Database Users

What is a good battery charge monitor?

On the XDA2i, I've been having the small problem of running out of battey since i use it for phone calls.
But, unlike normal mobile phones, the XDA2i doesn't give audio warnings when low on battery, so i find that i end up with a dead phone when i need to make a call.
Is there any settings to enable audio warnings on low battery, or any good utilities which will allow this?
Thanks.

Have you tried Spb Pocket Plus?
It shows a battery meter on screen all the time.
You are also supposed to be able to change the settings in your phone at Alerts to warn you of low battery.

To answer the subject of this post: KBattery is a good, free battery charge monitor, I use it all the time. It sits in the menu bar at the top, where the clock is. Though if you have O2 Active installed, it has a battery monitor on the Today screen. But you've removed that already, haven't you?
As for audible alerts, I don't know how you would configure those. I tend to get a warning (text bubble tooltip style dialog and a two tone noise) from the phone when I reach 20% battery, and a bit later (I'm not sure what percentage of battery left triggers it) I am also warned when the battery is really low, I believe it's around 5%, and it cuts power to the SD card.

I've noticed that various functions shut down when battery runs low, but i dont seem to get any audio alerts. Now and then, the XDA can sit in my pocket for a few days so i might not open it up just to check on the battery level. Therefore, the battery gets drained and i would need to restore a backup.
If anyone knows how to access the setting to turn the audio warning on and off, please can you let me know.
Thanks

Here is a niceone indicator.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=364278
Should do the job.

Battery emptied during the night??

Last night before I was going to bed I have had my xperia fully charged.
When I woke up this morning the battery was almost empty.
I can't understand how that happened :S I had no programs running except maybe g-alarm.
Anyone who has an idea what could've drained my battery?

No reception or low signal from ur fone provider maybe? it consumes a lot of power getting the signal. Or your wifi is turn on.

Happened to me several times.
But I'm not sure I didn't let something run in the background. Mediaplayer for example .. skype can eat battery in minutes too.
Also I don't know what battery level I had at the evening. It was above 50%, but then with Xperia, the indicated level does not correspond to remaining time well. It drops fast after 50%.
I would love if I could close any application with red phone button. Anybody knows about software which can do it ?

Dr.Sid said:
Happened to me several times.
But I'm not sure I didn't let something run in the background. Mediaplayer for example .. skype can eat battery in minutes too.
Also I don't know what battery level I had at the evening. It was above 50%, but then with Xperia, the indicated level does not correspond to remaining time well. It drops fast after 50%.
I would love if I could close any application with red phone button. Anybody knows about software which can do it ?
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Click to collapse
are you using fish panel?fish panel caused battery drain in my experience.also bluetooth and wifi as well.

do you use AEButton plus or S2U2 (more to the point AEButton here) as AEButton especially seems to have drainage issues if its 2.6.5, at least it seemed to for me and some others...

human75 said:
are you using fish panel?fish panel caused battery drain in my experience.also bluetooth and wifi as well.
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None of these. And Fish panel for example cannot be left running in the background (AFAIK). Media player, or skype easily, since they are even intended to be run in background.

Happens mee also sometimes. Weekend I noticed that after useing opera it does it. I chargered my xperia in friday, didnt use it then whole day, or in saturday, but in saturday night I wanted to check news whit opera, battery was 90% when I start, after use its was 80%. I go to sleep and morning I waked up to that xperia says battery critical. It cant be anything else when I didint use nothing else whole day, and when it was allredy stand one day whit only 10% loss, and now randomly use 60% battery at night.

I think I had S2U2 running in the background, could that be it?
I'll soft reboot before going to bed tonight and see what happens ^^

use fdcsoft task manager, it'll tell you what's running
battery won't run down on its own, it needs something to cause it.
as said lowsignal will do itn
do you really need to leave the x1 on overnight?
if you turn it off it'll be all nice and alert after a nice sleep
only time my x1 runs low is if I fall asleep reading something with mobipocket on autoscroll...

I found that when I was running Push E-Mail over iMAP, I had this battery draining issue. Make sure you're configuring FlexMail or any other IMAP IDLE client to only the essential folders that you want to keep 'live', as each IMAP IDLE folder requires its own connection and can eat up a lot of resources/battery.
I've actually wrote myself a MortScript that will monitor the battery status and allow FlexMail to stay open if the battery is over 80%, and it will close FlexMail if the battery falls below 80%.
Still hating the fact that we only get battery readouts in 10% increments. Total crap for a high profile device...

