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Hi -
I've had my HTC HD2 a few days and although I'm happy with it's features, I'm really frustrated by the poor battery life. The first day I used it the battery was dead within under 12 hours from me starting to use it, and at the start it was fully charged. On this first day I did have email and weather etc on auto check though.
So last night I disabled weather, set email to manual checking and disabled a few other things, but did leave HSDPA and 3G on. There was a slight improvement today but not much, the battery lasted the full 12 hours, but with only 2% remaining.
Both days I don't think my usage was very high. I'd maybe had 10 minutes of phone calls, sent around 10 text messages, listened to 45 minutes of music, checked one or two websites, and played games on the phone for about 15 minutes. Imagine how it would be when I need to make several calls in a day.
I have searched the forum for tips on improving battery life but the main suggestions seem to say that I should disable HSDPA and 3G but one of the main functions of the phone is internet usage and I don't see why I should how to switch to manually putting these settings on and off each time I want to use the internet, just so I can get a longer battery life - the battery should be able to cope with moderate usage!
Does anyone have any further suggestions?
Thank you
Look for an application called 'Bandswitch', it can disconnect idle connections. THis way 3G won't be enabled when you don't need it, should save some battery.
Disable automatic screen brightness and set it to something like 30%.
Disable location services and stuff.
Give the battery some cycles to reach full potential.
But of course, gaming, internetting and listening to music will drain the battery faster. It lasts about 2 days for me with moderate use (some internet, some playing around, etc) which is pretty fair imo.
dagrim1 said:
Look for an application called 'Bandswitch', it can disconnect idle connections. THis way 3G won't be enabled when you don't need it, should save some battery.
Disable automatic screen brightness and set it to something like 30%.
Disable location services and stuff.
Give the battery some cycles to reach full potential.
But of course, gaming, internetting and listening to music will drain the battery faster. It lasts about 2 days for me with moderate use (some internet, some playing around, etc) which is pretty fair imo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll give that a try. So will it automatically enable it when I start browsing the internet or something?
I already changed the screen brightness and disabled location services though. That didn't seem to make a big difference.
And how much difference does giving the battery some cycles make?
Thanks.
dagrim1 said:
Look for an application called 'Bandswitch', it can disconnect idle connections. THis way 3G won't be enabled when you don't need it, should save some battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, but it doesn't work that way
Bandswitch can definitely do 2 things- it can disconnect idle connections, which will reconnect when needed, but this won't switch the transport between 3G and GSM, and has little effect on battery life
Or it can be used to manually change between 3G and GSM, using whichever is selected for its current transport and then autodisconnecting if required. It is the action of switching to GSM which has the most impact on battery life, but there is no way to switch automatically between to 2 as it needs a phone radio off/on to execute the switch.
Poor 3G signal conditions will hammer the battery because the phone will continually hunt for the strongest signal and switch constantly between modes. If your 3G signal is less than 2 bars I'd suggest switching it to GSM until you are in a stronger signal area. Do this by going to Phone/Menu/ then scroll down to Band and from there switch between Auto and GSM. If that makes a difference then you could install a small utility to make the switch easier to access.
seems very odd, mine was fully charged around 11pm last night, have sent around 20 texts, 20 mins calls, had wifi on, done some browsing, abit of sat nav and its on 68% 20 hours later.
I get at least 24 hours with moderate use. Most of the time i get around 30 hours.
I have weather and peep updating automatically + email retrieval at every hour.
When I first got mine it was lasting less than 12 hours too.
Now I'm on ROM 1.61 and have the following settings:
HSDPA disabled
Weather update every 3 hours
Twitter updates ever 1 hours (though it actually only updates when I scroll to the Peep tab)
Facebook auto updates - Off
Stock auto updates - off
Bluetooth and Wifi off unless needed.
Screen brightness - 30%
Haptic feeback, Vibration - off
Push Email - On
I'm getting over 24 hours of life out of a full charge now. I have got the push email set to manual updates only during off-peak hours ie when I'm sleeping. During the night the charge drops around 1% per hour. It was at 47% when I went to sleep last night and was 40% when I woke 7 hours later. This seems to be typical overnight drop for me.
