Weird Droid Maxx Battery Quirk

[beeare]

I have noticed 3 days in a row that when my battery reaches around 34%, it seems to jump down quickly to around 26%/27%.

When my phone is not in use, on wifi with the screen off, but everything else connecting -from games like Words with Friends, work email, gmail, etc. - it typically loses around 1% per hour, or often a little less, which is phenomenal.

The last 3 days I have used heavily- screen around 5 hours, 30+ emails received, 10 or so lengthy emails written and sent all on LTE and some gaming for about 40 min., so my phone has been on 35% after around 18 hours since the previous full charge. I coincidentally placed my phone down for a couple hours right at 34%/35% on these days, and when I have picked it up; it has been on 26%/27%, with no new notifications (which never seems to dramatically impact my battery), and all my recent apps swiped away during that time.

After it jumped to 26%/27%, it seems to go back to normal, discharging at about 1% per hour when the phone is really doing nothing.

Anybody notice something similar, or have any ideas? interestingly enough, I received the update yesterday, so it has now happened with the update and without.

 

[Deron Baker]

I'll have to watch specifically for this, but I have not noticed.

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[Jesus Delgadillo]

Yes my phone does the same. It jumps percentages down while it hits 35% or less. It looses around 6% in a heart beat. Or vice versa, I also get days when it jumps 92% to 98% as an example, adding battery life. I dont think its normal

Sent From My Droid Maxx

 

[1901Madison]

The jumping around happens to me too. It's kind of odd. I'll take the phone off the charger in the morning and within an hour, my battery is at 97%. Then I'll set the phone down and pick it up 30 minutes later and it is back to 100%. Then I will play with my phone on the train into work and the phone will be at 94%. But after letting the phone sit on my desk for an hour, it's back to 98%. I am not sure what is going on with the battery percentage. Any thoughts?

 

[viper8315]

What you're noticing is the natural discharge profile of a LIPO battery. When you're down at the bottom, it drops faster. I've noticed this on my phone as well. Here's an example... Google image search lipo discharge curve, and you'll see many examples of this behavior. In fact, with older battery technologies, things used to be A LOT worse, NiCads and NIMH drop off a hell of a lot faster. I've done RC for a long time, and believe me, we have it good now with LIPO batteries...

As far as the rise of battery percentage, the only theory I can come up with is temperature change may cause the cell(s) to change voltage a little. Any rise in voltage would of course make the phone think that capacity increased. Maybe install an app like GSAM battery monitor and see if you can correlate it. I haven't seen this behavior on my phone though. I'm sure your phones are fine though. Just do yourself a favor, and don't fall into that whole "calibrate" battery stuff. You're doing more harm than good taking your battery down to nothing.

 

[doogald]

The jumping around happens to me too. It's kind of odd. I'll take the phone off the charger in the morning and within an hour, my battery is at 97%. Then I'll set the phone down and pick it up 30 minutes later and it is back to 100%. Then I will play with my phone on the train into work and the phone will be at 94%. But after letting the phone sit on my desk for an hour, it's back to 98%. I am not sure what is going on with the battery percentage. Any thoughts?

Do you ever bring it down to a low percentage, or do you always plug it in at night? You may want to try running it until you get a warning message, once every month or two, and see if that calibrates the battery pack circuitry better.

 

[beeare]

I occasionally see my battery rise in percentage, but it's never been more than 1%. It definitely does not fluctuate wildly for me.

My phone always continues to jump down from 33%/34% to about 28%.

That's the only consistent trend I've noticed. Overall, the battery life is superb so I'm not stressing it too much.

It appears that some others on this thread are having slightly odder, inconsistent fluctuations.

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[1901Madison]

I never run my battery down that low. While my Maxx could probably last the full two days, I don't see the need to try it. I charge my phone every night while I sleep. Usually, the phone is somewhere between 50-65% remaining when I put it on the charger. I've seen conflicting opinions here -- is it better to drain the phone down to almost zero once to calibrate the battery? Or am I best off just charging it nightly before the battery gets low as I have been doing?

 

[viper8315]

I never run my battery down that low. While my Maxx could probably last the full two days, I don't see the need to try it. I charge my phone every night while I sleep. Usually, the phone is somewhere between 50-65% remaining when I put it on the charger. I've seen conflicting opinions here -- is it better to drain the phone down to almost zero once to calibrate the battery? Or am I best off just charging it nightly before the battery gets low as I have been doing?

