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I've been seeing a lot of posts on crap battery life around here, and I was chasing my tail about some of them as well, following a lot of misinformation even by senior members. I think I have a good handle on it now, and picked up most of these tips from these forums, so I'm not taking credit for these ideas, just collecting them in one place. Some of my suggestions assume you have root and Rom Manager (see the Tips and Tricks sticky thread on how to get them).
1. If your battery drains in less than a day on standby, you probably have a bad flash of the JI6 modem (either from the OTA update or from a ROM). Flash the JI2 modem from here "www dot teamwhiskey dot com/home/downloads". If the flash fixes it, you may try going back to JI6 if you want, and it may stay fixed. I went back to JI2 and didn't bother going back to JI6, but it has worked for others. With JI2 and 3G on I get just over 24 hours in normal usage.
2. The #2 battery drain on standby is 3G. I turned it off (Settings/Wireless/Mobile networks/Network mode/GSM only) and my phone lasted for 40 hours on Edge with light usage (few phone calls, messaging, quite a lot of web surfing, 2 hours of podcasts). Didn't even feel too slow (I get 140kbps on edge). Can anybody suggest a really good widget for turning 3G on/off? I use the 2G-3G OnOff widget by Curvefish. It's not one-click, it's just a shortcut to Mobile Network Settings, but it works. Note that sometimes it takes a while for the data connection to re-establish after you see the 3G or E icon.
2.5. WiFi always on is a huge battery saver! It keeps 3g off. I can easily get 3+ days with light usage on my home wifi. Settings/Wireless and Network/Wifi Settings/Menu/Advanced/Wifi Sleep Policy/Never.
3. Don't need a task killer. I wasted all my time killing tasks trying to chase down my crappy battery usage, but since I fixed my modem and turned off 3G I know that the 3-5% CPU usage at idle does not hurt my battery. Taskiller for me was actually hitting the CPU constantly, lightly but for no reason, so I got pissed and uninstalled it.
4. Install a CPU usage monitor like Usage Timelines. It sits in the notification bar, very easy on the battery, but tells you if you have a rogue app pegging your CPU and draining your battery. These are the only apps you should be worried about killing. Astro File Manager has a task manager that shows CPU usage for each app, so you can kill the rogue one. I shoot for about 5% cpu usage at idle (at 200mhz - at 100mhz it would be a bit higher).
5. The app Autostarts lets you disable any app from starting on boot or other events like connectivity changes. This is not strictly necessary unless you have a lot of crap apps installed on your phone and they like to start themselves and waste CPU time behind your back.
6. If your battery reads less than 100% as soon as you unplug it from the charger fully charged, or your battery meter sits at 100% for a long time after you unplug it, you can recalibrate your battery meter. To recalibrate: 1) charge your battery to full, 2) unplug, 3) reboot into Clockwork Recovery and 4) Wipe battery stats.
7. There is No Such Thing as "battery reconditioning" (for all intents and purposes). The above procedure only RECALIBRATES you battery METER to read on a more linear scale between full and empty. It DOES NOT make your battery last longer, period. Whoever tells you that is a moron. If your battery is dying in 6 hours, doing any amount of calibration will not make it last longer (I've tried).
8. I wouldn't be too worried about undervolting, overclocking, kernel tricks and superawesomefast ROMS. The CPU drain at idle is so minuscule (as long as you don't have rogue apps) that those things make precious little difference. Like I said, the biggest drain is 3G and other radios. Having said that, I run Bionix 1.9 with the JAC kernel. It drained my battery in half a day at idle until I flashed the JI2 modem. With JI2 it suddenly started lasting over 24 hours, and once I turned off 3G, over 40 hours. I like this ROM and see no need to switch, it's very smooth. But you should be able to get similar battery life on a stock Vibrant.
