[APP] [Lesser Dev-Phase] Battery Monitor Graph App **UPDATED 25.03.09** - Touch Pro, Fuze Themes and Apps

Yo
heres a brutally simple battery monitor software thingy that graphs your usage and battery level - top graph is mAh usage (15000ms refresh (os updates info every 30 secs)) and bottom graph is battery life (60000ms refresh)
i wrote this thing to monitor my batt usage cause my bat life is utter crap, barely lasts 8 hours with my level of use/cellular climate, which sucks its just a straight up .exe, just copy to where-ever and run it
this version here is so pre-alpha-uber-dev-debug-build its not funny but i thought id put it up for you lot anyway as i have found it useful just to glance at from time to time - there are no user controls, i spazzed this out in a hurry but i intend to improve on it and implement any features you lot might think useful.
best i can get out of my raph with screen on with celluar, gprs and bt ad2p connected is -63mAh - whats the best you can get?
just tryin to put smt back into the community <3
p.s. this is a debug build (i kept getting microsoft error reporting crap on the emulator, so i dunno how itll go on other devices)
p.p.s. i take no responsibility if this bricks your device, sleeps with your wife, sets your house on fire or kills your cat etc etc (but it works ok on my raph
***UPDATED 25.03.09***
SEE POST #9 IN THIS THREAD BELOW

going to try this out soon, loving the simple graph
now i can see whats happening when 40% of my battery dies overnight as i sleep >:O

works good, any way of making it show the current time on the x-axis? or able to scroll left and rigth to see what happened earlier?
and whats the bottom graph for?

07accordEX said:
any way of making it show the current time on the x-axis? or able to scroll left and right to see what happened earlier?
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Click to collapse
both of these features are on the todo list (which ill put up when i get a moment)
and whats the bottom graph for?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
read the initial post.
the top graph shows the past hour of activity (ish, its actually more like 57.5 mins), the bottom graph shows the past 8 hours (ish, more like 7.7hrs).
no data is collected when the device is asleep - and the graph doesnt get updated during these times, so you only see 'active' use in the graphs - i plan to implement some sort of visual cue system to signify times of sleep and also to keep the temporal coherency of the graph more contiguous (lol, e.g. a graphed minute will be 8 pixels wide no matter what).
i believe its impossible to collect data while the device is asleep as afaik when the processor goes to sleep the only part of it that functions is the bit that listens for interrupts (from i.e. the phone management cpu, etc) (and maybe a timer (for alarms etc?)) - if im wrong on these details please enlighten me.
fusi

Nice app I would love to see it becoming more mature, will probably end up with my standard equipment, thanks 12

12aon said:
Nice app I would love to see it becoming more mature, will probably end up with my standard equipment, thanks 12
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks, watch this space should have something new up by the weekend

This opens up a blank white page on my phone. Did I do something wrong?

behrouz said:
This opens up a blank white page on my phone. Did I do something wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the graphs dont refresh as soon as you open the app - youll hve to wait for the first update (15 and 60seconds) before anything is rendered - this will be fixed soon.

ok, a bit later than advertised but here is an updated version - fixed most things, still working on scrolling through the history - will add more features in coming days (colour customisation, toggling graph display, scrolling through history, exporting graphs as images, user customisable update intervals, etc)
btw ive added in support for unattended mode - this keeps the cpu alive when the device is asleep - i dont recommend keeping this on unless you are trying to debug unexplained power drain in standby - unattended mode keeps my raph ticking along at -21mAh, when im pretty sure true idle for this handset is more like -4mAh. so yah, not recommended to leave it on
im pretty sure there arent bugs but if you find one please let me know!
enjoy
fusi

fusi said:
ok, a bit later than advertised but here is an updated version - fixed most things, still working on scrolling through the history - will add more features in coming days (colour customisation, toggling graph display, scrolling through history, exporting graphs as images, user customisable update intervals, etc)
btw ive added in support for unattended mode - this keeps the cpu alive when the device is asleep - i dont recommend keeping this on unless you are trying to debug unexplained power drain in standby - unattended mode keeps my raph ticking along at -21mAh, when im pretty sure true idle for this handset is more like -4mAh. so yah, not recommended to leave it on
im pretty sure there arent bugs but if you find one please let me know!
enjoy
fusi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm curious to know what you think the power consumption caused by this program is. Like you, I get about 21mA drain with the phone screen off - but I'm getting that with your old version. I use S2U2 with the "but only blank screen" option and turned off standby in Windows power management so I think that's effectively putting the phone in unattended mode. Normally (without your program running) I see pretty modest battery drain with the phone in unattended mode. Just off the top of my head I'd say that 5-15% battery drain per hour would be about what I'm used to with zero usage - phone just sitting in my pocket or on a desk in "unattended mode" but just now while running your older EXE my phone went from 65% to about 40% in under an hour while "unattended" (locked, screen off). Looking at the graph for that time period I see a consistent 21mA drain. If 21mAh=25% capacity, I'm in trouble. I know my battery isn't that far out of whack because I get what I'd consider (based on reading other's experiences) pretty normal life out of it. Maybe the drain characteristics for that "portion" of the battery are a little different - I'm not sure whether the capacity is judged solely on capacity minus drain or it figures voltage levels in as well...?
To be clear, I'm basing my sense of normal battery consumption on nothing more than "took it off the charger in the morning, didn't use it all day at work and have ~50% when I get home 9 or ten hours later" so it's anecdotal at best.
I'll keep playing - I love this tool. Maybe I'll be a little more scientific about my testing and see if I'm imagining things.

Hi thanks for posting
if your just turning the screen off, i dont think thats unattended mode, unattended mode actually powers down non essential parts of the device.
if unattended mode is off in the program and your phone goes into standby, it wont consume any battery as when the phone goes into standby everything is shutdown and the cpu pretty much stops functioning (apart from a very small part) - but this also means the historical data and graphs dont get updated . if unattended mode is on and your phone hits that standby timeout, it wont go into standby but unattended mode instead where it just turns off a lot of the non-essential stuff, like voltage to the sd card, the screen, etc - but it keeps the cpu running and the operating system pumping its messages.
i think a chunk of that 21mAh is going to be the operating system - but not all of it - currently the program registers 2 timers with the os, one has a 15second timeout and the other has a 60 second timeout. timers do drain battery, as the cpu keeps having to go 'is it time yet? is it time yet?' ad infinitum.
btw, when i said 'true idle' in my prev post i meant that that is the current used in true standby.
one way to calculate how much current its drawing is to leave your phone running it for 24hours (airplane mode on etc) and see how much its depleted over that time, then do it again without it running. using that information you can figure out how much current its using - i havent done this yet, i cant put the thing down for 5 minutes let alone 24 hours
im currently working on a system that doesnt use timers, it might work, might not if it does i hope to see that 21mAh reduce, but i dont imagine itll go down by that much. there are however loads of optimisations that can be done, and im investigating them atm.
im no battery scientist but as far as battery capacity, i think li-ion batteries judge their capacity by their voltage, from something like 3v up to 4.2v (0% -> 100% [wiki link below]) - i could be wrong on that though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery <-- this is a good informative read.
i dont think the battery is very capacious tbh - any amount of drain and it seems to go down very fast - i think the saving grace of the device is that is consumes minimal power when in standby - on days where im constantly using it heavily, im practically tethered to a power outlet as the battery just drains far too fast - i think the manufacters banked on the assumption that users would mostly have the phone in standby mode for most of the day. i usually use it for music while im at work and have putty sessions open etc, so its always on - i barely get 8 hours use without a charge .
ive noticed with my battery that even though the drain is constant (i.e. 21mAh or 63mAh) the charge level of the battery does not decrease linearly - e.g. ive noticed my phone suddenly start going down and lose 10% in 5 minutes before, and then the charge level would level out and stay at the same capacity for like 10 minutes before starting to go down again - this to me seems a little funny, as if the circuitry reporting the capacity isnt quite accurate - i think there a many factors, including battery temperature, the drain on the battery in mAh (i think a spike of higher drain may cause the battery do the nose-dive-then-level-out thing) - but i also think that the battery just doesnt deplete linearly, it seems to always have lumps and bumps in the graph, no matter how smooth the drain is.
glad you like the app ill be posting an update to it in a week or so.
peace
fusi

