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I am trying to compile a large list of tips and tricks that we users can use to extend the life of our small batteries.
List is here:
http://android-simplicity.blogspot.com/2009/08/bag-of-tricks-1-increase-battery-life.html
On-Going Power saving List
1. Under-clock your cpu(for root users only). Download->over clocking widget->set cpu speed to lowest value
2. Turn off GPS
3. Reduce the number of start up apps
4. Restart phone
5. Lower screen brightness
6. Turn off Wi-fi when you are not around any wifi networks
7. Turn off 3G Mobile Data Network - Settings--->Wireless Controls--->Mobile Networks and check the box that says "Use Only 2G Networks.
8. Disable auto Data Sync
9. Download and install "Power Manager"
10. Disable back ground apps - [~JDBDogg]
11. Turn off keyboard backlight (for Dream/G1 only for obvious reasons) with Backlight Off app. Only works on rooted phones. [~Chahk]
12. Turn off any unnecessary noises or vibrations, such as for on-screen keyboard and games. [~AdamPI]
13. Make sure your firmware and apps are up to date, efficiency may be improved. [~AdamPI]
14. Use headphones. [~AdamPI]
15. Turn off Bluetooth. [~AdamPI]
16. [~Yours goes here]
If you have any tricks that you use to get the most time juice out of your phone, please share them to the rest of us. Thanks.
Disable background apps
Turn off keyboard backlight (for Dream/G1 only for obvious reasons) with Backlight Off app. Only works on rooted phones.
Chahk said:
Turn off keyboard backlight (for Dream/G1 only for obvious reasons) with Backlight Off app. Only works on rooted phones.
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nice, one ! didnt think of that~
Lower the time it takes for the screen to time out.
Id also say take off any widgets you may have but i guess that falls underneath the "disable background apps" category
Bluetooth isn't mentioned.
Turn off any unnecessary noises or vibrations, such as for on-screen keyboard and games.
Make sure your firmware and apps are up to date, efficiency may be improved.
I'd guess using headphones is better than the speaker, plus no-one on the bus wants to hear your "music".
Has anyone tested decoding efficiency of video and audio codecs? AAC saves space, but does it use more battery than mp3?
up to 15
AdamPI said:
Bluetooth isn't mentioned.
Turn off any unnecessary noises or vibrations, such as for on-screen keyboard and games.
Make sure your firmware and apps are up to date, efficiency may be improved.
I'd guess using headphones is better than the speaker, plus no-one on the bus wants to hear your "music".
Has anyone tested decoding efficiency of video and audio codecs? AAC saves space, but does it use more battery than mp3?
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Click to collapse
Now thats thinking out of the box. Thanks AdamPI
We have now 15 on the list. Lets see how long this can go~
Someone should do a test using all of these tricks and do a comparison, although it will be a very boring phone at this point with everything off.
Don't use a ROM that requires a linux-swap Partition
This causes the phone to die faster because the sd card is constantly being acessed
jf4888 said:
Don't use a ROM that requires a linux-swap Partition
This causes the phone to die faster because the sd card is constantly being acessed
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SD Cards are so cheap these days that you shoudn't worry about damaging them. In a weird way though, this advice does make sense. Swap = more apps are being kept in memory, thus more work being performed by the phone, which translates to higher power consumption.
But then again, following this logic a similar advice would be to not run any apps at all. Or better yet, just shut your phone off! Maybe then it will last a full day on a single charge
Seriously though, if you're worried about damaging your phone, read up on Lithium-Ion/Polymer batteries and how to prolong their lifespan. The main points are:
Don't let them get too hot. Heat damages battery cells and cause them to lose their capacity.
Deep discharge cycles (letting the battery drain before fully charging them) kill these batteries fast. LiIon/LiPolymer batteries like to be "topped off" once the level gets to 60-70% mark.
Discharge cycles can improve state-of-charge estimation, so only perform those when the battery meter goes out of whack and doesn't tell the charge level properly. This doesn't happen often.
They don't suffer from the "memory" and overcharge issues that used to plague batteries using older technologies (NiCad/NiMH), so it's safe to keep the phone plugged in whenever you can.
The "first-time cycle" is a myth left over from Nickel-based batteries. This means you don't need to charge the batter for 8 hours the first time you use it.
Do not use "fast chargers" since their usage can decrease the lifespan of the battery.