I don't need to know what is running. I want to be sure I've just closed something. In fact I need to close 99% of application, I only need IM+ in background and that only sometimes. Also sometimes I need to adjust some settings without closing current application. But otherwise I always want to close, not minimize, and I want to do it with a key.

Same issue here , will a lil bit more tricky , i had my phone TURNED OFF , and was CHARGING , woke up and the red little light on the power button ( light of death) was on, replaced my batter with my spare one , and the phone came back to life , yet it isn't charging ( the charging icon is there but still not charging) , I'm using the wall charger ( if any one is thinking of an usb issue) . So for now i'm useing an "external battery base charger" which sucks to be honest ( takeing the battery in and out isn't the best thing ever ) ..
The funny part is that SOMETIMES ( 1 out of 100 ) the phone charges, why !! i don't really know . I reflashed my device , hardreset and done anything someone can possibly do yet no solution , it's not on warranty and to be honest i think that it's more of a software issue (i know that not charging while switched off is against this ) , I'll be so greatful if any of you guys have any ideas

I had the same problem, but for me it happend when I got a text message at night the the screen wouldn't turn off but xperia tweak fixed that

I had one instance of mysterious night-time draining. It actually woke me up at 4am with the low battery alarm.
The only thing I think might have caused it is that I had it sitting next to my old Nokia, which was switched off. I figure its antenna must have been interacting with the X1's such that it had to go to full power just to keep the cell signal.

Hello all,
I don't have this issue now but i've noticed something weird last night.
All background applications was turned off, screen backlight was turned off, LEDs on both sides was turned off... But there was white light inside my phone. I was sleepy so i didn't check keyboard backlight. Propably it was it. It was visible only it dark, in correct angle.
I've turned device off and on again and there was no light any more.

I had tried this issue before, it fixed after I uninstall the SKtools

I uninstalled S2U2 and I think it made the job

Li-ion or Li-poly?
i've been searching forums here and there regarding x1's battery issue and i'm not using any of those suspected programs (AEplus, S2U2, batti, etc.). mine is just stock xperia as of now, except for SPB plus. but still my battery only manages 14 hours of juice with very minimal usage i assure you. i have tried charging while off, hard reset, upgrade to R2A UK generic ROM, but still my battery sucks. i also noticed on the Settings>Power box that my "Main battery" is Li-ion, isn't it supposed to be Li-poly as the one written on the battery itself (BST-41)? Also, how much drain do we expect from a weak carrier signal? thanks guys.

FrezoreR said:
I uninstalled S2U2 and I think it made the job
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also had a problem with the battery not lasting me through the night. I eventually found out it was S2U2. I upgraded to v1.45 (with the power-saving option) and now the battery remains at the same level during the night.

FrezoreR said:
I can't understand how that happened :S I had no programs running except maybe g-alarm.
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Click to collapse
You said it yourself.
I've been experiencing this for many days. I would charge my unit overnight only to be awaken by the low battery signal. In a normal scenario my X1 would only loose only 0-10% over a period of 8 hours in standby. When the fast discharge occurred it would drop to 50-60% and the unit was warm in touch.
I checked repeatedly to find which program was to blame, soft reset the device various times and changed my usage patterns to rule out programs that didn't had to do with it.
In the end I discovered that every time G-Alarm was triggered or set up an Alarm the quick discharge effect and warm device appeared.
I got rid of it and haven't encountered the problem again.

Possible battery problem?

I have charged my Nexus One yesterday for the first time. I live in holland so i had to use my USB cable, and the power adapter that came with my HTC hero to plug my USB cable in.
After the phone was charged 100%, i disconnected it from the charger and only downloaded + added a widget to my home screen. After i did that the battery was already down tot 97% :O:O
Is it defective ?

i noticed having to complete a few charge cycles.. charge fully, use it till dead, charge again
now it seems to hold out much longer

Hmm ok i'll try that. But did yours also drain this fast?

what setting is your screen on? seriously though, im sure some other battery experts here would know, but i think they take a few cycles to get to maximum efficiency

malicious85 said:
what setting is your screen on? seriously though, im sure some other battery experts here would know, but i think they take a few cycles to get to maximum efficiency
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Click to collapse
What do you mean with screen setting, and what should i put it on?
Sorry totally new to the phone hehe

I've noticed this too. However as soon as the battery reaches around 50% it takes a lot more to drain so it evens out in the end I guess

teihoata said:
I've noticed this too. However as soon as the battery reaches around 50% it takes a lot more to drain so it evens out in the end I guess
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm ok so it also went that fast on your phone? i have been using it for about an hour now and its down to about ~90% =\, concerns me a bit.

