Moto X: terrible battery life on standby

[somfw]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

Google did. The fix is called Kit Kat. Less resource intensive and runs better on lower spec'd phones.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Again - Marketing!
No lower spec'd phones besides the Moto G are running 4.4.2 yet and the battery life of that phone is nothing special considering it doesn't even have 4G to suck down it's battery
If my Moto x Battery improves with 4.4.2 Great! But my 2013 nexus 7 saw exactly zero improvement in battery life over 4.4 or 4.1, so I am not holding my breath

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

You realize that Madision Avenue does a thing called Marketing and in Marketing , you can claim whatever you want. The Moto X was marketed perfectly. You fell for it apparently. The Problem is None of their Marketing claims held water under real world testing

The Hot word detection which is not new and has been around for well over a year now is always on and running in the background. If you don't want to believe facts, thats fine - Go test it yourself.
Test your battery life on a moto x with Touchless and Hot Word Disabled and force killed and on any other android phone vs having them on. You will see the proof before your eyes.

Marketing is not "claiming whatever you want" and whoever told you that's what it was is stupid. The Moto X was marketed perfectly, yes, because it does EXACTLY what they say it does. Want to know what two phones I carry with me most of the time? Nexus 5 and Moto X. Want to know what phone gets better battery life on a consistent basis? Moto X. And guess what? I don't disable any of the features that I wanted the X for to do it.

You know what else Motorola has besides a Marketing department? An engineering department. Those people are pretty smart and know what they're doing. They did some pretty innovative work on the co-processors in the X. The Marketing department (are you listening, because this is important) then took that great work and turned it in to a consumer facing message. Also, there's a difference between Marketing and PR, which I know you didn't bring up, but I thought I'd blow your mind a bit too while I was at it.

I'm not surprised that leaving a feature on, no matter how power efficient the processor, will drain the battery. I'm kind of surprised that you seem surprised this is the case. "Hey, guess what happens when you leave stuff on? It uses the battery." Well, that's obviously to everyone I think. I bet I know what happens when you turn them off. Oh wait, you already said it because it's apparently not that obvious. The battery drains faster.

You're hanging around the Moto X section an awful lot, and especially this thread, claiming it has terrible battery life. This is clearly not the case judging by the shear number of people that own the device and have used it for an extended period of time saying how awesome the battery life is. If you had a personal experience with the X that was less than exceptional as far as battery life is concerned then I'm sorry. Maybe you had a bad unit (that does happen ya know), or you had a rogue app, or any number of things. But to come in here and say that the X has poor battery life when the evidence is not in your favor is ill advised.


You should not assume that you know more than everyone or that you have any idea what everyone on these boards does for a living.

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

Again - Marketing!
No lower spec'd phones besides the Moto G are running 4.4.2 yet and the battery life of that phone is nothing special considering it doesn't even have 4G to suck down it's battery
If my Moto x Battery improves with 4.4.2 Great! But my 2013 nexus 7 saw exactly zero improvement in battery life over 4.4 or 4.1, so I am not holding my breath

Where did anyone ever say that Kit Kat will make your battery life magically better? Is that something you assumed? You know what I've noticed with previous Android releases? Worse battery life (4.0 to 4.1 was noticeable). That it stayed the same (as you admitted, and I've seen it get both better and worse with Kit Kat) is good IMO.

Kit Kat runs exceptionally well on lower spec'd devices.

Also, LTE stopped being a battery hog with the second generation radios. Qualcomm integrated them on die and also shrunk the process node they were being manufactured on.

 

[prepaidguy9081]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

Root and use cpu master.
Underclock while ypur screen is off and your in call to half processors max clock speed.

Root and use greenify.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 4

 

[somfw]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

Marketing is not "claiming whatever you want" and whoever told you that's what it was is stupid. The Moto X was marketed perfectly, yes, because it does EXACTLY what they say it does. Want to know what two phones I carry with me most of the time? Nexus 5 and Moto X. Want to know what phone gets better battery life on a consistent basis? Moto X. And guess what? I don't disable any of the features that I wanted the X for to do it.

You know what else Motorola has besides a Marketing department? An engineering department. Those people are pretty smart and know what they're doing. They did some pretty innovative work on the co-processors in the X. The Marketing department (are you listening, because this is important) then took that great work and turned it in to a consumer facing message. Also, there's a difference between Marketing and PR, which I know you didn't bring up, but I thought I'd blow your mind a bit too while I was at it.

