I've been using USB-tethering over a 3G connection getting anywhere from 0-2 bars in my signal strength indicator at work. The battery level usually remains steady at the same level while I'm tethered.
Now, i'm in Las Vegas and USB-tethering over a 4G connection, with full signal strength. (Does signal strength fluctuate with 4G, or will the signal strength indicator always display "full" in a 4G area?) To my surprise, the battery is actually receiving a net positive charge, as my battery level has steadily increased while I'm USB-tethered.
Also, I notice the phone is cooler to the touch than when I'm USB-tethered over a 3G connection.
Obviously, all of these observations are incidental and anecdotal, but I thought I read previous posts here that 4G drains batteries faster than 3G, but I'm not seeing that being the case.
Is the 3G signal strength a factor for power consumption?
I believe there is a bug with the 3g radio that's causing a higher battery drain. Someone on here was talking about that
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I can also say that I too am experiencing the same. 4g doesnt really drain battery that much more (if it is more) than 3g on my Epic. I can go 12 and a half hours with 4g on all day and normal usage...
I find the 4G battery drain consistent moderate drain. You would expect net positive charge while USB tethered as we get 500 ma charging it and no single function can use 500 ma.
4G is still a power hog, and noticeable when not charging, but you are right the amount of 3G cn be pretty bad.
As far as I can tell the 3G seems to draw massive power under poor signal conditions while the 4G doesn't change power, it just slows ,under bad conditions
I have not stringently tested it though, those are just my initial anecdotal impressions.
What I will say is my dormant overnight battery drain has done way up since the last update!
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With full signal, even when idle.
It just seems crazy, i am not sure if this was intended to be an always on service or just on demand.
Which firmware are you on, stock or the update? The update seems to have a much more efficient cell radio.
I am on the update but if i keep 4G (and i have full bar) i see about 20% battery drain per hour.
If i am only using 3G it goes down to about 5%.
Wifi only it is about 3%.
Its probably due to how spotty and new 4g is. Its constantly searching for service. It might say you have full bars but you could be going in and out of 4g coverage.
Ah, that is a bummer. I can't compare, don't have 4g in my area yet. Did notice the wimax radio firmware is about 8MB. Hopefully they can update it to be more efficient. Could be the spottiness of the 4G signal, wimax shouldn't be that much different than 802.11 in theory. I suppose it would require higher transmit power
So, I've had pretty awesome battery life with EF02 since I started using it the day it got leaked, but I still heard stories of people getting insane, multi-day battery life.
I couldn't figure out what the difference was between us until today.
I have an Airvana at home and I work in a building that has spotty 3g coverage. I just hooked my phone up to the work wi-fi today and so far, after SIX HOURS and medium usage (work emails, 30 minutes of Doggcatcher, and reading Pulse for about 15 minutes) I'm at 88%.
Yesterday, under almost identical circumstances on 3g I was at just below 50%.
Just letting folks know that the EF02 seems to be "signal hungry" and this can change your battery life drastically.
PS I have background data, sync from work + gmail + facebook, two LP widgets (twitter and FB) and about 30 apps installed.
When you are in a low signal area ALL roms will have bad battery life. EF02/EF10 doesn't seem to be any worse in low signal areas for me, but if I can keep at least 2 bars signal strength on the phone the battery lasts forever.
I rebooted my phone for the first time yesterday evening (Camera was force closing after setting Aviate as home launcher), after that overnight phone lost 20% charge, before this reboot - phone was loosing 3 to 5% overnight.
I have not installed any new apps, also checked GSam battery monitor and didn't see any app sucking more juice. I was checking different things and noticed network signal strength is much better than normal (95-97 dbm, usually it used to be 103dbm at the same place), checked network mode and it is set as Global instead of LTE/CDMA, I remember it was LTE/CDMA before reboot and my signal was 103dbm.
During the last couple of hours also I am loosing 3 times more battery than normal, so looks like Global network mode is giving better signal compared to LTE/CDMA mode but using more battery. I am all for better signal strength but not at the expense of battery life.
Does any of you noticed similar issue? Does network mode selection has any impact on signal strength & battery life?
Mine is sort of opposite. It had defaulted to global and was at 91% battery being mostly idle for 16 hours. Just switched to CDMA/LTE/EVDO and signal went from >-100 to -97 dBm but could be normal fluctuation range. Will see how it affects battery life but so far it's still at 91% battery having switched over more than an hour ago.
I just checked mine , it showed -81 dBm for LTE. Switched to Global and it went to -75 dBm then right back to -81 dBm.
OK so I'm not sure about dpm, as far as if it's better to have a higher or lower number? But, I did however switch from Global to LTE/CDMA and I'm definitely getting the 4GLTE symbol way more than I was on Global! I was in 3g quiet a bit on Global. And Verizon has excellent reception in my area. I noticed yesterday that my wife was in lte on her iPhone while I was in 3g and we were sitting next to each other. It's much better now.
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Ibkevin said:
OK so I'm not sure about dpm, as far as if it's better to have a higher or lower number? But, I did however switch from Global to LTE/CDMA and I'm definitely getting the 4GLTE symbol way more than I was on Global! I was in 3g quiet a bit on Global. And Verizon has excellent reception in my area. I noticed yesterday that my wife was in lte on her iPhone while I was in 3g and we were sitting next to each other. It's much better now.
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dBm... lower is better
Hey. I am just curious. I always get big mobile standy battery drain, also during the night time. It is not affected by enabling or disabling location, bluetooth or wifi.