Over my first few days of tinkering and setting up I found the battery drain to be massive. Once you settle down to regular usage it is a lot lot better.
However, just to be careful, I do now have a desk cradle at work so I can charge my phone if I have to.
Prior to my most recent hard-reset I found that if I left the phone in stand-by over night, with it checking for email every 5 minutes, and weather every 15 minutes, the battery would go from 100% to zero in less than nine hours. And that's without using it at all! As an experiment I tried turning off everything that could possibly be using the data connection, and turning off 3G, so nothing was running at all except the phone in 2G mode listening for calls and texts. It still burned 20% of the battery overnight in stand-by.
Since doing a hard reset, if I repeat the second experiment then I find that overnight battery drain is now only 4% - so clearly some piece of software that I had installed prior to the reset was hammering the battery even in stand-by. Quite what it was, I'm not sure yet. (My current prime suspects are the task manager and 1% battery status icons).
If you're having battery drain issues then I suggest doing a hard-reset and then not installing anything remotely controversial for a day or two to see if that sorts out the drain. If it does, then you can start reinstalling things gradually to see what difference each one makes.
NeilM said:
Sorry, but it doesn't work that way
Bandswitch can definitely do 2 things- it can disconnect idle connections, which will reconnect when needed, but this won't switch the transport between 3G and GSM, and has little effect on battery life
Or it can be used to manually change between 3G and GSM, using whichever is selected for its current transport and then autodisconnecting if required. It is the action of switching to GSM which has the most impact on battery life, but there is no way to switch automatically between to 2 as it needs a phone radio off/on to execute the switch.
Poor 3G signal conditions will hammer the battery because the phone will continually hunt for the strongest signal and switch constantly between modes. If your 3G signal is less than 2 bars I'd suggest switching it to GSM until you are in a stronger signal area. Do this by going to Phone/Menu/ then scroll down to Band and from there switch between Auto and GSM. If that makes a difference then you could install a small utility to make the switch easier to access.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, I misunderstood it then... thank you for clearing that up!
It's very interesting, to see the number of people who have battery draining problems. I have the french SFR ROM 1.44 and since the beginning found my battery life satisfying (I didn't expect long life, as my wife has to charge her iPhone every night).
My battery lasts in heavy use 24h (though it can go down to 18h when using internet by 3G/HSPDA for long period like 1h or more) and under "normal" daily use (checking e-mail regularly, 20 min phone calls, sending some SMS, 30 mins internet, 45 mins playing around / listening some music) around 1.5 days.
My settings are:
3G/HSDPA enabled
Weather update every 6 hours
Stock auto updates - every 8 hours
Bluetooth and Wifi off unless needed
Screen brightness - auto
Haptic feeback, Vibration - off
E-mail check: every 2 hours (POP3)
Faulty batteries? I think not....
Whilst I'm a master of google searching, I get worse results using the search facility on this forum than just using intuition.
Anyway, I just wanted to add my comments on battery life after owning a stock 1.43 phone from Vodafone UK. I was getting less than 8 hours life with everything on auto and making just a couple of shortish phone calls and a couple of quick browses. The rest of the time I was in standby and I thought that my phone was one of the worst out there. I had also installed Skype which I had running in the background which sometimes causes the phone not to go into auto-standby even though it would dim normally. I also noticed that I was in a very weak signal area and that my phone was constantly switching between 2G/3G/H which I understand can consume a lot of power. Also, I had stopped using wi-fi to see if that helped.
After reading a million threads, I decided to conduct an experiment last night. Usually if I charge the phone before going to sleep for 8 hours it is down to 70% when I wake up having been left in standby. So last night I disabled everything. Turned off 3G, data connections, My Location, Weather update, Stocks Update, FaceBook login, e-mail updates, Skype, bluetooth, wifi. In fact absolutely everything I could find that could be turned off except the basic 2G phone itself.
Guess what, I wake up 8 hours later... 96%.
16 hours later.... 81% with very light use.
Now I'm going to have to spend many days playing around with different settings to see which apps or functions are gobbling the power. I have a nasty feeling that the weak signal is half the problem
So cheer up! It's not ideal, but this is a brand new, smartfone with bugs - not a Nokia 6110. Higher capacity batteries and ROM updates will come. In the meantime you just have to figure out what is sucking up the juice on your HD2 and disable these functions if you don't need them or when you are not using them.
