How is battery life on Froyo EC05 so far? *poll added*

[boomerbubba]

... i also reseted my battery stast ( rooted , used root explorer) ...

I wonder how much this contributed to the final improvement. It may even account for all of it. Others report good results by this method.

AFAIK there is no way for those who are not rooted to clear their battery stats when recalibrating. Too bad this function is not built into the stock settings utilities. EDIT: Would wiping the cache partition at the recovery boot screen clear this data?

 

[lancelot916]

I think someone mentioned that they had the same issue I'm about to describe, but I searched this entire thread and couldn't find the post. I guess it was in another thread. My phone came with DI18. I did the EB13 update.zip from Samsungs website before it was pulled and had the same battery life I had before I updated, which is to say, not bad. (Leaving Wifi (set never to sleep) and GPS on per Jason Voegele's blog post.)

Since getting the EC05 update OTA, if I leave Wifi on, the battery drains to 25% remaining during a regular workday at the office. (On EB13, it may have gone down to 85-90% remaining on a normal day.) The Wifi signal I'm getting is a maxed out signal, so it isn't weak, but when I go to the Wifi settings, I can see the phone scan for other wireless networks about every 3 seconds. If I turn off Wifi and just use regular 3G service, I get the same or better battery life as I did on EB13 with Wifi on all of the time.

So, I have a workaround, but it would be nice to leave the Wifi on instead of having to turn it on if I want speedier data service in my office.

yup this is me too. leaving wifi ON, it took up 93% of battery at one time. I guess we need to change the wifi sleep policy to "never when plugged in". i posted a thread here but no one seems to have the issue we have.

http://forum.androidcentral.com/sprint-epic-4g/77045-wifi-battery-drain.html

 

[SandersJC1964]

final research done,
after 3 weeks of intence research and many different settings i have gone from 7 hours of light use battery life up to 1 days 9 hours! (33 hours) of moderate/heavy use WITHOUT HARD RESET OR ANY WIPE ALL MY APPS ARE THE SAME. so here it is the story:
after almost returning the phone and reading forums, i chated with a rep of samsung and told me that my battery probably wasn't using its whole capacity and he told me to do the next steps to open my battery to use full capacity.
plug phone to charger, open back cover and take battery out WHILE PHONE IS STILL CONECTED TO THE POWER CORD , wait 30 seconds place battery back in it now turn on phone and let it charge all the way up (preferebly over night) also, do this when battery is in between 10% and 40% , my battery when from 10% to 29% just by doig that he said it unleashed the other 20% of the battery that the systems wasnt recognizing. after my battery charged over night i also reseted my battery stast ( rooted , used root explorer) after reseting them i turned off my phone turned on ...

I did this last night and I must say this had greatly increased my battery life. Fifteen and a half hours so far and still at 30% with moderate use. The real test will be Monday when I go back to work at the hospital, where I'm sub-ground level much of the day and my signal is sketchy at best.

 

[dquangt]

yup this is me too. leaving wifi ON, it took up 93% of battery at one time. I guess we need to change the wifi sleep policy to "never when plugged in". i posted a thread here but no one seems to have the issue we have.

http://forum.androidcentral.com/sprint-epic-4g/77045-wifi-battery-drain.html

Me 3. Had great battery life before. With the latest update my battery drains really fast with wifi on. Quote annoying.

 

[boomerbubba]

Me 3. Had great battery life before. With the latest update my battery drains really fast with wifi on. Quote annoying.

I have no problem with this, and never had under any stock version of the Epic OS. Here is what I do:

1) Settings -> Wireless and network -> Wi-Fi Settings -> Advanced -> Wi-Fi sleep policy -> Never.

2) Whenever you are away from Wi-Fi service, disable Wi-Fi manually from the Notifications bar. When you want to use Wi-Fi (I typically use it at home, for example) toggle it back on the same way.

 

[Possum15]

Bubba, what kind of battery life are you getting?

 

[boomerbubba]

Bubba, what kind of battery life are you getting?

