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So I am at work, looking at my N1, and I'll let you all tell me if you think there is a problem...Since a full charge last night, my phone has been off the dock for 2h9m ...
In that time, my battery has dropped 14% already. The biggest culprit...the display...with 59%...despite only being on for 15m. I always use it on the middle brightness setting from the power bar. Ive lost basically 1% for every minute the screen has been on. At that rate, my phone wouldn't even last 2 hours turned on.
Am I being paranoid? Do I have some rogue program sucking battery life? Your thoughts?
Everybody says controversial stuff about phones like N1 or iPhone regarding battery life. But I can tell you from experience and some conferences I have been the following tips to improve your N1 battery:
-Leave brightness to minimum. Only at street you will need to have it at medium or maximum so you can see well.
-Use 3G or wifi when available. It will save more battery than if you use edge.
-Use push, also it's better.
-User apps like TaskManager to auto kill some application that remain open.
And last thing, if you have a new N1 the battery life will improve with the use within the next 2 weeks. Also, I'm sure you are playing around more than usual if you just got it.
I hope this help you.
*#*#4636#*#*
Battery History
See what the figure for 'running' is, if it's high, something is stopping the phone sleeping. Should that be the case, chage the top drop down box to 'partial wake usage' and see what is to blame.
blastik said:
Everybody says controversial stuff about phones like N1 or iPhone regarding battery life. But I can tell you from experience and some conferences I have been the following tips to improve your N1 battery:
-Leave brightness to minimum. Only at street you will need to have it at medium or maximum so you can see well.
-Use 3G or wifi when available. It will save more battery than if you use edge.
-Use push, also it's better.
-User apps like TaskManager to auto kill some application that remain open.
And last thing, if you have a new N1 the battery life will improve with the use within the next 2 weeks. Also, I'm sure you are playing around more than usual if you just got it.
I hope this help you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the complete opposite of what everyone else will tell you.
Most people say to force 2G (Edge) because it'll save battery over 3G. There are reports that WiFi will use less battery than 3G though, but not as good as 2G. Google even says this on the screen where you force 2G.
Push Email will require a constant polling on the internet. Since Android is a web OS, its probably connected to the internet anyway, but you can disable Auto Sync and Background Sync to save battery (once again, Google says this on that screen).
I agree with #1 and #4 though. If you don't want to do the lowest brightness setting, try the Auto Dim, it seems to dim it a lot more than my old Windows Mobile phones did.
mindfrost82 said:
This is the complete opposite of what everyone else will tell you.
Most people say to force 2G (Edge) because it'll save battery over 3G. There are reports that WiFi will use less battery than 3G though, but not as good as 2G. Google even says this on the screen where you force 2G.
Push Email will require a constant polling on the internet. Since Android is a web OS, its probably connected to the internet anyway, but you can disable Auto Sync and Background Sync to save battery (once again, Google says this on that screen).
I agree with #1 and #4 though. If you don't want to do the lowest brightness setting, try the Auto Dim, it seems to dim it a lot more than my old Windows Mobile phones did.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At first I had the same opinion as you have but after I watched this video it changed radically
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUemfrKe65c&feature=player_embedded
mindfrost82 said:
Push Email will require a constant polling on the internet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No it doesn't, that's the beauty of push email. It opens a connection to the server and just sits idle.
Rusty! said:
No it doesn't, that's the beauty of push email. It opens a connection to the server and just sits idle.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are right so ... it saves battery at the end.
@mindfrost82. Check out the video, it will tech you few things because most of people is wrong as I was in the past.
Battery Drain
My phone would drain 15% battery in 1 hour just being idle witht he screen off. I dialed *#*#4636#*#* and changed the option from WCDMA preffered to WCDMA only. When I don't get a 3g signal (not often) I jsut go back to that and set it to GSM only. For one reason or another the WCDMA preffered SUCKS THE BATTERY!
4 hours of the phone being idle and only 5% battery drain! DO IT! IT WORKS!
blastik said:
At first I had the same opinion as you have but after I watched this video it changed radically
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUemfrKe65c&feature=player_embedded
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WTF? 3g uses LESS POWER than edge/wifi?!
My whole world just got turned upside down
Thanks for posting the video
ap3604 said:
WTF? 3g uses LESS POWER than edge/wifi?!
My whole world just got turned upside down
Thanks for posting the video
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to be careful of this. The point the video made is that if you download something OF SIMILAR SIZE, you will realize battery gains by virtue of the fact that what you are downloading/uploading takes exponentially less time to retrieve. The real question is, if 2 phones are both casually browsing for the same amount of time...without worrying how much information was actually transferred...one on Edge, the other on 3G...is there a difference in battery performance?
What the video said is just common sense. If I am going to send you 20 MB file and one way takes 2 minutes to download it and the other takes 10 minutes to download, then OF COURSE the 2 minute method is going to be more efficient. So you can download on Wifi where it might take x amount of time, compared to 3G where it takes 5x or edge where it takes 10x. Thus, if the file size the person is going to download is known, then of course it makes sense to tell them to wait until they are on wifi. However, many of us casually browse, on the spot, without regard to the type of connection we are on.
RayKinStL said:
You need to be careful of this. The point the video made is that if you download something OF SIMILAR SIZE, you will realize battery gains by virtue of the fact that what you are downloading/uploading takes exponentially less time to retrieve. The real question is, if 2 phones are both casually browsing for the same amount of time...without worrying how much information was actually transferred...one on Edge, the other on 3G...is there a difference in battery performance?
What the video said is just common sense. If I am going to send you 20 MB file and one way takes 2 minutes to download it and the other takes 10 minutes to download, then OF COURSE the 2 minute method is going to be more efficient. So you can download on Wifi where it might take x amount of time, compared to 3G where it takes 5x or edge where it takes 10x. Thus, if the file size the person is going to download is known, then of course it makes sense to tell them to wait until they are on wifi. However, many of us casually browse, on the spot, without regard to the type of connection we are on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, what you just said is right. But still you are saving battery up! Plus I wouldn't use edge at all in my N1. What's the point of having almost everything disabled so I can receive calls?
I remind you that while edge is sending/receiving data you cannot get any calls
blastik said:
At first I had the same opinion as you have but after I watched this video it changed radically
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUemfrKe65c&feature=player_embedded
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is an excellent video, I highly recommend watching it if you are even remotely interested in the inner workings of our phones.
blastik said:
I remind you that while edge is sending/receiving data you cannot get any calls
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I didn't know this, for the info this thread is full of great stuff...
1) middle brightness is very bright. I'm sure you can live with 25%. Display brightness will always drain battery like mad.
2) 3G power use is usually decent. The N1 has terrible RF so it might be fighting 2G/3G. That will cost you a lot of power. If you're getting full 4 bars 3G everywhere you go even underground, you might be ok, but in low reception areas, it's gonna drain your battery struggling to boost power. Bigger issue during a call too.I notice this on my Milestone. The N1 completely fails at 3G while my Milestone fights for it. As a result the Milestone gets quite hot.
3) There are sometimes apps that run in the background. Some people insist task killers aren't necessary, but lemme give you an example. Stupid Speedtest program failed to acquire my location. After a test, you can't really exit, so you just hit home. Droidforums fanatics will always repost that link to that one thread where they talk about memory and its ok to not have to kill an app. Think again. The GPS turns on because of Speedtest and it keeps trying to acquire your location. Gotta kill it with a task manager or that thing will kill you. Or a webpage. I've heard of people going to some site that keeps refreshing. Oh good luck to your battery. Make sure you close these things. Use a task manager. Sometimes Facebook or Twitter might be the culprit even if your refresh rates are awfully long. I do not understand this phone sometimes. At times I feel that multitasking/memory management on Android gets you into more trouble than if you just flat out restricted it like in the iPhone. I'm not saying the iPhone's restrictions are the way to go, but Apple knew what it was doing. There's a reason Android phones gobble power and pull data like mad even when you aren't aware. Random apps sometimes start. Facebook widget refreshes even though the app itself is set not to auto notify and to update on its own. So with so many things running loose, its quite easy to see why your battery can go down so fast.
RayKinStL said:
You need to be careful of this. The point the video made is that if you download something OF SIMILAR SIZE, you will realize battery gains by virtue of the fact that what you are downloading/uploading takes exponentially less time to retrieve. The real question is, if 2 phones are both casually browsing for the same amount of time...without worrying how much information was actually transferred...one on Edge, the other on 3G...is there a difference in battery performance?