9. I have GPS on, WiFi never sleep, auto-brightness, and a few widgets on like Weather and friend updates. I have no fancy settings, literally just turning off 3G (or wifi on, which is the same) got me 2-3 days. So I wouldn't waste time fooling around with magic settings (other than wifi never sleep), battery saver apps, etc.
10. If your screen is on all the time and you're playing games nonstop, you're draining your battery quicker than any of the things I mentioned above, so you probably don't care. In that case an optimized ROM/kernel is probably your best bet, especially JIT in Froyo. You can probably save on screen brightness as well.
If you guys have any other tips I'd be glad to add them to the list, but I hope this gives you an understanding of where your battery life is going. Basically: bad modem, 3G, or rogue apps.
Also, I hope this will put an end to trolls calling people whiners for complaining about battery life and saying unproductive **** like "you're a whiner" or "the Galaxy S is just a battery hog, live with it". It's not, you don't have to live with it, nobody should have to, here are your solutions.
Good luck.
A few things I do to help with battery life is:
Disable Audible touch tones
Disable Audible selection
Disable Haptic feedback
Disable SD card notifications
Set animations to NO animations
Uninstall media hub if you dont use it
Disable auto brightness adjustment
Disable power saving mode
I disable the last 2 and just swipe the notification bar to adjust brightness. Granted these items really only work when using the phone but I can go about 2 days of normal use without a charge believe it or not.
yeah disabling 3g has always been the best option for people really, really concerned with battery life.
But it's kinda hard to tell people not to use 3g on their brand new 3g capable devices.
You may want to add how to test if you battery is bad. If you use you phone repeatedly while it its plugged in you risk overheating and damaging your battery. Signs that unitas is the case are very quick drain and long (7 hours) charge times. You can easily test and see if your battery its damaged. Remove it from your phone and place on flat surface (e.g. Counter top) try spinning the battery. If it rotates easily and quickly you battery is bulging, this is a sign of damage. Time for a new battery.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Answer to #2-
Use APNDroid. Comes with a widget.
Thanks to the OP and other contributors in this thread.
I flashed a ROM with the ji6 modem and battery life has been noticeably ****ty since. Example - this morning I unplugged my phone at 7:30 am. 100% charged. It's 10:21 am and my phone is at 75%
In the last 3 hours I browsed the web for 10 minutes while having my coffee and a smoke before heading out to work. Blue tooth was on for my drive, and I've sent 2 text messages. Aside from that my phone has been on stand-by since I unplugged it 3 hours ago.
I'm going to try to flash back to ji2 tonight as the battery usage was definitely better. Will also look into the 3G thing.
Thanks again.
You forgot to mention the two DRM and one downloader services that run resident on JI6.
These were the cause of my reduced battery life after I upgraded. Killing & removing these processes restored my battery life back to normal
blink55184 said:
Answer to #2-
Use APNDroid. Comes with a widget.
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I just tried this - switching 3G off works fine, but switching 3G back on didn't work for me. I had to re-boot to get 3G back so this is a no-go in my case.
I know how to kill the processes for the DRM and downloader but how do I remove them?
OP thank you for putting together the list. But I've never seen the point of doing all this. Its like getting a lamborghini and only driving 40mph because it you don't want to waste gas, whats the point? Either get a second wall charger to charge at work or a car charger. Heck even get a second battery if you are out for a long period of time.
speoples20 said:
Its like getting a lamborghini and only driving 40mph because it you don't want to waste gas, whats the point?
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You don't need to disable 3g.
The point of my post is to avoid people wasting their time with tweaks that have little to no effect on battery life. I'm telling people that they're wasting time killing apps and optimizing cpu usage and twiddling their settings when the radio drains most of their battery on standby anyway.
Meaning no matter what changes you make, you can only hope to improve your battery life by a tiny amount, because any other effect is overshadowed by 3G.
