New Incredible Battery Life Sticky: Please Contribute

[djetan303]

Ok, I started trying the bump charging process after reading and learning how to perform the process yesterday. I cannot seem to get it to give me the green light immediately after powering down and plugging the charger back in. I tried the bump charge process from about 4pm until midnight yesterday, and again this evening while at work, from about 7pm until 11pm. Still not able to obtain green light upon immediate plug in. Utilizing the stock battery.

All of that said, it did seem to make a huge difference for me, as I was testing last night.. tried running the charge into the red, was downloading apps, surfing forums, checking email, txting, etc. I always have my WiFi on and Bluetooth enabled. Seemed to help immensly.

I'm now at the point I am going to try running without a task killer, keep trying to bump charge until I - hopefully - obtain the green light after power off and plug in, and see how things go..

Would love not having to purchase an extended life battery..

Anyway, my 2 cents.. probably nothing that new added to the thread, but wanted to contribute. Any ideas why I'm not getting the green light on power down/plug in? I've repeated that part of the process more times than I want to remember, and still no green light.

 

[dlterry]

I don't care for my Incredible's battery life, but I also don't care to tweak settings and disable features to extend it's life. I found on eBay a pair of cheap batteries and external charger for CHEAP ($16). I carry a spare battery and swap batteries if power fades when I'm away from the charger. The cheap batteries only last about half as long as the OEM, but did I mention they are CHEAP? So far I've been able to make it through the day on two batteries and have never used the 3rd. WiFi and bluetooth on all the time because I don't care. I have a spare battery in my pocket.

One note on carrying a spare battery. Carry it in a plastic pouch. If it shorts out against your keys it will give a whole new meaning to "pants on the ground."

 

[rufgt2]

This is probably a no brainer, but I am from Arizona and recently was away in Ohio. While away I noticed that my battery life was worse than before and I couldn't figure out what I was doing on my phone that was using so much. I updated my roaming by dialing *228 and pressing 2 when it prompts you. This greatly increased my service, speeding it up, and my phone seems to last longer since I updated. I will have to update when I get back to Arizona, as this seems to make a difference.

 

[sonichris]

CPUMonitorMini

this is the best tool i have found to diagnose battery usage issues. it's a tiny cpu monitor that runs in the task bar. it has four bars that scroll left to right. i have it set to poll every 3 seconds, so with that i have the past 12 seconds of cpu activity available. with this you can learn exactly what processes are using the most battery WHILE IT IS HAPPENING, not after the fact.

usually when you close an app or hit the home screen, the cpu activity will spike for a few seconds and then settle. if it stays at 100% and wont go down, you can either hit your task killer button or use something like OSMonitor to see exactly which process or app is sucking up the juice. i've noticed the gallery app from the nexus one will use 100% of the cpu when i remove and reinstall my SD card (i assume it's refreshing its database or whatever). i can kill it, but everytime i turn my screen on it tries again. so i just plug my phone in and let it go to town.

one thing i have noticed is that when i turn my screen on, CPUmonitormini will appear to indicate that the cpu has been at 25% with the screen off. i'm pretty sure this is not the case, and it immediately goes to 0% (no bar) with the screen on.

sorry, long post, but you get the idea. and i know someone is going to ask so no, this app (when set to poll every 3 seconds) does not use a lot of battery (which would be quite ironic). i've gone from full to 20% at 2:00pm to having about 30% left at bedtime simply by keeping an eye on my cpu activity, and i am a heavy user of the crackternet.

 

[Revolutionary]

Some thoughts:

1. Disabling "always on mobile network" DOES NOT delay delivery of your emails if you are on an Exchange server, nor delivery of Gmail (at least using the Gmail app -- I can't speak delivery of Gmail via the Mail app). And it does make an appreciable difference in battery life. It does interfere with syncing of things like the Facebook and Friendstream widgets, but I personally don't give a crap if I have to manually refresh those. It also interferes with syncing of things like the Sense weather widget and the Genie News Widget, if you use those.

Edit: forgot, one thing that it does interfere with on the Mail and Gmail apps is syncing your "read" items, so if you read your new items on your computer, you have to access the app to have it sync the "read" (or deleted) status.

2. I've been experimenting with the bump charge technique. I've done it since I got this phone in May. I get better results with only a single "freshen up" charge, rather than multiple "until it comes on green" charges. So basically, I charge overnight, then in the morning, I turn it off, plug it back in for 20-25 minutes, and stop there. I get about 25% more up-time out of the battery (Seidio 1750 battery) using this method rather than unplugging, replugging an additional 2-3 times. I'm not an electrical engineer, so I don't know why additional charging would lead to a decreased charge, but that seems to be happening with my Seidio battery.

3. Advanced Task Killer is wonderful, as would be any task killer that prevents data-using apps from running in the background.

 

[Josh467]

I updated to the leak and rerooted. Seems to be staying in the higher percentage longer now.
Anyone noticed an improvement in battery life since the leaked update.

I have noticed a slight improvement, using seidio 1750. I also charge overnight with phone on and turn off when I wake up and let it bump charge while off til I get green light. Just once, none of that over and over again.

**Edit**
using 2.2 leaked rom now... Rooted also. Battery life seems better. I also started using external charger. It is the only way to go!!! I get about 14 hours up time with very heavy use. Seidio 1750 and htc 1500 oem, both seem to last about the same. Maybe an hour or two more on the 1750.

 

[angiebugg]

back to the battery issues......how many times do you have to repeat bump charge the process? I have done it 5 times now and still don't see a green light when I plug in when off.....

