I have my current HD2 since about 2 years now, still on the stock original battery, which was working fine till the last 1-2 months, now I am getting a bad battery life out of it, does this mean it is dying?
months ago, during my normal commute (30 minutes, with Waze navigator and BeyondPod playing podcasts), i used to drain around 10% of the battery, now the same commute drains 20% of the battery.
and just now, during the lunch break of 1 hour, the battery dropped from 50% to 28%, and all what I did was have it play an ebook with the screen off, then later before putting it to charge i noticed that the battery was draining around 1% per minute (while below 30%).
I have been using HyperDroid since few months now, and the only different thing I did 2 weeks ago was changing from magldr to CLK, I don't think this is the cause of the drain, but anyway I just installed CurrentWidget to see if there is some excessive drain by some apps. but maybe it is time to replace the battery....
You could check battery pins, check battery to see if swelling & soft in middle area & could also recalibrate battery data on device but personally if 2yrs old & heavily used a new one such as Andida or genuine (not from eBay) is going to be useful regardless of results & for price of Andida cheap diagnosis ...
Ok, it was the battery, but not only that:
The commute issue was that the kernel was draining it fast, I changed kernel and now drain is better, only 15% per commute.
But with the new battery, the drain when the battery is around 50% is MUCH slower now: yesterday all afternoon it drained 5% (from 47% to 42%), last week when I used the phone with battery below 50% I sometimes saw a drain of 1% per minute !!!
If you want to make sure you get the best battery life you can try these suggestions. These are things that i've tried or read has worked for many people.
My definitive quide to keeping your cell phone battery in top shape and retaining the longest battery life
1. Remove any apps that have not been used in over a few weeks
2. Turn your phone's back light to the shortest setting
3. Turn off wifi when not in use
4. Turn off gps when not in use
5. Turn off bluetooth while not in use
6. Make sure to adjust the brightness to the lowest visable level you like
7. Make sure your home screen is clutter free
8. Turn the vibrate function off
9. Consider disabling 3G
10. Try not to take a lot of pictures that require flash
11. Disable Flash while viewing webpages if you can
12. Dont keep a spare battery in your car, higher then room temps can shorten its life
13. Clean the battery contacts every once in awhile. Make sure battery pins are aligned while doing this
14. Turn down the update frequency ie, email, facebook etc..
15. If you’re in an area with no signal and will be for a long time, put your phone in "airplane mode"
16. Dont use a Animated Wallpaper
17. If you must use a headset, try a corded one because it will use much less battery then a bluetooth
18. Avoid using none OEM chargers
19. Make sure you keep your apps updated
20. Use simple Ringtones
21. Do not bring your cell phone into the bathroom while you shower, moisture can at times sink into the battery
22. Dont store battery in a phone that your not going to be useing for an extended period of time
23. Using a belt clip can keep your phone cooler then in your pocket thus keeping the temp of the battery lower
24. While surfing online use mobile site versions when ever possible or try using Black Google Mobile. It uses less battery and bandwidth
25. Darker wallpapers can use less battery then very bright ones
26. Disable always-on mobile data
27. Turn your wifi sleep policy to Never
28. Turn off keytones
29. Download a battery app to keep an eye on this stuff automatically so you dont need to
30. Don’t let it die: Avoid placing unwanted strain on your battery by charging it before it fully discharges
This Guide is something I have come up with over the past several months all pieced together from many sites giving their "best ways to save battery life".
Related
I was just wondering what is the average time of battery life on your wing..mines is currently about 10 hours idle but while im using it that goes down to about 5 or 4 i just wanted to know what is the average before i call t-mobile and ask for a new battery.
A few of us here have been having problems with the battery actually. When I first got the phone, I left it clean and stock. I would do a lot of texting, make a couple phone calls, and play a few games here and there. From 7am to 1am, I would go from 100% to about 54% (18 hours of usage). Now, if I leave my phone idle for 2 hours, my battery drops down from 100% to 80%... I can't even go a full day without needing to charge the darn thing. 200 hour idle time my arse!
But personally, I don't think it's a problem with the battery... The phone is doing something in the background which is causing a massive battery drain. Right now, I'm testing my phone to see if I still suffer the same drain while in flight mode. I'll post the results HERE in about an hour from now.
