M8 Battery Issues

[MoonDawg92]

Hello all! I'm a newly converted Android user, and I just got the new M8. I honestly don't know why it took me so long to switch from iOS. So far, I LOVE this phone. However, I am having one annoying issue.

My battery life just isn't that good. I barely made it through one day before I had to plug it in. I've been tinkering with it for a few hours to try and fix it, but I'm not sure if I'm missing something obvious. All I've done is listen to Spotify, play a game or two, browse the internet, and text.

I have minimum brightness, turned location off, closed my apps, turned Auto Sync off, installed DU Battery Saver to close background apps, disabled BlinkFeed, and shut off my live wallpaper. However, the battery life has still not been anything special.

I've seen people on the forum going over two days with no problem, so I thought I would ask what's up!

If anyone has any tips, they would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Golfdriver97]

Welcome to the forums.
Something to keep in mind is your battery needs a few charge cycles to get in the swing of things. Give it a few more days and see what happens.

From a Liquid Nexus 5

 

[Aquila]

Most, if not all of the screenshots I have seen so far have been between 12 and 24 hours of battery life per charge. As far as I know the only two devices that break into a second day in any meaningful way are the Droid Maxx and LG G2. I would love to see evidence that I am incorrect on this, but medium to heavy use seems to be getting people through a solid day of use but still requiring daily charges.

Note: I do not have this device, so I am relying 100% on screenshots of people who have purchased the device.

 

[mchockeyvette27]

Honestly if you aren't getting excellent battery life out of the box you may just need to factory reset it. I've seen a couple people with this problem and many segestions to fix it but they never seem to work. As long as you've given it a couple full charges already and you don't have great battery life, I'd reset the phone. There may be a rogue app but sometimes it's hard to find. And resetting it will make sure everything is completely back to normal and you can start fresh.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

[MoonDawg92]

Welcome to the forums.
Something to keep in mind is your battery needs a few charge cycles to get in the swing of things. Give it a few more days and see what happens.

From a Liquid Nexus 5

Great, I will try that then. I also discovered that Google Now was still on which I heard can be a battery killer. Hopefully, this will improve it!

Posted via Android Central App

 

[mchockeyvette27]

Great, I will try that then. I also discovered that Google Now was still on which I heard can be a battery killer. Hopefully, this will improve it!

Posted via Android Central App

I have had Google now on all of my phones since it was first introduced to android and I have never had a problem with it. Maybe I'll get slightly better battery with it turned off but it offers so much to not want to do that.

 

[MoonDawg92]

Also, I should mention that I am also using the Dot case as well. I don't know if that could be a possible culprit since it prompts the phone for Dot view.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[jaystevens1971]

Had my M8 about two weeks so about 9 or so charges and it is just starting to give me over 24 hours battery use, so just give it some time, as I type this over use 24 hours with 43% battery left

Posted via Android Central App

 

[scottysize]

So a couple of things. I've had iPhones as well as Android. Android, while the battery life is getting better, is still is subpar when it comes to battery life as opposed to the iPhone. My iPhone 4 & 5 would last all day and then some without a charge. However, it would take a 3300mAh battery to perform the same as those two phones. Having said that, when I think back to my first 2 Android devices, the Original (OG) Droid and the HTC Droid Incredible (Dinc), neither phone would last 4 hours without requiring a charge. Now I can get a full day out of this phone. That's vastly improved.

Another thing to keep in mind is Android phones are not like iPhones when it comes to the battery. While Apple recommends you "kill" the phone once a month to refresh the battery, Android phones do not like it when you do this. Android phones respond better when you take them down to 15%, turn them off, and then let them fully charge on the original charger. This will "freshen" up your battery and give you the longest amount of use.

One more item to take a look at is location. If you have location update turned on, but the phone cannot see the satellites, then it's going to be searching all day to try and give you the current location of your phone draining your battery.

 

[Golfdriver97]

Great, I will try that then. I also discovered that Google Now was still on which I heard can be a battery killer. Hopefully, this will improve it!

Posted via Android Central App

You can also make location reporting a little easier on the battery too. Go to Settings>Location>Tap 'Mode'>Change to battery saving.
This will allow you to use Google Now as much as you want, but not kill the battery.

 

[sramse05]

MoonDawg- Battery life is the only thing that I haven't been impressed with either, games and streaming video seem to have a larger than normal impact on the battery cycle. I had a Note 3 prior to this device and was really spoiled by it's battery life. For context I'm definitely a heavy user and don't do things like dim the screen, etc. and I've been getting around 8-12 hours before I hit the 15% mark.

 

[Skyway]

So a couple of things. I've had iPhones as well as Android. Android, while the battery life is getting better, is still is subpar when it comes to battery life as opposed to the iPhone. My iPhone 4 & 5 would last all day and then some without a charge. However, it would take a 3300mAh battery to perform the same as those two phones. Having said that, when I think back to my first 2 Android devices, the Original (OG) Droid and the HTC Droid Incredible (Dinc), neither phone would last 4 hours without requiring a charge. Now I can get a full day out of this phone. That's vastly improved.

