dictionary.com (word of the day widget)
JuiceDefender
Android Core Apps
Google Voice
Cached Applications:
AppBrain
AT&T Nav
Calendar
com.sec.android.providers.downloads
Daily Briefing
LogsProvider
My Uploads
Phone
Samsung account
Wapedia
Just using it for the past 5 minutes to write up everything running has dropped the battery almost 3%. Albeit I have terrible cell coverage where I am. It does seem that the cell and wifi receivers are a bit weak, or the meters are biased conservatively.
*edit* I want to be clear that I love this phone, I just want to try and find out what and if certain services/applications drain the battery and if not then if I have a bad battery.
Okay, so I turned OFF bluetooth and WiFi and checked the battery before bed and right when I woke up. This time, I lost 24% over 8 hours. Certainly a big improvement over 33% in 7 hours, but also no where near where my old Tilt 2 was. I would lose 2-3% overnight at the most with that phone. I checked the battery meter and the majority of the battery went to Cell Standby and Phone Idle. Those don't seem like things that can be avoided through tweaking. I was in an area with 3 bars of service (same as night before), so I don't think that was an issue.
I'm debating whether or not I should try a factory data reset. Some folks reported good results with that. I really don't feel like reconfiguring my whole device if there isn't a good chance for improvement. Maybe the GPS fix that's coming will help battery life?
Have you tried reconditioning the battery? That would be the charging/discharching cycles mentioned throughout the forum?
I have done it and my phone has been on standby for more than 24 hours and I am still at 50% battery. It's just had very light usage. Wifi on for about an hour, snapping a few pics, deleting some others. A bit of calc usage. When I first got it, my battery was dismal.
Mine hasn't been modded one bit yet, just installed some apps from the market and a weather widget.
Yes, tried that. It actually helped a little but I'm still getting poor results compared to some.
I have another theory/question. I use gmail as my only email account on my phone. Its set up through the system and it syncs to the gmail application on the phone. I also have it set up in the Samsung default email client (which I prefer). Am I wasting battery because the two apps are checking mail independently? Does the gmail account sync while the Samsung one checks at intervals (I have mine set to 1 hr)?
TheSopranos16 said:
Yes, tried that. It actually helped a little but I'm still getting poor results compared to some.
I have another theory/question. I use gmail as my only email account on my phone. Its set up through the system and it syncs to the gmail application on the phone. I also have it set up in the Samsung default email client (which I prefer). Am I wasting battery because the two apps are checking mail independently? Does the gmail account sync while the Samsung one checks at intervals (I have mine set to 1 hr)?
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Click to collapse
probably.
follow battery optimization guide in pimp my captivate.pdf thread. I get 1-2% battery consumption per hour with moderate to light usage.
heavy usage drops my battery about 4-5% per hour. By heavy usage I mean playing 3D games for hours str8
I've been using HTC Desire s just for 1 week, it's good device but can't use a day after full change morning. I hate the battery life iphone but it is worse. Do you know how to get the battery life better this HTC Desire s ?
I've done 2 things like below.
1. 10 Tips for saving HTC Desire
2. Once full charge after battery dead(100% consumption)
Any better idea ? Thanks in advance.
I can't put the link for gadget 10 tips link due to 1st posting...
Same to me. 30 hours is max. This is not very good....
I also have the same as if I leave my desire S in stand by for 6 hours it loss 50% of charging and I sure that everything are closed (Wi Fi , Bluetooth , GPS , data connection , Application) so pls can anyone advise if this is special problem on my phone or it's generally in all Desire S
I find the battery quite good actually.... I normally charge it over night and have at least 25% left, normally towards 50 depending on how much angry birds i played
I have WiFi or 3g enabled, no gps or bt
Sent from my HTC Desire S using XDA App
Perhaps you can install battery monitor to find the cause...
