Database Develop

Battery Life / Recharge Time?

I recharged my phone in an hour when it had just powered off by itself for being too low... I used it for like 5 minutes and it was already down to 80%... Bad battery?

fldash said:
I recharged my phone in an hour when it had just powered off by itself for being too low... I used it for like 5 minutes and it was already down to 80%... Bad battery?
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Click to collapse
Sure sounds like a bad battery.
Just to make sure...
1) make sure you don't have some app that is running GPS
2) If not needed, try turning off BlueTooth
Those two items will drain battery faster than usual.

I sometimes find the battery is really inaccurate, depends on if the phone's running hot or whatnot...
Also you might want to get a task manager and periodically close all the apps (some apps have a one-click kill all widget), and turn off syncing, gps, and bluetooth

Battery indicator hasn't always been accurate or me - even with a brand new battery

There are several apps/widgets that are poorly coded which cause high battery drain as well.
Try only using stock widgets as well, I find that helps alot.

mssmison said:
There are several apps/widgets that are poorly coded which cause high battery drain as well.
Try only using stock widgets as well, I find that helps alot.
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Click to collapse
Yea, the only Widget I run thats not stock is Beautiful Widgets Home Small, set to update every 2 hours.
I have bluetooth and GPS off always unless I'm actively using them. I just seemed strange it was so fast to recharge mainly.
I've noticed the battery capacity jumps up and down depending on what you are doing. For example if I disable 3G, it jumps up, if I enable it, it might jump down 10% briefly then go back to where it was...
Very strange.

Also, I find the app Juice Defender (free version) is a life saver. My battery life has gone from around 12 hours to > 2 days since using it.
What it does is disable your 3G AP and only enables it every X minutes for Y minutes.. I think the default is 15/2. The result is you still get your notifications (a few mins behind), but your battery lasts WAAAYYYY longer.

brunes said:
Also, I find the app Juice Defender (free version) is a life saver. My battery life has gone from around 12 hours to > 2 days since using it.
What it does is disable your 3G AP and only enables it every X minutes for Y minutes.. I think the default is 15/2. The result is you still get your notifications (a few mins behind), but your battery lasts WAAAYYYY longer.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip!
Now going hunting for "Juice Defender".

yeah, juice defender is great. The free version has limited options but the default options really save battery life on my vogue.
I read a while ago that there was a problem with the stock text messaging app. Is that resolved? I use Handcent SMS, but i don't know if it is good or bad for battery life comparatively.

JuiceDefender is fantastic, it works. Except you can't be listening to anything and have it running (music, podcasts, etc...) because when it kills the 3G connection the audio stops. I've talked with dzo and looked at the code myself and I don't see a way to keep it from happening unless there's a way to kill the 3G connection without issuing an 'ATH' to the modem or somehow ignoring the 'No Carrier' message that follows it...

this happens no matter what music player you are using? I was hoping it was just Cube, but had not gotten a chance to try with other media players. Is there a way to create an ap that autodiables jucedefender when you play music?

Gersonian said:
this happens no matter what music player you are using? I was hoping it was just Cube, but had not gotten a chance to try with other media players. Is there a way to create an ap that autodiables jucedefender when you play music?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not that I'm away of... I just manually disable juicedefender before I start playing my music... and HOPE that I remember to turn it back on...

I am not endorsing this battery/seller/etc or that this is the battery to buy in any way. Just came across this opportunity and wanted to put it out there for anyone that wanted to check it out:
http://www.amazon.com/UTStarcom-Ext..._28?ie=UTF8&s=wireless&qid=1274569716&sr=8-28
Personally I just don't want the extended battery cover sticking out of my phone...

