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Basically, when I leave wi-fi on my phone has incredible battery life. If someone has already mentioned this feel free to bury this post, but to my knowledge it doesn't seem this has been posted yet.
With wi-fi off and 3g on
- Battery lost 5-6 percent per hour
Wi-fi on
- Battery lost 1-2 percent per hour (sometimes less than 1 percent depending on what your doing)
Right now after having my phone on for 34 hours my battery is still at 70 percent! I'm fairly certain this is because it disables the 3g radio altogether which apparently is a real battery hog. That or maybe my phone is just a fluke. I really don't know.
This also seems to be tied to the htc sense rom (correct me if im wrong) but if i remember correctly battery drainage increased when wifi was enabled in the stock rom. Currently, I'm using the latest htc sense rom from modaco, I'd really enjoy hearing if enabling wifi helps others extend their battery life.
your having better battery life with the Desire ROMs? that odd, my battery life with a Desire ROM was 20-30% worse compared to stock.
amlwaycooljr said:
Basically, when I leave wi-fi on my phone has incredible battery life. If someone has already mentioned this feel free to bury this post, but to my knowledge it doesn't seem this has been posted yet.
With wi-fi off and 3g on
- Battery lost 5-6 percent per hour
Wi-fi on
- Battery lost 1-2 percent per hour (sometimes less than 1 percent depending on what your doing)
Right now after having my phone on for 34 hours my battery is still at 70 percent! I'm fairly certain this is because it disables the 3g radio altogether which apparently is a real battery hog. That or maybe my phone is just a fluke. I really don't know.
This also seems to be tied to the htc sense rom (correct me if im wrong) but if i remember correctly battery drainage increased when wifi was enabled in the stock rom. Currently, I'm using the latest htc sense rom from modaco, I'd really enjoy hearing if enabling wifi helps others extend their battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, it's a well known fact that 3G uses more power on most (every?) phones than Wifi... so you're not alone.
Hey when you say WIFI on..do you mean WIFI and EDGE or did you completely disabled the radio?
I never would have thought having wifi on would extend battery life to such a great extent though, in most of the latest cell phone reviews and what not everyone recommends to have wifi off saves battery life but in this case just the opposite is true. I kinda knew the wifi was more efficient but I never expected such a large benefit from leaving wifi on all the time.
@ram130 I haven't actually touched the radios at all so I expect them all to be on or at the very least have edge on, I am able to receive and send calls and txt so I'm assuming at least some cell radio has to be on. All I did was use the htc sense rom and enable wifi.
The cellular radio is still on, but 3G/Edge (data) are disconnected. I don't know how Edge compares to Wifi, but 3G is a battery killer in comparison.
uansari1 said:
The cellular radio is still on, but 3G/Edge (data) are disconnected. I don't know how Edge compares to Wifi, but 3G is a battery killer in comparison.
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Click to collapse
amlwaycooljr said:
I never would have thought having wifi on would extend battery life to such a great extent though, in most of the latest cell phone reviews and what not everyone recommends to have wifi off saves battery life but in this case just the opposite is true. I kinda knew the wifi was more efficient but I never expected such a large benefit from leaving wifi on all the time.
@ram130 I haven't actually touched the radios at all so I expect them all to be on or at the very least have edge on, I am able to receive and send calls and txt so I'm assuming at least some cell radio has to be on. All I did was use the htc sense rom and enable wifi.
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Click to collapse
In other words you have "use 2G networks" checked right?
I'm gonna try this is now. I'm currently at 3hr 32m unplugged with 80% left. I have wifi enabled and on the stock rom. So I'll post back when I wake in a few a hours and see how it goes.
My only problem:
Wifi seems to disconnect alot during the hour regardless if sleep policy is set to NEVER. My wifi signal is -78dBm to -86dBm in my room and on channel 11(used wifi analyzer). Any suggestions why?
I have the same experience at home, I enable Wifi and leave the phone stay home for a couple of days and battery still 40%, when I go out and wifi is not connected, 3G kicks in and battery drops much faster.
I'm using cyanogen 5.0.4.1
Interesting. Did not know this!
I guess I won't feel so bad about leaving my phone on Wifi all day!
Also, does anyone know how much power is used by not having a radio signal and letting it constantly search? That seems to destroy my battery. But sometimes I am in an area with wifi but no radio access (deep within a building).
It's too bad this phone doesn't have UMA - that would make up for T-Mobile's lack of indoor coverage (at times), and probably improve battery life a lot in some cases.