Sent from my HTC Desire S using XDA App
I'm getting around 30 hours before my nerve goes and I charge it up again at about 25%, but I'm still using the phone quite a bit more than the dumb-phones I've had in the past.
Check: Settings > About phone > Battery > Battery use
Essential apps:
Battery Monitor Widget
Power Monitor Widget
Screen Filter
I have the screen set to auto brightness, but use Screen Filter to reduce the overall brightness to (say) 50% outdoors, 35% indoors, and 25% in the evening.
I find the biggest drain on the battery is the display, but maybe that's because I've reduced a lot of the syncing.
In "Accounts & sync", I've disabled syncing for most things, especially HTC Sense; Weather widget updates every 3 hours, other things every hour or so.
WiFi is usually off, though even when it's on, it doesn't drain the battery much.
I get the worst battery drain when playing games or watching video, especially with the brightness turned up.
GPS is enabled, but rarely in use. 3G coverage near me is poor, so I'm usually on 2G only.
[ duplicate post got created somehow when editing - can admins delete this one? ]
Try these:
-wifi settings advanced setting for sleep after 15mins
-usb debugging on
-cancel auto sync OR sync frequency for all those things that like synching all time
-change email sync (default is every hour)
-change weather update
-turn off gps
-screen sleep quicker
there are some apps which are poorly put together and can drain battery, i had problem with android market fault and had to reinstall it, also 3g watchdog had an issue before
the desire s battery is better than most android phones, certainly one of the best compared to other htc phones so battery life shouldnt be an issue..
I get two days use. I consider myself an average user. Calls, sms and internet browsing.
kshinkr said:
I've been using HTC Desire s just for 1 week, it's good device but can't use a day after full change morning. I hate the battery life iphone but it is worse. Do you know how to get the battery life better this HTC Desire s ?
I've done 2 things like below.
1. 10 Tips for saving HTC Desire
2. Once full charge after battery dead(100% consumption)
Any better idea ? Thanks in advance.
I can't put the link for gadget 10 tips link due to 1st posting...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
turn your brightness down Switch off your data when not needed... use task killers? (not sure about task killers for android)
njd said:
I'm getting around 30 hours before my nerve goes and I charge it up again at about 25%, but I'm still using the phone quite a bit more than the dumb-phones I've had in the past.
Check: Settings > About phone > Battery > Battery use
Essential apps:
Battery Monitor Widget
Power Monitor Widget
Screen Filter
I have the screen set to auto brightness, but use Screen Filter to reduce the overall brightness to (say) 50% outdoors, 35% indoors, and 25% in the evening.
I find the biggest drain on the battery is the display, but maybe that's because I've reduced a lot of the syncing.
In "Accounts & sync", I've disabled syncing for most things, especially HTC Sense; Weather widget updates every 3 hours, other things every hour or so.
WiFi is usually off, though even when it's on, it doesn't drain the battery much.
I get the worst battery drain when playing games or watching video, especially with the brightness turned up.
GPS is enabled, but rarely in use. 3G coverage near me is poor, so I'm usually on 2G only.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't use Screen Filter unless your intention is to reduce glare when using your phone in darkness. It will not save you any power if you are using an LCD display. and
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
If all you do most of the time is idling, it should last a couple of days.
My experiences:
I always using all features in mobiles such as localisation, 3G, wifi, synchronization always on. I'm doing this because phone is for me/I am not for phone
Some stats on Desire S:
-wifi only(mobile network off) 60 min of video, 10 mins voice calls, few text, few emails, few webpages 50% screen brightness
result: 27 hours
-wifi off(mobile network on) 60 min of video, 10 mins voice calls, few text, few emails, few webpages, 50% screen brightness
result: 22 hours!!!
Cmon HTC, this are very bad stat!
Anyone know is that good stats? Please don't tell me to switch off this and that...If We will be thinking in this way maybe we just put mobile on air plane mode, set birightness to 20% and then We will get around 40 hours.