What the video said is just common sense. If I am going to send you 20 MB file and one way takes 2 minutes to download it and the other takes 10 minutes to download, then OF COURSE the 2 minute method is going to be more efficient. So you can download on Wifi where it might take x amount of time, compared to 3G where it takes 5x or edge where it takes 10x. Thus, if the file size the person is going to download is known, then of course it makes sense to tell them to wait until they are on wifi. However, many of us casually browse, on the spot, without regard to the type of connection we are on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's exactly the idea I got from that video too, which makes sense.
dmo580 said:
1) middle brightness is very bright. I'm sure you can live with 25%. Display brightness will always drain battery like mad.
2) 3G power use is usually decent. The N1 has terrible RF so it might be fighting 2G/3G. That will cost you a lot of power. If you're getting full 4 bars 3G everywhere you go even underground, you might be ok, but in low reception areas, it's gonna drain your battery struggling to boost power. Bigger issue during a call too.I notice this on my Milestone. The N1 completely fails at 3G while my Milestone fights for it. As a result the Milestone gets quite hot.
3) There are sometimes apps that run in the background. Some people insist task killers aren't necessary, but lemme give you an example. Stupid Speedtest program failed to acquire my location. After a test, you can't really exit, so you just hit home. Droidforums fanatics will always repost that link to that one thread where they talk about memory and its ok to not have to kill an app. Think again. The GPS turns on because of Speedtest and it keeps trying to acquire your location. Gotta kill it with a task manager or that thing will kill you. Or a webpage. I've heard of people going to some site that keeps refreshing. Oh good luck to your battery. Make sure you close these things. Use a task manager. Sometimes Facebook or Twitter might be the culprit even if your refresh rates are awfully long. I do not understand this phone sometimes. At times I feel that multitasking/memory management on Android gets you into more trouble than if you just flat out restricted it like in the iPhone. I'm not saying the iPhone's restrictions are the way to go, but Apple knew what it was doing. There's a reason Android phones gobble power and pull data like mad even when you aren't aware. Random apps sometimes start. Facebook widget refreshes even though the app itself is set not to auto notify and to update on its own. So with so many things running loose, its quite easy to see why your battery can go down so fast.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll second this, I never used to use a task killer as I figured it was just extra drain on the battery but after running across some rogue programs that kept running after being closed and draining the heck out of my battery I decided to install taskkiller and set it up to autokill apps when the screen goes off.
It's really easy to setup just install it from the market then use it to kill everything then flip through your homescreens make sure everything is up and running and go back into task killer and add everything there to the ignore list and turn on "autokill when screen off" now you don't ever have to worry about rogue apps killing your battery again and everything else will function normally.
blastik said:
Yeah, what you just said is right. But still you are saving battery up! Plus I wouldn't use edge at all in my N1. What's the point of having almost everything disabled so I can receive calls?
I remind you that while edge is sending/receiving data you cannot get any calls
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes you can, the phone will stop whatever data it's processing and take the call.
seanhassars said:
yes you can, the phone will stop whatever data it's processing and take the call.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sure 100% that while phone is receiving data over edge you wont get calls. I know because I had push enabled and afterwards I was getting SMS from my carrier that I have missed calls. It might say "ey sb is trying to call you" and then stop data transfer but for sure your will miss first call if someone is trying to reach you several times.
Check it out yourself.
blastik said:
Everybody says controversial stuff about phones like N1 or iPhone regarding battery life. But I can tell you from experience and some conferences I have been the following tips to improve your N1 battery:
-Leave brightness to minimum. Only at street you will need to have it at medium or maximum so you can see well.
-Use 3G or wifi when available. It will save more battery than if you use edge.
-Use push, also it's better.
-User apps like TaskManager to auto kill some application that remain open.
And last thing, if you have a new N1 the battery life will improve with the use within the next 2 weeks. Also, I'm sure you are playing around more than usual if you just got it.
I hope this help you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there are a lot of people who say do not use a task killer, including google devs etc.
i used advanced task killer for the longest time, being used to needing one as a WM user before getting my n1. after reading various posts on the issue, i tested without and my battery life increased.
i use juice defender now as well to turn off the apn and wifi, based on speeds/location/etc
have it set to prefer 2g (dont get 3g at home)
screebl also setup to turn screen off when not in certain position in hand
last one is setcpu (need root for this though) underclocking the cpu (including advanced setting and profiles i have set)
lowest setting for brightness
also keep gps off unless needed
i hit about 24hr from unplug til 10% w/ heavy useage, wifi on all the time (although juicedefender handles when its on/off)
just now went to kmobs UV kernel and testing that to increase my times
i've done a 24hr test from 100%>10% based on each app i've mentioned
I think while we are on topic of battery life.. for those of you who are rooted. Here is another link that I would recommend. I used these on my HTC Dream and works great on the Nexus One. Increase your battery life 10 fold.
Your Tube: "Get Better Battery Life" by droiddog
sorry not allowed to link yet
Over the months I have been an Evo user, I have collected some valuable information that all users should probably know in regards to maximizing battery life. Besides the stuff about 4G and a few specific options, these steps apply to pretty much any other android phone running 2.2, and a lot of them apply to versions below Froyo.
General Lithium Ion Battery Information
^^This link includes stuff about charging, including trickle charging aka SBC (Why NOT to use it, or at your own peril)
My tips for good battery life:
Tips for Non-Rooted users:
1. Turn off all radios when not in use.
(gps, Bluetooth, wifi, data, 4g) Use a widget like the default HTC power widget or Switchpro from the market. The radios of the phone draw power if on even if the user isn't actually utilizing the radio's functions.
To manually turn off radios without a toggle, go to menu>settings>wireless & networks.
Wifi uses less battery than 3G, so use wifi when you can.
**IMPORTANT DISCOVERY**When you turn on your 4G radio, then turn it off, it will keep scanning and turning off all by itself.
The problem is apparently exacerbated by a 4G toggle widget, which causes the phone to automatically turn on 4G at boot. This repeating of scanning and disconnecting severely drains battery life, and sadly, no matter what ROM or kernel you use, there is only one way to fix it:
-If you don’t use the toggle widget, then you have to reboot your phone after turning off 4G
-If you do use a toggle widget, then you have to remove the widget from your homescreens, then turn off 4G via settings, then reboot.
**To check to see if this is happening, download alogcat off of the market. Look for the lines saying: I/Wimax ( xxx): <DC> Try to establish a connection to DC server.
E/Wimax ( xxx): <DC CONNECT> IO error: msg=’/xxx.x.x.x:xxxx –
Connection refused’
Over and over again.
2. Juice Defender is one of my favorite apps. Basically it controls your data for you to maximize life.
More explanations are on their page, search it on the market for free, or upgrade for more features.
Here are my settings for it: Click me
Note that for me at least, juice defender likes to deny apps data privileges whether you allow them or not, so screen on = data on works best for me.
3. I love live wallpapers, and I’ve always been a fan of pixel zombies, but they are really only good for showing off due to their battery drain.
4. Go to menu<settings<wireless & networks<mobile networks<disable always on mobile data.
Product F(RED) said:
To clarify, "Always On Mobile Data", when turned off, lets the 3G modem go to sleep after the screen has been off for 5 minutes. It doesn't interfere with anything like email or any other application that requires an internet connection at that moment because it turns on on-demand rather than being on all the time and wasting battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
5. Set your screen timeout to something that fits you
This will prevent your phone from staying on when you don’t manually turn off the screen. Also with this, manually turn off your screen when you’re done with your phone.
6. Everyone has that issue where the first ten percent go the fastest.
This is due to two things. One is that these types of batteries stop charging once they get to 100% to prevent damage, and begin charging again at 90%. This means that you could potentially unplug your seemingly fully charged phone at 90% actual charge. The second is number 6.5.
6.5. Use the trick described in this thread, it works.
My idea behind how often you should do it is once a month, if you flash a new ROM, or if you stop noticing the benefits.
This is the calibration technique recommended by HTC themselves. Check it out!
7. Task killers used to be the shiz, but no longer.
Here is the ultimate, in depth, graphically assisted, explanation by the famous Fresh ROM's chef, Flipz. Shortly, in light of recent testing, really don’t do anything but force apps that the android OS needed to be open, and thus didn’t close, to re-open. So try not using them, unless for stuff like trying to figure out why your phone isn’t sleeping with system panel. You really won’t notice a performance difference, and the adverse effects you aren’t seeing will stop
+=+ A good alternative is the application SystemPanel Pro. It has a free version, but I highly reccomend purchasing the paid app. It basically monitors everything going on with your phone's usage both in real time an in terms of usage history. If your battery is draiging fast, it tells you what app was doing it, how much it was doing it, and allows you to stop it.