But I have to say that on another phones I've used, especially WinMo devices, using WiFi instead of 3G seemed to always use more battery. But, it could very well be different on this phone...I'm definitely going to give this a try.
im not sure about the percentage but i agree,the battery drain is considerably more when searching for radio.im in a building most of the day and it doesnt take long.miss the UMA i had on my bberry.
Paul22000 said:
Interesting. Did not know this!
I guess I won't feel so bad about leaving my phone on Wifi all day!
Also, does anyone know how much power is used by not having a radio signal and letting it constantly search? That seems to destroy my battery. But sometimes I am in an area with wifi but no radio access (deep within a building).
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Click to collapse
I also Get. About 25% better battery on wifi
Well after 10hrs of the phone being on stand by I woke up. It was at 46%!! my god. Anyway I checked my email, read an article all taking around 15mins and guess what? I had 30% left!. I put it back to stand by for 3hrs and took a look at it and had about 16% left...
It is now charging after one hour with just 10min use of downloading apps ..Can ANYONE tell me why my battery is draining so much on wifi? When its on EDGE for the night after 10hr I would have around 70% left from a full charge. Anyone can help me out here?
I shall be getting a replacement battery for free Tuesday.
Stock android.
ram130 said:
Well after 10hrs of the phone being on stand by I woke up. It was at 46%!! my god. Anyway I checked my email, read an article all taking around 15mins and guess what? I had 30% left!. I put it back to stand by for 3hrs and took a look at it and had about 16% left...
It is now charging after one hour with just 10min use of downloading apps ..Can ANYONE tell me why my battery is draining so much on wifi? When its on EDGE for the night after 10hr I would have around 70% left from a full charge. Anyone can help me out here?
I shall be getting a replacement battery for free Tuesday.
Stock android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you set your phone to only use 2G networks also? If you're not charging, wifi will probably disable after not being used for a while..so it's probably rolling to 3G if you haven't disabled it.
I'm not saying it's convenient to constantly switch back and forth... but this explains why it may not be a good test of the battery life the way you're running it.
uansari1 said:
Did you set your phone to only use 2G networks also? If you're not charging, wifi will probably disable after not being used for a while..so it's probably rolling to 3G if you haven't disabled it.
I'm not saying it's convenient to constantly switch back and forth... but this explains why it may not be a good test of the battery life the way you're running it.
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Click to collapse
Well yes I have it on 2G only. Any thing else could be contributing to it dying so fast?
Well I found a way to use my laptop as an AP. So I connected my N1 to it and getting full bars(-41dBm) in my room now. No wifi disconnects so far!(maybe it was my linksys before ?).. So far the battery is at 86% with some 3D games, been unplug for 1hr 50min now. I'll put it to stand by now and see how it looks after 10hrs.
I'm on a stock firmware(not rooted). 2G only selected.
The way I understand it is as follows:
Phone is on STANDBY:
3g==2g* which are both more efficient then wifi (that's why the default wifi policy turns wifi off if it's not being used)**
Phone is ACTIVE:
wifi is more efficient then 2g/3g because:
1) It's waaay faster and thus causes less battery drain* and
2) The AP (router) is much closer to the phone then the cell tower so in theory it doesn't need to use as much power to talk to the router.
*http://code.google.com/events/io/2009/sessions/CodingLifeBatteryLife.html
4:45min into it there is a power usage chart and 3G/EDGE idle power usage is about the same - also somewhere else in the video they talk about wifi vs 3g usage when transferring data.
** http://code.google.com/p/sipdroid/wiki/NewStandbyTechnique
States that 3g standby is more efficient then wifi
drak0 said:
** http://code.google.com/p/sipdroid/wiki/NewStandbyTechnique
States that 3g standby is more efficient then wifi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Someone needs to test this ok. ...already testing wifi
Ok I'm at 11hrs 30min on wifi and its at 67% with light usage(checking email, news for 5min)..improvement? kinda, because since turning off my laptop it switched back to getting low signal(-81dBm) from the router in the next room. Weird? I'm still thinking. anyway I'm heading out so gonna use the phone more today, lets see if it gets me through the day.
Still no where near the thread starter 30hrs!! Maybe stock really sucks? bad battery anyone??
@ram130 I'm not sure how my battery is lasting as long as it has so far. I'm up to what would be an insane number, 65 hours 36 percent left .. this battery just wont die. I haven't the slightest idea how it's lasting this long I just leave wifi on all the time and turn wifi standby off. If anyone could explain how leaving wifi on more than quadruples my battery life I'd sure love to know.