Get an app that turns off your data network completely (like WiSyncPlus). Not just "use 2G only" but COMPLETELY. I can go a whole weekend, with normal use, without charging my phone if I need to. (From one Fri 6am to Sun 6pm give or take was my best)
The one I use (WiSyncPlus, there are others I guess) turns off the network automatically when I unplug the charger from my phone. Txt msgs piggy back the cellular network so no issue there, otherwise, if I want to jump on the internet or check the weather, I hit the toggle switch on my Home screen...in ~3secs I'm all set again. Toggle back off when finished.
Best $3 by far I've spent on an app for my G1.
i use APNdroid for that
No one mentioned using a ROM that allows changes to the CPU scaling.
I'm on Cyanogen 4.1.2.1 and I have it scaled from 245 to 527 with the CPU only jumping up to the next clock speed when it needs it.
So, most of the time, my phone is on 245 and it clocks to 383 and then 527 as needed. I had overclock widget set so it showed me the current clock speed. Once I was comfortable with the frequency and load under which it changed speeds, I removed the widget from the desktop.
I use my phone a lot and it lasts a full day easily.
if youre using a hero rom there is an option to completely turn off mobile networks so there is no data connecion at all.
i have to go with
turn the phone off
get a car charger
spare battery or extended one
i have been reading about some of the battery u guys get and all i have to say is......how do u guy get such great battery life?! i don't get any where near that. thinking of deleting pure calendar since i heard it takes up a lot of battery. but do live wallpapers eat up that much memory? i got other widgets like beautiful home (updates ever 15 minutes), Mobile Buzz widgets, myspace (yea i kno. cant seem to get to facebook yet. unless some of you guys want to add me there ) widget, Process manager widget, Touiteur widget that updates every three minutes, FML widget, some beautiful home widgets, Yahoo NFL widget, Android Guys widget, i have Nimbuzz IM always running, Weatherbug on my notification bar that updates every 15 minutes, battery indicator, and wifi (when im at home). my display at 140/225 (power manager) and i have most of my widgets on ignore when i hit the kill all button on Process manager. what apps you think that i don't need to have running would help battery life? you guys that have SetCPU, what can u recommend to set my profiles at to see better battery life? my current set up is:
Charging
998 Max
245 Min
Sleep/Standby
384 Max
245 Min
Power > 100%
998 Max
768 Min
Power > 30%
614 Max
245 Min
what do you guys suggest to improve my overall battery life? ANY help at all will be greatly appreciated
**PS, i do the average usage of web, IM, a lot of texting, little to no myspace, twitter always running, and some flash video. also is it bad if i charge the battery a lot?**
I've had most noticeable battery improvements from using JuiceDefender and Switching the Network Type to GSM (auto) PRL. Generally getting about 17 hours with I would say heavy usage.
This message was deleted by its author
i guess u shouldnt be using
998 Max 768 Min on <100 setting to save battery..
imho the default 998 Max 245 Min ondemand (read setcpu=off) is the best setting..
afaik cpu lowers the clock on sleep by default.. so why bother?
same goes to all app-killers and auto-process-killers.. not needed =)
All those things that update frequently are what eats your battery. Every time an app wants to update it has to wake the processor and radio connections, do its thing and then shutdown again. If you've got this happening every few minutes your battery won't last the day.
I don't have anything updating more than once every 3 hours. That way I get 2-3 days battery life unless I'm using the phone heavily.
p.s. app/process killers won't help. Infact they generally make things worse. If the processes are sleeping (which they will be if you aren't using them or they aren;t auto-updating) then they don't use any processing time or power. Auto killing processes does however use power......
GlenH said:
All those things that update frequently are what eats your battery. Every time an app wants to update it has to wake the processor and radio connections, do its thing and then shutdown again. If you've got this happening every few minutes your battery won't last the day.
I don't have anything updating more than once every 3 hours. That way I get 2-3 days battery life unless I'm using the phone heavily.
p.s. app/process killers won't help. Infact they generally make things worse. If the processes are sleeping (which they will be if you aren't using them or they aren;t auto-updating) then they don't use any processing time or power. Auto killing processes does however use power......
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Exactly what my reply was going to be. If you don't need all that stuff, then either turn off the widgets or set them to only update every 1+ hours. The internet will kill your battery. Its nice having stuff at your fingertips everytime you turn your phone on, but are you really checking it every 10-15 minutes?
Live wallpapers also use more battery than regular ones, so even though they're pretty and nice, they can use more battery. I'm not sure how much more though, it might only be .5-1%/hour extra.
