Consensus: Will leaving GPS ON consume more battery life? - EVO 4G General

I understand the effects of leaving 4G, BT, and even 3G for that matter, ON can consume more battery life. However, what's the consensus on GPS. I have it OFF and turn it ON every time I'm using Google Navigation, etc. However, this is getting quite annoying. Will GPS really turn "off" itself if an application is not using it? I heard that the HTC Sense Weather widget will use the GPS for its refreshing and just that alone will affect battery life.
So what is the final verdict? I feel we've had plenty of time to test our theories by now.

akarol said:
I understand the effects of leaving 4G, BT, and even 3G for that matter, ON can consume more battery life. However, what's the consensus on GPS. I have it OFF and turn it ON every time I'm using Google Navigation, etc. However, this is getting quite annoying. Will GPS really turn "off" itself if an application is not using it? I heard that the HTC Sense Weather widget will use the GPS for its refreshing and just that alone will affect battery life.
So what is the final verdict? I feel we've had plenty of time to test our theories by now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It says in Settings > Location > Use GPS Satellites "Uncheck to conserve battery", so I have to believe it will consume more battery when left on.

I leave it on, and get better than a full day of use from phone.
Only time when it flipped out was when I installed Yelp.
I was in my basement, and my battery went from 100% to 15% in 3 hours.
Uninstalled Yelp. Problem gone.

I was definitely under the impression that gps only used battery when it was being utilized. Hmmm I keep mine on all the time, so maybe its time to turn it off and see if there is a difference.
Sent from my EVO from the Apple Store.

GPS ON should only use more battery when an application that needs GPS asks for it. Android is really good about showing you an icon in the taskbar when the GPS chip is actually used.

I definitely leave GPS on since its only really "ON" and being used when the icon appears at the top of the screen. Otherwise its just available for us when its on.
The term used for the button should really be "Available" or "Unavailable" rather than on and off.

If your wondering about battery safe go into settings and undetermined battery it will show ways absorbing the most power. Believe it or not the how doesn't consume that much
sent from the EVO while punching an iPhone user!

really ? ofcourse it does

I doubt it consumes more than a fraction of your battery if left on. For that reason, I can't imagine having to manually turn GPS on and off throughout the day - complete waste of time. Even if it chews 5% of your battery in the course of a day(and I doubt it's that much) it's worth leaving on, unless you truly never use it.

Related

Battery live

Hi
Yesterday arrived my dev phone 1 and I am very hapy with it bu battery level is at 20% at 18:00. Is this normal?. I dont want to switch the band to 2g. I keep gmail synched with direct push but google talk not. anyone with same prpoblem?
Thanks
yeah, the standard battery in the G1 is ****ing terrible
not a lot you can do except buying an extended battery (which is a very good idea! )
The only thing I have found to extend my battery Life has been discussed previously a few times on these boards...
1. Turn off Wifi, when not in use. (Toggle WiFi from the Market is Great)
2. Turn off GPS, when not in use. (Toggle GPS from the Market also great)
3. Turn down the screen brightness.
4. (not sure if this makes a big difference) But sometimes if I do not need my feeds or background running apps throughout the day I will restart my phone, or run through a few applications that are not pulling web cache. This way you dont have auto update feedreaders in the background running. It seems like it works for me, but that could very well be wishful thinking. Also turning of things like Twitroid update etc...
Hope that helps.
recasper said:
The only thing I have found to extend my battery Life has been discussed previously a few times on these boards...
1. Turn off Wifi, when not in use. (Toggle WiFi from the Market is Great)
