Unusual rapid battery drainage (any recommendations?)

[ellje]

Holy Battery Drain, Batman!

I've been testing battery life with different scenarios since I originally purchased my Charge nearly three weeks ago. Overall, I'd say that I'm pretty happy with how the battery performs on this device... comparing against what I've read elsewhere. I use the phone pretty lightly throughout the workday, and don't have to try too hard to get a full day of use out of it.

Today, I decided to take a good look at battery consumption while streaming music. I don't typically use my phone in this fashion, but I know a lot of people do... so I was really curious how it would do.

I was streaming radio using TuneWiki and noted the following. Both of these were with NO other usage, just left the phone streaming with nothing else running, and no screen time usage.

Using 4G signal: I burned 20% of my battery in 1hr of use!!!
Using 3G signal: I burned 10% of my battery in 1hr of use.

I have noted a slight difference in 4G vs. 3G battery consumption through my tests, for my normal usage... but I'm the furthest thing from a heavy data user. I'm blown away by the difference while streaming... heck, I'm blown away by 10% consumption for 1hr of 3G. If I stream music all day at work on 3G, I'd be lucky to have any battery remaining by the time I get home. If I leave 4G on, I don't think I could make it to lunch.

As a comparison, my typical use burns 2-5% battery per hour of use.

Are there other streaming programs that are better on battery... or is this the norm?

 

[Halcyon]

I have used Pandora streaming and only have lost approximatly 10% in about an hour. ymmv though depending on your signal strength. I usually run wifi when I can simply because its more efficiant.

 

[ellje]

Unfortunately, I don't have any Wifi availability at work, so I'm stuck using 3G/4G. After this test, I'll be sure to use 3G only when streaming from here onward.

I was 7hrs 15mins into my day and still had 76% remaining at that point
One hour later, I was at 56% with the 4G streaming! Shocking.

 

[mboverst]

I've also noticed that those are killers on the batteries. I've also seen that using the navigation while unplugged eats it even faster! Thank goodness for car chargers or I wouldn't be able to get out of my neighborhood before it would be dead.

 

[anon(344812)]

I've had my Charge for almost a week now, and have installed the Altered Beast V4 ROM since day one. As far as I know the ROM isn't supposed to have any effect on battery so I'll have to consider that something else is draining the hell out of it. I tested it today with no apps running, bluetooth/wifi/gps off, 4G left on -- I averaged about a 6-9% drop per hour on a standby. I know the Charge isn't known for having great battery life, but surely this is out of the ordinary.

The settings>about phone>battery usage section isn't much help. The usual suspects like the OS and such are at about 1-4%. The display hovers anywhere from 78-92%. Is that normal? I'm completely new to Android so I've no idea how to really manage the services and processes. Can anyone recommend an app I can download that may help me find the culprit? Or is it likely the fault of the battery or phone itself?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[cltatenza]

Those numbers are about in par for the charge.

Sent from Droid Charge using Tapatalk

 

[anon(344812)]

Are you sure? From what I'd read people averaged about 9-12 hours on average use. With my stats, I'd get those numbers without even turning on my display!

Are there any particular settings people have on/off to get a decent run on a single charge? This is incredibly disappointing.

 

[ellje]

I would completely disagree.

This morning, for instance, I hit 90% at 4hrs. Most of this was standby, as I was at work, but shows what kind of battery drain the phone should see on standby in 4G.

Now, I killed 20% during 1hr of radio streaming at 4G later in the day, but that's a different story.

 

[anon(344812)]

I would completely disagree.

This morning, for instance, I hit 90% at 4hrs. Most of this was standby, as I was at work, but shows what kind of battery drain the phone should see on standby in 4G.

Now, I killed 20% during 1hr of radio streaming at 4G later in the day, but that's a different story.

See, those are actually the numbers I would typically expect from this phone. But so far there's no way my particular model would ever just go down 10% in that amount of time. A third of my battery would easily be gone in the same timeframe. That's what has me worried.

I'm doing a separate test now in airplane mode. As of now I'm at 2 hours and still at 100%. So it's looking like it really is the 4G. Even taking into account how much of a power drainer it is, I'm still not understanding why it would eat up so significantly on standby.

 

[davey11]

Try downloading wheresmydroidpower from the market. The info it spits out is pretty comprehensive. My K9 mail was synching too much and was killing my batt.

This message was sent via Tapatalk

 

[AndroidXTC]

Its a network issue, the Thunderbolt suffers from the very same erratic drain issue. My guess some flaw in there network keeps the phone awake at times.

 

[ellje]

See, those are actually the numbers I would typically expect from this phone. But so far there's no way my particular model would ever just go down 10% in that amount of time. A third of my battery would easily be gone in the same timeframe. That's what has me worried.

I'm doing a separate test now in airplane mode. As of now I'm at 2 hours and still at 100%. So it's looking like it really is the 4G. Even taking into account how much of a power drainer it is, I'm still not understanding why it would eat up so significantly on standby.

Could be a poor battery, or poor signal... those would be the big culprits, I'd suspect.

