Adjustments, tips and tricks to maximize Battery Life on Samsung Galaxy S6/edge

[Leoncio Zamora]

I am on AT&T and have version 7.3.29. Just to verify that the update was automatic.

If you have cleared app storage cache and cleared the cache partition, reset may be something to try.,have you tried working through it with AT&T tech support.

I'm confused cause when I updated it from play store it updated to version 7.5.71 and online I'm seeing version 7.3.29 for att, when I'm actually on att should I degrade the version and get the apk for 7.3

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[Cajun_Fan]

I'm confused cause when I updated it from play store it updated to version 7.5.71 and online I'm seeing version 7.3.29 for att, when I'm actually on att should I degrade the version and get the apk for 7.3

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I have done updates from play store and mine still says 7.5.66 which I installed as a .apk file cause previous to doing a manual update, updates from play store never updated google play services.

There is supposed to be something that can be ran or activated that would get the latest google play services updated, but for the life of me, I can't remember what it was that triggers the update to happen.

 

[erasat]

I'm not going to lie, I feel very crippled. I go into maps numerous times a day and it is very annoying to have to remember to turn on gps every time. Also, the weather widget will not refresh because the gps is off and none of my location reminders in google keep work. Google now will not remind me when I have to leave the house to not be late for my class or other events that I have saved in the calender.

I think I'm just spoiled from having a note 3 which I was able to leave everything on and still get a full day of battery with.

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First of all, your weather widget looking for your location all the time is a huge battery drain, what I've recommended a lot of times is to turn off the option to use the GPS and simply enter your city or cities manually, it will give you your desired information without any issues.

Second, if you use the Location information all the time then in your case turn on Location, as simple as that, I've always said that the idea behind this is to turn off what you won't use, if you use that all the time, then you must leave location on all the time, no need to feel crippled, you paid huge money for this phone you need to use it as you require.

Only thing I can tell you is that remember that the big issue right now with Location is that Google got rid of the Location Reporting toggle, so now turning on Location and Location History will turn on Location Reporting a huge battery drain, so you know you'll have to deal with that, BUT, this is not a S6 exclusive issue, even your Note 3 would be draining a lot more now with that option on all the time, only thing in its favor is that the battery was a lot bigger so it would last more.

 

[erasat]

So what your saying in this post is that I'm doing the right thing by letting the phone get down to 10 to 20 percent then charge it?

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Not necessarily, I didn't mention in my post any numbers because that's completely up to you, in this same thread I posted last month a link where it mentions the recommended usage for a better lithium battery life span, in a summary they mention to not let the battery go down from 40%, I'm doing that, with the many options to charge this phone I just decided to give this a try as it's very easy for me to do that having wireless charges at home and office and car charger for when I'm driving.

What I'm saying in the previous post is that taking that in consideration, if you leave everything on by default you know for sure that your phone battery will be worse than when you do some tweaks, so by default you'll be getting to 40% or even complete depletion a lot quicker, maybe twice or more times a day, meaning more battery charge cycles wasted on a single day vs doing this tweaks and having better battery life.

By doing this tweaks you may easily end up just like me, that most of the time I don't even need to charge my phone during the day because I don't even get to 40% until I'm ready to sleep and sometimes I'm still at 50% by that time.

I hope the above is more clear and you can understand it better.

 

[Dan G Malarkey]

Turn off Google location services. I went from losing 15-20% after with maybe about 10 mins screen on time after 3 hours, to about 6-8%.

The S6 battery issue isn't Samsung's fault. Its Google's. Adjusting screen brightness and disabling apps doesn't even come close to the savings afforded by turning off Google's baked in battery hog.

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[erasat]

Turn off Google location services. I went from losing 15-20% after with maybe about 10 mins screen on time after 3 hours, to about 6-8%.

The S6 battery issue isn't Samsung's fault. Its Google's. Adjusting screen brightness and disabling apps doesn't even come close to the savings afforded by turning off Google's baked in battery hog.

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The biggest offender right now for all devices running Lollipop with latest Google Play Services is that they incorporated the Location reporting (a proven battery hog) into Location History.

Location Reporting is what they use to generate money as they use all those reports for their ad services, so while they had the 2 services separated people were turning Location Reporting off while leaving location History on, this saved a lot of battery while leaving the services needed for Google Now cards on, it was the best of both worlds, now, if you want to use Google Now cards and other Location related services you are forced to turn Location History on and doing that turns on Location Reporting causing the huge battery drain EVERYBODY is having since last month when this began.