Do You think, that custom roms can help with it?
regards
Just curious. Did any of you do the battery calibration thingy?
mjemec said:
Just curious. Did any of you do the battery calibration thingy?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course I did. I always doing calibration even if now is not necessary...
I have WiFi, BlueTooth, 3G on all the time. Sync on and the device is in background alone collection app. 3MB of data.
If I don't use the phone, then it uses app. 15-20% of battery a day.
I can use the phone app. 5-6 hours a day for browsing, install programs etc.
I thing that is a full days use.
I have turned off auto brightness, as I don't think it is working. In normal day light I set the light to 50% which is nice for the eyes. (Auto mode goes to almost 100% all the time, which uses more power.)
/Michael
Hey guys,
So after many months with the XT720 and alot of flashing and trying to get the most out of my battery, i've come up with a few conclusions about battery life in general and how to extend it. I thought I'd share here. This is mostly aimed at people who are new to android and have not experimented like some of the more advanced users we have on this forum. Hope you find this helpful and please feel free to make additions.
General Battery Info
The XT720 was my first android phone, and I came from a long line of typical nokia phones whose batteries would last for ages. I had no idea the kind of power an android device would use. When I started out using it, i was surprised at how quickly the battery would die. You'd think with advancing software we'd have better batteries but sadly batteries are lagging behind in technology. Generally speaking you can expect the following battery life from your XT720.
Heavy use: 10-14 hours
Moderate use: 16-20 hours
Light use: 1 day - 1 day 12 hrs.
Note: New batteries improve with each charge cycle. It is recommended to go through a few complete charge cycles when you buy a new phone. After that, complete discharges are not recommended and its smart to start charging your phone when it hits the 20-25% mark.
How to improve battery life
1: Battery Calibration
If you've ever flashed a new ROM, you must have noticed a sharp decline in battery performance. This is partly due to old battery statistics left behind from your old ROM. Android is a smart OS and collects information over time. The more you use it, the more accurate it gets. In the same way it collects information from your battery usage and reports your battery percentages according to that. When you flash a new ROM, sometimes android thinks that your battery is 100% when its really lower than that and that causes relative reduced battery performance. To deal with that it is recommended that you use a nifty free app called Battery Calibration from the android market. What this does it removes the old battery stats and allows your new ROM to create its own battery stats. Charge your battery to full, use the battery calibration. Drain once till phone turns off by itself and charge to full again. You will notice a sharp increase in battery life.
2. Battery Managment
We all know that android has its own battery management built in but it usually doesnt give complete information about the phone. For that you need to dive deeper into the settings. Usually if you experience battery drain its because of a rogue app and believe it or not some common apps you wont think off drain unnecessary battery. To see your complete Battery Stats input this code into the dialer.
Code:
*#*#4636#*#*
This will take you to a bunch of options. What you're interested in is Battery History. When you tap that it will show you two drop down menu's.
1) Other Usage
2) Since last unplugged
Other usage shows you how long your phone has been running and how long it has been asleep. Also shows you how long your wifi has been on and running and how long your screen has been on. It is important to see how long your phone has been running. For example if your phone has an uptime of 20 hours and its been running 5 hours out of that. Your run time is 25%. Which is very good. Sometimes an app can run even when your phone screen is off. This will represent a longer run time even when you have your phone lying on a desk or something. See this setting and correlate with the amount you have used your phone. Does it seem normal? If no then use the first drop down menu and select
Partial Wake:
Partial wake is basically, any app which takes your phone out of sleep mode to use the CPU even when youre screen is off. These are apps which need to sync or use the phone resources. In this you will see a list of apps and how much they have caused a partial wake lock. See anything unsual? For me one app that caused unsual drainage was latitute. Yes, i had simply signed into it and i didnt know it was updating my location every 5 minutes. Extreme battery drain for me even when my phone was idle. See which app was draining your battery and either tweak the settings or remove altogether.