The longest the battery can last is 1 week...
On a full charge, you can talk for 5 hours...
the more features you use, the more power it'll consume.. if you do a lot of internet browsing, I believe I saw GPRS Data connections use more power then WiFi.. so use wifi when available ...
also, be sure to regularly check your phone's task manager before setting it aside for long periods of time... sometimes it can be hard to notice the camera, text/mms, calender, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, are all running in the background while you're at the home screen...
My wing usually lasts me from unplug at 8am until plugin at midnight... power usage always varies a lot as... as you can tell.. the data connections use a lot of power... and if wifi isn't available, it uses at least 30% more power doing a GPRS Transfer -- based on the initial information i've read about the issue.
BBM-Lee said:
The longest the battery can last is 1 week...
On a full charge, you can talk for 5 hours...
the more features you use, the more power it'll consume.. if you do a lot of internet browsing, I believe I saw GPRS Data connections use more power then WiFi.. so use wifi when available ...
also, be sure to regularly check your phone's task manager before setting it aside for long periods of time... sometimes it can be hard to notice the camera, text/mms, calender, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, are all running in the background while you're at the home screen...
My wing usually lasts me from unplug at 8am until plugin at midnight... power usage always varies a lot as... as you can tell.. the data connections use a lot of power... and if wifi isn't available, it uses at least 30% more power doing a GPRS Transfer -- based on the initial information i've read about the issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed Bluetooth and WiFi taking more battery than GPRS
As long as I plug it in while I am at work to a USB cable, I don't seem to have any battery problems. I use GPRS and SMS constantly.
I spend the whole day on the phone ... between texting and I receive all my work email directly to my phone... so I'm on it various times during the hour... and it seems the battery drain is huge.
all I have done is turn the screen brightness down whenever I'm not using it, and have the dynamic overclocking on, so the processor goes down whenever its not in use ... but I still think the battery drain on the wing is ridiculous.
Well david, overclocking doesnt help
Im clocked at 247mhz, i can make it last about 24 hours using it here and there. calls about once a hour for 5 min or less, texting through the day, and occasional wifi use. at stock clock speeds, it lasted about a day and a half, but it all depends how much you use it
At 1st i thought the battery darin was rediculous as well but when u think about it when u use it the battery goes down about 8 times as fast( depensing on what ur actually doing w/ it.
Now i charge it at night and go to school with fully loaded battery 6AM, i text all the time and when i get home its around 85% 2:30PM, use it occasionally and at the end of the day after at least 3 hours of talk time its on around 30-20% i could last w/o charging it but i charge it overnight to full, with NORMAL use and not talking for about 4 hours per day so far its lasted 4 days for me. could have made it to 6 but i wanted to showoof my new phone to my friend
so battery life is not that bad just depends how much u use it, Also if ur listening to music just turn off the screen and thats a REAL battery saver. also press the power button when on the phone and etc.
Wing Battery Drain
I have improved my Wing battery drain by doing the following...
- Turn off the automatic weather update on the Today Plug-in
- Check my emails manually (do send receive when I am ready to read)
- Suspend device when not in use - need to use device lock app.
- Update ROM to PDA Viet v 14 (thanks to easy instructions from David)
With the new ROM and the device locked - even the accidental press of any of the face buttons (when phone is in pocket) turns the device back on - even though the screen remains locked (due the Device lock app). Is there any way to suspend the device completely so can only be turned on by hitting the power button only? I would still want to receive / answer calls etc. without having to hit the power button....
Go to settings, Lock ... and there is an option to lock all buttons except the power button when device is powered down.
I am trying to fix my sisters Wing (I have a Wizard). I have tried disabling background programs, as well as setting things to be more gentle on power usage, and still she loses battery like crazy. I know the Wizard had some battery drain issues with certain WM6 cooked roms, and a cab fix helped. Does anyone have a cab fix for the Wing? Also, reading in this forum section, it seems that the Wing doesn't always disable background programs. Would you suggest a third party task manager to "pick up the slack" or does it not matter, due to the nature of the winged beast?
