Nexus 5 Battery Drain >20% Overnight

[mksidman]

Hey guys,

I just switched over to Android from my iPhone 5, and while I love the OS, the battery life on this thing is pretty atrocious. I'm not sure if I'm just spoiled from my time with the iPhone, or if I have a defective unit, but even after performing a factory reset, my battery life appears to be draining about 1% every 1 minute during fairly normal usage (no streaming, processor intensive apps, etc). On top of this, over the past two nights, I have woken up to find my battery has been drained by ~20% by just sitting on my nightstand.

After the factory reset, the only app I reinstalled was Facebook, so I'm pretty much ruling out any apps as the culprit here. I know there have a been many articles/threads about specific functionality you can disable to maximize battery life - and believe me I have tried some to no avail - yet I am pretty against the notion that I need to essentially disable the functionality of my phone to get respectable performance out of the unit.

I'm talking to Google support right now but thought I'd post here as well to see if 1) other people have been experiencing issues like these and 2) if there is anything I am overlooking here that might be the source of the issue.

Thanks in advance,
Matt

 

[Battleship]

My N5 gets excellent battery life with fairly heavy use so that's not normal behavior, I shouldn't think. Unless it's a problem with the battery/unit itself and assuming you see the drain while on WiFi, then it could be your router. I had this issue (1% drain per minute) with my previous phone (Galaxy S3) and it turned out it was my router. Easiest way to check if that's the problem would be for you to monitor your battery drain while connected to a different WiFi; if there's a difference, the router will most likely be the problem.

Good luck!

 

[Shilohcane]

Hey guys,

On top of this, over the past two nights, I have woken up to find my battery has been drained by ~20% by just sitting on my nightstand.


Matt

I have checked this a few times. I would charge my N5 up to 100% and go to bed. After over 8 hours on standby with no use the N5 was at 96% at least three different mornings connected to Wi-Fi and I have a good (1 bar ) but weak Cell tower signal. I tried putting it into Airplane mode one night just to see what Android only used for power and checked it the next day the N5 had used 2% of the battery after 10 hours.

Three things I did was lower the screen brightness to 50% or 60%. The Nexus 5 battery life problems can also be reduced by using the GPS in battery saving mode. The GPS accuracy will be slightly diminished but it's generally still fairly accurate. I also turned off vibrate on keystrokes and a few other things that vibrate.

 

[Yogi217]

Can you take a screen shot of your battery stats? People may be able to help you figure out what is happening.

Here is mine from yesterday. I had 76% left after about 8 hours yesterday...
I

Also, I use Facebook Mobile website since I found that app to a bit of a pig...

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[Zendroid1]

I have nearly everything on and my drains 3% overnight.

 

[reinesos]

I shouldn't think. Unless it's a problem with the battery/unit itself and assuming you see the drain while on WiFi

 

[Sir Alex]

It's the Facebook app. Google it for more info.

 

[mzanette]

Hey guys,

I just switched over to Android from my iPhone 5, and while I love the OS, the battery life on this thing is pretty atrocious. I'm not sure if I'm just spoiled from my time with the iPhone, or if I have a defective unit, but even after performing a factory reset, my battery life appears to be draining about 1% every 1 minute during fairly normal usage (no streaming, processor intensive apps, etc). On top of this, over the past two nights, I have woken up to find my battery has been drained by ~20% by just sitting on my nightstand.

After the factory reset, the only app I reinstalled was Facebook, so I'm pretty much ruling out any apps as the culprit here. I know there have a been many articles/threads about specific functionality you can disable to maximize battery life - and believe me I have tried some to no avail - yet I am pretty against the notion that I need to essentially disable the functionality of my phone to get respectable performance out of the unit.

I'm talking to Google support right now but thought I'd post here as well to see if 1) other people have been experiencing issues like these and 2) if there is anything I am overlooking here that might be the source of the issue.

Thanks in advance,
Matt

That battery drain isn't normal. It should be next to nothing overnight when you're not using your phone. Something is causing the processor to stay awake and kill your battery.

 

[mzanette]

It's the Facebook app. Google it for more info.

