Gotta Get to the Bottom of This Battery Drainage! Pics

[monicakm]

I found signal strength under mobile network. The numbers are -106 and 34

 

[marlin29311]

Signal strength is definitely giving you problems, but I also think you have some bad apps running. Are you using Amazon all day? In your first screen shots, amazon is at 5% - that's WAY to high. Message+ is also using a ton of battery which it should not be. You might want to consider disabling the Amazon app and installing the one from the play store along with disabling message+ and installing google messenger. I can literally be texting all day and Messenger doesn't usually pop up as a battery user.

Also random - do you use 2 different browsers? I see you have chrome and internet both on your list.

 

[kramer5150]

Little late chiming in...

Your 4G signal in those pics is weak at 1/5 ~ 2/5 bars. There may be some times when you are crawling on 3G, or maybe even 1X. Verizon coverage in my neighborhood is practically non-existant, (3G-2/5 bars)... so whenever I am at home I turn off my cell data mostly. Which sux because Verizon uses cell data for voice mail and Message+ image attachments. (Local residents keep voting down cell-tower construction measures every 3-4 years)

You definitely have some rogue app activity, at least at the time of that screen capture... Message+, life360, amazon and Internet collectively add up to 21%, thats just a few clicks down from screen power usage. Its normal and healthy for apps to consume background power and system resources from time to time. You should monitor it though. If these apps are constantly drawing your battery... thats not good. I found this to be the case with the Amazon app and iHeart radio apps, so I deleted them. They were just constantly siphoning battery in the background on my LGV10.

AMOLED displays use less power with darker themes and dimmer screen settings, might want to tweak those things too.

 

[crump13]

Tap the graph to get to the next page - post that screenshot so we can see the signal strength. (Low signal strength can drain a battery fast.)

When I tap on the graphic on my phone to see the signal strength it doesn't show me. It did on my GS5 that I had but I just changed two days ago to the GS7 and seems like that option isn't available. I have been looking for where I can find see an history of my signal strength for each battery charge but tapping on the Graphic in the battery menu (as seen above) doesn't work for me.

 

[monicakm]

What numbers indicate good, fair and poor signal strength?

If LTE is the culprit I'm just going to have to live with it. I can't leave my wifi on all the time. Something is draining that too and I thought I found the culprit to that last night as well. And I kinda did. At least part of it. I have two Chromecasts dongles. Apparently the things draw data 24/7, tv on or off. Anywhere between 8 and 20MB/HOUR. When you have a data limit of 10GB/month, that can eat it all up in no time. They were using 15-17MB/hour. Kept the wifi plugged up over night with the Chromecasts unpluged and I lost 8MB/hour while the computer was off and we were asleep. Still too much. Now I'm going to investigate my wifi printer.

Anyway, until I get the wifi draw under control, I can't leave it on all the time for the phone. Plus, it's sooo much slower than LTE. I will implement some of the suggestions here. Thank you for those! Some I can do, some I'm not willing to turn off or do without.

I will disable Amazon. I rarely use it. Why is installing the Amazon App from the Play Store better?
I text far less than most people...maybe an average of 6 to 10/day. But I love the Messages+ app. I'll look around in the settings to see if I can figure out what's causing it to pull so much battery life. I do use two browsers but I don't have to. I started using the Samsung browser when several said it was so much faster. I can disable one.
NFC is not on. GPS has to stay on for Life360. I'll remove Amazon. Nothing updates unless I'm on wifi. One of the first things I do is disable apps I know I'm not going to use.

Doze. Is this an app? I've read about it before but have never "seen" it. Does closing all apps put the phone is doze? I don't turn my phone off at night but I do silence it and put it on the charger. If I close all open apps, turn off the screen and put it on the charger, will it be in doze?

Android Device Manager not installed. Location: set to GPS only. Not sure if I want to turn off Google Now and Location History.
>>Set app power saving to always for apps those you don't use<< How do I do this?
>>remove the GPS permission for apps that you feel don't require GPS access.>> How do I do this?

dadatthepanda, I've done a zillion cache partition wipes.


I prefer to leave Life360. My husband is a contractor and is never at the same location more than 2 days at a time. It's nice to see where he is, and where he is in route home and how long it will be till he's home. Makes knowing when to have dinner on the table so much easier And he can see where I am and keep track of me when I'm on the road at night. It's comforting to us. It's an invasion of privacy to our daughter <lol>

Thanks everyone!

 

[monicakm]

Would someone please help with these questions...

What numbers indicate good, fair and poor signal strength?