Another thing to keep in mind is Android phones are not like iPhones when it comes to the battery. While Apple recommends you "kill" the phone once a month to refresh the battery, Android phones do not like it when you do this. Android phones respond better when you take them down to 15%, turn them off, and then let them fully charge on the original charger. This will "freshen" up your battery and give you the longest amount of use.

One more item to take a look at is location. If you have location update turned on, but the phone cannot see the satellites, then it's going to be searching all day to try and give you the current location of your phone draining your battery.

I don't think this is correct. Lithium ion batteries don't keep a memory, they don't know if you drain them to 0 or 15%. The only reason apple suggests draining your battery once a month is to recalibrate the battery gauge meter, which has nothing to do with battery life.

Now I'm not going to claim that android and ios don't manage their batteries differently, but the actual battery chemistry is the same. You can drain the battery in your android phone just the same as in an iPhone and have no repercussions.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Aquila]

I don't think this is correct. Lithium ion batteries don't keep a memory, they don't know if you drain them to 0 or 15%. The only reason apple suggests draining your battery once a month is to recalibrate the battery gauge meter, which has nothing to do with battery life.

Now I'm not going to claim that android and ios don't manage their batteries differently, but the actual battery chemistry is the same. You can drain the battery in your android phone just the same as in an iPhone and have no repercussions.

Posted via Android Central App

You are more correct than not. Battery life is not improved by draining it excessively (or at all) and on some devices, letting it drop too low can be really bad for it. The most generic guidelines are to try to keep the battery as close to 80% as possible, but if you are tasked with a choice between letting it fall below 15-20% and leaving it topped off at 95-100%, it is far better to leave it topped off. Here is another thread where we discussed the battery in the M7. http://forums.androidcentral.com/htc-one/288313-safe-charge-battery-overnight-2.html Some devices, such as the Nexus 7 2012, risk long term damage from being allowed to fall to 0%, while others mitigate this by doing a soft shut-down prior to the critical state.

The most relevant quote:

If you click on the link in the post you quoted there are other articles. There is one about how to keep lithium batteries healthy or something to that effect. The tldr is the less deep and less often a battery is discharged the better. Charge often. No, never let the battery hit 0 if you can. This is one of the worst things you can do for battery life.

The other relevant admonition is to avoid using the device while it is charging, as much as you can do so reasonably.

 

[scottysize]

You are more correct than not. Battery life is not improved by draining it excessively (or at all) and on some devices, letting it drop too low can be really bad for it. The most generic guidelines are to try to keep the battery as close to 80% as possible, but if you are tasked with a choice between letting it fall below 15-20% and leaving it topped off at 95-100%, it is far better to leave it topped off. Here is another thread where we discussed the battery in the M7. http://forums.androidcentral.com/htc-one/288313-safe-charge-battery-overnight-2.html Some devices, such as the Nexus 7 2012, risk long term damage from being allowed to fall to 0%, while others mitigate this by doing a soft shut-down prior to the critical state.

The most relevant quote:



The other relevant admonition is to avoid using the device while it is charging, as much as you can do so reasonably.

That's the motto I've always gone by since we started using Lithium Ion Batteries. I've never tested this, nor would I want to, but I've read in many different places that letting a Lithium Ion fall to 0% hurts it more than helps, meaning you should not let it go to 0. Like I said, it's not my experience because I don't want to ruin my non-replaceable battery.

 

[MoonDawg92]

Had my M8 about two weeks so about 9 or so charges and it is just starting to give me over 24 hours battery use, so just give it some time, as I type this over use 24 hours with 43% battery left

Posted via Android Central App

Good to hear. My battery life had been pretty rough still so hopefully it will get better.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Lecrae116]

You can also make location reporting a little easier on the battery too. Go to Settings>Location>Tap 'Mode'>Change to battery saving.
This will allow you to use Google Now as much as you want, but not kill the battery.

Do I need location reporting and history on even though my location is set on battery saving?

Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk

 

[Golfdriver97]

Do I need location reporting and history on even though my location is set on battery saving?

Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk

I keep it on. I use Google Now a fair amount, and keeping the location on adds depth to the service.

 

[MoonDawg92]

I keep it on. I use Google Now a fair amount, and keeping the location on adds depth to the service.

I'm going to play around with Google Now once my battery life improves a bit.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[raichur0xx0rz]

Some devices, such as the Nexus 7 2012, risk long term damage from being allowed to fall to 0%, while others mitigate this by doing a soft shut-down prior to the critical state.

Ugh, that was incredibly annoying... I had a buyer of my Nexus 7 return my tablet twice because of that bug.

---

In regards to battery life, it's kind of hard to say if you're experiencing anything out of the ordinary, as there are numerous things that affect battery life. The biggest drains are signal strength and the screen usage.

I would avoid those apps that automatically close your background apps, as Android does a good enough job managing that kind of thing on its own. I would probably just manually close off games and the like, but most other apps won't have a big impact.

How long have you had the device? You may have been using it slightly more than normal if it's still new to you so definitely give it a few days and see if there are any improvements. I wouldn't expect 2 days out of it, based on the usage you described, but it should comfortably make it through a normal day. I only get 2 days out of mine because I barely use my phone =\