Database Info

Easy steps for battery life preservation

This is not a guarantee of battery life extension or performance. These are merely steps (in most cases) to possibly help prolong and restore battery longevity.
First lets understand something about battery charging. The most common mistake is to overcharge a battery. While one is inclined to charge when they see the low battery message, overcharging is detrimental to the battery. This is not good for the life expectancy of your cell phone battery, especially if you are expecting longer life from your battery. Over charging heats the battery, and drains its life expectancy.
Second, it would appear that after flashing (ROM’s, Kernel’s etc.) multiple times, your battery might not hold a charge all that well. Trying these steps may help improve battery life.
> Turn the phone on. Plug in the charger (not the USB to computer) and charge completely> Disconnect the charger and turn off the phone> Once completely shut down, plug the charger back into the phone. Let the phone completely charge, while phone is off. In some cases the phone may give a tone when charged. You can check its status by touching the volume up or down> Once again unplug the phone from the charger> These next steps are curcial. 1.Turn the phone on (give it time to boot completely) 2. Power it off again. 3. Connect to the charger once again. 4. Let charge to full one more time. Unplug the phone!
In most cases, this procedure need only be done once. Remember turn off bluetooth, intranet and other applications when not in use. These accessories pu a tremendous drain on a cell phones battery life. This is why they should be turned off, when not in use.

The old battery recalibration trick?

tomween1 said:
This is not a guarantee of battery life extension or performance. These are merely steps (in most cases) to possibly help prolong and restore battery longevity.
First lets understand something about battery charging. The most common mistake is to overcharge a battery. While one is inclined to charge when they see the low battery message, overcharging is detrimental to the battery. This is not good for the life expectancy of your cell phone battery, especially if you are expecting longer life from your battery. Over charging heats the battery, and drains its life expectancy.
Second, it would appear that after flashing (ROM’s, Kernel’s etc.) multiple times, your battery might not hold a charge all that well. Trying these steps may help improve battery life.
> Turn the phone on. Plug in the charger (not the USB to computer) and charge completely> Disconnect the charger and turn off the phone> Once completely shut down, plug the charger back into the phone. Let the phone completely charge, while phone is off. In some cases the phone may give a tone when charged. You can check its status by touching the volume up or down> Once again unplug the phone from the charger> These next steps are curcial. 1.Turn the phone on (give it time to boot completely) 2. Power it off again. 3. Connect to the charger once again. 4. Let charge to full one more time. Unplug the phone!
In most cases, this procedure need only be done once. Remember turn off bluetooth, intranet and other applications when not in use. These accessories pu a tremendous drain on a cell phones battery life. This is why they should be turned off, when not in use.
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Click to collapse
i feel like i do this every time i recharge my battery because every time i charge to 100% then turn it off and plug it in, it takes another 5 min to charge to 100 while its off. Literally, every time i bump charge it.

cumanzor said:
The old battery recalibration trick?
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Click to collapse
Mhmm, an explanation of the bump charge. Been written here before, but eh. Maybe someone lost theirs. I lost my txt file with the instructions a while back lol.

The way I see it these instructions only help to provide a more accurate battery count. Whether the battery is displaying correctly or not, juice in the battery is juice in the battery. Nothing more nothing less. This whole battery issue is ridiculous.
I think it'd be a good idea to remove the battery icon from the notification bar all together.

ninjuh said:
Whether the battery is displaying correctly or not, juice in the battery is juice in the battery. Nothing more nothing less. This whole battery issue is ridiculous.
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Click to collapse
No. Your phone has software in it to detect how much battery life is left for a variety of reasons; it turns more battery-intense functionality off at 5%, the camera for instance, and keeps enough battery power so that it can run its shutdown procedure, instead of just dying and losing whatever's in memory at the time.
You also don't want your phone thinking that 19% battery is 1% and turning off or telling you to charge it, as charging a battery that isn't fully discharged is a great way to lose long-term battery life. Additionally, how much would it suck if your phone software thought that 75% was 100% and stopped charging? You could then be leaving for the day with 3/4 of your battery, thinking it was full.
There are plenty of reasons to want this to be as accurate as possible. Unless you just don't give a crap if your phone is usable or not