2. Turn off GPS, when not in use. (Toggle GPS from the Market also great)
3. Turn down the screen brightness.
4. (not sure if this makes a big difference) But sometimes if I do not need my feeds or background running apps throughout the day I will restart my phone, or run through a few applications that are not pulling web cache. This way you dont have auto update feedreaders in the background running. It seems like it works for me, but that could very well be wishful thinking. Also turning of things like Twitroid update etc...
Hope that helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i do #4 as well, it seems to help, since i have root i just go into terminal and type su [enter] reboot [enter] and when it turns back on its usually doing bettery with the battery
as for opening programs, would advanced task manager serve the same purpose (closing apps that arnt needed and using memory, because if its using memory isnt it in some way using battery power?)
Thanks.
I am porting CommMgrPro to Android (Similar to Locale but much more powerfull). In this way I will switch to 2G, turn Wifi off, disable connections, etc, etc, etc automatically depending on my location/weekday/hour.
Greetings
Dani
Hi All
I have a brand new G1 and, like you, I was suprised by the short battery life.
I also thought about selling the phone but apart from that problem I like it very much.
I noticed that the permanent 3g wireless connection was the real draining battery application.
So the solution I found now is: to disable the permanent connection. I downloaded APNdroid application from the market and I use it everytime I need to toggle connection on and off.
I also tried to leave the WIFI on and i saw that it does not consume much battery.
I did not tried with the GPS.
I am using a good tool to toggle and to fine check the battery level: Useful switchers
I can now say I am pretty satisfied with the phone.
Greeting
Lollo
lollonet said:
Hi All
I have a brand new G1 and, like you, I was suprised by the short battery life.
I also thought about selling the phone but apart from that problem I like it very much.
I noticed that the permanent 3g wireless connection was the real draining battery application.
So the solution I found now is: to disable the permanent connection. I downloaded APNdroid application from the market and I use it everytime I need to toggle connection on and off.
I also tried to leave the WIFI on and i saw that it does not consume much battery.
I did not tried with the GPS.
I am using a good tool to toggle and to fine check the battery level: Useful switchers
I can now say I am pretty satisfied with the phone.
Greeting
Lollo
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. It was the same problem there was in HTC Hermes/TyNT and TouchPro/Diamond. I created bandswitch in the past and will create two little toggles to switch 3g/2g with and without time limit....
Conditioning
Try Conditioning the Battery...
I have gps on, 2g, brightness at 50% and screen timeout at 30 secs, everything syncing and I get around 5 or 6 hours of use...just like the company says I should.
Run your battery completely dead...
Charge your phone for around 8-12 hours...
Repeat for about 6 days...
You should see improved battery life.
I have 3g, wifi, bluetooth, brightness at 50% and screen timeout at 30 secs, everything syncing with 1-2 hours of music/video with 30 SMS, about 20 mins of calls......I am now getting about 8hrs on the new ones from HTC (the 04).
Interesting Battery
Well now that I have had a week of use I have noticed that the (old) "02" batteries would last about 4-5hrs and go until 1% before turning off, with a slow count down. The (new) "04" batteries stay at a high number (about 6-7hrs) until they get to 15% and within a few mins turn-off....as I recall I saw postings of 'quick' count downs, so I wonder if you either get a slow drain down with about 4hrs of use OR about 6 hrs of use with the last 15% a very quick shutdown....I'll keep monitoring these new HTC batteries to see if it was just one of those "weekend" things or if this is the trade off...was caught off guard as I had been getting 30 mins or so when I had 15% left and the G1 would stay on until 1%..."teach an old dog new tricks".....

