HORRIBLE Battery life... how can I tell what's doing this?

[NeveSSL]

Hi all,

My battery life is horrid. To the tune of 50% dead in 3 hours. Under Settings->Battery, it shows the Android OS taking up the majority of the battery life. Is there a way I can dig deeper into that and find out exactly what it is that is causing it? Would widgets fall under that category?

Also, FWIW, this was while using WiFi, although 4G is enabled.

Thanks,

Brandon

 

[dmmarck]

There was a thread similar to this recently. I suggest getting an app called Better Battery Stats. It's available (via donation) in the Play Store, or if you find the thread here, for free as an apk through XDA/the dev directly.

Essentially, use that to see what app is consuming the most data, then clear the app's cache, disable it, or uninstall it.

Apps like Watchdog can also help you monitor CPU and ram usage.

 

[NeveSSL]

I will give that a shot. Thanks for the reply.

Brandon

 

[dmmarck]

I will give that a shot. Thanks for the reply.

Brandon

No problemo. Also, the screen and 4G will kill your battery in nanoseconds, so like anything in life, use moderation .

 

[NeveSSL]

Understood.

I'm tempted to turn off 4g, but at the same time, its a large part of the reason I wanted this phone. :-\

Brandon

 

[dmmarck]

Understood.

I'm tempted to turn off 4g, but at the same time, its a large part of the reason I wanted this phone. :-\

Brandon

I hear ya. My practices are - WiFi when available, 4G when plugged in or I think I'll plug in within a few hours. That being said, I kept it on for S and Gs a few fridays ago and got 7 hours of moderate usage (down to about 23%).

 

[dannyro77]

Dmmarck is exactly right - use wi-fi when available, it drains less battery. I am surprised at how much 4G does drain battery even while idle. I also took his advice and purchased BetterBatteryStats: it paid some dividends too as YouMail kept waking my phone because I didnt realize it was polling for new voicemails every 15 minutes. The app is quite useful, but to learn what it does I would read his FAQ page and understand how it is giving you the information. On a side note, I didnt realize clearing the cache would help. I've noticed "audio out" or something wakes me phone up a lot - dont know what tha is but I can only assume its the stereo plug into my phone.

 

[thebignewt]

It's gotta be GPS to kill 50% in 3 hours in a place with any kind of signal. You can tell it ot WiFi when available, and it won't mess with 4g.

 

[NeveSSL]

Sadly, I've got GPS turned off.

Brandon

 

[pimfram]

Make sure your apps aren't syncing that often or just plain toggle your sync off until you need it. Keep your screen brightness on the lower end. If the phone is new, the battery is probably not broken in, and battery life will improve a bit after a handful of cycles.

 

[TabGuy]

It's gotta be GPS to kill 50% in 3 hours in a place with any kind of signal. You can tell it ot WiFi when available, and it won't mess with 4g.

Don't know about that. I get very good battery life, currently at 69% after 8 hours, and I haven't turned GPS off since I got the phone in December.

However, I do set mine to CDMA only.

 

[dannyro77]

I have a question for anyone familiar with BetteryBattery Stats. Upon Dmmarck's recommendation, I downloaded BBS and noticed a couple of things-
1) Awake time is almost always higher than screen on time, but generally only about about 8-12% higher. When I look into the partial wakelocks, a lot of time the only thing I see there using wakelocks is "alarmManager" and "audioOut_1" (I did find Youmail consuming some time but have since changed its polling method which has since fixed the problem). It seems most of the time, any app culprits are small as Youmail takes 0.2%, Facebook 0.1%, and Widgetlocker 0.1%. Under Kernal Wakelocks, occasionally I will see "PowerManagerService" high at like, 15-20% sometimes during the day, and other times like now at only 1.3%, with nothing else in there generally over 5%.

Basically, is there anything else I should or could be doing to increase the battery life? It seems that my awake times are higher than screen on but I dont think there are any apps in my phone causing havoc. I also downloaded Badass Battery Monitor which says some apps at certain points (like 1Weather) use like 7-10% of the battery through 0 CPU usage-weird). Any suggestions or further help is greatly appreciated.

Dan

 

[TabGuy]

There's a way to find out for certainty what eats your battery. It's a painful process so if you're not into pain stop reading right here. This involves the Scientific Method (remember that from high school?) where you hold all variables constant while changing only one at a time and observing the results.

Here are the steps:

• Do a factory reset on your phone (The pain begins, but don't worry it gets worse!)
• Do NOT, I repeat do NOT install any apps. None. Period. For at least 2 days
• Make sure that the battery life is working as expected.
• Start installing apps using this method: Only ONE app per day, in the morning.
• Once that app has determined not to be a battery hog you can install the next app, but not until the next morning.
• Repeat the install and test steps until something starts eating the battery. Remove that app immediately. Never use it again.

I did this on a phone about 8 months ago and found out that Shazam was an app that I had to remove. I couldn't say for sure that Shazam was the bad guy or it just didn't play nice with something else but the battery was eaten up quickly when I installed it and the battery problem disappeared when I removed it.

It's not a fun process but I guarantee you that it works. Every time.

 

[yosteve]

I just go to settings, data and click on every app and restrict each apps background data. Battery went from 6 to 13 hours.

 

[RyMac04]

There's a way to find out for certainty what eats your battery. It's a painful process so if you're not into pain stop reading right here. This involves the Scientific Method (remember that from high school?) where you hold all variables constant while changing only one at a time and observing the results.

Here are the steps:

• Do a factory reset on your phone (The pain begins, but don't worry it gets worse!)
• Do NOT, I repeat do NOT install any apps. None. Period. For at least 2 days
• Make sure that the battery life is working as expected.
• Start installing apps using this method: Only ONE app per day, in the morning.
• Once that app has determined not to be a battery hog you can install the next app, but not until the next morning.
• Repeat the install and test steps until something starts eating the battery. Remove that app immediately. Never use it again.

I did this on a phone about 8 months ago and found out that Shazam was an app that I had to remove. I couldn't say for sure that Shazam was the bad guy or it just didn't play nice with something else but the battery was eaten up quickly when I installed it and the battery problem disappeared when I removed it.

It's not a fun process but I guarantee you that it works. Every time.

Seeing as this process would take me 74 days to complete... mind posting a list of known battery eating apps that you've found in your experiments??

 

[NeveSSL]

There's a way to find out for certainty what eats your battery. It's a painful process so if you're not into pain stop reading right here. This involves the Scientific Method (remember that from high school?) where you hold all variables constant while changing only one at a time and observing the results.

Here are the steps:

• Do a factory reset on your phone (The pain begins, but don't worry it gets worse!)
• Do NOT, I repeat do NOT install any apps. None. Period. For at least 2 days
• Make sure that the battery life is working as expected.
• Start installing apps using this method: Only ONE app per day, in the morning.
• Once that app has determined not to be a battery hog you can install the next app, but not until the next morning.
• Repeat the install and test steps until something starts eating the battery. Remove that app immediately. Never use it again.

I did this on a phone about 8 months ago and found out that Shazam was an app that I had to remove. I couldn't say for sure that Shazam was the bad guy or it just didn't play nice with something else but the battery was eaten up quickly when I installed it and the battery problem disappeared when I removed it.

It's not a fun process but I guarantee you that it works. Every time.

Already ahead of you, except I started deleting apps I wasn't using or didn't want first, followed by apps I had installed over the last few days. It ended up being Lite Flow, which is unfortunate as its a fantastic app otherwise. I may contact the developer and see if I can find out why. I believe there were other people who had the same issue.

Brandon