I'm not sure what exactly S2U2's "but only blank screen" does, but it leaves me with a 21 mA draw, so it can't be much different from unattended mode. I haven't tried to monitor it in that mode with (for example) an active Wifi connection or a program accessing the SD card to see if that changes things, but as it is it seems to be running the same things your set is.
The only reason I think the capacity calculation must not run off of only the voltage is that it has a definite "learning" capability. I think it must be doing some more complex things behind the scenes in terms of monitoring consumption and recalibrating periodically based on charge and discharge rates. I know I've seen it sit at 99% charging for a (very) disproportionately long time. The only good explanation for that is that it wasn't perfectly calibrated and the battery is still accepting charge at a higher rate than an almost full battery would. I've seen the same behavior in a lot of charge monitoring systems as they "learn" the characteristics of a battery. I guess it could be basing that purely on voltage, but I doubt it. While connected to a charge, the system will report a substantially higher voltage than it will as soon as the charging voltage is disconnected.
I don't know, I'm just kind of thinking aloud here. It would be great if there were a way to poll the power consumption without affecting the power consumption - sort of a Heisenberg's uncertainty problem... I'd really like to know what the power consumption is in unattended mode as well as true standby. Even if you do the 24 hour test you have to assume a lot of things about the battery's initial condition and the accuracy of the meter to arrive at a consumption number (and, like you, I'll never have a day I don't want to putter around with this phone). I suppose if you were really into it you could stick an ammeter between the battery and phone and control for the added loss
It's definitely true that the discharge isn't linear, even given a constant discharge rate. This has to be an artifact of including battery voltage in the capacity calculation. If it was using purely capacity minus usage the relationship would have to be linear.
Anyways, keep up the good work. I love stuff like this, just from an academic standpoint. Practically speaking I'm pretty much tethered to my chargers, too...

hyachts said:
I'm not sure what exactly S2U2's "but only blank screen" does, but it leaves me with a 21 mA draw, so it can't be much different from unattended mode.
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That's exactly the case, this setting causes your device to run in unattended mode (backlight off, audio off, wi-fi off, ...)
hyachts said:
I think it must be doing some more complex things behind the scenes in terms of monitoring consumption and recalibrating periodically based on charge and discharge rates. I guess it could be basing that purely on voltage, but I doubt it. While connected to a charge, the system will report a substantially higher voltage than it will as soon as the charging voltage is disconnected.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Microsoft's reference battery driver for PXA270 CPU is calculating battery percentage based on voltage exclusively. HTC's custom driver for Qualcomm cores seems to have some kind of more advanced logic behind it, but it doesn't work well/smooth.
hyachts said:
I don't know, I'm just kind of thinking aloud here. It would be great if there were a way to poll the power consumption without affecting the power consumption - sort of a Heisenberg's uncertainty problem... I'd really like to know what the power consumption is in unattended mode as well as true standby.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not without external tools, it should be possible to hook up an external multimeter to the battery directly to measure the voltage accurately in standby. Using the battery driver information you can only evaluate it and the evaluation is likely to be pretty rough.

Attached are some charts from my Touch HD...
The battery level graph seems to follow consumption graph very closely.
You can barely notice the resemblance with the voltage graph though.
These charts depict my device's utilization over 2 days, assuming 0 mah consumption when in standby. This assumption is apparently not accurate, as the battery capacity is 1350 mah and only about 1000 mah were utilized. Out of these 48 hours the device was in standby for about 40 hours, so my estimated standby utilization is -350mah/40h => -8.75mah. This doesn't sound reasonable, as according to manufacturers specs, the device is capable of 450h of standby, with 1350mah battery standby consumption should be -1350mah/450h => -3.375mah. I would agree with fusi, that taking manufacturer's estimation errors it should be safe to assume standby consupmption is around -4mah.
40*-4mah=160mah, so I have about -190mah remaining unaccounted for. I blame measurement accuracy for this... IMO, with this degree of inaccuracy, standby consumption can not be accurately estimated and has to be assumed based on manufacturers specs only.
I'm running more tests to reconfirm these observations, but I doubt the results will be extremely different.
For your reference, I get -69mah on Touch HD when idling with minimal backlight level and -27mah in suspended mode.