Battery Draining Bug?

I think I've discovered a bug on the X that's causing battery drain.
I installed Spare Parts and saw my phone had been unplugged for about 12 hours and that my phone was been Running (not sleeping) for 100% of that time.
After being methodical and getting data points after opening various programs, I determined that after I opened any program that accessed the GPS, the phone no longer would go into sleep mode.
To get the phone to start sleeping again, all I have to do is toggle GPS off and then back on again.
It's completely reproducible every time on my phone.
Now, I don't know what kind of effect this will have on battery life, but seems like it probably would have some effect.
If others can test this and see if it affect you at all, it'd be helpful to see if there's a potential major software bug here or if it's just something with my phone.
Easiest way to test is to start with a fresh reboot with GPS toggle on, install Spare Parts, plug in the phone for a second (to reset the counters), let it sit sleeping for a few minutes, then read the Running % in Spare Parts. Should be pretty low. Plug in the phone to reset the counters again. Then start Google Maps or any other program that will activate your GPS. Close that program and then let the phone sit idle for a few minutes. Check Spare Parts running time again and, for me, it's pegged at 100%.
It stays like that until I toggle the GPS off or reboot the phone.
Very curious to see if others get the same results.
lexluthor said:
I think I've discovered a bug on the X that's causing battery drain.
I installed Spare Parts and saw my phone had been unplugged for about 12 hours and that my phone was been Running (not sleeping) for 100% of that time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not trying to flame... but, after 12 hours your phone was unplugged, and still working... battery drain doesn't seem like a huge issue for me based on this information.
I would recommend an app called Tasker. I use it to turn gps off when it's not in use. I open google maps, gps starts. I close maps, gps off. I put my phone into the car mount, bluetooth starts, gps on, pandora on. unplug it, then everything off. I can have the cell radio off at night, but come on every 30 minutes to check for sms, email or whatever. I have Wifi turn on automatically when I get home, based on gps of course, and when I get out of the car, gps turns off and wifi turns on.
It saves a ton of battery for me, and might be something you'd appreciate. I have my phone running on performance mode all the time, and it still lasts all day and has 30+% to spare when I go to sleep. I'm a heavy user. almost 4GB of data this month with no tether.
That's not really the point.
The point is that there's potentially a bug with the phone that's not allowing the phone to go into sleep mode.
Seems like that might be a pretty important thing.
Point blank, the Droid X is one of the only Androids who last more than on day on the same charge! And what you all don't know is that if you use the blk taskbar and services.jar V.8 from teenfaces you will literally double or triple your life!
I have been unplugged for about 7 hrs and still have a sturdy 70%. All this with a normal discharge rate of about 5% every hour! That'd not bad! But then you have ATK set to aggressive... then the batt manager set to smart then cache mate running at full blast clearing caches every half hour. Plus the apps are killed and shut down when te screen ia off! So technically the X is dead till you power it up!
Take a look... I promise many will agree, that is if they did it right and are using V8.
Sent from my DROIDX via Telepathic DLNA.
What in the world is services.jar V.8 from teenfaces?
Ok, so then both of you are saying that the fact that the phone doesn't ever go to sleep once the GPS has been activated (even after the program that did so exists), isn't an issue?
Seems to me that you can only further improve battery life by having the phone sleep when it's not being used.
But who am I to argue I guess.
Seems like you dint understand my previous post. There is mod to change the task bar and shade. Like V8 is the latest with the services.jar replacment. Now how this affected my batt life i don't know, but, it did.
Now i see a lil longer batt life than with the original items.
Sent from my DROIDX via Telepathic DLNA.
this post is hilarious.
homeboy is trying to get bug testers, and people are talking about how to change the color of their taskbar : /
ixobelle said:
this post is hilarious.
homeboy is trying to get bug testers, and people are talking about how to change the color of their taskbar : /
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol yea. Im gonna head home and try what ur saying. I use tasker for turning wifi on and off for maps and the new google places thing (because most of the time im in buildings) but maybe i should use it for gps too. My friend with the evo has his turned off all the time he says its a huge battery drainer. I say how could that be if it only runs when the icon is up. But this might just explain that as well.