Put another way, you will NEVER get battery life much longer than a day if you're on 3g, so you're wasting your energy trying all kinds of tricks.
blink55184 said:
Answer to #2-
Use APNDroid. Comes with a widget.
smutek said:
I just tried this - switching 3G off works fine, but switching 3G back on didn't work for me. I had to re-boot to get 3G back so this is a no-go in my case.
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For me the widget did nothing. But it seems like it's not even supposed to turn the 3G radio off, but ALL APN network traffic. Did I miss something? It won't save battery power as long as the 3G radio is on.
I went back to the 2G-3G OnOff widget by Curvefish. It's not one-click, it's just a shortcut to Mobile Network Settings, but it works. Note that sometimes it takes a while for the data connection to re-establish after you see the 3G or E icon.
Back to my Moto Startac
While i understand the idea behind this thread, your conclusion is simple.
If you use the phone as a smartphone, it will eat up your battery no matter what.
I personally go through two batteries and some a day. (they cost about 12 bucks in ebay, and they work just fine)
The price for saving battery is not using the phone, and having a 400 bucks phone just for show off is just silly at least.
If you have a phone like this is to use it. At least you can change the battery not like some other devices......
I understand that task killer is useless, but do any of you use Autokiller (memory manager) ?
That's kind of a redundant question because even if you do not use the app, your phone is still performing the functions. The app just adjusts the settings. But to answer your question, using a memory optimization tool such as AutoKiller is 1000% more efficient than using a Task Killer. I don't think it effects battery much, but works wonders on performance.
There's no 3g-off widget because apparently in Android there's no way to do that through a direct command. I also use the Curvefish widget, and you are absolutely right about turning off 3g to save battery. I normally do so when I'm asleep or if I'm sitting at my desk next to a computer (why do I need fast data on my phone when I have my computer right here?).
The other thing I would recommend is AutoStarts. There are way too many apps that open themselves up at bizarre and inappropriate times. Autostarts is an easy and painless way to see which apps do this and keep them from opening.
gagb1967 said:
While i understand the idea behind this thread, your conclusion is simple.
If you use the phone as a smartphone, it will eat up your battery no matter what.
I personally go through two batteries and some a day. (they cost about 12 bucks in ebay, and they work just fine)
The price for saving battery is not using the phone, and having a 400 bucks phone just for show off is just silly at least.
If you have a phone like this is to use it. At least you can change the battery not like some other devices......
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+1000
Great battery life comes to people who hardly use their phones. Guess I need to get a netbook. Will prolly get a netbook or 3g laptop + skype and ETF my phone soon. These battery woes are show-stopping.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Losing 4% an hour on standby when you're not using the phone is unacceptable. Samsung screwed something up with the JI6 update. Most people think it's because of the stupid Media Hub. I think they are right.
People are not complaining about the poor battery life from using the phone. They are complaining about the slow battery drain even when they are not using it. ~4% an hour adds up fast. Vibrant is supposed to have 450 hour (18 days) stand-by time. That's what is rated. But people are getting 24 hour (1 day) stand-by time after JI6.
Yellow C6 said:
Losing 4% an hour on standby when you're not using the phone is unacceptable. Samsung screwed something up with the JI6 update. Most people think it's because of the stupid Media Hub. I think they are right.
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I'm not ready to sign off on this idea. For me simply flashing JI2 over JI6 fixed it. For some people flashing JI6 back over still left the problem fixed. I still have those processes running on JI2 and my battery life is fine.
The other reason I'm not ready to recommend wiping out those DRM processes is that apparently it stops the bundled Avatar movie from playing, and might affect other things that users may get pissed about. I've read that killing the downloader process people are talking about kills the market. So I really wish those people advocating that solution would figure their **** out and provide exact steps for the fix (right now their posts are really vague like "kill the processes that are named something like this" and not well tested; in all my research I didn't find the exact name of the "downloader" process).
Is it possible to flash the ji2 modem without root? Wishful thinking, I suppose..
