Related
I'm currently out at a client site, but it's super bad reception here in the conference room they stuck us in. First of all, no 4G in colorado springs, so i disabled LTE, and hit CDMA in the network settings.
3G is near impossible inside, so i usually get 1X, and voice connection is next to impossible also.
So i noticed that from unplugging in the morning at 7:30am. at around 2pm, my battery was already down to 10%!
And i didn't even use it.
I did see from my battery usage, that Android system was ABOVE screen in power usage.
Anyone have the same issue?
I've had the same problem with EVERY phone ever, even non-smartphones have this problem. The lower the signal, the more the phone will scan for a good signal. If it has no service, it scans very frequently. If you're on a smartphone, it's even worse because then when the phone does get service, all the data apps attempt to use what little bandwidth you do have all at once. If you're in an area with poor coverage, put your phone into download mode or disable the data connection. Nothing short of putting a network extender or new tower will solve this.
Yes, but this is typical of most phones really. Searching for a signal, acquiring it, losing it, etc, uses a lot of battery. You just have to disable data. If there is wifi available, then use that, if not, just have to wait until you go outside. I have no reception in my building at work, if I leave data on, my battery is dead in a couple hours, on wifi I can go all day
Yes and my phone got very hot in my pocket at the time as well.
got_rice64 said:
I'm currently out at a client site, but it's super bad reception here in the conference room they stuck us in. First of all, no 4G in colorado springs, so i disabled LTE, and hit CDMA in the network settings.
3G is near impossible inside, so i usually get 1X, and voice connection is next to impossible also.
So i noticed that from unplugging in the morning at 7:30am. at around 2pm, my battery was already down to 10%!
And i didn't even use it.
I did see from my battery usage, that Android system was ABOVE screen in power usage.
Anyone have the same issue?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have this issue at work. I get anwhere from 10-15% battery drain an hour. I have determined that it is NOT because of the data signal though becuase I can turn that off and still get about the same excessive drain. It appears to be because of the voice signal. It varies anywhere from -85dm to -115dbm and is constantly changing. When I get outside of work environment, everthing is fine again and battery usage returns to normal. My Droid X did not have this issue.
-115db? How do you have signal at that rating? lol. Phone gets to about 1 bar when it reaches 101 for me.
I have the same issue in my office. I just barely get voice/text service. My solution is to turn off mobile data and plug my phone in to balance out the battery drain from the weak signal. I know it is bad to have my phone plugged in all of the time but it is better to be able to have sms and not have a dead phone when I am done at work.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA Premium App
Samsuck said:
-115db? How do you have signal at that rating? lol. Phone gets to about 1 bar when it reaches 101 for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah. Tell me about it. I am using Mobile Signal Widget to measure this. When It gets that bad, a little android face appears in the widget and it is crying.
YES! easily drains 10-15% an hour at a local pub that has 1 bar of signal.
It makes perfect sense... Your phone is fighting hard for that signal.
Sent from my Droid Charge running GummyFroyo 1.9.1
I drive 50+ miles to get to work and I always notice it drains a lot during my commute even when not used. I figured it was because of all the cell site swaps and searches bc I'm sure there's some spotty areas.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA Premium App
Same experience. Dropped to 5% in 9 hours yesterday when I forgot to turn off data while at work. Today, I'm still at 75% after 9 hours with data off.
Juice defender solved this on my fascinate. It turned data on only once every 30 minutes. But, I can't get it to turn my data back on with this phone.
I really wish data signal aggressiveness was managed better by the operating system. It could be a real boon to the average battery life. Perhaps a smart developer could come up with some sort of "conservative" governor for 3g/4g connections. Rather than increasing power draw, it could just "sleep" until a stronger signal is detected... Imnuts? Is this even possible or just a pipedream?
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App
I can't reach my dad on his cell phone while at the pentagon for obvious reasons. He has to turn his phone off during the day or it'll die in a few short hours, as a previous poster mentioned searching for a signal is a huge battery drain.
Strange. I did not have this problem with my OG Doid or Droid X in the same environment. Maybe the Moto phones simply have a better radio than the Charge.