Also other logging programs might keep it awak but this one ur suggesting doesn't i take it. Good to keep in mind. Will update later today
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App
Sorry, I guess I'm lost/confused.
No one really has a concern that this is a potential system problem that's causing excess battery drain?
I do we still don't have an extended battery im very curious to what we can do with the battery life. If this is true id imgine tasker is the way we would go around fixing it. But went we getting 2.2 next week? Maybe that will fix it. Like i said when i get home im going to try what u said when i get home
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App
Just noticed something, I formated my phone just today. (for some reason i had to activate again. is that normal never had to do that with my WM phone when i would put roms on it and stuff)
During setup it asked if i wanted to share anymous location info to google, which i know the fist time i said yes (actually maybe the guy at verizon said yes for me) in any case it says under it something "will anonymously collect your location data even if a location app isn't running"
which could explain why it stays on when the gps is on
if you can go into your system settings and it's on for you try turning it off and see if then leaving the gps switched on will still keep the phone on.
mavermc said:
Just noticed something, I formated my phone just today. (for some reason i had to activate again. is that normal never had to do that with my WM phone when i would put roms on it and stuff)
During setup it asked if i wanted to share anymous location info to google, which i know the fist time i said yes (actually maybe the guy at verizon said yes for me) in any case it says under it something "will anonymously collect your location data even if a location app isn't running"
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think that's the option in settings->privacy, which I turned off the other day, so I don't think that's it.
Good find. Seeing the same thing. Repeated your test, and yep, system stays on till gps is bounced.
Certainly doesn't look right. Is it that once satellite fix is established, it's maintained (even if not used)? And on GPS on/off, the fix is lost and the system forgets about GPS till it's actually called?
Next step would be to see how it affects power consumption. Will try to run some more tests later in the day.
Is there an easy way to test power drain? it'll be very interesting to see what effect this is really having.
lexluthor said:
Is there an easy way to test power drain? it'll be very interesting to see what effect this is really having.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately with the Droid X only showing battery power in 10%, it's not easy to discern small differences without waiting for hours.
I wonder if looking at the voltage would offer more precision. But, not sure how reliable that is. After all, if it was, why wouldn't the 3rd party battery meters use that to show more precise % readings.
exempli_gratia said:
Unfortunately with the Droid X only showing battery power in 10%, it's not easy to discern small differences without waiting for hours.
I wonder if looking at the voltage would offer more precision. But, not sure how reliable that is. After all, if it was, why wouldn't the 3rd party battery meters use that to show more precise % readings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You'd actually have to write an event for every single percent in the Android system for anything to detect the battery much more accurately and Motorola is too lazy to do that. Its only gonna show every 10% because thats what Android was programmed to show.
just an update, i said no to google doing it's data mining off my gps. but then i found in location, when i check "use wifi" it asked me again. My guess is thats how they know where you are when you turn on wifi, because if you want that feature you also have to be used in mining data of where the wifipoints are physically located.
So maybe that has something to do with it.
Saw this on Android Central Yesterday.
I can confirm it, when used with fancy widget. When standard weather app is used, no major power drain. Fancy widget seems to pin the GPS and run it hard the entire time.
hijackerjack said:
You'd actually have to write an event for every single percent in the Android system for anything to detect the battery much more accurately and Motorola is too lazy to do that. Its only gonna show every 10% because thats what Android was programmed to show.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would think that if Android had 1% events some app would take advantage of it (there are certainly plenty of battery monitors in Market). But I don't know of any that show anything other than 10%. The HTC phones do 1%, and the battery widgets on HTC phones show likewise. Must be a Motorola implementation limitation.