8. People posting screenshots of the Battery screen as proof of long lasting battery are giving statistically irrelevant information.
See HERE That screen shows time since last REBOOT, not last charge. This isn't always the case, but a lot of people will post a lot of things about battery life, but look for definitive screenshots and testing results before you break down and cry due to the poster's life and yours.
9. I'm sure you have all heard around that your phone isn't "sleeping".
This is referring to the phone's "awake" time, hence the name. When you go to menu>settings>about phone>battery, you can compare the two numbers, "up time" vs. "awake time." Generally, up time refers to the amount of time since the last reboot. The "awake time" is how long the screen has been active. The problem is, a lot of the time, due to the endless possibilities of inconsistencies between apps/ROMs/kernels/phones, the phone will not go to "sleep", drawing power proportionate to the screen being in use when it reality the phone is sitting idle.
If you compare these numbers, and they are the same, or if you note the difference, turn off the screen for a minute, then re-check and they are the same, then your phone is not sleeping.
One solution is to reboot.
Usually, SystemPanel will show an app that has gone "rouge" and is keeping your phone awake.
Uninstall applications/reinstalling them slowly, checking after every install to see what is causing it is one tedious but surefire solution.
Lastly,
Follow these steps that I have discovered almost always work.
1. Reboot phone.
2. Instantly upon reboot, as soon as you gain control, open up some type of monitor/taskkiller
3. "kill all" tasks on startup; about 5 times in quick succession should do the trick.
4. Turn off the screen and leave it for about five minutes.
5. Check the up time v. awake time and see if they are the same.
6. If they are, repeat steps 1-5. If they are different, you are good.
Tips for Rooted users:
1. Try out custom kernels.
By going to the EVO 4G Android Development section of the forums, you can see all of the different kernels being developed. These allow for all kinds of modifications like underclocking the CPU and undervolting, both of which save battery. To see how to use them, read the FAQ's in each thread's OPs.
Here is a great guide to custom kernel's by mroneeyedboh.
2. Use SetCPU in compliance with whatever your custom kernel allows.
This site will explain the basics of SetCPU: http://www.pokedev.com/setcpu/
-Profiles from SetCPU should usually involve these for battery life optimization:
-Screen off at the minimum clock speed for both, with the max raised on level if sluggishness is apparent
-A temperature greater than “X”
-General power related profiles that lower cpu speed at lower battery levels
-Here are my SetCPU profiles: 1 , 2 , 3
-My profiles change a lot as time goes by, because different kernel creators recommend different settings. I suggest reading up on whatever kernel you are using to gather settings.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTES:
*Some apps or processes begin to run at startup and keep the phone awake. These apps are not detected by things like spare parts or system panel, unless sometimes represented in the "system" process, in which case its usage will be unusually high.
This shouldn't take more than three repeats, and if it does, you need to factory reset, and slowly add apps back to see what's causing the problem.
___--- When it comes to actually "calibrating" one's battery, there are a couple of methods floating around. The method I first learned is to charge the phone all the way, boot into recovery immediately, and "wipe battery stats". Then reboot quickly, and run your phone all the way to death without charging it, then charge it all the way without interrupting it, and you should be good to go. Do this when changing ROMs/kernels for best results.
----When it comes to people claiming 20 plus hours of moderate/heavy use out of their current setup or other ridiculous absurdities, consider my position: No matter what you do, the Evo battery is the Evo battery. You can tweak it and customize it with kernels, ROMs, and settings, but none of that will turn it into a car battery. The main problem (besides a false sense of pride) that leads to these reports is the misunderstanding of what the usage levels are, so here’s my best summary:
* *Light usage – Phone screen actually on for maybe 4 hours. Things like a few texts, some emails, 20 minutes web browsing, etc.
* *Moderate usage – You watched a few youtube videos or similar apps, sustained web browsing, hundreds of texts, some games. Hours range from about 5-10 of screen on
* *Heavy usage – LOTS of video watching and games, or some high def gaming/movie watching for at least an hour to an hour and a half in total, with lots of emails and texts, browsing, and other app shenanigans
*I’m sure everyone doesn’t agree with all these numbers, but this is most likely a good average of what powerusers think. All specific hourage may vary due to differences in phones, batteries, ROMs, and kernels… Which also means that most battery comparisons are pointless; it’s only what you can improve on that counts!
I’ll update this whenever I see good stuff, people remind me, or I remember/come across things I do.
Hope it helps everybody!
Hit the "THANKS" button if I help you!
*All this is available in the link in my signature
I just use the power widget for data instead of juice. Don't mind clicking it once before and after I turn the screen on. Also don't always use data when its on..
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
martyzidek said:
I just use the power widget for data instead of juice. Don't mind clicking it once before and after I turn the screen on. Also don't always use data when its on..
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do that also, but the fact that juice only lets your stuff sync at a certain lengthy interval is what really makes it awesome. If you just disable the data period, your stuff won't sync correctly
I only have mail to sync and with that if I go into my mail it syncs. I go on Facebook on the browser so I don't use the app and deleted off my phone. Also I don't use Google mail or friendstream which is all deleted fully off my phone. So I don't have to worry. And most stuff that syncs on here to a set time will have a sync button or sync when you use or go into it anyways. So why not have it just sync when you actually check it? My 2 cents.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Great guide; good job!
I just turn off the background data, we have more than enough RAM to even need a task manager, I agree it sucks cpu usage and its tedious to close apps constantly and its only needed for low RAM phones these days anyway. Getting +6-8 hours use from a smart phone from moderste use is great Imo. I get great battery life already without much tweaking. I dont get what's the point of underclocking since the 1 ghz is one of the main selling points. I enjoy the obscene speed of the phone. Keep the screen dim and stay off the live wallpapers. Good write up!
Thanks for the tips and the profiles.
martyzidek said:
I only have mail to sync and with that if I go into my mail it syncs. I go on Facebook on the browser so I don't use the app and deleted off my phone. Also I don't use Google mail or friendstream which is all deleted fully off my phone. So I don't have to worry. And most stuff that syncs on here to a set time will have a sync button or sync when you use or go into it anyways. So why not have it just sync when you actually check it? My 2 cents.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I appreciate your thoughts, but it's just as you said: "I only have.." etc. Other people do it differently, so these tips should help THEM. Glad you know what works for you though
phatmanxxl said:
I just turn off the background data, we have more than enough RAM to even need a task manager, I agree it sucks cpu usage and its tedious to close apps constantly and its only needed for low RAM phones these days anyway. Getting +6-8 hours use from a smart phone from moderste use is great Imo. I get great battery life already without much tweaking. I dont get what's the point of underclocking since the 1 ghz is one of the main selling points. I enjoy the obscene speed of the phone. Keep the screen dim and stay off the live wallpapers. Good write up!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
bigmoogle said:
Thanks for the tips and the profiles.
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Click to collapse
bludragon742 said:
Great guide; good job!
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Click to collapse
Thanks y'all! Please vote on the poll and rate so more people can see this for longer
Glad it's helping
abkrieger said:
I appreciate your thoughts, but it's just as you said: "I only have.." etc. Other people do it differently, so these tips should help THEM. Glad you know what works for you though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Anything that syncs has an option somewhere on the widget or app. All you do is hit the refresh button and updates. Same with mail. I go into my mail and it then syncs. So if its that important for friendstream or Facebook to update and sync to a certain setting then by all means juice is for you. Just a waste of battery.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
martyzidek said:
Anything that syncs has an option somewhere on the widget or app. All you do is hit the refresh button and updates. Same with mail. I go into my mail and it then syncs. So if its that important for friendstream or Facebook to update and sync to a certain setting then by all means juice is for you. Just a waste of battery.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Say for example I have:
Weather widget on homescreen, fb widget, friendstream, news widget, two mail apps in background, google voice for vm...
-To name a few. If you use all of these, then you wouldn't also want to:
Refresh weather widget by clicking on it, which pulls up the menu, then clicking refresh - then clicking on your fb widget, which brings up the menu, and hitting refresh - going to friendstream, clicking on it, menu, refresh - same for news widget - same for mail apps - google voice...
The mail and google voice update in the background, and unless you want them always checking, or going in when you remember and telling it to refresh, the best option is to limit when it has access based on YOUR schedule.
The point of widgets is one-look convenience. Two clicks to sync a widget, taking you off the homescreen, defeats the purpose. Maybe not for you, but most people.
Now, adding all those up, that would be about 15 taps on the screen, taking all over the place, just to have your apps/widgets do what they are supposed to do. No thanks. I would rather click zero times, and have EVERYTHING sync at one time, in intervals of my choosing.
To each his own I guess
You use setcpu with kingxkernal?
phatmanxxl said:
I just turn off the background data,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
exactly what is the background data?
what data gets synced in the backgrounds? and if u turn that off, when does it actually sync that data?
SayWhat10 said:
exactly what is the background data?
what data gets synced in the backgrounds? and if u turn that off, when does it actually sync that data?
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You would manually have to sync data.
c_l021 said:
You use setcpu with kingxkernal?
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Click to collapse
No I've stopped using it with the kingkernels as per his request.
EDIT: It's supposedly HAVS kernels in general.
JUST BUMPIN THE THREAD.
To clarify, "Always On Mobile Data", when turned off, lets the 3G modem go to sleep after the screen has been off for 5 minutes. It doesn't interfere with anything like email or any other application that requires an internet connection at that moment because it turns on on-demand rather than being on all the time and wasting battery.
Great thread... I have found a good tsk killer called "system panel" it cost a cpl bucks in the market but its worth it... Old task killer apps stored working when froyo was released... System panel still works, plus it gives you a lot more control over your phone by telling you what is using what from your battery... In conjunction with juice defender... Too have the best offense to defend your charges!
Sent from the MATRIX... while plugged into my EVO... using the XDA app... from a galaxy far-far away.......
JayStation3 said:
Great thread... I have found a good tsk killer called "system panel" it cost a cpl bucks in the market but its worth it... Old task killer apps stored working when froyo was released... System panel still works, plus it gives you a lot more control over your phone by telling you what is using what from your battery... In conjunction with juice defender... Too have the best offense to defend your charges!
Sent from the MATRIX... while plugged into my EVO... using the XDA app... from a galaxy far-far away.......
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've had system panel pro since the day I bought my phone
Product F(RED) said:
To clarify, "Always On Mobile Data", when turned off, lets the 3G modem go to sleep after the screen has been off for 5 minutes. It doesn't interfere with anything like email or any other application that requires an internet connection at that moment because it turns on on-demand rather than being on all the time and wasting battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll add this to the OP, thanks for the clear description!
Biofall said:
Over the months I have been an Evo user, I have collected some valuable information that all users should probably know in regards to maximizing battery life. Here they are
My tips for good battery life:
1. Turn off all radios when not in use (gps, Bluetooth, wifi, data, 4g) using a widget like the default HTC power widget or Switchpro from the market.
To manually turn off radios without a toggle, go to menu>settings>wireless & networks
^^^^**** IMPORTANT DISCOVERY****^^^^
When you turn on your 4G radio, then turn it off, it will keep scanning and turning off all by itself.
The problem is apparently exacerbated by a 4G toggle widget, which causes the phone to automatically turn on 4G at boot. This repeating of scanning and disconnecting severely drains battery life, and sadly, no matter what ROM or kernel you use, there is only one way to fix it:
-If you don’t use the toggle widget, then you have to reboot your phone after turning off 4G
-If you do use a toggle widget, then you have to remove the widget from your homescreens, then turn off 4G via settings, then reboot.
**To check to see if this is happening, download alogcat off of the market. Look for the lines saying: I/Wimax ( xxx): <DC> Try to establish a connection to DC server.
E/Wimax ( xxx): <DC CONNECT> IO error: msg=’/xxx.x.x.x:xxxx –
Connection refused’
Over and over again.
5. Go to menu<settings<wireless & networks<mobile networks<disable always on mobile data
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Click to collapse
Wow, this is awesome man. #1 is a huge discovery for sure. we just got 4g here recently and I started having this huge battery drain problem. I have been monitoring my phone with system panel and found "suspend" to running my cpu full bore 100% of the time.
if your search for suspend you can find a few threads here and over at androidforums. no one had seemed to find the issue of why suspend is always running. but it is for me definitely being caused by 4g as you describe.
I didn't think it was 4g because I found a wimax process at 0%
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but after playing with 4g and your ideas here I can make this suspend start and stop at will now.
some screen shots of system panel with the suspend issue on.
here are some screen shots after finding this thread last night around midnight and killing 4g and rebooting.
thanks, this saved me from loading up an older nandroid that I didn't have this issue. but now I know its not rom or app related.
here is what I did to stop suspend/4g from running. I keep mobile data always on unchecked. and I use a 4g toggle from switch pro (well not anymore)
I turned off 4g through my toggle. reboot phone, suspend is still running and the phone will not sleep. I then go into settings - wireless & networks - mobile networks, I then check mobile data always on and then uncheck it. suspend will now stop and phone will sleep. data always on check and uncheck only works after a reboot.
anyways I think this find is awesome! and maybe we should mention that this 4g problem and this suspend process are one in the same. as it seems people have been having this suspend process problem for months on end with no solution.
I really didn't think it could be 4g as I saw wimax process at 0% and a simple reboot didn't end it. I thought it had to be an app.
thanks bro
I keep reading on here about how either someones battery life is either awesome or great or this or that. It seems that many folks on here with great battery life are old pros at milking their phones for the best battery life possible, while others may not know the best methods for getting the optimal battery life they want.
So here are some tips for getting the battery life you want:
1) Calibrate your battery by letting if completely discharge and then charge it using the wall charger it came with. Do this at least three times so the phone has a chance to get real statistics.
Update: It is recommended that you do not do this very often as some say it could damage the battery in the long term. You should do this early on in the life of the phone as the damage if any would be minimal. This needs to be done regardless. It is the only way for the phone to get an accurate full/zero reading.
Update 2: I have found that after doing a factory reset, you need to do this step again. After a factory reset on 4.1.83 (most recent update), my battery life dropped considerably. After letting it discharge fully and then charging it with the phone off again, I was back to normal battery use.
2) Set wifi to sleep when the phone is not in use. Unless you are streaming data such as pandora or other data intensive programs with the screen off, you do not need it on (I will talk about background data in a moment for those who are going to mention that the phone still does data while it is sleeping). You can change the setting by going to Settings > Wireless networks > wifi settings > menu button > advanced > wifi sleep policy
ofek said:
You should write that after settings it you need to click on menu button->save.
If you will not do this step, every reboot it will restored to "Never" option.
Sent from my Motorola Atrix 4G
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
3) Disable motoblur's account settings sync over cell data. This setting causes all of your account information to sync over your data connection when wifi is not available. This should be disabled as it will constantly sync and drain your battery even when the screen is off. Really do you need you facebook contacts that are synced to your contacts to be updated every five minutes? Settings > Data manager > Data Delivery > social apps > sync over wifi.
Update: Only disable the Social Apps that sync over background, do not disable the Background data. Disabling background data will cause certain things to not work properly, like for instance the gmail app.
Update 2: If you are using the Twitter/facebook/whatever apps (real apps) you should go ahead and remove the associated accounts from Motoblur. You do not need them to sync twice as motoblur will sync them with it's account and then the apps will sync. The downside to this though is that any contact pictures you have synced from those accounts will no longer show up in contacts forcing you to manually add pictures to your contacts.
4) remove widgets. Widgets drain batteries when they are active. Most of them are useless and really serve no purpose other than to try and make you feel important about yourself. I mean really, how useful is a facebook widget that only shows one or two peoples updates? Trash the ones you can live without. If you are using a launcher other than motoblur, go and load motoblur and make certain there are none running on that launcher as those are still active even if you use another launcher.
5) live wallpapers suck battery like crazy. While they are nice eye candy to view, they are not worth the drain they cause. Even when you are in a app, just like the widgets, they are draining your battery.
Update: Some live wallpapers are better on battery drain than others, but they still drain battery either way. I will not use a live wallpaper as it serves no purpose other than eye candy, and eye candy on a phone I can live without.
6) Task killers. Yeah not going to touch this one as everyone who reads these forums should know better by now.
7) check individual programs as you install them and make certain they do not autoupdate content. Pulse news reader is a good example of a program that pulls data in the background even when you haven't used it in weeks. Really is it going to kill you to hit refresh when you load it?
Update: If you are using the AT&T program "Mark the Spot", it constantly is checking device performance and is constantly checking your location for it to "work". Be sure to watch this app as it drains a lot of battery through out the day.
8) turn off bluetooth, gps, and wifi when you are not actively using them. Wifi when on is always scanning the area for networks, bluetooth is always actively broadcasting (on some phones) and who needs gps when you aren't on the move.