I appreciate any suggestions. While I am new to the Herald, I am "old hat" on the Wizard, so I do have a general understanding of how the HTC devices work.
Thank you in advance.
I have read a lot of bad stuff about battery life with every rom except the OME t-mo. I had the PDA viet and battery life was terrible, With the stock rom it is at least 4x longer.
hello ive the same problem with the last 4 wings ive and ever since ive switch from the stock Tmo OS and upgraded to the TouchFlo OS, Ive noticed a huge differnce with the battery life even overclocked
If your will to taking the risk ide say go for it, i jus started messing around with rom and i got say its a big improvment from the original wing which i was ready to throw against a wall!!
I have Touch Flo on my Wing, and if I charge it to capacity I usually only need to do so it every other day so long as I don't play any NES games on it. I keep the wifi off if I'm not using it of course. I have it dynamically stepping the CPU in a range from 100mhz to 234mhz. It really seems to help extend the battery for me, while still giving it the tiny extra kick it needs to run nes and sms games.
My wife has the official wm6 rom on hers, but is also dynamically overclocked as mine is. She needs to charge hers nightly, BUT she also plays solitaire and bubble breaker daily.
Overall it's on par for battery life with my prior motorola phone, which I never used for anything but regular phone calls. With that in mind I'm not necessarily impressed, but am definitely content with it.
I've had HORRIBLE battery life and AWESOME battery life, all within the same week. lol
There was a problem I had at one time, where filesys.exe would take over all the CPU and kill my battery.
Here's what I do, though.
Dynamic overclocking/underclocking
Turn off GPRS when not in use
Disable Push Mail
Turn off WIFI and Bluetooth
Turn the screen brightness down
Turn off the screen altogether, even when on a call, unless you need to see what's on it
There's a few tweaks out there that deal with enabling the power saving features on L2TP and stuff...
First post here-
I've had my wing about a week now and have a question concerning battery usage.
It has always been my understanding that batteries will develop a "memory" if you charge and recharge them under their full charge capacity.
i.e. if you use it down to 60% and then charge it to 100% it will remember that and not use the full original 100% charge. obviously over time not just from a single "half charge" like that.
So since every time you connect it to USB to sync it begins the charging process, won't that wear down the battery and make it develop such a memory?
Is their anyway to connect to to the PC without having it charge?
I have always preferred to have any mobile device drain it's battery to nearly empty before recharging to try and minimize the memory effect.
Thanks
InfidelSerf said:
First post here-
I've had my wing about a week now and have a question concerning battery usage.
It has always been my understanding that batteries will develop a "memory" if you charge and recharge them under their full charge capacity.
i.e. if you use it down to 60% and then charge it to 100% it will remember that and not use the full original 100% charge. obviously over time not just from a single "half charge" like that.
So since every time you connect it to USB to sync it begins the charging process, won't that wear down the battery and make it develop such a memory?
Is their anyway to connect to to the PC without having it charge?
I have always preferred to have any mobile device drain it's battery to nearly empty before recharging to try and minimize the memory effect.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Today's lithium ion batteries do not develop this like older rechargable batteries. You can plug your phone in at any time without worrying about losing battery capacity!
Thank chris30_2001, good to know.
oh and it's ALWAYS lupus
I listen to Streaming Radio with my Wing at work all day. I get approximately 4 hours of listening time before I have to swap out with another fully charged battery.
I use PBar to shut off the screen while listening.
I'm running the touch rom without the actual touch. I can't remember which one it is. I spend at least an hour a day gaming (text twist, random solitaires) on it. I usually hit up the web a few times a day for 10 minutes a shot. I use it as an ebook reader. I send txts constantly. I talk about half an hour a day. All this leaves me with about 30% - 50% of my battery by day's end. Now, if I turn on bluetooth all day it will end up around 18%. Wifi is such an evil power hog I never turn it on, EDGE is fast enough for me. I charge my every night under my pillow (it's my alarm too). Battery life has been the same since I got it about 6 months ago.
Edited to add: I also do some dynamic underclocking for things that don't need a huge amount of power, like my budget program, etc.
Ok guys here is the deal. Some people claim they are getting amazing battery life and I want to know what they are running.
