Database Develop

Screen brightness effects on the battery

I was curious just how much battery a dim screen conserves and I ran a simple test.
The result showed that the screen at the lowest brightness setting drains the battery about half
as fast as with the screen at full brightness.
To ensure nothing else was affecting the test I put my phone in "Airplane mode" and killed all running apps.
For each test I restarted the battery stats to confirm that background apps were not draining the battery.
Indeed, at the end of each test other processes showed insignificant battery drain compared to one caused
by the display. I set the phone to go to sleep after 30min of inactivity, I opened the text Messaging program
because it has a very WHITE background, then I set the desired brightness level and left the phone alone.
I checked the battery drain 30min later when the screen went off.
1) 30min @ minimal display brightness = battery drain was 4%
2) 30min @ full display brightness = battery drain was 9%
My test method is in no way perfect and much more data is needed to draw hard conclusions but
there seems to be a great benefit in setting the display brightness very low.

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Thanks for sharing the numbers!
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app

Kick-Ass Joe said:
Thanks for sharing the numbers!
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He's right. Thanks. It is nice to have actual data.

Dude you don't need any more data, its bloody obvious!!!!!!
That's like driving slow verses driving fast, its clear which uses more fuel. LOL

asasione said:
Dude you don't need any more data, its bloody obvious!!!!!!
That's like driving slow verses driving fast, its clear which uses more fuel. LOL
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not entirely accurate. Fuel consumption is more about rpm's. I can keep it in 2nd and go 40mph or go to 4th and go 55. The lower rpm will burn less fuel.

estallings15 said:
That's not entirely accurate. Fuel consumption is more about rpm's. I can keep it in 2nd and go 40mph or go to 4th and go 55. The lower rpm will burn less fuel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very true. I've noticed my battery drain fluctuates for no apparent reason. One day I'll see 9% drain in 30min, another I'll see 12+%. This is constantly day after day, week after week with very close use/task habits. I would chalk it up to task usage if my habits weren't so regular (basically gmail/browser/tapatalk).

I was actually going to do a test like this myself. Thank you for this post.
And to the people who are spamming this thread because they think it's obvious: you do realize you can read a thread without being obligated to reply, right? If you don't care, why post a massive image that just annoys other readers?

saltmine said:
I was actually going to do a test like this myself. Thank you for this post.
And to the people who are spamming this thread because they think it's obvious: you do realize you can read a thread without being obligated to reply, right? If you don't care, why post a massive image that just annoys other readers?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The image I posted is exactly how I felt, a picture is worth a thousand words :good:
When I reading it I was like okay this guy is on to something... then after reading it I was just like uh... so you mean to tell me... If I use less brightness I use less power? If I use max brightness I use more power?
Thats like turning on all the lights in my place and wondering why my power bill goes up.
Now if you do a test like Auto Brightness vs 30% brightness then it would be more interesting as auto brightness can save battery but it could also drain more depending on the length of time in that specific environment lighting. As opposed to 30% brightness which looks good in most lighting but may be a little too bright in the dark and a little too dim outside.
Also I'm not the smartest person in the world, but if I read something and I don't get anything out of it then I will speak out my how I feel... and if I don't even bother then that means its completely a waste of my time, so with that being said, yes I do care, hence the reply. :good:

UZ7 said:
Now if you do a test like Auto Brightness vs 30% brightness then it would be more interesting
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.
Auto Brightness tests are irrelevant outside the discrete time and place of the test. Such a test is invalid.

The reason for such tests is to give some idea of the battery drain rate. When people have a better idea
of how the screen drains the battery they can make better choices about using their phones.
But mostly I'm just curious and having fun.
Granted, a short screen test of an idle pone isn't very useful.
Some other ideas that I have are watching a video, or continuously reloading a web page to
simulate web surfing on different brightness settings. Since the brightness doesn't appear to
be linear I'm most interested at the following (estimated) brightness values - 0%,5%,10%,25%,50%,100%
If you guys want to post your own tests here I will update the OP.

It is an LCD, displaying white doesnt affect the battery, that only affects OLED, the backlight shines the same amount regardless of the color including black
The only point to this that I can see is to find the highest brightness level before the curve jumps way up. Everyone knows lowering the brightness even a little consumes dramatically less power than full brightness.