Are you running any task killer or similar apps?

Here's some settings that I run that may help you out.
10% display when indoors
No GPS, BT, WifI
I keep data on, so my chat is active at all times
I use gmail and manually sync (although yesterday I had auto-sync on, didn't notice a huge difference)
30-second screen timeout
No widgets
The only thing I have syncing is gmail... I guess I don't care to be notified of everything that goes on in a day.


If you can, at all, take it off the charger at 100%, and let it sit for an hour without turning it on. I'm curious what kind of battery drain you're seeing with the phone just sitting idle. If you have good 3G or 4G signal, it shouldn't be more than 4%.

 

[barrycinti]

Its a network issue, the Thunderbolt suffers from the very same erratic drain issue. My guess some flaw in there network keeps the phone awake at times.

I keep all of the radio stuff off except bluetooth. It makes a huge difference. I live in a weak signal area at my house and think the receiver/transmitter radios are running full tilt trying to get a signal. I have also noticed when the network is turned on I get almost constant traffic activity(red/green arrows flashing). Is this normal? I am going to recheck my email settings to see if they are set to manual to get the constant network traffic to stop.

When I want WIFI, or network connectivity I turn them on then turn them off when not needed.

 

[Cruiserdude]

I do the same. Keep everything off until you need it. Everything syncs right up when you need it now. And don't use task killers or juice defender, and keep auto brightness off unless you really need it.

 

[delco714]

well, all of you look at you battery usage in settings.. 70-80% of the drainage is due to the screen! Maybe we shouldn't use the screen ;-)

 

[anon(344812)]

Could be a poor battery, or poor signal... those would be the big culprits, I'd suspect.

Are you running any task killer or similar apps?

Nope. When left completely alone, here are the top apps running:

Dialer - 3.17%
LauncherPro - 2.62%
Swiftkey X Beta - 1.44%
Google Services Framework - 0.97%
imo - 0.77%
DoubleTwist - 0.51%

The rest were below the .5% range, so should be negligible.

Here's some settings that I run that may help you out.
10% display when indoors
No GPS, BT, WifI
I keep data on, so my chat is active at all times
I use gmail and manually sync (although yesterday I had auto-sync on, didn't notice a huge difference)
30-second screen timeout
No widgets
The only thing I have syncing is gmail... I guess I don't care to be notified of everything that goes on in a day.


If you can, at all, take it off the charger at 100%, and let it sit for an hour without turning it on. I'm curious what kind of battery drain you're seeing with the phone just sitting idle. If you have good 3G or 4G signal, it shouldn't be more than 4%.

No GPS, BT, WiFi
Data, 4G, Google locations services on
Weather widget auto-updates every 4 hours
Google, Pandora, DoubleTwist widget on homescreens

Android Assistant/Wheres My Droid Power, only apps running

After a full charge, I managed to go down from 100% to 86% in 4 hours. A much improved scenario over yesterday, but I'm still looking to make some tweaks.

Would turning off mobile data and/or auto-rotation do much? It's either that or switching off the 4G for when I don't require it.

 

[Cruiserdude]

Yeah, everything makes a difference. If you live in a 4g area, keep lte on, but just turn off mobile data and all the other radios when the phone is idle or you don't need it. Auto rotation uses a sensor, so I would imagine it makes some difference, I keep mine off until I need it, because it can be a little annoying at times.

 

[turkishcoffee]

Are you sure? From what I'd read people averaged about 9-12 hours on average use. With my stats, I'd get those numbers without even turning on my display!

Are there any particular settings people have on/off to get a decent run on a single charge? This is incredibly disappointing.

I started a thread about how pleased I was with the battery performance of my Charge. Several people who responded to that thread gave some good advice for getting the most from your Charge's charge. Check out the link below. I think you'll find some helpful suggestions.

http://forum.androidcentral.com/samsung-droid-charge/91396-battery-life-samsung-droid-charge.html

 

[Mtn_Scott]

Anything that pushes or pulls data will kill you battery more quickly. Steaming music is a constant data pull, so high battery usage. Any app that goes out looking for updates frequently will kill your battery as well. The big android phone user needs to weigh the desire to have instant updates vs. battery life. Widgets with auto updates are battery death. Apps with updates are the same, they are going to hit the network and drain the battery. The apps i want updating (gmail, weather, news) update once an hour, everything else only when I open the app. After making these behavioral changes i can get home with a half charge instead of a dead phone.

 

[ellje]

Anything that pushes or pulls data will kill you battery more quickly. Steaming music is a constant data pull, so high battery usage. Any app that goes out looking for updates frequently will kill your battery as well. The big android phone user needs to weigh the desire to have instant updates vs. battery life. Widgets with auto updates are battery death. Apps with updates are the same, they are going to hit the network and drain the battery. The apps i want updating (gmail, weather, news) update once an hour, everything else only when I open the app. After making these behavioral changes i can get home with a half charge instead of a dead phone.

Can you tell me how you got your gmail to sync once every hour? I can't seem to find the option anywhere