Database Users

Battery Life And You: Tips From The Advice Basket

In the DInc forum more than probably any other forum on XDA, there is a copious amount of battery life related threads. How to extend your battery life, what kernel is best, what ROM is best, what extended batteries work, what applications will help, combinations of CPU and brightness, all kinds of jazz. Truth be told, most people who have come to a "solid conclusion" about what is best for their battery life are misleading themselves, and others. Why? Well..
#1. There are too many variables.
Your average joe who posts on here claiming they got XX amount of battery life compared to average joe number two's claim of getting YY hours tells no one anything. The fact of the matter is that in these phones, there are SO many things that act as variables on battery life that most people don't even consider. The obvious ones are data usage, WiFi connectivity, screen brightness, and CPU clocks to name a few. But what a lot of people don't consider are things like signal strength. My battery life personally is bad through the week because my school has absolutely terrible service. My battery life triples throughout the day with Airplane Mode on and WiFi enabled. It's well known in the cell phone consumer society that the better your signal is, the easier your radio will be on your battery. If you're teetering on very poor service, or none at all, your radio is constantly searching for signal so it can get you back on the network as soon as possible. This also applies to the WiFi radio. Some people leave theirs on all the time, some don't. Same for Bluetooth, GPS, anything. There are too many variables for your average person to cover to be able to accurately claim that "this app" or "this ROM" or "this method" does exactly "this" to your battery life.
#2. You're probably undereducated about how your battery works.
Don't get me wrong on this one, we have a lot of very intelligent people here at XDA, many far more intelligent than I, that keep this place rolling on a daily basis, but far too many of the people who try to make factual claims about battery life don't know what they're talking about. The most prolific example of this is the argument between total discharges, and interval charging. There are people who argue that allowing your battery to completely discharge and then charge back to full is the best way to preserve battery life. Then there are some who are adamant about charging whenever a charger is present, regardless of battery percentage. While very few of us here, myself included, are battery technicians or something of the sort, there is factual data to support the idea that Lithium Ion batteries do not have any sort of memory like NiCad and other batteries do. While this may be true, on the other hand, fully charging and discharging your phone allows it to more accurately determine what voltage your battery is producing and thus gives a better percentage reading. Your battery life percentage on your phone is no clear indicator and is nothing more than the phone's mathematical way of processing the output of the battery and translating it into a more useful term for people like you and I. This is why wiping battery stats and completely draining a fully charged battery seems to help with battery life, because you won't see as many violent drops in percentage because the phone can more accurately calculate the power usage. That being said, wiping battery stats does nothing more for you than that. It does not magically make your battery superpowered and won't make dinner for you.
#3. All batteries are different.
Extended batteries are an interesting thing. You can buy two of the same make and model from the same place, and the two batteries can perform completely differently. This is because no two batteries are the same. Quality control issues, differences in materials, shelf life, production date, and all kinds of other factors go into how well a battery will perform. Some people get great experiences from the $10 eBay batteries and some get experiences worse than stock. Some people see quadrupled life out of OEM extended batteries, and some see minimal gains. This also applies to the stock battery that comes with the phone. That being said, mAh ratings are also relative and not all batteries live up to their true claims. A battery said to operate at 2500 mAh may not ever reach that capacity and it may run at a true value of 2000 mAh. The case will rarely ever be reversed, but you see the point. Take battery specifications with a grain of salt, because you aren't always going to get what you pay for.
#4. All phones are different.
The hardware in your phone may or may not be the same as the hardware in my phone, and one of the biggest differences in the DInc with this respect is the SLCD and AMOLED screens. AMOLED screens can save or expel more battery than SLCD screens depending on what you are viewing. A person with an AMOLED who uses primarily dark-themed apps and a dark background may see better life than someone identical who uses light-themed apps and a lighter background. Not to mention that all of the hardware in these phones aren't identical and sometimes parts slip through with lower efficiencies or defects that may or may not affect your battery life, and you will likely never know.
#5. ROMs/Kernels behave erratically.
The Warm Z ROM I use on my phone might deliver totally different results for you than it does for me. Same goes for kernels. We have found time and time again that kernel and ROM changes are not universal for battery life and everybody gets different experiences. You have to try out what fits you, and if you're that interested in finding the perfect balance, you'll just have to try them all. That's a long, painstaking process, but there's no solid evidence to tell you what will be optimal for your setup.
Now...
All that being said, I want you to understand I am not bashing anyone who tries to make a good conclusive result for how to improve battery life. Some methods are common sense and surefire, and some are wives tales. There are some great threads on battery life and topics related to it, two of which I will link to here:
Effects of CPU Frequency and Screen Brightness on Power Consumption
Your Battery Gauge Is Lying To You
These are both by XDA Member byrong, and he uses principles of science and the scientific method to make conclusive data in relation to battery life and how certain variables affect it. He eliminated as many variables as possible in his study and produced linear data that coincides with common sense ideas relating to smartphones and battery life. Note he does not make claims of how long your battery will last, or what kind of effects to expect from each setting, but he produces solid data that allows you to make your own interpretation.
At the end of the day, battery life boils down to balancing out functionality for conservativeness. If you're the kind of person who doesn't need auto sync'ing and push notifications, then by all means disable those things and keep your phone alive a little longer. If you're always by a charger throughout your work day, leave it all on! It's all preference, and there is no solid set method to making your battery all it can be. No ROM, kernel, app, wipe, or other method is going to be the 'be-all-end-all' of battery life extension. Simply see what works for you, and take your own results with a grain of salt. If you test one method one day, and another one the next, and you see that method A gave you 4 more hours than method B, take into account that you were driving through an area with no signal on your way home from work during the usage of method B, or you were playing a game on method B or you did less browsing on method A. Keep your trials as scientific as possible if you want to get real solid results.
Above all, just use your phone and enjoy it. If you never go more than 12 hours without being around a charger, and your phone lasts 15 hours, there's no real purpose in trying to sacrifice more things you use and enjoy to try and get a bigger and better number. Charging a phone, even just a little bit, doesn't take forever, and you can get a valuable amount of juice out of 15 minutes on the plug. Use common sense and don't overthink it. Everybody uses something a little different. That's why we have these phones, because we all want something a little different.