Found out something else, concering the usage of the screen. When i look here:
Menu -> Settings -> About Phone -> Battery Use
The phone tells what uses the battery the most or something, but the strange thing is that it says:
Display 55%
Isn't that very high? Maybe that is causing my battery to drain so fast

Battery meters are not an exact science. Its using what it knows about the battery's state to guess of how much % is remaining. The battery meter will need to be calibrated once, and then overall battery should improve with your next normal 3-6 full charges.
Again, you do not need to and you shouldn't repeatedly drain the battery to 0, only once is this needed to set the phones battery meter, unless you clear it (possible within amon ra's bootloader).
As for your observation, yes that is completely normal, there is not a whole lot of definition within 3% of battery as far as displaying it. What the real picture? Enter in #*#*4363*#*# on your dial pad and then go to battery information, and you'll see the accurate voltage. (this is also accessible from "spare parts" if you have it)

Nipje said:
Found out something else, concering the usage of the screen. When i look here:
Menu -> Settings -> About Phone -> Battery Use
The phone tells what uses the battery the most or something, but the strange thing is that it says:
Display 55%
Isn't that very high? Maybe that is causing my battery to drain so fast
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All %'s here are vs the amount of time on battery (shown at the top in h:m). If you just unplugged your phone and you go looking here, you'll see the display % VERY HIGH... because the screen has been on the entire time its been unplugged
Its a % after all of the usage since last unplugged.

i've noticed my battery life is much better since i got the desktop dock.. lots of people charge until the light turns green then immediately grab it and start using..
leave it for another hour or two and it seems to get much better.

dont know if anyone else has noticed this but the top corner indicator light turns green once the battery goes somewhere over 90%, leaving it charge longer will get you to 100

malicious85 said:
dont know if anyone else has noticed this but the top corner indicator light turns green once the battery goes somewhere over 90%, leaving it charge longer will get you to 100
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Click to collapse
Good point, I did notice this by accident a few times.

Nipje said:
What do you mean with screen setting, and what should i put it on?
Sorry totally new to the phone hehe
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Click to collapse
You probably found this by now, but one flick to the left and you should have a widget for WiFi, GPS, etc. The far right one toggles 3 levels of screen brightness. The brightest two settings really suck down battery.

just a tip, when you are draining it to recalibrate the battery, after you get to the point that the phone shuts off, boot into the bootloader and run that thing till it completely dies... i did this for my phone, sat it in bootloader with a bright ass screen for like 15 min before it finally finished off... get every last ounce of juice out of it before you start charging it back up

Hmm thanks for al the reactions guys. I'm going to recalibrate my battery now, and lets see if that helps a bit .
Then i have a other question, its not about my battery but since i already have a open topic i dont want to create another one .
Can anyone of you test the following:
When you are calling with someone, and your calling volume is on the maximum (so the volume of the speaker that you hold against your ear). Can anyone notice a little crack from the speaker when the other person talks a bit loud or make's a loud noise? I'm wondering if there is something wrong with mine. With several tones the ear speaker cracks a little bit, like the sound is to loud or something?

Nipje said:
Hmm ok so it also went that fast on your phone? i have been using it for about an hour now and its down to about ~90% =\, concerns me a bit.
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Click to collapse
Yep sounds about the same on my phone, dont worry about it lol
The draining thing is from the old nickel days, the lithium batteries are made for daily use so just treat the phone as you would normally. The battery will get better as time goes by.
Also I am not having that problem with the speaker