Related

HTC models with GPS: abnormal battery drainage in standby

This thread refers to cases where the HTC Kaiser (and probably other HTC phone models with the same built-in GPS chip, such as Polaris) sucks the battery empty within a single day, particularly during standby, particularly if all features of the phone are DISABLED, or after low usage. Another symptom may be a phone which unexpectedly did not come back to life, but operated normally after recharging. Yet another symptom is unusually short battery life through normal use. Note, this thread is not about limited battery endurance due to heavy usage.
*** Battery drain FAQ ***
How can I see whether my Kaiser is affected?
- A large percentage of HTC phones with Qualcomm chipset and internal GPS seems to suffer from the bug described here, some appear to be robust enough, likely depending on chip revisions. If you never ever use GPS, you are probably out of risk. If you use GPS at least occasionally, you should have a look at your phone, and closely. It is possible that an otherwise normal to heavy use of the phone conceals a basic, added current consumption which is what we are talking about here. In such a situation you may have got used to a certain battery endurance, which may be much higher under normal circumstances. So far I observed currents between 28 and 78 mA, depending on DUT and OS. Some users reported currents in excess of 100mA. Note, this added current does nothing for you, except accelerate your battery drain!
How to check this?
- Check the true standby current (see the following description). That simple.
How to measure the standby current?
- Clean up: switch all phone features off (GPS, Phone, Bluetooth, Media Player, really everything). Terminate all applications, use Task Manager to verify this. Make sure no processor intensive background tasks are running (standard installations should meet this requirement). Do NOT soft reset at this point!
- Put the phone in standby, and wait approx. 10 seconds. The phone needs a while to complete entering the standby though it appears to be off immediately.
- Now measure the current. Best and fastest way of doing it would be to have a current meter connected between your battery and your phone which gives you realtime readouts. Second to that is a suitable battery tool, such as "BatteryStatus", but you have to get used to the delayed current display (see post #4 for details). Using the software battery gauge, you should wait an additional 20 seconds or so to allow for the current capture, then reactivate from standby and take the lowest possible current readout.
- If the phone is in a good condition, the standby current must be in the range 1..3 mA, roughly. If you see a repeatable current well in excess of 20mA, your phone is in the BAD condition !!
- Another simple method is to leave the cleaned up phone in standby overnight. Next morning, soft reset your phone because the phone may have lost track of the battery capacity. Check whether the capacity dropped dramatically. And also check whether the phone feels warm to the touch.
How to reproduce the problem?
- Activate GPS until you get a fix. Probably receiving the first NMEA strings is good enough, but I have not verified this. GPSTest, HTC's GPS Tool or any navigation software does the job.
- Deactivate GPS. Just to be safe, terminate the GPS software, too.
- Check the standby current.
- The fault does not pop up always, so you may have to repeat these steps several times until it appears. The phones I tested usually catch fever after only one or two tries, but it is possible that you need to cycle through this procedure 5 or 10 times. Which is in the nature of intermittent bugs.
How to reset this nasty condition?
- Fault recovery is possible by continued on/off cycling of the GPS unit, similar to what provoked this fault.
- Activating the cellphone unit does also seem to cause the phone to return to a low consumption, but maybe not in all cases.
- Try to soft reset your phone, or to cycle the power to the phone (long press of the power button).
- If you really cannot get rid of the problem, back up your phone data, then execute a hard reset. BEFORE restoring the phone, load a battery gauge software and see whether the consumption is gone. If yes, some application is likely to cause your headaches.
After performing one of the above steps you may repeat the described current measurement, to confirm that the standby current is back in the normal range.
***********************
Original text:
I have reason to believe that all Kaiser models are prone to the "excessive standby current consumption" problem. I tried it on two original "VPA compact V" by Vodafone (= HTC Kaiser), using the original WM6, ROM 1.56.162.5, Radio 1.27.12.11. I gave a **** on warranty now, stepped up through HardSPL to "Duttys_Official_WM6.1_Rom_5.2.19716_UC.zip", Radio 1.64.08.21. The results are all the same: an excessive current consumption which can vary between 25 and 75 mA. Interestingly, the current is always the same in a specific setup, but varies between phones and operating systems. In the latest case, the same phone took 28mA under WM6, went up to 78mA under WM61. Consequence being, the battery will be sucked empty within a day or so, without obvious reason. The only mitigation is a reset, or a complete switch-off.
There is no application which could cause the current consumption, at least none I installed. It does not even matter which GPS application you used. The only active processes are (according to TaskManager, latest WM6.1 version, ".exe" omitted for the sake of ease): filesys, device, biotouch, gwes, shell32, cprog, services, quickdial, connmgr, mediahubmini, taskmgr, htcactionscreen, sapsettings, aplauncher, quickmenu, nk. I repeat: ALL applications properly terminated, ALL internal units are OFF (WLAN, Bluetooth, Phone, GPRS, GPS, Camera, Media Player etc. - really NOTHING).
Before anybody prematurely states that these findings can not be reproduced: the problem is unlikely to appear if you switch on the GPS for a couple of NMEA strings, then off again (though it did already). If need be, you have to leave it on for a while, play a bit, walk around a bit and so on. Take your time testing it _thoroughly_, really. I cannot tell when the fault actually appears, and it may not come up immediately because it seems somewhat sporadic in nature - but take my word, it will, I observed this issue for a long enough time. I can only repeat myself: I am sure there is something wrong with the power management in the GPS driver.
Anybody, feel free to contribute, but PLEASE avoid funny statements like "you have to shut down all programs", "WLAN can take up lots of energy" and so on. And before you express doubts just because there are not quite many people out there who come to the same conclusions, think again. Without going into details, most users are simply not in the position to come to the correct conclusions.
BusterTyTN
OK, making it sticky; depending on the feedback, I (or other mods) may unstick it in the future.
How do you measure current while in standby? When it's running, I can see current usage in the battery monitor of AE Button plus. Just after wake up from standby, it shows 16ma. A few seconds later it jumps to 385ma and then settles at 140ma.
I'm using 3.02.DKv0.0 6.1 Lite Rom from akadonny.
@ Menneisyys: thanx!
@ tdusen:
there's two ways of doing it. First, I do not know whether "AE Button plus" works in a similar way, but "BatteryStatus" (also included in Dutty's newest WM61 release) has some seconds of a delay in the current display. I assume this is because of an averaging process running in the background which collects current samples over a certain period of time, or soemthing to this effect. Anyway; you have to keep your in standby for at least 10..20 seconds, then reactivate the PDA. If it's still showing a high current, tip on the current/power display a few times, in most cases this helps getting the low standby current. You simply have to try to catch the lowest reading, right after reactivation from standby. If everything is OK, you will get a current reading of a few mA, maximum (in most cases 1..3 mA), assuming you shut every feature of your phone off.
The other way is also the verification of the "BatteryStatus" method. I built a current shunt test probe and measured the battery current directly. Attached is a screenshot taken with my digital scope, which shows typical results (see above -- moved to post #1).
In your case - just to be safe, give your PDA a soft reset, and leave everything off. Check your current reading. If it's still at 16mA as you wrote, I wouldn't bother. Later you may fire up a GPS application like GPSTest, the HTC GPSTool, Tomtom, OziExplorerCE or whatever, and play with it for a while. Running a circle or two around your house should do it. Switch GPS off again, make sure all tasks have ended (if you want to make it perfect). Repeat checking the current as described above. It is also possible that you have to redo the test one or two times until the problem appears. You will see!
BusterTyTN
Addendum to the previous post: explanation of the screenshot.
The vertical center is zero current, discharge currents are going down. To the very left you see the PDA coming out of a soft reset, then I switched it into standby (the short flat line right before the 200sec division, ~0..1mA). Directly at the 200sec division I reactivated the phone, started GPSTest, waited until GPS was all up and running, stopped GPS and terminated the program. I also checked that no other applications were running at that time. After a little while the current settled to a discharge current of approx. 48 mA (the wide track in the center; the exact level can vary between devices). It continues drawing this amount of current until the battery is empty, or until you soft reset the device. I did the latter to the right of the screenshot, which shows another boot sequence followed by a standby, which in turn returned to a very low current consumption.
Also give a try to acbTaskMan - it's a very nice meter tool, see my related articles
I don't know anything about current measurement, but my kaiser usually lasts 2-3 days of intensive use (1-2 hours calls/day + some GPRS data + bluetooth always on + GPS once a week) and it seems quite OK for such device.
Rumcajs_tr said:
I don't know anything about current measurement, but my kaiser usually lasts 2-3 days of intensive use (1-2 hours calls/day + some GPRS data + bluetooth always on + GPS once a week) and it seems quite OK for such device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seriously thats gr8... What ROM / Radio are you using??
Rumcajs_tr said:
I don't know anything about current measurement, but my kaiser usually lasts 2-3 days of intensive use (1-2 hours calls/day + some GPRS data + bluetooth always on + GPS once a week) and it seems quite OK for such device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's intensive????????
How about 5-6 HOURS of calls a day
4-5 HOURS a day of HSDPA
checking emails every 15 minutes on 3 email accounts
sending emails 60-75 times a day
WI-FI 1-2 hours a day
150 SMS/Texts a day
10-20 MMS a day
and then a few misc. apps ran.
To me, my usage is not really intensive, but I do have to have a car charger and a couple of wall chargers because I can run a battery dead in about 5 hours.
i played doom for 30 minutes starting at 100% battery, and the battery was at 75% afterwards. i had to charge it for about 30+ minutes to get it back up.
On a daily basis, i will go to school, leave my phone in my pocket on standby, then by the end of school its at about 80%. i did nothing all day and it dropped 20%.
I would agree, 5-6 hours is probably the max i can get out of it.
BusterTyTN said:
...
I have reason to believe that all Kaiser models are prone to the "excessive standby current consumption" problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At least two devices work nicely as far as battey power is concerned.
I still enjoy more than 10 days standby with phone switched on.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1652208#post1652208
I hope you'll find a solution.
Regards,
V
T-Mobile Germany
VARIO III rom 1.56.111.4
radio 1.27.12.11
When my phone is on, but not running any active apps, it consumes about 145 mA - 150 mA with nothing but my phone on and backlight lower 3rd bar.
I've read some others guys on the forum have a power consumption of about 100 mA with higher backlight settings.
indeed excessive consumption
I must confirm the OP's finding. Though I assume it is simply related to the Radio used (see comparison in another thread where est. time of usage went from 227 to +400 minutes)
When I used my stock rom with radio 1.27, I wouls still have 40-50% cap using all day Blutooth on, no 3G, still GPS enabled for 3 hours.
When I falshed to DCS 1.7 and changed radio to 1.64, power consumption doubled, draining the battery at incredible speed (full chare morning, less than 10% in late afternoon)
I had to disable BT radio and set backlight low to let me go through the end of the day.
Looking forward to read a solution here.
With stock orange radio and rom, my device would last circa 36 hrs with very light usage and about 6/7 hours with heavy usage.
With Dutty V3 and orange stock radio (1.27) I got very similar, maybe slightly faster drain.
I have today flashed dutty 6.1 and a 1.64 radio and will monitor battery usage tomorrow.
There's a lot of anecdotal information here...
To get this to baseline information I suggest the following starting point:
1. Device (Kaiser, tilt, etc)
2. Which battery are you using (brand, mAh rating, etc)
3. Which Rom and radio version
4. What application are you using to measure current draw? (Great spot for a recommendation or a .CAB file)
5. Provide typical usage description and corresponding battery life
6. At what point do you charge the battery (i.e. top off every night, charge whenever power's available, recharge only when battery hits low level (i.e. 10%)
To effectively analyze the data, there needs to be a consistent method of capture.
Be careful not to mix up the problems here!!!
1. I assume you will not be confronted with this problem when you never use GPS at all, though you should not treat this as a final statement - has to be investigated further. So far I have not found any increased standby consumption if I did not touch GPS (well, at least after the last soft reset).
2. I am not talking about short battery uptime under heavy use, either. For instance, if you have GPS permanently on, you can suck the battery empty within 4~5 hours, max.. However, it is well possible that a suspiciously short uptime is somewhat concealed by an overall heavy use of the phone. To figure this out, you simply have to check the standby current consumption of a suspicious phone, with all its features (temporarily) disabled, as described earlier.
3. Note, this problem is all about current consumption during standby !
@ Liquidsilver:
"anecdotal information", sure. Please read again, particularly the start of the thread which will answer most of your questions. Add the thread "TyTN II / Kaiser issue: GPS & battery drain" for the remaining ones.
Please try to understand. You can get the phone into a condition where it sucks the battery dead empty within 24 hours give or take, during standby, all features of the phone OFF. ZERO usage. PROVEN, some 10 times, on different Kaiser's, using different OS's.
@ Stay0Puft:
if your battery capacity does not drop much overnight, you may look at an issue other than the one described here.
I would like to add my observation to high battery drain. Normally on my stock Kaiser rom that I used for about 4 months, normal overnight drain is 4% with radio in standby and BT On, WiFi Off. I use GPS with iGuidance almost daily and seldom soft reset.
I have witnessed extremely high power drain only a few times and they were always involved somehow with WiFi. If I have WiFi On and forget to turn it off and just put the phone in standby or let it auto power off, I have found the phone hot to the touch and dead or close to dead in only a couple of hours. The phone is usually locked up and non responsive at this point, needing a soft reset. I haven't found what causes this, it's been at home on my wireless LAN but with no active application, WiFi was simply on. I make it a point to keep WiFi Off when not actively needed and never have issues in many months of use.
If you haven't checked this out, I'd be curious to see what the current meter would show. At some point I'll drag out the scope and make a shunt as well, just no time these days...
AT&T Tilt...
I used to get 2-3 days with mediocre usage when i first bought it... and now i'm lucky if it lasts an entire day... I cannot trust it with my morning alarm anymore... I dont think its the ROM, because i even tried flashing AT&T Tilt rom back on and even the minor update on HTC... but still no luck... I think i need like a calibrator program...