Reserved for future use...

This is great; very informative. Thank you.
Sent from my Magnolia Incredible

Thank you. I plan on updating the second post with a more comprehensive set of links to other articles about battery life that may be found useful.

Cool "A person with an AMOLED who uses primarily dark-themed apps and a dark background may see better life than someone identical who uses light-themed apps and a lighter background"
I guess that's why my phone digs on the Magnolia Rom,
or at least Steves last version it was all black.

Excellent write up. We need more threads like this one by sensible authors who actually take the time to research the topic they are posting about. Thank you for adding knowledge and integrity to this community.
Much love my friend

When I get the chance I'll scour the forums to try and find some more useful threads on battery life and consolidate them here.

Measuring Battery Life

I've been trying different ways to measure battery life, and I wanted to hear what you guys thought about the topic. The three ways I've tried are:
1) Measuring time between charges
2) Recording "Awake time" under Settings>About phone>Battery.
3) Recording "screen on" time using BetterBatteryStats.
Personally, I'm liking #3. I believe a lot of people when they mention "screen on" time are actually using #2, which is always a much different number for me, although I may be wrong. It sure would be easier if everyone used the same measurement system. I think a lot of new users are shocked when they see reports of 30 hours of battery life, compared to the 6 they're getting normally. Anyways, what do you guys think? What do you personally use to measure your battery life?

Battery backup on lenovo k3 note

Hello everyone.
I created this thread to collect general consensus on the average battery life offered by the Lenovo K3 Note. I have seen many people changing batteries, buying new ones because they thought that their battery life was poor only to find that the battery life remained the same. So in this thread, every K3 Note user can post the battery life of his device.
There are, however, a few things that should be there :
1. The name of Your phone (K50-T5 or K50a40)
2. The ROM you're using.
3. The kernel (and the version number) installed (as of now, I doubt there are any kernels for this phone, but this could be of use in the future) .
4. The governor you use, the setting for max and min CPU clock (if it's different from the default values of 1300 and 598)
5. Xposed or any other Mod that you are using (generally these don't have much of an impact on battery life but no problem in including them, right )
6. Your usage conditions. Amount of time spent browsing on 3G, on 2G, amount of time spent gaming, amount of time spent watching videos, wifi usage, screen brightness (auto or custom value) . Also include if you always keep data connection on or do you switch it on only when needed.
7. The Age of your battery/phone (How old it is)
8. Lastly, the time your phone lasts on a single full charge. You may also include the time for which the device screen was on. (Duh, this was obvious [emoji6] )
All that's been mentioned above are things that can affect battery life so it's necessary for someone to have knowledge of these to be able to gauge how long the battery should last for his usage pattern. Also feel free to include any other info you feel is necessary.
Also here are a couple of threads with really useful battery tweaks. Have a look :
Thread 1
Thread 2
These require xposed to be installed and are basically intended to help reduce battery loss when screen is off.
I hope this reference list turns out to be extremely useful for you people.
Wish you all a long battery life.
Cheers.[emoji1]

Just in case......