I've unlocked and am running Ken's Alien ROM and so far I really like this. Im an international user on orange uk, so I use faux123's kernel for Oc and ram fix. But there is one caveat. I have really rubbish battery life. I did all the stuff (charge to 100% from 0% wipe stats, calibrate). The fact is, I left it on, for ten hours. The display was on for about 2. No usage. When I returned the battery was 30%, with phone idle consuming 30%. Newer radio needed? What can I do? My baseband is N_01.95.00R .
I've heard good things about the newest AT&T radio for battery. How can I flash this to an international ATRIX?
Help appreciated
Edit : phone idle consumed 40% :O
I have the exact same issue. Unfortunately, all that I can say is that changing neither kernel, radio or rom did fix this issue. I had some improvements when I followed this topic and flashed back my stock kernel (with no OC), but still very far from what I would consider a decent battery lifetime (10h with 3g + email and twitter sync and screen off)
Some users have tried and it worked well from them. I'm on the team that didn't work ): But you could give it a shot
Calibrate your battery. Charge to 100% wipe battery stats. Then discharge to shut off. Then charge to 100% again.
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
_Dennis_ said:
Calibrate your battery. Charge to 100% wipe battery stats. Then discharge to shut off. Then charge to 100% again.
OP stated he tried calibration without success... I too am having subpar battery performance - interested to see what others have done to achieve better battery performance besides the previously mentioned methods.
Sent via Motorola Olympus using XDA Premium
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_Dennis_ said:
Calibrate your battery. Charge to 100% wipe battery stats. Then discharge to shut off. Then charge to 100% again.
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
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I've done all that stuff, but it doesn't help IMHO. (at least it didn't do anything for me)
Only 2 real fixes that have worked for me are these:
1. Freeze unnecessarily apps with Titanium Backup (use "System panel" from the Market to find out what keeps constantly running/popping up in the background that you don't need)
AND
2. Turn off Automatic Sync, and get in the habit of doing that stuff manually all at once.
@2. I use to sync in the worst signal areas, and that drained the **** out of my battery. Sync/get your updates manually in strong signal areas whenever possible...
New radio from the fruitcakes thread and the latest faux123 kernel seemed to kill that bug.
I sold my atrix to my less then nerdy friend and I just fixed that bug for him yesterday. Same deal tho...
Sent from my Samsung Seine
I noticed from X2 battery (I think) every minute or two the phone constantly checks for either cell or data signal. I can let my iphone 4 sit on the counter all day and it might use 1-2% but my atrix drops 5% in an hour without touching it. No calibration or battery fix will help. Even CM7 uses it fairly quickly. Im running Alien 4 with max battery saver and gps and auto sync disabled...it should last for a full day with heavy usage.
Alien 4 w/theme, faux123 kernel, everything at stock settings for this rom, nothing frozen, and I am sitting at 1 day and 13 hours with 28% left, mostly idle, but an hour long call and bit of game playing.
If you are getting something on the order of just a few hours then your phone or battery must be bad. I am doing nothing to extend the battery life other then using the default settings.
The phone should get 2 days sitting on the counter..LOL Of all the phones I've had and iPhones I've jailbroken, there is definately something wrong with the Motorola or Android software running on this phone. I've never had to worry about calibrating or battery fixes. This is just my honest opinion. I've had 2 ROMs in all the ones I've flashed that had good battery life and I think it was a coincedence that maybe something didn't load right or got deleted by accident.
Phoneguy589 said:
The phone should get 2 days sitting on the counter..LOL Of all the phones I've had and iPhones I've jailbroken, there is definately something wrong with the Motorola or Android software running on this phone. I've never had to worry about calibrating or battery fixes. This is just my honest opinion. I've had 2 ROMs in all the ones I've flashed that had good battery life and I think it was a coincedence that maybe something didn't load right or got deleted by accident.