Battery life worse after FRF83

Ive noticed a significant decrease in battery life ever since i updated my phone to FRF83. I can leave it on at 100% and it drains down to 75% or even lower the following morning. It usually drains no more than 10% if i leave it running overnight.
I dont have any apps running in the background, and my task killer is set to auto kill 3 mins after screen blankout. Auto refresh is, and has always been on since the day i got the phone though.
I manually updated to FRF85B and the battery life is still as bad as ever. Ive never gotten this problem with android 2.1 or any of the earlier froyo builds. Someone care to tell me whats wrong? Ive heard others reporting that their battery life has increased after updating to froyo, why am i getting the opposite?

I have this issue because of my exchange server.

Ive never set up and exchange server on my phone. The only constant apps that should be auto syncing are gmail, calander and twitter, which is set to refresh once every 1 hour.

Same for me, battery life sucks lately.

Mokurex said:
Same for me, battery life sucks lately.
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Click to collapse
Then there are people reporting that their battery life has increased after updating to froyo. In fact mine was ok at first, until i started using FRF83 onwards then it all started to go downhill. This morning i woke up with the battery at 44% when i last saw it, it was at 90% the night before. It drained that much overnight and its not supposed to happen!

Mine was very good since updating to froyo ( starting from first builds leaked). Its very good now too, better than before anyway. I used to run of juice by 9PM, now i have ~ 20% left with the same usage.
Check out what apps are consuming the battery, i got terrible batt life when i tried the droidx live wallpaper.

App usage are the usual stuff.
Display being the highest, followed by android system, then cell standby, phone idle, twitter, android OS, launcher pro..etc
something seems to be sucking up my battery and i dont know what

I'll be the first one, I guess - I blame the task killer. It's widely known that you shouldn't need a task killer, unless you have some rogue app.

EarthsiegeTA said:
I'll be the first one, I guess - I blame the task killer. It's widely known that you shouldn't need a task killer, unless you have some rogue app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But if your task killer is set to auto-kill on screen-off, even if various apps restart then that should only be in the first few minutes and shouldn't reduce the battery that much.
I have taskiller installed but only for manual killing of problem apps (a rare occurrence) and I have noticed poor battery life since moving to FRF85b - didn't notice anything of the sort in the Froyo versions before 85b though.

Well i just uninstalled task killer, i'll leave the phone running overnight again to test the battery again. But from the looks of it. It seems battery life has improved slightly, but it could be just me.
drewstiff said:
But if your task killer is set to auto-kill on screen-off, even if various apps restart then that should only be in the first few minutes and shouldn't reduce the battery that much.
I have taskiller installed but only for manual killing of problem apps (a rare occurrence) and I have noticed poor battery life since moving to FRF85b - didn't notice anything of the sort in the Froyo versions before 85b though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah thats true. It shouldnt suck up that much battery cos it only kills apps once. It could be an issue with the task killer causing it to drain the battery, because after uninstalling it i think the battery lasts a little longer. But i'll leave it running overnight again to confirm.

My quick story:
- frf72 and earlier - about 12 hours battery life for me. Used task killers, 2 emails on push. WiFi, BT off. Also tried juicedefender and setCPU. They made my battery life even worse.
- frf82+ (now frf91). Read up on how Android manages tasks and power. Got rid of all the task managers, setCPU and JD. Only use OSMonitor every once in a while to see if any dumbass app using up CPU in wakelock. So far none.
- EVERYTHING is ON. Wifi, BT, GPS - always on. I never use 2G, it's always 3G/HSDPA. GMAIL on PUSH, Exchange PUSH or 10minutes (no difference in battery for me)
- After a 24-hour test (from which 8 hours were on standby at night) I lost 80% battery life, so 20% still remain.
My advice: uninstall anything like setCPU, JD or taskkillers. Let Android handle that. Install OSMonitor and make sure nothing's in wakelock. Wipe cache if you want. If you're not getting 18-20+ hours, perhaps time to calibrate ur battery.

Thanks for the tip, just installled OSmonitor. The interface is pretty messy! But at least i understand whats going on. So all i need to do is keep track of which apps are at the highest load?
Is it really necessary to kill unwanted apps (Twitter, goggles, gmail..etc) because they are taking up RAM to improve battery life while idling?