I'm not surprised that leaving a feature on, no matter how power efficient the processor, will drain the battery. I'm kind of surprised that you seem surprised this is the case. "Hey, guess what happens when you leave stuff on? It uses the battery." Well, that's obviously to everyone I think. I bet I know what happens when you turn them off. Oh wait, you already said it because it's apparently not that obvious. The battery drains faster.

You're hanging around the Moto X section an awful lot, and especially this thread, claiming it has terrible battery life. This is clearly not the case judging by the shear number of people that own the device and have used it for an extended period of time saying how awesome the battery life is. If you had a personal experience with the X that was less than exceptional as far as battery life is concerned then I'm sorry. Maybe you had a bad unit (that does happen ya know), or you had a rogue app, or any number of things. But to come in here and say that the X has poor battery life when the evidence is not in your favor is ill advised.


You should not assume that you know more than everyone or that you have any idea what everyone on these boards does for a living.

LMFAO - Your final sentence says it all
Go drink some more Kool-aide
Every Reviewer with any credibilty have all said the same thing the "The Battery life is nowhere near the claims and over all is not so great. Period, end of discussion.
As to your pathetically stupid claim of the "Sheer Number of People" if by sheer you mean almost nobody, then Yes if by sheer you mean a lot - Dream on. The Moto X has been a total sales flop.
On to your Brilliant claims about what marketing does and doesn't do, Seriously, go back to school.
Marketing: Has, Does and Always Will say whatever they want to to get people to buy their product. That is it's sole function. Facts and Truthfulness don't matter and Marketing departments are almost never held to account on false claims.
A perfect example is Googlerolas Perfectly Legalize worded "24 Hours of Mixed use" Which did exactly what it was intended to - That is, make people think they could get 24 hours of use out of the phone. Of course that figure of 24 hours includes nearly 20 hours of standby when the phone is sitting idle, but hey - That's marketing!
Now run along text warrior, you bore me

 

[somfw]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

Where did anyone ever say that Kit Kat will make your battery life magically better? Is that something you assumed? You know what I've noticed with previous Android releases? Worse battery life (4.0 to 4.1 was noticeable). That it stayed the same (as you admitted, and I've seen it get both better and worse with Kit Kat) is good IMO.

Kit Kat runs exceptionally well on lower spec'd devices.

Also, LTE stopped being a battery hog with the second generation radios. Qualcomm integrated them on die and also shrunk the process node they were being manufactured on.

LMFAO yet again - Are you drunk or something? or just Forumbating!

I said this
"No, I want Google to recognize that Android is a Huge Memory, Resource and battery hungry OS that needs a serious rework and shift in it's Direction Since Current Batteries Can't keep up with it's needs!
Or Like Moto did with the Droid Maxx, Just jam a Huge Battery in the phone and call it a day. The overall size increase is so minimal it isn't even noticeable we are talking a few 100ths of an inch = Nexus 5 2300 m Battery = 5.43 x 2.72 x 0.34 vs the Droid Maxx = 5.41 x 2.80 x 0.33 3500 m Battery "
Which is speaking specifically about Battery life on android devices
And them some genius Text warrior, You may know him or one of his personalities said the following in a direct answer to the above quote - "Google did. The fix is called Kit Kat. Less resource intensive and runs better on lower spec'd phones."
So to answer you question, "Where did anyone ever say that Kit Kat will make your battery life magically better?" Beats the Hell out of me!
Dude, maybe it's time to cut back on the late night Bong hits !

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

As to your pathetically stupid claim of the "Sheer Number of People" if by sheer you mean almost nobody, then Yes if by sheer you mean a lot - Dream on. TheMoto X has been a total sales flop.
On to your Brilliant claims about what marketing does and doesn't do, Seriously, go back to school.
Marketing: Has, Does and Always Will say whatever they want to to get people to buy their product. That is it's sole function. Facts and Truthfulness don't matter and Marketing departments are almost never held to account on false claims.
A perfect example is Googlerolas Perfectly Legalize worded "24 Hours of Mixed use" Which did exactly what it was intended to - That is, make people think they could get 24 hours of use out of the phone. Of course that figure of 24 hours includes nearly 20 hours of standby when the phone is sitting idle, but hey - That's marketing!
Now run along text warrior, you bore me

Here, I fixed your quote for you.