If you are getting great battery life like some claim. Post up this info about your phone. Let me know if i left out anything.
1. ROM
2. Kernel
3. Radio version
4. WiMax radio version
3. Are you using set cpu if so how are your profiles set up
4. Are you using juice defender/ultimate juice if so how are your profiles set up
5.Sync Settings
6.Radios always on or do you turn them on and off
7.Display settings
8.Categorize usage (light,moderate,heavy)
9.How do you charge your battery(through the phone, through the phone with an odd technique, wall charger, car charger, usb, etc..)
10.Anything else that would affect battery life/miscellaneous comments
11.Post up some screen shots of battery life unplugged and device up and awake time(be sure to reboot before your battery run as awake and up time do not reset every time you unplug)
I will be testing out my phone today and ill post my results later. Thanks guys I think this should help users get better battery life.
SantaClause88 said:
1. ROM
2. Kernel
3. Radio version
4. WiMax radio version
3. Are you using set cpu if so how are your profiles set up
4. Are you using juice defender/ultimate juice if so how are your profiles set up
5.Sync Settings
6.Radios always on or do you turn them on and off
7.Display settings
8.Categorize usage (light,moderate,heavy)
9.How do you charge your battery(through the phone, through the phone with an odd technique, wall charger, car charger, usb, etc..)
10.Anything else that would affect battery life/miscellaneous comments
11.Post up some screen shots of battery life unplugged and device up and awake time(be sure to reboot before your battery run as awake and up time do not reset every time you unplug)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
good luck on trying to start a "definitive" thread. I think you may be asking for a bit much of people though. 11 items? screenshots?
How do you define "amazing"? I generally get about 17-21 hours with moderate usage on baked snack 1.7 with default kernel. I have latest radio, and the 2nd latest wimax radio. I'm not running cetcpu, any of the juices, or anytype of task killer, although I do have systempanel set up to monitor all the time. I have echange and gmail set up to sync as items arrive (with no off peak times). I uninstalled FB (cuz it would try and sync even when I told it not to - even the one for sense), uninstalled news, stocks and all of the other bloatware. data always on, rarely use wifi (cuz my router sucks), and keep radios always on - i never turn them off. Moderate daily usage - maybe 20 minutes worth of calls, read and reply to 15-20 emails, 40-60 minutes of pandora, 30 minutes of internet browsing with stock browser, and my biggest battery drain is the xda app, which as some of you might have guessed, I'm slightly addicted to. I generally charge for an hour or 2 at night with the stock wall charger, then top off in the car on the way to work if I'm below 75% or so (30 minute drive will charge about 25% battery with an aftermarket palm pre car charger). Keep my brightness at auto until I get home, when I change it to 19% (because I can't seem to get the slider to hit exactly 20% on the dazzle widget lol)
occationally, I'll charge at my desk or on the way home, but those are the exceptions, on days when I'm using the phone heavily
biggest thing Ive found to help my battery is system panel - helped me identify a number of rogue apps using cpu and sucking my battery dry.
no screenshots.
and just so you know, you can probably find all of this info by searching and going through the threads. There are a ton of battery threads already.
edit - heyhey this is my 600th post!
Ye, my battery just went from 48% to 3% in about 3 minutes. Does anyone have any idea why this is?
Same problem here. From about 43 % down to 7 % while it started to charge the battery with the original charger. Afterwards the Tab didn´t charge at all. Battery drained and got very warm.
I Called Vodafone and was told i have to send the Tab in for fixing. I hate waiting for the tablet 3 weeks.
Update: After 2 hrs. of waiting the Tab cooled down and i was able to start it again. Did a factory reset and was able to charge again with the wall mount charger.
Just wanted to bump this as my battery life is miserable and it discharges really fast in standby...
My HTC desire has been on for 52 hours, used for a lot of stuff and is at 20% battery.
The Tab charges to 100%, I unplug it at night and in the morning it has lost approx 10%, I leave it a few more hours and it't down to around 60%. This is with no use and no apps running!
I've tried killing apps or leaving them in memory and it doesn't seem to make much difference. I also use setcpu and have a profile where the CPU speed decreases when in standby to conserve battery?!