Yeah for some reason, the samsung radio are junk. I have my Droid Charge (personal) and an Lg phone (business) and the lg blows the sammy out of the water. Now i am in 3g fringe (forget about 4g), and the sammy loses data all together while my lg still has the signal. I hate when i am trying to search for something on the charge and it says connection failed or network unavailable retry. Even when i call verizon, they all have me do a reset and stuff, and nothing works. The best answer i get is that iam in a 3g fringe area. When i tell them that my lg works and still has signal, all i get is silence or hmmmmmm. Gota love it. Yes they exchanged the phone with a new one and it still does the same thing. Forget about battery life. I actually carry 3 batteries with me and on a good day i only use 2 but usually it is 3. Before anyone says use wifi, unfortunatly we do not have free wifi where i work. anyway that should not be the answer to this problem. We are paying for a service that i can barely use.
end rant.
91point6 said:
Strange. I did not have this problem with my OG Doid or Droid X in the same environment. Maybe the Moto phones simply have a better radio than the Charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
galaxyuser88 said:
Yeah for some reason, the samsung radio are junk. I have my Droid Charge (personal) and an Lg phone (business) and the lg blows the sammy out of the water. Now i am in 3g fringe (forget about 4g), and the sammy loses data all together while my lg still has the signal. I hate when i am trying to search for something on the charge and it says connection failed or network unavailable retry. Even when i call verizon, they all have me do a reset and stuff, and nothing works. The best answer i get is that iam in a 3g fringe area. When i tell them that my lg works and still has signal, all i get is silence or hmmmmmm. Gota love it. Yes they exchanged the phone with a new one and it still does the same thing. Forget about battery life. I actually carry 3 batteries with me and on a good day i only use 2 but usually it is 3. Before anyone says use wifi, unfortunatly we do not have free wifi where i work. anyway that should not be the answer to this problem. We are paying for a service that i can barely use.
end rant.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I went through the whole VZW customer service thing both on the phone and in person. They weren't much help but they gave me a brand new phone and it does the same thing. Then there were a lot of suggstions on different forums suggesting apps killers, turning data off, turing on 3g only data, rooting, trying different ROMs, battery clalibration, etc. None of this helps. The kind of drain I am seeing goes way beyond any benefits I would see out of any of these things. For example, I am at work now. When I left the house, it takes about 15 minutes for me to get to work. The rest of the time I have been inside my work building. I have been on battery for 2 hours & 24 minutes and I am at 76% already. Thats >10% drain per hour. When I am outside the building it is more like 3-5%. VZW customer service never suggested this as a problem. They DID suggest that 4g uses more battery but that is not the problem. I have proved that time and again by simply turning data off.
Hmm..sounds like a bad phone..I am in a fringe area at work and it definitely kills by battery faster but..it's only like 8% and hour so I still get 10 hrs a day or so...in a bad area. In a good 4 G area..I will get 24 hrs or so out of the phone.
galaxyuser88 said:
Yeah for some reason, the samsung radio are junk. I have my Droid Charge (personal) and an Lg phone (business) and the lg blows the sammy out of the water. Now i am in 3g fringe (forget about 4g), and the sammy loses data all together while my lg still has the signal. I hate when i am trying to search for something on the charge and it says connection failed or network unavailable retry. Even when i call verizon, they all have me do a reset and stuff, and nothing works. The best answer i get is that iam in a 3g fringe area. When i tell them that my lg works and still has signal, all i get is silence or hmmmmmm. Gota love it. Yes they exchanged the phone with a new one and it still does the same thing. Forget about battery life. I actually carry 3 batteries with me and on a good day i only use 2 but usually it is 3. Before anyone says use wifi, unfortunatly we do not have free wifi where i work. anyway that should not be the answer to this problem. We are paying for a service that i can barely use.
end rant.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow, that is the complete opposite of my experience. I've never had good signal with any LG phone - from flip phones to smartphones. Samsungs in my experience are middle of the road - not great, but not bad either. Motorolas usually do well, but there are certainly exceptions. HTC seems to be fairly good, but again, there are exceptions. Oh, and I did have one Audiovox phone on VZW, and it was garbage.