Help!
I'm running the 81xx firmware on a direct-from-dell unlocked Streak.
My battery life has so far been abysmal, and looking at the battery usage screen, my cell standby is usually over 60% while idle is less than 20%, everything else like 2%. This isn't from weak signal, though; I am in a well-covered 3g-only area and my phone has reported only being disconnected about 4% of the time.
Another strange thing is, my data indicator is constantly switching between the H symbol and the 3g symbol.
Anybody know what's going on?
It might be that while you are well covered for 3g, you are marginal for HSDPA and that constant switching back and forth is using your battery. I have not tried it but have a look and see if you can disable HSDPA in settings somewhere and see if that helps.
i'm usually around 40% cell standby.. do u have any task killer apps installed? although people think those are useful they usually do more harm then good.
I have the same problem, and I used another Android phone in the same location (hence same cell coverage) with no such problems. I just took my phone off the charger and had the display on since then non-stop. Cell standby used as much battery as the display!! There's no way that is appropriate.
I'm running build 8102, but it was the same with 6941 before. Can't tell about 1.6 as I bought my streak used with 6941 on it.
What Android version are you guys running? Maybe we can find common denominators.. :/
Edit: here's a screen shot of the battery usage after a while off the charger with the screen on constantly:
http://i.imgur.com/3OrqZ.png
You must be Australian W0nk0
Do you think your antenna might be loose or defective?
I can't imagine the antenna to be loose really - but who knows, I bought mine used. If so, I think there is a signal strength value in " about phone" somewhere, no?
What signal strength are others getting? I'll post mine later, I'm on airplane mode right now so that I get some battery life.. :/
For signal strength, I am getting -75 to -95, and 9 to 12 for the two values while riding the train (not subway).
It also appears my battery life is quite good when my phone is in standby and not doing anything... the problem seems to come from net browsing or anything else that uses an active connection... Just browsng XDA is taking about 2% a minute!
Oh and my android is the 81xx 2.1 version with the modaco tweaks
Sent from my Dell Streak using XDA App
I had really high cell stand-by too. then i installed juicedefender, now my cell standby is down to about 29%.
I think the main thing is that it disables data connections while your screen is off and only turns it back on when the screen is on and unlocked. It also has a setting where it enables data connection periodically to allow background syncs and whatnot.
I'd recommend you guys give it a go, it had almost doubled my battery life!!
Mine shows,
cell stand by 50%
phone idle 44%
it seems quite common on the streak as I read in all the forums. I am on 2.1 stock rom? what's 1.6 like?
Hey, I am trying to figure out why my battery drain is so high. Part of it is the display (trying to work on that too) but I see that my "phone signal" is quite bad. I have a feeling that this is draining my battery.
I have attached my battery stats. Do they look normal. And does the phone signal look normal or below normal. I think it is worth noting that I almost always have 4 bars of signal so I am not sure whats going on. I use my phone in Canada on the fido/rogers network (i believe it is the same as At&t in the states). Is there another radio I can flash or something if this is not normal (which will still work with my phone/network)?
Thanks a lot
Reports are that using 3G a lot drains the battery immensly.
Try switching to use 2G only and see how that affects your battery life.
Greetz
frutelaken said:
Reports are that using 3G a lot drains the battery immensly.
Try switching to use 2G only and see how that affects your battery life.
Greetz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont think it is worth it to pay $30 a month to use 2g networks. I will try to turn off the 3g radio when on wifi though. And maybe only turn on 3g when i need it. As for the phone signal bar. Is it the same or worse than what you guys are getting?
asb123 said:
I dont think it is worth it to pay $30 a month to use 2g networks. I will try to turn off the 3g radio when on wifi though. And maybe only turn on 3g when i need it. As for the phone signal bar. Is it the same or worse than what you guys are getting?
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Click to collapse
It already works this way. Wifi is going to be your best bet to lessen drain if available (both in standby and when using data - just make sure you have the sleep policy set to never).
If you have poor signal you are going to murder your battery - no way around it. The radio will boost power (Gain is adjusted automatically) in an attempt to get a better signal - and constantly search for a better one. So if you are bouncing between no service and 1 bar or even with just a weak 1 bar signal you are going to see atrocious battery life. There's not much you can do there except potentially switch to SIP in those times if you use a SIP provider.
If you are sitting with 4 bars then you should be seeing decidedly better battery life. What is the actual time the display was on in that screenshot?