delugeofspam said:
No. Your phone has software in it to detect how much battery life is left for a variety of reasons; it turns more battery-intense functionality off at 5%, the camera for instance, and keeps enough battery power so that it can run its shutdown procedure, instead of just dying and losing whatever's in memory at the time.
You also don't want your phone thinking that 19% battery is 1% and turning off or telling you to charge it, as charging a battery that isn't fully discharged is a great way to lose long-term battery life. Additionally, how much would it suck if your phone software thought that 75% was 100% and stopped charging? You could then be leaving for the day with 3/4 of your battery, thinking it was full.
There are plenty of reasons to want this to be as accurate as possible. Unless you just don't give a crap if your phone is usable or not
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The "software" won't ever be off by more than 10%.

delugeofspam said:
...as charging a battery that isn't fully discharged is a great way to lose long-term battery life.
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Click to collapse
Not true with lithium ion batteries. They don't have charge memory.
ninjuh said:
The "software" won't ever be off by more than 10%.
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[citation needed]

I was having all kinds of issues with my battery draining too fast. I unplugged at 7:30AM and by 10:30AM it would be at 60%. I tried the bump charge and all that, but then I realized "It's the apps, stupid!" I started running a task killer after I unplugged it, and now I'm making it to noontime and I'm only down to 80%.
TLR: Keep your apps in check, they are what eat your battery.

ninjuh said:
The "software" won't ever be off by more than 10%.
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Click to collapse
A few days ago my phone shut off after draining the battery - before it shut off the battery was less than 1%. i let it sit for ten minutes or so then turned it on. - it showed 16%.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

i do this ALL the time!

If you are running a custom rom it is also good to delete the battery charge stats when booting back up after step 4. If you have CWM just boot into recovery, go to advanced, then clear battery stats.
There is a way to clear it if you don't have CWM, but I don't remember what it is and I think most people have CWM anyways.

I check my apps frequently. One day my weather widget was going nuts and was using GPS non stop. I pulled my phone out at lunch and the battery was in the yellow. Granted I haven't seen that happen again it has made me reconsider even using apps/ widgets with GPS

widgets kill battery. I had several pages of widgets and I had to wipe by phone, remarkable how much "better" the battery was after that. Weather widgets look great but it costs to run them.

majortool said:
widgets kill battery. I had several pages of widgets and I had to wipe by phone, remarkable how much "better" the battery was after that. Weather widgets look great but it costs to run them.
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I've a feeling it has less to do with the actual widget and more to do with their constant updating when there is a poor or nonexistant connection.
Sent from my custom ROM'd Captivate

BigJayDogg3 said:
I've a feeling it has less to do with the actual widget and more to do with their constant updating when there is a poor or nonexistant connection.
Sent from my custom ROM'd Captivate
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't download the anaimation sub-app. update on the hour (or 2) instead of 15 -30 min.

I would love some advice as a noob here. I've only had my Cappy for a little over 2 weeks. I've done the battery calibrate trick, but still don't see very good battery life. I unplugged from the charger at 100% at 10pm last night and left the phone on all night. Wifi and GPS were turned off. Beautiful Widgets is set to update weather every hour. The phone received 7 sms messages during the night. When the alarm went off at 6:30am I was at 70%. It's 10am now, so it's been off the charger for 12 hours. Here is what I show:
Voice Calls 34%
Cell Standby 23%
Phone Idle 16%
Display 15%
Android System 4%
Beautiful Widgets 3%
Android OS 3%
Android Core Apps 2%
antivirus 2%
Battery currently shows 51% left
I'm running stock Eclair JH7, build 1101
Would anyone suggest Advanced Task Killer or Juice Defender?

There are some good tips for prolonging and caring for your Battery here: (Can't post links, google search: site:arstechnica.com battery life ask ars)
However, cell phone batteries rarely run over $30 (I have seen capivate batteries as low as $13), if you just always fully charge it you will still see a good 8-12 months out of it, and then just buy a new one. $30 a year is worth it to me to just let the thing fully charge so that I can use it for longer.

kb0npw said:
Would anyone suggest Advanced Task Killer or Juice Defender?
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PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL ANY OF THESE BEFORE READING
http://www.xda-developers.com/android/the-view-on-task-managers-for-android/
If you fully charge and run the battery, done several times, the battery will eventually run better. Surprisingly, there is a "break in" period for the battery.