GPS, Sensors, CPU:
You can also see these in the first drop down menu. Certain apps like screeble use the sensors alot, and hence cause drain. Obviously games, camera, will stress the CPU. See if anything is causing drain in that and adjust accordingly.
Miscellaneous Information
After you have dealt with rogue apps that you don't use that drain youre battery your battery life will depend on how you use your phone. But hopefull these tips will help you with increasing your battery life. I do have some more information on different settings and supposed battery saving applications.
Autosync: When you enable auto sync, you allow google and other accounts to sync on a regular basis. This is important for people who need to use push email etc. It does not drain battery IF you tweak what you need synced. In google for example you can have your contacts, calendar, google+, google reader, gmail all to sync by default. If you just need email, please untick the rest. This will help you save battery life. Increase your update times for facebook and google+ if you dont recieve many updates all the time or turn them off altogether. If you have many services syncing at the same time you will get battery drain.
Wifi Sleep Policy: This is sort of a hidden menu. If you go into wireless & networks >> Wifi settings >> settings key >> advanced >> wifi sleep policy. This has three settings. Never close down wifi, never close when charging, or close with screen off. If you choose never your wifi will always be on, which will in turn crunch the **** out of your battery. If you use it off with screen off, remember it takes about 5 minutes to turn the wifi off. I personally use the never with plugged in. Its an intermediate. So when im plugged in wifi always stays on and when im not it follows the screen off protocol.
Wifi Vs Mobile Data: Having mobile data on all the time, does not drain battery. The only time the battery gets drained is when the data connection is active i.e you have many apps on autosync youll see your battery going down. If you arent doing anything and your phone is connected to Edge or 3G your battery will drain regularly. 2G networks drain less than 3G keep that in mind. If you are actively using your connection, wifi will take less battery because speeds are faster and you will be using it for a little time. Also your signal strength has alot of effect on battery. If you have crappy 3G signals your radio will actively be searching for a connection the same goes for wifi. That is important to keep in mind.
Control Background data: By selecting this option you can allow or disallow apps to connect to data without any permission. Some apps require this like the android market. If you uncheck this apps wont be able to sync automatically in the background.
Milestone Overclocking: This is fairly obvious. The higher you overclock with higher vsel the more battery drain you will have. Some use set cpu with profiles but I found that if i set the setcpu too low while idle It takes time for the cpu to charge up when i recieve a call or turn the screen on. Ringtones lag etc etc. I let android do my CPU management and its fine. and comfortable setting would be 850 MHZ, 56 vsel but you can change according to your phone usage.
Juice Defender/ Screebl / Task killers:
In my personal experience with juice defender ultimate I found that with the above precautions juice defender didnt make much of a difference and actually used more battery. First off theres an extra process going on in the back. Second activating and deactivating the connection everytime the screen goes off uses more juice because your radio has to search for the signal hundreds of times as compared to not having it in the first place. Screebl is good if you dont want your screen to annoyingly turn off while youre doing something but it surely doesnt save battery life. Task killers are a no no for android. They kill tasks which start up anyways, its better to use autokiller memory optimizer which tweaks androids internal memory settings and allows for more free ram without killing processes without reason.
System Apps:
Some system apps run uselessly in the background specially with stock ROM's this is called bloatware. Remove all unused system apps with titanium backup to stop them from running in the background for no reason at all.
A final word
Finally after all this tweaking, just use your phone as normal. Dont worry about the battery all the time checking how much its drained, itll mess your head up and make you enjoy your phone less. Battery temperature also changes battery life. Keep your phone out of the sun or in hot places.
Thanks, good article.
Very detailed and useful
Sent from my Milestone XT720 using XDA App
Thanks for this interessting article!
Could you make a list of the bloatware that can be safely removed?
I figured this would just list all the usual stuff I've heard. I'm glad to say I was wrong! A bunch of useful info here I now plan to put to use. Many thanks
Might want to mention the display being the biggest drain of battery on this phone. Setting it to automatic brightness or lower will increase battery life. I love the screen at full brightness so I don't really follow that, but for those looking to squeeze some extra time and don't mind less brightness...