Overall, about what I think is normal for stock Epic users who take the usual defensive steps (airplane mode toggle, set Wi-Fi to never sleep, manually change settings when I leave home or return). I leave home in the morning with a charged phone, and if I don't top it off during the day it will be down to about 70 percent by 5 pm. But since I have a desk job and can recharge easily, I typically top off midday if it gets down to about 85 percent. I work in an office with pretty decent 4G coverage.

Wi-Fi itself is certainly not a problem. Overnight on Wi-Fi, with the phone off the charger starting at 96 percent, it typically does not drop below about 89-90 percent when I awake.

So my battery life is nothing to brag about but nothing to whine about either.

What is annoying is always manually stopping services, including the DRM service. Also, I suspect that my battery calibration is a bit off, and since I am not rooted I have no way to clear the stats to recalibrate it without a factory reset. The charger cuts off at a slightly lower voltage level than it used to. So I don't think that a "95 percent" reading now is as fully charged as a "95 percent" reading used to be.

 

[carsalbuja]

I knew SNS and DRM were causing most of my drain and suspected the map one too, but you confirmed it. One question though? When you pulled the battery...did the phone need to be OFF or ON?

the phone needed to be on and plugged to the wall while you take the battery off (yeah it's kindaa scary to do that while phone is on but thats what the samsung tech said tho... ) , then put the battery back on and turn the phone back on and let it charge fully, during the whole process never unplug the phone from the wall.

 

[carsalbuja]

sure thing i meant DRM sorry guys

 

[Jaggrey]

the phone needed to be on and plugged to the wall while you take the battery off (yeah it's kindaa scary to do that while phone is on but thats what the samsung tech said tho... ) , then put the battery back on and turn the phone back on and let it charge fully, during the whole process never unplug the phone from the wall.

I did this yesterday; my phone had just given me the "your battery is low" notification for the 1st time last night. After doing this procedure, when I reinserted my battery it registered as being more than half full. That makes no sense to me. It charged overnight and we'll see how it lasts today.

 

[boomerbubba]

the phone needed to be on and plugged to the wall while you take the battery off (yeah it's kindaa scary to do that while phone is on but thats what the samsung tech said tho... ) , then put the battery back on and turn the phone back on and let it charge fully, during the whole process never unplug the phone from the wall.

How can you "put the battery back on and turn the phone back on" if the phone is already on?

 

[Jaggrey]

How can you "put the battery back on and turn the phone back on" if the phone is already on?

When you remove the battery, the phone turns off.

 

[boomerbubba]

When you remove the battery, the phone turns off.

Doh! Thanks.

 

[Jaggrey]

Doh! Thanks.

lol no problem.

Well after doing this trick (minus the battery stats since I'm not rooted) my battery is draining the way it always has. O well... I'm tired of constantly staring at my battery. Gotta say I'm a little envious that my fiance can do whatever with her Optimus, even GPS for a good amount of time, and her battery will be fine while mine will do none of those things and drain faster. Whatever.

 

[carsalbuja]

lol no problem.

Well after doing this trick (minus the battery stats since I'm not rooted) my battery is draining the way it always has. O well... I'm tired of constantly staring at my battery. Gotta say I'm a little envious that my fiance can do whatever with her Optimus, even GPS for a good amount of time, and her battery will be fine while mine will do none of those things and drain faster. Whatever.

dont give up yet man i was on that boat 2 weeks ago, looks like you are a good candidate to jiucedefender or dowload a data-counter and check how much traffic there is going on at nght while you sleep, thats how i figured out half of my battery problem issues, there was a rodiculous amount of data going in and out of my phone while in iddle ( all those free apps that have advertizing well..... guess where all those adds are been downloaded from every sertain time..) and running services as well weather, tango, facebook, email accounts , etc ..

 

[Jaggrey]

What's baffling to me is that for the first 4 months or so the phone was fine. It's only in the past month or two that it's really been the pits. Then I'll hard reset it and it'll be fine for a week, then without adding anything it'll suddenly be in the pits again.

