Has anyone managed to get 2-10 mAh power consumption?

**E90 Commie** · 03-29-2011, 10:26 AM

I'm in the hunt for the low power consumption in standby. My HD2 is using approx 2-10 mAh in standby normally (approx 5-10 mAh with HSDPA network in Europe) while my Thunderbolt is using 34-38 mAh on the 4G network.

I suspect that the 4G is the power drainer here but I'm waiting for a widget switching option (like a 4G switch on SwitchPro) before I turn it off when not needed. But the question is:

What is the lowest standby consumption the Thunderbolt can provide?

My target is to get down to atleast 10 mAh when the screen is off. But I'm not close to it despite power saving measures including underclocking with SetCPU.

I am using CurrentWidget to measure the consumption.

The 8650 CPU in the Thunderbolt should have lower consumption than the 8250 used in HD2.

On the other hand the Thunderbolt has much lower consumption (50-60 mAh) when I play music with PowerAMP with screen off compared to the HD2 (99-109 mAh in the same scenario).

**rcpa** · 03-29-2011, 10:36 AM

I see 38-40 mA on 3G, so I wouldn't blame 4G.

I did however recently discover that I have a constant 270-320 mA draw when WiFi is on, but is not connected and therefore is hunting for a connection.

**dubge** · 03-29-2011, 10:42 AM

On my phone wifi/connected uses more power then being on 4G with the phone being used very little

**E90 Commie** · 03-29-2011, 11:02 AM

Originally Posted by rcpa

I see 38-40 mA on 3G, so I wouldn't blame 4G.

I did however recently discover that I have a constant 270-320 mA draw when WiFi is on, but is not connected and therefore is hunting for a connection.

It sounds like there's a power issue here - I would guess an undervolting kernel is needed or something. It should NOT use 38 mAh in standby with the screen off on 3G.

The Desire HD which shares the CPU with Thunderbolt can give approx 1-5 mAh in standby with power savings enabled. So this drain indicates that a new kernel with undervolting for example is needed.

On my HD2 I have an undervolting and overclocking kernel called Tytung R5. It reduces the power consumption greatly - even if I have to use the SD card with ext4 partition as internal storage for Android (which has a negative impact on the power consumption compared to a device with big NAND).

The kernel is the only explanation I can see in this case. I have an absolutely debloated device with frozen Sense, Sense lockscreen etc (the only power saver I haven't enabled yet is disabling unnecessary connections with DroidWall).

The Thunderbolt should certainly be able to use something like 1-10 mAh in standby with screen off when the sibling Desire HD can do it. Or my HD2 with older, more power using CPU paired with memory card access is able too.

Otherwise the Thunderbolt is using less power than the HD2 when used so the 8650 is obviously more efficient than the 8250.

Edit: I'm using 245-360 Mhz with screen off in SetCPU on both devices. But I see that I have much more frequencies to set on the HD2 - the Thunderbolt kernel seems to be very limited in that regard. On the same way I miss the smartass and interactive profiles so a new kernel is really needed. I have all profiles on the HD2.

The use of 270-320 mAh with WiFi searching is lower than the HD2 in the same situation. I can easily get that device upto 500 mAh - my initial impressions of the Tbolt is that it uses atleast 20-40% less power than the HD2 in practical use situations with the screen on approx 20% brightness and the same apps running.

Edit 2: Now I saw 24 mAh power consumption with CurrentWidget. It seems to go in the right direction.

**Guntherm** · 03-29-2011, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by E90 Commie

I'm in the hunt for the low power consumption in standby. My HD2 is using approx 2-10 mAh in standby normally (approx 5-10 mAh with HSDPA network in Europe) while my Thunderbolt is using 34-38 mAh on the 4G network.

I suspect that the 4G is the power drainer here but I'm waiting for a widget switching option (like a 4G switch on SwitchPro) before I turn it off when not needed. But the question is:

What is the lowest standby consumption the Thunderbolt can provide?

