Using Pocket Bluetooth Tools - MDA II, XDA II, 2060 General

MAtes, I have a question regarding this nice tool. In the latest version it switches Bluetooth automatically off after 30 seconds of inactivity which causes some problems for me. On http://bluetooth.i-networx.de/index_e.html it says:
Bluetooth is switched on automatically on incoming calls. However it take some seconds until the connection to the headset/car kit is established. If you leave Bluetooth always on there is no delay.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So how do I leave Bluetooth always on then?

Hello farnold,
Hey nice tool, I've never heard of it! Thanks for sharing the tip!
In return maybe I can help you with your problem....
In order to disable the 30 second timer you can either click on the white clock on the today screen (it must turn gray to show a disabled state) or simply disable that today item (Start/Settings/Today/Items and uncheck Bluetooth Tools) that way the power saving feature will not work, but the rest of the suite will...
I hope this resolves your problem.
Best regards,
Rayan

Thanks, mate, the trick was clicking on the clock symbol I used it today in "standard" mode where Bluetooth switches itself off after 30 seconds... still answer calls wasn't such a problem - just took a second longer I would say

I have downloaded and installed this program. I am impressed with the added abilities included in it - in particular the "step down the road" of voice dialing with a BT headset, in that the phone now actually responds to a button press from the headset, though voice-dialing is not yet possible.
I am however very concerned by the huge increase in battery drain - my i-mate drained from 100% to 0% overnight last night. Before installing this program it would rarely drain below 65% overnight. This was with the BT on all the time . . . but I always left BT on all of the time before as well. This issue would need to be addresses (obviously) before this program would be a viable option.

why dont your pda sleep in it's cradle ?

It could have last night . . . but I wnated to make sure everything was normal - I noticed a quicker power drain after installing it and wanted to do a longer test.
Also, I am about to travel to Ukraine for the next 10 days, and there will be long periods (like 9+ hour airplane ride) where charging will not be possible. A rapid drain of my MP3 player, eBook reader and game console (I love the i-mate! ) would make me a very unhappy traveller.

@BRosenow,
So why don't you use the Bluetooth 60 second auto power off instead?
That way you will save some juice and Bluetooth will still work when you get a call.
Regards,
Rayan

I installed this program and left my cradle around 15:00 today. It's now 21:15 and the battery displays 90% left. I have sent and received several SMS'es, so I don't feel that there are any extra drain on my system.
Regards
Michael

As I am now seeing, people in other forums are posting experiences similar to mine. See http://www.ppcsg.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=32049&sid=b07cb63386a7323151a0a87d2b2e8081 for this discussion. They indicate (as I noticed when I had auto power-off enabled) that this had no effect of the quick power drain.

Strange, I am still at 86% power some 8 hours after leaving the charger. I have rebounded my GPS and used bluetooth briefly after installing the latest pocket bluetooth tools. Possible you have a conflict with some app I am not running..
Regards
Michael

Hm, really strange. I also did not see any change in power consumption using this tool. I always take mine off the cradle around 8am in the morning and use it throught the day until about 7pm in the evening. Bluetooth w/o that tool only in the car - now more or less always, but with Auto Sleep Mode... the power drain is about the same for me...

I have the same power drain problem. My device didn't power off automatically whichever profile (on the Today plugin) I used. It works only when I switch on the bluetooth timer, but I want to have it on always.

Mine, I got different issue... after installing this new version I'm having problem to connect to my Bluetooth headset sometimes it works sometime it doesn't. Also if it doesn't connect to my bluetooth headset I can't even use the phone itself, the other party can hear me but I can't hear the person on the other line. Also the Headset icon is missing when you're using BT headset. I installed it twice and end-up the same problem so I uninstall it and used the previous version.
BUT I really like the feature that you can dial the last number you call thru the BT Headset.
Anyone having the same problem? I am using the latest ROM of T-Mobile by the way!

Hey Superperry,
some problem this end non bt headset bubble when you are using the bluetooth headset.
When you make a call it does not connect automatically to the headset you have to press the button on the headset.
Sometime it connects sometimes it does not need more improvement in the latest version.
Regards
Gigi

After installing the new version i got the following problem.
When i am dialing using the phone itself with bluetooth off the
BT turns on and the bluelight is bliking and it turns off after 60sec.
This drains the battery quicker than before

gigino said:
Hey Superperry,
some problem this end non bt headset bubble when you are using the bluetooth headset.
When you make a call it does not connect automatically to the headset you have to press the button on the headset.
Sometime it connects sometimes it does not need more improvement in the latest version.
Regards
Gigi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gigi,
Thanks for the input. Atleast now I know not only me having those problem.
And Yes, it still need some improvement on this latest version.

power drain and another weird problem
Yeah .... I've had the pwerdrain problem. Was fishing and even though I'd switched the device off, each time I checked it it had drastically lost juice. Was worried it was going to go completely flat before I got home. .... and I didn't make or receive a single call.
Also had another wierd problem - sometimes after switching unit off. it wouldn't switch on again until I did a soft reset.

Power drain..seems afflict me too,but I don't use any BtTools and take BT off..!
I charge my XDA2 twice a day..hmm..this lets me think that it is a application conflict!
Also seems my xda runs very slow..
and I have noticed when i connect my xda with active sync it sometimes doesnt sync but still waiting: Connecting (for ever) and uses 90% of my cpu,amazing!
Now will try to find the prob.

I also experienced power leak from my I-Mate. It ran out in half of the day even I was trying to charge it via USB. I had to uninstall app after loosing bunch of my business call this day

blue tooth toolkit causing serious problems (I think)
OK several days of using it, this is what I think is happening.
1. Without BTTK power drain on XDA2 very acceptable. With BT switched on permanently then drains about twice as quickly but still acceptable.
2. With BTTK installed and in BT timer mode, then drain is very good ie as per not having BT switched on at all. UNTIL Blue tooth is fist used for either an incoming or outgoing call. After that - even if it's theortically in the sleep mode - the drain is disastrous - lost 70% of the juice overnight with everything switched off.
3. If battery charge is below about 45 to 50% then powering off and on again by the on/off button doesn't work. After a power-off I have to do a soft reset.
...... of course mine might be a sepcial case, and BTTK might be interacting with something else, but it looks like I'll have to go the ROM upgrade route.
Mike

Related

Battery Drain on XDA II

Hi,
I have a very recently purchased XDA II.
I was under the impression that the battery time was considerably improved.
Although I have turned down the backlight brightness when on battery power, it still starts to loose power when I receive or send a SMS for example.
Is this normal or do I have a duff battery ?
Steve
try turning off bluetooth when you dont use it
it's suppose to be a batt hog
Yup,
done that. I only have BT on when I am actually using my headset.
Any other idea's
Steve
when does it auto turn off ?
when does the backlight turn off ?
are there any SD cards connected seem to recall that they eat batt aswell
I've had mine a week, have the same power drain problem. After charging it all last night I managed to use it as a PDA for a total of 40 mins over a 6 hour period today before the battery drained. No phone calls were made, Bluetooth disconnected (I do have a 256 MB card installed, but I don't know if this has anything to do with it), furthermore the backlight is set to the default setting and the auto power off set to 1 min. In any case I would expect to get more than 40 mins use of the PDA, the specification states upto 15 hours.
I took the unit back to the store, they say that this is a rare problem (yeah right :roll: ), they gave me a new battery which I am now recharging, hopefully this will work.
mmmm, it's very strange.
I am doing a test now. I have a imate with the official imate upgrade. I have a gps sysonchip bt. One and half hours ago i connected the imate with the gps and i started a demo of 500 km. Now the battery is at 75%.....Maybe de last upgrade solved this problem.... :shock:
You should get far better performance than this.
Three things that can drain the power:
Communications/Peripherals - IR, bluetooth, SDIO wireless LAN etc. Disable all of them unless you're actually using them.
Processor hungry programs - check if you have anything running in the background that could prevent the device switching to full sleep mode.
Lack of radio signal - if you're out of contact with a base station, the device tries to connect at full power every 30s - a big battery drain, so if you know you're out of contact, turn off the radio.
However, even with everything running, I'd expect a running time way above 40mins, so it sounds like you have a hardware problem with your device. I easily get 3h full brightness, full processing (ie watching a movie or playing a game) with radio on.
Turn IR off?
Is there anyway to actually turn the IR off on the XDA II?
Just the Start-Settings-Connections-Beam-Receive all incoming beams checkbox.
tried the new battery today, same procedure as yesterday (no bluetooth etc), had a slightly better performance today from the new battery, managed to get roughly an hours actual use out of the PDA (games etc) over a period of... 10 hours, ooh atleast it lasted the working day so must be better... however still no way near the 15 hours PDA work time as stated on the box!
However something I have noticed is that every now and then (after switching off the unit and just leaving it on the desk) the screen comes to life displaying a running program, (just how do you turn off the media player? I now realise it isnt with the "X"). Anyway why does it "power" back up? I wonder if this has anything to do with my power problem, that perhaps it has switched back on whilst in my pocket (BTW I have set the buttons so that they do not switch the PDA on accidently)
So, I'm recharging again, (I think I might take the MMC card out see if tht makes a difference). I expect something better for my EUR 500, what is the point of being able to go online anywhere if you have to be plugged into the mains! If I can't get the damn thing to work satisfactoraily by next week then it is going back to the shop, despite it being a Gucci shiny piece of kit!
@MoistVelvet: Actually, it;s not so much the device itself but the operating systems that is the cause of a few quirks. Luckily, a lot has been written on this forum and other forums on websites such as www.ppcw.net. A lot can been improved by limiting the number of programs that can be found in the \windows\startup folder of the XDA II. I'd suggest you have a look around in the various topics. I ended up honing my XDA II to a point where I am actually very very satisfied with it's performance ...
Can someone repost the items in the windows start up folder than can be deleted and what they do on the XDA II.
I was surprised at the amount of apps in there, but dont know what I can safely delete.
Steve
Wiz,
thanks for the tip, I'll have a look around.
Well the batery did last longer yesterday, managed to get through a whole workig day before it ran out, so the jury is still out!
Realised perhaps one of the reasons why the unit would switch itself on, whilst at work I have a very low signal, so every minute or two the signal strength would go up and switch the screen on. I have set to auto switch off after 1 min, but I wonder if there is there a way to stop it from switching on?
Hm, my experience is quite different. I use it throughout the day with around 15 phone calls, at least 2 GPRS synchronisations, some other usage of contacts, calendar and email and when I get home it's still around 60 percent - the most drain appears to happen on the way back home when I use the BT headset...
When your uses so much more power you may like to check what kind of programs you use. First idea is to have a critical look at fancy today plugins... my worst experience was with Battery Pack, the best way to empty your battery :lol:
Maybe you like to use UpTime plugin (http://ae.inc.ru/uptime_t.html) which really tells you how much you actually use the PocketPC and which doesn't do anythings while it's switched off...
MoistVelvet said:
Wiz,
Realised perhaps one of the reasons why the unit would switch itself on, whilst at work I have a very low signal, so every minute or two the signal strength would go up and switch the screen on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, the reason it periodically switches on is the O2 Homezone application. Whenever your phone changes to a new base station (which can happen even if you don't move), the stupid Homezone app turns the phone on. This is a known issue, and the only known remedy is to disable the app completely (remove from Autostart folder, soft reset phone).
Cheers
Daniel
Hi
I have an xdaII, which i load loads and loads of things onto. I did find that the battery was draining quite quickly. eg. charge it all night, just leaving it running in the day with hardly any use would drain the battery by about 90 percent! Bluetooth was off etc.
One time, the thing drained completely, and it needed a hardboot. Im going to send it back shortly for investigation/repairs.
However, since it hardbooted, i have not installed a thing. And i am finding that the battery is lasting a lot longer. I managed to go 3 days, of average usage, (few incoming/outgoing calls), without charging the battery!
This makes me think some apps must cause the battery to drain. I had battery app installed (that runs in today screen). I had fonix voicedial installed. I had quite a few games installed.
I think some software was causing the battery consumption,.. possibly battery pack.
re
I have previously had problems with battery drain, due to apps running in the background.
I also found specific apps like the battery pack, LAN sdio, bluetooth and the camera app, would drain the battery quickly.
Although you can manage closing apps down through settings/system/memory/running programmes I found the app Gigatask http://gigatask.com/ a simpler way to manage tasks.
There are others, but I found this suitable for my needs.
Now when I close an app I know it's closed and not running in the background draining the battery.
I still charge daily, habit now when I get home from work, but I have no worries about battery drain, and it rarely goes lower than 65% for a normal days use.
Cheers, Shire
turning infrared beam recieve off will help a little
:wink:

