Only 2 hours of Screen on Time? How do I get better battery life than this?

[jinzen]

How do I get better battery life? This was a pretty normal day:

7AM - off car charger - 100%

7PM - Home, no charging in between, - 20%

Screen on was less than 2 hours.

Mostly just checking Facebook or news during the day.

1hr bluetooth music streaming in car in afternoon, maybe 30 minutes of GPS Google Maps, no texting really...

This typical scenario in an iPhone 6 Plus would probably leave me at 50% battery life instead of 20%, so far the iPhone seems to get 50% better battery life... so how are some of you guys getting good battery life?

 

[Phillip Pugh]

That will get much better there's plenty things to better your battery life. First use power saving mood ,use a dark theme, lower your screen brightness. My gs6 edge plus is a beast of a battery my day starts at 7 am to about 11 pm its 35% battery you'll be fine

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[jinzen]

That will get much better there's plenty things to better your battery life. First use power saving mood ,use a dark theme, lower your screen brightness. My gs6 edge plus is a beast of a battery my day starts at 7 am to about 11 pm its 35% battery you'll be fine

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I don't intend on doing any of those things. Screen should be bright, power saving modes should be used below 20% but that's it, and I don't like dark themes.

Perhaps as a normal user who intends to enjoy the device as it should be (like an iPhone), this is the best I can hope for. It does last me a day and I could just plug it in at some point.

 

[Phillip Pugh]

I don't intend on doing any of those things. Screen should be bright, power saving modes should be used below 20% but that's it, and I don't like dark themes.

Perhaps as a normal user who intends to enjoy the device as it should be (like an iPhone), this is the best I can hope for. It does last me a day and I could just plug it in at some point.

Well I get more then enough by the end of the day and I use it pretty much at work not playing games are watching movies but the normal stuff like I said I at 35% when I lay my head down at night I ca live with that ill drop it on the wireless charging over night I haven't seen one post on here that only gets 2 hour on screen time . I'm usually at least 4 to 5 . By the way every OS is different my lumia 1520 will outlast most big phones almost 2 days but android uses a little more juice

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[V J]

I would tweak Facebook settings if I were you. There's absolutely no reason Facebook should ever use more power than the screen itself. You can turn off Facebook auto-refresh in the background which is probably what's eating up your battery. It refreshes your News Feed as soon as you open up the app, there's no reason to have it refreshing in the background when your phone is locked.

That's pretty much the only thing I can think of, otherwise everything else seems normal. GPS is a real battery killer, and the battery on the Edge+ is... well, it's no iPhone 6 plus let's put it that way. Apple runs a very tight ship when it comes to background tasks, in exchange for Android's customization you get optimization.

 

[skippyg]

Do you have auto sync enabled for drop box? Or other apps? That could cause battery drain.

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[Yellowcanary]

Mines been ok.

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[scottysize]

I don't intend on doing any of those things.

Thanks. I spilt my coffee reading that! (Although you did ask how to get longer battery life)

So, first off, it's not an iPhone. iPhones go all day and all night and even the next day without a charge, so forget about your previous iPhone experiences. This is an Android phone that requires finesse and some degree of tweaking in order to get half the life of an iPhone. Out of the box, most iPhone users will experience a significant decrease in battery life, so try out the ideas other Android users have tried and see if they work for you. If you don't want to, then carry an extra charging cable or an external battery backup with you. I carry both and I have a Qi charger on my desk where my phone sits all day.

Good Luck

 

[crester]

Why is Facebook using so much of your battery?

 

[AQPerry]

Your Facebook and messenger are your culprits I'm sure that's chewing through your battery, kill off all those unnecessary background updating and notifications you'll see a remarkable difference, when you open the app it'll update so don't worry about it not. Do that for all your apps that you don't necessarily need continuous notifications for, you'll find that in each apps settings. Also turn off location history and put your screen brightness to about 50 you'll find that should be plenty bright for indoor and most outdoor use, and disable and unneeded Samsung or carrier bloat apps, do all that and I'm sure your screen on time will double.

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[jinzen]

I would tweak Facebook settings if I were you. There's absolutely no reason Facebook should ever use more power than the screen itself. You can turn off Facebook auto-refresh in the background which is probably what's eating up your battery. It refreshes your News Feed as soon as you open up the app, there's no reason to have it refreshing in the background when your phone is locked.

That's pretty much the only thing I can think of, otherwise everything else seems normal. GPS is a real battery killer, and the battery on the Edge+ is... well, it's no iPhone 6 plus let's put it that way. Apple runs a very tight ship when it comes to background tasks, in exchange for Android's customization you get optimization.

Your Facebook and messenger are your culprits I'm sure that's chewing through your battery, kill off all those unnecessary background updating and notifications you'll see a remarkable difference, when you open the app it'll update so don't worry about it not. Do that for all your apps that you don't necessarily need continuous notifications for, you'll find that in each apps settings. Also turn off location history and put your screen brightness to about 50 you'll find that should be plenty bright for indoor and most outdoor use, and disable and unneeded Samsung or carrier bloat apps, do all that and I'm sure your screen on time will double.