 

[KozmicBlues950]

Someone should probaly explain bump charging in detail, but here's how to do it.

Charge your Incredible to max (green light).

Unplug the phone and then turn it off.

Plug it back in (should have an orange light now) and charge it to max again.

Unplug the phone and turn it on. Wait for it to boot up.

Turn the phone off and then plug it back in (should be an orange light again).

Charge it to full (green light) again.

Repeat this process until the light is green immediately upon plugging it back in.

Great Advice!

 

[Krypto74]

As mentioned before by others, I noticed better battery life by turning off mobile (3G) unless I was in a situation that I needed to access the web at that very second or was stuck in a line somewhere bored out of my gord and wanted to surf the web. Otherwise, I leave the surfing up to times when I can get wifi signal.

 

[ShannonDavis]

Bump charging really does help a lot. I just do it once, though. Here is another observation. I only have one "cigarette lighter" slot in the car. I found an adapter at Walmart that plugs into the cigarette lighter and gives me three slots and a USB plug. I plug an FM transmitter into one of the slots and a USB to micro USB cable in and charge my DINC on the way to work. I listen to Pandora and charge at the same time. It take me 35 to 40 minutes to get to work. Even after a bump charge, when I start charging in the car I get the orange light. By the time I get to work it is green. If I don't charge in the car, I need to charge after six to eight hours. If I charge in the car, it will last my full twelve hour shift unless I listen to Pandora radio for more than a couple of hours at work.

I hope this helps. I don't know the brand name. The USB port claims 5V at 500mAh.

 

[mobilemedic20]

Just wanted to throw my 2 cents in...

- I was bump charging on the OEM battery, and getting a full day *barely* out of the phone. Depending on whether I was in poor coverage areas a lot, or really heavy use, I'd frequently have to recharge during the day.

- I just picked up a used Seidio 1750 mAh battery, and the difference is dramatic. After bump charging yesterday morning, a reasonably heavy useage day, and some poor coverage areas, I was at 59% at the end of the day. I consider my battery woes to be over.

 

[mikestorm]

I've gotten into the habit of disabling GPS unless specifically needed and switching over to wifi when I was at home and that's done wonders for my battery life.

I have a 2600mah HK special on the way. Hopefully that will fix things so I won't have to take these measures going forward.

 

[davidnc]

I easily get a full day's use of power out of battery and don't use a task killer of any kind.

screen brightness almost totally off (auto brightness unchecked)
screen timeout in 1 minute
GPS and Bluetooth off when not in use ( I use GPS everyday for 1 1/2 hrs appx.)
WiFi off only if I know I have no way of connecting to a wifi( I have many remembered in my neighborhood tho )
the WiFi sleep policy for me is "never"
Mobile network "enable always-on" is unchecked
Those was the main ones. There are a few more I think but those major ones for me ,lol. I can get 14-16hrs on a stock battery using it moderate to light tho.

 

[pauldroidr2d2]

What I have found gives me the longest battery life on the phone is simply not using it. LOL I think its kind of funny actually. I've been switching off between this and my droid 2. The Incredibles battery last for almost two days when not used. LOL

 

[Qazme]

KingXKernel OC 1.113, 2.15 Radio, Froyo 2.2 (Skyraider 2.5.2) and a full charge from the computer will give me 20 hours until moderate to heavy usage. I'm happy

 

[PLD2]

KingXKernel OC 1.113, 2.15 Radio, Froyo 2.2 (Skyraider 2.5.2) and a full charge from the computer will give me 20 hours until moderate to heavy usage. I'm happy

Same here.

 

[IloveMyDroid]

I had terrible battery life, sometimes not even making it through the day.
I had not set up any email, and I downloaded TaskKiller, which I used faithfully to keep apps turned off.

Whenever I checked the battery, most of the usage was split between phone idle and cell standby.

Two days ago, I decided to set up my email. Not liking the HTC mail app, which I set up for the first time just to try out, I dragged it off the screen and downloaded K-9 mail app.

I recharged my battery last night, but I really didn't need to. It's been two days straight that, starting with a full charge, I had over 80% battery left at the end of the day!

I'm going to blame HTC mail, without doing my DD to prove it, and count my blessings!

 

[TBolt]

Buy the 3500 mAh battery from Seidio. Seriously...my battery lasts 3 days sometimes. lol. Worth every damn penny.

 

[BBKik]

If you buy a Seido external charger make sure you leave your battery charging about 2-3 hrs longer after it goes green. It says to do this on the back of the charger. Buy an extra battery it is truly the only thing to do until they provide a fix w/software update and even then I bet most people will only see a slight increase if that. I personally think that the OEM battery will never last that long either way because it is just too small. With the Seido 1750 charged in the external charger I usually have 35-40% at 9pm after using from 7am with moderate to heavy use and you don't need a battery door.

 

[Jowlah]

Someone should probaly explain bump charging in detail, but here's how to do it.

Charge your Incredible to max (green light).

Unplug the phone and then turn it off.

Plug it back in (should have an orange light now) and charge it to max again.

Unplug the phone and turn it on. Wait for it to boot up.

Turn the phone off and then plug it back in (should be an orange light again).

Charge it to full (green light) again.

Repeat this process until the light is green immediately upon plugging it back in.

I finally did the bump charge. This really works. Usually after I charge my phone and unplug it, I lose 5-10% of the charge within an hour. I BC'd the phone and after 9 hours, my phone is still at 100% juice. I am sure it will change with reall heavy use, but it really is a big difference! Thanks!