 

[StoneRyno]

Whenever you are away from Wi-Fi service, disable Wi-Fi manually from the Notifications bar. When you want to use Wi-Fi (I typically use it at home, for example) toggle it back on the same way.

Correct me if I'm mistaken but isn't juicedefender able to toggle wifi and even carrier data radios automatically to save battery? If so it would probably be easier to use it instead of trying to remember manually toggling.

 

[boomerbubba]

Correct me if I'm mistaken but isn't juicedefender able to toggle wifi and even carrier data radios automatically to save battery? If so it would probably be easier to use it instead of trying to remember manually toggling.

I don't use Juicedefender. But I don't think there is any power-free way for it to detect when I am away from my preferred Wi-Fi access points. I don't enable Location and security -> Use wireless networks, partly to save power and partly for other reasons, so it can't be done by autodetecting my location. Doing it on a timer would be way too crude and inaccurate.

Likewise, I know of no good automatic way to turn 4G on or off. (It is weak at my home, but works in most of the other places I typically frequent.)

So I am just in the habit of using the notification bar to turn Wi_FI and 4G on/off when I come and go. Ditto with Bluetooth, which I use in my car but not elsewhere.

 

[StoneRyno]

I don't use Juicedefender. But I don't think there is any power-free way for it to detect when I am away from my preferred Wi-Fi access points.

Correct the auto disable feature will turn off wifi if it is not connected to a network and recheck later but I'm not sure what interval (might be another configuration option somewhere in the app). I don't have this option set currently as I haven't upgraded to the paid version which I believe is needed for some of these more advanced features to be customized. Though leaving wifi on all the time isn't too much of a drain but not insignificant either.

I don't enable Location and security -> Use wireless networks, partly to save power and partly for other reasons, so it can't be done by autodetecting my location. Doing it on a timer would be way too crude and inaccurate.

Both are options though I'm not sure how beneficial they are. I supposed one has to have a specific lifestyle to benefit from location aware and time schedule toggling. For me simply checking periodically for a wifi network to connect to is sufficient because everywhere I would use wifi I have those locations added in my device and if I'm in range it will connect.

likewise, I know of no good automatic way to turn 4G on or off. (It is weak at my home, but works in most of the other places I typically frequent.)

So I am just in the habit of using the notification bar to turn Wi_FI and 4G on/off when I come and go. Ditto with Bluetooth, which I use in my car but not elsewhere.

I don't have 4G in my area yet so I have it disabled in the device settings. But I don't see a 4G only setting in juicedefender. So I assume the auto toggle for carrier data would toggle both 3G and 4G data if they are both enabled in device settings. I know it does a great job turning off carrier data. I don't have a lot of stuff that needs to use data though out the day so I like that it toggles it automatically. I don't see any BT controls in juicedefender but I assume most turn it off when they aren't using their BT headsets or what not. Or leave it on all the time. I know on my palm pre BT radio on but not in use was insignificant power use. That is to say not using it for a full charge with BT on the whole time and repeat with a full charge with it off the whole time resulted in the charge lasting practically the same amount of time. I have not tried this with my epic yet.

 

[mouseglider]

I don't use Juicedefender. But I don't think there is any power-free way for it to detect when I am away from my preferred Wi-Fi access points. I don't enable Location and security -> Use wireless networks, partly to save power and partly for other reasons, so it can't be done by autodetecting my location. Doing it on a timer would be way too crude and inaccurate.

Likewise, I know of no good automatic way to turn 4G on or off. (It is weak at my home, but works in most of the other places I typically frequent.)

So I am just in the habit of using the notification bar to turn Wi_FI and 4G on/off when I come and go. Ditto with Bluetooth, which I use in my car but not elsewhere.

This what you want -> Locale for Android | AppBrain.com

or you can go to the marketplace and search for "Locale" - it is expensive though at $9.99

I don't use it, but looked into it when I was trying to figure how to increase battery life.