Recalibrating Your Battery...

[Joeybear23]

So, you are having trouble with your battery seemingly draining too quickly, especially after having flashed many ROMs/Kernels/etc...

It is possible that the problem (or part of the problem) is not necessarily the phone using too much power. If this is the case for you, you should see some results from doing the following:

1. Connect the phone to the charger with the phone powered on, and allow the phone to charge until it shows 100%

2. Disconnect the phone from the charger, and power it off.

3. Reconnect the phone to the charger with the phone powered off, and allow the phone to charge until the battery indicator shows 100% (you can use vol-up/vol-down to make the indicator come back up when the screen goes to sleep).

4. Disconnect the phone from the charger and power it on.

5. Once the phone is powered completely on, power it off again and reconnect it to the charger until the battery indicator shows 100%.

6. Disconnect the phone, power it on, and use it.

You should only need to use this sequence one time.

Hope this helps.

 

[rumur#AC]

At what point do I offer Jabu his Rum?

Just kidding, thanks for the tip, am trying it now.

 

[Joeybear23]

At what point do I offer Jabu his Rum?

Just kidding, thanks for the tip, am trying it now.

I am happy with the results.
I hope you see the same.

It makes me think there is some truth to the age-old, often-debated theory that you should completely charge your battery before turning on your phone for the first time.

 

[rumur#AC]

Just got done doing it, we will see how it goes.
Thanks again

 

[SlappyMcgee]

Over the weekend I had my phone on and plugged in, It said 100% charged, for some reason I turned it off while still plugged in and the Battery indicator while off and charging didnt show 100% I didnt have enough time to let it go to 100% but was planning on doing trying that.

I will follow your steps b/c I did something like that with my old phone and it helped the battery life in my old phone. (not a captivate)

 

[jackrock]

I followed the instructions and noticed a sizable increase in battery life.

THANKS!!

 

[travelingfool]

So, does this just recalibrate how the battery reports its state of charge, or does it actually improve battery life? Very intriguing. First I've heard of it. I'd be interested in the reasoning behind it, but I'll do it anyway

 

[HurleyDubStar112]

Sweet, it worked for me, it shows the right battery amount left now, thus longer battery without the message sayin i need to recharge so soon.. thx!

 

[gdigenis]

This is from the nexus one help forums. It's called bump charging and the nexus needed this all the time. I have found battery life pretty decent without doing this. If it helps you, that's great, but I have found the galaxy s phones handle charging and battery life much better than the nexus one

 

[jp712]

Does this simply re calibrate the battery's charge reporting or does it some how extend the life?

I was having major issues and chalked it up to a new user playing with the phone constantly.

I allowed it to drain to the point that it shut down and wouldn't come back on then charged untill it was full. Seemed to help.

There is truth to the charge completely first idea. Lithium Ion batteries do retain some memory. Just not as much as Nickel Cadmium or Nickel Metal Hydride cells do.

On a side note:

What is the deal with Android telling me with an alert that the battery is full. I don't need the dang thing waking me up at 4am when its full!! It says disconnect from charger, does the phone not stop charging if I don't? (HIGHLY doubt that, trickle chairing Li-ion can make them go *boom!* litteraly)

 

[Joeybear23]

Does this simply re calibrate the battery's charge reporting or does it some how extend the life?

I was having major issues and chalked it up to a new user playing with the phone constantly.

I allowed it to drain to the point that it shut down and wouldn't come back on then charged untill it was full. Seemed to help.

There is truth to the charge completely first idea. Lithium Ion batteries do retain some memory. Just not as much as Nickel Cadmium or Nickel Metal Hydride cells do.

On a side note:

What is the deal with Android telling me with an alert that the battery is full. I don't need the dang thing waking me up at 4am when its full!! It says disconnect from charger, does the phone not stop charging if I don't? (HIGHLY doubt that, trickle chairing Li-ion can make them go *boom!* litteraly)

It does not extend the life of the battery, per se, but it does help the phone to more accurately calculate when the battery is full and how much charge it has left.

For example, if the phone thinks you are at 100%, but you really only have 75% charge, then it is going to drain much faster, from your point of view.

Also, I am pretty sure it stops charging when the message comes up, because I have left my phone on the charger overnight, unplugge din the morning and it immediately goes to 99% or 98%...

 

[braj]

I did this last night and my phone seems to be doing better, it stayed at 100 for a while this morning which is rare. Anyhow I don't see that it HURT anything.

 

[jflexe99]

It is amazing how off whatever sensor there are...are off this much. Battery Detail showed me 100%...unplugged it, still 100, turned it off, plugged it in, looked like it was 90% fully charged....wow.

can't wait till I am done with this, see how it helps!

Thanks!!!!

 

[jflexe99]

Quick Q. Don't mean to thread steal...

What is the best battery app available? Or a few of the best? I would like to have a very accurate reading of my battery life on my task bar.

I am using battery details v1.7 right now.

 

[BoulderGeek]

Thanks for the tutorial. I did this procedure yesterday, and left my phone off charger all night, with 3G, WiFi and GPS active.

The phone still reported 80% this morning, which is about twice as well as usual.

Happy Android -->

 

[GQ50]

I did this today and it worked...thanks JoeyB23.

 

[schoolboy]

The Wikipedia article on Lithium Ion batteries is pretty interesting. It leads me to the conclusion that you should just use it all you like and charge it when you can.

These (wave the magic dead chicken) steps might help a little, but ultimately, the battery will deteriorate after a while.

The nice thing is that they have $3.18 batteries for these on ebay. This is one of the reasons I got rid of my iphone. Spare and replacement batteries! And they are really cheap.

 

[alphadog]

The Wikipedia article on Lithium Ion batteries is pretty interesting. It leads me to the conclusion that you should just use it all you like and charge it when you can.

These (wave the magic dead chicken) steps might help a little, but ultimately, the battery will deteriorate after a while.

The nice thing is that they have $3.18 batteries for these on ebay. This is one of the reasons I got rid of my iphone. Spare and replacement batteries! And they are really cheap.

Some people are reporting random shutdowns with cheap batteries - not 100%, but enough to wonder if there is something to it. Visit XDA forums for more info.

 

[Nimocone]

I would guess it's something more than the batteries since my phone is stock and keeps shutting down.

 

[TheBronze]

Listen to Schoolboy. All these tricks are worthless. Sorry dudes. Lithium Ion batteries are NOT your Nicle Cadmium batteries of yester year. They don't suffer from "memory" issues. They will lose their ability to hold a charge over time, but anyone rocking a Captivate will not be seeing any longevity issues at this point.

The amount of mis-information on batteries on tech forums (not just this one) is amazing. Haven't you people ever played with R/C cars or planes? Rechargeable batteries at home for the remote? Come on! Educate yourselves! You're geeks, be geeky!

Now, what I'd like to see is a move to LiPo (Lithium Polymer) batteries. They make LI batteries look old school. But, they are a bit more volatile than consumer electronics companies are willing to deal with.

Read about batteries at these links and don't make yourselves look like fools in front of someone who knows about batteries ever again! Heck, you may even impress a girl!

NiCad - Your old school rechargable battery.
Nickel-cadmium battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LI - Most common in modern consumer electronics.
Lithium-ion battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LiPo - Highly volatile, but excellent for high discharge applications. R/C and other applications.
Lithium-ion polymer battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

NiMh - Too little too late.
Nickel-metal hydride battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia