If I root the Nexus 5 what can I do to help battery life?

[Sandy G]

I've been going over the stuff I can do [Battery Life Help] Troubleshoot battery iss… | Nexus 5 | XDA Forum to increase battery life. It's basically turning everything off. Some tips are really useful, but I want to be able to use voice search, Gmail, Facebook, Boat browser. I'm kicking myself for getting a phone without a removable battery; my last phone, I just kept spare batteries charged up, so it was never really an issue.

I've never rooted a phone before, so I don't even know if rooting will uncover some kind of magic trick

 

[Indoler]

Re: If I root, can I do something to help battery life?

I've been going over the stuff I can do [Battery Life Help] Troubleshoot battery iss… | Nexus 5 | XDA Forum to increase battery life. It's basically turning everything off. Some tips are really useful, but I want to be able to use voice search, Gmail, Facebook, Boat browser. I'm kicking myself for getting a phone without a removable battery; my last phone, I just kept spare batteries charged up, so it was never really an issue.

I've never rooted a phone before, so I don't even know if rooting will uncover some kind of magic trick

Many magic tricks! But extending battery life beyond its physical limits isn't one of them.

 

[cribble2k]

Re: If I root, can I do something to help battery life?

You could get an external battery and keep your device charged (or charge it) without having to turn it off to replace the battery.

I use :

Seidio Charging Vault Kit for LG Nexus 5


https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...ource=vb_ac&utm_medium=content&token=PP8--e6G

A full list of battery options can be found here.

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...ource=vb_ac&utm_medium=content&token=yC3YBmQG

Posted via Android Central App

 

[macroguy07]

Re: If I root, can I do something to help battery life?

Try the app, BatteryGuru, made to work with the Snapdragon chip in the Nexus 5.

Has worked well for me.

 

[ndex477]

Re: If I root, can I do something to help battery life?

I've been going over the stuff I can do [Battery Life Help] Troubleshoot battery iss… | Nexus 5 | XDA Forum to increase battery life. It's basically turning everything off. Some tips are really useful, but I want to be able to use voice search, Gmail, Facebook, Boat browser. I'm kicking myself for getting a phone without a removable battery; my last phone, I just kept spare batteries charged up, so it was never really an issue.

I've never rooted a phone before, so I don't even know if rooting will uncover some kind of magic trick

Make sure that WiFi and Bluetooth are off when not using them. Kill apps that you are not using via settings and as for rooting your device here's a vid from Youtube. Hope all this helps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1AKqrrf-5o

 

[LeoRex]

Re: If I root, can I do something to help battery life?

Well... if you root, you CAN increase time between charges.... but it takes a little bit of effort and research. I was never a big fan of those battery saver applications, even the Qualcomm one. I found them to be heavy handed, all or nothing solutions. I choose a different route, choosing instead to do my own thing... I used Tasker along with a few other supporting tools (Secure Settings, Google Consent Disable Xposed module, Synker)....

For screen on stuff, the biggest gains are from underclocking and undervolting (the latter might get a little twitchy).... Franco's 'Per App Mode' feature that comes with his paid-for FKU app is great... throttling down the phone when you are running apps that don't need full power... You can underclock your phone and only kick it into high gear when you play a game or need processing power....

But I found that there was a lot to gain if you managed your phone's function when the screen was off. And that is pretty much what those battery saver apps do.. If left to its own devices, all those background functions can really put a dent in your battery.... idle drains of 4 or 5% an hour are not uncommon... and that really adds up over the course of the day. Things like Google Now, Facebook, Google+, etc... they all can wake up your phone often, taking your phone out of deep sleep and eating your battery. I used Tasker to do things like disable Google Location Services when I was at home or at my office, turning them on only when I was out and about (or for a little bit in the morning and afternoon to get my commute traffic reports).... setting it so Gmail was the only one that would sync, on a schedule, in the background when the phone was idle (screen off). So when I'm sitting at home or in my office and my phone was off, it was sleeping like a baby using next to no power. If I left it on my desk at work, it would only drain like 5% over the course of a work day.... MUCH better than the 30-40% that it would if I did nothing and left it do its thing.

I actually want to write my own app to do all this and make things a bit easier, but it would be a bit on the complex side due to what it would have to do.... but the end result is that once I ironed out the kinks, I would see a considerable reduction in my idle drain....

Now, this is by no means an easy task.... I've been developing my approach for almost two years now, going back to my old Galaxy Stellar.

 

[Sandy G]

Re: If I root, can I do something to help battery life?

My eyes lit up when I saw external battery. So that works like a second battery basically, because it is charged. That will help a lot.

Idle drains 4 or 5% an hour. Yes! That is what i get.

The other stuff sounds so complicated. Set and forget would work for me. I don't remember to turn things on and off. I do have location services off. That helps a little. I have Gmail, Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, and Drive syncing. I use Facebook and Messenger, and Dropbox.

 

[jj14x]

Re: If I root, can I do something to help battery life?

Kill apps that you are not using via settings

Don't... Just don't... it does not help. Let the OS handle background apps. Killing normal tasks/apps is not going to help the battery life.

@Sandy G - to answer your question, if you unlock your bootloader, you can flash a custom kernel like Franko - it should help with battery life. But before that, let's start with what exactly is going on - can you share your battery usage stats? What app seems to be consuming most battery life? How long is it lasting? What is your usual usage of the phone?

 

[ndex477]

Re: If I root, can I do something to help battery life?

There are multiple ways to kill apps in Android. Don't bother with "app killer" apps or going into "running apps" since some are designed to run at boot time and stay active on the device. If you can go into Settings>Apps<select appropriate app>/Clear Cache(this increases battery life slightly because device does not have these cached instructions to go back to.) Then select "Force stop" Apps like Facebook are very data intensive(especially if synced) because they refresh so often using up processor time and battery.

 

[Bront]

Re: If I root, can I do something to help battery life?

Make sure that WiFi and Bluetooth are off when not using them. Kill apps that you are not using via settings

Don't kill apps unless you know what you're doing. That can actually make the phone act strange or cause more battery problems unless you know an app is misbehaving. Has been the case since Gingerbread.

Rooted? Try Greenify. It can identify apps that are using more memory than they should be and freeze them for you.

But Rooting won't do anything special battery wise, just possibly enable features in some apps that might.

 

[jj14x]

Re: If I root, can I do something to help battery life?

If you can go into Settings>Apps<select appropriate app>/Clear Cache(this increases battery life slightly because device does not have these cached instructions to go back to.) Then select "Force stop"

Not sure I understood - clearing cache is just clearing the data that the app has cached (example: browser will cache images from websites to speed up loading that site the next time around). Clearing the cache out is just going to make the browser re-download that image the next time (assuming it is still there on the site) - additional work, hence, additional battery use. Clearing it out shouldn't increase the battery life. (If I'm mistaken, please explain how it will improve battery life).

Similar thing with "Force Stop": If you leave the app running in the background, the OS will manage it. If memory is needed, it will even kill it.
The app may be set to refresh the data periodically. If you force stop the app., it will restart on its own (in the background), and in doing so, will consume a few extra CPU cycles for the start up, causing a little battery drain.
On the other hand, if the app is not set to refresh the data, leaving it in the background isn't going to do any harm, since the app is suspended.

Again, let me know if you disagree.

 

[ndex477]

Re: If I root, can I do something to help battery life?

@jj14x-I agree with what you're saying, it just that i'm looking at it from a perspective of processor performance in relation to battery state. I've noticed that the processor performs much more efficient with higher battery levels. I could be wrong about this and please correct me if i am but to my knowledge when deciding to kill a process Android weighs it's relative importance to the user. It more readily shuts down processes that are not visible on the screen but a process can be considered visible if there are other processes that depend on it. So if there is an app that is not being used at the time and processes related to it are not being used why shouldn't the load on Android be minimized. I try to force stop as many apps as i can at the end of each session because i don't know when i will use a certain app again and why should it be left running in the background(to some extent) if it may not be used for a day or more. Works good for me and i experience great battery life. If you are going to be in a room for 45 minutes why leave the light on all day if your bill is based on kilowatt hours? This is why i love these forums. Thanks jj14x.

 

[jj14x]

Re: If I root, can I do something to help battery life?

@ndex477 - thanks for the good conversation
I guess what I'm trying to say is that leaving an app in the background doesn't add any load to the processor (unless the app is doing something in the background).

When you force stop the apps (not just by swiping it away in the recent list, but by "force stopping" in settings), go back in after an hour or two and see if the ones you stopped are still stopped or did they restart. Games/etc will likely not restart. But apps like G+ etc will likely restart. So, all you achieved was extra CPU cycles in killing, and auto-restarting the app. The battery impact may be negligible, but the battery gain is non-existent.

If memory is needed, Android OS is going to do whatever is necessary, so if an app has to be killed, it will do that, but only when it is critically necessary. Why waste battery life before/unless it is absolutely needed?

The lightbulb analogy is really not a good one because a lightbulb left on will consume electricity. An app left in the background is not consuming any electricity. The RAM has to be powered, regardless of whether it is storing random junk, or a suspended app. Battery consumption doesn't increase because of that

 

[cribble2k]

Re: If I root, can I do something to help battery life?

My eyes lit up when I saw external battery. So that works like a second battery basically, because it is charged. That will help a lot.

Idle drains 4 or 5% an hour. Yes! That is what i get.

The other stuff sounds so complicated. Set and forget would work for me. I don't remember to turn things on and off. I do have location services off. That helps a little. I have Gmail, Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, and Drive syncing. I use Facebook and Messenger, and Dropbox.

The external battery works well, but it is kinda bulky, since you are carrying around two things. I suppose if you had a long enough usb cable, you could put the battery in a bag and still use your phone.

I use it when I'm at the cottage and on the boat. Since there is no way to charge the phone on the boat or on long walks, the external battery comes in handy.

Also on long trips it's great

Getting a car charger helps as well.

Posted via Nexus 5 or Nexus 7 (2013)

 

[ndex477]

Re: If I root, can I do something to help battery life?

Ok, Thanks jj14x

 

[JohnnyBroccoli]

Re: If I root, can I do something to help battery life?

Greenify and Intelli3G on a rooted phone def help a decent amount. Just discovered the latter a few days ago and it is massively helping my idle battery drain. Basically switches the phone from 4G to 2G when the screen has been off for 15 minutes and then switches it back to 4G as soon as you turn the screen back on.

 

[LeoRex]

Re: If I root, can I do something to help battery life?

Oh, happy day, people..... thanks to cryptyk over on XDA, he wrote a Xposed module called "NLPUnbound" that could have a rather substantial effect on battery use.... he has gone in and allowed us to modify how often Google Location Services fires nlp (network location protocol I believe) wakelocks. This wouldn't affect apps like Waze or Google Maps, which use your GPS receiver.... this affects apps that call for network-based location info.

If you aren't aware of the impact here, it is pretty substantial and could lead to significant improvements in your idle battery consumption.

I mean, I used a whole pile of tools to fiddle with GLS to lessen its impact... Tasker, Google Location Consent Disabler, Secure Settings, lots of trial and error. Basically I worked around the incessant nlp wakelocks by turning GLS on and off, based on where I was, time of day, etc. Not exactly the easiest of things.... This module makes all that effort (happily) wasted... at least I hope so. It's new, and somewhat untested, but this could be one of those game-changing Xposed modules like GravityBox....