If I charge to 100% and use it constantly, I get fair life out of it maybe 4-6 hours of light use - some streaming over wifi, web surfing, kindle, sudoku etc. If I use it occasionally or heavily though, it dies very quick and if I leave it at about 40% on the evening, it's generally dead in the morning.
Why does it discharge so fast in standby??
Check to see if it continually searching for a signal. I've noticed that mine loses a lot of power constantly searching for a signal, cellular and wifi. So, I used airplane mode to conserve power. Remember that it syncs to different services that require it to periodically download data. That may be your issue.
Sent from my SCH-I800 using XDA App
Thanks Chuck, I use it in airplane mode all the time and only use web over wifi (bought unconnected in the UK). Would it still be syncing for email etc? I didn't think it could turn on wifi and sync itself but only when I turn wifi on. I always turn wifi off when not in use. I had problems with widgetlocker asking for superuser permission quite often and that killed the battery quicker so I removed that until it's fixed and saw an improvement.
I'm not seeing the times that other people are though, losing at least 10% overnight and there's nothing really running.
I installed battery doctor and the times it quotes are high for different types of usage and nowhere near what I'm getting.
I'll make sure email and calendar are set to manual update, adjust brightness etc and see what happens. It seemed better when I first got it so perhaps an app is draining it? I installed system panel to monitor this but it's hard to see what is actually draining it, any recommendations anyone???
Quite disappointed at the moment, ipads barely drop 1% overnight and I'd rather not have to turn it off to conserve battery when it should maintain it in standby...
Check the task manager and see what application are running. Also you can go in settings- about device - battery use to see if a specific application is using your battery out of normal. Also , the display is generally the battery hog, you may have set it to a super high level. One last thing you may have the buggy 3d gallery app, and it will show in the battery usage.
P_
this is an interesting problem. its very similar to the Apple Macbook Air.
The Macbook Air was very thin - very nice looking - however it needed to depend on wifi to do most things.
the association i am trying to build here is this: the Tab needs a bluethooth headset so you dont get all your calls broad-casted over speakers and that could drain the battery a lot.
for me the battery drainage didnt seem so bad and its been on for the last 36 or so hours. the battery icon didnt look like it moved so much and i was impressed considering this thing had a gigantic battery. then i loaded up a utility that read the battery and said i had 59% so my jaw dropped. not only is the battery indicator wrong there maybe rogue processes casuing the battery drainage. and this is on 2.2 which is supposed to be somewhat battery efficient.
i dont know - frustration is what i am all about here with this thing. it seems that every time i buy a new android device i want to move to another android device. no one is getting the damn thing correctly setup.
Am at work right Now, Charged the tab overnight, just few minutes ago my battery said 60% left and now the tab is completely dead, wont turn on, I ll wait until i get home to charge, fingers crossed.
Change the battery...
Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App
shubh.27hd2 said:
Change the battery...
Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
its been charging for 2 hours now and battery is not even warm to the touch plus no power yet... if charging is what you intended....
more than 3 hours of charging and counting and still no sign of life...This device is just 8 days old today from Brand new...
mudstuff said:
Just wanted to bump this as my battery life is miserable and it discharges really fast in standby...
My HTC desire has been on for 52 hours, used for a lot of stuff and is at 20% battery.
The Tab charges to 100%, I unplug it at night and in the morning it has lost approx 10%, I leave it a few more hours and it't down to around 60%. This is with no use and no apps running!
I've tried killing apps or leaving them in memory and it doesn't seem to make much difference. I also use setcpu and have a profile where the CPU speed decreases when in standby to conserve battery?!
If I charge to 100% and use it constantly, I get fair life out of it maybe 4-6 hours of light use - some streaming over wifi, web surfing, kindle, sudoku etc. If I use it occasionally or heavily though, it dies very quick and if I leave it at about 40% on the evening, it's generally dead in the morning.
Why does it discharge so fast in standby??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am experiencing the same thing. Tab on flight mode and charged to 100% overnight. Unplugged at 9am, still on flight mode with no apps running, and it is 88% at 2pm.
