Battery life not lasting? Your fix is in here

[rayzaname]

I got it from here. Some people have reported better battery life. Some speculate that it could be that when your charging it overnight while its on that at some point at 100% the battery reads full and stops charging at which point the battery starts to drain but the battery indicator its reading 100%. But like I said I am testing it now but I leave work in two hours so probably wont know anything till tonight

A Stunning Revelation regarding my Battery's Life - Page 2 - Android Forums

Very very interesting. I'll be trying this tomorrow.

 

[Qazme]

Maybe the circuitry in the battery isn't registering correctly, this is why some users are reporting a massive increase in time between the 1300 and 1750 seido batteries. Like going from 6 hours to 12 hours with only a 35% increase in battery size. Maybe the Seido is actually charging all the way up while the 1300 isn't. I know I'm going to try this trick out her in a minute. I'm charging now at 52% so I should be able to report back here in a bit over an hour to hour and a half. Then test all night tonight playing with it!

 

[TBolt]

Charging off the wall socket (not a computer).

1st charge 26% - 100% (phone on)
2nd charge took 4-5 minutes (phone off)
3rd charge took 4 minutes (phone off)
4th charge about 1 minute (phone off)
5th charge about 1 minute (phone off)

started watching seconds now...

6th charge took 1 min 12 sec (phone off)
7th charge took 1 min 13 sec (phone off)
8th - 11th charge took exactly 1 min 10 sec (phone off)

at this point, i figured either
1) the phone's software and LED are not giving me correct indications, or
2) i'm actually charging the battery piece-by-piece at 1 minute intervals.

either way, time for me to stop charging.

Will watch to see how long it takes to drain to 90%, 80%, 70% & compare to my perceived performance before.

for my test, i'm doing a common, resource-intensive (?) activity -- streaming Pandora with Wi-Fi on.

14:09 started Pandora.
14:39 battery at 96% (according to Battery Widget by mippin.com)
15:09 battery at 90% (according to Battery Widget by mippin.com)
16:04 battery at 80% (according to Battery Widget by mippin.com)
16:51 battery at 70% (according to Battery Widget by mippin.com)
17:41 battery at 60% (according to Battery Widget by mippin.com)


It's still looking like this: if you have the OEM battery, and you're a heavy user, expect to lose more than 10% of your battery per hour.


Settings / Variables:
aniPet Koi Live Wallpaper running
bluetooth off
mobile networks > Always On (enabled)
GPS on
not using the Inc for anything else during the test

 

[howarmat]

Well, I think part of your situation is that you're splitting the responsibilities of the device between it and the blackberry. I'm not sure how your battery life would hold up if the incredible was the only device you had.

yeah i thought about that too. but everytime i get an email i do have to delete or acknowledge atleast with both devices. and like i said i can get 1 day or longer if i am not doing much but i do only get 18ish when i am using it quite a bit. i will take the 18 hours that i got with normal use and actually playing games and such that i wouldnt do with the BB

 

[Qazme]

I'm still on the fence about the battery issue. I would ideally like this phone to run for at least 14 hours before it dies completely. Optimally I would like to see my incredible after coming off the charger at 8-9 am not have to go back on till 12am and even then still have 25-35% still on the battery. Right now if I pull the phone off the charger at 8-9am I'm back on the charger at 20% or less by 5pm. Which last me my full "work" day but it would be nice if I end up out and about I can still use the phone.

So now the question for me if the 1750 gives me enough power for the day on my usage and keep the good looking profile. Or wait for the 2100 and sacrifice the profile for a bit bigger phone.

 

[pheatton]

Going to have to try that in the morning.

Im going to wait for the 2100 battery and cover and decide then. If its not all that thicker Im in.

 

[VZWBB]

Charging off the wall socket (not a computer).

1st charge 26% - 100% (phone on)
2nd charge took 4-5 minutes (phone off)
3rd charge took 4 minutes (phone off)
4th charge about 1 minute (phone off)
5th charge about 1 minute (phone off)

started watching seconds now...