How I'm finally getting awesome battery life.

I recently installed Froyo (I know, about three weeks late). One of my hopes was that it would improve my battery life (~8 hours previously) but I found the opposite. After installing Froyo I was getting about 4 hours of battery. Horrible.
So I factory reset and started installing apps one or two each day, paying close attention to see if I could find what the problem was. A stock rom would be just fine with nothing installed - lasting all day and ending the day with 40% battery with normal usage.
I discovered that my battery started sucking when I activated Latitude. With further testing I found that Latitude did not suck my battery with the GPS off, and if I left the GPS on but Latitude deactivated I also did not have any major problems with battery.
By deactivating GPS and leaving latitude on I went from a 45% drop over two hours to a 6% drop over two hours.
Click for full size
Not bad! I don't want to give up hardware and I don't want to give up Latitude, so I purchased Tasker and set up the following profiles:
App - Earth: GPS ON
App - Maps: GPS ON
App - Wireless Tether: 4G ON
App - Internet: 4G ON
Battery Level below 35%: 4G OFF
Battery Level below 15: Brightness to minimum, 4G OFF, WiFI OFF, Auto-Sync OFF
I set up additional profiles to turn on WiFi when I'm at work or at home, and one that writes my battery level to a text file along with status of the hardware devices every time the battery percentage changes (for further tracking).
I now have not had to give up my GPS being on, WiFi working, auto-sync, or even 4G to keep great battery life. True that 4G takes a minute to turn on, GPS might take a few extra seconds to get a fix, but it's worth it. I've been unplugged for 6 hours now and I'm sitting at 83% so I should be able to get well over a day with this setup.
I'm interested in hearing if others having major problems are running latitude with GPS ON and if this setup solves the problem. Also, if you have ideas for additional power saving Tasker profiles.
I gotta say I am really must be missunderstanding whats going on here lol.
So without this tasker your phone would die in 4 hours because all that stuff was turned on and working hard? However with the tasker your phone at 6 hours is only at 85%? This is where I am confused, if you dont already see the problem with the math here. If the tasker is only killing things at 35% and thus everything is running how it was before until you get to 35% then shouldnt your phone be down to 35% by say 3.5hours and then suddenly your tasker takes over lol. I mean everything is running exactly the same from 100%-35% as it was without the tasker so why the heck isnt it killing the phone just as fast? Well why isnt it killing the phone down to 35% just ask fast is the better question?
I dont think the tasker solved your problem I think you inadvertantly solved your own problem. Or I am wrong and I am missing something. Maybe I didnt read your post correctly.
This is a great development. I too noticed that my battery would drain quickly when GPS was on, and I never once thought about Latitude (of which is enabled at all times on my phone)
Lattitude confuses me. You are essentially allowing anyone to track you, and doing it willingly? Am I missing something?
uniquenameevo said:
Lattitude confuses me. You are essentially allowing anyone to track you, and doing it willingly? Am I missing something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's used to update your location to your friends - only those you explicitly approve.
I was underwhelmed with Latitude. It reports my position okay on my phone (great, I know where I am) but if my wife is right next to me on the couch, Latitude says she's a mile away in the middle of a park. What's the point? I can get general locations from Facebook updates?
And, yeah, it's also kicking GPS on all the time and draining battery. I have filed Latitude under the "gimmick" heading for now.
twilk73 said:
I gotta say I am really must be missunderstanding whats going on here lol.
So without this tasker your phone would die in 4 hours because all that stuff was turned on and working hard? However with the tasker your phone at 6 hours is only at 85%? This is where I am confused, if you dont already see the problem with the math here. If the tasker is only killing things at 35% and thus everything is running how it was before until you get to 35% then shouldnt your phone be down to 35% by say 3.5hours and then suddenly your tasker takes over lol. I mean everything is running exactly the same from 100%-35% as it was without the tasker so why the heck isnt it killing the phone just as fast? Well why isnt it killing the phone down to 35% just ask fast is the better question?
I dont think the tasker solved your problem I think you inadvertantly solved your own problem. Or I am wrong and I am missing something. Maybe I didnt read your post correctly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah sorry - that could be a little more clear. Each line is a separate profile, so I leave GPS off by default now and have it automatically turn on when I enter Google Earth or Google Maps. Since GPS was the main problem, this has completely fixed my battery issue while still allowing me to use Latitude.
The other stuff, like the extreme low battery settings, are just icing on the cake for battery savings.
SilverZero said:
I was underwhelmed with Latitude. It reports my position okay on my phone (great, I know where I am) but if my wife is right next to me on the couch, Latitude says she's a mile away in the middle of a park. What's the point? I can get general locations from Facebook updates?
And, yeah, it's also kicking GPS on all the time and draining battery. I have filed Latitude under the "gimmick" heading for now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe the person you think is your wife is actually an evil doppelganger. Better knock her out and head to the park to save your real wife.
I actually like Latitude a lot. I have a bunch of my friends on there and it's always interesting to see what they are doing or be alerted when they are nearby. The cool thing is that the alerts "learn" when you would normally be by that person and only alert you if you are nearby at an unusual time or location. It's also great if someone is on their way to meet you, you can pop in and see where they are and how soon they will be there without calling or texting them (this is the most useful thing I do with it).
Has it significantly improved my life? Not really. Is it still fun? I open it up 3 or 4 times a week, so it must be.
gthing said:
Ah sorry - that could be a little more clear. Each line is a separate profile, so I leave GPS off by default now and have it automatically turn on when I enter Google Earth or Google Maps. Since GPS was the main problem, this has completely fixed my battery issue while still allowing me to use Latitude.
The other stuff, like the extreme low battery settings, are just icing on the cake for battery savings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh I see now. I also read in another thread that GPS with latitude on was a battery death blow lol. I dont use latitude so that probably why I was so confused with your post to begine with. My bad.

