LG G4 Battery Life Thread

[wvdavid]

Re: Battery Drain

Per the guys at the Verizon store today...the latest Lollipop update tanked the G4 battery usage. They said they expect another update to fix this next week. Not sure if this is the problem for you, but it seems to be for me. The battery usage screen show android system as the culprit in my case.

 

[CaptainRafe]

Re: Battery Drain

A massive, massive improvement.
Cheers for your help, guys.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[dieselhazza]

Re: LG G4 - screen sucks up battery life!

I dont know how ppl get 4 or 5hrs SOT. Doesnt make sense

 

[belodion]

Re: LG G4 - screen sucks up battery life!

I dont know how ppl get 4 or 5hrs SOT. Doesnt make sense

These things vary from one user to another for various reasons, but after tweaking settings as much as you can, try the Greenify app, if you're not using already.

 

[dieselhazza]

Re: LG G4 - screen sucks up battery life!

These things vary from one user to another for various reasons, but after tweaking settings as much as you can, try the Greenify app, if you're not using already.

You cant use greenify without rooting. Also i dont have any appa installed besides my banking app and that doesnt sync. I have 2 email accounts. I used to screen brightness on 30% so dont know what the cause is. I want 4 or 5 hrs screen on time too

 

[belodion]

LG G4 - screen sucks up battery life!

I use Greenify on several unrooted Androids....root access is not required for it, though it may have been in the past, or maybe for certain advanced features. Anyways, I find that it improves battery.
Also, is your signal good?

 

[endlesssummer2002]

Re: LG G4 - screen sucks up battery life!

In low signal areas where the phone is constantly "searching" that can drain the battery sooner.

 

[dieselhazza]

Re: LG G4 - screen sucks up battery life!

Ok by how much have you seen an improvenent by using greenify? Also is there a way of removing bloatware

 

[KPMcClave]

My Final Word On G4 Battery Life

I've posted about my battery life results in several other threads since I received my G4 in mid-June.

At this point, as my stats seem to have leveled off, I'm going to uninstall GSam Battery Monitor and just live my life. Not because I feel the battery is fully optimized, but because it seems this will be as good as it gets.

That's frustrating, because this is not as good as it was.

To recap:

1) The first 3 weeks I had the G4 my overall battery life was bad (only 13+ hours). This despite, oddly, the SoT being pretty dang good (5+ hours). Turns out I had a mischievous and hard to pinpoint rogue app it took me 3 weeks to find. Stats from 6/16-7/8:



2) For the next two months or so (early July to end of August) I got just over 20 hours overall and 6:15 SoT. This pleased me. I came from the Droid Turbo and expected a drop off, of course, but for this phone to give me those stats. Fine by me! Stats 7/8-8/26::



This is where things start to go "bad."

3) Always wanting to eek just a bit more performance out of my phones, and probably succumbing to a moment of boredom (I avoid FDRs on principle alone...the "fixes everything" attitude about them, in lieu of finding actual issues, ticks me off), I did a FDR. My G4 responded by losing ~3:15 of overall battery life and ~20 minutes of SoT (obviously those two things shouldn't go together). 16-17 hours overall and just under 6 hours SoT. Stats from 9/7-10/10:



It stayed roughly there for the 1.5 months or so between the FDR I did and my taking the 12A OTA update on 10/10.

4) Since taking the 12A update 3 weeks ago today, the screenshot below captures my battery averages since. Down Almost 3 more hours overall, with the SoT essentially staying in the same range (because the phone seems to fluctuate much more wildly from day to day than any phone I've had I tend to look at a range more than an exact data point on one day...the stats in this last stretch of 3 weeks volleyed between 13:40 and a hair over 14 hours overall). The SoT has hit 6 hours here and there, but this screenshot is pretty representative of where it is usually. Stats 10/10-10/31:



I don't know if all that's worth anything to anyone, including to me, but I figured I'd put it all in one place.

It doesn't seem to make much sense intuitively, especially the drop after the FDR. Also, the fact that my SoT has remained consistently good from day 1 in June, while overall life has shifted significantly (up, then down, then down some more), doesn't really seem to follow.