Also, if you want to use SetCPU, take t0ols' suggestion. If you're setting the minimum to 768, then that's the slowest it'll run. By default, it'll clock itself down to 245 even without SetCPU. You can also try changing the governor for the Sleep profile to Conservative or Power Save instead of On-Demand. With all that said, I've uninstalled SetCPU and my batter life isn't any worse or any better than when I had it installed. There's a thread on here where half of us say it doesn't help any and half say it does, so you might try uninstalling it too.
As far as the process managers go, I keep one installed, but only to kill some apps that continue running in the background. I don't auto-kill everything. For a while I was having pretty bad battery life while I didn't have a process manager, once I installed it, I noticed there was an app that was running in the background, using data. Some apps just aren't programmed very good and require manual killing.
Another thing, which I didn't see you mention, is screen brightness. Either set it to auto or set it to something less than half. The screen is one of the biggest battery killers there is.
Another one is your network connection. I usually leave mine on Edge only and use WiFi when I need something fast. 3G/H uses more battery than WiFi, so I'll leave WiFi on all day. If I go away from a connection though I turn it off to keep it from hunting for a WiFi signal.
If you must have 3G on, try dialing *#*#4636#*#*, go to Phone Information, then scroll to the bottom for "Set Preferred Network Type" and set it to GSM Auto PRL instead of WCDMA Preferred. Some have reported that this helps with their battery life.
Hope that helps.
Isn't this a duplicate of a duplicate of a duplicate of a thread?
My N1 with K9 Mail (2 online IMAP, 4 poll folders), Latitude, random stuff, including Pure Calendar... 3%/hr. That's as good or better than my previous smartphones. Google syncing cal/contacts, but not mail.
I don't have Facebook or Twitter syncing.
I'm happy with the battery life.
After I did he market place lag fix I found my battery drained a little more than usual. I downloaded a program called memory task cleaner. This will also allow you to set auto kill on apps you dont want always running n the back ground. simply add as many programs as you dont use or want in the back ground running to the auto kill list. Set the safety level to medium in options in auto kill screen. also set intervals of auto kill to every 2 minutes. auto kill when screen off as well.
There you go. You should notice the phone is back to normal with the battery life as well as if your like me, no need for tee nav or blutooth and things like that you will notice the battery may even last longer.
Let me know your results. Settings so fourth.
By the way there will be plenty to auto kil. the galaxy s runs alot of programs all the time for no reason.
so far so good
I had my phone fully charged and tried this so far so good! Ill report more when I can test more. But it has definitely lasted longer so far. about an hour off the charger using wifi online and all, still full batt!
Lets hope this fixes it or Ill have to go back to stock.
So instead you have a program running that every two minutes kills running programs that will start again anyways, beginning the cycle all over again?
Edit: and the way android works, "running" is poor word choice
What its the difference between this and ATK? I'm pretty sure this will so more harm than good.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Oh, nice OP. Now you have programs constantly fighting themselves to run/kill each other. So now instead of the Android OS taking care of itself, you have these programs sucking down CPU cycles and battery juice.
Dump the autokiller and use ATK to manually kill things if you don't want them running. I get about 35hr of standby time.
Edit: If you really want to be smarter than the Android OS, uninstall the app/widget that's sucking down your battery.
I use the current widget to monitor the current drain. Usually it is between 1-5 mA when the device is in standby (screen off). Since the last week I have noticed that the standby drain current has gone up to 50-60mA. I checked the processor and it is working normally and no app is misbehaving.
can anyone suggest what may be sucking the current ?
PS: wifi, gps, 3g, autosync all turned off and screen brightness at 15%
Have you given a try to this attempt by jamdog30?
Yes I have on demand plugins enabled. And I use the Skyfire browser.
A reboot has solved the issue (for now).
I tried a few launcher last days. I use LeeDroid 2.0 and used Revolution NO-Sense script few days ago.
I experienced the battery drain today morning. I saw that the android.process.acore (launcherpro) uses 100% CPU. I removed LauncherPRO, and CPU went down, but nothing good news about battery usage.
I installed LeeDroid without wipe, and it's okay again.
A similar problem i have is that when the phone is running for longer times the available memory goes way down.
When freshly booted its like 400+MB free. after couple days can only get it to 200MB.
And that with stock rom and frequently killing unnecessary tasks.
But i heard more about this kind of problem, that there is a native process taking a lot of CPU and memory usage.