12% drop in 5 hours with no usage whatsoever is way too much imo, comparing let say to my HD2, even not in flight mode. Wonder if they have a bad batch of battery for certain tabs........
Just wanna report back after my last post. When the percentage was dropped to 85%, I did a reboot. And guess what, now it displays 95% !!!!!!
5% drop from the morning til now in flight mode seems right and okay. Does it mean the tab is miscalculating the percent left?
PS.
I have been following the voltage in Spare parts this morning. All settings are the same (no apps opened, same screen brightness and in flight mode. Only turn on to record voltage)
94% - 4087mV
91% - 4081mV
88% - 4075mV
85% - 4067mV
But then after the reboot
95% - 4040mV
Man, I am not sure whats going on here........
shinji21 said:
Just wanna report back after my last post. When the percentage was dropped to 85%, I did a reboot. And guess what, now it displays 95% !!!!!!
5% drop from the morning til now in flight mode seems right and okay. Does it mean the tab is miscalculating the percent left?
PS.
I have been following the voltage in Spare parts this morning. All settings are the same (no apps opened, same screen brightness and in flight mode. Only turn on to record voltage)
94% - 4087mV
91% - 4081mV
88% - 4075mV
85% - 4067mV
But then after the reboot
95% - 4040mV
Man, I am not sure whats going on here........
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
let me jump in here again and share a similar deli-ma i had with my X10i.
while i was messing around with some custom roms i decided to stick to one that looked somewhat nice. well the funny thing is the battery indicator would always display 100% and for about 4 hours it would drop ever so slightly. then i removed the battery and put it back in -- the battery indicator showed 0% and i got a red light flashing ....
after screwing around with it for a bit i re-flashed the stock firmware from Sony-Ericsson and magically my battery meter and my battery worked fine.
so to sum up -- it maybe a software issue like the one i had on my SE X10i above?
I've been using the Aria for 2 years now, and just 2 days ago I ran into an unexpected battery drainage problem.
1. When I am speaking during a call and not holding the phone close to my ear, the proximity sensor is not always triggered which causes the screen to stay on. While the screen is on, the battery drains 1% every minute (or every 30s). When I turn the screen off, the drainage is fine.
2. When I receive text messages (voicemails from my landline trigger a text message on my Aria), the battery drainage is very bad (1% per minute or 30s).
I never use data networks (turned off), background data and autosync are both turned off, gps is always off, wifi is always off, screen brightness is always custom at the 3rd lowest brightness setting. Basically, I try to conserve battery life and only use the phone for talking.
When I looked at battery usage, it was mostly due to Android System, Voice Calls, and Cell Standby.
I'm running the very old Liberty Froyo Rom (the version released like 2 years ago) and the default CM7 kernel. Also, I upgraded to the newest radio to fix this problem, but it didn't seem to make a difference. I don't think these things should be causing the problems since it only occurred 2 days ago while these things have been constant.
Any ideas what is going on or what I can do to make my phone last longer? Talking on the phone for 30 min from full charge takes my phone down to 25%...
honestly at this point my battery meter is completely wonky. the percents mean nothing now. i still get roughly the same battery life but it'll burn through large chunks of percentage in minutes but sit at a single percent for hours or active use.
i'd say try a new battery
If you've got clockworkmod installed, boot into recovery and wipe battery stats. If you're still experiencing this, try a different rom. I've been using CyanogenMod 7 for a long time with no issues.
If this fails, it's probably your battery. It might just be pooped out. If you get a new one always buy and OEM battery! Don't get anything off-brand.
really? its about the battery? not the OS itself?
after 2 years of use it's safe to assume that it's the battery and no necessarily the rom.
2 years with the same battery? old battery i say and is usually the life expectancy with it. i say you get a new battery. or try charging your battery all the way full. wipe the battery stats. then let your phone die, then completely recharge it all the way up again. that worked for me.
Battery life with ANY Android phone is hit and miss, but the Aria is notoriously terrible with it. However, there are several "tweaks" you could do to help it (note: I said help, not fix.). Beyond the basic system setting adjustments, I have found the "Die Hard Battery Calibrator" script by zeppelinrox to be helpful. Look for his V6 SuperCharger thread here on XDA to find it (as well as other useful scripts). Of course, the usual caveats apply: S-OFF, root, magic powers, etc.