Please, enlighten me as to how sales figures (which have not been released) have any correlation with whether or not people are seeing great battery life. I, for example, have seen two days of battery life. Standby time is great on the X. On average it's draining 1.4-1.5% per hour for me (I have GSAM installed, that's where the number comes from). When I'm actively using the phone (for whatever, let's assume the screen is on) it's roughly 5% per hour. Something more intense, like a game, will obviously use more battery. This shouldn't be a surprise.

But since this thread was originally about standby time, I will leave it at that I can easily (very easily) get two days on standby. With normal use (two gmail accounts, ~200 hangout messages a day average, 20-30 minutes of phone calls, some Candy Crush and other casual games) a day (as defined by 24 hours) is attained regularly. On days where my use is abnormally heavy (say, 2-3 hours of streaming Google Music and/or some Netflix) I might not get the full 24 hours (but still around 16-18, and still better than my N5).

I'm also wondering how you would like them to word the 24 hour claim. Of course it's going to be mixed use, right? They didn't say "24 hours of standby battery life" did they?

Let's also look at your "24 hours includes nearly 20 hours of standby" claim that you threw out there. I'm not sure what your expectations are, but 4+ (as evidenced by your "nearly 20 hours of standby time") hours of screen on time within a 24 hour period and the phone not being dead is impressive. As always, though, YMMV, right? Some people are heavier users, some are lighter users. I use both of my phones equally on any given day, and with MY use the X is consistently better when it comes to battery life, especially on standby.

Insults aren't required, either, but they do give me a laugh (text warrior, that's a new one).

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

LMFAO yet again - Are you drunk or something? or just Forumbating!

I said this
"No, I want Google to recognize that Android is a Huge Memory, Resource and battery hungry OS that needs a serious rework and shift in it's Direction Since Current Batteries Can't keep up with it's needs!
Or Like Moto did with the Droid Maxx, Just jam a Huge Battery in the phone and call it a day. The overall size increase is so minimal it isn't even noticeable we are talking a few 100ths of an inch = Nexus 5 2300 m Battery = 5.43 x 2.72 x 0.34 vs the Droid Maxx = 5.41 x 2.80 x 0.33 3500 m Battery "
Which is speaking specifically about Battery life on android devices
And them some genius Text warrior, You may know him or one of his personalities said the following in a direct answer to the above quote - "Google did. The fix is called Kit Kat. Less resource intensive and runs better on lower spec'd phones."
So to answer you question, "Where did anyone ever say that Kit Kat will make your battery life magically better?" Beats the Hell out of me!
Dude, maybe it's time to cut back on the late night Bong hits !

Having problems following what I said? Let me explain it in a more basic way. By not making battery life worse like previous releases of Android have, they did manage to improve battery performance while also reducing the number of resources required to run on lower spec devices. They made Android more efficient, but also added features (new API's, etc), which results is zero extra battery drain being caused by Android.

So, to recap, less resource intensive, more new things, at least the same battery life (adding things, but not requiring more power, is a gain in efficiency, which is a gain in battery life). Goal achieved.

 

[Aquila]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

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Thanks!

 

[somfw]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

Here, I fixed your quote for you.

Please, enlighten me as to how sales figures (which have not been released) have any correlation with whether or not people are seeing great battery life. I, for example, have seen two days of battery life. Standby time is great on the X. On average it's draining 1.4-1.5% per hour for me (I have GSAM installed, that's where the number comes from). When I'm actively using the phone (for whatever, let's assume the screen is on) it's roughly 5% per hour. Something more intense, like a game, will obviously use more battery. This shouldn't be a surprise.

But since this thread was originally about standby time, I will leave it at that I can easily (very easily) get two days on standby. With normal use (two gmail accounts, ~200 hangout messages a day average, 20-30 minutes of phone calls, some Candy Crush and other casual games) a day (as defined by 24 hours) is attained regularly. On days where my use is abnormally heavy (say, 2-3 hours of streaming Google Music and/or some Netflix) I might not get the full 24 hours (but still around 16-18, and still better than my N5).

I'm also wondering how you would like them to word the 24 hour claim. Of course it's going to be mixed use, right? They didn't say "24 hours of standby battery life" did they?

Let's also look at your "24 hours includes nearly 20 hours of standby" claim that you threw out there. I'm not sure what your expectations are, but 4+ (as evidenced by your "nearly 20 hours of standby time") hours of screen on time within a 24 hour period and the phone not being dead is impressive. As always, though, YMMV, right? Some people are heavier users, some are lighter users. I use both of my phones equally on any given day, and with MY use the X is consistently better when it comes to battery life, especially on standby.

Insults aren't required, either, but they do give me a laugh (text warrior, that's a new one).