I appreciate the advice on the task killers and such. I don't use one, and after reading that stuff, I won't. I pulled my phone off the charger yesterday at about 1pm. By the time I played some games, did some web browsing, made some calls and did some texting, it was still at 70% when I went to bed at around 10pm. This morning at 7am, I was shocked to find that it was still at 67%! I don't have a clue what was different. It typically hogs up 25-30% overnight, but this time it only did 3%. I wish I knew what was different. This is so weird!

Purposely drained battery, charged for 2 minutes, restarted, now at 50%

I'm on CM10 8/31 and I've been noticing that my battery life has been really poor lately, so I wanted to find out what the problem was. I thought about draining my battery fully and then charging it again. Once I drained the battery, I charged it, and restarted the phone after the charging began. Once the phone booted, it reported a 50% or so charge. I'm wondering if my phone is stuck at reporting battery at half capacity, and that when it charges to 100%, it's actually 50%. Anything I can do?
EDIT: Also, I should note that the battery has sometimes spiked up/down by about 20% after a reboot (including today before the drain).

This phone has a fuel gauge chip, fully discharging and recharging will not calibrate it. False readings after reboot are common, you may even notice it will climb back up as it begins to accurately reflect level.
There are apps to let you know what is causing drain. BetterBatteryStats and CPUSpy are recommended a lot.

ALBGunner04 said:
I'm on CM10 8/31 and I've been noticing that my battery life has been really poor lately, so I wanted to find out what the problem was. I thought about draining my battery fully and then charging it again. Once I drained the battery, I charged it, and restarted the phone after the charging began. Once the phone booted, it reported a 50% or so charge. I'm wondering if my phone is stuck at reporting battery at half capacity, and that when it charges to 100%, it's actually 50%. Anything I can do?
EDIT: Also, I should note that the battery has sometimes spiked up/down by about 20% after a reboot (including today before the drain).
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Entropy doesn't frequent our forum much anymore, but he left some nuggets of wisdom behind.
As you have probably seen, he mentioned several times that generally our fuel gage doesn't need much attention. It may get a little out of whack if you have heavy usage followed by reboot, but generally the error is short-lived and goes away quickly (within an hour or so).
But apparently sometimes the fuel gage gets really confused, and in that case you can reset it (to un-confuse it) by powering down and pulling battery for 20-30 seconds. It certainly can't hurt to try.. that's what you try for any computer that was acting weird. That was discussed by Entropy here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1209087&highlight=+gingerbread+fuel+gauge+
By the way, here is a link to the fuel gage chip (MAX17040) used in Infuse
http://datasheets.maximintegrated.com/en/ds/MAX17040-MAX17041.pdf
It has a heuristic model of the battery. The only input is the battery voltage. So it looks at time history of voltage and provides an output signal. Exactly what the output is I’m not sure. You’d think it would be an estimate of %. But according to the circuit diagram there is no inputs to the MAX17040 other than battery voltage.
And yet our phone also knows when it’s charging. And our Infuse phone also has a sensor that enables it to measure current while charging (but not to measure current while discharging). This according to the developer of Battery Monitor Widget:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=31295223&highlight=infuse#post31295223
Why the heck would we not use sensed charging current and charging status as an input to calculating our % battery (since the signal does not go to the Max17040)? Beats me, doesn't make sense. Maybe the output of he fuel gage chip goes to the integrated power chip MAX8998 which looks at these other inputs (charging status and charging current) and develops the % estimate... I’m not sure.

[Q] Why do I lose 3% battery in 10 mins, then it's fine after that?

Not sure what's happening with my phone, but after removing the plug on my fully charged phone, I will let my phone sit idle for about 10 mins, when I go wake the screen, I see that I've already lost 3% of battery capacity.
The weird part is after this initial 3% is gone, my battery will drain normally. Does this mean I need to calibrate my battery? Is there anyway to do this without damaging it?