-Mindroid- said:
I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.
Auto Brightness tests are irrelevant outside the discrete time and place of the test. Such a test is invalid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you not read what i posted or you only quote the sentence you want to reply to.
"Now if you do a test like Auto Brightness vs 30% brightness then it would be more interesting as auto brightness can save battery but it could also drain more depending on the length of time in that specific environment lighting. As opposed to 30% brightness which looks good in most lighting but may be a little too bright in the dark and a little too dim outside."
Pretty much what that means is depending on where you're at, will affect the drain. If you're in a dark place, the brightness will lower a little so its not too bright = less power, if you're in a light/outside place it will increase brightness to compensate for the glare. Now if you compare that to a 30% brightness, it will always be the same constantly, if you're outside you may even have to increase it and end up leaving it to those settings thus convenience factor comes into play having to revert it back. But most of the time Auto Brightness drains a little more (you're not always in dark place) and since the settings arent perfect it will be a setting that you dont want. Testing this I put my phone at 30% in a low light room. It was still bright on the eyes, put it on auto and it dimmed lower, thus low light room = lower battery usage.
So in comparison between tests, an auto vs 30% is more subjective because not everyone lives in the same environment/lighting and time of day, which i still think is more interesting than when we say minimum display vs maximum display brightness which is pretty obvious.
But rest assure I'm just gonna drop it... If the people who read this thread didn't know that using more brightness = uses more battery/less brightness = uses less battery then disregard my reply and you did a good service to the people of XDA :good:

-Mindroid- said:
1) 30min @ minimal display brightness = battery drain was 4%
2) 30min @ full display brightness = battery drain was 9%
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool! I love to see actual numbers. I just got my Nexus 4 (16GB) and at full brightness, it's at least twice as bright as my old Moto Defy.

Auto brightness on this phone is too dark.
I use 50% and still get great battery life
Transmission sent from my badass Nexus 4.

idividebyzero said:
It is an LCD, displaying white doesnt affect the battery, that only affects OLED, the backlight shines the same amount regardless of the color including black
The only point to this that I can see is to find the highest brightness level before the curve jumps way up. Everyone knows lowering the brightness even a little consumes dramatically less power than full brightness.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Incorrect. Even ordinary LCDs have differing power consumption for different pixel hues. Just very little.

Blacks and whites are irrelevant
I repeated the same test at full brightness on a black screen and this time I got 8% battery drain in 30min.
Previously a white screen drained 9% so it seems "idividebyzero" is correct - the color doesn't matter as much.

AW: Screen brightness effects on the battery
My N4 uses 6.5% per hour at 10% brightness on WiFi.

Anyone who watches QI will know that the blindingly obvious is not always the case so I thank the OP for this post.

Android [M] Doze Discussion/Testing

So Google introduced us with their new project in Android called doze which is supposed to improve battery life while phone screen is off. While this is amazing I tried to test how long does it take for decide to go into deep sleep mode and the result was amazing. Check out this picture.
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Phone took only 3 seconds to go into deep sleep which is amazing!
Thoughts on this?
P.s can someone who's on lollipop or kitkat do the same test so we can see reassemble results with one on M?

Doze it's not about how fast device enters deep sleep. It's about how often it's going to be woken up while in deep sleep. When you leave your device unattended, it will still be woken up periodically to sync and perform background tasks. But the longer the device is unattended the time between those wake up periods will increase. There was a graph presented at Google IO if you need more info.

C3C076 said:
Doze it's not about how fast device enters deep sleep. It's about how often it's going to be woken up while in deep sleep. When you leave your device unattended, it will still be woken up periodically to sync and perform background tasks. But the longer the device is unattended the time between those wake up periods will increase. There was a graph presented at Google IO if you need more info.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm gonna test that as well, I'm gonna put my device under my pillow and in the morning I'll see how much it went out of deep sleep then post results here

Isus <3 said:
I'm gonna test that as well, I'm gonna put my device under my pillow and in the morning I'll see how much it went out of deep sleep then post results here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here... Will switch off net now..go to sleep ..its 2.50AM here in india and willpost results next morning... Google doze tomorrow is ur big day

C3C076 said:
Doze it's not about how fast device enters deep sleep. It's about how often it's going to be woken up while in deep sleep. When you leave your device unattended, it will still be woken up periodically to sync and perform background tasks. But the longer the device is unattended the time between those wake up periods will increase. There was a graph presented at Google IO if you need more info.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh and yeah it indeed does help get in deep sleep faster as it is using sensors to check if device is in motion, if its not it goes into deep sleep faster. And I remember on older androids that it needed almost a minute to get into deep sleep so your argument is not completely right

These are results when I turned off my device but I shaked it.

Device entering deep sleep is not a key point of doze. It's about how many times it'll get awaken when not touched. Number of wake ups will decrease automatically from hour to hour. While on previous android wake up frequency is pretty much the same from hour to hour while screen is off. If you wanted to provide relevant data you should get 2 devices having the same setup but different android version, let it sit for at least 6 hours and then compare number of wake ups.