On battery settings - mobile standy is always bigger than screen drain, I think it is very strange. I am using 4G setting on phone, but anyway if I choose 3G, I got same drain. Please take a look into screenshots. I suppose that there is no fix for it, but I cant believe that all of users have same stats on battery also (4G users).
Honestly, it doesn't look too bad. I would say it is about as good as you can get on 4G unless you use Xposed.
From my experience, Moto voice was the culprit. When disabled I get about 4 hrs sot. Once enabled, cell standby drain jumps and sot drops to around 2 hrs.
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SirMiks said:
From my experience, Moto voice was the culprit. When disabled I get about 4 hrs sot. Once enabled, cell standby drain jumps and sot drops to around 2 hrs.
Sent from my Moto X Pure using XDA Labs
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Moto Voice is not the culprit or cause... The issue is cellular signal strength, and SD808 SOC does not use battery efficiently unless signal strength is excellent, anytime it drops the battery usage increases exponentially. The OP's Mobile Standby drain looks very normal to me.
acejavelin said:
Moto Voice is not the culprit or cause... The issue is cellular signal strength, and SD808 SOC does not use battery efficiently unless signal strength is excellent, anytime it drops the battery usage increases exponentially. The OP's Mobile Standby drain looks very normal to me.
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Hm I must be thinking of something else. Thanks for clarifying. Sorry for the misinformation.
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SirMiks said:
Hm I must be thinking of something else. Thanks for clarifying. Sorry for the misinformation.
Sent from my Moto X Pure using XDA Labs
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No worries... Moto Voice CAN cause battery drain, although it isn't common, it just won't show up as mobile standby, that is purely radio usage.
acejavelin said:
Moto Voice is not the culprit or cause... The issue is cellular signal strength, and SD808 SOC does not use battery efficiently unless signal strength is excellent, anytime it drops the battery usage increases exponentially. The OP's Mobile Standby drain looks very normal to me.
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Click to collapse
This is why I primarily use 3G and will only occasionally turn on LTE. 3G signal strength is typically better in my area and it helps prevent the extra battery drain. For the most part, since I don't stream much video on mobile data, 3G speeds are more than sufficient for my day to day tasks like email, forum postings, banking, etc.
I kept Moto voice off for some time when I first got the phone because I worried about battery. I decided to give it a try one day and over the course of a couple of weeks I noted the battery drain was negligible despite always listening so I left it on. Any unusual battery drain during standby/sleep I've experienced since then has been due to a rogue app causing wakelocks but it has never been due to Moto voice that I could determine.
aybarrap1 said:
This is why I primarily use 3G and will only occasionally turn on LTE. 3G signal strength is typically better in my area and it helps prevent the extra battery drain. For the most part, since I don't stream much video on mobile data, 3G speeds are more than sufficient for my day to day tasks like email, forum postings, banking, etc.
I kept Moto voice off for some time when I first got the phone because I worried about battery. I decided to give it a try one day and over the course of a couple of weeks I noted the battery drain was negligible despite always listening so I left it on. Ancy unusual battery drain during standby/sleep I've experienced since then has been due to a rogue app causing wakelocks but it has never been due to Moto voice that I could determine.
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Might want to test with LTE on... In many cases LTE uses less battery than 3G in modern SOC's.
acejavelin said:
Moto Voice is not the culprit or cause... The issue is cellular signal strength, and SD808 SOC does not use battery efficiently unless signal strength is excellent, anytime it drops the battery usage increases exponentially. The OP's Mobile Standby drain looks very normal to me.
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Ou. If you are saying that it looks fine for you, then I believe it. I am living in the place where are a lot of base stations nearby, so I suppose phone is always switching between the cells to find the best signal at that moment. Thanks.
I was just worried that Mobile Standy is always in first place, and then I got only 2 hours of SOT.
acejavelin said:
Might want to test with LTE on... In many cases LTE uses less battery than 3G in modern SOC's.
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If I can get Tasker to do the switch LTE on/off via location I will give it a try. At work I usually get decent enough signal to get data and phone calls on 3G all day but LTE is extremely weak and drops regularly back to 3G so the switching back and forth between bands is murder on the battery and data consistency.
UPDATE: Gave a shot to running LTE on for a few days. Thanks @acejavelin. While my battery life is not really noticeably better, it is not worse either so I can enjoy the greater speed. I just have to manually switch to/from 3G when arriving and leaving work, but I can deal with it.
Has anyone else noticed a direct correlation between average or medium cellular signal from mobile data and the battery being used a lot quicker? I can almost watch my battery drain if I do not have a full five bars of cellular signal
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Yes your battery is affected by low signal greatly. The cell signal works harder to maintain a connection causing the battery drain. The lower the signal the harder the phone works to maintain that signal
chungdae said:
Yes your battery is affected by low signal greatly. The cell signal works harder to maintain a connection causing the battery drain. The lower the signal the harder the phone works to maintain that signal
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That makes sense and I appreciate your reply what do you think about when the phone is connected to Wi-Fi? Would a weak cellular signal still affect the battery if the phone is connected on Wi-Fi? I should have been clearer with my question
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It depends do you have wifi call enabled? If you do it wouldn't affect it as much. If you don't have it it will affect it quite a bit. The lower your reception the greater the battery drain. I know some people combat it by putting the phone into 3G; 3G usually has a broader signal compared to LTE
chungdae said:
It depends do you have wifi call enabled? If you do it wouldn't affect it as much. If you don't have it it will affect it quite a bit. The lower your reception the greater the battery drain. I know some people combat it by putting the phone into 3G; 3G usually has a broader signal compared to LTE
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I do believe I have Wi-Fi calling enabled I never heard about the 3G option I'll take a look at that
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