OR you could just take Paul's advice and not use a task killer. My money is on him =)
FAQ: Why You Shouldn’t Be Using a Task Killer with Android

Wow thats a very informative read! Thanks for the link. I too also thought that an unwanted running task means i need to kill it to free RAM in order to speed things up and improve battery life. Didnt know im actually doing it harm.
Looks like i'll ditch my task manager for good and have faith in the OS.

Using LauncherPro Beta? I think some battery issues have been traced back to the way LP is handling updating widgets right now. Hoping for an update to fix it soon.

Well guess what. I just used the phone for an entire day and left it on since last night. It dropped down to 25% when i got home and was about to replace the battery pack. So it looks like task manager was the cause of the problem.
Launcherpro doesnt seem to be affecting the battery life.

cr0wnest said:
Well guess what. I just used the phone for an entire day and left it on since last night. It dropped down to 25% when i got home and was about to replace the battery pack. So it looks like task manager was the cause of the problem.
Launcherpro doesnt seem to be affecting the battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well it won't show up in the battery usage as affecting the battery. It has something to do with the widget updating not launcherpro. I removed BBC News, Beautiful Widgets and my Battery Info widget and my battery is now holding steady.
I'd be interested if you'd run an experiment, remove all updating widgets, notification widgets, etc and try again.

How to have a long abttery life?

Hello guys,
lately my Nexus One abttery consumption gets more and more consumptive. I dunno why, I already reduced the home screen from 7 became 5 and reduce the widgets too. but the battery life now did't even reach one day.
I read that someone has their nexus one running 3 days with browsing and GPS n Sync ON.
any advice how to conserve battery life?

There are plenty of threads discussing that same question. Basically the answer is that there's no perfect formula. Experiment and see what you can achieve.
Personally I tend to turn off most of automatic syncing stuff, but it's not because of battery life, but rather because I want more control.
Also, if your mobile reception is constantly low, your battery life will be significantly shorter.

heres what i did to increase my battery life.
turn off wifi/bluetooth
i leave my screen brightness at 100% (i like my screen bright) and leave gps on since its only used when gps is required
download a battery saving kernal. im using intersectraven 925mv kernal. less power consumption=less battery used. its been shown that 925mv is the best voltage compared to 800mv/1000mv
download "Task Manager" from the market. use it to set all apps to "kill list" so that everything is killed when you put ur phone on lock/sleep. This app helped me save tons of battery. Power doesnt drain at all when your phone is idle and my phone is at constant 250+/- memory.
other then that my phone has all the widgets on the homescreen and battery is good

d0mo said:
download "Task Manager" from the market. use it to set all apps to "kill list" so that everything is killed when you put ur phone on lock/sleep. This app helped me save tons of battery. Power doesnt drain at all when your phone is idle and my phone is at constant 250+/- memory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't suggest doing it, since it brings nothing good and no power saved. If you kill widgets that update themselves - you might as well not put them on the screen, since they do nothing. If you kill system services - you might as well uninstall the programs that run them, since they're not working. And for everything else - you're just wasting the CPU time required to kill and then relaunch programs, and the memory that can be used better.