Thanks guys, glad you people found it useful.
syrenz said:
Might want to mention the display being the biggest drain of battery on this phone. Setting it to automatic brightness or lower will increase battery life. I love the screen at full brightness so I don't really follow that, but for those looking to squeeze some extra time and don't mind less brightness...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes! Can't believe I missed that one out. In the start id use the lowest brightness setting, which would be fine indoors. But outside it was impossible to see the phone because of its insanely reflective glass. Since we have an ambient light sensor I use it on automatic and it does a good job. Full bright strains my eyes abit thats why I dont keep it on full bright So for people really wanting to save the juice you can keep your brightness on the lowest level. Also when you take the phone out of your pocket and use it, its better to put the phone to sleep with the power button than let it timeout by itself. Those 10-15 seconds for each time you use phone count towards many minutes of unused display time in the end and does make a difference.
This is a very gd post with lots o useful info!! ok i have a qn, is using the phone a lot while the charging good for the battery? And if u let the battery charge even though its already 100 percent for an hour good? srry if it is noob qn...
androidlover123 said:
This is a very gd post with lots o useful info!! ok i have a qn, is using the phone a lot while the charging good for the battery? And if u let the battery charge even though its already 100 percent for an hour good? srry if it is noob qn...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Using your phone while charging does not affect your battery life, and is neither good nor bad. It is perfectly normal to use your phone while charging and is sometimes recommended while doing battery intensive tasks for example navigating while driving, wifi tethering, playing memory intensive games and finally outputing video through HDMI.
2. Overcharging was a phenomenom is older lithium ion battery. New batteries have bypass circuits. So when your phone reaches complete charge, it does not charge any further. So you should not be worried about overcharging your XT720.
Hope this helps.
Excelent article and good quality info. Thanks and best regards!
awesome article! Great information. Thanks a lot for putting that together. I have already started using a few of the tips mentioned.
u da maaan dude, thanks for a very detailed and informative article
I have been using my N5 for a couple of weeks and I know its battery life isn't the greatest. I have watched some youtube videos for tips on better battery life, and here's what I have done.
Turn off auto brightness, and screen brightness is about 1/4 of the way
Turn off haptic feedback
Turn off vibration on keypress
Turn off sync for most Google services
Turn off NFC
Location service set to battery saving mode
But it seems like after all that's been done, the battery is still draining pretty fast. For example, I went out for dinner and drinks with friends and my phone is just sitting in my pocket the whole time not being used, 4 hours later, I have lost 30% battery. Coming from an htc one, it doesn't drain nearly as much. Is this abnormal or just about right for the N5, thoughts?
Infiniteloop7 said:
I have been using my N5 for a couple of weeks and I know its battery life isn't the greatest. I have watched some youtube videos for tips on better battery life, and here's what I have done.
Turn off auto brightness, and screen brightness is about 1/4 of the way
Turn off haptic feedback
Turn off vibration on keypress
Turn off sync for most Google services
Turn off NFC
Location service set to battery saving mode
But it seems like after all that's been done, the battery is still draining pretty fast. For example, I went out for dinner and drinks with friends and my phone is just sitting in my pocket the whole time not being used, 4 hours later, I have lost 30% battery. Coming from an htc one, it doesn't drain nearly as much. Is this abnormal or just about right for the N5, thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
7.5%/hr is high for standby time. You can get it down to 1-2%/hr by using more of the battery-saving tips you'll find in the various threads on the subject.