This is almost comical, You say something then act like you never said it.

This is my final post to you, I can't laugh anymore tonight.
Google Claimed "24 hours of Mixed use" The key word being USE. Use means the screen on being used or streaming music or GPS etc but Use means Use not standby
All they had to say was 24 hours off charger / between charges etc With average use or anything similar. By using the Marketing gem of "24 hours of Mixed use" Yes, that is Marketing at it's best - that is their job, they specifically and 100% intentionally mislead people.
Did I expect to get 24 hours of screen on time from an Android phone? Hardly, It would be great but unlike you, I don't drink the Google Kool-aide.
What I was expecting by that intentionally, snake oil salesman worded "24 hours of Mixed use" was screen on time substantially better than my Galaxy nexus.
What I got was a phone that although better than the Gnex was nothing to write home about my Gnex avg, 3 hours of Screen on time on 4G that can be 3 hours straight from taking it off the charger or three hours over a typical work day. The Moto x is averaging 4 on 4G and a little more on WiFi.
Not so great
End of Chat
Good Luck

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

This is almost comical, You say something then act like you never said it.

This is my final post to you, I can't laugh anymore tonight.
Google Claimed "24 hours of Mixed use" The key word being USE. Use means the screen on being used or streaming music or GPS etc but Use means Use not standby
All they had to say was 24 hours off charger / between charges etc With average use or anything similar. By using the Marketing gem of "24 hours of Mixed use" Yes, that is Marketing at it's best - that is their job, they specifically and 100% intentionally mislead people.
Did I expect to get 24 hours of screen on time from an Android phone? Hardly, It would be great but unlike you, I don't drink the Google Kool-aide.
What I was expecting by that intentionally, snake oil salesman worded "24 hours of Mixed use" was screen on time substantially better than my Galaxy nexus.
What I got was a phone that although better than the Gnex was nothing to write home about my Gnex avg, 3 hours of Screen on time on 4G that can be 3 hours straight from taking it off the charger or three hours over a typical work day. The Moto x is averaging 4 on 4G and a little more on WiFi.
Not so great
End of Chat
Good Luck

We'll have to agree to disagree about what marketing was and wasn't accurate (you're really arguing semantics). If a device is powered on and in service it's being used (all those things going on in the background, receiving phone calls, etc), but any way, "mixed use" does cover everything you could "use" the phone for while off the charger. "Use" is not defined as "the phone is in your hand and you're actively doing stuff with it".

Now, on to your specific battery life numbers. GNex is a dual-core A9 SoC with a separate LTE radio (first gen, highly inefficient, as you already know). The TI OMAP in that phone was good for its time, but is obviously sorely outdated now. You said 3 hours of screen on time was what you get on average (with no claim of total time off charger, which is what this discussion is about). The Moto X, with it's current-gen LTE solution, and much MUCH faster SoC would give you 4 hours of screen on time (with no claim of total time off charger, which again is what this discussion is about). Even just considering the screen-on time, though, how is a entire hour MORE not a substantial improvement? You have a modern device with a much faster SoC that is efficient enough to get an extra hour of screen on time, but that's "not so great"? Tell me, honestly, what were your expectations for screen on time with the X?

________________________________________

On a side note, the X isn't designed to maximize screen on time, either. It's designed specifically to maximize standby time, so that when you pick your phone up to use it you actually have enough battery left to do what you wanted to do. There's nothing worse than leaving your phone alone for a few hours, only to pick it up and find out half your battery is gone, and you've done nothing with your phone. I feel like this point is missed by quite a few people. There's an obsession with screen on time even though the majority of the time the phone is in standby. If you can have your screen on continuously for that long then more power to you, but you should also be able to charge it in some way too. There are always going to be specific use cases, but in general if you can have the screen on for hours at a time you can also probably have your phone plugged in.

 

[Puzzlegal]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

You realize that Madision Avenue does a thing called Marketing and in Marketing , you can claim whatever you want. The Moto X was marketed perfectly. You fell for it apparently. The Problem is None of their Marketing claims held water under real world testing

The Hot word detection which is not new and has been around for well over a year now is always on and running in the background. If you don't want to believe facts, thats fine - Go test it yourself.
Test your battery life on a moto x with Touchless and Hot Word Disabled and force killed and on any other android phone vs having them on. You will see the proof before your eyes.

How do I turn off hot word detection, and what will stop working if I do that?

 

[somfw]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

How do I turn off hot word detection, and what will stop working if I do that?