You will continue to see differing opinions. That's the joy of the internet. I'd you plan on trying to keep your phone for the full two years like I do, then don't bother draining it deeply. Just keep charging it like you are.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[beeare]

I recently downloaded Battery Drain Analyzer, that keeps tab every time the battery goes down each percent, and shows the time to the minute in which it goes down.

I've been trying to figure out what causes this weird battery quirk, where it will all of a sudden appear to jump down.

Prior to this, I was unsure if the battery actually jumped down out of nowhere or if it still discharged in 1% increments, only extremely fast.

As you can see in the snapshot here, for whatever reason, it does appear to sporadically lose a few percentage points (from 60%- 57%) in 1 shot, and unfortunately none of the apps seem to have the capability of showing what it is that's causing the drain at the particular moment in time as it occurs.

Any thoughts? Or anybody know of an app that might be able to show me what's causing it?



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[adrialk]

Recommend Battery Monitor Widget to log your battery life. It can also show you what apps are using battery while the screen is off, similar to Wakelock Detector and BetterBatteryStats.

Battery Monitor Widget will also give you current draw in mA, which should correlate to the rate at which your battery drains. If it doesn't, then you know you have something funny going on with respect to battery calibration and NOT a rogue app.

Did you use your phone at all between midnight and 7am?

 

[beeare]

I'll check it out. My phone was not in use from roughly 2am-7am. I had it on wifi with all email and various things syncing. I was very happy with that level of idle drain; just not happy with the random percentage loss as seen in the screen shot from

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[CantWaitForEvo]

Any idea why my battery jumps up to 100% everyday when it hits 92-95% after being charged for the night? This has only started happening since the update. Just curious. Also seems overall battery life has slightly improved, amazing.

 

[adrialk]

Any idea why my battery jumps up to 100% everyday when it hits 92-95% after being charged for the night? This has only started happening since the update. Just curious. Also seems overall battery life has slightly improved, amazing.

View attachment 93482

How long have you been using battery monitor widget? It is showing a min battery charge of 75%. You need to do deeper charge cycles to calibrate the battery meter. Discharging to 0 isn't great for the battery, but 30% is no big deal.

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[CantWaitForEvo]

How long have you been using battery monitor widget? It is showing a min battery charge of 75%. You need to do deeper charge cycles to calibrate the battery meter. Discharging to 0 isn't great for the battery, but 30% is no big deal.

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I just started using it yesterday. Wanted to see if there was some weird spike when it went from 95% to 100%. I just plug my phone in every night. And since the update it's only at 70-75%, used to be 60-65%. I guess I can just leave it off charge for a couple of days and let it run down to 30-40% or so. Are you talking about calibrating battery monitor widget or the stock actual android battery monitor? because both show the same spike.

 

[adrialk]

I'm talking about calibrating the stock android battery indicator. Battery monitor widget just pulls that data.

Nothing will change in the battery itself, only the way that it is reported.

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[CantWaitForEvo]

I'm talking about calibrating the stock android battery indicator. Battery monitor widget just pulls that data.

Nothing will change in the battery itself, only the way that it is reported.

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk 2

Alright, I'll try discharging to 25-30% and see how that works out. Thanks for the help.

 

[beeare]

I've been out of the country and had a issue with my phone concerning roaming and having to deny roaming access like a million times. It actually appears to be a bug, because no matter how I messed with the settings, turning data off altogether or whatever it is, it kept on re-emerging.

I didn't have to make any calls so based the suggestion of somebody else on the forum, I turned it on airplane mode and manually turned on wifi, which has worked perfectly.

Don't know if this is affecting the phones ability to analyze the battery, but look at the chart at all of the mini spikes.

Can't tell you how many times I turned on my phone and saw that it had moved a little higher in terms of remaining battery.
I actually thought this thing would never die at one point. I'm now finally in the teens though, so should be relatively soon where I need to plug in.

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[conan1071]

Android OS running much higher use after update. Was about 7% before.

 

[CantWaitForEvo]

Well, I discharged down to 5% to try and get rid of that spike I always get around 92-95%. Thought it may even out the battery or something. No dice. I'm not going to worry too much about it and am going to thank motorola for making such a great and long lasting phone. I thought the thing was never going to run out of power. Best phone I've ever had for sure.