Related
This thread refers to cases where the HTC Kaiser (and probably other HTC phone models with the same built-in GPS chip, such as Polaris) sucks the battery empty within a single day, particularly during standby, particularly if all features of the phone are DISABLED, or after low usage. Another symptom may be a phone which unexpectedly did not come back to life, but operated normally after recharging. Yet another symptom is unusually short battery life through normal use. Note, this thread is not about limited battery endurance due to heavy usage.
*** Battery drain FAQ ***
How can I see whether my Kaiser is affected?
- A large percentage of HTC phones with Qualcomm chipset and internal GPS seems to suffer from the bug described here, some appear to be robust enough, likely depending on chip revisions. If you never ever use GPS, you are probably out of risk. If you use GPS at least occasionally, you should have a look at your phone, and closely. It is possible that an otherwise normal to heavy use of the phone conceals a basic, added current consumption which is what we are talking about here. In such a situation you may have got used to a certain battery endurance, which may be much higher under normal circumstances. So far I observed currents between 28 and 78 mA, depending on DUT and OS. Some users reported currents in excess of 100mA. Note, this added current does nothing for you, except accelerate your battery drain!
How to check this?
- Check the true standby current (see the following description). That simple.
How to measure the standby current?
- Clean up: switch all phone features off (GPS, Phone, Bluetooth, Media Player, really everything). Terminate all applications, use Task Manager to verify this. Make sure no processor intensive background tasks are running (standard installations should meet this requirement). Do NOT soft reset at this point!
- Put the phone in standby, and wait approx. 10 seconds. The phone needs a while to complete entering the standby though it appears to be off immediately.
- Now measure the current. Best and fastest way of doing it would be to have a current meter connected between your battery and your phone which gives you realtime readouts. Second to that is a suitable battery tool, such as "BatteryStatus", but you have to get used to the delayed current display (see post #4 for details). Using the software battery gauge, you should wait an additional 20 seconds or so to allow for the current capture, then reactivate from standby and take the lowest possible current readout.
- If the phone is in a good condition, the standby current must be in the range 1..3 mA, roughly. If you see a repeatable current well in excess of 20mA, your phone is in the BAD condition !!
- Another simple method is to leave the cleaned up phone in standby overnight. Next morning, soft reset your phone because the phone may have lost track of the battery capacity. Check whether the capacity dropped dramatically. And also check whether the phone feels warm to the touch.
How to reproduce the problem?
- Activate GPS until you get a fix. Probably receiving the first NMEA strings is good enough, but I have not verified this. GPSTest, HTC's GPS Tool or any navigation software does the job.
- Deactivate GPS. Just to be safe, terminate the GPS software, too.
- Check the standby current.
- The fault does not pop up always, so you may have to repeat these steps several times until it appears. The phones I tested usually catch fever after only one or two tries, but it is possible that you need to cycle through this procedure 5 or 10 times. Which is in the nature of intermittent bugs.
How to reset this nasty condition?
- Fault recovery is possible by continued on/off cycling of the GPS unit, similar to what provoked this fault.
- Activating the cellphone unit does also seem to cause the phone to return to a low consumption, but maybe not in all cases.
- Try to soft reset your phone, or to cycle the power to the phone (long press of the power button).
- If you really cannot get rid of the problem, back up your phone data, then execute a hard reset. BEFORE restoring the phone, load a battery gauge software and see whether the consumption is gone. If yes, some application is likely to cause your headaches.
After performing one of the above steps you may repeat the described current measurement, to confirm that the standby current is back in the normal range.
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Original text:
I have reason to believe that all Kaiser models are prone to the "excessive standby current consumption" problem. I tried it on two original "VPA compact V" by Vodafone (= HTC Kaiser), using the original WM6, ROM 1.56.162.5, Radio 1.27.12.11. I gave a **** on warranty now, stepped up through HardSPL to "Duttys_Official_WM6.1_Rom_5.2.19716_UC.zip", Radio 1.64.08.21. The results are all the same: an excessive current consumption which can vary between 25 and 75 mA. Interestingly, the current is always the same in a specific setup, but varies between phones and operating systems. In the latest case, the same phone took 28mA under WM6, went up to 78mA under WM61. Consequence being, the battery will be sucked empty within a day or so, without obvious reason. The only mitigation is a reset, or a complete switch-off.
There is no application which could cause the current consumption, at least none I installed. It does not even matter which GPS application you used. The only active processes are (according to TaskManager, latest WM6.1 version, ".exe" omitted for the sake of ease): filesys, device, biotouch, gwes, shell32, cprog, services, quickdial, connmgr, mediahubmini, taskmgr, htcactionscreen, sapsettings, aplauncher, quickmenu, nk. I repeat: ALL applications properly terminated, ALL internal units are OFF (WLAN, Bluetooth, Phone, GPRS, GPS, Camera, Media Player etc. - really NOTHING).