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Thanks for the suggestions, but how do I do this? I don't the see the setting in the Facebook App or Messenger App to restrict background activity.

 

[V J]

Thanks for the suggestions, but how do I do this? I don't the see the setting in the Facebook App or Messenger App to restrict background activity.

Go to your phone settings > Connections > Data Usage > Background Data

Here you will see a list of pretty much all your installed apps and each has a toggle of whether they should be allowed to be connected in the background or not. Simply toggle the ones you don't want running in the background. I would recommend toggling off Facebook but not Facebook messenger (if you use it actively) as messengers and email services do require background data in order to receive push notifications.

Like others have said here, typical users can get between 4 to 5 hours of on screen time, 2ish is very low in comparison. I myself have been able to squeeze out almost 6 hours of on screen time but this does not include GPS navigation. GPS is a real battery drainer when left unchecked, even if you're not using maps, a lot of apps like to use GPS in the background, I would check which apps have been using your location services as well if I were you. For me, I just toggle GPS off from my notification toggles unless I actually need to use navigation.

 

[sketchedout]

The biggest issue for me is WiFi. If I have a full charge, clear ram,close all apps and then leave overnight it typically loses between 20% to 30% in around 8.5 hrs which is woeful. However, after reading up on various issues around this I tried turning WiFi off last night at 100% full charge and left overnight again. This morning it had only dropped 3% which I felt was exceptional. During the day I typically get at least 3.5 hrs on screen time, sometimes past 4 but it really depends on so many factors what you are doing with that screen on time, e.g taking photos, editing photos, maps, browsing, gaming, Facebook uploads, calls, quality of connection at any time, how bright screen is etc etc. My WiFi issue is annoying though. Luckily I have enough mobile gb per month not to worry too much. Anyone have a fix for this?

jinzen - is your WiFi typically left on all the time?

 

[V J]

The biggest issue for me is WiFi. If I have a full charge, clear ram,close all apps and then leave overnight it typically loses between 20% to 30% in around 8.5 hrs which is woeful. However, after reading up on various issues around this I tried turning WiFi off last night at 100% full charge and left overnight again. This morning it had only dropped 3% which I felt was exceptional. During the day I typically get at least 3.5 hrs on screen time, sometimes past 4 but it really depends on so many factors what you are doing with that screen on time, e.g taking photos, editing photos, maps, browsing, gaming, Facebook uploads, calls, quality of connection at any time, how bright screen is etc etc. My WiFi issue is annoying though. Luckily I have enough mobile gb per month not to worry too much. Anyone have a fix for this?

jinzen - is your WiFi typically left on all the time?

Does your WiFi support both 2.4G and 5G? If so, test it out on one or the other. I don't have any issues with WiFi on my Edge+ currently but I have had experiences in the past (with this phone and other phones) where sometimes one of the bands are unfriendly towards the battery. When this happens then I just switch bands for a time, the issue usually corrects itself after a day or 2.

I'm inclined to believe this isn't the phone's fault so much as a compatibility issue with the modem but I'm not technically knowledgeable enough to be sure. This has happened to me using a variety of phones and a variety of modems. It's not very common, but it's not uncommon either.

 

[sketchedout]

I am on Talk Talk and have their own router. Pretty sure it does broadcast on both bands and also has latest ac standard. I'm not great at getting into router settings but think I know how to check. Yeah other than this my battery has been fine and I tend to easily last the day in how I use the phone.

 

[AQPerry]

The biggest issue for me is WiFi. If I have a full charge, clear ram,close all apps and then leave overnight it typically loses between 20% to 30% in around 8.5 hrs which is woeful. However, after reading up on various issues around this I tried turning WiFi off last night at 100% full charge and left overnight again. This morning it had only dropped 3% which I felt was exceptional. During the day I typically get at least 3.5 hrs on screen time, sometimes past 4 but it really depends on so many factors what you are doing with that screen on time, e.g taking photos, editing photos, maps, browsing, gaming, Facebook uploads, calls, quality of connection at any time, how bright screen is etc etc. My WiFi issue is annoying though. Luckily I have enough mobile gb per month not to worry too much. Anyone have a fix for this?

jinzen - is your WiFi typically left on all the time?

That sounds like it's either a router polling issue or you may have apps that like to frequently update or sync Data while on wifi i.e. When Google play store or Google Drive likes to sync and update files.

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[Yellowcanary]

Mine today

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[V J]

Mine today

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What? How did you get almost 6 hours of SOT and have it only use 6% battery? Did you have it on the lowest possible brightness? lol

 

[Yellowcanary]

What? How did you get almost 6 hours of SOT and have it only use 6% battery? Did you have it on the lowest possible brightness? lol

I use it on about 25% to 30% inside the house and on auto when outside.

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[radiogirl83]

About 2 hour screen on time here as well... (12 hours 20 minutes on battery, 30% left, 7 % screen use, SOT 1h 43 min )

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