Why is installing the Amazon App from the Play Store better (for my battery) than the one that came on my phone?

Why would my Messages+ be using so much of my battery power when using it so little? I've looked in the settings and can't see anything that I could change to reduce battery usage.

I don't understand the whole "Doze" thing. I checked the Play Store and see one but it mentions Marshmallow has it's own Doze feature but I can't find it anywhere.

Thanks

 

[kelela92]

Not sure if this is applicable to you, but how are you charging your phone? I know mine wouldn't hold a charge with a specific non-Samsung wireless charger. Also had issues with non-Samsung wired chargers. When I use the Samsung charger, it's fine. Just a thought.

As for the signal strength a lower number (not looking at the negative sign) is best. So, -80 is better than -100. Which means your -106 isn't that good. I'm currently at -108 and I have 2-3 out of 5 bars (it's fluctuating). However, I'm at work and being here doesn't drain my battery.

Good luck. Figured I'd throw out the charger question since that was my problem...after going through all the other crappola, in the end, friggen non-Samsung charger did me in, ugh.

 

[laollis]

I miss my Note 4 and being able to change my battery whenever I wanted to. This phone sucks. It charges all night and I get up about 5am and by noon it's almost dead. Not heavy user either. :-(

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[manomic]

What numbers indicate good, fair and poor signal strength?

Doze. Is this an app? I've read about it before but have never "seen" it. Does closing all apps put the phone is doze? I don't turn my phone off at night but I do silence it and put it on the charger. If I close all open apps, turn off the screen and put it on the charger, will it be in doze?

Android Device Manager not installed. Location: set to GPS only. Not sure if I want to turn off Google Now and Location History.
>>Set app power saving to always for apps those you don't use<< How do I do this?
>>remove the GPS permission for apps that you feel don't require GPS access.>> How do I do this?

Doze is an inbuilt android Marshmallow feature which allows the phone to go into deep sleep. Only necessary apps run. It kicks in only when on battery and when the phone is untouched over a period of time. If you want to see if the phone dozes, you need an app like GSam Battery Monitor, go to charts - Others tab or held awake menu, you will see when the phone dozed and how long.

To set power saving to always, open battery settings > in the App Power Saving section click on Detail button, click on the apps and set always, you can also leave it automatic / off.
For GPS restrictions, Settings>Privacy & Safety> App Permissions > Location, there you can set what all apps you want to restrict.

Google now & location history are battery hogs, you could try disabling and see if there is any difference, atleast you will know what is causing the issue.

 

[monicakm]

Doze is an inbuilt android Marshmallow feature which allows the phone to go into deep sleep. Only necessary apps run. It kicks in only when on battery and when the phone is untouched over a period of time. If you want to see if the phone dozes, you need an app like GSam Battery Monitor, go to charts - Others tab or held awake menu, you will see when the phone dozed and how long.

To set power saving to always, open battery settings > in the App Power Saving section click on Detail button, click on the apps and set always, you can also leave it automatic / off.
For GPS restrictions, Settings>Privacy & Safety> App Permissions > Location, there you can set what all apps you want to restrict.

Google now & location history are battery hogs, you could try disabling and see if there is any difference, atleast you will know what is causing the issue.

>>to set power saving to always, open battery settings > in the App Power Saving section click on Detail button...<<
Thanks for all the information! I'm not clear about this. I'm on Verizon and have a "Power Saving Mode" under Battery but nothing you mentioned after that. Or, are you referring to GSam Battery Monitor App?

 

[monicakm]

Not sure if this is applicable to you, but how are you charging your phone? I know mine wouldn't hold a charge with a specific non-Samsung wireless charger. Also had issues with non-Samsung wired chargers. When I use the Samsung charger, it's fine. Just a thought.

As for the signal strength a lower number (not looking at the negative sign) is best. So, -80 is better than -100. Which means your -106 isn't that good. I'm currently at -108 and I have 2-3 out of 5 bars (it's fluctuating). However, I'm at work and being here doesn't drain my battery.

Good luck. Figured I'd throw out the charger question since that was my problem...after going through all the other crappola, in the end, friggen non-Samsung charger did me in, ugh.

I'm using the chargers that came with my S7. The fast charging AC wall plug and a Samsung wireless charger (promo). It's not fast charging. I recently purchased an Anker faster charger for my car but I've only used it once (and that was BEFORE I remembered I had to enable fast charging in settings)

Is there anything I (or Verizon) can do to increase my cell strength short of erecting a tower in my backyard? Apparently -106 was a good day. I'm usually around -111 to -113.

Thank you!