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Most iphone users need to charge at LEAST once a day. A lot of them charge more than once. I can sometimes get 2 days usage from my Atrix, with heavy texting, some calls, and some games - which is pretty damn good.
Maybe your battery is the issue. not all Atrix are created equal and not all batteries function the same
When you go into settings>running apps, does your free and used ram add up to over 800? Mine used to and now it doesn't. It adds up to like 750....I always thought it would add up to mid to upper 800's. It also could be the battery but I was pointing out that I have left my wife's Iphone 4 and my atrix on the counter all day (neither one got used) and my atrix was down in the 70% range and her phone was at 96%. I'm just thinking something is running or consuming the battery. I've used fastboot to do all wipes and still seem to be having an issue.... I also flash ROMs every few days so maybe the battery calibration doesn't have time to really calibrate. I'll pick a combo I like and keeep it for a few days and see if I notice a better battery life.
How long has it been since you've flashed a ROM? It usually takes a few days for it to settle back in and provide decent battery life (at least from my experience). My phone right now has been on for a little over 7 hours and is at about 55% with Display using up 60% of the battery (3hrs on). This is with the Alien v4 and Faux's latest kernel. The first few days after flashing a ROM my phone would usually only last about 7 hours.
i get 2-3 days on stand by. and about 6-8 hours of straight use. 3-5 if i'm using mobile broadband.
1: keep gps and data off (background data is almost irrelevant.)
2: use green power
3: use a task manager to close applications that you are not using. (be sure you can add "ignore" exceptions otherwise get a different manager. anyone who says not to use a task manager is a ****ing punk hipster ***** fag who's irreparable damage to the geeks good name will not go unpunished)
4: do the "wipe battery stats" bit after every flash (100% charge, wipe stats, full discharge)
5: is to install a custom kernel and use SetCPU to underclock to 312 while the screen is off..
most importantly: use your head. if you stream 1080p using mobile broadband for 2 hours your battery is dead.
I flash ROMs every few days but I call BS on the whole "Battery Calibration" thing. If my battery is showing 4200mv...it's full. It will die faster the more processes the phone does so my point it....whether I flash a rom every day it shouldn't matter, if the phone (After I set up and install whetever apps) gets unplugged, something drains the battery. Maybe the infra red sensor is always on, or a process is always starting and ending, who knows but the battery cannot be calibrated, the phone might need to be calibrated to read the correct voltage but batteries don't hold memory unlike the old NiCD rechargables from years ago.
When you flash a rom the battery stats get messed up. Based on what I know the way the battery drains depends on previous battery usage data hence the reason why it last longer after a few days of use after a rom is flashed. It needs to build up new data to correctly report battery use. Maybe I'm wrong but my experience supports this.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App
I am running Alien v4 with the stock kernel and I am getting well over a day with pretty heavy usage (phone calls, texts, emails, FB, twitter, XDA, Games). My setup:
Battery Mode= Maximum Battery Savings
Auto Brightness off, usually on 30%
Unused blur apps frozen
Reinstalled performancemanager.apk (blur task manager), set to kill unnecessary apps after 2 minutes of inactivity
No overclock, I don't see the need to overclock outside of high benchmark scores. Without overclock I still play every game smoothly without any hickups or slow downs. The phone still feels super fast without it.
I turn off all unused services (gps, bluetooth, wifi)
After you charge your phone and take it off the charger, reboot it.
It seems that a process kills the phones battery after you take it off the charger. You have to reboot after taking it off. It works wonders. Currently on 16 hours of use @ 45% battery on alien rom with stock kernel.
Cheers.
lilhaiti said:
I am running Alien v4 with the stock kernel and I am getting well over a day with pretty heavy usage (phone calls, texts, emails, FB, twitter, XDA, Games). My setup:
Battery Mode= Maximum Battery Savings
Auto Brightness off, usually on 30%
Unused blur apps frozen
Reinstalled performancemanager.apk (blur task manager), set to kill unnecessary apps after 2 minutes of inactivity
No overclock, I don't see the need to overclock outside of high benchmark scores. Without overclock I still play every game smoothly without any hickups or slow downs. The phone still feels super fast without it.