Before anybody prematurely states that these findings can not be reproduced: the problem is unlikely to appear if you switch on the GPS for a couple of NMEA strings, then off again (though it did already). If need be, you have to leave it on for a while, play a bit, walk around a bit and so on. Take your time testing it _thoroughly_, really. I cannot tell when the fault actually appears, and it may not come up immediately because it seems somewhat sporadic in nature - but take my word, it will, I observed this issue for a long enough time. I can only repeat myself: I am sure there is something wrong with the power management in the GPS driver.
Anybody, feel free to contribute, but PLEASE avoid funny statements like "you have to shut down all programs", "WLAN can take up lots of energy" and so on. And before you express doubts just because there are not quite many people out there who come to the same conclusions, think again. Without going into details, most users are simply not in the position to come to the correct conclusions.
BusterTyTN
OK, making it sticky; depending on the feedback, I (or other mods) may unstick it in the future.
How do you measure current while in standby? When it's running, I can see current usage in the battery monitor of AE Button plus. Just after wake up from standby, it shows 16ma. A few seconds later it jumps to 385ma and then settles at 140ma.
I'm using 3.02.DKv0.0 6.1 Lite Rom from akadonny.
@ Menneisyys: thanx!
@ tdusen:
there's two ways of doing it. First, I do not know whether "AE Button plus" works in a similar way, but "BatteryStatus" (also included in Dutty's newest WM61 release) has some seconds of a delay in the current display. I assume this is because of an averaging process running in the background which collects current samples over a certain period of time, or soemthing to this effect. Anyway; you have to keep your in standby for at least 10..20 seconds, then reactivate the PDA. If it's still showing a high current, tip on the current/power display a few times, in most cases this helps getting the low standby current. You simply have to try to catch the lowest reading, right after reactivation from standby. If everything is OK, you will get a current reading of a few mA, maximum (in most cases 1..3 mA), assuming you shut every feature of your phone off.
The other way is also the verification of the "BatteryStatus" method. I built a current shunt test probe and measured the battery current directly. Attached is a screenshot taken with my digital scope, which shows typical results (see above -- moved to post #1).
In your case - just to be safe, give your PDA a soft reset, and leave everything off. Check your current reading. If it's still at 16mA as you wrote, I wouldn't bother. Later you may fire up a GPS application like GPSTest, the HTC GPSTool, Tomtom, OziExplorerCE or whatever, and play with it for a while. Running a circle or two around your house should do it. Switch GPS off again, make sure all tasks have ended (if you want to make it perfect). Repeat checking the current as described above. It is also possible that you have to redo the test one or two times until the problem appears. You will see!
BusterTyTN
Addendum to the previous post: explanation of the screenshot.
The vertical center is zero current, discharge currents are going down. To the very left you see the PDA coming out of a soft reset, then I switched it into standby (the short flat line right before the 200sec division, ~0..1mA). Directly at the 200sec division I reactivated the phone, started GPSTest, waited until GPS was all up and running, stopped GPS and terminated the program. I also checked that no other applications were running at that time. After a little while the current settled to a discharge current of approx. 48 mA (the wide track in the center; the exact level can vary between devices). It continues drawing this amount of current until the battery is empty, or until you soft reset the device. I did the latter to the right of the screenshot, which shows another boot sequence followed by a standby, which in turn returned to a very low current consumption.
Also give a try to acbTaskMan - it's a very nice meter tool, see my related articles
I don't know anything about current measurement, but my kaiser usually lasts 2-3 days of intensive use (1-2 hours calls/day + some GPRS data + bluetooth always on + GPS once a week) and it seems quite OK for such device.
Rumcajs_tr said:
I don't know anything about current measurement, but my kaiser usually lasts 2-3 days of intensive use (1-2 hours calls/day + some GPRS data + bluetooth always on + GPS once a week) and it seems quite OK for such device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seriously thats gr8... What ROM / Radio are you using??
Rumcajs_tr said:
I don't know anything about current measurement, but my kaiser usually lasts 2-3 days of intensive use (1-2 hours calls/day + some GPRS data + bluetooth always on + GPS once a week) and it seems quite OK for such device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's intensive????????
How about 5-6 HOURS of calls a day
4-5 HOURS a day of HSDPA
checking emails every 15 minutes on 3 email accounts
sending emails 60-75 times a day
WI-FI 1-2 hours a day
150 SMS/Texts a day
10-20 MMS a day
and then a few misc. apps ran.
To me, my usage is not really intensive, but I do have to have a car charger and a couple of wall chargers because I can run a battery dead in about 5 hours.
i played doom for 30 minutes starting at 100% battery, and the battery was at 75% afterwards. i had to charge it for about 30+ minutes to get it back up.
On a daily basis, i will go to school, leave my phone in my pocket on standby, then by the end of school its at about 80%. i did nothing all day and it dropped 20%.
I would agree, 5-6 hours is probably the max i can get out of it.