First to clarify my question: I'm not asking how to prevent the daily battery drain in a poor-signal area. It definitely happens unless the phone is switched to airplane mode. My question is how to avoid the shortening of the battery life in the long run if the phone has to be used in such condition.
My workplace is basically a signal black hole to any carrier. With T-mobile I got no service for most of the time but I can occasionally send/receive text messages/emails say every 15 minutes with flimsy connection. There is absolute no way to make a phone call, so I usually walk outside when needed. I don't have WiFi neither so I prefer to keep the phone on to stay on the grid. However my concern is doing so will shorten the battery life eventually due to the constant power draining and recharging, so I come up with some ways for such condition. Please suggest which you think will do the least harm to battery and allow me to receive email and text.
1. Use it normally. It usually consumes 60% of the battery just sitting on my desk throughout the day. I can actually live with it be cause the battery is large enough for me to waste this way. But it harms the battery life without a doubt.
2. Use it with a charger plugged on my desk for most of the time, so it will supply the power for signal searching. Usually if you keep a battery at full charge all the time, it dies soon due to "slacking." My laptop has this problem and its battery basically serves as a UPS now. I have less concern for a phone because it will still be recharged daily.
3. Use an NFC tag to tell the phone it's in the office, and then use some software to prevent the draining like Tasker/Juice Defender. That makes most sense but I haven't have figure out the profiles. I've used Tasker before (thought it's too complicated) and NFC is totally new to me. I would like to take some suggestions if you have done something similar.
Thanks!
wawacoffee said:
First to clarify my question: I'm not asking how to prevent the daily battery drain in a poor-signal area. It definitely happens unless the phone is switched to airplane mode. My question is how to avoid the shortening of the battery life in the long run if the phone has to be used in such condition.
My workplace is basically a signal black hole to any carrier. With T-mobile I got no service for most of the time but I can occasionally send/receive text messages/emails say every 15 minutes with flimsy connection. There is absolute no way to make a phone call, so I usually walk outside when needed. I don't have WiFi neither so I prefer to keep the phone on to stay on the grid. However my concern is doing so will shorten the battery life eventually due to the constant power draining and recharging, so I come up with some ways for such condition. Please suggest which you think will do the least harm to battery and allow me to receive email and text.
1. Use it normally. It usually consumes 60% of the battery just sitting on my desk throughout the day. I can actually live with it be cause the battery is large enough for me to waste this way. But it harms the battery life without a doubt.
2. Use it with a charger plugged on my desk for most of the time, so it will supply the power for signal searching. Usually if you keep a battery at full charge all the time, it dies soon due to "slacking." My laptop has this problem and its battery basically serves as a UPS now. I have less concern for a phone because it will still be recharged daily.
3. Use an NFC tag to tell the phone it's in the office, and then use some software to prevent the draining like Tasker/Juice Defender. That makes most sense but I haven't have figure out the profiles. I've used Tasker before (thought it's too complicated) and NFC is totally new to me. I would like to take some suggestions if you have done something similar.
Thanks!
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Isn't the issue with batteries related to cycles? I'm not sure it matters that you end up with 40% of battery at the end of the day vs 15% when you charge it up. A cycle is a cycle, more or less I think.
If you don't believe the first point, I also don't think that research really shows that leaving a lithium ion battery plugged in "all" the time has major detrimental effects, and even if it did you would still be using the battery for a good deal of the day, at least the time you're not at work right?
I feel like you might be a little too worried about it.
kanetheninja said:
Isn't the issue with batteries related to cycles? I'm not sure it matters that you end up with 40% of battery at the end of the day vs 15% when you charge it up. A cycle is a cycle, more or less I think.
If you don't believe the first point, I also don't think that research really shows that leaving a lithium ion battery plugged in "all" the time has major detrimental effects, and even if it did you would still be using the battery for a good deal of the day, at least the time you're not at work right?
I feel like you might be a little too worried about it.
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About the charging cycle, I read something here: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries. Basically it shows deep charging cycles has more detrimental effects on the battery capacity. My point was if the battery is cycled deeply everyday, it is under much more stress compared to those working with good signals.