Answers on battery life.

I've been seeing a lot of posts on crap battery life around here, and I was chasing my tail about some of them as well, following a lot of misinformation even by senior members. I think I have a good handle on it now, and picked up most of these tips from these forums, so I'm not taking credit for these ideas, just collecting them in one place. Some of my suggestions assume you have root and Rom Manager (see the Tips and Tricks sticky thread on how to get them).
1. If your battery drains in less than a day on standby, you probably have a bad flash of the JI6 modem (either from the OTA update or from a ROM). Flash the JI2 modem from here "www dot teamwhiskey dot com/home/downloads". If the flash fixes it, you may try going back to JI6 if you want, and it may stay fixed. I went back to JI2 and didn't bother going back to JI6, but it has worked for others. With JI2 and 3G on I get just over 24 hours in normal usage.
2. The #2 battery drain on standby is 3G. I turned it off (Settings/Wireless/Mobile networks/Network mode/GSM only) and my phone lasted for 40 hours on Edge with light usage (few phone calls, messaging, quite a lot of web surfing, 2 hours of podcasts). Didn't even feel too slow (I get 140kbps on edge). Can anybody suggest a really good widget for turning 3G on/off? I use the 2G-3G OnOff widget by Curvefish. It's not one-click, it's just a shortcut to Mobile Network Settings, but it works. Note that sometimes it takes a while for the data connection to re-establish after you see the 3G or E icon.
2.5. WiFi always on is a huge battery saver! It keeps 3g off. I can easily get 3+ days with light usage on my home wifi. Settings/Wireless and Network/Wifi Settings/Menu/Advanced/Wifi Sleep Policy/Never.
3. Don't need a task killer. I wasted all my time killing tasks trying to chase down my crappy battery usage, but since I fixed my modem and turned off 3G I know that the 3-5% CPU usage at idle does not hurt my battery. Taskiller for me was actually hitting the CPU constantly, lightly but for no reason, so I got pissed and uninstalled it.
4. Install a CPU usage monitor like Usage Timelines. It sits in the notification bar, very easy on the battery, but tells you if you have a rogue app pegging your CPU and draining your battery. These are the only apps you should be worried about killing. Astro File Manager has a task manager that shows CPU usage for each app, so you can kill the rogue one. I shoot for about 5% cpu usage at idle (at 200mhz - at 100mhz it would be a bit higher).
5. The app Autostarts lets you disable any app from starting on boot or other events like connectivity changes. This is not strictly necessary unless you have a lot of crap apps installed on your phone and they like to start themselves and waste CPU time behind your back.
6. If your battery reads less than 100% as soon as you unplug it from the charger fully charged, or your battery meter sits at 100% for a long time after you unplug it, you can recalibrate your battery meter. To recalibrate: 1) charge your battery to full, 2) unplug, 3) reboot into Clockwork Recovery and 4) Wipe battery stats.
7. There is No Such Thing as "battery reconditioning" (for all intents and purposes). The above procedure only RECALIBRATES you battery METER to read on a more linear scale between full and empty. It DOES NOT make your battery last longer, period. Whoever tells you that is a moron. If your battery is dying in 6 hours, doing any amount of calibration will not make it last longer (I've tried).
8. I wouldn't be too worried about undervolting, overclocking, kernel tricks and superawesomefast ROMS. The CPU drain at idle is so minuscule (as long as you don't have rogue apps) that those things make precious little difference. Like I said, the biggest drain is 3G and other radios. Having said that, I run Bionix 1.9 with the JAC kernel. It drained my battery in half a day at idle until I flashed the JI2 modem. With JI2 it suddenly started lasting over 24 hours, and once I turned off 3G, over 40 hours. I like this ROM and see no need to switch, it's very smooth. But you should be able to get similar battery life on a stock Vibrant.
9. I have GPS on, WiFi never sleep, auto-brightness, and a few widgets on like Weather and friend updates. I have no fancy settings, literally just turning off 3G (or wifi on, which is the same) got me 2-3 days. So I wouldn't waste time fooling around with magic settings (other than wifi never sleep), battery saver apps, etc.
10. If your screen is on all the time and you're playing games nonstop, you're draining your battery quicker than any of the things I mentioned above, so you probably don't care. In that case an optimized ROM/kernel is probably your best bet, especially JIT in Froyo. You can probably save on screen brightness as well.
If you guys have any other tips I'd be glad to add them to the list, but I hope this gives you an understanding of where your battery life is going. Basically: bad modem, 3G, or rogue apps.
Also, I hope this will put an end to trolls calling people whiners for complaining about battery life and saying unproductive **** like "you're a whiner" or "the Galaxy S is just a battery hog, live with it". It's not, you don't have to live with it, nobody should have to, here are your solutions.
Good luck.
A few things I do to help with battery life is:
Disable Audible touch tones
Disable Audible selection
Disable Haptic feedback
Disable SD card notifications
Set animations to NO animations
Uninstall media hub if you dont use it
Disable auto brightness adjustment
Disable power saving mode
I disable the last 2 and just swipe the notification bar to adjust brightness. Granted these items really only work when using the phone but I can go about 2 days of normal use without a charge believe it or not.
yeah disabling 3g has always been the best option for people really, really concerned with battery life.
But it's kinda hard to tell people not to use 3g on their brand new 3g capable devices.
You may want to add how to test if you battery is bad. If you use you phone repeatedly while it its plugged in you risk overheating and damaging your battery. Signs that unitas is the case are very quick drain and long (7 hours) charge times. You can easily test and see if your battery its damaged. Remove it from your phone and place on flat surface (e.g. Counter top) try spinning the battery. If it rotates easily and quickly you battery is bulging, this is a sign of damage. Time for a new battery.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Answer to #2-
Use APNDroid. Comes with a widget.
Thanks to the OP and other contributors in this thread.
I flashed a ROM with the ji6 modem and battery life has been noticeably ****ty since. Example - this morning I unplugged my phone at 7:30 am. 100% charged. It's 10:21 am and my phone is at 75%