BusterTyTN said:
...
I have reason to believe that all Kaiser models are prone to the "excessive standby current consumption" problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At least two devices work nicely as far as battey power is concerned.
I still enjoy more than 10 days standby with phone switched on.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1652208#post1652208
I hope you'll find a solution.
Regards,
V
T-Mobile Germany
VARIO III rom 1.56.111.4
radio 1.27.12.11
When my phone is on, but not running any active apps, it consumes about 145 mA - 150 mA with nothing but my phone on and backlight lower 3rd bar.
I've read some others guys on the forum have a power consumption of about 100 mA with higher backlight settings.
indeed excessive consumption
I must confirm the OP's finding. Though I assume it is simply related to the Radio used (see comparison in another thread where est. time of usage went from 227 to +400 minutes)
When I used my stock rom with radio 1.27, I wouls still have 40-50% cap using all day Blutooth on, no 3G, still GPS enabled for 3 hours.
When I falshed to DCS 1.7 and changed radio to 1.64, power consumption doubled, draining the battery at incredible speed (full chare morning, less than 10% in late afternoon)
I had to disable BT radio and set backlight low to let me go through the end of the day.
Looking forward to read a solution here.
With stock orange radio and rom, my device would last circa 36 hrs with very light usage and about 6/7 hours with heavy usage.
With Dutty V3 and orange stock radio (1.27) I got very similar, maybe slightly faster drain.
I have today flashed dutty 6.1 and a 1.64 radio and will monitor battery usage tomorrow.
There's a lot of anecdotal information here...
To get this to baseline information I suggest the following starting point:
1. Device (Kaiser, tilt, etc)
2. Which battery are you using (brand, mAh rating, etc)
3. Which Rom and radio version
4. What application are you using to measure current draw? (Great spot for a recommendation or a .CAB file)
5. Provide typical usage description and corresponding battery life
6. At what point do you charge the battery (i.e. top off every night, charge whenever power's available, recharge only when battery hits low level (i.e. 10%)
To effectively analyze the data, there needs to be a consistent method of capture.
Be careful not to mix up the problems here!!!
1. I assume you will not be confronted with this problem when you never use GPS at all, though you should not treat this as a final statement - has to be investigated further. So far I have not found any increased standby consumption if I did not touch GPS (well, at least after the last soft reset).
2. I am not talking about short battery uptime under heavy use, either. For instance, if you have GPS permanently on, you can suck the battery empty within 4~5 hours, max.. However, it is well possible that a suspiciously short uptime is somewhat concealed by an overall heavy use of the phone. To figure this out, you simply have to check the standby current consumption of a suspicious phone, with all its features (temporarily) disabled, as described earlier.
3. Note, this problem is all about current consumption during standby !
@ Liquidsilver:
"anecdotal information", sure. Please read again, particularly the start of the thread which will answer most of your questions. Add the thread "TyTN II / Kaiser issue: GPS & battery drain" for the remaining ones.
Please try to understand. You can get the phone into a condition where it sucks the battery dead empty within 24 hours give or take, during standby, all features of the phone OFF. ZERO usage. PROVEN, some 10 times, on different Kaiser's, using different OS's.
@ Stay0Puft:
if your battery capacity does not drop much overnight, you may look at an issue other than the one described here.
I would like to add my observation to high battery drain. Normally on my stock Kaiser rom that I used for about 4 months, normal overnight drain is 4% with radio in standby and BT On, WiFi Off. I use GPS with iGuidance almost daily and seldom soft reset.
I have witnessed extremely high power drain only a few times and they were always involved somehow with WiFi. If I have WiFi On and forget to turn it off and just put the phone in standby or let it auto power off, I have found the phone hot to the touch and dead or close to dead in only a couple of hours. The phone is usually locked up and non responsive at this point, needing a soft reset. I haven't found what causes this, it's been at home on my wireless LAN but with no active application, WiFi was simply on. I make it a point to keep WiFi Off when not actively needed and never have issues in many months of use.
If you haven't checked this out, I'd be curious to see what the current meter would show. At some point I'll drag out the scope and make a shunt as well, just no time these days...
AT&T Tilt...
I used to get 2-3 days with mediocre usage when i first bought it... and now i'm lucky if it lasts an entire day... I cannot trust it with my morning alarm anymore... I dont think its the ROM, because i even tried flashing AT&T Tilt rom back on and even the minor update on HTC... but still no luck... I think i need like a calibrator program...
I think if the battery life is so small, all the spacial functions like WiFi, GPS, video, movies are useless for example for a person that are not carrying an extra battery like me....
I have turned off wifi, 3g and so on to preserve mu battery...
So every time I want to wifi-ing, or GPS-ing like 20-30min I'm scared that I will got in the middle of the day with battery down and phone off....
So like that I'm avoiding to use all the nice features of the Tilt
What you think about it?