 

[belodion]

Re: My Final Word On G4 Battery Life

Thank you for your efforts KP.
Battery life is beyond my understanding. You read of users who receive system updates, immediately after which, their battery shows signs of failure. It could be no more than coincidence of course....or is that somehow the update triggers something that causes the failure?
I remember, after not using my G3 for a month or so, and then returning to it, battery life being markedly reduced thereafter, for no good reason that I was ever able to identify.
There's a limit to how much I want to think about these things any more. As you suggest, better to get on with life.
Thx for sharing your findings.

 

[Mooncatt]

Re: My Final Word On G4 Battery Life

What were your charging habits during your testing? I.e. Did you go all the way to zero before charging, or earlier? Did you plug in to charge overnight, or just during the day to unplug once full? That sort of info would be helpful.

I remember, after not using my G3 for a month or so, and then returning to it, battery life being markedly reduced thereafter, for no good reason that I was ever able to identify.

Was your battery fully charged before shelving it? That would explain the reduced life.

 

[belodion]

My Final Word On G4 Battery Life

Was your battery fully charged before shelving it? That would explain the reduced life.

Well, it wasn't quite that simple. I'd been using it as a daily driver for several months, then used another phone instead for a month or two. During that time, the G3 did have some use. This was last year so I can't recall exact details, but I was certainly struck by the reduced battery life when I took it up as a daily driver again.

 

[stmax]

Re: My Final Word On G4 Battery Life

I know I risk being seen as posting out of place. You seem to know batteries though. When I trouble shoot my battery use on g4 and drill into Android system I see "keep awake". Can you explain this and what value is un reasonable?

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[KPMcClave]

Re: My Final Word On G4 Battery Life

What were your charging habits during your testing? I.e. Did you go all the way to zero before charging, or earlier? Did you plug in to charge overnight, or just during the day to unplug once full? That sort of info would be helpful.

I always charge fully overnight. It's so much the norm for me, and makes such sense, that I scratch my head when I read people's posts who don't (or when our son's phone dies before noon occasionally). May as well make the thing earn its keep while you're sleeping, I say.

Beyond that I would also charge some during the day. It depends on the remaining battery and what I have planned to do. If I'm going to be away from a charger I might top off when it's only at 70% (to pick a number). If I'm going to be near my charger anyway, I'll let it drain lower.

The important thing to stress is that my charging habits didn't change throughout the 4+ months I described. I was getting the 20 hr/6+ hr SoT numbers after debloating and all that stuff. My phone isn't precisely the way it was then, but it also isn't radically different enough (nor showing any telltale signs as to why), to be draining that much faster now.

 

[KPMcClave]

Re: My Final Word On G4 Battery Life

I know I risk being seen as posting out of place. You seem to know batteries though. When I trouble shoot my battery use on g4 and drill into Android system I see "keep awake". Can you explain this and what value is un reasonable?

Keep Awake means what you might guess. The phone is not being allowed to go into deep sleep when you otherwise aren't using it (and sometimes when it otherwise should). If an app is waking the phone to do something (i.e. check for e-mail for example) it will usually do that and then allow the phone to sleep again.

If an app has gone rogue, or if you have too many things waking the phone, you could get Keep Awake times that are too high and thus drain your battery faster than it should.

I wouldn't say there is an ideal for the amount of Keep Awake time, because it depends, as do a lot of things, on your personal use of the phone (preferences, apps you use, etc.). When I had the rogue app I mentioned in my OP, it was rampant Keep Awake in the Android OS battery stats and not in the app itself that was the red flag. From memory, I would have 6 hours of time off the charger, with close to 3 hours of Keep Awake time. That's way too high. Combined with my actual SoT, my phone was almost never sleeping.

 

[dieselhazza]

Re: My Final Word On G4 Battery Life

Woow i dont understand how you guys get around 6hrs SOT. I only get around 3.5hrs of SOT. I only have 2 email accounts that sync, snapchat and tapatalk. So i dont know why i dont get good screen on time. On standby i lose around 8% or 9% in 12hrs. So obviosuly standby seems to be good. How can i improve me SOT. screen brightness is 35%. Why am i getting poor SOT

 

[stet]

Why is "Android System" using up so much of my battery?