6th charge took 1 min 12 sec (phone off)
7th charge took 1 min 13 sec (phone off)
8th - 11th charge took exactly 1 min 10 sec (phone off)

at this point, i figured either
1) the phone's software and LED are not giving me correct indications, or
2) i'm actually charging the battery piece-by-piece at 1 minute intervals.

either way, time for me to stop charging.

Will watch to see how long it takes to drain to 90%, 80%, 70% & compare to my perceived performance before.

for my test, i'm doing a common, resource-intensive (?) activity -- streaming Pandora with Wi-Fi on.

14:09 started Pandora.
14:39 battery at 96% (according to Battery Widget by mippin.com)
15:09 battery at 90% (according to Battery Widget by mippin.com)
16:04 battery at 80% (according to Battery Widget by mippin.com)
16:51 battery at 70% (according to Battery Widget by mippin.com)
17:41 battery at 60% (according to Battery Widget by mippin.com)


It's still looking like this: if you have the OEM battery, and you're a heavy user, expect to lose more than 10% of your battery per hour.


Settings / Variables:
aniPet Koi Live Wallpaper running
bluetooth off
mobile networks > Always On (enabled)
GPS on
not using the Inc for anything else during the test

Actually your not charging the battery piece by piece at 1 min intervals. Well I can't say that with 100% surety...but hear me out. What I think you are seeing is a fully charged battery, for real.

Basically, there is a certain voltage li-ion packs charge up to. Once they hit that voltage, the charger should automatically cut off the charging. The reason for this is that of you could charge it higher than the voltage, you have a potentially dangerous situation on your hands. The same thing goes for discharging, there is a circuit that actually should shut down whatever you are powering with this type of battery to avoid dropping below a certain voltage. If there wasn't, again, potentially dangerous.

Now, if these packs contain more than 1 cell, this could lend to the experience some of us are having. The issue would be if the cells aren't equalized to each other. Again thats a potentially dangerous situation as well, but one would hope theres something built into the system designed to do this.

If say this is a 2 cell pack, and they aren't equalized very well from the manufacturer, then initial uses might show poor performance, and following more charging, the performance should get better assuming that the cells are equalizing.

Just a shot in the dark, but its not out of the realm of possibility.

 

[dgalanter]

I have noticed that after a week, my battery usage is much better. I've not plugged it in for the last several hours, made two calls, some surfing, some emails... it's barely down.

 

[Qazme]

Well after 40 minutes of heavy use I'm only down to 94%. This was youtube stream, seesmic twittering, GTalk, email, and some light web browsing on wifi for about 10-12 minutes. I think this "fix" may just do it. Normally I check my email and walk out the door and I'm already down to 90%, after 10 minutes or use. So we will see how it does over the next week to see if this did it for me!

 

[Xeus]

Right now it's 22:45 and I took my phone off the charger at 05:15. I'm at 52%. I didn't exactly use a lot on my phone today because it was a busy day at work, but a few days ago my battery had died at around 21:30 after removing it at 05:15.

I wish people would listen to rabernet's suggestion to kill apps that are preventing phones from going to sleep, even when the display is off...I'm sure that's what was causing my phone's battery to drain so fast.

 

[JimmyMac]

I don't claim to be a battery expert of any sort. But it might be the software in the phone. One of my old hobbies is racing electric remote control cars. So we have to deal with new battery technologies every year. We push the batteries to the limits and seek out the best packs down to .001 volts. Anyways, some of our chargers have different charging profiles. Some of them will fast charge to 90% before cutoff. Some profiles will charge up to 100% (of course this will take longer). So for our phone, it would really depends on the charging profile. Even if the phone is off, it would still have to go through some circuitry with built in charging profiles (at least I would think).