I think you're bored with killing kittens in the dark.
khaytsus said:
I think you're bored with killing kittens in the dark.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not bored, I have it for a month, and I realized it!
Hi There...
You can do what I do... Whenever I use the GPS, I have it plugged in my car charger (I have one of those USB adaptor things and just use a retractable data cable).. I bought my Tilt used, had it well over a year now, and still have the original battery.. I typicalyl get 2 to 3 days use before I have to recharge... and I use Wifi quite a bit (my carriers internet services are great for TomTom and such.. but too slow for streaming or anything that needs broadband)... I dont; charge it though unless it is udner 5% usually.. if it is close, I will play some graphic intensive games liek Worms World Party for a while to get the battery down where I like to charge it at... When in the car, I always use the charger because I don;t think it really charges it while TomTom is running.. Usually I still have WiFi on.. when that kicks off the Wireless GPRS interent kicks in... and then with the GPS chip... and got the screen on BRIGHT when it is in the car... It uses the power at about the same rate I am using it (atleast thats my logic) The battery always seems to be at about hte same point it was when I first plugged it in give or take a few perfect if I have been using it for hours on a road trip...
Teej53214 said:
Hi There...
You can do what I do... Whenever I use the GPS, I have it plugged in my car charger (I have one of those USB adaptor things and just use a retractable data cable).. I bought my Tilt used, had it well over a year now, and still have the original battery.. I typicalyl get 2 to 3 days use before I have to recharge... and I use Wifi quite a bit (my carriers internet services are great for TomTom and such.. but too slow for streaming or anything that needs broadband)... I dont; charge it though unless it is udner 5% usually.. if it is close, I will play some graphic intensive games liek Worms World Party for a while to get the battery down where I like to charge it at... When in the car, I always use the charger because I don;t think it really charges it while TomTom is running.. Usually I still have WiFi on.. when that kicks off the Wireless GPRS interent kicks in... and then with the GPS chip... and got the screen on BRIGHT when it is in the car... It uses the power at about the same rate I am using it (atleast thats my logic) The battery always seems to be at about hte same point it was when I first plugged it in give or take a few perfect if I have been using it for hours on a road trip...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good, but I walk in mountains w/o a car , or wifi-ing on the street so..
What radio are you using? You may need to change to a less energy-intensive radio to preserve battery life. Keep the screen only as bright as you need it, as a really bright screen will drain the battery. Also, put the phone on lock and then turn it off to keep it from coming back on when you're not using it. I'm easily able to get a day or two from my battery by doing all of this, and I use the phone a lot.
Gibbs said:
What radio are you using? You may need to change to a less energy-intensive radio to preserve battery life. Keep the screen only as bright as you need it, as a really bright screen will drain the battery. Also, put the phone on lock and then turn it off to keep it from coming back on when you're not using it. I'm easily able to get a day or two from my battery by doing all of this, and I use the phone a lot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm with:
PC ultimate v 11
radio 1.65.16.25
when I'm with turn off mode (push the off button to turn off monitor) it can last 3-4 days, but when I use it, like, call-5min or music-5min or gps-10min it goes down like 15% and simething like this (beem a bicture to PC - down 3-4%, and so on)...
Check your battery, ROM version,...
With heavy use I can last a whole day (3G connected all the time, maybe 30mins of browsing, 1-2 calls, 3 hours of music, 30mins GPS), with light use 2-3 days.
Maybe try flashing a different radio, to see if a different one improves your battery life. I recently went to a new ROM, and have tried five different radios to find the one that gives me great reception, but doesn't drain my battery in a few hours. Three of the radios drained my battery so fast that I was running out of power in the middle of the day. Another radio had poor reception. My current radio seems to be giving me good reception without draining the battery so quickly. It all depends on what works for your ROM, device and location, so it's trial and error until you find what works best for you.
Gibbs said:
Maybe try flashing a different radio, to see if a different one improves your battery life. I recently went to a new ROM, and have tried five different radios to find the one that gives me great reception, but doesn't drain my battery in a few hours. Three of the radios drained my battery so fast that I was running out of power in the middle of the day. Another radio had poor reception. My current radio seems to be giving me good reception without draining the battery so quickly. It all depends on what works for your ROM, device and location, so it's trial and error until you find what works best for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have start a battery logging so after wile using/sleep time I can post a mA data to suggest me if it is ok
here you can see my battery log:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/11729584/Battery-log
I used the phone like 2min-video klip, then suspend 10min, then 5min-gpd and 5min-wifi and the result is ~17% down
is it normal?
Redo the same, but starting with a fully charged battery, and run the battery down completely until the phone turns off. It's the only way of judging how your battery performs, not just drain it a few percent as it means nothing at all. Percentage is not of absolute precision, especially if you rarely do full cycles to your battery, it's common to have the meter go down fast the first bit, then stay at 10 or 20% for several hours. Posting the same kind of log would be good.