C3C076 said:
Device entering deep sleep is not a key point of doze. It's about how many times it'll get awaken when not touched. Number of wake ups will decrease automatically from hour to hour. While on previous android wake up frequency is pretty much the same from hour to hour while screen is off. If you wanted to provide relevant data you should get 2 devices having the same setup but different android version, let it sit for at least 6 hours and then compare number of wake ups.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah it's not key point but it indeed is enchantment which will impact battery life. I have one device with ice cream sandwich and I'll compare them.

Won't it be a small margin of savings? since the accelerometer is consistently being powered to measure for the device position.
It'll be interesting to see some ultra low power accelerometer being used for this.

Don't put it under the pillow...don't want the battery accidentally exploding Lol
I found doze today to be unreliable. It works...sometimes...and the other times in the same situation. I still loose like 1-2% in 30 minutes standby (I'm using sync and location services).

markdapimp said:
Won't it be a small margin of savings? since the accelerometer is consistently being powered to measure for the device position.
It'll be interesting to see some ultra low power accelerometer being used for this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not how it works. It's not constantly powered

As google said, ...it detects patterns in ussage....and then it starts working.

russian392 said:
As google said, ...it detects patterns in ussage....and then it starts working.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you explain little bit better

You should watch Google I/O, they said how it works.

Isus <3 said:
Can you explain little bit better
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basically it said it learns your usage pattern. For instance, if you use your phone in the morning before work, at lunch time, and then again at night time, it will use that information to learn when and how often to wake the phone. It figures it won't need to wake the phone throughout the day if you never check it between the hours of 9:00 and 1:00. At least, that's how it seemed to me. It said push notification, alarms and other notifications don't change at all.

Untill i see the results, i will not get my hopes UP, remember, doze only acts when the device is not charging and is left (by left, its left on a table, where it dosent move, if the phone is moving it will not count, as far as i understood), however (For me atleast) the only time my phone is not moving is when im sleeping (its always with me, either im using or not), however when im sleeping, the phone is charging.
in fact its probably thats why they showed a nexus 9 number, instead of the nexus 6 even tho it is the one with complaints regarding battery life(atleast on stock kernel)
I Know for some people it will be usefull, but i doubt its going to be for everyone, or the majority of them

Watch the keynote. Skip to the android section (although the intro was amazing, I could have gone but I had too much work!! Ugh)
Anyways. It takes a few moments for the sensors to detect a pattern of stillness. So I suppose there is a set time for the sensors to be polled...and of the results come back as "idle" several times in a row then it goes into doze...and once the pattern is broken it wakes up, scans, syncs, and then checks if it needs to go into doze again.
---------- Post added at 04:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:07 AM ----------
opssemnik said:
Untill i see the results, i will not get my hopes UP, remember, doze only acts when the device is not charging and is left (by left, its left on a table, where it dosent move, if the phone is moving it will not count, as far as i understood), however (For me atleast) the only time my phone is not moving is when im sleeping (its always with me, either im using or not), however when im sleeping, the phone is charging.
in fact its probably thats why they showed a nexus 9 number, instead of the nexus 6 even tho it is the one with complaints regarding battery life(atleast on stock kernel)
I Know for some people it will be usefull, but i doubt its going to be for everyone, or the majority of them
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agree. My nexus 5 is always with me unless its evening or at college which it's summer break, plus I'll be starting clinicals so its gonna be useless on the jobsite. Seriously google should implement something that learns how apps are used, what to sync and what not to etc...they have so much info from Google now, why not make a system like now except for apps.

russian392 said:
Watch the keynote. Skip to the android section (although the intro was amazing, I could have gone but I had too much work!! Ugh)
Anyways. It takes a few moments for the sensors to detect a pattern of stillness. So I suppose there is a set time for the sensors to be polled...and of the results come back as "idle" several times in a row then it goes into doze...and once the pattern is broken it wakes up, scans, syncs, and then checks if it needs to go into doze again.
---------- Post added at 04:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:07 AM ----------
Agree. My nexus 5 is always with me unless its evening or at college which it's summer break, plus I'll be starting clinicals so its gonna be useless on the jobsite. Seriously google should implement something that learns how apps are used, what to sync and what not to etc...they have so much info from Google now, why not make a system like now except for apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I Agree, a system like Windows Phone or iOs,its sad to compare the same HW and see its windows phone counter part have oficial double battery life on standby (im talking about htc one m8, but we all know it applies for every android phone)

So, say you work as a construction worker, but don't use your phone and because of that, it should be in a "idle" state, but it can't doze because of it being moved around.

Isus <3 said:
So Google introduced us with their new project in Android called doze which is supposed to improve battery life while phone screen is off. While this is amazing...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That characterization seems premature.