My target is to get down to atleast 10 mAh when the screen is off. But I'm not close to it despite power saving measures including underclocking with SetCPU.

I am using CurrentWidget to measure the consumption.

The 8650 CPU in the Thunderbolt should have lower consumption than the 8250 used in HD2.

On the other hand the Thunderbolt has much lower consumption (50-60 mAh) when I play music with PowerAMP with screen off compared to the HD2 (99-109 mAh in the same scenario).

Okay I installed Current Wideget and will report back. I have my battery lasting quite long now..

**movielover76** · 03-29-2011, 12:07 PM

I'm in 3G only right and I'm at 38mA
so I second that it's not 4G
I keep wifi off because verizon's network is fast enough for me
I get 1500 - 2200 kbit/s down in Central NJ
Contrary to what all the reviews tell you in some place verizon's 3G is faster than AT&T and almost always more reliable.

Sorry for the aside, I'm a recent AT&T refugee and I'm loving the verizon network both when I'm on 4G (work) and 3G(home)

**E90 Commie** · 03-29-2011, 02:07 PM

Another thing I recommend is the Where's My Droid Power. It's a very handy little tool when it comes to checking processes that drains the battery. I use it when I freeze apps - for example HTC News, Sense etc that I don't use but which is still running in the background.

**Guntherm** · 03-30-2011, 01:57 AM

Have run CurrentWidget since yesterday afternoon.

On 3G avg 34-54 mAh
On Wi-Fi avg 28-54 mAh

So not much of a differance.

**jbfg8r** · 03-30-2011, 10:15 AM

This thread intrigued the hell out of me so I downloaded current widget and have played with it over a day or so turning this and that off and on and watching the log values.
When in 3G or Wifi/3G I am in at about 38-42 mA. When I flip it to 4G however it is up in the 260mA area. These are values with the phone idle and the screen off.

**Quantify** · 03-30-2011, 10:36 AM

Originally Posted by jbfg8r

This thread intrigued the hell out of me so I downloaded current widget and have played with it over a day or so turning this and that off and on and watching the log values.
When in 3G or Wifi/3G I am in at about 38-42 mA. When I flip it to 4G however it is up in the 260mA area. These are values with the phone idle and the screen off.

You have something else going on then. I'm sitting here in a 4G area, idling at a solid 38mA (measured every 30 seconds). 4G on, wifi off. I've taken measurements over the past fiew days, and like other posters have seen no difference in idle current between wifi, 3G, and 4G.

Now...we can talk about what turning on the screen does to battery draw...

**jbfg8r** · 04-01-2011, 10:43 AM

You were right. I uninstalled something and now it idles at 38mA. The only thing I can thing I did was uninstall the paid Juice Defender and installed the beta. hmmm maybe i uninstalled yahoo messenger too. I thought it was already off been when playing with android assistant I still saw it somewhere and took that off too. battery should be rocking now!

Question, do widgets themselves cause battery drain or is it just the frequency with which they connect to update cause additional draw.

**jbfg8r** · 04-01-2011, 10:45 AM

might be no need for juice defender anymore since 4g is faster than wifi. if they draw is no less than might as well be on the faster service.

**EvolutionGSR** · 04-01-2011, 11:08 AM

How do u tell what ur mah consumption is?

**jbfg8r** · 04-01-2011, 12:45 PM

app is Current Widget

**Forgetful** · 04-01-2011, 02:26 PM

wifi = 26-36mAh
4G = 40mAh

**willis936** · 04-01-2011, 02:32 PM

Pet peeve of the day: mA refers to current, mAh refers to current * time (charge). Assuming a relatively constant voltage this can be viewed as power. A 1400 mAh battery stores enough power to supply 14 amps for one hour or 1 amp for 14 hours or however you want to slice it. Referring to a power consumption rate as mAh grinds my gears. That is all.

