Erratic battery the week before and now since upgrading to Nougat

[CWinkler]

Did the FDR last night, removed and have left the SD card out. Only installed LastPass and GSam, plus my accounts for Google, Samsung and Microsoft. Phone was at 100% before taking it off the charger and calling it a night. 70% this morning. Attaching screenshots for review. Doesn't look like I'm getting the high temperature like I had been seeing, but will keep an eye on it (and a feel) and see if I can get any more information during the day today.

 

[SpookDroid]

I know you don't have a lot of control there, but damn that's bad reception! Also, see that exclamation mark on your WiFi icon? That means the network does have connectivity issues, so the phone is struggling to get data in/out, which is a very big battery drain (it's like having a 2-hour conversation whispering VS shouting... the latter will have your pipes sore by the end of it).

 

[CWinkler]

@SpookDroid and @LineKill, yes, we're kinda at the end of the road to nowhere (but it's a beautiful spot on the water) pretty far from cell towers. So reception isn't the greatest, or WiFi, even though sometimes I do see 4G. But at my shop, I'm closer to the cell tower (but in a metal building) and we have Time Warner digital WiFi so things should be better. Attaching screen shots from today at work, and they don't look all that different. Let me know what you think, and if I'm fooling myself that the phone should last longer. What gets me is that for 4 months I was having GREAT battery life, then in one week had 2 nights in a row of phone dead in the morning and it's gone downhill since. And updating from M to N hasn't seemed to change anything.

 

[LineKill]

Have you noticed high battery drain at any location other than at home?

 

[CWinkler]

@LineKill, the latest screenshots were from work, and I have had instances where the old phone would go from 100% at 7:30AM and would be down to 40% by 11AM at work, and it would be really hot. Haven't had this phone long enough to know any of that. The old phone would also get hot and drain when it was in my fanny pack, when it should've been off because of Smart Screen or whatever it is that is supposed to keep the phone off if it thinks it's in a bag. I have intentionally NOT put the phone on the FastCharge puck overnight, but if that's not an issue for the phone then I can put it on the charger each night 'just in case'. What do you think? Would that kill my battery life from overcharging?

 

[CWinkler]

So, I decided to try an experiment and see how my phone would behave if I turned WiFi off before going to bed. Phone was left screen-side down. Failure! Woke up to 2% battery. Screenshots attached.

Just discovered that "keep screen turned off" was turned off, so having phone screen-side down wouldn't have helped.

 

[LineKill]

@LineKill, the latest screenshots were from work, and I have had instances where the old phone would go from 100% at 7:30AM and would be down to 40% by 11AM at work, and it would be really hot. Haven't had this phone long enough to know any of that. The old phone would also get hot and drain when it was in my fanny pack, when it should've been off because of Smart Screen or whatever it is that is supposed to keep the phone off if it thinks it's in a bag. I have intentionally NOT put the phone on the FastCharge puck overnight, but if that's not an issue for the phone then I can put it on the charger each night 'just in case'. What do you think? Would that kill my battery life from overcharging?

If you are concerned about your battery degrading from leaving it on the charger overnight turn off fast charging, you really don't need it overnight.

 

[CWinkler]

What I really don't understand is why the phone had no issues staying off the charger overnight for the first 4 months I owned it. Then all of a sudden it started having issues. Makes me wonder if US Cellular may have a tower issue? Not sure how to check that out.

 

[LineKill]

So, I decided to try an experiment and see how my phone would behave if I turned WiFi off before going to bed. Phone was left screen-side down. Failure! Woke up to 2% battery. Screenshots attached.

Just discovered that "keep screen turned off" was turned off, so having phone screen-side down wouldn't have helped.

Personally, I think it would be more so your cell reception rather than WiFi. Maybe your carrier had some changes with their network right before all this started happening.

 

[CWinkler]

I'm going to call my guy at the USCC store tomorrow when he's back from vacation, and see if there's any way for them to check that out. Started mid-April. I've also asked others in the town (via FB page) whether they've noticed any recent issues. Would be good to have more data. I know I missed 2 calls last night, and phone was 'searching for service'.

 

[CWinkler]

Update: called US Cellular and talked to their Tech Support and Roaming people (phone ended up roaming yesterday). Advised them that there were issues down here with signal strength since mid-April, and they said they'd escalate the issue to engineering since it's gone on for some time (nobody had reported it ... so I'd advise others to be sure to speak up to your carrier). Hopefully they'll find something that they can fix to improve our service. In the meantime, making sure that my phone has what I think is enough charge to get through the night. So far so good, if 3 nights can tell you anything.

Thanks go out to @LineKill and @SpookDroid for their help with my issues.

 

[teslas]

Hey, your last set of screen shots showed your system in a dark mode of sorts. How did you do that? Was it an app?

 

[CWinkler]

Hey, your last set of screen shots showed your system in a dark mode of sorts. How did you do that? Was it an app?

@teslas, changed my theme to "metallic dark touchwiz" ... free Samsung theme. Like it much better, and fonts and colors are much easier to read than with the other theme I had been using

 

[SpookDroid]

Just be careful with older themes, though. They might look good...until you hit certain elements of the UI that were changed from dark to light on the Nougat update and that text/elements will 'disappear'.

 

[CWinkler]

Just be careful with older themes, though. They might look good...until you hit certain elements of the UI that were changed from dark to light on the Nougat update and that text/elements will 'disappear'.

@SpookDroid, this theme was available after updating to Nougat ... are you saying it might have issues I don't know about? I know the Sunset theme I selected after my update (from the phone not Play Store, same as this metallic dark) had issues with font disappearing into the background. For now this is working OK for me. Figured it was Nougat compatible

 

[SpookDroid]

@SpookDroid, this theme was available after updating to Nougat ... are you saying it might have issues I don't know about? I know the Sunset theme I selected after my update (from the phone not Play Store, same as this metallic dark) had issues with font disappearing into the background. For now this is working OK for me. Figured it was Nougat compatible

Most themes are available, but if they were created BEFORE the update and haven't been, well, updated, there MIGHT be elements that used to be a dark color but now are light and might be 'lost' in light background elements.

 

[teslas]

@CWinkler thanks the theme works. Is it possible to select my own wallpaper in this theme? I lost it after activation of the theme.

 

[CWinkler]

@CWinkler thanks the theme works. Is it possible to select my own wallpaper in this theme? I lost it after activation of the theme.

@teslas, not sure to be honest - I just use the theme as is. Maybe others will be able to answer your question. Might want to start another thread to ask, so you get better responses.

 

[CWinkler]

Update: 'new' phone has been working pretty well. Last night decided to not charge it up to 100% before bed, so it was at 60% when I called it a night. 48% this morning. Battery doesn't get hot like in the previous phone (knock wood). Still have pretty spotty reception, and need to call US Cellular today to see if they've learned anything about signal strength down here. Had the roaming signal again yesterday.

 

[SpookDroid]

@CWinkler thanks the theme works. Is it possible to select my own wallpaper in this theme? I lost it after activation of the theme.

You should be able to, but since the theme comes with wallpapers and everything, once you apply it, the wallpaper included will 'take over'. Simply find the wallpaper you want back and re-apply it as your wallpaper. Note that every time you apply a theme, if it includes a wallpaper, the included one will be applied, but once it's been applied to your phone, you're free to change wallpapers and icon themes.