Extremely Bad Battery Life on the XDAII when the PDA is off

Hello,
I was wondering if anyone else is having the same problems.
When I go to bed I turn the PDA off. The phone is still on.
When I wake about 7 hours later I find the battery is at 60%.
What's the deal? I thought it was supposed to have 150 hour standby life.
I do find something else quite weird. When I turn the PDA off the screen turns off and it all seems fine. I have the button lock turned on so no other buttons will work. After a couple of minutes, if I move the volume slider up or down the PDA will beep. Then if I press any of the buttons such as "Record" "Camera" and "Calander" Nothign seems to happen.
But when I turn the PDA on the "Recoard" "Camera" and "Calander" applications will load.
It is kinda of like it isn't turning off the PDA at all.
Anyone know what I'm doing wrong or how to fix it?
Thanks
Cam
if grps is only and bluetooth is on and maybe messenger and or icq is on it drain the batt
GPRS and Bluetooth are both on but GPRS is not connected. And Bluetooth is not connecting to anything.
I don't use messanger.
Would that still be draining the battery that much?
Cam
Cyeoh,
Unfortunately, I know exactly what you are going through. Your phone is entering a mode called 'resuming', it’s a low power state that does not turn on the display, etc, but will respond to hardkeys, volume slider, etc......
I'm guessing your XDA2 goes into 'resume' while trying to find a GSM signal, (are you in a weak area). This is my problem, you can read about it here...
http://www.pocketpcpassion.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38598
As a test, you should turn off the phone, (flight mode) for one night and compare the battery in the morning, (I'm willing to bet is almost the same as when you left it). Alternately install an app that monitors cpu usage, (like the one in the above link), and you probably will see a similar pattern to mine.
The registry solution does help, but causes problems with Bluetooth, (at least it did on my device, nothing a soft reset didn’t fix, but it was VERY annoying)….
If it is your GSM phone, you might want to try using another GSM SIM card from another provider, (maybe a friends) and see if you get better results. When I switched to a better provider I got an increase of 10% on the battery, (not great but something!)
Thank You very much.
That does answer a lot. I do have very bad reception at home. I guess this may mean I need to leave it charging over night. However I do find the XDA does charge very quickly which mean in the time it takes me to get ready for work it is back up to 93%.
I will put it into Flight mode tonight to see what happens.
It's still a little bit ****ty and it seems to be because of software. Hopefully they will fix it in the next ROM update.
Thanks
Cam
How did you go with your test last night cyeoh, did your battery last a little longer?
I'm intrested to know as when I charge my battery over night in the morning its still is not on 100% untill I do a soft reset or disable and enable flight mode then it pops up to 100% and stops charging... yet a nother feature of some software I've installed or the ROM version at the moment!!!

Auto Power Not Working

Hi There
Great device but for some reason after installing BT Tools and SPB GPRS Monitor the turn off after so many minutes fails to work.
The setting are correct and I've even used the same settings for both the BT Tools battery profiles but it doesn't work. The backlight goes off just like it should but the unit never powers down. As a result I'm unwittingly chewing through battery power unless I manually press the power button.
Has anyone ever experienced this? If so do you know why? Many thanks in advance.
Update: I have since removed BT Tools and the auto-power off is functioning properly again. Any and all advice will be appreciated.
mmm maybe this is the same problem i am having?
I get messages SMS at 6am every morning (scheduled from work) most mornings when I pick my phone up, it is off and the message is there, some mornings even though when I went to bed the battery was full the phone is dead (backup battery and all) I presume the phone is waking up when the SMS comes in and not shutting down so the battery runs completely dead. Although the blue light on the top of the phone is falshing....
I also run BT Tools and will try uninstalling it and waiting a week or two to see if the problem goes away. It doesn't happen every day by the way it seems to happen maybe every 10 days or so......
OHHH BTW I don't have GPRS Monitor installed, just BT Tools!
You dont put it on charge overnight?
I do, but I find that if I leave it on the entire day I only get 3.5 hours of use out of it and then it needs to re-charge. So it needs to turn off when idle.
cruisin-thru said:
You dont put it on charge overnight?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do sometimes but not always especially if it is already 100% (or close to it), it is still an issue IMHO, having to leave the phone plugged in when fully charged isn't a perfect solution and generally I thought not the best for the battery in the long term!!!!
Besides the same thing could happen during the day, if you dont hear the SMS come in and the phone is in the case clipped to your belt and its switched on for an hour, when it need not be on at all!!!!
Don't get me wrong I love the functionality BT Tools provides, it is a fantastic program, I would just like to know how common this problem is? I will also try and contact the author and see if they know of this problem?
Hardest part is that it doesn't happen every time, only sometimes, just makes it harder for the author to track down the cause, from personal experience I hate tracking down these sorts of problems!!!

my wifi stops working when

Can anyone explain why my wifi connection is dropped when I put my phone into standby mode. This does not happen when I am using GPRS?
If the battery was not so crap I would not need to keep putting it into standby mode.
I guess its because when the device is in standby all the PDA functions are stopped, but the phone functions are not. GPRS is connected via the phone line which is active in standby mode thus it does not drop.
This does not sound out of the ordinary to me.
thanks for confirming my fears. So does anybody know how you can use this device for 8 hours (working day) with wifi switched on? I normally leave it logged into IM when I am at home and do not want to leave it charing all the time.
Try Start-Settings-System-Power-Advanced and untick the battery Power Timer.
Dave,
Agile is clever enough not to power off the device but and all that happens is the screen dims. I am trying to put the device in to standby but leave wifi on along with running agile messenger but this does not seem to be possible. The reason for this is to prolong the battery life by not having the screen on as wifi zaps my juice so much more than GPRS.
It is however possible when using GPRS as the phone function works when it is in standby.
Marc
i needed to do this on my dell axim too, used a program called screenlock which kills the display and locks the buttons. you press 2 buttons to wake the system. Wifi and other apps continue running.
my post http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showpost.php?p=840747&postcount=2
the app
http://www.pocketgear.com/software_detail.asp?id=14621
be careful, if you cant work out which hardware buttons its using, you'll have to soft reset your device (if it works at all, i've not tested on wizard)
let me know if it does what you want
just tested and it appears to use messaging and voice speed dial as its 2 buttons
Thanks I will test it asap

Bluetooth needs (very) much Energy

Hi,
I have a HTC HD2 and I was wondering why the Battery loses more than 25% over night. (100%) eight hours before.
Now I try some settings and I noticed that the cause is the bluetooth device.
It doesn't matter if it is visible or not. If it is turned on the device lost more than 25% energy within 8 hours.
If I turn bluetooth off, then it loses 5% within 8 hours which is ok for me. The 390h Standby has been measured with a clock which runs at least 5 times faster than normal clocks. Or the phone was turned off or without a SIM Card (and bluetooth was not active )
Does anybody noticed the same problems?
I have a Touch HD and a Touch Diamond 2 and both don't need so much energy and bluetooth is always on and discoverable.
Please don't try to get to far away from the topic in this discussion
I've noticed that seems to be contagious like a disease and at the end we talk about the greenhouse effect because I am to lazy to turn my bluetooth off when I don't need it...
Thank you for helping
And... Yes I've used the searchengine but with no satisfied results
Battery drain..
Actually my battery won't last a day!
During week i'm receiving a lot of mail (100+) on 4 accounts (exchanges server, hotmail and 2 accounts using imap) so I figured is was the mail..
but this weekend still noticed the battery drained very fast, and yes, my bluetooth is constantly enabled. I hate disableing it as I need it to automatically connect to my carkit.. but i'm gonna give it a shot.
Well... I am not alone with this problem.
But is that a problem with a driver or a hardware problem?
Maybe it could be fixed?!
Is there a way to NOT drain the battery and have a BT headset enabled all day?
I too am curious to know if having a BT headset always on, as the case for me with my HTC X-7501 as I need to answer calls while driving about.
My X-7501 will never last all day because (I am sure other factors pare at play) the BT is always on. Turn it off and the battery drain is lessened noticeably.
My concern is it will be the same with the HD2 (my future phone.
If anyone can shed some light on how to deal with this when one needs BT on most all the time, it would be greatly appreciated.
I cannot imagine trying to enable BT whenever a call comes in and doing so in time to answer the call.
Anyone have anything to suggest?
Thanks,
Claude H.
Yes. My HD2 with 1.66 rom, activating Bluetooth, to connect to BTheadset when needed, will deplete 30% within 7hrs....overnite with no other activity... *sad
Crusoe86 said:
Hi,
I have a HTC HD2 and I was wondering why the Battery loses more than 25% over night. (100%) eight hours before.
Now I try some settings and I noticed that the cause is the bluetooth device.
It doesn't matter if it is visible or not. If it is turned on the device lost more than 25% energy within 8 hours.
If I turn bluetooth off, then it loses 5% within 8 hours which is ok for me. The 390h Standby has been measured with a clock which runs at least 5 times faster than normal clocks. Or the phone was turned off or without a SIM Card (and bluetooth was not active )
Does anybody noticed the same problems?
I have a Touch HD and a Touch Diamond 2 and both don't need so much energy and bluetooth is always on and discoverable.
Please don't try to get to far away from the topic in this discussion
I've noticed that seems to be contagious like a disease and at the end we talk about the greenhouse effect because I am to lazy to turn my bluetooth off when I don't need it...
Thank you for helping
And... Yes I've used the searchengine but with no satisfied results
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, is it possible for anyone of you with this problem to export registry? I would like to setup my phone to be discoverable even when phone is in standby. Apparently this is the situation with your phone and having a registry would definately help me.. thanks

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