So basically if you want to use GPS now and want to save battery you MUST turn Location on but using GPS only, that way you can still use Maps and other GPS location services without using Location History, I've read that using GPS only disables Location History (and Reporting), but if you just turn Location On and don't go to it's settings, it will be turning with GPS, Wifi and cell and to make thing worse, turn on Location History and Reporting making it the biggest battery hog as you can confirm by your experience.

Again, if you must use Location History because you use Google Now cards and other services that need the Location History on, then, turn it on, you paid for this phone and you want to use everything you need, but you know that your battery will suffer a lot for that. Just remember, this is not an S6 or Samsung thing, this is a Google's thing, maybe looking how to contact them and let them know is the only option here, what else can be done?

 

[anon(9409134)]

First of all, why is app usage negative? These percentages don't make 100... Second of all, why did WiFi use so much battery?!

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[erasat]

First of all, why is app usage negative? These percentages don't make 100... Second of all, why did WiFi use so much battery?!

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I've seen that before with GSAM, clearly a bug, I'd suggest you to clear GSAM Cache and App data and give it a couple of new battery charges to leave it to get set again.

 

[Degineth]

I just ended up the day with the first full charge cycle in the week with little less than what I was averaging because I was all afternoon streaming Youtube videos to my Chromecast and then I streamed The Hobbits 3 from Google play movies and that alone was 2 hours 24 minutes of streaming. Even that I got 6 hours and 4 minutes of SoT of a mid to heavy usage day.

I really hope that the latest Google play services app, announced today, get to all of us soon enough so people with the infamous Lollipop Google Play services bug try it and see if that together with recent Samsung Push update fixes your drain issues, the rest of you with the Cell Standby drain is a little more complex, but I insist for those of you that have tried the different tweaks posted, to try the wipe cache partition in recovery mode and turn off Wifi calling, and VoLTE until you need them and the turn off completely the Smart network and Scanning always available options on the Wifi settings, if all of that doesnt work try a full reset in recovery mode and do the same tweaks, if still have the issue get a replacement or if you don't want to try again or don't want to wait for a Google or Samsung fix just return it and get your money back.

This phone, without rogue apps or drain bugs is capable of a very good, almost great battery life and like I've mentioned a couple of times already, is that what amazes me the most is that it's doing that with just 2550-2600 mAh batteries on the best display currently on the market that happens to be a 5.1" QHD monster display.

 

[Leoncio Zamora]

Not necessarily, I didn't mention in my post any numbers because that's completely up to you, in this same thread I posted last month a link where it mentions the recommended usage for a better lithium battery life span, in a summary they mention to not let the battery go down from 40%, I'm doing that, with the many options to charge this phone I just decided to give this a try as it's very easy for me to do that having wireless charges at home and office and car charger for when I'm driving.

What I'm saying in the previous post is that taking that in consideration, if you leave everything on by default you know for sure that your phone battery will be worse than when you do some tweaks, so by default you'll be getting to 40% or even complete depletion a lot quicker, maybe twice or more times a day, meaning more battery charge cycles wasted on a single day vs doing this tweaks and having better battery life.

By doing this tweaks you may easily end up just like me, that most of the time I don't even need to charge my phone during the day because I don't even get to 40% until I'm ready to sleep and sometimes I'm still at 50% by that time.

I hope the above is more clear and you can understand it better.

Thank you yes I figured it be better not to run the battery to low every time. I believe I understand the cell standby issue in maybe some cases, my facebook on my last cycle was 13 percent and when I left the beta program and uninstalled the facebook app and then reinstalled it. When I went back into battery the facebook percentage disappeared and wala it was replaced by cell standby 13 precent which wasn't even on the list previously. Could that be the issue in some cases mean while I'm still getting 6.5 or more in sot

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[erasat]

I just ended up the day with the first full charge cycle in the week with little less than what I was averaging because I was all afternoon streaming Youtube videos to my Chromecast and then I streamed The Hobbits 3 from Google play movies and that alone was 2 hours 24 minutes of streaming. Even that I got 6 hours and 4 minutes of SoT of a mid to heavy usage day.

I really hope that the latest Google play services app, announced today, get to all of us soon enough so people with the infamous Lollipop Google Play services bug try it and see if that together with recent Samsung Push update fixes your drain issues, the rest of you with the Cell Standby drain is a little more complex, but I insist for those of you that have tried the different tweaks posted, to try the wipe cache partition in recovery mode and turn off Wifi calling, and VoLTE until you need them and the turn off completely the Smart network and Scanning always available options on the Wifi settings, if all of that doesnt work try a full reset in recovery mode and do the same tweaks, if still have the issue get a replacement or if you don't want to try again or don't want to wait for a Google or Samsung fix just return it and get your money back.