I use 3G and its fine. What radio are you using?
the choices are: JK8, KB1, KB3, KD1
you can find them on the dev forums
asb123 said:
Hey, I am trying to figure out why my battery drain is so high. Part of it is the display (trying to work on that too) but I see that my "phone signal" is quite bad. I have a feeling that this is draining my battery.
I have attached my battery stats. Do they look normal. And does the phone signal look normal or below normal. I think it is worth noting that I almost always have 4 bars of signal so I am not sure whats going on. I use my phone in Canada on the fido/rogers network (i believe it is the same as At&t in the states). Is there another radio I can flash or something if this is not normal (which will still work with my phone/network)?
Thanks a lot
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Click to collapse
that looks pretty normal for that kind of usage. id say that you were a moderately heavy to heavy user.
krohnjw said:
It already works this way. Wifi is going to be your best bet to lessen drain if available (both in standby and when using data - just make sure you have the sleep policy set to never).
If you have poor signal you are going to murder your battery - no way around it. The radio will boost power (Gain is adjusted automatically) in an attempt to get a better signal - and constantly search for a better one. So if you are bouncing between no service and 1 bar or even with just a weak 1 bar signal you are going to see atrocious battery life. There's not much you can do there except potentially switch to SIP in those times if you use a SIP provider.
If you are sitting with 4 bars then you should be seeing decidedly better battery life. What is the actual time the display was on in that screenshot?
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Click to collapse
I usually have about 3-4 bars. The time on for the display was probably just over 2 hours (judging from what it is now).
zephiK said:
I use 3G and its fine. What radio are you using?
the choices are: JK8, KB1, KB3, KD1
you can find them on the dev forums
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Click to collapse
I have KD1, how does that stack up?
also, I am using netarchy bfs kernel if that matters.
simms22 said:
that looks pretty normal for that kind of usage. id say that you were a moderately heavy to heavy user.
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Click to collapse
I agree. you're a pretty heavy user So far different radio doesn't drain battery, but only the difference of data connection speed cap.
window7 said:
I agree. you're a pretty heavy user So far different radio doesn't drain battery, but only the difference of data connection speed cap.
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Click to collapse
Yes I do love android (been tinkering around since the g1). I do realize that I am a heavier user than the average person but it might also be that I recently got this phone so I am using it more.
Aside from that, does everything else seem normal?
"Android System" should not be taking such a high %. It should be about 1-2%.
There is (was?) a bug that causes high cpu usage (and shows as Android System) when wifi is on, but not connected to a network.
Another thing I can think of and is something I've experienced, is that sometimes you get an IP address from the mobile network that has a lot of noise, that is, it's an address someone has likely used p2p programs with and there are lots of connection retries. You can see it because the green arrows don't stay dark for more than a couple of seconds, and it kills your battery quite fast. Reconnecting to get a different IP address is the only solution...
Also, bluetooth may be a factor...
spamlucal said:
"Android System" should not be taking such a high %. It should be about 1-2%.
There is (was?) a bug that causes high cpu usage (and shows as Android System) when wifi is on, but not connected to a network.
Another thing I can think of and is something I've experienced, is that sometimes you get an IP address from the mobile network that has a lot of noise, that is, it's an address someone has likely used p2p programs with and there are lots of connection retries. You can see it because the green arrows don't stay dark for more than a couple of seconds, and it kills your battery quite fast. Reconnecting to get a different IP address is the only solution...
Also, bluetooth may be a factor...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Blutooth is always off unless I need to use it (which is rare). I am not sure how to make my mobile network connect to a different IP adresse, would turning it on and off do the trick?
Being in area where there is low/no signal also causes my battery drain to increase by a lot! Which sucks cos where i live i get either 1 or no bars of signal.
I am having a problem, my 3g and H signal are constantly changing, and idk if it does, but my battery life seems effected. the "phone" portion in the battery statictics is always somewhere at around 50 percent. i have tmobile, signal seems fine im always getting somewehre are 9mbs and even 17 by my job.
Hello, so i have had an internationally unlocked 900 f for a while now, and i am currently on the latest phoenix rom with ktoon kernel, and i have noticed that in canada, the reception is always poor, 1-2 bars and it might spend a couple of hours without signal at all, and i believe it is why my battery only lasts for 10 hours with only 1 hour of screen on time.
Can anyone help me fix this please, i have tried only gsm, and wdsm( or whatever is in the options) and lte, and they all yeild around the same except lte, which is almost nonexistent reception. I have went through all my wakelocks and they seem harmless, at the 10% level of batter, i have 5 min wake locks, whic seems fine