I just bought the Galaxy Watch 3 and the Oura ring.

I was curious if anyone else has this pair?
I get wildly different sleep results.
Does anyone else have similar results?

I got the Oura ring about 3 months ago. Was hoping it measures SPo2, but it doesn't. It's main advantages are it tracks temperature and heart rate variability, both of which may be indicators of recovery and possibly predict illness a day or two before symptoms. NBA and WNBA are wearing them as potential early warning of Covid-19.
As a sleep tracker, it's one of the best. Samsung still has a lot of work to do. However, IMO Sleep As Android is just as good, and you can buy a fingertip pulse ox to pair to track SPo2 while you sleep. Only thing about Sleep as Android is it's auto-detect sleep feature isn't as good as Oura (which seems almost flawless), but it takes 2 seconds to launch it before you go to bed.
If I realized Oura Ring doesn't track Spo2, and knew the Galaxy Watch 3 was around the corner, I probably would have saved my money. Still wearing it, but considering selling it, especially with rumors of a 3 gen coming out in the next year. That one probably will have SPo2 tracking, and it will probably be better at that than any other wearable out there. Of course, I'm sure Apple and Sammie will add temperature to their next watches, and they already should have capability to measure HRV (perhaps Apple already does, don't know).

Hi also have both, the ring since few days only and was impressed to see similar patterns of sleep tracking on both devices. The only issue is the samsung GW3 gives very few deep sleep time (which looks like a common issue if you look at some other forums) on the account of light sleep, whereas the oura ring gives more deep sleep. But the trending graphs of both are very similar and correlating. I will post later some screenshots as I track both together in the samsung health app (by importing the oura ring data via the health sync app)

Have both. Totally different results. Moved the watch to the same hand for sleeping, just to see if it would match Oura more. It didn't. The two devices appear to be on different people, one with a sleeping disorder. Occasionally they match on total hours, but Oura consistently states I am still awake for 30-90 minutes after I am out cold. Deep sleep and REM occasionally match on individual periods. IE never for the night, but both might say I was in REM at 2 am. Might.
I do not think they have ever come close to fully matching.
If I had to guess, I'd say one or both are just making up data for REM and Deep Sleep. It's really hard signal processing to get consistent data from really fuzzy sources about partially understood body conditions in different people and conditions. I'd also guess the devices are only accurate some of the time, and only for some people. I'm clearly not one of them. Oura's tech support likes to suggest there is something irregular about my sleep. My sleep did get irregular trying to use the Oura. I would have to believe Samsung has the chops to gather good analysis from imperfect sensors.
I'd love to put two Oura's on the same hand or different hands and see if that data matches. I do know that the Samsung watch nails the start and stop of sleep and naps. All the time.

Question Always on display doesn't turn off when the phone is on it is face or the sensors are covered

So I had many Samsung phones before the S21 U and I never turn off the Always on display. When I put the phone (not the S21 U) on its face or cover the sensors, the always on display turns off, but this is not the case with the S21 U. AOD never turns off even when the phone is on its face or the sensors are covered. Is this a bug? can I do anything about it ? I want it to be like the old way.

Its not a bug, this has been the case since the S10.

Well, it's not a bug, but it's also not an unavoidable feature like the other dude said.
Go to settings, scroll down to lockscreen, tap "always on display", then you can choose always on, on for 10 seconds after tap, or show as scheduled.
Spoiler: Screen shots
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It would be nice if Samsung let you choose more than one AOD option. It would be great if you could both schedule AOD on hours plus enable tap to display for 10 seconds.

DownTheCross said:
Well, it's not a bug, but it's also not an unavoidable feature like the other dude said.
Go to settings, scroll down to lockscreen, tap "always on display", then you can choose always on, on for 10 seconds after tap, or show as scheduled.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually it is indeed an unavoidable "feature" that was introduced since the S10 series. He's talking about the fact AOD used to automatically switch off when the phone is in a pocket or face-down. That is, despite the setting of "Show always" being toggled, the AOD would still switch off when in a pocket or face-down. The reason for this being that if it's in a pocket or face-down, it's pointless having the AOD on. The advantage of course is that battery life is saved.
An obvious example scenario is when one is out and about for say a 14-hour period with the phone in their pocket or face-down about 50% of the time. This would mean the AOD is automatically disabled for 7-hours (while in the pocket or face-down), saving about 7% of battery life. To clarify, the AOD automatically turns on for the other 7-hours when the phone senses that it's outside of the pocket or face-up. I've come from the S9+, and I can certainly confirm that this feature saves battery.
For some reason, since the S10 series, Samsung have disabled this feature for AOD. I can't find any information as to why, but it must be related to the proximity sensor and how it interacts with AOD. Otherwise another reason is that Samsung felt no one liked the feature (can't really imagine why) and disabled it without giving any option to enable it.