d0mo said:
heres what i did to increase my battery life.
turn off wifi/bluetooth
i leave my screen brightness at 100% (i like my screen bright) and leave gps on since its only used when gps is required
download a battery saving kernal. im using intersectraven 925mv kernal. less power consumption=less battery used. its been shown that 925mv is the best voltage compared to 800mv/1000mv
download "Task Manager" from the market. use it to set all apps to "kill list" so that everything is killed when you put ur phone on lock/sleep. This app helped me save tons of battery. Power doesnt drain at all when your phone is idle and my phone is at constant 250+/- memory.
other then that my phone has all the widgets on the homescreen and battery is good
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1+2 = Nonsense.
1 - Kernel
2 - Task Killers cause more problems then they help.
Battery life is simply a function of how much CPU time is being used, how much data is being transferred, and how much the screen is on. Poor reception is another thing to consider, in most cases it's one of the three things above. Of course there are other factors, like how much you're talking on the phone, etc, but it boils down to three major things.
CPU time generally is only a problem when using the phone, games, live wallpapers (particularly 3D ones), and sometimes bad processes or badly designed programs. You can evaluate all of this using System Panel in the market.
How much data is being transferred you can control directly by setting your sync settings, or if you want to isolate it completely, disable syncing on all apps and otherwise use the phone normally. If you have Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, GMail, IM (Gtalk/whatever others), Weather, etc all syncing, it's going to be a lot of random traffic. Setting the phone to EDGE-only will reduce some of the battery usage from this, but controlling the syncing itself IMO is a better option than using EDGE.
Screen of course is how much you are playing with the phone, and I think this is the one that most people have problems with. If you're messing with the phone all day long, yes, it's going to "eat battery", and it's going to be caused from all three things above. CPU from you doing stuff, probably network traffic from you doing stuff, and the power to drive the screen. Some people suggest using black themes or backgrounds. Yes, AMOLED uses more power to drive a bright white than an LCD, and much more power to drive bright white vs black or dark, but think about how much you're staring at the background.. Only on the launcher. Do you stare at the launcher all day? But perhaps if you're reading a book for an extended period it's worth it to set it to white on black, vs black on white. Sometimes you can't control this, such as the browser is (generally) a white background.
I'm no expert, but god I'm tired of hearing nonsense around everything "eating battery".

I see, thanks 4 d advice you all
maybe the good way out is the Kernel flashing.
any recommendation maybe? which kernel are the best?
I don't want to downgrade my 1GHz clock though...
and URL is appreciated

Do you use battery saver apps?

Hello everybody
I would like to know from you if battery saver apps are usefull or just useless.
I am using right now super power and i think it could save some energy but it is also quite annonying for example to wait for the band switch.
It is worth to to deal with this apps or you doesnt care about the energy you loose and enjoy to have no troubles with such apps.
Just out of curiosity which battery saver app you use when you use one?
Greetz xnoobx

I use Juice Defender Ultimate and find it to extend the battery life a whole lot.
What it does is automaticly turn off data comunications when the screen goes off. It then turns data back on once every houre to let the phone check email and stuff like that.
You can customise almost everything. I really like it and would recommend it to anyone.
Xeno

Since I started using Green Power Premium, I find my phone on when I wake up in the morning

I too use juice defender, at this moment tells me my battery life has increased by x1.87
what that translates to in a percentage i dont know but hey !!! it saved some juice.
all these apps do is just make it quicker and easier to toggle things on/off, you could do it yourself but why waste time when the app does it for ya ???
some may argue that the app is constantly running in the background therefore its hogging battery, but too be honest, all you can do is try and see for yourself.
BUT !! i would recommend them to any one, Mainly Juice defender and some sort of toggle widget. hand in hand they work well

No battery savings app here.
If you prefer battery life over fancy looking screens (like myself), just get rid of all the constantly updating widgets and crap like that.
I managed to stretch my battery life to a consistent 48 hours per full charge. And that's with an average of 2,5 hours display on and a lot of listening to PowerAMP.

I just removed bloatware with titanium backup, set my wifi to sleep when the screen goes off, and lastly use setcpu app to downclock with certain profiles. I get excellent battery life now.