 

[manomic]

>>to set power saving to always, open battery settings > in the App Power Saving section click on Detail button...<<
Thanks for all the information! I'm not clear about this. I'm on Verizon and have a "Power Saving Mode" under Battery but nothing you mentioned after that. Or, are you referring to GSam Battery Monitor App?

I'm talking about app power saving in the screen shot below.. I have an international variant so not sure if Verizon has this

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[monicakm]

No, I don't have that under Battery/Power Saving Mode. This is why I've asked the AC forum (two years ago) to give us an option to add our carrier's name with our screen name and avatar. With all these phones having different features dependent on the carrier or what part of the world you're in, it would make discussions/replies more relevant.

Good grief...you have 87% battery with 39 hours left?! I want what he's got! <lol>

 

[manomic]

he he I have an S7 Edge(battery is larger than the S7), with an exynos (Samsung's) chipset, the battery performance is better than the Snapdragon 820 that's in the Verizon Variant. Also I believe you might have WIFI Calling and VoLTE, I've read that enabling those two impacts battery, I don't have them so can't test and tell. I don't know if you would want WiFi calling but without VoLTE(Voice over LTE) your speed would drop to 3G speeds during calls and I am not sure if Verizon offers HSPA in 3G, I can only see CDMA and that tops at 3Mbps.

Only thing I could think of is to disable background data for apps that you think won't need it. This will affect only mobile data, WiFi data will not be affected. Since you have problem only when on LTE, guess all the background data however minimal they are, would constantly keep the phone working when signal is not good enough resulting in data packet loss.

 

[systemofadown1]

I usually sit at around -101
Thats pretty terrible & it does put a real hurting on my battery life. The cell radios are at full blast trying to find & then maintain a signal Sadly thats still a trade off for country life.

When Im in town, my battery life is awesome.

 

[lafountain]

No, I don't have that under Battery/Power Saving Mode. This is why I've asked the AC forum (two years ago) to give us an option to add our carrier's name with our screen name and avatar. With all these phones having different features dependent on the carrier or what part of the world you're in, it would make discussions/replies more relevant.

Good grief...you have 87% battery with 39 hours left?! I want what he's got! <lol>

Must be Verizon that took that option away, I have it on my Sprint S7.

 

[monicakm]

he he I have an S7 Edge(battery is larger than the S7), with an exynos (Samsung's) chipset, the battery performance is better than the Snapdragon 820 that's in the Verizon Variant. Also I believe you might have WIFI Calling and VoLTE, I've read that enabling those two impacts battery, I don't have them so can't test and tell. I don't know if you would want WiFi calling but without VoLTE(Voice over LTE) your speed would drop to 3G speeds during calls and I am not sure if Verizon offers HSPA in 3G, I can only see CDMA and that tops at 3Mbps.

Only thing I could think of is to disable background data for apps that you think won't need it. This will affect only mobile data, WiFi data will not be affected. Since you have problem only when on LTE, guess all the background data however minimal they are, would constantly keep the phone working when signal is not good enough resulting in data packet loss.

I don't have/use Wifi calling. In fact, I don't even keep wifi enabled. I'm capped at 10GB/month with my satellite internet and have 7GB data plan with Verizon. I think it's doing a little better. I've removed the Amazon app and force stop Life360 when I'm not using it. I guess it's just going to be this way until more towers in my area are put up. It's not a BIG issue, just a bit of an inconvenience but I certainly expected better battery life than my S5.
I think I already know the answer but I'll call Verizon and see if they can do anything about my signal strength.

 

[manomic]

hmmm okay

 

[marlin29311]

Would someone please help with these questions...

What numbers indicate good, fair and poor signal strength?

Why is installing the Amazon App from the Play Store better (for my battery) than the one that came on my phone?

Why would my Messages+ be using so much of my battery power when using it so little? I've looked in the settings and can't see anything that I could change to reduce battery usage.

I don't understand the whole "Doze" thing. I checked the Play Store and see one but it mentions Marshmallow has it's own Doze feature but I can't find it anywhere.

Thanks

The preinstalled amazon app is technically side-loaded and not the official one from the Play store - it could be several versions behind the play store one and could be buggy on your phone. Best bet is to always have the Play store version of any app that you use.

Messages+ is a Verizon messaging app that does a lot of random crap in the background that you might not know or need like backing stuff into the cloud, etc. It's quite a bloated program if you ask me, and as evidenced by its power sucking capabilities on your phone, it's killing your battery too. If you just need a simple texting program, Google Messenger or the stock Messaging app is a better choice.