Ah I missed the part where he was specifically concerned about the proximity/light sensors shutting the AOD off, just thought his problem was it just never turning off.

Please reconsider - are you sure the feature actually saves battery (face-down or covering sensors turns off AOD)?
Remember we now have a very good display with adaptive refresh. Maybe Samsung designed the screen to be good enough in AOD to actually use less power than running the proximity sensor (to turn on and off AOD) all the time.
So it's a false comparison above - it's not "free" energy savings when you had that feature. The phone had to use power to activate the proximity sensor to know whether to turn off AOD, and it took power to turn on/off throughout the day. But maybe now, why should Samsung bother with that, if they figured out it's less power to just have AOD all the time and not power the prox sensor?
Bottom line, why waste power on running the prox sensor when you can instead use that power to show useful information?
This is speculation, I don't know the actual power loss caused by the missing feature. I just want to correct the assumption that it's free power, when it's not.

KingFatty said:
Please reconsider - are you sure the feature actually saves battery (face-down or covering sensors turns off AOD)?
Remember we now have a very good display with adaptive refresh. Maybe Samsung designed the screen to be good enough in AOD to actually use less power than running the proximity sensor (to turn on and off AOD) all the time.
So it's a false comparison above - it's not "free" energy savings when you had that feature. The phone had to use power to activate the proximity sensor to know whether to turn off AOD, and it took power to turn on/off throughout the day. But maybe now, why should Samsung bother with that, if they figured out it's less power to just have AOD all the time and not power the prox sensor?
Bottom line, why waste power on running the prox sensor when you can instead use that power to show useful information?
This is speculation, I don't know the actual power loss caused by the missing feature. I just want to correct the assumption that it's free power, when it's not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suppose that could be viewed as a good point, although it's actually still a disadvantage or "downgrade" compared to having the original "power saving" feature. This is demonstrably proven (at least for me) given having AOD enabled loses about 1-1.3% battery per hour, which is similar to previous Samsung phones. With AOD disabled, the battery loss is closer to 0.3-0.7% per hour.
To clarify, your argument is that having the proximity sensor activated while AOD is enabled may actually use at least as much power as always showing the AOD when the phone is in standby. Again, I would say this is a "downgrade" compared to previous models, as the proximity sensor should never use this much power (and we know the amount of power the AOD uses is similar to previous models, as demonstrated above) - if it does, then it's arguably a "design flaw" by Samsung. That is, they would have made the proximity sensor a "battery hog" in a relative sense.

Odd, my AOD set to "touch to show for 10s" doesn't even use 1% in 20hrs with 8-10hrs SOT. Snapdragon US model from Google Fi.
You'd think samsung would have more consistency in these, especially by now.

AOD uses very little battery*. Cell standby and device idle together use more.
*if you use a simple clock and don't have all kinds of needless garbage.

DownTheCross said:
Odd, my AOD set to "touch to show for 10s" doesn't even use 1% in 20hrs with 8-10hrs SOT. Snapdragon US model from Google Fi.
You'd think samsung would have more consistency in these, especially by now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I should probably clarify a few things here.
-With AOD set to "touch to show for 10s", the amount of battery AOD uses should be entirely dependent on how often you enable it by tapping to toggle it on. If you tapped it 1000 times in 20 hours, verses 10 times, it would obviously be quite a different amount of battery use.
If the AOD is set to "show always", it could be viewed as essentially the equivalent of continuously tapping to show every 10 seconds for the 20 hours you quoted. It's therefore clear that it would use more than 1% in 20 hours!
-My description of the amount of battery loss from AOD being set to "show always" verses completely disabled was actually regarding total "standby drain" per hour. That is, with AOD set to "show always", the total standby drain per hour (eg. overnight) appears to be around 1%. With the AOD completely disabled, it's closer to 0.5% total standby drain per hour.
The above numbers have been fairly consistent across all Samsung smartphones I've come across, although I suspect the S7 was one of the best (since 2016) in terms of least overall "standby drain" per hour even with AOD set to "show always" (if I remember correctly, it was closer to 0.5% per hour drain with AOD always toggled on, and 0.1-0.2% per hour drain with AOD disabled).
Note that these figures are without any "de-bloating" or "rooting" of the phone.