Other than that, current consumption looks normal.
it's all about tradeoffs i suppose. i don't know of any other device of the same size that does all the things the kaiser does, that has a significantly improved/better battery life. the GPS my nokia 6210 navigator which i use as a backup phone/GPS does last slightly longer, but not all that much.
if you need something that lasts a whole day or whatever on battery, then the best bet apart from getting another battery is probably a dedicated device for that particular activity (GPS unit/netbook/whatever). but then it may not do some of the other things.
... and I just LOVE the Diamond. I always thought the Diamond's just a VGA version of the Touch with GPS built in, and hesitated for a while before I decided to go for the upgrade. Almost a month since the upgrade and I can't even imagine myself going back to the Touch.
I love the Diamond for ...
- beautiful VGA screen
- great form factor, fits perfectly in hand or pocket
- 3.5G is FAST ... especially considering I'm coming from a EDGE machine
- The 535MHz processor may be under-rated when running the bad ass TF3D2 interface, but its speed advantage shows in other apps say, like TomTom when alternative route calculation is required
That said, on the other hand ...
- battery life sucks. This is the first phone since ... man ... the Nokia 6190?! when I actually carry a spare battery with me. I setup the Diamond to check email once every 30 min, and keep it to EDGE for email, use 3.5G only with Opera, do very little web browsing, and my battery still can't make it through a 10 hrs day without giving me low battery warning before I get home.
- Compared to the Touch, which had Talk / End / Camera buttons on top of the D-pad, the Diamond loses yet another hard button in the camera button. I use AEB+ to get more functionality out of my hard buttons, but still I wish there's at least the camera button. OTOH, I don't know about others, but I almost NEVER use the back button. I thought it'd be somewhat useful if it gets you back to the last webpage when browsing the web ... but it doesn't. It gets you back to the last app. Worse, the Home and Back buttons cannot be remapped, or controlled by AEB+.
- The Diamond looks stunning with the piano black finish but the whole phone is a finger print magnet. I think I'm developing an anxiety disorder rubbing and cleaning my phone every chance I get these days.
- The phone heats up quite a bit after a number of resets, or after browsing the web for a while. It gets hot enough I wonder if I'd burn myself leaving it in the jeans pocket.
- The combination of heating up and poor battery life makes it a BAD navigator. If I use turn GPS on and leave the phone running TomTom with screen turned on all the times, the battery hits low battery level within an hour. However, if I plug the charger in, the battery overheats (40C or higher) within 30 min to a point either it stops charging, or resets itself.
All in all, I love my new phone! I think it's a great phone, and most of the shortcomings don't bug me much ... but it'd be great if the battery life and the last point about using it as GPS can get addressed.
Any suggestion?
little info, you can remap the back button with aeb+ the button is called "ok" in aeb+, if i remember correctly.
only the home button cannot be remaped..
Also update your Radio. My battery used to be exactly like how you mentioned until i updated it to the Radio v1.13.25.24 (Blackstone) found here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=470306
Make sure you read the instructions of updating the Radio VERY CAREFULLY or you'll brick it.
Since updating the Radio ive noticed a significant improvement not only in battery life but also other things like my phone connects to 3G faster and also my TomTom gets a fix within 10-20 seconds. (before it was more like sitting there for 1-2 minutes before getting a fix).
I also recently upgraded from my beloved S710 to this one since the S710's display broke after it fell out of my pocket.
Being used to the S710's great battery life, the TD was surely a bit disappointing. Apart from that, it really is a cool device.
Regarding TomTom take a look at this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/archive/index.php/t-412321.html . It describes how to reenable the dim feature. Unfortunately, TomTom doesn't allow the background light to fully switch off but at least dimming it enhances battery life.
I tried one or two radios and made the best experiences with v1.00.25.05 using T-Mobile (Germany). Fast GPS fix and stable signal, good battery life, great voice quality.
To enhance battery life, I also disabled 3G and used all the other tweaks of Advanced Config Tool. Bluetooth seems to be a battery drainer, so I only use it for ActiveSync.
Having BT/WiFi deactivated, my battery lasts about 3-4 days with medium usage. When listening to music or navigating, much shorter.
Did you condition your battery by fully unloading and reloading it several times?
I'm hoping some Diamond users can help me with some questions I have.
I use memory-map os software and have been usinng it on an ipaq ppc. The ipaq has just died on me so I need a new device and rather than carry two gadgets around with me it seems to make sense to buy a smart phone. This has to be a windows device to run memory-map and the Diamond 2 seems to be the best such device in my price bracket.
The questions I haven't so far found an answer for :-
1)How long does the battery last for while using gps? Most users seem to use their gps for road naviagation in the car so don't have a problem with this but I will be using it for hiking.
2)Can the display be turned off while using the display to extend battery life?
3)How quickly does the gps obtain a fix?
TIA
Alan
Hi Alan,
I have been using GPS software with my Diamond for the last year and have mixed feelings about it.