Good luck and enjoy it! The coolest phone around...
Rickster
Donations appreciated (That incompetent government and those reckless banks put me out of busines...)
Hello everyone,
like the majority of the owners of HD2, in order to optimise the duration of accumulator charge, I use Band connection control programs , to pass in 3G only when it is necessary. Thus, I have:
- phoneAlarm: to force the 2G mode the night, and also for differ quiet mode if I am in meeting, etc…. In particular, in the case which interests me there, I force the 2G the night and asks to pass to 2G the morning.
- WMlonglife (version for HD2): which normally loads himself to make the effective switch 2G towards 3G or 3G+ if an application program requiring it is launched, and otherwise to remain in 2G. It should be noted that WMlonglife has two applis, one for the configuration, and to make manually changes 2G 3G, WMbandswitch.
- recently, I tested Bandswitch v2.8
I meet the following phenomena, and I would like to know if others also have them, and/or if there are parameters to change so that it goes better.
Point A: Already some question about the icons of the bar of state in top.
There are always two icons side by side. Tell me if I interpret them well.
one with a letter: G= GSM, E= Edge, 3G = 3G, H = 3G+
This letter tellsonly that this kind of network is available, but it does not say that one is actually connected there. Is it well that?
To know in which mode one is actually connected, it is another icon, on its line, with the 1 to 4 bars of reception and a small letter, which should be looked at.
This small letter, it is “H " ==> connected in 3G+, “3G” ==> connected in 3G, “E” ==> connected in Edge
and finally a simple antenna, which I imagine wants to say that one is just connected in 2G, no data connection
Is what all that is correct?
Is there another mean of knowing in real-time the current mode of connexion (and thus mode of conso of the accumulator)?
Point B, use of Phonealarm:
like said in introduction, I force the 2G (mode GSM/GPRS) during the night, and to 6:00 of the morning, I pass it in mode “house” where I put “Car”, by also putting the pin number at it, because it seems that for this transition, one needs the pin number (is it the radio cycle on-off?)
There, the first thing, they is that every morning, when I unlock it I find myself with the screen for input of the pin number, where it is enough to make cancel (because the code already entered via PA and even already connected). Moreover, if one tries to enter a pin number, then he refuses the input.
on the other hand, at this time, the telephone seems to remain in Edge icon “E”, and does not pass in H. On the other hand, so there I reset, then he will connect to H with the boot
Have you also this history of pin number?
For hangs, it is as if WMlonglife did not take the hand to force a 3G mode or 3G+….
this brings me to the point C
Point C: WMbandswitch… after a software reset, my Tel. is connected automatically towards the 3G network (or 3G+) of orange. On the other hand the morning (after to automatic wake up through PA), it remains in E. When I test action manually a passage in 3G with WMbandswitch, it does not change anything. I tested with radio operator chip on Samsung, or Qualcomm (WCDMA). similar behavior….
To check out, I then loaded and installed Bandswitch 2.8, and tried to change into 3G, and there I see appearing the letter H. so, there is a difference with WMlonglife, which would seem to show that WMlonglife does not manage to make the switch towards 3G.
Which radio chip put in WMlonglife?
Have you to it even thing?
Poind D: use of bandswitch 2.8 (on xda): I tested. Hard to know if that is interfaced well with all the remainder. Of your experiment, which one would you advise? It does not have the system of “whitelist” like WMlonglife…
Here is, in synthesis, to summarise my questions
- Has: major significance of the icons
- B: phonealarm and switch of the 3G mode (after a forcing in 2G the night)
- C: WMbandswitch, and configuration/use for HD2
- D: alternative to WMlonglife?
For info, with normal use of browsing, email and phone, I drop of about 50% battery for 24h, that is not so bad, but I 'd like to make sure about the Bandswitch thing...
Thank you in advance for all…
vdelab
Did anyone try to compare battery life between no data connection and idle data connection?
I always turn data connection off after update, but I am asking how does idle data connection effects battery?
I know it drains it...but how much?