ssj100 said:
I should probably clarify a few things here.
-With AOD set to "touch to show for 10s", the amount of battery AOD uses should be entirely dependent on how often you enable it by tapping to toggle it on. If you tapped it 1000 times in 20 hours, verses 10 times, it would obviously be quite a different amount of battery use.
If the AOD is set to "show always", it could be viewed as essentially the equivalent of continuously tapping to show every 10 seconds for the 20 hours you quoted. It's therefore clear that it would use more than 1% in 20 hours!
-My description of the amount of battery loss from AOD being set to "show always" verses completely disabled was actually regarding total "standby drain" per hour. That is, with AOD set to "show always", the total standby drain per hour (eg. overnight) appears to be around 1%. With the AOD completely disabled, it's closer to 0.5% total standby drain per hour.
The above numbers have been fairly consistent across all Samsung smartphones I've come across, although I suspect the S7 was one of the best (since 2016) in terms of least overall "standby drain" per hour even with AOD set to "show always" (if I remember correctly, it was closer to 0.5% per hour drain with AOD always toggled on, and 0.1-0.2% per hour drain with AOD disabled).
Note that these figures are without any "de-bloating" or "rooting" of the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My previous phone, a Pixel 2XL, I had set to AOD always on. The phone would turn the display off when face down and even when in a holster on my hip. At night it would stay on all night as a night light/clock right next to my bed and my charger would come on via timer an hour before I would get up to recharge.
It’s very disappointing that the S21 Ultra, brainlessly just keeps AOD lit nonstop despite the fact that it’s a deluxe phone with enough sensors to be programmed just like the Pixel 2XL, which did much better with AOD and its effect on battery life. I’m hoping Samsung fixes this in an update real soon.

neilth said:
My previous phone, a Pixel 2XL, I had set to AOD always on. The phone would turn the display off when face down and even when in a holster on my hip. At night it would stay on all night as a night light/clock right next to my bed and my charger would come on via timer an hour before I would get up to recharge.
It’s very disappointing that the S21 Ultra, brainlessly just keeps AOD lit nonstop despite the fact that it’s a deluxe phone with enough sensors to be programmed just like the Pixel 2XL, which did much better with AOD and its effect on battery life. I’m hoping Samsung fixes this in an update real soon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The power used to light the display is very small vs the background processes already running.
Pixels have no SD card* slot because Google wants you to be cloud dependent.
You aren't viewed as a customer by Google... you're the product. Getting off their factory devices is a start in the right direction.
*No SD card slot is completely unexceptable.
The SD card is the data drive or should be.

blackhawk said:
The power used to light the display is very small vs the background processes already running.
Pixels have no SD card* slot because Google wants you to be cloud dependent.
You aren't viewed as a customer by Google... you're the product. Getting off their factory devices is a start in the right direction.
*No SD card slot is completely unexceptable.
The SD card is the data drive or should be.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I first got my S21 Ultra I set AOD to always on and battery life suffered greatly compared to my previous 2XL. The S21 Ultra doesn’t have an SD card slot either, which has nothing to do with my comments about AOD performance between the 2XL and the S21 Ultra. You are correct, it’s great getting away from Google, but the only real alternative is an iPhone or custom ROM with Micro-G on an Android phone, which again has nothing to do with AOD performance.

neilth said:
When I first got my S21 Ultra I set AOD to always on and battery life suffered greatly compared to my previous 2XL. The S21 Ultra doesn’t have an SD card slot either, which has nothing to do with my comments about AOD performance between the 2XL and the S21 Ultra. You are correct, it’s great getting away from Google, but the only real alternative is an iPhone or custom ROM with Micro-G on an Android phone, which again has nothing to do with AOD performance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's irritating Samsung chooses to do that on some of their phones. Worse it varies from year to year with the same model sometimes too.
AOD in it's always on mode at night if you're not using the phone should use roughly .75-1% an hour. Usage isn't always reported correctly to the apk responsible. Lovely isn't it?
Try clearing the system cache.
If you did any major firmware updates a factory reset is in order otherwise it's not going to get to the root cause most likely.
Samsung's are notorious for this kind of behavior but it can be sorted out. Cloud apps including Google Backup Transport are prime suspects.
Disable Google Firebase and all carrier, Samsung, Google feedback for starters.
Karma Firewall is very useful; a VNP firewall that uses almost no battery, no ads... true freeware.
It's logging feature may not work with Q and above. An adb edit to correct that may be possible, not sure.
A package blocker is also very useful and a powerful tool for unrooted phones. I've used this one for years with zero issues.
Home - Package Disabler
The only NON-root solution that let’s you disable any unwanted packages that come pre-installed / installed with your phone / tablet.
www.packagedisabler.com

Once I disabled full time AOD my S21U, battery life is no longer an issue. As I stated previously, I would like to see a Samsung software update making their AOD perform similar to the way it does on a Pixel 2XL.

neilth said:
Once I disabled full time AOD my S21U, battery life is no longer an issue. As I stated previously, I would like to see a Samsung software update making their AOD perform similar to the way it does on a Pixel 2XL.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not AOD.
Samsung's can be... complicated.
This is how much AOD uses on my 10+, it's an accurate estimate. This is after I spent a lot of time to optimize it ie get the bugs out.