Haha you can whine about it in my rage thread
Sent from my Droid Charge running GummyFroyo 1.9.1
OK, so my wife and I both have GS3's through T-Mobile and our batteries last very long. I'm a heavy user and get a fully day while my wife is a light user and easily get's two days. My Mom on the other hand has her GS3 through Verizon and her battery is dying in roughly half a day. She is not a heavy user at all. In fact, her old Droid 2 would last longer than her GS3 which really has her frustrated.
I think it may be due to the fact she doesn't get a good 4G signal at work and at home. In fact, she gets 1 bar at work if she's lucky. She also said the phone is constantly bouncing back and forth between 3G and 4G while at work. She took it to Verizon today and they swapped SIM cards to be sure that wasn't the problem. Obviously that didn't work because I'm posting here. I will see her on Thursday and she want's me to look at her phone.
Do you guy's think this is most likely the reason as to why her battery is draining so fast? Also, if it is. Would there be a way I can show her how to disable 4G so her battery lasts longer?
It's most likely 3G and 4G switching back and forth or a rogue app. For to turn off the 4G it can't be done without rooting I'm pretty sure.
No, it's because you have task running. I had the same thing happen to me. If you exit an application by pressing home, the program will continue to run in the background. I had gallery take up 38% of my battery life. If you press the back button, it will FC the application.
Good bye HTC Rezound, hello Galaxy S3!
jrwingate6 said:
OK, so my wife and I both have GS3's through T-Mobile and our batteries last very long. I'm a heavy user and get a fully day while my wife is a light user and easily get's two days. My Mom on the other hand has her GS3 through Verizon and her battery is dying in roughly half a day. She is not a heavy user at all. In fact, her old Droid 2 would last longer than her GS3 which really has her frustrated.
I think it may be due to the fact she doesn't get a good 4G signal at work and at home. In fact, she gets 1 bar at work if she's lucky. She also said the phone is constantly bouncing back and forth between 3G and 4G while at work. She took it to Verizon today and they swapped SIM cards to be sure that wasn't the problem. Obviously that didn't work because I'm posting here. I will see her on Thursday and she want's me to look at her phone.
Do you guy's think this is most likely the reason as to why her battery is draining so fast? Also, if it is. Would there be a way I can show her how to disable 4G so her battery lasts longer?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm on verizon as well and I find that my battery dies extremely fast. Full charge in the morning and by bedtime its just about dead, that's with moderate use. Some things that I have found to help is I generally keep bluetooth, and gps off unless I need either. I keep power saving mode on, and really minimized what Sync's through my accounts.
It's not exactly the answer you were looking for but it should help you until a more long term solution can be figured out.
Does anyone know how to turn 4G off?
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium
Low tower signal will kill the battery very fast. Frustratingly fast. I have Verizon GS3, have very low signal at work, and I burn 8% battery per hour when phone is idle. With almost no use, my battery is down to 30% by time I go home.
At home I have good tower signal and my battery drops very slow in idle, maybe 1% per hour. At both work and home I have WiFi connected and set to keep WiFi on during sleep always. Therefore I don't think it's data traffic / sync causing the issue. Instead its hyperactive radio hardware or firmware killing itself as it constantly finds/loses tower connection. The only thing I've been able to find to reduce the drain is going into airplane mode... which is obviously a terrible option.
Hope Samsung can improve this self devouring nature in the future!
jrwingate6 said:
Does anyone know how to turn 4G off?
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
go to the playstore and download "phone info" open it and go to device information
Swith the " lte/cdma/evdo" into cdma auto (PRL)
I also turn off 4g at work due to weak signal
VERIZON GALAXY S 3
I believe its a signal search at where she spends most of her time. At my work the signal is very bad and the phone goes from 100% to 20% in 10 hours without even touching the phone. Now I turn on airplane mode and it never drops the battery.
She can disable the data and find out how much that would save her
First make sure it's not a rogue app by going into Settings -> Battery, your top 2 battery usages should be Screen and Cell Standby. As long as you don't have some random app eating away at your battery then it's definitely signal strength related. Does she have Wi-Fi available at work? If so make sure she connects to it. I have a Verizon S3 and the battery life on this phone is better than any Android phone I've ever owned (and I've had a lot). I leave GPS and Bluetooth on all day and can easily get a full day with mid to heavy usage. The biggest thing would be to get her on Wi-Fi if available. This will stop the phone from constantly trying to poll data off a poor signal and significantly increase battery life. If no Wi-Fi available, then the above post would come into play, Phone Info app and switch into cdma to keep it locked into 3g will help, but only if there's a decent 3g signal. If the 3g signal is weak also, then you're not going to help anything, and she will just need to remember to turn data sync off while she's at work.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
Try switching batteries to see if she has a defective battery. If thats not the case, then make Verizon give her a replacement S3.