Maybe I worry too much but I feel really bad just to see my phone sitting there wasting a lot of battery.
I have had the same problem with you as my office is underground.
From my experience, it's best to turn off data. You can turn off the radio all together, but I guess you still want to have signal where you can.
This can be automated by Taker (haven't used) or Juice Defender. I don't know if Juice Defender Free can do this (it should), but Juice Defender Ultimate have an option to turn off wifi and data when the screen is off.
Having the charger next to your desk is also a viable option. But rather than plugging it all the time, you should charge when it is needed.
Edit: as discussed elsewhere, you should not try to do full charges (0-100%) as this would not work out well for you at office as well as it it will shorten battery life.
Edit 2: Juice Defender Ultimate
=> Enable Advance profile (Status Tab)
=> Go to Control Tab
=> Enable Mobile Data and Wifi control (first and third option)
wawacoffee said:
About the charging cycle, I read something here: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries. Basically it shows deep charging cycles has more detrimental effects on the battery capacity. Mypoint was if the battery is cycled deeply everyday. it is under much more stress compared to those working with good signals.
Maybe I worry too much but I feel really bad just to see my phone sitting there wasting a lot of battery.
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Can you try only charging your phone at work? From the options you've listed,leaving it plugged in seems like the best option at work seems like the best option. Assuming you currently only charge your phone once a day, it shouldn't make much difference to switch the charging time to during the work day.This way your peak energy usage will fall on a time when you have unlimited power available and you should have enough battery to go home and come back.
build.prop tweak
There is a build.prop tweak but I can't guarantee that it works.
You can try it out and tell us about it :fingers-crossed:
http://www.s3forums.com/forum/galaxy-s3-hacking-mods/474-list-some-build-prop-tweaks.html
#improve battery under no signal
ro.mot.eri.losalert.delay=1000
The number value is how often to re-connect to the tower. A phone in a poor connection area will
attempt to reconnect all the time, draining the battery. It's in milliseconds so 1000 = 1sec. I wouldn't
exceed 2sec but you already knew you are on your own with this one.
I have the exact problem at work.
My question is if I connect the phone to the charger at work, will the phone runs on the juice from the charger or from the battery? If it runs on the juice from the charger (like laptops), that should have minimum effect to the battery. If it uses the battery and the charger just charges the battery then the battery life will be cut in half (2 charge per day instead of 1 charge per day).
I have terrible signal at work and my Inspire has a small battery. My phone is in power save by lunch. I charge mine during lunch every day and leave it on the charger at night. I generally will not plug it in if I can't charge it all the way up. My original battery is now 18 months old and works as well as it did new. Other Inspire/DHD users have had to replace batteries in less than 12 months, so I don't think my charging cycle variations have harmed it too much.
It only has to last until after the holidays when I can order my N4. Even if I had to try to push it to 2 years, I think I wouldn't worry too much.
Also, by the time it is not under warranty, the batteries will be cheap and will always be easier to change than an iPhone.
Sent using the power of the dark side.
Thanks everyone. Based on the discussion I think I will just use it normally and charge whenever needed. The phone should be my slave not the other way around. I'm not planning to root it, at least not now, so I won't change the build.prop.
I did tried Juice Defender yesterday. It slowed down the battery drain but not very impressively, because it only turns off the data not the entire cellular radio. I installed the app during lunch so you can see the difference from the middle of the day. Google+ was a real ***** because it tried to upload my camera photos with such connection... I turned it off too so it also helped.
"Android OS" should not be this active.
It's possible that you have some background process draining the battery. Try disabling as many services as you can.
If you have Wifi at work try turning it ON. If not then turn your Mobile Data OFF like KyraOfFire suggested.
I get weak signal at my work as well. Thankfully, we have WiFi, so I usually force my phone to use 2g then connect to WiFi. :good:
-Mindroid- said:
"Android OS" should not be this active.
It's possible that you have some background process draining the battery. Try disabling as many services as you can.
If you have Wifi at work try turning it ON. If not then turn your Mobile Data OFF like KyraOfFire suggested.
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I don't have Wifi unfortunately. I will look into Android OS later on.