Update: If you are experiencing a switch from H+ to Edge frequently such as in your home where you have wifi running and do not have a AT&T cell device, then turn off your data connection. Your phone is constantly trying to connect to the H+ network when it isn't already connected and draining power. If you are on WiFi, then your data connection is not needed.
I have heard Tasker is great for setting up an automatic script on your phone to do it for you so you don't have to think about it, but remember that all extra programs including tasker eat away at your battery and without real world testing, I can not promise you will see an improvement or a loss in battery.
You can also use APNDroid to do it manually if you would rather have full controll of your data connection.
9) Quit watching porn on your phone. Use your computer for that. Ok maybe I am the only one who does this but I doubt it. Alot if the free poem sites use flash videos and the more you use flash the faster your battery drains.
Update: Yes I know this is hard (no pun intended) for some of you to do, but the idea is sound. Using flash videos (the bulk (again no pun intended) of porn videos use flash).
These are not the only ways to have a great battery and this information may not be useful to you, but I can go nearly 20 hours of moderate to heavy phone use and still have anywhere from 40 to 60 percent battery left at the end of the day.
If anyone has any other advice that they feel should be listed here, please let me know and I will gladly add it to the mix.
Good luck folks.
Addition (5/12/11)
10) For those of you with the .83 update, please keep in mind that the update now forces you onto the EDGE (2G) Network if it can receive a better signal/stable connection. If you notice you are on EDGE more often than the H+ network, then disable your data connection. What is happening is that even though you have a solid connection to the EDGE network, your phone is constantly seeking the H+/3G networks thus using much more battery life than before. If you are at home or somewhere where your phone can connect to a wifi network, consider turning off the Data network. You should also disable your data connection whenever you are in a No Signal area. Again the same problem happens when you have no signal.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Advice from other Members:
From Deggy
I would like to add to the OP's list of things to do to improve battery life:
Turn off date when not in use for a long period of time like work or school. Settings -> Date manager -> Date delivery -> uncheck Backround data and Data enabled. Don't worry, you'll still get your texts and phone calls.
The Market is a big drainer. Market -> hit menu -> settings -> change notify me -> do not notify me.
Those two are the big ones to worry about IMO.
The other tips are either cliche stuff or other people said already. Wifi off, GPS off, brightness down to 0-20%, ect. Auto sync is killer.
I unplug my phone at 9AM and come home from work at 9PM and my phone says 75% with moderate use (Circle battery widget uses 1% increments). 3-4 phone calls. A LOT of texting (wifey likes text me). Internet during 30 minute lunch. Play Words with Friends a good amount.
I don't use live wallpaper but I do use a darker colored static one. Only got 4-5 widgets on my screen. 3 home screens. Using Launcher Pro.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
pookeyster said:
In some of the other battery threads, ppl have been commenting on how they've had success in extending the battery life after a hard factory reset. What that basically does is it deletes and regenerates the batterystats.bin file in /data/system and if the battery was essentially mis-calibrated prior to the reset, the reset fixes it thus giving better measurements. ie. perhaps after 10hrs of usage the phone might say u have 5% left, but in reality you could have 40% left.. the regeneratin of batterystats.bin would recalculate that correctly
if you want the benefits of having that reset process but rather not go through having to restore all ur apps/back them up.. u could always manually go and delete the batterystats.bin file (only if you're rooted). i would recommend deleting the file after fully charging the phone overnight then unplug it so that it generates the file again. if you'd prefer an app to do this for you automatically you could always go to the marketplace and get 'battery calibration' app for free and it does the same thing
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Click to collapse
cybal said:
My want to include details about corp email sync. Using "push data" can really chew up the battery and is probably not better then retrieving email every 15 or 30 mins for most people. There may also be a problem with setting a long history time such as 1 month.
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Click to collapse
The following was posted on the MotoAtrix forums on Motorola's website. https://supportforums.motorola.com/thread/51776
I've seen a lot of posts in a lot of threads about how to save battery life on the Atrix. So, I figured I'd start a consolidated thread on the matter. These are the tips 'n tricks I've used, and I can get 2 days of battery life on the Atrix now.
1. When I first got the Atrix, before turning it on, I charged it for 4 hours. After turning it on, I let it run until it died, then re-charged for 8 hours. I did that for a full week. They say that this isn't needed with the new-fangled batteries, but I have always done this, and have always gotten great results.
2. Live wallpapers are not your friend, especially in two circumstances: 1. you use your phone a lot, and 2. you use the stock unlock screen where everytime the phone wakes the live wallpaper is playing. Granted, they don't eat up much battery, but if you're looking to get every ounce/percentage out of your phone, it's a luxury you can leave at home.
3. Did you install a new launcher? If so, did you clear out BLUR? I had my BLUR interface up and running with widgets and shortcuts, etc, etc. When I switched to ADW I noticed an increase in battery drain. I re-loaded BLUR and deleted all apps, widgets, etc so BLUR is blank. I now have great battery life with ADW running.
4. Widgets - ugh. They're pretty, they're big, they're animated, and they eat battery like bees eat pollen. Be mindful of them, and be willing to accept the consequences of the "cool factor".
5. Screen timeout. Yes, it's annoying to unlock your phone every 5 minutes, but you do save battery life with a 1-minute or less timeout option set.
6. Close your apps! Many apps, games especially, are fantastic at running in the background on Android, but they're sucking battery. They all restore to your previous position quite well, so if you're done for a few hours, exit it instead of just going back to your launcher screen.
7. "back" vs. "home" - the back button (the reverse arrow) does a much better job of closing down programs than the home button which just brings up your home screen, leaving whatever you were doing to hungrily consume battery like zombies on a corpse.
8. "manage apps" is your friend - go to your app tray, hit the menu button, and select "manage apps" - you can see all the running apps and kill them selectively. Some, like Facebook, Skype, and others, will stay there as long as the phone is on once you use it, unless you kill it. Be forwarned though, you'll stop getting notifications if you do this - another informed tradeoff. I do this once every few days, or if the Atrix seems sluggish.
9. Screen brightness - the "auto" setting doesn't work all that well, but I highly recommend leaving it there, and/or using a screen brightness toggle widget on your home screen to manage this carefully. Screen brightness on maximum will yield the best viewing experience but it does drain battery the fastest of all.
10. Choose your BLUR accounts wisely - like widgets, if you have LinkedIn and Facebook connected through BLUR, it will run ALL THE TIME. Using the native apps from the market will definitely decrease your overall drain and give you better control over when and how your battery is consumed by those services.
11. Auto-kill or be killed - A good rule of thumb for me is to only auto-end a task if you know exactly what it is, and it didn't come with the phone. Chances are if you don't recognize it, even if it looks like something you don't need running, leave it be. If it's something you installed from the Market, and you want it to auto-end, have a field day. If you put something on the auto-end list that the Atrix needs, it will just keep re-starting it. This draws processor time and battery and isn't worth it.
12. (credit: Itsallgood) Check your profile - "settings -> battery" and look at the bottom half of the screen. The Atrix supports multiple battery saving profiles that allows you to control "night time" and whether to actively sync data all the time, never, or only during certain hours. Push mail and active data sync consumes battery at a steady pace. In addition, 3rd party apps (like Settings Profiles) can be downloaded to further tweak and customize everything from vibrate mode, screen, data sync, and more. The more customized your experience to fit your needs only when you need specific services, the better your battery life will be.
Anyway - that's some to get started, feel free to add more!
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Click to collapse
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
wow nice ill try it i have my atrix for a couple of days and i have been like dissapointed i dont wanna do a factory reset or anything like it ill try ur guide and let u kno
Personally, I don't see the point of disabling everything that makes an Android fun and unique.... but, ill see how the battery is stock vs this once it arrives.
Thx
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
Mr.Kakarot said:
Personally, I don't see the point of disabling everything that makes an Android fun and unique.... but, ill see how the battery is stock vs this once it arrives.
Thx
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
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Click to collapse
You don't have to disable everything, but the things above such as the background data syncs serve no purpose other than to drain a battery. The sync will complete during the next wifi connection and by time you access your contacts it will be done. Besides it'd not like all your contacts change every 30 minutes.
The idea is not so much to limit the experience of android, but to remove the unused features that do nothing for.you. I mean who really needs a youtube widget when the shortcut gets you to youtube just as easily and doesn't drain your battery.
It's the same idea as startup programs on your computer. They serve no purpose other than to slow your system down. Sure quicktime or itunes might load a few seconds faster, but how often do you really load those programs.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
#9 = cant do
u know how they monitor work computer ?