This phone, without rogue apps or drain bugs is capable of a very good, almost great battery life and like I've mentioned a couple of times already, is that what amazes me the most is that it's doing that with just 2550-2600 mAh batteries on the best display currently on the market that happens to be a 5.1" QHD monster display.

It's not the first time I've seen people here copying a whole or a partial post of mine, and at first I thought that was some kind of user error trying to quote me or something but I really don't know how you can copy word by word one of the actual posts without even adding a simple word to it, besides that it sounds as if they have experienced what it was just posted, I think that they are just trying to get higher post count.

Please mods, can you delete the above message that I'm quoting here? Thanks.

 

[scarchelli]

My sprint s6 battery is insanely good. I got over 9 hours sot the other day. I use the internet on it a lot, some txting and twitter. No facebook. Location on max accuracy, brightness almost full. 3 emails syncing on gmail app. All google apps disabled, same with samsung and sprint. I dont use voice search and what not so i can disable that stuff with no problems. Bluetooth off unless I'm listening to music at the gym for an hour or so. Nfc off. Wifi almost always on, if not, 4g. Using the phone a lot gets me around a 10% drop every hour.

 

[chezm]

Agree with turning off Location unless needed. I too was against the whole idea of "why do I need to turn off something I use??" But later realized I don't need weather to use location which is mainly what I used it for. Now, I get an excellent battery life and have the Location toggle on my quick list in my bar incase I want it on (I.e GPS).

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[anon(9409134)]

My WiFi has started to use around 35% of my battery per charge, even though it is off for like 7 hours a day. Where it says WiFi active, does extreme WiFi use make that percentage increase? Or is there a but?

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[erasat]

My WiFi has started to use around 35% of my battery per charge, even though it is off for like 7 hours a day. Where it says WiFi active, does extreme WiFi use make that percentage increase? Or is there a but?

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Do a Wipe Cache Partition in Recovery mode, then put it to charge to 100%. Are you using a 5ghz or 2.4 ghz wifi connection? If you have a 5ghz connection and doing the Wipe cache doesn't help, then try removing the 5ghz connection and connect to the 2.4 ghz one.

 

[Mike McQuaid]

Im not sure if anyone has tried this. But, I turned off push and set it to manual for my work email (exchange) and wow!!!!! With the same usage I normally do...I am still at 41% 15 hours after taking it off the charger this morning.


Normally I would have had to charge my phone by 11am....

Not sure if this will help anyone else. But its helped me tremendously.

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[anon(9409134)]

Do a Wipe Cache Partition in Recovery mode, then put it to charge to 100%. Are you using a 5ghz or 2.4 ghz wifi connection? If you have a 5ghz connection and doing the Wipe cache doesn't help, then try removing the 5ghz connection and connect to the 2.4 ghz one.

Not sure what I use. I have an airport express, I'll try looking up a way to change it if I can.

Also, does 5 ghz drain less than a 2.4 ghz connection?

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[BioFanatic]

Google Now is the reason I always leave my location on.

-However, I don't use the Samsung weather stuff at all, no syncing.
-I have HD Widgets (my weather widget) set up to check my home city, rather than pinging GPS to locate me. This means it only uses a tad of data, but doesn't ping the GPS.

 

[deeb215]

Doing a cache wipe kinda helped it, but it still uses a lot. It might just be a lollipop bug though.

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My wifi is always on but never scanning. Maybe that makes some difference as I get very good battery life.

Im not sure if anyone has tried this. But, I turned off push and set it to manual for my work email (exchange) and wow!!!!! With the same usage I normally do...I am still at 41% 15 hours after taking it off the charger this morning.


Normally I would have had to charge my phone by 11am....

Not sure if this will help anyone else. But its helped me tremendously.

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@cbreze
Turning off always scanning made a nice difference for me in battery drain.


@Mike
Switching to an email client that allows syncing increments definitely has a positive impact on the battery. For my Gmail account I've switched to Type Mail but will need another client for my work email. So far it only works with the official Outlook app which doesn't have the sync options. Which are you using?

 

[deeb215]

Google Now is the reason I always leave my location on.

-However, I don't use the Samsung weather stuff at all, no syncing.
-I have HD Widgets (my weather widget) set up to check my home city, rather than pinging GPS to locate me. This means it only uses a tad of data, but doesn't ping the GPS.

I've also started using my HD Widgets purchase instead of the stock widget. I'm considering using Google Now soon with the additional functionality rumored to be added soon. Is it still very accurate with Location on Wifi and Mobile Data only?