Battery life question.

[fierro951]

Does leaving on GPS, Bluetooth, and WiFi drain the battery much more than turning it off on this phone? I've always turned off whatever I didn't need but I was wondering if this phone didn't require that for good battery life.

Thanks!

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[fierro951]

Let me rephrase that... I know it effects battery life by leaving them on all the time, but how much compared to your average Android phone like the GS4, HTC ONE, etc.

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[ultravisitor]

I leave GPS on all the time and I'm still able to get 24+ hours of use out of the phone. I only enable BT and WiFi when necessary, but only because I hardly ever use BT and it annoys me to have the WiFi notification on all the time if I'm not actually on WiFi.

 

[Rocketsaucev2]

I leave GPS on all the time and I'm still able to get 24+ hours of use out of the phone. I only enable BT and WiFi when necessary, but only because I hardly ever use BT and it annoys me to have the WiFi notification on all the time if I'm not actually on WiFi.

You can turn the wifi notification off in advanced wifi settings

Sent from my XT1060

 

[ultravisitor]

You can turn the wifi notification off in advanced wifi settings

I know, but there are times when I do want it. I just don't want it there constantly, which would pretty much be the case since I live in Chicago and there's wifi in so many places.

 

[Aquila]

It's my understanding that leaving WiFi on can increase battery life by lessening the need for GPS radios to be fired up, using approximation through WiFi signals instead to gather location settings for any apps that now take advantage of that (used to be Google Apps only).

 

[thegrants82]

You are right but some people will never believe it.

It's my understanding that leaving WiFi on can increase battery life by lessening the need for GPS radios to be fired up, using approximation through WiFi signals instead to gather location settings for any apps that now take advantage of that (used to be Google Apps only).

 

[lingcod777]

You are right but some people will never believe it.

It's not so much believing versus trying to understand the tradeoffs.

What has the least power drain in these scenarios?
1) Leaving on WIFI 100% of the time. Burning battery when not connected (driving, walking around a mall) but saving on location information when connected.
2) Manually turning off when not connected (pain)
3) 3rd party app to manage WIFI vs. location (easy but TBD battery drain added)

On my crummy Rebound, the answer is #3. On a modern device (Moto X or LG G2) what is the answer?

 

[anthony2558]

Well last night between the hours of 12am and 7am i lost 17% battery. The phone was connected to wifi with a stong signal. GPS always on and no bluetooth. A little out of the norm from my htc one. It was the first day that I got it and fully set it up. So today I charged it full, powered off and back on. Will see what happens today, hopefully the break in period will help the battery out some more.

 

[phositadc]

Well last night between the hours of 12am and 7am i lost 17% battery. The phone was connected to wifi with a stong signal. GPS always on and no bluetooth. A little out of the norm from my htc one. It was the first day that I got it and fully set it up. So today I charged it full, powered off and back on. Will see what happens today, hopefully the break in period will help the battery out some more.

Bad idle drain is an issue that many people have experienced. I don't think there's a reliable fix yet. Some reported improvement by rooting and freezing lots of stuff, but not everybody.

Sent from my HTC One mini

 

[mtndewgood]

How do you know its wifi taking your juice? I leave wifi on. At work I use 4g. When I get home I'm connected wifi. At the end of the day yesterday with moderate use I was at 55%. The battery life on this phone is outstanding. I wouldn't worry about the wifi.

 

[Aquila]

Was the moto a assist setting for night on? I personally am not using assist right now.

XT1060. Through spacetime.

 

[garublador]

How do you know its wifi taking your juice? I leave wifi on. At work I use 4g. When I get home I'm connected wifi. At the end of the day yesterday with moderate use I was at 55%. The battery life on this phone is outstanding. I wouldn't worry about the wifi.

I've only ever seen claims that WiFi takes significant amounts of battery. I've never seen anyone actually show that it does. Mine only ever shows up as 2-3% of my battery usage. My guess is that in older phones the WiFi modules were much less efficient and used up more battery and the advice to turn them off stuck even though their efficiency is much better now.