A few additional points/queries about the S21 Ultra:
-I've calculated the total extra battery % loss per hour with AOD always enabled to be around 0.5-0.6%.
"blackhawk" post above suggests that for the 10+ phone, the loss is more around 0.3-0.4%. This appears to correlate well with what I've read regarding the AOD on the S21 Ultra running at 120Hz (which would increase battery use compared to if it ran at 60Hz, which the 10+ phone presumably runs at). It's a pity this is the case, as I don't see any advantage for AOD to run at 120Hz. Perhaps in a future update, Samsung could reduce this to 60Hz on the S21 Ultra.
-I note a couple of users in this thread "hoping" that a future Samsung update will allow the AOD to automatically switch off when face-down or in a pocket/bag. Unfortunately, I don't see this happening, as this feature appears to have been "lost" since 2019. That is, this feature was last present on the S9/Note 9 series of phones back in 2018. All Samsung (flagship) phones from 2019 to present have lost this feature.
-Does anyone know of a way to change the AOD font size (without installing extra software)? Reducing the font size would surely be another way/option to save battery life while having the AOD always enabled.

blackhawk said:
It's not AOD.
Samsung's can be... complicated.
This is how much AOD uses on my 10+, it's an accurate estimate. This is after I spent a lot of time to optimize it ie get the bugs out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow, you got your AOD power consumption down to 3%! The first week I had my S21U, AOD was using 25 to 30% daily I believe. Can you please tell me what you tweaked to get your phone’s AOD power consumption so low? That’s better than on my Pixel 2xl.

neilth said:
Wow, you got your AOD power consumption down to 3%! The first week I had my S21U, AOD was using 25 to 30% daily I believe. Can you please tell me what you tweaked to get your phone’s AOD power consumption so low? That’s better than on my Pixel 2xl.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure what is causing that. Something is running in the background; the phone's not going into deep sleep. Maybe a messaging or cloud app. Usage apps can misreport which apk is the cause or it could be a dependency.
Try it in safe mode to rule out 3rd party apps.
The Google system apps are prime offenders as can be the Samsung apps.
Try clearing the memory cache then see which apps pop up first. My version of Device Manager can do that; I've used it to find rogue apks like that.

Question What is your battery voltage and percent-charge?

Can y'all please dial *#0228# in your dialer apps and tell me what the voltage is and what the corresponding battery percent is?
I'm trying to also see what it is at 100%.
Thanks, just checking something.
I'm at 3.74V @ 26%.

4.13
80%

varcor said:
4.13
80%
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. Please let me know your voltage if you charge to 100%.

It will vary at 100% ... or is it really 80%?
All I know for sure is it stops drawing current/increasing in voltage after reaching an indicated 100% no matter what you do.

nixnixnixnix4 said:
Can y'all please dial *#0228# in your dialer apps and tell me what the voltage is and what the corresponding battery percent is?
I'm trying to also see what it is at 100%.
Thanks, just checking something.
I'm at 3.74V @ 26%.
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4.366 V at 100%

blackhawk said:
It will vary at 100% ... or is it really 80%?
All I know for sure is it stops drawing current/increasing in voltage after reaching an indicated 100% no matter what you do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The cell is rated for 4.45V as the cutoff, but it stops at 4.35V, which is good: https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/m4vrgZ3PqskbyvKM.huge
And: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/...-batteries-in-the-s-and-other-series.4284787/

nixnixnixnix4 said:
The cell is rated for 4.45V as the cutoff, but it stops at 4.35V, which is good: https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/m4vrgZ3PqskbyvKM.huge
And: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/...-batteries-in-the-s-and-other-series.4284787/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only things I mostly look at are SOT battery usage % and temperature when charging.
It rare I charge past 80-90%, just not needed.

blackhawk said:
The only things I mostly look at are SOT battery usage % and temperature when charging.
It rare I charge past 80-90%, just not needed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My S21 Ultra reliably loses 1% an hour without significant intervention on my part and with very light phone usage. I'd say that this is the standby battery loss rate. I'm fine with that. Is that a normal experience?