And the reason I don't know results from myself...
Sometimes my battery drops from 100 to 90 or less over the night, sometimes from 100 to 80 or even more, with the same usage or any usage at all...so I don't know how to compare it because it's so random...and this is without data connections, it is only device with phone on in sleep mode...
I once compared an over night-drain where no connection took 3% of the battery and with data connection 4%. Approx 8h sleep
It's hard for me to compare during normal use since my usage varies a lot from day to day. So I have nothing to contribute during daytime usage.
umiss said:
I once compared an over night-drain where no connection took 3% of the battery and with data connection 4%. Approx 8h sleep
It's hard for me to compare during normal use since my usage varies a lot from day to day. So I have nothing to contribute during daytime usage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was using wmlonglife for some time, however one time it stops to work - i have found that i had a permament data connection in idle, but didn't notice a thing, so technically it do not drains the phone dramatically
when you guys say "idle" data connection, is the phone not automatically checking for email accounts etc? If not have you disabled them overnight - how do you do that please?
From yesterday until today, until now, I left idle data connection and it dropped in 12h from 80 to 75.
When I tried to close connection and left it overnight it dropped from 100 to 93.
By my expirience there is difference in battery drain: 15% with idle data connectino and 7% without data connection.
But numbers change from day to day...but more or less is 2x more when i have data connection on idle
might have to do with the network.. most networks do their work at night because they seem to asume everybody is asleep.. it could be offline every now and then but keeps searching for updates..
Mine has 3g toggle turned off, but the 'data connection' toggle is always on, i have three email accounts that get checked over edge every 2 hours, and battery drops roughly 2% during 7 hours sleep.
yuo have 3g off permanently or just overnight?
What do you "lose" when using 2g vs 3g?
My options about 3g mode is set to auto, so I guess it switch to 3g or hsdpa when available...
wigwam12 said:
yuo have 3g off permanently or just overnight?
What do you "lose" when using 2g vs 3g?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yea 3g permanently off. I live right on the edge of my local 3g coverage, and with it on itchews through the battery as it switches on/off/on/off. I get full reception using edge which is easily fast enough for surfing low bandwidth sites(like xda dev! ) twitter and emails etc.
my HD2 drains battery VERY fast when i have idle connections. when i don't turn them off my phone battery is from 100% to empty in about 6 hours.. but maybe there is a problem with my device / rom.
i hate to use your thread for topic for this but maybe anyone can help me with my battery being empty so fast? i am using Dutch stock rom v1.66 with standard radio rom. i am going to try a newer radio rom tonight. but i dont think that is going to help mutch.. i dont mind flashing to a custom rom but i want the same user interface as i now have. i dont like the custom one's with their shiny buttons and stuff..
would really apreciate help / advise!
samsamuel said:
yea 3g permanently off. I live right on the edge of my local 3g coverage, and with it on itchews through the battery as it switches on/off/on/off. I get full reception using edge which is easily fast enough for surfing low bandwidth sites(like xda dev! ) twitter and emails etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. I think the most bandwidth site I would currently access is Facebook.
I will try 2G then. When I get more into using the phone as an internet device I guess I could turn it on.
Mind you in the middle of a major city and moving from Voda "excellent" to "very good" signal zones it should stay 3G most of the time not switch so often......
the rom i.m using makes it easy to manage data, left soft button on home screen brings up comm manager and all the toggles have been activated, takes moments to switch on/off 3g and wifi, the rest of the time the edge data just works fine.
incidentally, in terms of power use other things to look at that might get overlooked, block size on sd card, if its real small and you have lots of sd card access, such as progs installed there, browser cache there, can significantly increase the number of read writes to the card in any given time period, costing power.
I am trying to save battery life and force my phone to have only voice/sms/mms capabilities only. I have background data disabled, roaming disabled, 2G-only enabled, and fake APN. However there is still an EDGE icon and it periodically flashes the up/down arrow. Is it trying to poll for internet or is this just basic cell tower polling for voice calls?
Also, there is a method of disabling internet permanently through the testing screen, which requires entering a code to access. Is this method more complete than a fake APN and thus better for battery life? I am afraid to test it as I don't like messing with hidden menus and want to easily be able to revert back without having to remember a code.