Battery not so good

I didn't use the note much, but it needs to charge each day. This is bad than tablet. Any software to save battery? I tried 'air plane mode' sofeware, but it also turns off phone after sleep.

truelies1 said:
I didn't use the note much, but it needs to charge each day. This is bad than tablet. Any software to save battery? I tried 'air plane mode' sofeware, but it also turns off phone after sleep.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What apps and widgets are you running? Have you gone through 2 or 3 full discharge/recharge cycles? There are apps out there that can detect if any app is consuming your battery but you will have to search the forums as I don't know of any first hand.
Also, which ROM are you using? When I was using Rocket Rom v22 with AbyssKernel 4.1, my Note would last more than a day on the same charge even with moderate use. Give that a try as it also really boosts performance.
I'm currently on Team Rocket Rom (ICS based) v5 but have not used it extensively to comment on battery yet. So far with 3 activesync email accounts (all push), some widgets running (weather, clock, etc.) and the Note sitting idle consume about 2-3% battery per hour. Will monitor this.

most smartphones ned to be charged every day, what battery life are you expecting to get ?

battery depends on the usage and applications you installed on the phone.
have you tried rooting already? usually custom roms have the best alternatives of extending your phone's battery and giving it an optimal performance.
Try to stop some bloatwares that your phone's loading up everytime it starts up(from rebooting)

FreakPrism said:
What apps and widgets are you running? Have you gone through 2 or 3 full discharge/recharge cycles? There are apps out there that can detect if any app is consuming your battery but you will have to search the forums as I don't know of any first hand.
Also, which ROM are you using? When I was using Rocket Rom v22 with AbyssKernel 4.1, my Note would last more than a day on the same charge even with moderate use. Give that a try as it also really boosts performance.
I'm currently on Team Rocket Rom (ICS based) v5 but have not used it extensively to comment on battery yet. So far with 3 activesync email accounts (all push), some widgets running (weather, clock, etc.) and the Note sitting idle consume about 2-3% battery per hour. Will monitor this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am using la2 rom. Here i attached an picture.

Geez... i personally feel that one day charge is reasonable especially with the juice required to drive the big display.
Anyway, Juice Defender premium is one app that has helped me, and may help you too.
Since you got Activesync, with the premium version of JD, you can customize app to be excluded from 'power saving', so that the inbox is up to date.

+1 for juicedefender.
Other tips that may not be obvious to first-time smartphone owners are:
1. Set your screen brightness to auto. You don't need the brightness cranked right up all the time.
2. Disable bluetooth and GPS if you're not using them. Juicedefender will do a pretty good job of managing your other radios.
3. If you've got email syncing set up on your phone, set it to check as rarely as you can put up with. Push email uses a LOT of battery life, and even a scheduled check can blaze through your battery if it's happening often enough.
4. If you've put on a custom ROM your phone may be reporting inaccurate battery stats. Give it a full charge, boot into clockwork recovery and wipe your battery stats. You'll find a few days after that your phone will start reporting more accurately.
Good luck, and if any of this was unclear feel free to ask further questions.

j.wong said:
Geez... i personally feel that one day charge is reasonable especially with the juice required to drive the big display.
Anyway, Juice Defender premium is one app that has helped me, and may help you too.
Since you got Activesync, with the premium version of JD, you can customize app to be excluded from 'power saving', so that the inbox is up to date.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I only got one phone call for one min., so i think 1 day is too short.

truelies1 said:
I am using la2 rom. Here i attached an picture.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try a later ROM to see if the same issue exists. I think you should instal rocket rom v22 - you'll be happy with performance and battery life based on your usage.

try to calibrate your battery as well... there are many apps out there that offers better battery calibration or you can do a manual calibration as well.

Give it some time and upgrade your ROM
I am getting great battery life. It runs for full day (24 hrs) with 30% of battery usage. though in a day i dont use it much, just 5 to 10 calls of around half an hour to 40 minutes.. data and gps always on.. screen brightness on auto...