Sent from my Nexus 5
Check the wakelock with better battery stat
If you don't need GPS on all the time turn that off too saves quite a bit of battery even the battery saving mode isn't that battery friendly
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Infiniteloop7 said:
But it seems like after all that's been done, the battery is still draining pretty fast. For example, I went out for dinner and drinks with friends and my phone is just sitting in my pocket the whole time not being used, 4 hours later, I have lost 30% battery. Coming from an htc one, it doesn't drain nearly as much. Is this abnormal or just about right for the N5, thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You really need to share your battery usage screen, and show what apps drained your battery. It is possible that you were had low signal strength, and so your phone kept trying to search for a signal and drained itself. Also, as dark_ente suggested, look at betterbatterystats results to see if you had wakelocks.
With no active use, that is very high drain - unless you were in a very low signal strength area, or had an app keeping your phone awake.
When I work from home, connected to WiFi, my phone drains about 3-4% in about 9 hours (assuming I don't actively use it. I use pushbullet to show me all notifications on my PC, so I don't have to turn my phone on at all)
Infiniteloop7 said:
Turn off auto brightness, and screen brightness is about 1/4 of the way - I do the same (actually, I set it to the lowest possible level), because it is too bright
Turn off haptic feedback - I do the same, because it is annoying
Turn off vibration on keypress - I do the same, because it is annoying
Turn off sync for most Google services - I leave sync on
Turn off NFC - I leave it on
Location service set to battery saving mode - I do the same - but set up a tasker profile to enable GPS when I launch maps - Disabling GPS helped the most in my case
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Click to collapse
jj14 said:
You really need to share your battery usage screen, and show what apps drained your battery. It is possible that you were had low signal strength, and so your phone kept trying to search for a signal and drained itself. Also, as dark_ente suggested, look at betterbatterystats results to see if you had wakelocks.
With no active use, that is very high drain - unless you were in a very low signal strength area, or had an app keeping your phone awake.
When I work from home, connected to WiFi, my phone drains about 3-4% in about 9 hours (assuming I don't actively use it. I use pushbullet to show me all notifications on my PC, so I don't have to turn my phone on at all)
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When you say turning off GPS and only enable it while launching maps, do you mean turn off location completely? Does that affect other Google apps/services? Such as Google now
If all else fails, do a factory reset.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
I noticed from the past few days that my N5 seems to have abnormal battery usage pattern. There are days with mostly light use (text messaging, whatsapp messaging, some web browsing, minimal on screen time) I can go for 2 days without charging, and I am only losing 1% battery per hour when it's in stand by. However, they are times (see attachment) when I didn't use my phone for 11 hours, and the battery level is down from fully charged to 26%. Can anyone give me some ideas on what may be the culprit?
kevtrysmoddin said:
If you don't need GPS on all the time turn that off too saves quite a bit of battery even the battery saving mode isn't that battery friendly
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
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battery saver mode is actually very battery friendly. i've done extensive testing...
---------- Post added at 06:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:24 PM ----------
Infiniteloop7 said:
I noticed from the past few days that my N5 seems to have abnormal battery usage pattern. There are days with mostly light use (text messaging, whatsapp messaging, some web browsing, minimal on screen time) I can go for 2 days without charging, and I am only losing 1% battery per hour when it's in stand by. However, they are times (see attachment) when I didn't use my phone for 11 hours, and the battery level is down from fully charged to 26%. Can anyone give me some ideas on what may be the culprit?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you need 'better battery stats' log. . . stock battery screen tells you almost nothing
Infiniteloop7 said:
When you say turning off GPS and only enable it while launching maps, do you mean turn off location completely? Does that affect other Google apps/services? Such as Google now
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. I keep location enabled all the time, but in battery saver mode - that way, google now, weather widgets etc can get my approximate location (using cell tower triangulation), but can't activate my GPS for accurate location fix.
When I use maps/navigation (which in my case is the only time when I need accurate GPS location fix), I change from battery saving location to the GPS type location fix, and when I'm done with maps/nav, I switch back to battery saving location.
If you turned location off completely, google now, and possibly other apps (like weather widgets for current location) won't work.