TomTom Navigator 7 - works great - almost immediate fix - highly recommended. Works as well as a dedicated car GPS except screen is smaller.
PathAway GPS 5 with SoftMaps maps. Works fine - sometimes slow to get a fix - track log to .GPX file unreliable, you never know if it works or not and cannot rely on it because of that. Nice Pocket Mode where the unit is in sleep mode with GPS on.
GPSCycleComputer - great freeware application - live track upload to crossingways.com - I use it a lot to measure distance, speed, and build .GPX track logs to geocode my photos. I have not used it with maps.
The Diamond/GPS system has 2 problems IMO:
Problem 1: reliability. When in the field, you have to rely to your GPS and, IMO, this is not possible with my Diamond. It is too easy to hit a button accidently and disable the software. I tried different lock applications to no avail - I cannot be 100% sure, like with my Garmin GPSMap 60 CSx. Switching to another application - like phone, voice recorder or camera - and coming back is also often a problem.
Problem 2: battery life. It is possible to turn off the screen to improve battery life but you can never be sure it will resume back on - unreliable.
My Diamond is the North American unlocked version and has a 1340mah battery. Here are 2 examples of battery life:
GPSCycleComputer
Set to read GPS every minute
Set to send track to crossingways.com every minute
Set to register a .GPX track file
Phone and internet ON
Screen off
Battery life: about 4 hours
PathAway GPS 5
Screen ON 25% Pocket mode 75%
Set to register a .GPX track file
Phone and internet ON
Battery life: 2 to 3 hours
Conclusion:
In car use with TomTom: fine
Field use: as a gadget and a toy: yes - as a reliable tool to find your way back if you get lost: definitely NO. However, it is fun to use.
Regards
Jules
Jgobeil said:
Hi Alan,
I have been using GPS software with my Diamond for the last year and have mixed feelings about it.
TomTom Navigator 7 - works great - almost immediate fix - highly recommended. Works as well as a dedicated car GPS except screen is smaller.
PathAway GPS 5 with SoftMaps maps. Works fine - sometimes slow to get a fix - track log to .GPX file unreliable, you never know if it works or not and cannot rely on it because of that. Nice Pocket Mode where the unit is in sleep mode with GPS on.
GPSCycleComputer - great freeware application - live track upload to crossingways.com - I use it a lot to measure distance, speed, and build .GPX track logs to geocode my photos. I have not used it with maps.
The Diamond/GPS system has 2 problems IMO:
Problem 1: reliability. When in the field, you have to rely to your GPS and, IMO, this is not possible with my Diamond. It is too easy to hit a button accidently and disable the software. I tried different lock applications to no avail - I cannot be 100% sure, like with my Garmin GPSMap 60 CSx. Switching to another application - like phone, voice recorder or camera - and coming back is also often a problem.
Problem 2: battery life. It is possible to turn off the screen to improve battery life but you can never be sure it will resume back on - unreliable.
My Diamond is the North American unlocked version and has a 1340mah battery. Here are 2 examples of battery life:
GPSCycleComputer
Set to read GPS every minute
Set to send track to crossingways.com every minute
Set to register a .GPX track file
Phone and internet ON
Screen off
Battery life: about 4 hours
PathAway GPS 5
Screen ON 25% Pocket mode 75%
Set to register a .GPX track file
Phone and internet ON
Battery life: 2 to 3 hours
Conclusion:
In car use with TomTom: fine
Field use: as a gadget and a toy: yes - as a reliable tool to find your way back if you get lost: definitely NO. However, it is fun to use.
Regards
Jules
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Thanks for your reply Jules. That is very helpful. It sounds like the Diamond will not do the main job I want it for then.
Memory Map with hTC diamond
Works very well on Diamond. Quick GPS fix. Battery life not great as in most GPS phones. I just have the map loaded & use as necessary. I would not be without it. Also works very well with tom Tom & Garmin XT.
Like you, i used MM on an ipaq and now use it on the HTC. The big adavantage over the HTC over the ipaq is that you can switch it to standby to conserve battery power and it will immediatly come back to life with gps signal.
ahardie said:
Thanks for your reply Jules. That is very helpful. It sounds like the Diamond will not do the main job I want it for then.
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You should know that there are extened batteries for diamond that take the battery life to really high values. I posted a review of a 3000 mah Mugen battery here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=3447797#post3451845 (read the posts after that as well, for instance this one) ... it is a huge battery but well worth if you are looking for something for "in the field". There is also a Mugen 2000 mah version and an official HTC 1350 mah version. The Mugen ones are *very* high quality, don't confuse them with the cheap chinese/asian crap that are all over ebay or the internet.
I've never had the problem with the screen coming back on when I don't want it and I use GPS Cycle Computer all the time. You switch off the screen from the GPSCC interface and it stays that way (unless someone calls you or you power it on from the power button, of course).
Thanks for the replies. Very helpful.