Hmm, I have my device since last week (Netherlands) and the battery usage is frightening. Sucking it dry in about 24 hours. I haven't let it die out completely though: I thought lithium batteries were not supposed to be used that way. Ni-Cad batteries were used that way.
Ah, see here:
Guidelines for prolonging lithium-ion battery life
Lithium-ion batteries should never be depleted below their minimum voltage (2.4 to 2.8 V/cell, depending on chemistry). If a lithium-ion battery is stored with too low a charge, there is a risk that the charge will drop below the low-voltage threshold, resulting in an unrecoverable dead battery.[citation needed] Usually this does not instantly damage the battery itself but a charger or device which uses that battery will refuse to charge a dead battery. The battery appears to be dead or not existent because the protection circuit disables further discharging and there is zero voltage on the battery terminals.
Lithium-ion batteries should be kept cool. Ideally they are stored in a refrigerator.[citation needed]
Aging will take its toll much faster at high temperatures.[citation needed]
[edit] Prolonging life in multiple cells through cell balancing
Analog front ends that balance cells and eliminate mismatches of cells in series or parallel significantly improve battery efficiency and increase the overall pack capacity. As the number of cells and load currents increase, the potential for mismatch also increases. There are two kinds of mismatch in the pack: state-of-charge (SOC) and capacity/energy (C/E) mismatch. Though the SOC mismatch is more common, each problem limits the pack capacity (mA·h) to the capacity of the weakest cell.
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Click to collapse
So, if you want to brick your battery, by all means, suck out all the power.

i have a mytouch but i think the things i do can be used with all androids....first recalibrating is a good way to get a fresh battery...then the brightness also helps along with any wireless things u dont use like wifi gps etc.. they should be turned off an brightness should be low...i have downloaded a app lately called automatic task killer..i think this is better than any other task manager because other task managers dont kill apps wen phone is on standby ..apps r still running wen screen is off an automatic task killer kills them..i think u should download this and also have a task manager to kill apps wen u use the phone..another thing is charging the phone wen its completely off..wait until the the light turns green then leave it on for another hour or two then turn it back on....i have seen an increase in bettery life by doing all this...any one esle have any tips ..let me kno

Battery critical notification

guys,
i have notices that the phone is not showing me any Battery critical notification !! i have fully charged the phone and waited until the phone say goodbye without any Battery critical notification.
any help ??

You have a battery indicator on the top (when you press on the clock it will show up). Then, when battery is critically low, the phone reminds you to charge the battery with a sound and a message on the screen.
In addition, the battery indicator on the top is now permanently visible.

skycamefalling said:
You have a battery indicator on the top (when you press on the clock it will show up). Then, when battery is critically low, the phone reminds you to charge the battery with a sound and a message on the screen.
In addition, the battery indicator on the top is now permanently visible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank you for you post but I have not experience what you have mention. The battery has dry out without any notification and the battery did turn red or even stay visible...
Also, no message show in phone to alert me a out it

Nowaynoway said:
thank you for you post but I have not experience what you have mention. The battery has dry out without any notification and the battery did turn red or even stay visible...
Also, no message show in phone to alert me a out it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is strange, the phone does tell you when the battery is running low, that's for sure.
So either you have a faulty device/battery, or the software is broken (maybe try a hardreset) or the power button has been pressed by accident (and the battery is still full).

hmmmmm.... I think I didnt see a notice either...
Is it possible that the message pops up silently and then goes away after few seconds? So if you have the phone in your pocket, you wont know about the battery?
Or maybe it is manufacturer related? What phones do you guys have? Mine's omnia.

I have Samsung i7800 Omnia 7

I also have an Omnia 7.
The message comes with an acoustic notification too, but surely you could miss it, it's just a short sound.
BUT when the battery is running low there is the battery icon in the upper bar. This icon is permanently visible when the battery's low so you should see it everytime you look at the screen.

Guys conformed,
i can now see the battery visible when it low and i got the message alerting me of low battery.
What i did is i have switch the mobile off, take the battery out, then i have put is again and tune the mobile on. I have waited until the battery run out and i got the messages and battery visible.
thanks for you support

Samsung managing low battery itself

Ok I was trying to search abouth this but haven't found abouth it here.
When my battery is under 10%, you can't select display brightness anymore in the display option menu. I don't use energiesaving. Is this normal that samsung manages the brigntness itself than? It's annoying because I want to use my 10% battery on full brightness if I want too!!
I can adjust it with the widget, however when I open my browser it sets back to samsung dimming it... so not possible than.
Also you can not use camera at lower battery of 20 or 15%, not sure wich one, just noticed it today; I think 15%. Why the f*ck is that? Again: Why can't I choose what to do with my last 15%?
As far as I was searching I didn't find an option to turn this off. Anybody else maybe?
Thanks for answering these two questions!!
Oh and a little question: The battery usage graph, when is it reset and does it start counting again? Only when you put the plug in untill it is 100%?