display -- sucking up my battery life

Hello, my phones battery life is I'd say average.
I get up in the morning after its been charging all night, and after its been unplugged for maybe a half hour, with a few texts and a minute of browsing done, the battery has gone down 5%.
Battery usage shows that display is taking up 89% of the usage!
Why is this? Is it normal? If not, how can I fix this?
Display will use most anyway. Get a darker home screen, either use low brightness or auto-brightness. not much else you can do.
Let me guess you're using CyanogenMod?
I've seen reports of my same problem, and those that had it found a solution by wiping the battery statistics, letting it die, then charging it to 100%
But no, my nexus isn't even rooted.
Strange. Before I was rooted my display would always be 1st or 2nd, along with android OS
After I rooted using Cyan, it was always 1st taking up more than 60%
Then I switched ROMS now its always 3rd or even 4th
Sorry dude.. try wiping batty stats and changing your brightness.. are you using live wallpaper? what about screen timeout.
S_Dot said:
Strange. Before I was rooted my display would always be 1st or 2nd, along with android OS
After I rooted using Cyan, it was always 1st taking up more than 60%
Then I switched ROMS now its always 3rd or even 4th
Sorry dude.. try wiping batty stats and changing your brightness.. are you using live wallpaper? what about screen timeout.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
has anyone thought that the battery usage stats has to equal 100% so if the operating system on CM is running lighter (usin the cpu less or in a more efficient way) then the display would be taking more % of battery usage making people think there is something wrong when probably there is nothing wrong. maybe the desire ports (modaco ro king) use more cpu and thats why the display is 3rd or 2nd.
izmar said:
Hello, my phones battery life is I'd say average.
I get up in the morning after its been charging all night, and after its been unplugged for maybe a half hour, with a few texts and a minute of browsing done, the battery has gone down 5%.
Battery usage shows that display is taking up 89% of the usage!
Why is this? Is it normal? If not, how can I fix this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is perfectly normal. Displays are power hungry relative to the rest of the phones components.
Google maybe shouldn't have included the battery usage page as it just leads to confusion. When you use up 5% of your battery's power and then check the stats and see that the display is listed at 89% it means that of the 5% used, 89% went to powering the display. It does not mean that the screen has used 89% of your total battery at that point.
Leave the phone alone for a while and you'll see that the display percentage will go down while things such as Cell standby will go up.
lore2486 said:
has anyone thought that the battery usage stats has to equal 100% so if the operating system on CM is running lighter (usin the cpu less or in a more efficient way) then the display would be taking more % of battery usage making people think there is something wrong when probably there is nothing wrong. maybe the desire ports (modaco ro king) use more cpu and thats why the display is 3rd or 2nd.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nobody thinks of that
-------------------------
I am on more than 9h of use still 50% battery left!
- Autobrightness on
- No taskkiller!!
- Wifi on all the time
...and using it today a lot, mails, web, twitter,....-> made a logcat this morning and eliminated my battery drainers
Agh! I want better battery life! I feel like it's dying much too quickly....
buy a bigger battery
or stop fiddling with it so much, lol
turn the brightness down. turn the sync off. turn off background data. don't use bluetooth or wifi. turn off your location.
don't use live wallpaper, use a darker screen that doesn't move.
i know on my winmo phone if i turned on bluetooth, battery would just get sucked out. i couldn't charge
it as fast as bt used it up. and that was with a fastcharge reg edit.
I believe you just got your phone, right?
It's cause you're playing with it so much.
I dont feel like I am though. I am using it probably just as much as I use any other phone I've had.
Maybe the battery just needs to be broken in.
timothydonohue said:
turn the brightness down. turn the sync off. turn off background data. don't use bluetooth or wifi. turn off your location.
don't use live wallpaper, use a darker screen that doesn't move.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So cripple the phone basically?
lore2486 said:
has anyone thought that the battery usage stats has to equal 100% so if the operating system on CM is running lighter (usin the cpu less or in a more efficient way) then the display would be taking more % of battery usage making people think there is something wrong when probably there is nothing wrong. maybe the desire ports (modaco ro king) use more cpu and thats why the display is 3rd or 2nd.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nobody ever thinks of that unfortunately. I would think display using the most would mean you're using a pretty efficient device.
Yup. That if you want to keep your battery as long as it can get. Else, if you want to enjoy your phone, buy a spare battery along with the desktop charger and you will survive a day...
Sent from my Nexus One using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
I switched to enoms which gave me a little better battery life. Also downloading juice defender made a noticable difference, I use the free version at the default settings. I also switched email to hourly which is adaquate for me. I dont run bluetooth unless I am using it, same with wifi, which is what I do with all my phones. I dont otherwise change my usage, dim the screen etc. Overall I make it through the day with typically about 35% left. Based on what I see here my usage would probably fall into the light to moderate range. To be honest I havent had a smartphone recently that did much better. I pretty much figure I gotta plug in every night in the modern phone world.
S_Dot said:
Strange. Before I was rooted my display would always be 1st or 2nd, along with android OS
After I rooted using Cyan, it was always 1st taking up more than 60%
Then I switched ROMS now its always 3rd or even 4th
Sorry dude.. try wiping batty stats and changing your brightness.. are you using live wallpaper? what about screen timeout.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As others have mentioned, the display uses the same amount of power no matter what rom you are using. So if display is 3rd or 4th, you have an absolutely crappy rom that is using battery probably 10x as fast (compared to same usage where display is 90% of the battery).
In simple terms, the higher % your battery is using, the more efficient your phone is being.*
*compared to same usage at same brightness running different software.
An addendum to juice defender. I had it on the default setting but changed schedule so that it lit up apn for 3 minutes out of fifteen instead of one, my email wasnt consitently downloading at one minute.
I noticed that you have gone to 5.0.6, how is your batt life now? I stayed away from it just because of the overrwhelming number of bad battery life posts on it and was surprised you went that way.

Drastically Increase Battery Life -|- Tips and Tricks Everyone Should Know *4/26/13*