I have Facebook app installed and don't have a battery drain. I did however go in and change the "refresh interval" to 4 hours and turned off some of the notifications.

 

[Sir Alex]

I have Facebook app installed and don't have a battery drain. I did however go in and change the "refresh interval" to 4 hours and turned off some of the notifications.

You're right. Without changing the default settings, the app does not let the phone sleep. That's what I read.

 

[mksidman]

Hey guys, thanks so much for your responses.

Unless it's a problem with the battery/unit itself and assuming you see the drain while on WiFi, then it could be your router.

No Wi-Fi to connect to where I am right now, so we can safely rule this one out.

Can you take a screen shot of your battery stats?

See below:

It's the Facebook app. Google it for more info.

The "refresh interval" is by default set to 1 hour, which doesn't seem to extreme.

 

[tebore]

First I wanna say awesome forum I've been lurking and learning as much as I can since I got my Nexus 5. I had an issue with my N5 draining very quickly too.

I read every thread in the N5 forum on battery life but couldn't find my answer but it gave me a start. It was something to do with Google's Play/Now service.

You'll notice you'll get better battery life if you switched location from Very Accurate to Battery saving mode. However it didn't give me the battery life I expected and I noticed Google Play Service had a high wakelock time. So it was a combination of the GPS draining and Google Play as the service accessing it.

What you need to turn off is 'Location Reporting' for Google Play/Now Service (It's a total of 3 listed services that give you the Play/Now/Search experience)

The Location Reporting service is not necessary for Maps, Google Now to work properly. Turning it off also allows you to keep "High Accuracy" in location services for Maps and Tomtom etc.
What location reporting does is all allow Google to do crowd sourcing.

 

[Sir Alex]

It looks like your wifi is on even though there is not a wifi connection.

Go in the Advanced menu of the Wifi settings and uncheck "Scanning always available" even wifi is off.

 

[dazzer87]

wrong thread....

 

[Yogi217]

If it's over night, switch to 2g before sleeping. Or put it in airplane mode or turn of syncing...

I turn the heat down and lights off in the house before I go to bed, phone is no different for me.

Also, my screen is 10%-20% now and all day.The screen is really bright and I like having it lower... Those two things I know save me a lot of battery.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[mksidman]

Thanks again for your help all. I actually have some good news - after performing a 3rd Factory reset and leaving my phone overnight, I woke up with a 94% charge

It's the Facebook app. Google it for more info.

I think you hit the nail on the head... without Facebook installed the battery drain issue seems to have seemingly resolved itself overnight (pun intended).

What you need to turn off is 'Location Reporting' for Google Play/Now Service (It's a total of 3 listed services that give you the Play/Now/Search experience)

Turned off location reporting this morning, so hopefully that will have a positive effect. On a related note, have you seen this Dashboard? (https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0/dashboard) I had no idea Google was tracking all of this information... kind of scary.

I noticed Google Play Service had a high wakelock time

How did you deduce that Google Play Services had a high wakelock time? Was this by looking at the battery stats? Sorry if this is a noob question, I'm still learning how to interpret the battery reporting

 

[Shilohcane]

Just found this Nov 13, 2013 article


It's Not Just You - Google Play Services Seems To Be A Battery Hog Today

 

[Shilohcane]

Wonder if this can help App Ops 4.3 / 4.4 KitKat by Color Tiger

Perhaps most interestingly, apps now list under Keep Awake (wake lock) as a permission that can be altered. So you should be able to revoke this and the app won't be able to wake up your device. I just took away lot of permissions from Facebook App. Here is a article on it


[New App] App Ops Lives On In Android 4.4, Can Now Deny Even More Permissions - Here's How You Can Access It [Update]
Posted by Ryan Whitwam in Applications, News

 

[knowimagination]

So I went to bed last night after reading this thread and my phone just happened to be at 100% so I decided to leave it alone and woke up today with awful results.

70% drain just sitting on my night stand!!

 

[srkmagnus]

Op, that's lot of battery drain overnight if you are not using it. Disable whatever services you don't need running and consider turning off Mobile Data overnight.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using AC Forums mobile app