I turn off all unused services (gps, bluetooth, wifi)
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I use the same battery settings recently. I turn off GPS and Sync unless I'm using navigation. Which blur apps do you freeze? I just noticed (read on the Alien thread) On the unlock screen, hold the home button and it unlocks. I wonder if something like in pocket detection keeps the IR eye on all the time.
Phoneguy589 said:
I use the same battery settings recently. I turn off GPS and Sync unless I'm using navigation. Which blur apps do you freeze? I just noticed (read on the Alien thread) On the unlock screen, hold the home button and it unlocks. I wonder if something like in pocket detection keeps the IR eye on all the time.
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I have frozen:
All of the authenticators
Weather
Tasks,
Home,(I use launcher pro)
Music (I use Poweramp)
Toggle Widgets,
News,
GingerBlur,
Gallery, (I use QuicPic)
About a month ago, I was running RoyalGinger 3.0 with bluetooth, GPS, and background data disabled, and I was only using my home wifi to get online. My phone would pretty much hold a 100% charge for 5-8 hours if I left the screen off. I was pretty amazed at my battery life. Then I decided I wanted to try a different rom, so I backed up in CWM and did that. When I returned to RoyalGinger, my phone wasn't holding the 100% charge for as long anymore and hasn't done it since then (yes, I did re-calibrate the battery, like twice at least).
Recently though, my phone has been having horrible battery life under the same conditions. The only difference is that now I use LauncherPro instead of the stock launcher. I'll charge to 100% + 15 minutes or so, and with the screen off, the phone divebombs to about 95% within an hour and a half. If I actually use the phone, it will lose 30% in 2 hours. I have no idea what the problem could be since I don't have any data-syncing apps in the background and I'm really just texting people.
Any ideas?
The consumption doesn't sound like anything out of normal. A difference in signal quality (radio or WiFi) or using radio for data instead of WiFi can cause that.
In any case, just check the apps that use your battery, and see that you don't have any process getting CPU stuck on 100% (you can see CPU load in System Panel Lite, for example).
Download the apps below.....this will help you out.....
Use the app SetCPU for Root Users
It allows control of certain aspects of the Linux cpu freq driver, allowing for overclocking, underclocking, or tweaking speeds and settings. Download it here.
Use the app Battery Booster
Battery Booster is a powerful battery boosting tool and power management application specially designed for Android devices. Download it here.
Always remember to remove the charger immediately when the battery level reach 100% for longer battery life.
As the title says, does rooting the NST affect the battery life at all?
What about using another e-reader app, say the kindle app, in comparison to the battery usage of the default reader?
And also that crazy NoRefresh app that I saw. What is the affect of the battery life with it enabled?
I can say it running like crazy
The battery went down to 40% for one day uses.
I have many email accounts on the sync though.
GoldenStake said:
As the title says, does rooting the NST affect the battery life at all?
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I've been running rooted for a few weeks now. I don't think rooting, per se, affects battery life so much as what you do with it.
Out of the box, the NST uses very little power. If you leave wifi off, it will last quite a long time. The minute you start loading up anything that wakes the unit up, or that turns on and uses wifi, battery life drops. Since it normally uses so little power, the drop seems quite dramatic.
Here are some rough and very unscientific numbers based on my usage:
Unit off with wifi off: 2% battery consumption per 6 hours.
Unit off with wifi on: 2% battery consumption per hour.
Unit on and in use with wifi on: 4-6% battery consumption per hour.
I haven't really let it sit long enough to really validate these, but they give you an idea. I'd expect to get a week to 10 days out of it with "typical" usage, and probably much more. Part of the problem of bench-marking this thing is how quickly it charges up, even when I only connect for a few minutes to side-load some books.