What's your battery life?

Guys, please post your battery life screenshots. Mine is fine :laugh:

Dont have screenies but my SOT is 3 and half hours . Pac rom Lp 5.1 Caf D802 .

There is already a thread about battery life where users posted their screens...anyway your screen in the first post is useless to determine battery life. Dont mean to be rude but it really is useless, because if you barely use the phone, you can reach 120h+ easily. You have to give more information. Even the screen on time is not accurate to determine battery life, because there are some users who use their phone like an e-reader and get massive amounts of screen time that are impossible to reproduce when using the phone on normal conditions. Not everyone uses the phone in the same conditions. A good way to determine it would be the screenshot like you gave, another one with the apps showing consumption, another one with screen time and a screenshot of cpu spy or any other cpu measuring app(because this will make it easy to spot how those e-readers get so much sot, usually their lowest cpu frequency is used a LOT, unlike normal users)

always 6-6.5 hours sot. can hold up to 3 days or more with light usage using Cloudyg2 2.2.

Fyi, cloudy g2 is not the reason you get 6h+ sot... unless you're significantly reducing performance and/or screen brightness. No rom can beat physics(and logic).
I average 5h sot over 2-3 days with wifi/data/sync/auto brightness on. Can easily go a week in standby if check it a few times a day. Running stock sprint lollipop with latest zvi update.

Well that's depressing....I have a battery life of maybe 4 hours with 1 to 1,5 hours of screen on time........I made a post here http://forum.xda-developers.com/lg-g2/help/battery-messed-t3297770.
If anybody has a suggestion I would be more than pleased. Been using the phone for +2 years. And looking at the screenshots of yours, I hadn't had that in a loooongloooong time

At full charge, plugging in earphone and listening to music or videos on youtube , i get like 3 and half and sometimes 4 hours depending on the rom. Screen is set to the lowest. I dont install much app, especially which connects to the internet silently in the backgroud. Disable location services and all too helps. At idle with wifi on and phone radio is 90% or more good signals, it lasts for about 3 or 2 and half days (depends on kernel too) . What rom you using @deereper ??Have you tried reducing google service battery drain via script and all ?

deereper, and anyone else getting under 3h sot, your battery is shot. I had similar battery performance until I replaced it. In my experience custom roms/kernels may make a very minor difference but have much worse performance and stability.

Yeah, I ordered a new battery.
I really don't want to but a new phone just for the battery.
And yes, with those battery stats it doesn't matter if you run stock or aosp

It's D802 btw, auto brightness 0%, wifi data gps always on. SOT 6-6.5hours only with continuous usage, if add in standby SOT average around 4.5-5 hours

The SOT Thread (Let's try to get the longest SOT)

Intent of this thread:
This thread is created with the intent to expound on everyone's various Nexus 6 Kernel Settings, System Settings, Apps used, and what you are doing to get the most SOT (Screen On Time). Let's try to keep the thread as clean as possible and organized. The Best 5 SOT will be copied to a reserved space below and replaced with any SOT that beats it. Your best settings must not compromise performance beyond what is needed by the average user. Screenshots are highly encouraged when posted with final SOT prior to being put into slots of recognition.
Prerequisites to participate in thread:
You must be using the Motorola Nexus 6
Posting
When Posting try to always maintain your list of your current settings for others to see, always make sure you mention what kernel you're using, what rom you are using, and try to keep things in a clean list as shown in this example below:
Rom: Chroma
Kernel: Stock
SOT: 5h 20m
CPU
CPU MAX: 1958 MHz *
CPU MIN: 300 MHz *
CPU Gov: Interactive
CPU Boost: 0ms
Sync Threshold: Disabled
Input Interval: 0ms
Input Boost Frequency: 883MHz *
Wi-Fi
Keep Wi-Fi on During Sleep: Always
This allows users to easily compare their settings to yours. Also if you wouldn't mind sharing what apps were listed in your top list of battery consumption that could also be beneficial for users looking to maximize SOT and overall battery life. SOT can vary on the habits of the user, so it's important to know what habits and apps are being ran to contribute to your overall SOT.
Example of app listing:
Consumption
Screen: 57%
Android System: 6%
Cell Standby: 5%
Automagic Premium: 5%
This will allow users to compare their app usage to other users and try to pin-point what takes up the most battery usage.
OUR GOALS
Maximize SOT
Maximize Overall Battery Life
Keep thread as clean and organized as possible.
Keep and maintain lists of our settings
Minimal amounts of comments to make things easy to navigate.
Keep things on topic.