nixnixnixnix4 said:
My S21 Ultra reliably loses 1% an hour without significant intervention on my part and with very light phone usage. I'd say that this is the standby battery loss rate. I'm fine with that. Is that a normal experience?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like there's background activity going on.
Google backup Transport and Framework maybe. I have those two always package disable and Google play Services is turn off. Google Play Services is a vampire and not often needed by me except mostly for Gmail.
Playstore is also package disabled unless needed. Location is always off unless needed.
I like to see under 1%, think I'm getting about .5% with the tap on AOD setting. It still gets texts and phone calls; not in airplane mode. Wifi is always disabled, I don't use it and bluetooth is turned off at night which is mostly for security.
I have about 86 apks always disabled, most are bloatware anyway.
This stock 10+ is heavily configured but it gives it better battery life and is more secure.
With the newer more efficient memory and CPU you should be able to do better than me. I'm running on 4 G lte only, not sure if 5 G is still an issue now or not.
This is my SOT usage right now and a lot of that was streaming vids. Ha-ha notice the Accubattery charging reporting glitch, no idea what triggered that... Adroids.

blackhawk said:
Sounds like there's background activity going on.
Google backup Transport and Framework maybe. I have those two always package disable and Google play Services is turn off. Google Play Services is a vampire and not often needed by me except mostly for Gmail.
Playstore is also package disabled unless needed. Location is always off unless needed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, what kind of "Screen Off Discharge Rate" do you face?
I'm actually quite happy with 1% an hour. It is rather consistent too: 5G or LTE or WiFi -- all the same.

nixnixnixnix4 said:
My S21 Ultra reliably loses 1% an hour without significant intervention on my part and with very light phone usage. I'd say that this is the standby battery loss rate. I'm fine with that. Is that a normal experience?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're using your device to it's full potential, without handicapping any of it's major functions, 1% per hour seems about at par with what i get on WiFi at home. This goes up to around 2% per hour when I have my Galaxy Watch connected to the phone via BT, and I'm at work, connected to 4G.
I have a Galaxy Tab S7 too, which is always synced to the S21U for "Calls and Messages on other devices" setting, and Seamless Earbud Connection enabled on the Buds Live and the Buds Plus, that allows them to automatically jump between the phone and the tablet depending on which device i pick up and start using. I also have Your Phone app running in the background, that connects my phone to my Windows laptop for calls, messages and notifications. My setup allows a close integration among all my devices and I can take calls or continue work on anything at home with a screen.
I'm using Dual SIMs, both on LTE, WiFi and BT always on, Auto-Sync enabled, FHD+ (my eyes couldn't appreciate the difference between FHD+ and WQHD+), Adaptive Refresh Rate, Auto-brightness enabled, and no debloating except what Device Care automatically puts to sleep/deep sleep. And with all this going, I've never run out of battery in a day, so far. If I were to use only the phone screen for everything, then maybe SOT would've mattered more - but I jump between devices at my convenience and my use-case scenario, and i like that flexibility and freedom. Samsung is the only non-apple company that makes such a cohesive eco-system currently across these many device categories.
So as long as my phone makes it to the end of the day (when everything gets plugged in anyway), I'm not looking to cripple any functionality on this expensive glass and silicon sandwich. I just want to get my money's worth...
So for my specific use case, I'm happy leaving the phone running everything it is capable of, while sipping a little battery in the background. YMMV.

enigmaamit said:
If you're using your device to it's full potential, without handicapping any of it's major functions, 1% per hour seems about at par with what i get on WiFi at home. This goes up to around 2% per hour when I have my Galaxy Watch connected to the phone via BT, and I'm at work, connected to 4G. ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My outlook is the same.
By the way, you might want to try Samsung Flow from the Microsoft Store. I find it to be loads better than Your Phone. It has every feature I would want. Drag and drop into a folder in the Files App. Control apps / screen remotely. Clipboard connection ON/OFF. And, more.

nixnixnixnix4 said:
My outlook is the same.
By the way, you might want to try Samsung Flow from the Microsoft Store. I find it to be loads better than Your Phone. It has every feature I would want. Drag and drop into a folder in the Files App. Control apps / screen remotely. Clipboard connection ON/OFF. And, more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried it right after i got the phone but found the Your Phone integration a little better for calls, messages and notifications. Flow was better at file transfer definitely, but because most of my services are cloud based, I rarely require an actual inter-device file transfer.
But this was months ago, and maybe Flow has improved over time.
Thank you for the suggestion, I will try it out once again and see how it works for me.

nixnixnixnix4 said:
Well, what kind of "Screen Off Discharge Rate" do you face?
I'm actually quite happy with 1% an hour. It is rather consistent too: 5G or LTE or WiFi -- all the same.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Less than .5%@hr about 3% for 6 hours or so is what it's running now. It's not much...