I use Tasker to turn wifi off unless a very small group of apps are running, and shut it off when they exit.
If you keep anything from polling, don't use active widgets and turn wifi off when not needed, you should get more out of it than most any other device you own. Watch out for things that hang in the background. I was once downloading some files from the Market and it hung, so I lost a lot of power overnight. If you load up with active wallpapers, widgets and/or apps that poll in the background, expect to see it using the battery quickly.
I charge every 4 days, but that's because I use it without wifi unless I am getting an app or something. But that's just me.
In my experience the battery life got worse after initial rooting. It is noticeable. Rooting itself has nothing to do with it.
The biggest offenders are apps installed in the process. I removed most of apps that either worthless for me or attempt using internet frequently. I don't think I need google on a book reader. The reader does not provide any privacy, even password protection. I removed everything related to google. Apps can be sideloaded if necessary.
Free SuperManager is a very good apps for managing the reader but free version tends to use internet too much.
Now the battery life is back to what it supposed to be. Rooting is only useful for me for gaining control and access to the web browser if there are no alternatives. NT is just a reader and a nice one.
My Nook died afer 3 days of intense exploring (wifi on non-stop).
I've spent approx. 6h/day on it.
But it's a pretty nice result IMO.
I think rooting does't really effect battery life by itself. I've checked battery life log on NookTouchTools (an app) and it says 77% was drained by display, but i cant compare it to non rooted version.
I've seen battery drain vary enormously from not dropping at all to dropping precipitously with normal off (not completely powered down) and WiFi shut off. I think that the only really way to get a handle on this is to put a milliampmeter in the battery circuit and measure in real time the current drain.
I do know that if you have the WiFi on you can still ADB to the Nook even when it is "off". You can even start apps!
Hey Guys, Kyuubi10 back again with a quick guide on improving the battery life of the HTC One M8.
Let's be honest, this phone is getting quite old now. You can already start to feel it lagging, and slowing down. And the battery doesn't last as much as it once used to.
But don't give up hope...your M8 isn't dead yet, and with some good management it can even rival 2016 flagships.
Let's begin with Marshmallow...
If you have not updated your M8 to Android 6.0 yet, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
Marshmallow is the best version of Android yet, the efficiency of Lollipop with the Stability of KitKat, and a very fresh take on Battery saving!
Reasons why you should update ASAP:
1 - Lollipop's memory leaks 99% fixed (Don't want to say 100% due to the possibility of some existing out of my limited knowledge, but for all intents and purposes there are no more memory leaks.) This is very important, because the memory leaks were both draining battery life, and slowing down the device...which in turn keeps the screen on longer and wastes even more battery.
2 - Doze!!! It's the latest battery saving feature to be added to Android, and it's basically a SUPER idle state, where the phone if left untouched with screen off for long periods of time will not waste any battery whatsoever! I tested this when going to sleep, phone was in airplane mode, battery saver turned on, screen brightness at minimum...I left it at 100% charge, I woke up it was still at 100%. With airplane mode off, and battery saver turned off the phone lost only 3% battery overnight.
This being said, true battery saving is measured while using the phone right?
It's not about how long it can last without being used, but how long it can last while being used.
But what if you already are on Marshmallow, and your battery life is still not cutting it?
The following solutions are organized from simpler to more complex.
1 - Follow this official HTC guide: Tips for extending battery life. It provides tips on reducing screen brightness, keeping connections off when you're not using them (Wi-Fi, Data, BT, GPS, NFC etc...), lowering volume and vibration strength and using power saver mode.
While their advice is quite obvious stuff, and most of you probably do it anyways, I would like to stress the use of power saver mode when you are out and about away from a convenient power source. Doesn't matter if your battery is at 90%, turn PS mode on, you will barely even feel a difference, but your battery will last you much more than before!