I've been revamping this thread for new devices for years hoping to share some of the love with newer users. Over the time I've been on android, I've learned a few simple things that can greatly assist in the battery life of our wonderful smartphones.
If you get anything out of the thread, please don't hesitate to rate it and drop me a thanks!
If you read the thread and like the tips, have a new one to suggest, or have a revision, please post it.
On a similar note, moderators, thanks for the sticky!
General Lithium Ion Battery Information - This link includes stuff about charging, including trickle charging aka SBC (Why NOT to use it, or at your own peril)
My tips for good battery life:
Tips for both Rooted and Non-Rooted users
1.Turn off all radios when not in use.
(Bluetooth, wifi, data, 4G/Wimax/LTE, NFC, etc) Use a widget like the default power widgets, Switchpro, or a similar app from the market. *Many rooted ROMs generally allows users to access these radios and other settings from the notification pulldown menu.* The radios of the phone draw power if on even if the user isn't actually utilizing the radio's functions. A radio searching for signal (if you are in a low-signal area) drains more than a radio with good signal, so again, turn 'em off when you aren't using 'em.
To manually turn off radios without a toggle, go to Settings>wireless & networks. This can be accessed from the notification pulldown and hitting the cog icon.
Wifi uses less battery than 3G, so use wifi when you can. Another important setting to note is more dependent on the user. If you live in an area without 4G LTE coverage (check here to see), then go into Settings>Mobile data>Network Mode and check CDMA Only. This will prevent your phone from unnecessarily searching for LTE coverage, which wastes a ton of battery life.
3. I love live wallpapers, and I’ve always been a fan of pixel zombies, but they are really only good for showing off due to their battery drain.
4. Set your screen timeout/brightness to something that fits you.
The screen is the highest drain of battery power on any smartphone. BY setting the timeout, you can prevent your phone from staying on when you don’t manually turn off the screen. Also, manually turn off your screen when you’re done with your phone.
Another huge tip is to turn on automatic brightness (it is enabled by default). This greatly reduces power consumption by constantly changing the brightness of your display, tailoring it to your needs.
Settings>Display, gestures & buttons>Sleep
I use 30 seconds.
4. Task killers used to be all the rage, but no longer.
Here is the ultimate, in depth, graphically assisted, explanation by the famous Fresh ROM's chef, Flipz. Shortly, in light of recent testing, really don’t do anything but force apps that the android OS needed to be open, and thus didn’t close, to re-open. So try not using them, unless for stuff like trying to figure out why your phone isn’t sleeping with system panel. You really won’t notice a performance difference, and the adverse effects you aren’t seeing will stop
+=+ A good alternative is the application SystemPanel Pro. It has a free version, but I highly reccomend purchasing the paid app. It basically monitors everything going on with your phone's usage both in real time an in terms of usage history. If your battery is draiging fast, it tells you what app was doing it, how much it was doing it, and allows you to stop it.
5. I'm sure you have all heard around that your phone isn't "sleeping".
This is referring to the phone's "awake" time, hence the name. When you go to Settings>Power>History. You can compare the lines from awake to screen on versus time on. "Time on battery" refers to the amount of time since the last reboot. The "awake time" is how long the screen has been active. The problem is, a lot of the time, due to the endless possibilities of inconsistencies between apps/ROMs/kernels/phones, the phone will not go to "sleep", drawing power proportionate to the screen being in use when it reality the phone is sitting idle.
If you compare these times and they are the same, or if you note the difference (turn off the screen for a minute, then re-check and they are the same), then your phone is not sleeping.
One solution is to reboot.
I recommend two apps to help monitor:System Panel and Better Battery Stats. These two apps (explained in their FAQ's and descriptions greatly aid in finding those rogues.
Usually, SystemPanel will show an app that has gone "rogue" and is keeping your phone awake.
-This is done by hitting menu>settings>monitoring enabled. Then after some time has passed, ht menu>monitoring>history>change tab to top apps, and see if anything is above, say, 2-4%.
Uninstall applications/reinstalling them slowly, checking after every install to see what is causing it is one tedious but surefire solution.
Lastly,
Follow these steps that I have discovered almost always work.
1. Reboot phone.
2. Instantly upon reboot, as soon as you gain control, open up some type of monitor/taskkiller
3. "kill all" tasks on startup; about 2 times in quick succession should do the trick.
4. Turn off the screen and leave it for about five minutes.
5. Check the up time v. awake time and see if they are the same.
6. If they are, repeat steps 1-5. If they are different, you are good.
6. Apps and Combinations to watch out for!
-Facebook- Tries to sync live feed all the time, HIGHLY recommend unchecking this box, as it creates a massive draw on data
-Skype- This app reportedly (I've seen it myself) likes to sync random data and open up the network for fun. Sign out of app when not in use to fix
-GTalk- This application keeps you constantly connected to all of our google contacts across of your accounts. I have several accounts that I must maintain, and by default the application had me signed in and maintaining a connection with all of them. Open GTalk, then hit each account and sign out to neutralize this puppy. Unless of course you want to stay signed in.
7. Manage your syncing.
This is a big one, and it differs from person to person. Go to Settings>Accounts and Sync, and take a look at what's going on there. Listed app titles means that there is an account syncing data. I, for example, have four email addresses, facebook, dropbox, box, weather, etc. That is bad. You should go through and turn off syncing for nasty apps you might not have known were accessing the internet, or limit the access of apps and services that you do want to allow.
The problem lies in the way this syncing is handled. Each app/service runs on its own schedule, making it particularly likely that your phone could almost always be establishing a data connection and trying to download data for your various apps. See step 2 regarding the app Juice Defender to handle this problem.
8. Vibrate/Haptic Settings
Vibration and haptic feedback eat up a surprising amount of battery. If you have the haptic feedback enabled, then every time you press anything your phone puts out some juice to make itself dance.
Settings>Sound>Vibrate on touch
Some apps have their own haptic feedback settings, and notifications are their own set entirely.
Tips for Rooted users:
1. Try out custom kernels.
By going to the Sprint HTC One Android Development section of the forums, you can see all of the different kernels being developed. These allow for all kinds of modifications like underclocking the CPU and undervolting, both of which save battery. To see how to use them, read the FAQ's in each thread's OPs.
Here is a great guide to custom kernel's by mroneeyedboh.
2. Use Rom Toolbox Pro, SetCPU, or some CPU clocking app in compliance with whatever your custom kernel allows.
This site will explain the basics of SetCPU: http://www.setcpu.com/
-Profiles from SetCPU should usually involve these for battery life optimization:
-Screen off at the minimum clock speed for both, with the max raised on level if sluggishness is apparent
-A temperature greater than “X”
-General power related profiles that lower cpu speed at lower battery levels
(Note that setcpu has fallen off of the radar, but clocking your cpu to levels that suit your needs is still viable, although many argue that the android system's core management should best be left alone. Read up for yourself and make an educated decision)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTES:
*Some apps or processes begin to run at startup and keep the phone awake. These apps are not detected by things like spare parts or system panel, unless sometimes represented in the "system" process, in which case its usage will be unusually high.
This shouldn't take more than three repeats, and if it does, you need to factory reset, and slowly add apps back to see what's causing the problem.
___----When it comes to people claiming 20 plus hours of moderate/heavy use out of their current setup or other ridiculous absurdities, consider my position: No matter what you do, the cellphone battery is the cellphone battery. You can tweak it and customize it with kernels, ROMs, and settings, but none of that will turn it into a car battery. The main problem (besides a false sense of pride) that leads to these reports is the misunderstanding of what the usage levels are, so here’s my best summary:
* *Light usage – Phone screen actually on for maybe 0-2 hours. Things like a few texts, some emails, 20 minutes web browsing, etc.
* *Moderate usage – You watched a few youtube videos or similar apps, sustained web browsing, hundreds of texts, some games. Hours range from about 2-5 of screen on
* *Heavy usage – LOTS of video watching and games, pictures or video recording, or some high def gaming/movie watching for at least an hour to an hour and a half in total, with lots of emails and texts, browsing, and other app shenanigans. 5+ hours
*I’m sure everyone doesn't agree with all these numbers, but this is most likely a good average of what powerusers think. All specific hourage may vary due to differences in phones, batteries, ROMs, and kernels… Which also means that most battery comparisons are pointless; it’s only what you can improve on that counts!
I’ll update this whenever I see good stuff, people remind me, or I remember/come across things I do.
Hope it helps everybody!
Hit the "THANKS" button if I help you!
Good thread, we need more informational threads like this.
Biofall said:
* *Heavy usage – LOTS of video watching and games, 3D pics or video, or some high def gaming/movie watching for at least an hour to an hour and a half in total, with lots of emails and texts, browsing, and other app shenanigans. 5+ hours
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This isn't the Evo 3d forum Bio . Good to see another 3vo user around these parts haha.
Stickied for the time being
demo27vol1 said:
This isn't the Evo 3d forum Bio . Good to see another 3vo user around these parts haha.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha yep!
Nice catch though, there was a lot there to change.
Hello Biofall,
I was wondering how effective is the Snapdragon BatteryGuru app from qualcomm vs juice defender if you ever tried that app before? I have used juice defender with my EVO 3D but I didn't liked the that the app was turning off Wimax even tough my phone was charging while using it.
Not only are we fighting the screen. We are fighting the quad core processor. It seems to be very aggressive.
Sent from my HTCONE using Xparent Blue Tapatalk 2
Well done.
treIII said:
Not only are we fighting the screen. We are fighting the quad core processor. It seems to be very aggressive.
Sent from my HTCONE using Xparent Blue Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's aggressive when it feels the need to ramp up. When installing several apps, the damn thing actually gets hot to the point where I put it in the freezer. [edit: this is dumb according to the device's thermal protection] I know that the components shouldn't be reaching those temps....
I'm on the lookout for more info on explicit effects of the quad core on battery life and direct ways to combat it.
eXplicit815 said:
Well done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! I've been scouring for empirical info for years and I owe a lot of thanks to other people.
Turn off Juice defender. In fact, uninstall it. You will see your battery life is actually improved.
Leave the quad core component alone. If the cores aren't being used, they're offline. Offline is essentially 0 power consumption. The only case I can see improving battery by disabling cores would be for games. Otherwise, its probably detrimental.
Felnarion said:
Turn off Juice defender. In fact, uninstall it. You will see your battery life is actually improved.
Leave the quad core component alone. If the cores aren't being used, they're offline. Offline is essentially 0 power consumption. The only case I can see improving battery by disabling cores would be for games. Otherwise, its probably detrimental.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Juice defender has a large multitude of components. If some parts use more power for you, then you should post which of them you believe they were, before and after, possibly with battery graph screenshots.
On the last quad-core device that I had used there was a problem where the cores would ramp up unnecessarily for small tasks, so there is certainly a possibility for improvement.
On an unrelated note, there are other things that I want to add to this thread, including screenshots, so if anyone has anything to add, just tell me.
What I don't get is that a lot people seem to believe they know better than HTC's engineers. Doing things like forcing off cores, how do you know that's really saving power? For all you know, the power loss of enabling an extra core for a small task is insignificant to ramping up an already active core to do the same thing.
Sure there are some things you can do to improve power usage (such as avoiding wakelocks) but if you start changing numbers for how internal software power functions work, you should have some damn good reasons why. Even a graph isn't going to be terribly accurate unless you can substantiate the gains across multiple tests. Many of the improvements people mention often have an impact of less than 1% over the course of an entire charge, and that's nearly impossible to even measure. The battery percentage indicator is only an estimation and not only varies between device, but even varies based on the temperature!
Vincent Law said:
What I don't get is that a lot people seem to believe they know better than HTC's engineers. Doing things like forcing off cores, how do you know that's really saving power? For all you know, the power loss of enabling an extra core for a small task is insignificant to ramping up an already active core to do the same thing.
Sure there are some things you can do to improve power usage (such as avoiding wakelocks) but if you start changing numbers for how internal software power functions work, you should have some damn good reasons why. Even a graph isn't going to be terribly accurate unless you can substantiate the gains across multiple tests. Many of the improvements people mention often have an impact of less than 1% over the course of an entire charge, and that's nearly impossible to even measure. The battery percentage indicator is only an estimation and not only varies between device, but even varies based on the temperature!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure man, sure. There are surely negatives associated with turning off, down, or generally altering core performance. However, taking the decisions that HTC engineers coupled with HTC software designers implemented for mass consumption as the best option for all users is foolish. The reason we have a development community revolves around that concept.
Several of the things I talk about have an impact in terms of hours the device can function without being plugged into an outlet, which has little to nothing to do with battery percent levels.
Sent from my HTC ONE using xda premium
Edited
Biofall said:
Sure man, sure. There are surely negatives associated with turning off, down, or generally altering core performance. However, taking the decisions that HTC engineers coupled with HTC software designers implemented for mass consumption as the best option for all users is foolish. The reason we have a development community revolves around that concept.
Several of the things I talk about have an impact in terms of hours the device can function without being plugged into an outlet, which has little to nothing to do with battery percent levels.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battery percent or how long the device is on is still a hard comparison to make.
You could do the EXACT SAME THING on the phone twice, from full charge to dead, and you'd get a different length of time. Batteries aren't that consistent.
A couple things that bother me:
1. You stick the phone in the freezer because it gets warm. The phone already has thermal protections that keep it from overheating. The CPU can deal with far greater heat than you know (70C isn't even a problem). Anandtech was able to run it through the entire gauntlet of its tests (which are much harder on the device than just installing apps) without it ever triggering thermal protection. Most thermal protections exist solely for the battery's sake, which in itself can deal with 50C while charging, or even higher when not.
2. In almost all cases, it is better to let the CPU drive itself as fast and as hard as possible in order to finish tasks. Let it turn on all the cores and such. Because once it's done, it can go back into deep sleep, where everything is off. This is why almost all phones, not just HTC ones, are designed to do just that.
I agree with Felnarion's sentiment. Juice Defender is probably wasting more power just measuring your battery usage than it is helping you save.
Edited
Originally Posted by Biofall
Sure man, sure. There are surely negatives associated with turning off, down, or generally altering core performance. However, taking the decisions that HTC engineers coupled with HTC software designers implemented for mass consumption as the best option for all users is foolish. The reason we have a development community revolves around that concept.
Several of the things I talk about have an impact in terms of hours the device can function without being plugged into an outlet, which has little to nothing to do with battery percent levels.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battery percent or how long the device is on is still a hard comparison to make.
You could do the EXACT SAME THING on the phone twice, from full charge to dead, and you'd get a different length of time. Batteries aren't that consistent.
A couple things that bother me:
1. You stick the phone in the freezer because it gets warm. The phone already has thermal protections that keep it from overheating. The CPU can deal with far greater heat than you know (70C isn't even a problem). Anandtech was able to run it through the entire gauntlet of its tests (which are much harder on the device than just installing apps) without it ever triggering thermal protection. Most thermal protections exist solely for the battery's sake, which in itself can deal with 50C while charging, or even higher when not.
2. In almost all cases, it is better to let the CPU drive itself as fast and as hard as possible in order to finish tasks. Let it turn on all the cores and such. Because once it's done, it can go back into deep sleep, where everything is off. This is why almost all phones, not just HTC ones, are designed to do just that.
I agree with Felnarion's sentiment. Juice Defender is probably wasting more power just measuring your battery usage than it is helping you save.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could do the same thing and get different results, but in reality strong trends in usage are reflected in battery life.
As for this the CPU discussion, all that I said was that I'd like to look at more in depth studies or core process handling. So it bothers me too.
In regards to JD, it won't be making it into the next revision of the thread, as I have noticed unnecessary draw. Honestly android implemented most of the vital operations into the OS, so it is mostly useless coupled with the other tips and just general awareness.
Finally, the xda app is acting up, sorry for the clutter.
Sent from my HTCONE using xda premium
Thanks for the write up. I went from being a little unimpressed by battery life to blown away. Biggest saver from stock is dropping all the SYNC stuff. Totally unnecessary IMO. If you aren't consuming the news and updates (you know actually in the app), you probably don't need it refreshing. Still baffles me this is the from-the-factory type setup.
Phone used to eat 5-10% of my charge per hour with light use and barely make it through my "day" (~15hr away from charger). Now, after 6hrs. since it's been off the charger, I'm still at 91%.
Kill LTE and go to CDMA only if you don't have it in your area either, or it's still rolling out. Seemed to help too.
EDIT: And I should note my scores are with never letting the Data Connection completely sleep, so I can still get emails as they come in which I find important.
---------- Post added at 01:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:17 PM ----------
Here's another tip: Go into Google Talk and make sure to sign yourself out if you don't use/care for the service.
Lauski said:
Thanks for the write up. I went from being a little unimpressed by battery life to blown away. Biggest saver from stock is dropping all the SYNC stuff. Totally unnecessary IMO. If you aren't consuming the news and updates (you know actually in the app), you probably don't need it refreshing. Still baffles me this is the from-the-factory type setup.
Phone used to eat 5-10% of my charge per hour with light use and barely make it through my "day" (~15hr away from charger). Now, after 6hrs. since it's been off the charger, I'm still at 91%.
Kill LTE and go to CDMA only if you don't have it in your area either, or it's still rolling out. Seemed to help too.
EDIT: And I should note my scores are with never letting the Data Connection completely sleep, so I can still get emails as they come in which I find important.
---------- Post added at 01:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:17 PM ----------
Here's another tip: Go into Google Talk and make sure to sign yourself out if you don't use/care for the service.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Solid tips man. Will update the OP. I always forget to change my mobile data to CDMA only. Also, I had three accounts signed into gtalk, which was unnecessary.
Biofall,
Nice thread.. Very very nice.
The battery issue --
When it comes to people claiming 20 plus hours of moderate/heavy use out of their current setup or other ridiculous absurdities
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While I actually agree with what you say I do feel a bit different. I base mine on previous usage.
My days really fall into one of three areas. When you get old like me you will see your days are all about the same. :crying: My heavy use is going to be someone else light day.
For me I can judge based on different phones, kernels and roms. The 4g days I needed to have a charger at my desk. There was no way I could get through a whole day regardless of how many calls I made.
Now I am judging verse the LTE I had and and very surprised on how well its holding up even on
my
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
heavy days.
Have you had time to try this yet? http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2230403
Not sure it works, like you said some of these apps just use more than they save. I am going to see what happens over the next few days and see if I can see differences.
Your Facebook and sync statement, man do those hit home! I still have a few phones at work that these guys don't get it.
Gtalk.. beh turns on when you flash a new rom.. People have to remember to go back and shut that sucker off!
Thanks for your post, I am going to show a few people this, maybe it will open their eyes.

