Better standby battery use so far on 4.4.3

[B. Diddy]

It seems that 4.4.3 has improved battery usage while on standby. This morning, I noticed that it had gone down by only 2% while being mostly idle for about 2.5-3 hrs. Before 4.4.3, it would've gone down by maybe 4-5% in that time. Anyone else notice an improvement?

 

[arav24]

I haven't noticed any difference at all. Maybe you had a wake lock before?

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[B. Diddy]

Nope. I'm pretty familiar with my phone's behavior and usual battery usage. It's still early on, so maybe it was just a fluke. But I do recall Google talking about how 4.4.3 was supposed to improve standby battery life, so we'll see.

 

[ianhanson85]

I think its slightly improved. I drop 5 percent an hour on standby after the update. Its really annoying. I keep reading people on here saying they are getting great battery life on their nexus 5... Wish I could say the same. I've cleared the cache partition several times with no improvement. I was hoping not to factory reset but that seems to be the only option left. I'm tired of carrying a phone charger with me at all times...

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[B. Diddy]

I assume you've already been through the whole rigmarole of battery saving tips. Are all of your Google apps updated? There was a recent Hangouts update that was supposed to address some battery draining behavior.

 

[Axe]

My standby % dropped significantly, and seems related battery if the radio had some issue in aggressively seeking out stronger signals. However, I seem to more frequently fall back to a full blast 3G. On Sprint, that's less performance than the GSM guys, though.

 

[ianhanson85]

I assume you've already been through the whole rigmarole of battery saving tips. Are all of your Google apps updated? There was a recent Hangouts update that was supposed to address some battery draining behavior.

There are a few things here I haven't tried. Thanks

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[ianhanson85]

Wake lock detector is saying the device needs to be rooted... Can you recommend an app that does not have to be rooted?

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[mclasser]

Yep; noticed the same thing. Play Services isn't running as aggressively in the background as before and hopefully it stays like that. Maybe the new Hangouts update is helping with battery life too.

Sent from my Nexus 5 via Android Central App

 

[B. Diddy]

Wake lock detector is saying the device needs to be rooted... Can you recommend an app that does not have to be rooted?

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KitKat blocks the ability to read wakelocks, so you would need to be rooted no matter what app you used.

 

[ianhanson85]

After following your suggestions I am at 85 percent battery after 3 hours off the charger. I surfed the web for 10 minutes, checked a few emails and send 5 texts. Does that seem normal to be down 15 percent in 3 hours on minimal use? Or do you think I should give factory reset a try?

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[B. Diddy]

Can you post screenshots of your battery stats?

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[LeoRex]

Yep; noticed the same thing. Play Services isn't running as aggressively in the background as before and hopefully it stays like that. Maybe the new Hangouts update is helping with battery life too.

When Google talks about battery improvements, 9 times out of 10 they are referring to Google Play Services, and the network location service wakelocks, in particular. Those NLP wakelocks often comprise the main source of your phone coming out of deep sleep..... Now keep in mind that this behavior is by no means a bug or anything... all those cool location aware things that Google Now does in the background need context. So we NEED those wakelocks for the most part to function. But those wakelocks still need some tweaking.

I know that over the past, what, 8 months, they've made HUGE improvements in the NLP wakelocks. They are still keeping my phone awake for much too long, but the overall impact on the battery has been greatly reduced.... so that's better than nothing. I still wish they would open up the function and allow users to configure the network location services. Let us specific how often we want to poll our location (it's crazy how often that thing fires sometimes).... if we connect to a wifi hotspot, stop polling until we disconnect.... stuff like that would do wonders for background battery load.

 

[ianhanson85]

Can you post screenshots of your battery stats?

Posted via Android Central App--please excuse the brevity and any typos!

Posted via Android Central App

 

[B. Diddy]

Tap the Screen listing--what's your screen-on time? My average total screen-on time for a full charge remains about 3 hours. I doubt 4.4.3 improved that--only the standby time.

 

[ianhanson85]

Tap the Screen listing--what's your screen-on time? My average total screen-on time for a full charge remains about 3 hours. I doubt 4.4.3 improved that--only the standby time.

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[B. Diddy]

Ok, those stats are still hard to interpret, because I just noticed that you'd been charging for some period of time. Let it run down normally for a while, then show us the same screenshots again (before plugging the charger in).

 

[maverick7526]

I've noticed standby time is a lot better. I've been off the charger for 1day 2hrs 30mins and I have 2hrs 16mins of SoT. With about 30% remaining on the battery. I would get better time, but being at work I get 2 bars, and the signal meter is always yellow.

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[ianhanson85]

Here's after about 4 hours off the charger. This is average use for me... Just trying to gage if this is normal behavior. I keep reading about people going over 24 hours on a single charge. I'm lucky to make it 8-10.

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[B. Diddy]

That isn't great--you're on track for about 2.5 hours of screen on time, which is below average. When you were watching YouTube, were you using headphones, or was it playing over the speaker loudly? If the latter, that might have used a decent amount of juice. The other thing I notice is the alarm clock is set--I recall issues on my old Razr Maxx with very frequent wakelocks when an alarm was set. It might be worth seeing how the battery is without the alarm clock set.