In the last 3 hours I browsed the web for 10 minutes while having my coffee and a smoke before heading out to work. Blue tooth was on for my drive, and I've sent 2 text messages. Aside from that my phone has been on stand-by since I unplugged it 3 hours ago.
I'm going to try to flash back to ji2 tonight as the battery usage was definitely better. Will also look into the 3G thing.
Thanks again.
You forgot to mention the two DRM and one downloader services that run resident on JI6.
These were the cause of my reduced battery life after I upgraded. Killing & removing these processes restored my battery life back to normal
blink55184 said:
Answer to #2-
Use APNDroid. Comes with a widget.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just tried this - switching 3G off works fine, but switching 3G back on didn't work for me. I had to re-boot to get 3G back so this is a no-go in my case.
I know how to kill the processes for the DRM and downloader but how do I remove them?
OP thank you for putting together the list. But I've never seen the point of doing all this. Its like getting a lamborghini and only driving 40mph because it you don't want to waste gas, whats the point? Either get a second wall charger to charge at work or a car charger. Heck even get a second battery if you are out for a long period of time.
speoples20 said:
Its like getting a lamborghini and only driving 40mph because it you don't want to waste gas, whats the point?
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Click to collapse
You don't need to disable 3g.
The point of my post is to avoid people wasting their time with tweaks that have little to no effect on battery life. I'm telling people that they're wasting time killing apps and optimizing cpu usage and twiddling their settings when the radio drains most of their battery on standby anyway.
Meaning no matter what changes you make, you can only hope to improve your battery life by a tiny amount, because any other effect is overshadowed by 3G.
Put another way, you will NEVER get battery life much longer than a day if you're on 3g, so you're wasting your energy trying all kinds of tricks.
blink55184 said:
Answer to #2-
Use APNDroid. Comes with a widget.
smutek said:
I just tried this - switching 3G off works fine, but switching 3G back on didn't work for me. I had to re-boot to get 3G back so this is a no-go in my case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me the widget did nothing. But it seems like it's not even supposed to turn the 3G radio off, but ALL APN network traffic. Did I miss something? It won't save battery power as long as the 3G radio is on.
I went back to the 2G-3G OnOff widget by Curvefish. It's not one-click, it's just a shortcut to Mobile Network Settings, but it works. Note that sometimes it takes a while for the data connection to re-establish after you see the 3G or E icon.
Back to my Moto Startac
While i understand the idea behind this thread, your conclusion is simple.
If you use the phone as a smartphone, it will eat up your battery no matter what.
I personally go through two batteries and some a day. (they cost about 12 bucks in ebay, and they work just fine)
The price for saving battery is not using the phone, and having a 400 bucks phone just for show off is just silly at least.
If you have a phone like this is to use it. At least you can change the battery not like some other devices......
I understand that task killer is useless, but do any of you use Autokiller (memory manager) ?
That's kind of a redundant question because even if you do not use the app, your phone is still performing the functions. The app just adjusts the settings. But to answer your question, using a memory optimization tool such as AutoKiller is 1000% more efficient than using a Task Killer. I don't think it effects battery much, but works wonders on performance.
There's no 3g-off widget because apparently in Android there's no way to do that through a direct command. I also use the Curvefish widget, and you are absolutely right about turning off 3g to save battery. I normally do so when I'm asleep or if I'm sitting at my desk next to a computer (why do I need fast data on my phone when I have my computer right here?).
The other thing I would recommend is AutoStarts. There are way too many apps that open themselves up at bizarre and inappropriate times. Autostarts is an easy and painless way to see which apps do this and keep them from opening.
gagb1967 said:
While i understand the idea behind this thread, your conclusion is simple.
If you use the phone as a smartphone, it will eat up your battery no matter what.
I personally go through two batteries and some a day. (they cost about 12 bucks in ebay, and they work just fine)
The price for saving battery is not using the phone, and having a 400 bucks phone just for show off is just silly at least.
If you have a phone like this is to use it. At least you can change the battery not like some other devices......
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1000
Great battery life comes to people who hardly use their phones. Guess I need to get a netbook. Will prolly get a netbook or 3g laptop + skype and ETF my phone soon. These battery woes are show-stopping.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Losing 4% an hour on standby when you're not using the phone is unacceptable. Samsung screwed something up with the JI6 update. Most people think it's because of the stupid Media Hub. I think they are right.
People are not complaining about the poor battery life from using the phone. They are complaining about the slow battery drain even when they are not using it. ~4% an hour adds up fast. Vibrant is supposed to have 450 hour (18 days) stand-by time. That's what is rated. But people are getting 24 hour (1 day) stand-by time after JI6.
Yellow C6 said:
Losing 4% an hour on standby when you're not using the phone is unacceptable. Samsung screwed something up with the JI6 update. Most people think it's because of the stupid Media Hub. I think they are right.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not ready to sign off on this idea. For me simply flashing JI2 over JI6 fixed it. For some people flashing JI6 back over still left the problem fixed. I still have those processes running on JI2 and my battery life is fine.
The other reason I'm not ready to recommend wiping out those DRM processes is that apparently it stops the bundled Avatar movie from playing, and might affect other things that users may get pissed about. I've read that killing the downloader process people are talking about kills the market. So I really wish those people advocating that solution would figure their **** out and provide exact steps for the fix (right now their posts are really vague like "kill the processes that are named something like this" and not well tested; in all my research I didn't find the exact name of the "downloader" process).
Is it possible to flash the ji2 modem without root? Wishful thinking, I suppose..