My note running the OEM battery last me about 6 hrs.
Averages about 45mins talk time/day
About 50 SMS/day
Screen brightness set to 100
Checks email every 5 mins
Using a live wallpaper
Refreshes the daily weather using Accuweather every hr
Bluetooth always turned on
Battery Widget
Fancy Widget
ESPN scoreboard ticker widget refreshes
Twitter running all day
Facebook Widget syncing all day
and more...

sideways86 said:
+1 for juicedefender.
Other tips that may not be obvious to first-time smartphone owners are:
1. Set your screen brightness to auto. You don't need the brightness cranked right up all the time.
2. Disable bluetooth and GPS if you're not using them. Juicedefender will do a pretty good job of managing your other radios.
3. If you've got email syncing set up on your phone, set it to check as rarely as you can put up with. Push email uses a LOT of battery life, and even a scheduled check can blaze through your battery if it's happening often enough.
4. If you've put on a custom ROM your phone may be reporting inaccurate battery stats. Give it a full charge, boot into clockwork recovery and wipe your battery stats. You'll find a few days after that your phone will start reporting more accurately.
Good luck, and if any of this was unclear feel free to ask further questions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^ This. Or better yet, just always set your brightness to the lowest brightness setting, 50% afaik. And use black/dark wallpapers and always turn on night mode (if applicable, especially when using your browser)
If in case you need to adjust the brightness, you don't have to go through the jungle of settings, just click notification bar and slide horizontally to change to your preferred brightness.

Jd is hit n miss will actually helping out. If your phone sleeps a lot jd is nice at keeping cell or wifi off if your like me and on it every 10 minutes then toggling data and other things can consume more juice. .... I have tried with and without on my tablets and phones and see no big difference depending on use.
Sent from my Ice Creamy Galaxy NOTE

I was pretty happy with my battery until two days ago. I use my note very little, for e-mail checking (which I pull manually) a few times a day, and to make two or three phone calls per day. I also text my kids occasionally. GPS and Bluetooth are off most of the time. Battery used to last me about two and a half days under these conditions, which seemed reasonable to me. All of a sudden, two days ago, I charged my battery, and after a full charge it drained 60% overnight. Thought that it was a fluke, so rebooted my phone, fully charged again, and the same thing (over half of the juice gone overnight) happened again. Battery stats tell me that Android OS were 100% responsible for overnight drainage. Any clues? I am on stock ROM, by the way.
Thank you.

Flaco05 said:
I was pretty happy with my battery until two days ago. I use my note very little, for e-mail checking (which I pull manually) a few times a day, and to make two or three phone calls per day. I also text my kids occasionally. GPS and Bluetooth are off most of the time. Battery used to last me about two and a half days under these conditions, which seemed reasonable to me. All of a sudden, two days ago, I charged my battery, and after a full charge it drained 60% overnight. Thought that it was a fluke, so rebooted my phone, fully charged again, and the same thing (over half of the juice gone overnight) happened again. Battery stats tell me that Android OS were 100% responsible for overnight drainage. Any clues? I am on stock ROM, by the way.
Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get a good app to check what is using the battery or keeping the phone awake. This last is the most likely.
Baddass Battery Monitor is my recommendation.

Not a single phone call, only used about 10 mins. after 21 hours only 11% left. Install Jd with 'balanced' option.

jeromepearce said:
Get a good app to check what is using the battery or keeping the phone awake. This last is the most likely.
Baddass Battery Monitor is my recommendation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. I will give that a try.
Badass, got to love that name....

Ok, I used the Badass monitor to see what's going on. Once again, no phone usage, quick overnight battery drainage. Android OS 100% responsible, and the main power sucker is the Kernel (96%). Why is this happening? And, is there a remedy? I have changed nothing that would trigger this! My Note is still within the return window, so if there is anything wrong with it, I will return it.
Thanks again.

Flaco05 said:
Ok, I used the Badass monitor to see what's going on. Once again, no phone usage, quick overnight battery drainage. Android OS 100% responsible, and the main power sucker is the Kernel (96%). Why is this happening? And, is there a remedy? I have changed nothing that would trigger this! My Note is still within the return window, so if there is anything wrong with it, I will return it.
Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Badass Monitor is very useful, my note was drained by Dolphin Browser, it used 38% of battery. Seems like for this browser, if I only press home key to exit, It will keep running?
I think the reason the battery drain fast is we press 'home' key to return to main menu, that will keep a lot of apps run in the background.