And yes I am aware this is a smartphone, but I need it to be a light-weight featurephone for right now.
All I can add is that when I unlock (not carrier/sim unlock) the phone I can see the Edge icon with the arrows flashing for a sec or two before the WiFi goes out of sleeping mode. My NetCounter application doesn't pick up any data drawn during that time. So either it doesn't transfer any data with the Edge during that time or the application is not perfect.
I know that doesn't answer your question but it can give you hope that the icon _may_ not be reliable.
Edge icon means its running on 2.5g mode. Shouldn't bother you much. Install 3g watchdog and android and set it up. Have look at activaty. Only way to make sure
Sent from my Apple Newton 2100
I'm not worried about data usage since I don't have a data plan. I'm only concerned about battery life, because it seems to be polling EDGE. If 2G voice calls and 2G data polled the same time using the same line and disabling data wouldn't really make a difference for battery, that would be good. But I'm not really sure.
silverwolf0 said:
I'm not worried about data usage since I don't have a data plan. I'm only concerned about battery life, because it seems to be polling EDGE. If 2G voice calls and 2G data polled the same time using the same line and disabling data wouldn't really make a difference for battery, that would be good. But I'm not really sure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Best battery life check: charge your phone up to 100% before going to sleep and unplug it, wake up and look at how much battery life you have left. It should be 98%+ if you didn't use it before going to sleep. This is even if you use it as an alarm clock and the screen is on for 3-10 minutes during your alarm/snooze/wake process.
Edge is a 2G network, the best way to test your device to see if it's doing anything is to open up an internet browser and see if you can get anything. If you can't open Google's homepage, your internet connection isn't being used and your standby battery life will be through the roof. This will also, in my experience, prevent apps from launching and causing partial wake issues and keep your phone idle time longer. I forgot my phone at home one weekend, came back home and lost like 8% of battery. I'd guess you are experiencing about the same if you can't get on the internet.
When in dual mode the phone flicks between 3g and H every second and I can't get phone calls or internet???
Also at times I cannot get on the internet eventhough 3g shows, the arrow upwards lights up but the down arrow doesnt light up to show download, then after a few minutes it seems to work
Anyone any ideas other than a full reflash?
In UK and on JM1 (old version from samsungfirmwares - CSC i9000OXXJG7)
I had same problem yesterday. I was walked back home from work and decided to go on facebook and after check the xda using tapatalk. After 10 minutes I noticed that sgs is switching between H and 3g every second and I can't download any data. After few minutes problem gone, but when I checked battery usage settings I found that cell radio is 50% out of signal and draining battery. No change after night and restart. Now I'm after flash of official jm1 and everything is fine. No battery draining and 0% out of signal. Network o2 uk.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
How did you flash back to official jm1
This was happening to me and all I did was turn airplane mode on, then wait a min, then turned it off. It's been fine ever since.
This tip is one that seems counter-intuitive, but you can save a lot of wear and tear on your Android phone's battery if you tell it to keep the Wifi radio turned on and connected while the phone is sleeping. Your phone needs a lot of juice to keep pinging those cell towers, and even more to transmit data to and from them. Wifi radios use much less power because of their design, and they don't have to keep searching for a better access point. It's the way cellular data communication was designed, and it's a necessary evil.
But what if you're spending all day (or all evening) in one place, connected to Wifi? If you tell your phone to shut off Wifi when idle, it bounces back to cellular data (be it 2G, 3G, or 4G) and starts sucking down the electrons again when the screen shuts off. That's no good, and easy to fix:
Open the advanced Wifi settings by pressing the menu button, then Settings, Wireless & networks, Wi-Fi settings, and tapping the menu button again. You'll have a choice to either Scan, or go Advanced -- go Advanced.
Tap the Wi-Fi sleep policy entry, and you'll get a pop up dialog with the 3 choices. Choose Never.
Now even when your phone goes into standby mode, you'll stay connected to Wifi and be able to get mail and messages without turning the cell radio back on and trouncing your battery life. And for the times when you're not in an area with a Wifi connection, just shut Wifi off, either through the menu or with a handy toggle widget. Your battery will thank you for it.