Infiniteloop7 said:
I noticed from the past few days that my N5 seems to have abnormal battery usage pattern. There are days with mostly light use (text messaging, whatsapp messaging, some web browsing, minimal on screen time) I can go for 2 days without charging, and I am only losing 1% battery per hour when it's in stand by. However, they are times (see attachment) when I didn't use my phone for 11 hours, and the battery level is down from fully charged to 26%. Can anyone give me some ideas on what may be the culprit?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From your 2nd screen print, you can see that your phone was awake pretty often. As @Enddo wrote, betterbatterystats should help you figure out what is causing the wakelocks.
Enddo said:
battery saver mode is actually very battery friendly. i've done extensive testing...
---------- Post added at 06:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:24 PM ----------
you need 'better battery stats' log. . . stock battery screen tells you almost nothing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
jj14 said:
No. I keep location enabled all the time, but in battery saver mode - that way, google now, weather widgets etc can get my approximate location (using cell tower triangulation), but can't activate my GPS for accurate location fix.
When I use maps/navigation (which in my case is the only time when I need accurate GPS location fix), I change from battery saving location to the GPS type location fix, and when I'm done with maps/nav, I switch back to battery saving location.
If you turned location off completely, google now, and possibly other apps (like weather widgets for current location) won't work.
From your 2nd screen print, you can see that your phone was awake pretty often. As @Enddo wrote, betterbatterystats should help you figure out what is causing the wakelocks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am still pretty new to Android and I don't know how to root my phone. I did check out betterbatterystats on google play, it says the app doesn't work on non-rooted Android phone running kitkat, that's why I haven't installed it yet. It seems that kitkat made some changes which prevent battery usage apps from working properly, wake lock detector also won't work on non-rooted phones running kitkat
Infiniteloop7 said:
I am still pretty new to Android and I don't know how to root my phone. I did check out betterbatterystats on google play, it says the app doesn't work on non-rooted Android phone running kitkat, that's why I haven't installed it yet. It seems that kitkat made some changes which prevent battery usage apps from working properly, wake lock detector also won't work on non-rooted phones running kitkat
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Rooting is pretty easy. And it opens up a whole new world.
________________________
Sent from my Nexus 5
Infiniteloop7 said:
I am still pretty new to Android and I don't know how to root my phone. I did check out betterbatterystats on google play, it says the app doesn't work on non-rooted Android phone running kitkat, that's why I haven't installed it yet. It seems that kitkat made some changes which prevent battery usage apps from working properly, wake lock detector also won't work on non-rooted phones running kitkat
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While betterbatterystats will work on kitkat (unrooted), it won't give you partial wakelock summary That requires root)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=15869904&postcount=3 - see FAQ 1 and 3. You can download the kitkat compatible version from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809
As PhilipTD wrote, rooting a N5 is pretty easy, but if you don't feel comfortable doing it, don't.
If you decide to root, follow the steps in first post at the link that PhilipTD provided.
Note that Step 1 (unlocking bootloader) will wipe out all your data.
Before you root, why not disable GPS (keep location active) and see if that helps? Also, how often do you reboot your phone?
hi
i have a new (3 months old) unrooted nexus 5 update to latest OS version which is showing some very odd stats wrt battery consumption.
first i had heavy battery drain but then i disabled the scanning options in the location menu which helped. but still even with brightness at only 18%, battery saver on 95% of the time, location & mobile data off all the time & wifi only used for short bursts it still seems to drain quite quickly.
app usage stats as reported by the inbuilt battery stats option differs quite a bit from other battery management apps (du battery saver, battery doctor, gsam battery monitor)
for eg. inbuilt battery stats doesnt even show wifi consumption in the stats even if i use it for few hours (then suddenly one time it showed up with some excessive consumption stats - 1500mah for 2 hours usage; photos attached). very often it shows gravity screen app as the biggest consumer of battery while other apps show gravity screen as consuming very little power. otoh gsam shows battery doctor as consuming the most of all the apps.
what could be the issue?
gsam shows average battery life with screen on as 3h 42m. is that ok?
was also wondering if the optimization options of the battery management apps work or are they gimmicks? for eg both du battery saver & battery doctor show 'x' number of apps consuming power in background & when you press the optimise/close apps button it shows some cool effects of shutting down those apps but you come back after a few hours & the same apps show up in the running in background.
also, the front camera is very grainy. cant believe its that bad in what was a flagship phone. is it just my phone or is that the how it is for other users?
anyone with any inputs?
