Using wireless charging with Nexus 4, causes severe battery drain

[vijayd]

I recently bought a QI wireless charger and my nexus 4 battery life dropped significantly. It won't even last a day without any activity at all. Then I found this bug thread:
Google Groups

Using wireless charging, prevents the Nexus 4 from entering deep sleep state. This causes continuous battery drain. Several people are experiencing this issue. I had to stop using wireless charging. The bug was reported more than a month ago. Google is still looking into the issue without any fix or work-around. The bug is present in Android 4.2 as well as 4.3.

 

[Ryandroid86]

Good to know. Thanks

 

[rxnelson]

What charger?

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

 

[vijayd]

I am using some third party charger. But if you look into the forums, any wireless charger causes the problem. People have reported the same issue with official ORB charger

 

[Yogi217]

I've heard that before. I want to buy one, but not if it drains the battery...

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

 

[N4Newbie]

I am not sure I understand. Even if it is true that wireless charging keeps the phone from going into deep sleep while it is on the charger, what does that have to do with overall battery life? If the phone is at 100% when you take it off the wireless charger, isn't it going to last exactly the same amount of time as if it were at 100% when taking it off a wired charger?

My wife and I both have N4's which we charge every night on this charger Energizer? Dual Inductive Charger | Energizer Come the morning, they are both fully charged and function normally throughout the day. So, what exactly is the problem?

 

[Leon Stevens]

Apparently, when doing wireless charging,the phone sets itself to never go into deep sleep (while charging). In some situations, the phone never changes from this state when when off the charger, and will never enter deep sleep, resulting in greatly reduced battery life.

 

[Nonymous666]

I've been using a wireless charger with my N4. Not using the orb charger. Using some Verizon" branded pad originally intended for some other LG phone that I forget.

Once the phone charges up, the charger stops, and the phone starts to discharge again. There is no "trickle charge" like you get if it's on USB. Seems like when it gets down to around 95% (maybe a bit lower), the charger kicks on again and charges the phone back up again. When I take it of the charging pad in the morning it's somewhere between 95-100% charged. I just took it off the pad now and it says 100%. Must have finished charging some time ago, though, since it's cool (it gets quite warm when it's charging).

 

[N4Newbie]

Have any of you guys tried installing the free Wakelock Detector app and monitoring it to see just what is supposedly keeping your phone from deep sleeping?

As I said earlier, my N4 spends every night on a Qi charger and averages 66% deep sleep vs. 34% awake time (over the course of the day). I don't think that is bad at all and very much inline with my actual usage.

 

[mr_nobody]

Please note that not all phones are affected by this particular wakelock... Mine uses the orb exclusively and I've never seen this wakelock.

 

[snowdroid83]

This wake lock is unbelievably annoying. It's so intermittent you never know when it will rear its ugly head and drain the life out the battery. I hope Google fixes this soon as my qi chargers are virtually useless

Posted via Android Central App on my buggy Nexus 4 running 4.3

 

[N4Newbie]

Please note that not all phones are affected by this particular wakelock... Mine uses the orb exclusively and I've never seen this wakelock.

My wife and I charge every night on a Qi charger (linked in my earlier post) and I have never seen this wakelock either. FWIW, we both have phones from the first batch ordered within minutes of the original Nexus 4 release. They are both Rev 10 hardware ( CellTraderOnline - Knowing The Difference: Nexus 4 [REV 10] Vs Nexus 4 [REV 11] ). Maybe the problem is specific to certain hardware releases?

 

[mr_nobody]

I didn't buy mine until february so probably not the same rev as yours.

 

[olgeezer44]

I didn't really do much research on our wireless chargers. Since our N4's are LG, I bought 2 refurbished LG chargers from Amazon. No problems that I know of. I only use mine about every other day or sometimes every 2 days.

 

[John Doe40]

I've been using my Nexus 4 (with 4.3 official update) with the Anker Qi charger - never noticed any issues like short battery life. Phone still lasts more than a day, just like it did when using original wired charger.

 

[danielcj]

Does anybody know if 4.4 fixed this wireless charging issue?

Sent from my Nexus 4 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[mr_nobody]

It did. And in fact there was a bulletproof fix for it on 4.3 available at xda which required root. Sadly, I only discovered it a couple weeks before kitkat.

 

[bobaka]

Maybe it's fixed with SOME chargers but it IS NOT FIXED with MY charger
which is a generic qi charger from ebay (round flat).
Still stays awake and drains quickly if left on the charger after it's fully charged.
Nexus 4 purchased mid 2013. Stock. updated OTA to 4.4

and apparently I'm not the only one. please fix it google
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/nexus/c4HRzEUNmFk[101-125-false]

btw the workaround is to put your charger on an outlet timer and have the timer cycle on/off
an hour or two before you wake up. that way you can leave the phone on the charger overnight
and wake up with a nearly full charge.

 

[mr_nobody]

Maybe it's fixed with SOME chargers but it IS NOT FIXED with MY charger
which is a generic qi charger from ebay (round flat).
Still stays awake and drains quickly if left on the charger after it's fully charged.
Nexus 4 purchased mid 2013. Stock. updated OTA to 4.4

and apparently I'm not the only one. please fix it google
Google Groups

btw the workaround is to put your charger on an outlet timer and have the timer cycle on/off
an hour or two before you wake up. that way you can leave the phone on the charger overnight
and wake up with a nearly full charge.

This thread is about a wakelock when the phone is _removed_ from the charger. If your phone is draining _on_ the charger, you have a different problem (and might want to try a different charger).

 

[bobaka]

These seems as good a place as any to share the issue.
Maybe they fixed part of the problem with wireless charging but not all of the problems.

And it's not just me:
Since kitkat OTA on 2 stock N4's, wireless charging goes to 100% then just declines and never picks up again. Anyone else? : nexus4

For some people the problem only started with kitkat. for me it was also on 4.2/4.3

If a phone is advertised to have qi compatible charging it should work properly with qi standard chargers... and it doesn't.

Please fix it google