[Q] i9505 Overheating @ idle

I noticed that my S4 i9505 was getting hot despite what I was doing, playing heavy games like RR3, or just seeing some stuff on the gallery, and my battery is lasting around 10h...
So I made a test, put the screen timeout to 10 mins, and let it on the homescreen (with black background and no widgets, I have absolutely no widget on any homescreen), the battery drained very quick, and the screen was hot like hell
I forced to close all apps, cleaned RAM, and began the test again, same thing, battery draining quick, and screen very hot...
So I tried turning off wifi+GPS+mobile data, and made the test again, the battery didn't lose even 1%, and the screen was room temperature...
Now, why is it getting so hot and draining battery with wifi+GPS+mobile data even if I don't have any widget, and I always chose APPs like facebook to keep me always offline and never notify anithing?
This phone was very expensive, and I use Gotya to protect it from thieves, but I need to keep wifi+GPS+mobile data ON with I want this program to work, so I don't want to need to turn everything off and take the risk of being robbed and now getting it back, but also I just wanted to the battery last long enough so I don't need to charge more than at night while I sleep....
These are the options I use daily:
http://imageshack.us/a/img841/6088/zxeg.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img138/6043/7fk1.png
Even with power saving ON on two places, it rarelly lasts enough to not charge it before I go to bed
And this is my homescreen:
http://imageshack.us/a/img59/2005/i8b6.png
http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/659/2p8w.png
Using Wifi+GPS+Mobile Data, it will spend ~4% every 10 minutes... but when I turn them off, it'll spend ~1% every HOUR!
Specht77 said:
http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/659/2p8w.png
Using Wifi+GPS+Mobile Data, it will spend ~4% every 10 minutes... but when I turn them off, it'll spend ~1% every HOUR!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not too unusual. What do you expect? Using Wifi+GPS+Mobile Data does consume battery rather quickly on any device, particularly when the screen is on and driving a 5" Full HD screen.
If the Wifi+GPS+Mobile Data have weak signals, the battery will be consumed even more quickly than normal as the respective radio strains to connect to the weak signal. Even when the phone is completely off your phone, the battery will lose power, though at a slower rate.
The art and science of power management is about knowing what you want and prioritizing your needs based on realistic performance expectations. Almost nobody needs to run Wifi+GPS+Mobile Data at the same time, so ask yourself what's the thing you are doing and then prioritize your power expenditure based on those needs.
In my case, I don't use autosync. I sync manually every hour or so if needed, or less if not, and same for location services: Off until I need them. I toggle my data off when not using it, use Wifi over mobile data because it tends to be stronger signal and use less battery, keep my brightness at manually set reasonable levels, and I can easily get two days out of a charge, even with 4-5 hours of screen-on time, which includes gaming, surfing, calls, texts, voicemail, etc.
I'm not dissatisfied with the battery life, but I am dissatisfied with a few other things on the S4. It's not a perfect device, but overall, it's good, and I'm not even running a stock ROM, which is most typically said to give even better battery life overall.
Every Wiz-bang "feature" of Touchwiz comes at a price. There's no free lunch, my friend. Turn off what you don't need, or be prepared to pay the price for it.
donalgodon said:
That's not too unusual. What do you expect? Using Wifi+GPS+Mobile Data does consume battery rather quickly on any device, particularly when the screen is on and driving a 5" Full HD screen.
If the Wifi+GPS+Mobile Data have weak signals, the battery will be consumed even more quickly than normal as the respective radio strains to connect to the weak signal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
About the screen, as I said, in 10 minutes with W+G+M ON (Don't want to keep repeting every time) it spends +-4% with screen turned on (and it even gets HOT!)
with W+G+M OFF it spends 1% or less with the screen turned on (at least on my homescreen that is very dark) (and it keeps on room temperature)
I just expected that it didn't drained the battery so furiously, since I have no widgets to keep getting updates from internet, Sync is turned off, etc...
Specht77 said:
About the screen, as I said, in 10 minutes with W+G+M ON (Don't want to keep repeting every time) it spends +-4% with screen turned on (and it even gets HOT!)
with W+G+M OFF it spends 1% or less with the screen turned on (at least on my homescreen that is very dark) (and it keeps on room temperature)
I just expected that it didn't drained the battery so furiously, since I have no widgets to keep getting updates from internet, Sync is turned off, etc...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I live in a warm, tropical climate, and at times, during gaming or in poor signal areas, my S4 will get a bit warm, but nothing unusual, and again, when you have the radios turned on, they are going to heat the device up and consume the battery, and the hotter it gets, the worse the power loss is. It's just a fact. There are inescapable Laws of Physics at play here. There's no way around them at present.
The radios use a lot of power, and much more so when they are all on at once (as you described) and straining to connect in a poor signal area.
donalgodon said:
are going to heat the device up and consume the battery, and the hotter it gets, the worse the power loss is. It's just a fact. There are inescapable Laws of Physics at play here. There's no way around them at present.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By the way you're talking to me, I assume you think I'm a dumbass, it's obvious that the hotter it's getting it's because it's speding more energy, that's why I'm putting enphasis on the fact it's getting HOT, because I'm with absolutely no APP open, even made a "clear RAM" to close everything, and still it's getting HOT of how much energy it's spending even in IDLE
I have a nokia N8, and if I let it with screen on, on IDLE, wifi ON, 3G on, it won't get hot as my S4 is getting from the draining of the battery
Specht77 said:
By the way you're talking to me, I assume you think I'm a dumbass, it's obvious that the hotter it's getting it's because it's speding more energy, that's why I'm putting enphasis on the fact it's getting HOT, because I'm with absolutely no APP open, even made a "clear RAM" to close everything, and still it's getting HOT of how much energy it's spending even in IDLE
I have a nokia N8, and if I let it with screen on, on IDLE, wifi ON, 3G on, it won't get hot as my S4 is getting from the draining of the battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not what I think. I don't experience what you do, so I can only guess that it's something related to a) Tochwiz and/or your software cong or b) something hardware related to your device.
Have you thought about flashing CM to test it? I'd be curious to see if it continues.
FWIW, I'd love a Nokia-based Android device. Their hardware is amazing.
Go into Settings > More > Developer Options > Show CPU Usage. It should indicate which process is using a lot of CPU and heating up your device.
That gotya protection app should be working overtime on all radios keeping it awake and running all the time ... may be something with it's settings or you should find another one to do the job ... generally if you have some apps syncing and an open data connection halves your battery life and even more if that is mobile data but still your case is certainly abnormal and i think it has to do with the particular app you mentioned using ...
uninstall it and test how battery hold with data connections and gps on ...

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