HanZie82 said:
B.
And that with stock rom and frequently killing unnecessary tasks.
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there you have your problem. DO NOT USE TASKKILLERS! they slow down your system and don't speed it up!
android magages the RAM on it's own. if something needs more RAM, android closes programs that are not needed. if you do it on your own, some parts remain in the RAM and android gets 'confused' and everything slows down.
androids RAM is nearly full most of the time, but, as I said above, it closes programs if it needs more RAM.
you can also also try to activate USB Debugging in settings->applications->developement
Hi Guys,
Firstly, I know there are several threads with different tips and suggestions but most of them didn't work for me.
Recently (since more than a week) , I have noticed strange drain in battery and getting hot pretty quickly. It has kitkat and I didn't get time to use it properly in the beginning. After reading different threads and forums here's what I did:
- Let it drain completely, shut off, took out battery for a couple of hrs and then charged without switching on. x2
- Rebooted after charging
- Uninstalled some apps I thought might be problematic
- Factory Reset (such a pain!)
- When attached to Kies, it prompted for Firmware update N9005XXUENC2 followed by another factory reset and hard reset.
- Cleared cache by going into recovery mode.
- Rebooting after charging
But seems like none of it made much difference, my routine use
- couple of hours on wifi
- no heavy games, only temple run, subway surf etc.
- no streaming
- no lengthy calls, not a lot of messaging
- 1, 2 hrs of music
- Syncing off, gps off, blue tooth off, Wifi mostly off, power saving on, brightness on auto, no 3g/4g data, almost no photos and video capturing, sensors, motions off except smart stay
I don't want to root the phone because of my busy schedule, with some difficulty I was able install WLD on it which resets after Rebooting. Point is, I am not a heavy user and this being a "beast" isn't quite unleashing the beasty-battery-life. I do get more than a day but that is when it's in deep sleep for 20hrs or more. I took some screenshots after reseting, updating firmware. It's past 3 battery cycles now, I will attach the latest one's to not clutter it up. I like this phone, but this battery is just not good enough. So, please helpful answers that don't require rooting.
Thank you for reading and Good day!
Is the battery drain consistant or does it happen at certain times (at home, at work, etc.)? If you are in an area where the signal changes frequently that will drain the battery because the radio is using power to maintain a connection. With wifi scanning for google services even when turned off setting make sure it is off if you dont need it. How do you charge the phone? If possible always use the charger that came with the phone, charging from a usb port from a computer is not as strong and can affect the memory of the battery and do not wait till almost dead to charge. It works best to recharge when between 35% and 45%. Look at your background services and see if anything out of the ordinary is running. And it could be possible the battery is defective and you might want to have it tested. I use my Note3 lightly and get 24 to 25 hours over two to three days (turning off at bedtime). This may not help any but this is what I have learned from others with similar situations. Good luck!
MPDnnrd said:
Is the battery drain consistant or does it happen at certain times (at home, at work, etc.)? If you are in an area where the signal changes frequently that will drain the battery because the radio is using power to maintain a connection. With wifi scanning for google services even when turned off setting make sure it is off if you dont need it. How do you charge the phone? If possible always use the charger that came with the phone, charging from a usb port from a computer is not as strong and can affect the memory of the battery and do not wait till almost dead to charge. It works best to recharge when between 35% and 45%. Look at your background services and see if anything out of the ordinary is running. And it could be possible the battery is defective and you might want to have it tested. I use my Note3 lightly and get 24 to 25 hours over two to three days (turning off at bedtime). This may not help any but this is what I have learned from others with similar situations. Good luck!
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Hey MPDnnrd,
Thank you for your response.
It is sort of consistent, did you see the screen is just at 18% and the Android system at 30%? I think this is where the core problem lies - just don't know what and how to fix it.
- Signal Strength: Pretty good, hasn't been a problem
- I normally keep the wifi-scanning off and Now I turned off the location services to see the impact but then I think what's the point of premium device if you have to switch off everything.
- I prefer to use the factory-charger over usb-charging and I read it on several threads to let it completely die and then recharge, guess that didn't help.
- Background services - I don't think so, I kill all the apps as soon as I stop using them, use Greenify to hibernate other, switched off all auto-updates and notifications. Even on Playstore, I switched off the auto-updates and notifications.
- Defective Battery: Now this one, I haven't tested yet not sure how to - the phone's just 2 months old so shouldn't it be good enough?