When most people post screen shots of their battery usage typically the biggest user is the screen with Android System coming in the single digit percentages. So why is it by far the biggest battery drain on my G4?

 

[Mooncatt]

Re: My Final Word On G4 Battery Life

I always charge fully overnight. It's so much the norm for me, and makes such sense, that I scratch my head when I read people's posts who don't (or when our son's phone dies before noon occasionally). May as well make the thing earn its keep while you're sleeping, I say.

I used to charge over night until I started researching lithium batteries more, in part because I had an M8 and wanted to treat it the best I could since it's not removable. I found out keeping them at full charge can accelerate the chemical degradation and lower the lifespan prematurely. It's not quite as bad as draining then completely before charging, but damaging nonetheless.

Charging overnight now and then isn't really going to do much in that regard, but doing it as a matter of standard practice is likely to make a difference over time. I figure the phone gets fully charged in about an hour for most people, then sits 6+ hours at a full charge.

Call me obsessive, but I no longer recommend that practice if you're looking to get the absolute best out of a battery, especially if it's a non-removable one. I would charge it in the morning and recharge art about 40%. If it was below 50% at bed time, I'd boost it to about 70%, then unplug overnight. In the time I had my original M8, battery life never went down. Similar charging habits are preferred in other industries, hobbies, etc, where lithium based rechargeable batteries are used.

On something like the G4 that you can easily replace the battery, it's not as big of a concern unless you just want the absolute best life from the battery.

 

[KPMcClave]

Re: My Final Word On G4 Battery Life

I used to charge over night until I started researching lithium batteries more, in part because I had an M8 and wanted to treat it the best I could since it's not removable. I found out keeping them at full charge can accelerate the chemical degradation and lower the lifespan prematurely. It's not quite as bad as draining then completely before charging, but damaging nonetheless.

Charging overnight now and then isn't really going to do much in that regard, but doing it as a matter of standard practice is likely to make a difference over time. I figure the phone gets fully charged in about an hour for most people, then sits 6+ hours at a full charge.

Call me obsessive, but I no longer recommend that practice if you're looking to get the absolute best out of a battery, especially if it's a non-removable one. I would charge it in the morning and recharge art about 40%. If it was below 50% at bed time, I'd boost it to about 70%, then unplug overnight. In the time I had my original M8, battery life never went down. Similar charging habits are preferred in other industries, hobbies, etc, where lithium based rechargeable batteries are used.

On something like the G4 that you can easily replace the battery, it's not as big of a concern unless you just want the absolute best life from the battery.

I'm skeptical, Mooncatt. I've seen far too many supposedly scientific suggestions for improving battery life debunked (or more frequently just being grossly outdated info) to take that sort of information at face value anymore. Especially when I didn't see the type of battery degradation I've seen on my G4 on any previous phone I've had. I've been charging overnight for many years. From various BlackBerry models, to the Droid Razr Maxx HD, to the Droid Maxx, to the Droid Turbo, to the G4.

The G4 is the only one that has shown this sort of battery dropoff.

Plus, my G4 dropoff is tied to specific events (an FDR and then an OTA update).

I mean no offense to you personally, but I put as much stock in the battery
"science" we tend to see as I do in the FDR-fixes-all-your-problems copout.

 

[KPMcClave]

Re: My Final Word On G4 Battery Life

Woow i dont understand how you guys get around 6hrs SOT. I only get around 3.5hrs of SOT. I only have 2 email accounts that sync, snapchat and tapatalk. So i dont know why i dont get good screen on time. On standby i lose around 8% or 9% in 12hrs. So obviosuly standby seems to be good. How can i improve me SOT. screen brightness is 35%. Why am i getting poor SOT

The quick answer is get Lux (there's a free version but I paid for it). Chances are you can set your brightness much more dim than the G4 will set it by itself, or than a constant 35%. Lux is a great tool.