Great Post
The only propblem now following your advice is that my gmail email does not upgrade (sync) on its own
keithr1475 said:
The only propblem now following your advice is that my gmail email does not upgrade (sync) on its own
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you using the gmail app or the default app? Mine works just fine.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
I'm using the Gmail APP
the gmail app doesnt sync on its own because you turn off auto sync
i recommend you use the power control widget and adjust those accordingly
Definitely a good list of things, but felt like commenting on the live wallpapers thing. From what I've experienced, it seems like it depends a lot on the wallpaper used. I initially thought the live wallpaper was one of the main reasons for the short battery life when I first got the phone so I switched to a normal wallpaper. I had that for about a week and generally saw a lot of improvements in battery life as a result of better management and the calibration cycles. After that week, I came across a live wallpaper I liked and decided to enjoy that feature for a bit more. If anything, it seemed like my battery life got a bit better. I've tested it a little, and there's no doubt that some of my live wallpapers drain battery more than others. I've tried switching between a standard wallpaper and my live wallpaper (galaxy live) and I really don't see much of a difference, if any, between the 2.
Question: Does freezing the blur home screen (via titanium backup) disable the widgets on it? I'm assuming it does, since it essentially makes that home screen non-existent as far as the phone is concerned.
Darrell, There are some really good suggestions. They also apply to other android phones too probably. I had a myTouch4G for a week until I decided that T-Mob just wasn't as good a value to me as AT&T. So I went back. I'll get an Atrix soon, or maybe some Tegra that comes out in a month or 2.
How do you switch to Motoblur from Launcher Pro and back again? Will I lose the customization that I've done?
Edit: Home Launcher
DarrellRaines said:
1) Calibrate your battery by letting if completely discharge and then charge it using the wall charger it came with. Do this at least three times so the phone has a chance to get real statistics.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I read somewhere in this forum that you shouldnt let the battery run all the way down in the initial calibration week. Anybody know about this?
psymont said:
I read somewhere in this forum that you shouldnt let the battery run all the way down in the initial calibration week. Anybody know about this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Modern lithium batteries actually die faster if you fully drain them then recharge to full. I'm not saying you can't do it every so often for calibration purposes but it isn't recommended as a every day thing.
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
We aren't running them down for the batteries health, but more so that the phone will understand what full and what dead actually is.
Do not do this often as there is no point. As for damaging the battery, one website says it is bad while others say it is good. Do so at your own risk. I do not have a degree in science, so I can not say either way, however the steps above done once the phone is calibrated will help.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
After 12 hours of moderate to heavy use today, I still have 50% battery remaining.
For the guy who's email stopped working, do not turn off all background data. That will stop the push settings I believe.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
wait....quit looking at porn on my phone?!??!!?
impossible!
no matter, im not having battery life issues.
Darrel this works i just did the wallpaper step and wow my battery stood up all day from 7am now is at%15 10pm
send from my unrooted atrix using xda app
gambit_pr said:
Darrel this works i just did the wallpaper step and wow my battery stood up all day from 7am now is at%15 10pm
send from my unrooted atrix using xda app
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Glad I could help.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Hello everybody! The purpose of this guide is to show you some free ways to greatly increase your battery life on the Droid X. First this guide assumes you have the Gingerbread kernel, root access, and are comfortable with ClockworkMod Recovery. If you have not installed a few roms, SBF’ed, or backed up your phone, learn how to and practice it a few times. I am not responsible if you fubar and have to SBF your phone. This guide is specifically written for the Droid X, but since the Droid 2 uses the same innards, you can probably use this guide interchangeably with that phone. Not all the steps in this guide only apply to the Droid X so I will say something on the steps that can be used on other Android devices.
First I'm going to start with basic things you do not want to do if you plan on saving battery. (All Devices)
Battery Saver Apps: Battery saving apps like Juice Defender are bad ideas. As I will explain later, many apps expect an always on data connection and prevent your processor from going into deep sleep when they are waiting for that data connection to come back on. Not to mention a battery saver is just another app and service that is running in the background potentially using battery.
Wipe Battery Stats: A Google developer has confirmed that the batterystats.bin does not hold battery calibration information. It holds information to compute battery usage information. The same information you see under “Battery Usage” in settings. Wiping this file just wastes your time.
Hungry Apps: Apps that use excessive notifications keep the processor from going into deep sleep. Facebook is the number 1 culprit here. Go into the app settings and turn of notifications. Use your back button to exit apps when you are done.
Automatic Backlight: On the Droid X, the Automatic Brightness setting is useless. Minimum brightness is too high by default. Either turn it off and set brightness manually or take the step I did that comes up later in this guide.
Wifi: Wifi when you are in range of a router uses less power than your 3G connection and is faster anyways. Wifi when you are not in the range of a router is a battery killer and should be avoided. Use your notification toggles if you have them. Get a widget if you don’t.
GPS: GPS should be turned off at all times unless you are actively using it. Nobody cares where you were when you posted on Facebook.
App killers: App Killers are good for hunting down and killing an app once in a while but are usually pointless. Android automatically loads apps into free memory for quicker starts. Why have your app killer wake up the phone from its idle, kill all of your apps to free up memory, and then have Android automatically reload most of those apps back into memory?
Bluetooth: Bluetooth headsets are best left in the car where you have your phone on a charger. If you need to use one off the charger, don’t forget to turn off your Bluetooth when you are done.
Charging: Charge as often as possible. Follow the same battery saving strategies you usually do when your phone is off the charger. It makes your phone charge faster. Keep in mind the mA rating on the charger. The stock one is 850mA. Do not exceed this rating. USB is ~500mA depending on other devices attached to the computer. The higher the rating, the faster the charge. Do not let the battery get very hot. Do not let your battery level drop below 10 very often. Low charge levels on Li-Ion batteries can damage them. Alternately, do not reputedly plug and unplug your phone once your battery shows 100. Android charges to 100 and lets it use up battery for a few percentages before it starts charging again. This is to prevent overcharging and damaging your battery. If you plug and unplug it repeatedly, it tricks Android into charging it more and more. Keep in mind that li-ion batteries lose capacity over time whether you use them or not. Replace them when they are no longer keeping you happy.
Step 1. Selecting a Rom
Liberty 3 forum topic: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1368049
Really for the purpose of this guide the only rom worth picking is Liberty 3. This rom is based on Motorola code which is known for good battery life and has init.d support baked in. It also has the power toggles in the notification bar and has pretty good customization. The 2nd-init roms that have init.d will work too but have issues with battery life. From this point forward I am going to assume you are going to be using Liberty 3 but the steps should work the same for other roms as long as there is init.d support.
Step 2. Installing the Rom
Use CWM to install the rom like you normally would. Start up and follow the usual setup wizard. Once you are able to get to settings, click on Liberty Settings, then Performance, then Start-up Tweaks, then uncheck everything except "Enable start-up tweaks." These settings interfere with the next step and are going to be duplicated by the next step.
Step 3. Install jakebitesmod
Jakebitesmod forum topic: http://rootzwiki.com/topic/3435-mods-jakebitesmods-v18-for-d2-ota-gb-kernel-all-roms-mods/ (Please consider donating to this developer as this script helps a lot of people.)
Jakebitesmod has some good scripts to optimize many things in Android. Pretty much anything that speeds up Android can have a small improvement on your battery life. We are specifically going to use his script to under volt the processor and set the governor at boot without using an app. Copy the linked file to your SD card and boot into CWM again to flash this. Restart your phone like normal.
Step 4. Configure jakebitesmod
Open Terminal Emulator and type “su”. This should prompt Superuser for root permission. Allow the permissions and move on. Type “modcentral”. This should bring up a little text menu of things to do. The menu option we are gonna be looking for is “1”. Read the safety issues and if you want to move forward press “Y”. From here we are going to select “1”. This option will leave you with the stock processor speeds but change the voltages on the processor to lower settings. This is generally safe because lower voltages should only cause problems with freezing and crashing, but should not physically be harmful to the processor. Voltage also makes much more of a difference on power than clock speed so this should save us a good chunk of battery. Push “Y” to continue and set the voltages and speeds at boot. Press enter a couple times and it should tell you it succeeded. Yay. From here we want to go to menu option “3”. Governors control when the processor jumps up or down in speed based on some magic formula that takes into account how much work your processor is expected to be doing. Personally I agree with jakebites and I chose interactiveX. It jumps up in speed fast enough not to appear like the phone is laggy and drops back down fast enough to save battery. It also automatically drops down to the lowest speed while the screen is off. After you have made your choice push “Y” and enter a few more times. Once we are back to a menu we can just hit the back button and exit the Terminal Emulator.