I know they are not very helpful, but still thank you very much. :good:
uqureshi said:
Hey MPDnnrd,
Thank you for your response.
It is sort of consistent, did you see the screen is just at 18% and the Android system at 30%? I think this is where the core problem lies - just don't know what and how to fix it.
- Signal Strength: Pretty good, hasn't been a problem
- I normally keep the wifi-scanning off and Now I turned off the location services to see the impact but then I think what's the point of premium device if you have to switch off everything.
- I prefer to use the factory-charger over usb-charging and I read it on several threads to let it completely die and then recharge, guess that didn't help.
- Background services - I don't think so, I kill all the apps as soon as I stop using them, use Greenify to hibernate other, switched off all auto-updates and notifications. Even on Playstore, I switched off the auto-updates and notifications.
- Defective Battery: Now this one, I haven't tested yet not sure how to - the phone's just 2 months old so shouldn't it be good enough?
I know they are not very helpful, but still thank you very much. :good:
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Click to collapse
I'm sorry to have to say this but I think you got a pretty normal battery drain by looking on your screens. You played almost one hour subway surf(which drains the battery pretty quick) and I guess the other hours where internet (also known to drain battery) or calls/messages. On a not rooted device with stock kernel that seems like normal battery usage to me!!!
However if you like to check these maybe u get a couple of percentages(not that much though I guess):
-Power saving mode in notification drawer makes your cpu clock go down (not sure u got it on not rooted device sry)
-check turn of pen detection in s pen settings
-put the brightness on auto or put it down manually
-if you can change the theme color in apps do so(make it black)
-check the svoice settings so it doesn't listen to your voice
-if you don't care how your phone looks buy a zerolemon battery(I think it makes your phone too big but that's preference)
-don't use a bright background keep it dark colors and no live wallpaper as well
Maybe that helps a little.
I don't see any drain either. Almost 6 hours screen on during 24 hours is excellent, additional 1.5 hour awake time for other services. Excellent battery life.
Settings - General - Applications - disable unnecessary apps
In Google Settings, opt-out interest-based ads and disable location access.
Thank you for your reponses guys - thing is it actually had much better battery life. What I don't understand is the fact that Screen % used to be on top and android os and system was below it but now it has been on top.
I have tweaked quite a few things already that 4aces suggested and the S-voice thing seems new, I'll look at it. Today it didn't even last a full day whereas I know people who even after heavy usage get easily more than a day - mine one, I don't use it this much. The Zerolemon thing is beast but then the phone is a freakin block lol so heavy and big, good travel etc. where you can't charge your phone and has a rugged case.
But there's a change that I saw today, Android System is now below the screen so I am not sure what made it do that but may the next time I charge it gets better and so on. I'll keep you guys posted after charging it today, I'll monitor what I do.
Blondasisko - I wouldn't really call it excellent, but it's sort of getting better than it was in the first 2 cycles. But how do I reduce additional awake time for other services? Moreover, you might've noticed I got till 1% to get this much time like really stretched it to get there.
Someguyfromhell - Already done, locations were off starting today.
Can anyone else comment on their daily routine of usage and the battery drainage ratio?
If I get 12 hours and 4hrs screen time I'm happy. I don't even play any games. Have a lot of accounts syncing lot of Internet and a bit on the calls, gps. I get on average 14 -16 hours
I have brightness on high. If you put it on auto it makes a big difference.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
alom5 said:
If I get 12 hours and 4hrs screen time I'm happy. I don't even play any games. Have a lot of accounts syncing lot of Internet and a bit on the calls, gps. I get on average 14 -16 hours
I have brightness on high. If you put it on auto it makes a big difference.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
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I guess I should feel lucky, I have ZERO syncing, auto brightness, no live wallpapers or gimmicky stuff on, no gps, hardly 10mins or so on phone calls and prolly 30-60mins on messaging a day.
@all others - and the Android System is back on top - what could be the possible reasons for it?
I think its because of such minimal use that the system goes on top. The system still had to operate so when you have hardly used the phone then the system will go on top. Though with that usage you've stated you should get nearer 2 days really
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
alom5 said:
I think its because of such minimal use that the system goes on top. The system still had to operate so when you have hardly used the phone then the system will go on top. Though with that usage you've stated you should get nearer 2 days really
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
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You're right probably, this is what I'd like to know as to what is running in the background that drains more battery? Exactly, at-least 1.5 days is what I should get with this usage. May be I should buy a new battery and see how it works.