Last but not least - in my hikes i don't look constantly at GPS - I prefer the views, so only sometimes I check my position on track crossing, or when I'm not sure of my position.
GPS fix - flash better radio, and you will have instant fix (outdoors), try 1.15
Switching off - just use the sleep button. It will switch the gps off.
Good luck!
Hi all, I just got my HTC Pure over the weekend and I had a question from those with more experiecne.
First I know (or I think) that the battery life will improve over the next week or so as the battery gets used and charged. Today however was an issue. The phone came off the charger this morning at 100% and then went to work. While at work there is absolutely no signal in the building. (never has been) The only time it was on the network was a 1 hour lunch, and then light internet use for approx 25 minutes this evening. That is all, no calls, nothing, and it had 19% battery left in only 12 hours off the charger.
Again, I am sure that it will improve, but the question is ... does being off the network (GSM) drain the battery faster? Does the phone use a lot of charge "searching" for signal?
I am sure that there are a lot of things that I could do to extend battery life, as a work around (no bluetooth, plug it in to the USB on the computer at work, turn off 3g etc) but I was just curious if someone in the know on how the network and battery use go together if the dead zone is the biggest problem.
Thanks
Not exactly scientific results, but before att put decent coverage in my neighborhood, the battery seemed to drain a lot faster. I guess turning it off would help, but down to 19% that quick just seems ridiculous
cmstackar said:
Not exactly scientific results, but before att put decent coverage in my neighborhood, the battery seemed to drain a lot faster. I guess turning it off would help, but down to 19% that quick just seems ridiculous
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Funny enough it is my wifes first smart phone. I was just looking at it to change some things to better suit her needs. When I opened the task manager I discovered that a) the programs would only minimize when the X button was pushed, not close and b) windows Live messenger was loaded. I would guess that even though she was not signed in on live messenger it could have killed the battery. Gonna make a couple of tweaks to ensure that it does not fire up again, and see what it looks like tomorrow.
So today was better, but she seems to have had intermittent service. Her media net indicates that it was connected all afternoon. She burned through 40% battery in the AM and only 18% in the afternoon.
I would imagine that the location services for the weather on the sense home screen as well as possibly push email running out of control searching for the signal. I will turn things off 1 at a time until I find out what is driving the battery loss.
Is there any software to monitor battery use and what was using the battery? There is in android.
O.k. continue to have issues with this phone.
Tested last night. Charged to 100% and then light use. Approx 10% down after 3 hours.
Set commmanagerpro to turn off the data and phone radio during the hours my wife is at work. She called today and the screen is showing that the phone radio is off, but it has lost 90% in less than 4 hours. She also said it is hot.
Maybe her purse is somehow turning the screen on? Would the screen being on without any radios cause the phone to plow through battery?
I am gonna try a battery monitoring app and see if it will tell me anything. Its freekin weird.
What radio version are you running?
You may want to consider flashing to a different Radio ROM.
try to see if there are any TSR, residente program, active, maybe be the the problem...
as far as radio versions the 4.49.25.91, for my exprience run far...
you can try to swcht to other radio version...
I am using the AT&T stock radio. I flashed to the energy ROM, but the battery issue is so extreme that I doubt that the radio or the ROM are the driving factor.
She does have 3 magnets in her purse. 2 magnetic catches on her side pockets and 1 on her wallet. While I could not reproduce the device turning on by itself from the magnets, that does not mean that it is not.
The other thing is that there was some warning on the screen about the GPS signal. I imagine that is a side effect of turning off the radios, but maybe not. Is the GPS always on normally? Would a GPS pop up cause the screen to stay on for possibly 3 hours.
This afternoons test will be having her leave her phone in her jacket pocket rather than her purse. We will see how it goes.
saunet_ptg said:
try to see if there are any TSR, residente program, active, maybe be the the problem...
as far as radio versions the 4.49.25.91, for my exprience run far...
you can try to swcht to other radio version...
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I will look at that radio. I doubt its a program since I had no problems with it at home last night. It has to be environmental. My money is on the purse, but we will see. I'll post later and let you know what we came up with.
There was a few days ago where she lost 60% of her battery in the morning but only 12% after lunch, so that convinces me that it should be something that we can identify and work around.
Energy's ROM may have included the radio.
I had horrible luck with .91 and flashed back to .17.
Symptoms of a bad radio are rapid battery drain and device heating up.
Also, if the device heats up, it will no longer charge until the battery cools down.
If you have AGPS enabled, that was likely your error message when you turned off the radio.
A couple of pointers;
Make sure you monitor which programs are running as you may just be minimizing instead of closing.
Check your power settings and make sure to turn off screen after X minutes
make sure all updates (weather, e-mail, stocks, etc) are set to every hour.
Bruce Inman said:
Energy's ROM may have included the radio.
I had horrible luck with .91 and flashed back to .17.
Symptoms of a bad radio are rapid battery drain and device heating up.