Is battery drain possible due to hardware damage?

So over the course of time I have used many different ROMs and also have had 5 batteries for my Note so far.
All ROMs gave me terrible battery life, except the stock android for around the first year, eventually it started giving me terrible battery life too.
So that got me wondering, is it possible that some kind of faulty hardware on my Note's motherboard is causing those battery drains?
[email protected] said:
So over the course of time I have used many different ROMs and also have had 5 batteries for my Note so far.
All ROMs gave me terrible battery life, except the stock android for around the first year, eventually it started giving me terrible battery life too.
So that got me wondering, is it possible that some kind of faulty hardware on my Note's motherboard is causing those battery drains?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm pretty sure that would be possible, but I'd make sure to rule out any other cause you can rule out first.
First thing to do is check on who or what is consuming the battery, so installing something like CPU Spy will let you know if the phone just keeps running at top speeds.
Because there simply isn't enough juice in these batteries to allow all parts of the phone to run full throttle for hours.
Smart phones are really at their best, when their just sitting idle and then they really shouldn't consume any power. That's what you need to check: Does it really slow down and sleep, when you're not actively using it?
And CPU Spy (or similar tools) will give you that info by telling you how much time the CPU has spent at each speed setting. If it doesn't drop to deep sleep when the phone if off the charger, screen switched off at the home screen but stays running at 100-500MHz, then you have found the reason for the miserable battery life. Now you'd just have to find what's causing it.
And that could be a long story journey...
However you could start with an empty ROM fully wiped, nothing but the ROM and the minimum set of GAPPS installed (and CPU Spy or similar for checking) empty internal SDcard, expecially no media files. If you have an external SD card, best remove that initially so you don't have to delete any data you keep on there.
If then the Note isn't guzzling battery and sleeping deeply when not used, your hardware is fine.
Then it's just a matter of adding item after item, always checking of that is causing any change to CPU states and energy consumption.
You should also try to find out of any of your five batteries has issues and use a known good one for the testing.
abufrejoval said:
I'm pretty sure that would be possible, but I'd make sure to rule out any other cause you can rule out first.
First thing to do is check on who or what is consuming the battery, so installing something like CPU Spy will let you know if the phone just keeps running at top speeds.
Because there simply isn't enough juice in these batteries to allow all parts of the phone to run full throttle for hours.
Smart phones are really at their best, when their just sitting idle and then they really shouldn't consume any power. That's what you need to check: Does it really slow down and sleep, when you're not actively using it?
And CPU Spy (or similar tools) will give you that info by telling you how much time the CPU has spent at each speed setting. If it doesn't drop to deep sleep when the phone if off the charger, screen switched off at the home screen but stays running at 100-500MHz, then you have found the reason for the miserable battery life. Now you'd just have to find what's causing it.
And that could be a long story journey...
However you could start with an empty ROM fully wiped, nothing but the ROM and the minimum set of GAPPS installed (and CPU Spy or similar for checking) empty internal SDcard, expecially no media files. If you have an external SD card, best remove that initially so you don't have to delete any data you keep on there.
If then the Note isn't guzzling battery and sleeping deeply when not used, your hardware is fine.
Then it's just a matter of adding item after item, always checking of that is causing any change to CPU states and energy consumption.
You should also try to find out of any of your five batteries has issues and use a known good one for the testing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay to begin, the phone never drains battery when idle, never. If I charge to 100% at night around 23:00 , in the morning it would be around 90%. So that seems fair enough. Because I keep my EDGE / 2G activated at all times.
The real problem is when the screen is turned on (doesn't matter what I do).
I tried to keep the screen on for one hour, idle, doing nothing. Battery drained by a whooping 25%. So basically it's my screen which is consuming my battery. I didn't try this when I made this thread, so there's no mention of this in the first post.
So I don't think any other apps are consuming anything. Besides I hardly have any apps installed.
I got the gapps from the following link and installed the 'mini' package.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/par...apps-official-to-date-pa-google-apps-t2943900
Apart from I only have WhatsApp, Notepad, Perfect AppLock, AdAway and Chrome installed. Only a few apps since I did a full wipe yesterday night. Even flashed a stock ROM first and began from scratch.
So I don't really think it's any apps consuming any CPU, only screen is eating a ****load. Could it be the damaged screen?
Holy ****! I just recalled while writing this post, I did get this screen of this phone replace once, like one and half year ago. Could that be it? I did get it replaced from a official Samsung store though.
[email protected] said:
Okay to begin, the phone never drains battery when idle, never. If I charge to 100% at night around 23:00 , in the morning it would be around 90%. So that seems fair enough. Because I keep my EDGE / 2G activated at all times.
The real problem is when the screen is turned on (doesn't matter what I do).
I tried to keep the screen on for one hour, idle, doing nothing. Battery drained by a whooping 25%. So basically it's my screen which is consuming my battery. I didn't try this when I made this thread, so there's no mention of this in the first post.
So I don't think any other apps are consuming anything. Besides I hardly have any apps installed.
I got the gapps from the following link and installed the 'mini' package.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/par...apps-official-to-date-pa-google-apps-t2943900
Apart from I only have WhatsApp, Notepad, Perfect AppLock, AdAway and Chrome installed. Only a few apps since I did a full wipe yesterday night. Even flashed a stock ROM first and began from scratch.
So I don't really think it's any apps consuming any CPU, only screen is eating a ****load. Could it be the damaged screen?
Holy ****! I just recalled while writing this post, I did get this screen of this phone replace once, like one and half year ago. Could that be it? I did get it replaced from a official Samsung store though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd consider playing with the brightness, just to see of something a little lower is good enough for daily use but I'd say that isn't impossible...
While Samsung liked to hype the fact that OLED would only use power on illuminated pixels, mine are mostly white because reading is what I do most on my Notes.
And then this screen on the Note 1 didn't use particularly less energy than a good LCD backlight screen according to the reviews I remember.
I also remember an article which said that the energy consumption on OLED wasn't linear and that the last 20% of brightness might cost 50% more power (the numbers are most likely bogus but the main point was that brightness/energy consumption wasn't linear).
And yes, there is most likely variation between individual screens on OLED and moreover OLED displays decay with use and over time. I haven't noticed it that much with my Note 1 yet, but my older Samsung Galaxy S I-9000 that I passed on to one of my sons developed a brightness issue: Everything below the first 100 lines or so is significantly darker than the top. I don't know wether that's a consequence of his usage pattern (Whatsapp) or some other reason, but I do know that he typically kept the display at top brightness and also kept it lit far longer than I ever did.
I've always been somewhat disappointed by the endurance of the Note 1 but I haven't really noticed any significant change with the different ROM versions. And since I was also somewhat disappointed by the performance of the device I couldn't resist replacing it with the Note 3 when that came out.
That device was better in pretty much every regard, except screen ratio: I really, really liked the 16:10 of the Note 1 a lot better than the 16:9 of the Note 3.
abufrejoval said:
I'd consider playing with the brightness, just to see of something a little lower is good enough for daily use but I'd say that isn't impossible...
While Samsung liked to hype the fact that OLED would only use power on illuminated pixels, mine are mostly white because reading is what I do most on my Notes.
And then this screen on the Note 1 didn't use particularly less energy than a good LCD backlight screen according to the reviews I remember.
I also remember an article which said that the energy consumption on OLED wasn't linear and that the last 20% of brightness might cost 50% more power (the numbers are most likely bogus but the main point was that brightness/energy consumption wasn't linear).
And yes, there is most likely variation between individual screens on OLED and moreover OLED displays decay with use and over time. I haven't noticed it that much with my Note 1 yet, but my older Samsung Galaxy S I-9000 that I passed on to one of my sons developed a brightness issue: Everything below the first 100 lines or so is significantly darker than the top. I don't know wether that's a consequence of his usage pattern (Whatsapp) or some other reason, but I do know that he typically kept the display at top brightness and also kept it lit far longer than I ever did.
I've always been somewhat disappointed by the endurance of the Note 1 but I haven't really noticed any significant change with the different ROM versions. And since I was also somewhat disappointed by the performance of the device I couldn't resist replacing it with the Note 3 when that came out.
That device was better in pretty much every regard, except screen ratio: I really, really liked the 16:10 of the Note 1 a lot better than the 16:9 of the Note 3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see. Thank you for the time you took to write this reply.
I always have my brightness to the lowest possible and yet I am facing battery drains.
Anyways, it seems this problem is beyond repair. I have literally tried every solution possible and nothing seems to have worked. So I guess it's time to move on.
Thank you for your time and information.
It's probably my screen that's consuming the battery. It can easily last up to 20 hours with 2G turned on the entire day. But as soon as I turn the screen on and start doing something, battery drains at like 1% every 60 seconds.
How old is your battery?.. I´d say get a new one if it´s older than 1 year..