#Its only for those beginners who dont know about this setting...
dont you mean tick always, as if you tick never itll go back to using your dataplan instead of the wifi
Re: [Guide] Save Battery By Keeping Wi-fi Alive
I use to believe this but for some reason on my sgs3 wifi drains more battery I get more juice with wifi off.
Results may very due to your services supporting fast dormancy, etc.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
Re: [Guide] Save Battery By Keeping Wi-fi Alive
koolshubh said:
This tip is one that seems counter-intuitive, but you can save a lot of wear and tear on your Android phone's battery if you tell it to keep the Wifi radio turned on and connected while the phone is sleeping. Your phone needs a lot of juice to keep pinging those cell towers, and even more to transmit data to and from them. Wifi radios use much less power because of their design, and they don't have to keep searching for a better access point. It's the way cellular data communication was designed, and it's a necessary evil.
But what if you're spending all day (or all evening) in one place, connected to Wifi? If you tell your phone to shut off Wifi when idle, it bounces back to cellular data (be it 2G, 3G, or 4G) and starts sucking down the electrons again when the screen shuts off. That's no good, and easy to fix:
Open the advanced Wifi settings by pressing the menu button, then Settings, Wireless & networks, Wi-Fi settings, and tapping the menu button again. You'll have a choice to either Scan, or go Advanced -- go Advanced.
Tap the Wi-Fi sleep policy entry, and you'll get a pop up dialog with the 3 choices. Choose Never.
Now even when your phone goes into standby mode, you'll stay connected to Wifi and be able to get mail and messages without turning the cell radio back on and trouncing your battery life. And for the times when you're not in an area with a Wifi connection, just shut Wifi off, either through the menu or with a handy toggle widget. Your battery will thank you for it.
#Its only for those beginners who dont know about this setting...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to choose "Always", not "Never". If you choose "never", then it disconnect wifi as soon as display is turned off.
SlimJ87D said:
I use to believe this but for some reason on my sgs3 wifi drains more battery I get more juice with wifi off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're moving out of wifi range, or in and out of wifi range, turning wifi off will use less power as associating with an AP has a high energy cost. But as the original poster says, if you're going to be sitting in one place all day e.g. at home or at the office where your phone will always be connected to an AP, leaving wifi on and always connected will use less power than 3G.
More details here:
http://people.cs.umass.edu/~arun/papers/TailEnder.pdf
I suppose it's not that surprising. I'm sure many of us, after buying a new phone, have left the old one sitting around at home without a SIM card but connected to wifi, still polling emails and everything. The battery lasts ages!
Re: [Guide] Save Battery By Keeping Wi-fi Alive
This might be irrelevant, but i red an article her in xda about modern mobiles battery long time ago.the article said that when wifi on or off has no significance effect on battery life (regardless of other sitting like carrier signal .....etc)
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk 2
SlimJ87D said:
I use to believe this but for some reason on my sgs3 wifi drains more battery I get more juice with wifi off.
Results may very due to your services supporting fast dormancy, etc.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apparently FD doesn't affect battery life that much (See here, second post). I get better battery life on wifi and I think that's still the case for the majority of people if they are within a wifi area.
I tried and with option "always" I have more battery drain, cca. 2%/h in idle/screen off/overnight. With old setup when Wi-Fi is off in case screen goes off, I have cca. 1.6%/h. So, it doesn't work for me. Thanks anyway.
What ive found is to turn your 3g to 2g, that will save a LOT of battery. I use 3g if im out and about where theres no wifi, if im at work i dont use my phone often so switch 3g to 2g. It still brings my notifications in time. And at night switch to 2g as well.
Re: [Guide] Save Battery By Keeping Wi-fi Alive
Raz88 said:
What ive found is to turn your 3g to 2g, that will save a LOT of battery. I use 3g if im out and about where theres no wifi, if im at work i dont use my phone often so switch 3g to 2g. It still brings my notifications in time. And at night switch to 2g as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But that's a no brainer! Of course battery life will last a lot longer on 2G! Your battery life will also last a lot longer if you have no data connectivity. The discussion here is between data and wifi.
Sent from my GT-I9300
Thanks good tip