**E90 Commie** · 04-01-2011, 02:44 PM

I have now installed Das BAMF 1.3, underclocked with SetCPU, frozen all bloat (including Sense since I run LauncherPro) - and it uses 34 mA for now. I also tried to put it into flight mode out of curiosity but the consumption remains - approx 30-40 mA.

The experiment with flight mode was to see if the radio is causing the high drain but no.

I got the impression that something is draining battery but I can't really see what is causing it. I think HTC needs to release an updated ROM and go over the power consumption. It should be able to reach 10 mA at least. Even if I have the big battery now it's strange that it drains so much more power compared to the HD2. They should be relatively close to eachother.

**Forgetful** · 04-01-2011, 02:48 PM

Now that I've messed with the app some more it seems that 4G uses less/same power when idling, and ALSO when streaming music.

Odd... Valid results or just inaccuracies in the app?

**swamp** · 04-02-2011, 01:36 AM

Good thread.

My battery/device seem to be on the very poor end. I get about 30mA draw with the screen off with AIRPLANE mode on. This drops my battery 15% overnight if not plugged in. Definitely need to find a way to reduce this by ~3X.

However, if I leave my phone managed with JuiceDefender overnight and not plugged in the draw is 50-80 mA, with periods of 100-300 mA as well. So much for JuiceDefender...

BTW, not rooted, stock ROM.

Ugh, got to get to the bottom of this.

**mwolfe38** · 04-02-2011, 03:05 AM

I turned everything off and shutdown all my apps, turned off sync.. did everything i can think of and i'm idling at 44mA or so..
This is rediculous if other phones can idle at 10mA or less. My phone is not rooted (yet anyways).. I have yet to see anything in the log file in the 30 mA range at all, everything is in the 40's while run at 140-500 while in use

**Guntherm** · 04-02-2011, 04:50 AM

Anyone get to usage mA out of the program. The graphs tell you alot, but always has negative numbers in it, so you can't seem to monitor what its at very well.

With just root i used to run 26-42 mA
Virus Rom 40-80 mA. mostly 80's.

**shaddix** · 04-02-2011, 04:57 AM

that current draw can't be accurate if it puts wifi and 3g on par with each other. I get full bars of evdo at my house and wifi gives me easily 2x the battery life of 3g. I wouldn't trust android to tell you how much battery drain is happening. need real-world tests.

**E90 Commie** · 04-02-2011, 08:40 AM

I have found another battery thief: Animated Weather. It's very nice but seems to drain battery (it did that last time I tried it on my HD2 in October 2010 but I thought it had got better). I installed it yesterday but the drain immediately increased to approx 90 mA too often despite weather syncing every 4 hours.

The lowest value I has ever seen on the Thunderbolt is 24 mA but now it's back to 30-40 again. I have decided to give the Das BAMF 1.3.1 a try - it seems like it solves different bugs with the 1.3.

My observations when I compare to the HD2 is normal power consumption while in use, in some cases lower BUT the standby drain is way too high. I have a very similar configuration on my HD2 running the same apps, the main difference is the networks (T-Mobile 1900 vs Verizon LTE 700). The fact that airplane mode isn't solving the drain issue is a very strong indication that something (radio perhaps) is causing the drain. It looks like we need an update of that part.

The ROM and kernel parts are fixed I think and I can't see any reason for drain from those areas. It drains even if the CPU is underclocked to max etc so I think the radio is the root cause for this.

**swamp** · 04-03-2011, 02:39 AM

How is the radio to blame when airplane mode completely disables all radios and drain is still high while in airplane mode?

**Guntherm** · 04-03-2011, 04:14 AM

Well I solved part of my draw on my precious...

Using some different clocks I took out the retrieving temp off the clock widget(was set for every 2 hours). Downloaded weather bug elite and set it to display temp in the task bar, no widget and wow. Down to always 24-32 when idle. And this is with the Rom Virus... Now if I could get another 6-10 mA out of it....