Go to the seach app, choose settings, then choose voice, uncheck hot word detection. If you are on a Moto x also disable and force kill touchless controls which is under settings > Apps > All
The only thing that Wont work is the parlor trick, Touchless controls. This is the part of Voice search Where you say OK Google Now then ask it something or give it a command with out touching the Mic button located on Every screen. As if doing so is difficult.
If you have used Touchless Controls you already know that it is slow and often doesn't even work. Disabling it Does NOT effect Voice search in any other way. Press the mic button on any screen and issue the same commands or questions and they work flawlessly, No middle man app on hot mic slowly draining the battery.
When and if Motorola re-enables the real Hot word detection that is built into android, which although still a gimmick, (works 100% faster and better then the childish Touchless controls), just re-check hot word .

 

[Golfdriver97]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

Here are my battery stats from today.

From a Sprint Moto X using AC Forums app

 

[Puzzlegal]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

...
The only thing that Wont work is the parlor trick, Touchless controls. This is the part of Voice search Where you say OK Google Now then ask it something or give it a command with out touching the Mic button located on Every screen. As if doing so is difficult.

Thanks. I do use touchless control sometimes when I am driving, and it seems to work moderately well.

I must use different apps than you. I rarely see a microphone on the screen. There's not one now, for instance. And of course, there isn't one when I am driving and the phone is "resting". So I don't think I will do this as my default, but i probably will turn it off when I am camping and need to optimize battery life.

 

[Ry]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

I get a full day with my Moto X with Bluetooth on (Pebble) and Touchless Controls on.

 

[Reciprocal]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

I get a full day with my Moto X with Bluetooth on (Pebble) and Touchless Controls on.

Same, as long as I'm not doing anything else with it. I'm in an area where I don't get great reception (10 story office), so doing anything on it like Youtube watching will wreck the battery while its pulling data over 4G. Still haven't gotten a good feel of the battery life due to that.

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

Go to the seach app, choose settings, then choose voice, uncheck hot word detection. If you are on a Moto x also disable and force kill touchless controls which is under settings > Apps > All
The only thing that Wont work is the parlor trick, Touchless controls. This is the part of Voice search Where you say OK Google Now then ask it something or give it a command with out touching the Mic button located on Every screen. As if doing so is difficult.
If you have used Touchless Controls you already know that it is slow and often doesn't even work. Disabling it Does NOT effect Voice search in any other way. Press the mic button on any screen and issue the same commands or questions and they work flawlessly, No middle man app on hot mic slowly draining the battery.
When and if Motorola re-enables the real Hot word detection that is built into android, which although still a gimmick, (works 100% faster and better then the childish Touchless controls), just re-check hot word .

So I did some testing today with regards to what affects what with different settings.

With Touchless controls AND hotword detection turned off you MUST click on the microphone to do a voice search, even within the search app.

With Touchless controls turned on and hotword detection turned off you can do a voice search anytime you want.

With Touchless controls turned off and hotword detection turned on you MUST be in the search app to do a voice search. Voice search will not function while sitting on a home screen.


Basically Touchless controls would be what you would want to turn off to disable the always listening feature, while Hotword detection seems far less important in this regard. Hotword detection is only relevant while in the actual search app.


I don't have the ability to measure the effect on battery life right now, though, because I have too many other things going on. But, as I stated before, obviously turning features off will give you better battery life. That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone at all.

 

[somfw]

Re: Moto x terrible battery life on standby

Thanks. I do use touchless control sometimes when I am driving, and it seems to work moderately well.

I must use different apps than you. I rarely see a microphone on the screen. There's not one now, for instance. And of course, there isn't one when I am driving and the phone is "resting". So I don't think I will do this as my default, but i probably will turn it off when I am camping and need to optimize battery life.

Every screen on Every Android Running JB or above has the google search bar on it. On the Right hand side of each search bar is the Microphone Icon. You can also get to the Mic button on the keyboard anytime you are typing on virtually, every app. Or if Google now is enabled by swiping up from the bottom and clicking the mic.
The Only reason you wouldnt see a Mic is if you are on some custom rom, at which point I doubt the Moto x touchless controls would function anyway, As they are a custom app native to the moto x. There was a Hack replacement available a few months ago , but I tried it and it was worse then the slow and buggy touchless controls.

 

[Golfdriver97]

Re: Moto X terrible battery life on standby

A third party launcher can get rid of the search bar as well.

From a Sprint Moto X using AC Forums app