Also, if the device heats up, it will no longer charge until the battery cools down.
If you have AGPS enabled, that was likely your error message when you turned off the radio.
A couple of pointers;
Make sure you monitor which programs are running as you may just be minimizing instead of closing.
Check your power settings and make sure to turn off screen after X minutes
make sure all updates (weather, e-mail, stocks, etc) are set to every hour.
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Thank you for your advise. The biggest area of opportunity from your list for me is the Radio I think.
The rapid discharge of the battery due to a bad flash, would that be location specific? The rapid drain only seems to happen in a spot where she has no signal (thus the reason I programed it to turn off the radio in those hours)
The running program should no be an issue. To prevent that, as a matter of standard setup for my phones, they have a small script that soft resets them every morning a 4am, so that they are fresh and clean for the start of the day.
As for updates, I have adjusted everything that I can, and some did not have any effect (mostly because the radio was off, can't save much more than that).
I do leave the bluetooth on all day. That should not be draining the battery in 3.5 hours though. I have read a lot of the battery life threads and many of the ideas would cripple the phone, and I am not going there. Sure maybe I don't need weather updated every 30 minutes, but I want me email when it comes in, not once every few hours. I also don't want to have to push 20 buttons each time I want to make the internet work. Its this kind of usability that sells iPhones... I hate them, but they really do just work... and my wife wants a phone that you don't need to be an expert to use.
boufa said:
Thank you for your advise. The biggest area of opportunity from your list for me is the Radio I think.
The rapid discharge of the battery due to a bad flash, would that be location specific? The rapid drain only seems to happen in a spot where she has no signal (thus the reason I programed it to turn off the radio in those hours).
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Do you know how to view your radio version? Its listed on the bottom of your phone when you reset, the 3 numbers that display, R is the radio version.
You can go to the radio thread and flash another version, just keep testing different versions until you get one that works well. Radio ROMs will not overwrite your data.
Radio's are definitely location specific in regards to region and carrier.
Borderline coverage is a major battery killer, but you're disabling the radio, which should resolve that issue...
G-Profile is a nice app that allows you to set what type of connection and when.
Bruce Inman said:
Energy's ROM may have included the radio.
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Mine didn't and I used the May 1st update. Still Stock.
If no signal is happening in the building, I would think it's the various things continuously trying to run, like Email, GPS etc. Constant failed attempts to update your phone's apps would definitely drag the battery down in a hurry. I have my email set to 3 hrs. updates along with weather updates. Nothing I do is so important at this point in my life that faster than 3 hr. responses are required. I also don't use things like Tweeter and FaceBook so those aren't constantly eating my battery. I get about 1.5 to 2.0 days from my battery currently.
Here is the current (no pun intended) testing results...
This AM 3.5 hours used 100% of the battery (in the purse)
This PM 4 hours used 21% of the battery (in the jacket pocket)
Gonna try to leave the phone outside of the purse all day friday and see what the results are. Then see how it works around the house on saturday, in a standard limited use type scenerio. Then Sunday put it into the purse and see if it becomes an issue again.
If all of this works out that the purse it the problem, then I will start tweaking it out, and changing radio's etc to get the max I can out of the battery.
boufa said:
Here is the current (no pun intended) testing results...
This AM 3.5 hours used 100% of the battery (in the purse)
This PM 4 hours used 21% of the battery (in the jacket pocket)
Gonna try to leave the phone outside of the purse all day friday and see what the results are. Then see how it works around the house on saturday, in a standard limited use type scenerio. Then Sunday put it into the purse and see if it becomes an issue again.
If all of this works out that the purse it the problem, then I will start tweaking it out, and changing radio's etc to get the max I can out of the battery.
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So today we left it out of the purse. Here is what we got...
On the table next to the computer, so confirmed that the screen is NOT activating at all. Phone radio off, data off.
AM... used 40% in 4 hours.
Better, but still not good. Gonna try to ensure that the email is set for longer, currently it is set for 10 minutes, and then try to turn off a-gps and the regular gps and make sure that those things are not killing the battery. Then flash a new radio. We'll see how that works next week.
First, test it and watch it over normal, with signal, average 4 hours at home this weekend. I think it will do great... meaning that it is the purse, or the environment that is causing the problem.
I don't know if anyone is following my personal drama, but maybe it will come up in a search some day and help someone.
Here is the saturday update.
Took the phone off charge at 2am and looked at it at 11 am this morning. Used only 2% in those 9 hours. So it is definitely NOT a defective device, or battery. (it actually charges up in only a couple of hours)
So looking into the profile schedule manager that I installed, turns out it has not been running. So the whole purse/no purse thing may be horse hockey still. Monday I will be setting it manually to airplane mode to verify that it holds a charge, then finding a new program to do the scheduling. (looking into phonealarm)
If the radio was on, at full power searching for a signal, it would only last approx 4 - 5 hours at best. So it makes sense that this is what is happening.