You got nearly 5 days on a single charge??? Yes, your battery consumption is fine. Nearly 4 hours of SOT is fantastic.
The graininess of the camera will depend a lot on the lighting. Unless you have a light shining directly on your face, the picture is probably pretty dark. That said, it's "only" like a 3MP camera. It's well known as a sub-standard front camera (I'm not a selfie machine so I don't really care). When you think about how microscopic the light sensor is on the front camera, it's no wonder the picture is grainy.
exninja said:
You got nearly 5 days on a single charge??? Yes, your battery consumption is fine. Nearly 4 hours of SOT is fantastic.
The graininess of the camera will depend a lot on the lighting. Unless you have a light shining directly on your face, the picture is probably pretty dark. That said, it's "only" like a 3MP camera. It's well known as a sub-standard front camera (I'm not a selfie machine so I don't really care). When you think about how microscopic the light sensor is on the front camera, it's no wonder the picture is grainy.
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Click to collapse
thanks for your reply exninja
that 5 days was a one time thing where i barely touched the phone & then only to test it. i wish it were that good LOL. normally i get about 2 days with very conservative usage (brightness at only 18%, battery saver on 95% of the time, location & mobile data off all the time & wifi only used for short bursts, 0 talktime)
is 4 hrs SOT that good? i see a lot of people getting 5 to 6 hours + & that too without those conservative usage patterns.
the thing that got me worried is the strange battery usage stats reported in the stock settings.
Honestly I wouldn't worry that much about what each app says is using energy. They're each consuming very little anyways. I'm not familiar with gravity screen so I wouldn't know about it.
I haven't heard of many people getting 5-6 hours of sot, especially since lollipop. I got 4 hours on KitKat, then dropped to 3 or less on lollipop. Now it's usually around 2 hours.
@fguy76
First of all, just to let you know, recently Google Play Services have been acting up. Sometimes I get normal battery drain overnight when I sleep, and sometimes it drains like crazy. For now, there is nothing we can do about Google Play Services.
However, if u noticed that WiFi has been turned on the whole time via the battery history chart, despite the fact that you did not even turn on WiFi at all during that period, then this can only mean one thing. You must have enabled WiFi Scanning (the famous Scanning always available bug in Lollipop & KitKat).
To disable WiFi Scanning, go to Settings first. Then on the top of settings, there is a search bar. Type in "Scanning".
Then u will see the following options. Make sure u disable WiFi Scanning.
Having said this, there is another annoying bug. This bug is when you have left a WiFi hotspot and forgotten to turn of WiFi. So after awhile u realised it and u proceed to turn off WiFi. But hours later, u check your battery stat, and it still shows your WiFi have been active the whole time despite turning it off. For this, the only workaround is to reboot the phone. To avoid this bug, always turn off WiFi b4 u leave the WiFi hotspot area.
@pcphobic i have wifi scanning off & i always remember to turn wifi off when not using it so that second scenario is not an issue with me
fguy76 said:
@pcphobic i have wifi scanning off & i always remember to turn wifi off when not using it so that second scenario is not an issue with me
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@fguy76
The other solution that I can offer is under Location settings, go to Google Location History and make sure it is turned off.
You can still use GPS based apps with Google Location History turned off.
I suspect that if u find intermittent wifi showing up in your battery history, it could only mean that Google Location History is periodically waking up and using wifi to get an approximate location. I used to get this until I turned off Google Location History.