Add me to the list of people who think its the signal search in low service areas.. I disabled 4G with the Phone Info app and my phone lasted way longer than before..
Since you pointed out she has a low signal, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the culprit..
Sent from my Commodore 64..
READY.
load"*",8,1
Pagaldesi4life said:
Try switching batteries to see if she has a defective battery. If thats not the case, then make Verizon give her a replacement S3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is what I did, kept the old battery too...then they swapped me for a w S3. My battery is doing much better now.
The5Venomz said:
This is what I did, kept the old battery too...then they swapped me for a w S3. My battery is doing much better now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahhh so it wasn't the battery itself?
When you got a replacement S3, did you go back to the same store where you had originally purchased them from or tried a different store?
I disabled 4G today at work with my stinky cell signal and my battery nose dived like usual. Therefore, if you have no signal, 3G/4G doesn't seem to matter. The radio hardware will still destroy itself happily.
Anyone know of a widget my Mom could use to disable data completely while she is at work?
jrwingate6 said:
Anyone know of a widget my Mom could use to disable data completely while she is at work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pull the task drawer down and uncheck mobile data. Why do you need a widget?
You might have a system process called "gsiff_daemon" draining the battery. I have that problem and others have reported that process has been draining their battery as well. Or it could be other have mentioned already, signal switching, rogue programs, etc.
Today at work I ran with mobile data off. I still had a really bad battery drain. Therefore the voice 3 g radio must be responsible. Not much we can do about that unless a new firmware comes out.
Another battery tip...
Scrappy1 said:
Today at work I ran with mobile data off. I still had a really bad battery drain. Therefore the voice 3 g radio must be responsible. Not much we can do about that unless a new firmware comes out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's also an option in the settings>developer options to restrict how many processes are running in the background, and to kill an app after leaving it. The only problem I've noticed with the second option is that the fb app won't allow you to post a status, I think because it causes it to start a new activity, which kills the main fb activity when you leave it. But limiting the background stuff seems to have saved some more juice on top of only using 3g.
getheart mcliar said:
There's also an option in the settings>developer options to restrict how many processes are running in the background, and to kill an app after leaving it. The only problem I've noticed with the second option is that the fb app won't allow you to post a status, I think because it causes it to start a new activity, which kills the main fb activity when you leave it. But limiting the background stuff seems to have saved some more juice on top of only using 3g.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Naw man, at home I have good cell signal and have almost no idle drain. At work I have terrible signal and it drains like nuts. It's not an issue with apps, processes, services, etc.
I stay in a hotel room often without free wifi. Most of the rooms I get 1-2 bars, occasionally 3. A decent amount of the time I get no 4g and sometimes signal is so weak no internet at all. I notice this destroys my battery life. Is there someway to lower the extra strain on the battery when I know I will have a weak signal anyway without using airplane mode? I wanna lower the power being used by my phone to search for stronger signal while still being able to receive texts and calls. Would prefer to keep 3G on as well when it works.
On a related note, are there any products I can buy to boost my signal that work? And is there a rom or roms that are known to have great signal strength compared to the rest out right now? Thanks for any help.
sfetaz said:
I stay in a hotel room often without free wifi. Most of the rooms I get 1-2 bars, occasionally 3. A decent amount of the time I get no 4g and sometimes signal is so weak no internet at all. I notice this destroys my battery life. Is there someway to lower the extra strain on the battery when I know I will have a weak signal anyway without using airplane mode? I wanna lower the power being used by my phone to search for stronger signal while still being able to receive texts and calls. Would prefer to keep 3G on as well when it works.
On a related note, are there any products I can buy to boost my signal that work? And is there a rom or roms that are known to have great signal strength compared to the rest out right now? Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should be fine disabling Mobile Data... You should get texts just fine and use the WiFi for all data purposes.