Top 5 SOT
Reserved Space for Top 5 SOT List

i guess my 7.5 hour sot doesnt count as its not posted here? anyways, with real use and not just getting the highest sot thats possible kind of use, every single persons phone will differ. why? because every single person uses their phone differently. different apps, different processes, camera, flashlight, how bright i have my screen, among many other things. so, having any kind of sot just shows that you actually use the phone. and with my experience here on xda, im going to flat out say that this will be a foolish thread. and again, that said.. have fun

gsam says I have 4 hours and 45 minutes AVERAGE screen on time per complete charge since February. That is higher than I would have guessed from occasionally looking at my battery stats (I would have said 3.5 hours average). Maybe there are some subtleties in how that number is calculated.
Stock with franco kernel. 50% auto brightness. Dark themes everywhere with layers etc (although I've only had those dark themes over the last month)

Isn't screen brightness the key factor here?
Personally I gave up since I have such weak signal at my house. I usually get around 2 to 3 hours SOT but that's with around 80% brightness. Even if I lowered it, the radio would be top consumer.

A phone screen uses some battery but not a ton. Just look at some of the smartwatches out there that can get their screens left on for 8 hours or so on 300 mah batteries. Our screen on time is terrible because android is a totally inconsistent mess. That's why one day with similar usage the phone lasts forever and the next it's dead really fast.
Although iOS has it's flaws, it's greatest strengths are in consistency and resource management. That's why apple can make phones with batteries under 2000 mah, with 2gb of ram, and still be less laggy than android and have batter battery life. It's to bad Google won't just stop with their constant useless updates to the android os and spend a year focusing in only increasing efficiency of the os.

nascar48 said:
A phone screen uses some battery but not a ton. Just look at some of the smartwatches out there that can get their screens left on for 8 hours or so on 300 mah batteries. Our screen on time is terrible because android is a totally inconsistent mess. That's why one day with similar usage the phone lasts forever and the next it's dead really fast.
Although iOS has it's flaws, it's greatest strengths are in consistency and resource management. That's why apple can make phones with batteries under 2000 mah, with 2gb of ram, and still be less laggy than android and have batter battery life. It's to bad Google won't just stop with their constant useless updates to the android os and spend a year focusing in only increasing efficiency of the os.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the screen uses the most battery, period.
and your greatest problem isnt android, but how you set up and use your phone. as i have no issue with screen on time(get between 5-7h, 5h without any effort). nor do i have issues with lagginess, ever!

Im with Simms. I average 5-7 hours of sot also. I just use it and don't cripple the cpu. Killing cores & turning town frequencies only makes it work harder thus for using more battery. Its like a smart car , pathetic little engine only average 36 while your fully loaded Buick lesabre averages 33. Better power to weight ratio working the engine less. I turn CPU boost frequency up to 1728 and run it at 900-1000ms. Run CPU boost at 250ms with all 4 cores on always. Also turn go high speed load to 50% from 85%. Always running in beastmode. Cool & fast.

If people are soo worried about SOT to the tune of 5+ hours. Well really you need to get a life.

zelendel said:
If people are soo worried about SOT to the tune of 5+ hours. Well really you need to get a life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol
i see at least 5h sot, thats why i do not worry at all about my n6 battery life. BUT.. there are many n6 owners/users that see less than 3.5h sot, which to me could indicate issues, with the phone OR the user(or just a terrible signal). anyways, i say let them have their fun experimenting and trying different things

simms22 said:
lol
i see at least 5h sot, thats why i do not worry at all about my n6 battery life. BUT.. there are many n6 owners/users that see less than 3.5h sot, which to me could indicate issues, with the phone OR the user(or just a terrible signal). anyways, i say let them have their fun experimenting and trying different things
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im lucky to get 2 hours of SOT. Hell I can kill the battery in less then that from full. I know the cause of the issue (which cant be fixed) but that is enough SOT for me. If I spent more then that with my nose in the phone my friends would toss my phone in the ocean lol

zelendel said:
Im lucky to get 2 hours of SOT. Hell I can kill the battery in less then that from full. I know the cause of the issue (which cant be fixed) but that is enough SOT for me. If I spent more then that with my nose in the phone my friends would toss my phone in the ocean lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2h sot?!?!
sounds like my g1(but i think it did better).
for me its my sales job, furniture. id say about 20% of my time actually gets used by work. all that other time ive got to do something, and i dont play games. so, i spend a lot of time reading. but i also keep my brightness down really low..