I haven't seen anything super specific about what the contextual processor does, but it sounds like it runs the sensors in the phone. That means that WiFi, Bluetooth and location services are probably being run off the generic computing cores. That means minimal battery savings from those functions over most other phones.

What's also worth looking into is your account syncing. That will be done with the generic processing cores as well. You can use something like Llama or Tasker (the former being more battery efficient, easier to use and free and the latter begin much more powerful, harder to use and costs money) and Synker to choose exactly what and when your accounts get synced. I'm controlling that on my S4 (Gmail every 15 minutes, everything else every hour), I have WiFi and GPS on all the time, all Google Now cards on and all location services on and I lose about 2% per hour while idle. I'd suspect the Moto X could do at least that well. You'll probably have to do some digging with apps like GSam and Wakelock Detector to see exactly what is using your battery, though.

 

[thegrants82]

I have had great luck using Llama and have for a couple years now. I work in a Government facility and one of the rules is no WiFi and no Bluetooth while in the building. If someone is sitting in their office with their WiFi enabled they can actually narrow it down right to the office. I was actually surprised that they have the ability to do it but they sure do. Either way Llama uses cell towers for position, it uses so little battery that half the time it doesn't even show up in my stats. I pull up in the parking lot and my Wifi automatically disables and my phone goes to quiet mode. Done, problem solved.

It's not so much believing versus trying to understand the tradeoffs.

What has the least power drain in these scenarios?
1) Leaving on WIFI 100% of the time. Burning battery when not connected (driving, walking around a mall) but saving on location information when connected.
2) Manually turning off when not connected (pain)
3) 3rd party app to manage WIFI vs. location (easy but TBD battery drain added)

On my crummy Rebound, the answer is #3. On a modern device (Moto X or LG G2) what is the answer?

 

[anthony2558]

How do you know its wifi taking your juice? I leave wifi on. At work I use 4g. When I get home I'm connected wifi. At the end of the day yesterday with moderate use I was at 55%. The battery life on this phone is outstanding. I wouldn't worry about the wifi.

I don't know if its WiFi taking my juice. I'm just stating that it was on WiFi and with a strong signal. Normally while connected to WiFi my htc one will last for a full 23 hrs without issue.

Sent from my XT1053 using Tapatalk 2

 

[anthony2558]

Was the moto a assist setting for night on? I personally am not using assist right now.

XT1060. Through spacetime.

I didn't have power save nor did I have moto assist on for night, but I did have active notifications set to off between the hours of 12am - 5am. I'm gonna play with power saving and assist.

Sent from my XT1053 using Tapatalk 2

 

[davidnc]

I have yet to turn off GPS or WiFi's since I got the phone. Battery life is great even with it on all the time.
I have "Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep " ticked to Always as well, in the Advanced Wi-Fi settings.

My older phones yes I turned off GPS when not needing to have it on .

 

[anthony2558]

While in my phone sits in my locker today on airplane mode screen on time 5min and 34secs I have lost 11% battery life. By the end of my work day it looks like its gonna end around 22-25% gone. My htc one on airplane mode can sit in my locker for 8hrs and only lose 2%. Their seems to be an issue with my phone. the screen on time is for checking the battery info to see that something is holding my phone awake for no reason. Looks like google services?

 

[tonymhoffman]

While in my phone sits in my locker today on airplane mode screen on time 5min and 34secs I have lost 11% battery life. By the end of my work day it looks like its gonna end around 22-25% gone. My htc one on airplane mode can sit in my locker for 8hrs and only lose 2%. Their seems to be an issue with my phone. the screen on time is for checking the battery info to see that something is holding my phone awake for no reason. Looks like google services?

Have you tried any wake lock detection ?

Ive lost 11% with my batter in 66min but I've already got 50min screen time. However I've read the issue with this phone is its idle consumption. The phone shines during usage.

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[anthony2558]

I've turned off active notifications. Wake lock is Google services a total of 350 and counting, everything else is in the 30-50 range.

Moto X