I haven't looked at the battery, but does anyone know off hand which tab is positive, and which is negative? I could run my pack through one of my chargers and cycle it. I can get discharge curves, IR rating, mah, average voltage. I could do a full discharge down to x.xx v (maybe 3.0v), then full charge at 1 or 2 amps (I could go higher, but don't wanna risk it on this tiny pack), then do a full discharge at... ohhh... 2 amps maybe (I could go much higher, but I don't want a fireball on my desk! haha) Then get the readings. I have a Seidio pack on the way. I can see if it really is a 1750 mah pack. But that's another topic.

 

[Qazme]

I took my phone off the charger at 8:53pm CST tonight, it's now 11:53pm my time. That makes me on battery for 3 hours and I'm down to 65%. So I've dropped 35% of my battery in 3 hours with heavy heavy usage.

If this rate keep up under heavy usage I should be able to pull about 7.8 hours out of a stock battery during heavy usage.

They way I figure this is because 3 hours (on MY heavy usage) = 35% battery.
There are 2.86 (rounded up) 35% in a full 100%.
So judging 3 hours per 35% my calculation is 2.86 x 3 = 8.58 hours.
Of course batteries discharge a bit different at different level so I put in a 10% efficiency loss over the full 100%. 8.58/ 1.10 = 7.8 hours.

I've been watching my battery levels so far for the last couple of days and my calculations seem to be in the ball park +/- 30-45 minutes. So I think under normal work day usage I will get enough to last me 8-10 hours depending on the amount of emails and calls I receive.

 

[blackpugs]

Scratch that Matt, I was missing one step... Thanks.

Can you tell me what you are missing because I had the same problem....3G disappeared and I could not connect to the internet etc

 

[blackpugs]

Thank you thank you thank you Bryan....now I understand why my 3G disappeared as well as internet etc etc.

Kim

Be careful not to accidentally hit the first mobile networks as this WILL indeed turn off your phones capability to handle wireless data and calls. As long as you hit the second one and on the next screen, uncheck the always on box you will be good to go. Made that mistake myself and wondered what in the world was going.

Bryan

 

[Aatrek]

How can I put the Wifi/Mobile/GPS toggles on my home screens? I removed the bluetooth one, but I can't for the life of me find how to get the others back on. They're not under 'Programs' or 'Widgets.'

I'm not looking for the 'Power Control' widget, but the individual service ones.

 

[jshaffer75]

How can I put the Wifi/Mobile/GPS toggles on my home screens? I removed the bluetooth one, but I can't for the life of me find how to get the others back on. They're not under 'Programs' or 'Widgets.'

under widgets and settings i believe.

 

[Aatrek]

under widgets and settings i believe.

Oh, THANK YOU. I always miss that the 'Settings' "widget" is really a collapsed menu.

 

[6s1d9]

Can you tell me what you are missing because I had the same problem....3G disappeared and I could not connect to the internet etc

Theres two settings. One is Mobile Network and the one below it is Mobile Network's', plural. Thats the one you want. I was unchecking Mobile network which turns 3G off and wasn't what the original poster said to do. Try it out. I think in gray writing it even says "reduces battery power on some devices"
Let me know if you still have questions.

 

[mobilemedic20]

This whole thing with turning the phone off, then charging again until the light turns green seems to be working for me. After about 90 minutes (no phone calls, couple e-mails, wifi on) I have 99% battery still. I've also (thanks to android central's tip) changed my wifi setting to Never Sleep while at home since my signal is so bad, so I'm guessing it's pulling down less data via 1x/3G.

So this seems to be a legitimate aid to getting a full charge - the question is, what the hell is causing the phone not to charge fully in the first place? Is it the battery? The phone hardware? The software?

My hope is that it's the battery, so that replacing it with an extended battery will resolve the problem. It's really annoying and time consuming to have do this procedure every day, and I likely won't be able to.

 

[rosariorose9]

How can I put the Wifi/Mobile/GPS toggles on my home screens? I removed the bluetooth one, but I can't for the life of me find how to get the others back on. They're not under 'Programs' or 'Widgets.'

I'm not looking for the 'Power Control' widget, but the individual service ones.

There's a Widget called "power control" which I use. It has wifi, gps, mobile, brightness on a single 'bar', with the ability to quickly turn each one on or off.