simms22 said:
2h sot?!?!
sounds like my g1(but i think it did better).
for me its my sales job, furniture. id say about 20% of my time actually gets used by work. all that other time ive got to do something, and i dont play games. so, i spend a lot of time reading. but i also keep my brightness down really low..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah. Signal here is weak at best so the radio kills my battery no matter the device. Heck you lose all signal once you leave town

Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA-Developers mobile app

zelendel said:
Yeah. Signal here is weak at best so the radio kills my battery no matter the device. Heck you lose all signal once you leave town
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You know, some people (Americans, just like you) get over 4 hours of SOT and claim to have not so stellar signal.
I think your signal is only part of the problem. I mean look, I can't get more than 4 hours of SOT, and I generally have 95%+ signal.
Speaking of problems... I can't get more than 3.5-4 hours (best case scenario) of SOT, regardless if I'm on Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G, have low signal, have full signal etc.)... If you could help me see what's wrong with my phone, you're more than welcome to join this thread.
Thank you in advance
---------- Post added at 14:03 ---------- Previous post was at 13:56 ----------
sandip_909 said:
View attachment 3809869View attachment 3809870
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA-Developers mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You didn't seem to be using your phone much. I mean... there's no app showing up in top 5 battery consumers.
Also, what theme is that?
And... "Mobile standby" is actually called "Cell standby" on my device.

Formhault said:
You know, some people (Americans, just like you) get over 4 hours of SOT and claim to have not so stellar signal.
I think your signal is only part of the problem. I mean look, I can't get more than 4 hours of SOT, and I generally have 95%+ signal.
Speaking of problems... I can't get more than 3.5-4 hours (best case scenario) of SOT, regardless if I'm on Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G, have low signal, have full signal etc.)... If you could help me see what's wrong with my phone, you're more than welcome to join this thread.
Thank you in advance
---------- Post added at 14:03 ---------- Previous post was at 13:56 ----------
You didn't seem to be using your phone much. I mean... there's no app showing up in top 5 battery consumers.
Also, what theme is that?
And... "Mobile standby" is actually called "Cell standby" on my device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well majority of the time I was reading in Kindle app. Otherwise I won't go beyond 4 hours SOT on an average. It's Android N that m running, no custom theme.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA-Developers mobile app

sandip_909 said:
Well majority of the time I was reading in Kindle app. Otherwise I won't go beyond 4 hours SOT on an average.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm... So your battery life is similar to what I get.
sandip_909 said:
It's Android N that m running, no custom theme.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, that's why the Battery usage screen looks different. Okay.

Formhault said:
You know, some people (Americans, just like you) get over 4 hours of SOT and claim to have not so stellar signal.
I think your signal is only part of the problem. I mean look, I can't get more than 4 hours of SOT, and I generally have 95%+ signal.
Speaking of problems... I can't get more than 3.5-4 hours (best case scenario) of SOT, regardless if I'm on Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G, have low signal, have full signal etc.)... If you could help me see what's wrong with my phone, you're more than welcome to join this thread.
Thank you in advance
---------- Post added at 14:03 ---------- Previous post was at 13:56 ----------
You didn't seem to be using your phone much. I mean... there's no app showing up in top 5 battery consumers.
Also, what theme is that?
And... "Mobile standby" is actually called "Cell standby" on my device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I already know it's my signal. Have been testing it for almost a year to find the issues. Being in America is a relative term. Where I live signal is not the best and when I leave town you lose signal all together for hundreds of miles.

Mine has been getting worse and worse as time goes by. No matter the ROM or kernel or brightness or signal. The note 7 better be a real nice phone cuz I can't make it to the next Nexus.

Pure Nexus
Stock kernel
No CPU or GPU mods
WiFi on always. Mobile data off while on WiFi
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA-Developers mobile app