Step 4. Adjusting the Backlighting (All Devices)
The Droid X’s backlight settings is a real pain. The lowest brightness setting it will dip down to is 20. This is way too bright for darkness. You know what I mean if you have browsed at night in bed. Luckily there is an app for that. Download “Custom Auto Brightness” from the Market and install it. It ends up being called LogGraph in the app drawer for some odd reason. Open this and hit you menu key and then select “Preferences”. Select calibrate sensor and follow the directions on the screen. Then go to check brightness range and follow the directions on the screen. Then back out to the main screen and make sure “Demonstrate….” is checked. Push the left “Select sensor reading” and observe the line on the graph move. These are the levels of light the ambient light sensor are going to report at. So say you have the sensor reading slider set to 10. You move the bottom slider to a value of 2. This means that your backlight will be at its lowest level when your sensor says the light in the room is at a level of 10. You can adjust these to what you prefer, but for the best battery savings turn your readings at 1 and 10 to a value of 2. This will keep your backlight nice and low while you are in a dark room but still let your backlight jump up while you are outside. Once these are set head back into the preferences and make sure that all of the checks are enabled except “Foreground mode” and “Bypass hysteresis”. Once that is done hit the back button until you close the app and then turn your screen off and on. If you brightness is way lower than it was before you are golden. If not double check the guide.
Step 5. Install Your Normal Apps (All Devices)
The next steps require your normal apps to be installed and signed into those apps like normal.
Step 6. Set Your Sync Times (All Devices)
Install the app “AutoSync Account Activator” from the Market. Open and accept the agreement. Now you should see some apps listed. I get “Google” and “Facebook” but yours may vary depending on what you have installed. The process should be similar for each app. First off, click on “Google”. The first page called “Connections” lists you connections. Click on connections you would like your account to be able to sync on. Cellular is an obvious one but really you should have your wifi on and have it activated in this while you are home. The next screen, “Periodic Sync”, controls how often your apps sync. Unless you use your Google Calendar often, set that to “1 day”. Contacts should also be “1 day”. Gmail should be set accordingly to how often you care about your email. Others may show up. Set them to according to your judgment. Just keep in mind the more often you sync, the more battery you will use. If you do not use the service at all you can select “No period”. If you have one set to no period you should also set it in the next page to “Always off”. All of the rest should be set to auto.
Step 7. Observing What You Apps Are Doing and What to Do About It (All Devices)
This step is subdivided for the benefit of your eyes.
XDA Edition BetterBatteryStats forum topic: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809 (The link is at very bottom of 2nd post. Please purchase from the developer on Market if you use this more than a few times.)
A. This final step will ultimately probably figure out why you were getting bad battery. Android’s power management relies on what are called “wake locks”. Wake locks are things apps can create to tell Android’s power management to prevent the phone from going into deep sleep. Deep sleep is a state your processer goes into to basically shut itself off. A good example of a wake lock is when you are playing an mp3 and your screen is off. Normally when your screen is off your device wants to get into deep sleep asap. The audio service creates a wake lock to prevent your processor from entering deep sleep, because this would stop the mp3 playback. Most of the naughty apps out there use wake locks to keep data connections alive and use them to keep updating and keep notifications going. They tend not to give up that wake lock when they should and keep your phone from going to sleep. Apps that shut off your data connection, like Juice Defender, will cause even good behaving apps to freak out and keep their wake locks active while they wait for the data connection.
B. To look for these wake lock hogs we have a couple apps to get. The first one is from the link. It’s the XDA Edition of BetterBatteryStats. The second is CPU Spy from the Market. To use BetterBatteryStats just dump it on your sd card, use a file explorer to open it, enable Unknown Sources, and install it. Then open it, plug in your phone, unplug your phone, and use it like normal for a few hours. When you are ready, open the app, click on the first drop down, and select “Partial Wakelock”. Make sure the second drop down says “Since Unplugged”. Whatever apps are listed at the top are the apps that are keeping your phone from sleeping. My top 3 are DownloadManager (I was using Market and turned off my screen.), PowerAMP scan, and the PowerAMP service, but only the DownloadManager used any significant time. CPU Spy can be used to see how often your processor is going into deep sleep. Once you find your bad apps, you can look around in them and see if there are any settings in there to either turn off notifications, increase the time between updates, or anything else you may think is keeping the app busy.
C. If there is nothing there you can change, you can consider preventing it from starting. If you do not have ROM Toolbox Lite, download it. Open it and click on “Auto Start Manager”. Then scroll the screen sideways to get to the menu that says “Applications”. Click on apps and you will see two actions that we will be looking at. They are “boot completed” and “connectivity changed”. Apps like games, media players, internet radios, Facebook, etc, do not need to be started at boot and do not need to be started when connectivity has changed. Unselecting these will keep apps like Facebook from starting when you turn your phone on and when you switch from 3G to wifi.
D. If you ultimately can’t figure out why an app is keeping its wake lock for so long you may have to consider if the app is worth the lost battery life. Unfortunately there are just those apps out there that are poorly written. Consider sending an email to the developer explaining your problem and ask what you can do to fix it. If they don’t replay politely give them some poor feedback with a good explanation in the Market. They may look into the problem and correct it.
In Closing...
Thanks to everyone for reading, or at least skimming, my guide. I really hope this helps and saves time for a lot of people. If there are any issues anybody runs into I’ll try to help and explain the best I can. I apologize for any mistakes, errors, or bad sentence structure. If anybody has anything to add I will definitely consider adding it as long as it is free, easy to do, and produces results. If I broke any forum rules please notify me before deleting this topic. I’ll be happy to fix the issue.
About wake locks: http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/Wakelocks
Li-Ion batteries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Battery_charging_procedure
Batterystats.bin information: http://www.androidcentral.com/wiping-battery-stats-doesnt-improve-battery-life-says-google-engineer
(Edit 1: Added instructions to delete default init.d scripts installed with Liberty. They seem to conflict with jakebitesmod's voltage settings. They didn't want to stick through reboots. All of the script's functions are duplicated by jakebitesmod anyways.)
(Edit 2: Turns out that deleting the init.d scripts isn't needed. Instructions updated.)
Really great advice. I don't even have a Droid X. I have a One X but this is still very relevant.
Thank you
Great guide. You should include CPU Governor such as BoostedASSv2. It helped me get good battery life (as so others).
[HOW-TO][NEWBIE GUIDE] Optimize & proper set up your Galaxy S6 Edge (stock firmware)
As I've read across this forum and on several specific threads related to usage, battery life and so on, as well as discussing with some of my friends having a S6 or S6 Edge, I realized that most of the people don't really know how to properly set up their phones or how to use them efficiently.
OK, I get it, this is a fancy phone, not every owner is a developer or tech guy so it might be that many choose it based on the looks and don't really know how to optimize it...then they start complaining about different things like lag or battery drain not knowing that most of the problems are caused by miss-usage or improper setup. Of course there are bugs too, nothing is perfect. Of course there are many firmwares available and some are market or carrier dependent so some features or settings might be missing from some of them or even work differently.
What I will try here is to provide some guidelines and tips for setting up various things on the phone in order to maximize it's battery life and for a better usage. I will also make some recommendations based on my experience, tests and usage that might not apply to everyone. Use common sense and logic to apply similar settings in your particular case. Don't come screaming that you made that or that and now something is not working.
And YES, I know there are similar guides like this posted over the Internet and I'll probably make similar recommendations here too but I couldn't find such a guide here on XDA that is particular to this phone (if there is a better one than you might as well ignore mine).
All these things I'll describe below are applicable to any STOCK, NON-ROOTED 5.1.1 firmware and won't break warranty or your phone.
Now that was a long (and maybe unneeded introduction) but I thought to write this for everyone...let's start.
Model No.: SM-G925F
Android: 5.1.1 r2 (LMY47X)
Baseband: G925FXXU2QOI7
Kernel: 3.10.61-5672012
Build date: Fri Sept 4 2015
Carrier: Orange RO
DISPLAY
First I would like to say some words about the display. We have a great display, high resolution and it is most likely the biggest battery drain factor. There are two major things about it that you should keep in mind and will help you to get a better battery:
1. It's AMOLED...that means that the black pixels on it will consume no power because are not lit. Studies showed that even if not completely black, AMOLED displays use less energy if the displayed picture is darker compared to a lighter one.