Im not using the wifi ever unless really important to get it, $15 everyday is too much. So i am trying to rely on mobile data.
Go download the free app "Phone Info", it will allow you to shut off 4G, shutting off 4G stops it from searching and draining your battery.
Once installed, click "Device Information" and scroll about half way down and change the drop box from "LTE/CDMA/EvDo" to "CDMA only"
Hope this helps!
I use phone info already, 3g over 4g definitely helps, but am I wrong in assuming that the phone is still destroying battery when the signal is weak even with 4g off?
I've been using both AT&T and T-Mobile (StraightTalk and T-Mobile) contract free for several months now and regardless of what my signal is on the two, I always seem to get worse battery life with StraightTalk/AT&T. Has anyone else played around with using both in the same places for an extended period of time and had the same results?
I'm trying to decide which I'm going to go with and so far even though I get LTE service in less areas with T-Mobile, I'm almost tempted to stick with them just because 1) when I do have LTE service, it's a ton faster then AT&T and 2) I get much less battery drain on T-Mobile then I do with AT&T.
Even in places where I had worse reception with T-Mobile (which less face it, is very often), I still get less battery drain then when I switch to AT&T and have a much better signal. Not sure if I'm hallucinating or if anyone else has experienced the same.
For example, at the hotel I'm currently at, while on T-Mobile my signal isn't quite as good as it is with AT&T but it takes several HOURS before my battery % drops below 90%. On AT&T I have a much better signal but yet I'll be within the low 80s after 3 or so hours.
Has anyone else tried this and if so have you noticed the same thing?
battery life is dependent on how you personally use the phone, how you set it up, and, most importantly, the quality of your phone/data connection. the quality of your phone/data connection could make or brake your battery life, by 1 or 2 screen on hours. thats a huge difference.
simms22 said:
battery life is dependent on how you personally use the phone, how you set it up, and, most importantly, the quality of your phone/data connection. the quality of your phone/data connection could make or brake your battery life, by 1 or 2 screen on hours. thats a huge difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh I realize all of that. When home and not on travel I pretty much utilize my phone at two locations. Home and Work. In both locations I used each network for about 2 weeks checking cell signals etc and using the phone the same way the entire time. During this time I've noticed one constant, my phone with AT&T always drains the battery much faster. To be honest I thought I was crazy but I double checked and ran for another couple of weeks..this time basically logging battery life with usage and connection quality. AT&T on average had a better signal but also drained the battery faster...usage was about the same through the test. So I did the same thing while basically sitting in a hotel for a few days and just letting the phone sit as I was mainly using a separate phone on Sprint. Same thing..the time I had the phone sitting there with AT&T it had almost a perfect signal but the phone drained quite a bit faster then T-Mobile with practically no utilization. Obviously I rebooted prior to each.
I realize this doesn't make any sense at all but it's something I'm noticing.
I just found your post, and I'm experiencing the exact same issue. To quote a post I just made on reddit:
I've been a T-mobile prepaid customer (the $30 5gb plan) since I've had the N5, and recently I decided to switch to Straight Talk for the better coverage (I got the AT&T compatible SIM). I've been using the Straight Talk SIM for the past week, and I've notice two very odd things:
1. Battery life is significantly worse on Straight Talk. Unfortunately I don't have any before and after screen shots, but to provide context, a typical day of usage on T-mobile would leave me with ~50% battery life at the end of the day. Now, with Straight Talk and that same usage, I'm down to 10-20%.
2. With Straight Talk, I consistently have 4-5 bars of LTE, but oftentimes when I try and load a web page, there can be about a 5 second delay before the page starts loading. Even when running the Speed Test app, when it's testing the download speed, it will sometimes completely stop mid-download for a few seconds.
Have you found any solution to the battery issue you cited in your post?
I knew I wasn't nuts!
http://bgr.com/2014/08/06/best-smartphone-battery-life-t-mobile/
ParadingLunatic said:
I knew I wasn't nuts!
http://bgr.com/2014/08/06/best-smartphone-battery-life-t-mobile/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
again, it still fits right in, its the data/phone signal quality that decides the battery life, as i wrote earlier. lowered quality = lowered battery life, period.
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.