It means you need to get a new hobby... seriously, why do you care if it changes nothing what so ever. In order to fix this, you should try not checking your battery percentage every 2 minutes. On the upside, this will probably give you another half hour of battery life as well.(damn a change of attitude would fix like 90% of problems on this site)
On a more serious note, it's likely just because your phone doesn't keep charging when it hits full charge, it stops charging in order to not kill your battery, and lets it drain to like 90% at which point it will charge back up to 100%, so it may be at any point in between when you disconnect it. Even if it is truly at 100% when you disconnect the charger, the measurements may not be completely accurate when approaching 100%, so it is likely, that could make it drop faster at first. You need to do nothing in order to fix this, seriously don't mess with it.

CoronaDelux said:
Not sure what's happening with my phone, but after removing the plug on my fully charged phone, I will let my phone sit idle for about 10 mins, when I go wake the screen, I see that I've already lost 3% of battery capacity.
The weird part is after this initial 3% is gone, my battery will drain normally. Does this mean I need to calibrate my battery? Is there anyway to do this without damaging it?
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Click to collapse
Are you running stock or custom kernel and any custom ROM? Ive noticed this sometimes too but that's because the phone, when unplugged is running services to start phone on battery power versus the cord/wall charger. Check logcats to see what happens when phone unplugged to see what may be happening when phone starts on battery.

I think you are worrying about it a little too much. It could be searching for service (which drains a lot of battery), starting services as someone previously said, heat is horrible for a battery, anything. If the drain is normal after that who knows it could be the ROM you are on, battery percentage not being reported correctly.
Not worth an RMA by any means. Reset battery stats in recovery and see how that works out for you.

Bear in mind, these batteries are cell batteries, a user who plugs their phone in every time the battery hits 50%, is going to notice over a period of time the time it takes to go from 100% to 50% is shorter and shorter, and suddenly, 49%-0 holds a better charge. If you're constantly charging your phone, you'll wear those cells of your battery down. This is where the "hoax" of always letting your battery drain to 0% when you get it to "maximize" battery potential came from.

Over charge battery?

Hi.
I charge my phone overnight. 8 hours. Will that degrade the battery? Or does the phone prevent over charging?
Thanks in advance.

I wouldn't worry about it

No, if you leave it on 16 hours you'll get 200% battery level. Brilliant

RogerNZ said:
Hi.
I charge my phone overnight. 8 hours. Will that degrade the battery? Or does the phone prevent over charging?
Thanks in advance.
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Click to collapse
The phone prevents overcharging, however it is still not good for the battery to
a) always charge it to 100%
b) keep it at 100% for 8hours

The general advice is to keep the battery between 20 - 80%. Granted, most people need a full charge to start the day and some people don't hold on to their phones for long.
Fast charging degenerates the battery faster, a fact oems omit to point out in their quest for faster charging speeds.
If you're not in a rush, you should just use a normal charger.

No damage done
And any long term effects will not be noticeable
By the time you notice any battery degeneration from keeping it at 100% you'd probably be on another phone.

hi are you rooted? if so I suggest you use an app called Battery Charge Limit. You can set when your device stops charging (preferably at 80%) and when it starts charging back up again. Again, you need root.

Since launch, most of the time I do 20-80%. So far so good

Fast battery drain from an year old device. Is there any way to slow charging speed?

So my 4a has been having fast battery drain since few months now. I remember it having very good battery life initially. However now it drains battery very fast.
This is also surprising since I keep brightness low due to me being sensitive to it.. and also keep the phone charged upto 80% capacity only as I read that it prolongs battery life.
One thing I could note is that the phone drains slower in the 80 - 100 % range if the phone gets fully charged occasionally.
Hence I have been suspecting the 'rapid' charging which is enabled by default on stock charger to be one cause.
Is there some way to enable slower charging like what happens in case of 'Adaptive charging' post 80% capacity? I hope that will lead to lesser wearing down of battery.