this has been the default behavior even with SGS1. You can't snap pictures, listen to music, view videos, raise brightness when your battery is low.
I think there is no way to alter this behavior.
To your other question - the batt stats in that little app will reset when you charge to full 100% and it gives you that message "batt is charged, disconnect the charger".

kreoXDA said:
this has been the default behavior even with SGS1. You can't snap pictures, listen to music, view videos, raise brightness when your battery is low.
I think there is no way to alter this behavior.
To your other question - the batt stats in that little app will reset when you charge to full 100% and it gives you that message "batt is charged, disconnect the charger".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok thank you!
I find this pretty annoying. Verry friendly of samsung to think abouth my battery not spending on media things, and i could make important calls if I need to! But I am old enough to spend my battery on what I find important, pff.
Oh well, maybe rooting in the future(or wouldn't that effect it?)... Don't know much aboutch that yet, first android. But will look into it.

Most likely you would need to patch the code to fix this. Someone will do it eventually. It hasn't bothered me enough for me to want to patch it. But I agree, it's stupid. If I want to take pictures when the battery is at 15% or lower, I should be able to do that. If I want to watch a movie when the battery is less than 10%, I should be able to do that.

Interesting. What if Samsung didn't implement this features and when your last 10-15% of your battery is dying fast with all your setting and you couldn't make any important calls or email or message will you be complaining to Samsung for not implementing any battery saving features?
With 10-15% of my battery left I will save as much battery as I can to save for any important things before I reach home.
People's need is hard to pleased. One wanted this another one doesn't want that. Never ending story. Haha.
Wait for custom rom to remove this features. =D

r_a_c said:
Ok I was trying to search abouth this but haven't found abouth it here.
When my battery is under 10%, you can't select display brightness anymore in the display option menu. I don't use energiesaving. Is this normal that samsung manages the brigntness itself than? It's annoying because I want to use my 10% battery on full brightness if I want too!!
I can adjust it with the widget, however when I open my browser it sets back to samsung dimming it... so not possible than.
Also you can not use camera at lower battery of 20 or 15%, not sure wich one, just noticed it today; I think 15%. Why the f*ck is that? Again: Why can't I choose what to do with my last 15%?
As far as I was searching I didn't find an option to turn this off. Anybody else maybe?
Thanks for answering these two questions!!
Oh and a little question: The battery usage graph, when is it reset and does it start counting again? Only when you put the plug in untill it is 100%?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thinks its a security feature too protect your battery and your fone.
Lithium batteries are very sensitive when they are almost drained. Normaly your fone will shutdown when the batteri voltage reach about 2,5V, if the voltage go lower on a lithium batteri, it will not accept a new charge and can explode if force charged.
Another thing is that lithium batteries have higher impedance the lower the voltage is on the batteri and its not after af liniear scale. Lets say the voltage on the battery is about 3V when the fone is reporting 10% left. The problem is that the impedance is very high at that voltage, so if you drain to much power, the voltage on the battery will drop under the safe voltage limit immediately, render your battery useless, and possibility to harm your fone and you if force charged.

jonrwg said:
Interesting. What if Samsung didn't implement this features and when your last 10-15% of your battery is dying fast with all your setting and you couldn't make any important calls or email or message will you be complaining to Samsung for not implementing any battery saving features?
With 10-15% of my battery left I will save as much battery as I can to save for any important things before I reach home.
People's need is hard to pleased. One wanted this another one doesn't want that. Never ending story. Haha.
Wait for custom rom to remove this features. =D
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no nobody would be complaining because not a single other android phone does this behavior, and people seem just fine not yelling about anything.
i agree this behavior should have an on/off setting. someone will fix it wiht custom ROM let's hope.

Yeah and not to be able to use camera when battery is lower than 20% is ridicilous! There is still 20% juice left. Camoon Samsung!!
I could somehow understand if it starts when under 10% left but I still prefer that I can personally decide whether or not save battery when running out.
For Desire I always had extra battery with me. I could use it 100% until the battery died and just change to next one.
Now basically the already bad battery life has been taken 20% away cause you cant do **** after that.

RogerPodacter said:
no nobody would be complaining because not a single other android phone does this behavior, and people seem just fine not yelling about anything.
i agree this behavior should have an on/off setting. someone will fix it wiht custom ROM let's hope.
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Click to collapse
Haha, true true. Hope this can be fixed in custom rom.
Oh, my mate just complaint to me about this a moment ago.