Tips to get better battery life. With or without root.

General tips I can think of are:
Use black theme on display settings,
greenify doze setting using adb.
Any suggestions just post below.
beache said:
General tips I can think of are:
Use black theme on display settings,
greenify doze setting using adb.
Any suggestions just post below.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I take it you mean non-root?
- Brightness!!!!
- Apps running in the background and preventing phone from sleeping permission; Downlaod Shizuku Manager and App Ops from the Play Store, run the script via adb and limit the apps you don't want to have those permissions. Instant messaging: Don't limit run in background
- Did I mention brightness!?!?
- I don't do this one, but don't charge your phone past 80%. This is more of a long term battery saver, as it will cause less damage to the battery. Also don't keep your phone plugged in overnight. (I don't leave mine in)
- Disable radios while not in use. I never use NFC or nearby device scanning, I turn those off. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are never on while not in use. You'll get in the habit of turning them off it you start.
Craz Basics said:
I take it you mean non-root?
- Brightness!!!!
- Apps running in the background and preventing phone from sleeping permission; Downlaod Shizuku Manager and App Ops from the Play Store, run the script via adb and limit the apps you don't want to have those permissions. Instant messaging: Don't limit run in background
- Did I mention brightness!?!?
- I don't do this one, but don't charge your phone past 80%. This is more of a long term battery saver, as it will cause less damage to the battery. Also don't keep your phone plugged in overnight. (I don't leave mine in)
- Disable radios while not in use. I never use NFC or nearby device scanning, I turn those off. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are never on while not in use. You'll get in the habit of turning them off it you start.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Leaving the phone plugged in all night wont do any damage to the battery. Once charged the current to the battery is cut off except for when it needs trickle charging throughout the night, the power used by the phone will then come from the wall adapter. But if you dont want to charge your phone all of the way, then thats when you dont leave it plugged in all night unless you have a circuit to disconnect power at a certain battery percentage. Oh man that gives me an idea.
I should make a small circuit thats linked via bluetooth to an app, so pretty much a power adapter that you plug your phone into, but once you reach a certain percentage, the phone tells the adapter to cut power and only turn on to get it back up to that certain percentage.
Okay that was really side tracked.
Back to the post.
Like Craz said, brightness and radios.
If you are rooted, download KA or EXKM and underclock your cpu, thatll help out a bit, also if rooted you could try a custom kernel
Root:
Force Doze
Naptime
Greenify
Custom kernel
CPU underclock
Use tasker to limit cpu speed when screen off or in certain apps
Non Root:
Dark themes
Lower brightness
Make sure apps arent running in the background that use a lot of power
Disable location services
Disable radios unless in use (tasker helps especially with root)
If you plan to have your phone for over a year or two, then the charge limits, but capacity wont change much within the first few hundred cycles
Use Wifi as much as possible (cell uses more power)
Disable screen off gestures
Make sure doze and advanced optimizations are enabled
Tips for better battery life.
And a lot of common sense.
tuncan said:
Tips for better battery life.
And a lot of common sense.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
very helpful thanks
chewingum16 said:
very helpful thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tnx. :good:
Zombie said:
Leaving the phone plugged in all night wont do any damage to the battery. Once charged the current to the battery is cut off except for when it needs trickle charging throughout the night, the power used by the phone will then come from the wall adapter. But if you dont want to charge your phone all of the way, then thats when you dont leave it plugged in all night unless you have a circuit to disconnect power at a certain battery percentage. Oh man that gives me an idea.
I should make a small circuit thats linked via bluetooth to an app, so pretty much a power adapter that you plug your phone into, but once you reach a certain percentage, the phone tells the adapter to cut power and only turn on to get it back up to that certain percentage.
Okay that was really side tracked.
Back to the post.
Like Craz said, brightness and radios.
If you are rooted, download KA or EXKM and underclock your cpu, thatll help out a bit, also if rooted you could try a custom kernel
Root:
Force Doze
Naptime
Greenify
Custom kernel
CPU underclock
Use tasker to limit cpu speed when screen off or in certain apps
Non Root:
Dark themes
Lower brightness
Make sure apps arent running in the background that use a lot of power
Disable location services
Disable radios unless in use (tasker helps especially with root)
If you plan to have your phone for over a year or two, then the charge limits, but capacity wont change much within the first few hundred cycles
Use Wifi as much as possible (cell uses more power)
Disable screen off gestures
Make sure doze and advanced optimizations are enabled
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes it will on many cases, but I can't tell with the OP5. Is the circuit will cut-off the battery from the phone to avoid drain? If yes, in that case, it won't hurt significantly the battery.
In general , what can hurt li based batteries : time, heat and numbers of time of electrons changing direction.
Having the phone plugged in, every X time the % will drop, and the charging circuit will trigger the battery.
As I said, can't tell how op5 is working, and it probably be minimal anyway. But technically it will reduce the capacity : http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries
Heat : 20W charger, even if its a vooc, at one point the battery will get a high current load = heat, and chemical li-po arrangement changes.
Time : cant do nothing here, chemical arrangement will degrade, its a normal process for most battery, specially li based one.
But at the end, not much people would see any difference, since nowadays people changing their phone every 1-2 years, fck ridiculous...
Back to topic :
Pixel off apps , many of them on the play strore, can't tell which one is good or not.
Basically, it will turn off pixels on the screen.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.anrapps.pixelbatterysaver&hl=fr
i find if i turn off the wifi always scanning feature and also turn off keep wifi on during sleep saves battery. actually i keep all wifi off unless i'm currently using it. as already mentioned, location services off, since i keep phone on all the time i get data through that. i've experienced battery times up to 6 days if calls in&out are 10 or lower each day and each call no more than 3 min, i'm a firm believer in hello, just facts, goodbye. i know people that live life via a phone find that strange but they will die of brain cancer not me. my neighbor is on phone no less than 7 hours a day just bullsh*tting and he talks real funny, i think his brain is rotting already. check to see which apps run all the time and kill those you do not need. as mentioned, lower screen brightness. 90% of the time mine is a couple clicks from as low as it can be and it is fine. i'd do the dark thing but it f*cks with my eyes. keep all apps closed you are not presently using instead of loaded in background.
dkryder said:
i find if i turn off the wifi always scanning feature and also turn off keep wifi on during sleep saves battery. actually i keep all wifi off unless i'm currently using it. as already mentioned, location services off, since i keep phone on all the time i get data through that. i've experienced battery times up to 6 days if calls in&out are 10 or lower each day and each call no more than 3 min, i'm a firm believer in hello, just facts, goodbye. i know people that live life via a phone find that strange but they will die of brain cancer not me. my neighbor is on phone no less than 7 hours a day just bullsh*tting and he talks real funny, i think his brain is rotting already. check to see which apps run all the time and kill those you do not need. as mentioned, lower screen brightness. 90% of the time mine is a couple clicks from as low as it can be and it is fine. i'd do the dark thing but it f*cks with my eyes. keep all apps closed you are not presently using instead of loaded in background.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't really tell if you are joking about the brain cancer part or not. Some people might take you seriously
shangxor said:
I can't really tell if you are joking about the brain cancer part or not. Some people might take you seriously
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oh, sorry about that.
https://www.jrselectrohealth.com/in...ween-1985-and-2015-in-the-u-k/?c=cf13ce20305c
dkryder said:
oh, sorry about that.
https://www.jrselectrohealth.com/in...ween-1985-and-2015-in-the-u-k/?c=cf13ce20305c
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"While the new plots in themselves say nothing about any possible links between cell phones and brain tumors, they go a long way toward puncturing the argument offered by numerous public health officials and media outlets that such an association is highly unlikely because the overall incidence of brain tumors has remained relatively stable over the last number of years."
http://microwavenews.com/short-takes-archive/changing-mix-uk-bts
He had based part of his study on incorrect data also.
---------- Post added at 07:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:30 AM ----------
[/COLOR]
shangxor said:
"While the new plots in themselves say nothing about any possible links between cell phones and brain tumors, they go a long way toward puncturing the argument offered by numerous public health officials and media outlets that such an association is highly unlikely because the overall incidence of brain tumors has remained relatively stable over the last number of years."
http://microwavenews.com/short-takes-archive/changing-mix-uk-bts
He had based part of his study on incorrect data also.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, i offered the link as a punchline to your comment about joking. however i do have a question about your comment,
"He had based part of his study on incorrect data also"
why didn't you include the part of the study and the incorrect data? because, when statement like this is made it is left to the reader to determine the part of the study and the incorrect data which may lead to misunderstandings.

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