2 - Buy yourself a smartwatch. While it may seem counter-productive to keep Bluetooth on constantly to keep connected to the watch, it actually improves battery life by helping you avoid turning on your phone's screen. At the end of the day the battery saving that comes from it may be equivalent to the drain caused by bluetooth being on, or even greater than the drain. Thus effectively saving you battery life, and being convenient while doing it.
3 - Here comes the big one...ROOT your device and install a custom ROM and Kernel. Just by installing an optimized ROM and optimized Kernel you will get battery savings + better performance. Often you will also have settings you can tweak to optimize battery savings at the cost of performance or vice versa. And with a custom Kernel you can choose one with battery saving CPU governors.
4 - CPU Governors. CPUs, just after your screen, is the second most battery consuming hardware part in your device. Especially since it is on most of the time. Choosing a governor that can make it's job more efficient can save you bucket loads of battery.
The most common one for battery life is called "Conservative", and it will provide you with considerable battery life at the cost of performance. But if you want both good performance and good battery life then you are probably looking for a governor which employs the "Race to Idle" ideology. (If you don't know what it is, do a quick google, it's easy to understand.)
A good option I like to recommend is Wheatley, but if your kernel choice lacks it then interactive will be good enough...but you will have to tweak it's settings yourself to make it most efficient. Couple months ago I created this guide which you may find helpful when tweaking the interactive governor.
5 - Since we have spoken about Rooting then let's start adding some ROOT apps to the mix. Greenify would be my first recommendation.
For 2 main reasons... 1, It helps you stop annoying, battery draining apps which keep themselves running in the background. 2, It's latest versions have included a feature where you can set Doze to start sooner than default. Thus allowing you to reap Doze's benefits earlier and for longer.
Talking about the annoying apps, there's one in particular which comes to mind....Facebook.
Personally, while I don't like it's battery draining, I also don't want to uninstall it...since it's quite useful. Thus in Greenify I found my answer!
6 - Last but not least, if you are noticing unusual battery drainage, but you can't find which app is causing it (or may even be a system app), or if you notice that Doze is not having any effect... it might mean that a wakelock is not letting your device idle for long enough for Doze to start.
For this you will need an app called "Wakelock Detector". Charge your phone to around 80-100% and place it on a desk and let it idle for a couple hours (e.g. When you are asleep). When you are back check what WD found, and it might surprise you. (I found an app called HTC Mode which was keeping my device awake and preventing Doze from starting.)
Another advantage of this app is that once you find the wakelock it links you to Greenify through which you can put that specific app to sleep. Thus preventing it from setting the wakelock again.
If you follow all these steps, you should be able to feel the considerable difference in battery life. Reminding you why you fell in love with this device
I hope I have been of help, I noticed that there weren't any Battery Guides specifically made for the M8, so I thought I would leave one here in case anyone is looking for one!
If I have helped you make sure to hit that :good: button, I will greatly appreciate it, and you will be helping the community find this guide more easily.
Thanks for reading! Enjoy your longer lasting M8!
Thank you for the Info! Before marshmallow I used "app ops" but this doesn't work on Android M. Because of the app wakelock detector I removed the messenger app from facebook. It drained my battery. Thank you.
Sent from my htc_m8 using XDA-Developers mobile app
adgadg15 said:
Thank you for the Info! Before marshmallow I used "app ops" but this doesn't work on Android M. Because of the app wakelock detector I removed the messenger app from facebook. It drained my battery. Thank you.
Sent from my htc_m8 using XDA-Developers mobile app
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App ops is good for permissions, and stopping an app from connecting to the internet. Android M already has a permissions feature natively included.
What you want is to stop it from running in the background.
While you can uninstall it (and probably find another app which you can use facebook messenger in. e.g. Disa), I would personally recommend you simply use greenify to put it to sleep.
All official facebook apps are huge battery drainers, but greenify will keep them in check, so that you don't have to use another app with less functionality.
Obviously I am not forcing you lol, but it is my recommendation.