Very Poor Battery Life After 5.1.1 Update

[NewAndroidNoob]

Hi, so I'm new to Android. Just started back in May. Decided to go with the S6 as my first phone. Works fine. Battery life isn't great, but it was acceptable. But after this latest update, it's ridiculous. Can someone guide me on what's wrong with my phone? Before, if I left it unplugged overnight, it might drop 5% if that. I can leave at 8AM and with light to moderate use, I would still have 50-60% by 6PM. That's not bad to me. But the other day, I was down to 10% during that same time span. Only difference was, I was using navigation for about an hour, so I thought maybe that's why it was like that....

Last night, I unplugged my phone to charge another device. Well, this morning, 10 hours later, I see it's down to 60%! Granted, at 6:45AM, I did receive an email notification, but I didn't check it until about 10AM or so. Otherwise, the phone was at idle the entire night. I didn't touch it.

 

[NewAndroidNoob]

I just cleared cache partition. Let see if that does anything for me.

 

[Gator352]

I just cleared cache partition. Let see if that does anything for me.

How so!

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[NewAndroidNoob]

I just read you should do that after an update?

 

[bassjo]

Yeah I've tried that also and my S6 still heats up for no reason and chews through the battery.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[erasat]

Hi, so I'm new to Android. Just started back in May. Decided to go with the S6 as my first phone. Works fine. Battery life isn't great, but it was acceptable. But after this latest update, it's ridiculous. Can someone guide me on what's wrong with my phone? Before, if I left it unplugged overnight, it might drop 5% if that. I can leave at 8AM and with light to moderate use, I would still have 50-60% by 6PM. That's not bad to me. But the other day, I was down to 10% during that same time span. Only difference was, I was using navigation for about an hour, so I thought maybe that's why it was like that....

Last night, I unplugged my phone to charge another device. Well, this morning, 10 hours later, I see it's down to 60%! Granted, at 6:45AM, I did receive an email notification, but I didn't check it until about 10AM or so. Otherwise, the phone was at idle the entire night. I didn't touch it.

As you can see in your screenshot, your phone had been unplugged for 10hrs and 28 minutes and your Bluetooth was running the whole time plus your phone was held awake 10hrs 7 minutes of that time. So, for me you had something running connected to your phone via Bluetooth the whole time draining your battery.

This is the main reason why I only turn Bluetooth and GPS on when I need them, that's why I always recommend also in all my threads and posts but there are people that still insist that they shouldn't need to do this, this is a great example of what may happen by not using the simple quick toggles that take a second to turn on and off.

About your battery drain while using your GPS, that's the nature of this devices all this radios and equipments will drain a lot of battery, just be sure to turn off Location History on Location settings as Google stopped using Location reporting as a separate setting, now it's integrated to the only one, Location History, and by default, now your phone is pinging your location ALL the time. I'd advise you to change Location to Power Saving (WiFi and Cell data only) and just change to High accuracy when you use Google Maps or something similar that will need your exact location.

 

[cwise222]

I have a fitness watch connected via Bluetooth to my S6 24/7 and it barely uses any battery. Most Bluetooth devices are BLE these days so the battery drain is not like it used to be, but it all depends what Bluetooth device you have connected. The big issue is something is keeping your phone awake from the moment you unplugged it from the charger. It may be what you have connected though Bluetooth or it may be an app or Google service gone 'crazy'

I'm a fairly light user so I can get 24 to 30 hours per charge and my held awake time is usually only about an hour or so. If something is keeping the phone awake for 10 hours then yeah, you're going going to loose battery fast. The question then it what is keeping your phone awake. What do you have set to sync in your Google account? It's generally recommended to turn off syncing for stuff you don't use because Google will keep syncing that over and over again even if you've never opened, say, the Google Music app. As mentioned in the last post, location history is a huge drag and changing location to WiFi/Cell data only makes a big difference.

Also, all these settings tends to revert back to their default settings after an update so if you have these things set up before the update it is always a good idea to check them after an update. My S6 will reset any changes I made to location, syncing, etc, after I do an update. Annoys the heck out of me.

 

[oscarnyc]

Ditto on rechecking your settings. I noticed that Google always listening was back on after the update, as was wifi always scanning. Both of those can be battery drains.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Eleni 22]

I am and have been having this issue since I got the phone. I've tried all the tricks and I'm only getting 1 hour and 30 minutes of SOT. Should I get a refurb phone?? Any help would be appreciated

 

[NewAndroidNoob]

So I did a reset of the phone. Only one day, but everything looks like its back to normal battery life again. Haven't reinstalled much of anything yet. Will add an app or 2 a day and see what happens.

 

[Saros]

I've tried all the tricks and I'm only getting 1 hour and 30 minutes of SOT.

Something's definitely amiss. Are you running any anti-virus apps by chance (or alleged battery savers or task-killers)?

 

[Eleni 22]

Not sure if its an anti virus app but I'm running Lookout

 

[Saros]

Not sure if its an anti virus app but I'm running Lookout

It is. Even if it's not single-handedly responsible for your battery experience it can safely be disabled since it is a resource hog. You really don't need to run antivirus on Android like you would want to on a PC -- just stick to the Play Store for acquiring apps, and don't open suspect links sent to you via email or SMS.

 

[Eleni 22]

It is. Even if it's not single-handedly responsible for your battery experience it can safely be disabled since it is a resource hog. You really don't need to run antivirus on Android like you would want to on a PC -- just stick to the Play Store for acquiring apps, and don't open suspect links sent to you via email or SMS.

I will uninstall it and see what happens just hope this is the culprit. Thank you I'll report back in a few days.

 

[EF517_V2]

I see lots of back and forth, but allow me to add my experience with the S6-64GB. I'm on ATT, and just got the 5.1.1 update last week. Prior to that, I had 3 instances of the phone getting very hot and almost completely draining in 2 hours while not even in use.

After the update, phone is noticeably cooler, even when charging. But in the first few days, I had an insane amount of battery loss (80% in 3 hours with almost zero use).

I did a partition cache wipe, disabled a number of ATT apps I will never use, and 4 days after the update, the phone seems fine with normal life. I don't run anti virus, but I do regularly dump application cache, because Chrome and Twitter seem to load up.

Not much else to say, but I'm back to being given happy with OS and phone.

For now. ☺

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Harry Wild]

If I learn anything in doing OS updates; it is TO WAIT! Give a good two months and maybe four! Before doing!

 

[kyle.brown]

My battery has gone down since the update. I will be posting my screen shots of the usage tonight. I am now only getting about 12-13 hours with 2-3 hours of sto.

 

[iAJ]

i feel like i shouldnt update mine when rogers gets it LOL