2. The brightness level. Most people use it on "auto" or high level settings and this will be a major drain factor.
You can drastically lower the battery drain caused by your screen by selecting as much as possible dark (black) backgrounds and/or themes. There are some nice ones available in the Theme Store (my favorite is the Dalkomm Coffee Theme), that make most screens and menus dark/black. Also choosing a dark wallpaper for lockscreen/homescreens will help.
Don't use screen brightness at maximum...never. You don't need that in 99% of the cases. Also you won't probably need the automatic setting either since most of the people are spending most of the time indoors (either at work or home). A low manual setting will be fine most of the time, I have it set up at about 20% and only need a brighter one when going out. At that time I just tap on "auto" and it'll increase based on ambient light level. So you don't even need to tweak it alot every time. Find a low manual setting that's fine for your eyes and just tap on "auto" when you go out in sunlight.
CONNECTIVITY
Another battery drain factor is your multiple connection/radios features. In most cases you use just several: Mobile Data, WiFi, GPS/location and BT (when applicable). That means you should turn off all the others you don't use...NFC or BT (when not connected to a headset or car-kit or not listening to music). I don't listen to music and don't have a BT headset so I mostly not using BT (just when I'm in my car) and almost never use NFC so I have both disabled and I enable them only when needed via the Quick Settings.
WiFi
WiFi should also be properly setup otherwise it'll have impact on battery. It was incorrectly assumed or considered that keeping WiFi on all the time will drain battery faster. That was proven in different tests that's not true and in fact keeping WiFi on all the time won't make a big difference and in some cases was even better than to turn it off/on. I think is something similar with the car engines that suck more fuel when started that when running at idle. The major power drain is not when WiFi is running while is not connected to any network, but when the WiFi radio is powered up. When is on and not connected, it's going into a lower power state so the battery consumption is negligible.
I had a case with one of my friends that had WiFi setup to turn off when display was off...wrong choice, he got about 30% battery drain overnight because instead of having it connected to his home WiFi, the phone was using his 4G/LTE connection to make all the background sync/updates. That was eating his battery and also his data plan. After setting WiFi to "always" his overnight drain lowered to as little as 2-3%.
In some regions/carriers there are 2 other settings that were proven to help battery life: WiFi calling and VoLTE. I don't have either of them but based on different articles and what people say, they surely help with that so don't forget to turn them off if you don't use these features.
You might also want to try turning off "Always allows scanning" and "Smart network switch". I have the second turned off but I keep on the first one. Basically the first option tell the Location service to use WiFi for locating the device even if WiFi is switched off (by the on/off switch) so that means the radio is active. Second option should make you switch faster from WiFi to mobile data in case the WiFi signal is not strong enough or fluctuating. In my country there are plenty of WiFi hot-spots and they have mostly good connections so I don't use this feature.
GPS
Well here the opinions are split but I am currently having it ON all the time and Location Service is set to "high accuracy". I personally haven't noticed such a major difference with or without it so I preferred to let it on as it is used by many apps or services. You can try to set Location to "wifi and cell only" but don't think that will bring you a major benefit.
RUNNING APPS/PROCESSES
Well this is an important one. I've initially started to turn off/disable/uninstall everything I don't need or use. This can be done mostly from the Settings - Applications - Application Manager or if you want to go further, you can install Package Disabler Pro from PlayStore, about which I'll detail later.
Now why we should do that? There are lots of apps, processes and background services running on our devices that take care about all the things we do on the device. The problem is that ALL are using resources: processor time, memory, space and so on. In the end these are translated for a user in LAG or battery drain. Of course we cannot kill everything and I learned long time ago that installing Task or memory managers on Android it's the worst thing you can do. Android it's smart enough to take care better about it's resources and processes (at least to a certain point) and keep killing a certain process won't give you more battery life but will eat more of it in the end,
What I wanted to say is you shouldn't start disabling, killing or blocking everything cause you might end up with an unstable or not properly working phone (case in which only a factory reset might help). First of all look at the ALL tab in Application Manager and try to identify what you don't need or use. For example I'm certainly not using some things like: music, books, news feeds, Samsung's keyboard (I use SwiftKey), the TouchWiz launcher (I use Nova), health services or whatever, S-Voice, S-Health, S-Finder, I don't have any smartwatches so I don't use any Gear processes, fancy device wake-up functions (like wave gestures) or animated wallpapers either.
So after all considerations above, you decided that you can safely disable some apps/processes. All good but you'll quickly learn that some of them cannot be disabled via Application Manager (the "disable" button is grayed out). Now what? Well here comes handy that Package Disabler Pro that I've told you about in the beginning. That app is able to disable ANY apps/processes on your phone, including those that are protected and cannot be disabled via the normal way (and yes it can do that without being rooted). The downside of it is that you must be careful what you choose to disable not to have something that is needed for the normal functionality or the apps you're currently using. The app has also a backup/restore function (via an xml file) for saving the list with apps you have disabled and easily import them back after a factory reset for ex. I've added to this thread my list of disabled apps as it is exported by the application (just unzip and copy the file on the root of your internal memory and it can then be imported in the Package Disabler app)
Another important thing is WHAT apps you're using. I know that socializing and social networking are some of today's most trendy things but keep in mind that some of the apps used for that are not so well made. An example could be the Facebook app/messenger which are reported to drain alot of battery. RSS feeds, news feeds, multiple weather apps or widgets, all contribute to battery drain and lag. Don't install several apps/widgets for the same purpose (like several calendar apps or weather apps). Each will take resources and won't have an added value. Want to use another weather app/widget than the one coming with the phone? Fine, install it...but don't forget to uninstall/disable the built in one or others that do the same thing. Same goes for keyboard for ex; I use SwiftKey for years and got used with it. For me it's better than any keyboard that Samsung might put on the device, therefore I've disabled the standard Samsung keyboard. I also don't like TouchWiz launcher and use Nova that offers me much more flexibility so...I've disabled both the "easy" and "regular" TouchWiz launchers. I went to the point that I've even disabled the different embedded font types, you have 5 of them and I doubt someone uses more than one at a time.
So as you all can see it's not only a matter of setup but also a matter of usage. When you have a device you have to use it properly otherwise it'll not perform as you expect. Imagine a car that has a manufacturer fuel consumption value of 5.5 liters/100 Km....that's under certain conditions not on ANY type of driving. Fly with 200+ km/hr on a highway and I'll guarantee you won't have 5.5 liters/100 km consumption. That doesn't mean the manufacturer has lied or mislead you. Same goes with a phone, if you don't know how to use it and optimize it, you'll have a bad experience.
I work in the IT industry for years and I mostly laugh when I hear someone advising somebody to reinstall the operating system to solve a problem. Same goes for "factory reset" for a phone. Yes, this method works some times but that won't solve the root cause of an issues if you're using it the same way. After several days it'll perform as bad as before and you'll just say that "factory reset" did nothing. Of course it didn't...YOU have to do something different, not the phone.
Now I apologize for the long post and I do hope that at least some will learn to better manage their devices and to understand what they're doing not just running certain commands or procedures blind. Both S6 and S6e are great devices but we should learn how to properly use them in order to benefit the most from them...otherwise we just come here asking for help or mumbling about what crap devices they are.
Thank you, I will check to see if I get an improvement on the standby battery drain.
Your part about not setting the screen to Auto is flawed. You mention that we are mostly indoors, and you don't need a brighter screen for that. Auto mode also knows that and sets the brightness lower. It already does automatically what you do manually.
Tnx. And yes....keeping screen at 20% brightness and just switching to auto when in outdoors works great for the battery life.
ArmedandDangerous said:
Your part about not setting the screen to Auto is flawed. You mention that we are mostly indoors, and you don't need a brighter screen for that. Auto mode also knows that and sets the brightness lower. It already does automatically what you do manually.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not quite, I've tested it. If you're on "auto" and use a lower setting on the slidebar, in a dark room the screen is too dark, you'll have to turn off "auto" and the manual brighteness set on the same level will be much higher than on auto.
Now if you have such good eyes and you're able to use "auto" in all cases with the slider at 20% that's good for you...unfortunately I am not so that's why I use it as I've described. The point is that "auto" mode consumes MORE battery regardless of how it's set, than a lower 'manual' mode. So I preffer to have it like this than to use auto all the time.
Thanks for the awesome guide. I'll start disabling some useless processes and see how my battery life is working. Anyway without much editing the battery of S6Edge is pretty good. I can use it a whole day and still 19% remaining. As a comparison I wasn't able to do it with my S3 having to recharge it 2 or even 3 times at day.
Again, thanks for the guide!
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