Don't use a compatible cable/charger and it'll change slowly. I don't think any PC I've connected to can do rapid charging, for example, and the cheap USB chargers I have definitely can't do it, only the one that came with the phone can do it.

purezen said:
So my 4a has been having fast battery drain since few months now. I remember it having very good battery life initially. However now it drains battery very fast.
This is also surprising since I keep brightness low due to me being sensitive to it.. and also keep the phone charged upto 80% capacity only as I read that it prolongs battery life.
One thing I could note is that the phone drains slower in the 80 - 100 % range if the phone gets fully charged occasionally.
Hence I have been suspecting the 'rapid' charging which is enabled by default on stock charger to be one cause.
Is there some way to enable slower charging like what happens in case of 'Adaptive charging' post 80% capacity? I hope that will lead to lesser wearing down of battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's more likely an app that drain your battery in background than your battery dying already. Quick charge and adaptive charge are made to not harm the battery.
Are you rooted? If yes, install Franco kernel manager app from playstore.
In first page you'll see your battery life estimation (from system) and clicking on live monitor go-to the processes tab.
Just like top cmd on Linux you'll see which process is active and how much cpu it use
For me as an exemple i realized that when I'm using YouTube music. The AdAway app goes crazy and drain my battery. And its something that's not shown on settings/battety tab.

Fast charging stresses the battery more than slow charging. That said I almost always fast charge. I expect 1-2 years of battery life on my N10+'s though.
Charging past 80% or discharging below 30% stresses the battery; Li's like frequent midrange power cycling.
Don't start charging below 72F, 82F or higher is best. High temp cut off is about 102F.
Never attempt to charge a battery colder than 40F!!!
Erratic fast charging is a sign of battery failure.
A rapid decline in capacity is another sign of a battery failure.
Any rear cover bulging ie battery swelling is a failure, replace asap.
Once a battery is below 80% of it's original capacity it's degraded and has reached the end of its service life, replace it.
Degraded Li's are more likely to fail which can easily destroy the phone.
If the phone is used heavily or is 2-3 years old, probably time to replace the battery. Just do it.
On most phones the cost is low.

a1291762 said:
Don't use a compatible cable/charger and it'll change slowly. I don't think any PC I've connected to can do rapid charging, for example, and the cheap USB chargers I have definitely can't do it, only the one that came with the phone can do it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine does rapid one only Thankfully connecting a usb to a socket board does non-rapid

Dead-neM said:
It's more likely an app that drain your battery in background than your battery dying already. Quick charge and adaptive charge are made to not harm the battery.
Are you rooted? If yes, install Franco kernel manager app from playstore.
In first page you'll see your battery life estimation (from system) and clicking on live monitor go-to the processes tab.
Just like top cmd on Linux you'll see which process is active and how much cpu it use
For me as an exemple i realized that when I'm using YouTube music. The AdAway app goes crazy and drain my battery. And its something that's not shown on settings/battety tab.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the response
Frankly don't have that much usage of my phone. Will give sometime to observing with non rapid charging. Will give this a try if that still persists.

blackhawk said:
Fast charging stresses the battery more than slow charging. That said I almost always fast charge. I expect 1-2 years of battery life on my N10+'s though.
Charging past 80% or discharging below 30% stresses the battery; Li's like frequent midrange power cycling.
Don't start charging below 72F, 82F or higher is best. High temp cut off is about 102F.
Never attempt to charge a battery colder than 40F!!!
Erratic fast charging is a sign of battery failure.
A rapid decline in capacity is another sign of a battery failure.
Any rear cover bulging ie battery swelling is a failure, replace asap.
Once a battery is below 80% of it's original capacity it's degraded and has reached the end of its service life, replace it.
Degraded Li's are more likely to fail which can easily destroy the phone.
If the phone is used heavily or is 2-3 years old, probably time to replace the battery. Just do it.
On most phones the cost is low.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the response. That was insightful

UPDATE:
Started slow-er charging since few days now.. and I really feel that the battery performance has considerably improved
Also update to Android 12 since few days as well so not sure if that has a role to play though I don't think so

purezen said:
UPDATE:
Started slow-er charging since few days now.. and I really feel that the battery performance has considerably improved
Also update to Android 12 since few days as well so not sure if that has a role to play though I don't think so
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it seems to work better... I don't see any difference on my N10+'s though. Run times are the same slow/fast charging.
Keep a close eye on it as erratic fast charging is a sign of battery failure... I have seen that