Battery re-calibration?? - Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV ROM Development

This started on suiller's ROM guide, but I feel it's really OT so I should take it outside.
I've had battery issue ever since I got the Diamond. With moderate use (maybe ~15-20min of call per day, email check every 30 min, moderate web browsing) the battery level can drop by ~ 15-20% per hour on average. This means the battery would only last 5-6 hours without charging, which is not good enough to last through a day.
I first looked at whether the phone has any serious battery drain application, and it doesn't. With BatteryStatus I see the battery drain is ~ 100-150mA with GSM on, BT on. When I'm downloading email, or browsing the web, it does go up to 200 ~ 300mA briefly, but that is only when it's transmitting / receiving data. In standby mode with screen off it drains less than 50mA. These numbers seem pretty typical from my experience.
And here's the weird thing - on a typical day, when I wake up, and take the phone off the charger, it can drop from 100% to 93% within 30 min. On the way to work, when I would browse the web lightly, it can easily drop from 93% to 80-85% within an hour. That's pretty bad battery life.
Yet there are instances when I've been browsing the web, or playing MP3, or using YouTube for a good 10-15 min, but the battery level would not drop.
I figure maybe the battery needs to be re-calibrated, so I decided to discharge the battery and recharge it. I know this doesn't help improve the battery life of LiIon batteries, but I was trying to recalibrate it.
What happened, when I was discharging the battery, was I found the battery drop was very quick from 100% down to ~ 50%. From that point on, the battery drop is much slower.
And from 50% to 25% the battery seems to last forever. The most interesting thing is with the battery down to 15%, I did a lot of 3G web browsing, listening to MP3's, turn wifi on, and that 15% of battery lasted a good 3.5 hrs with heavy use until it's so low the phone stopped working.
The whole discharging process ended up taking 10 hours, and that's with HEAVY use for the last 3-4 hours too. That's actually acceptable for battery life (not great, but at least it'll last me through a day outside with moderate use) and obviously doesn't jive with the 15-20% drop per hour when I'm operating in the 50-100% full range.
When I'm charging the battery, I also noticed the level went up from 0% to 70% very quickly ... pretty much over 40 min. BatteryStatus shows it's being charged at +600-700mA.
As the battery gets full, the charging is much slower ... BatteryStatus shows it is charging by ~ 100-200mA only.
With the battery level up to 99%, it took almost forever to finally get up to 100%. I think it took at least 20 min.
So after a full discharge - recharge, I used my phone as normal this morning to see if it's been calibrated, but nope. It still drops from 100 to 93% within minutes of doing virtually nothing, and easily drop to 80% after an hour ride to work.
Does your battery perform the same way? Should I replace my battery? Or is there a way to properly calibrate the battery?
btw location and reception has nothing to do with it. I have good to excellent reception throughout this test.

I'm having the same problem but not with every rom (don't know wich ones, tested almost every rom hero) So is this a piece of software wich shows the live that doesn't work ?? or is it the battery ? As i can see it it's depending on rom thus it's not hardware
But hey I'm n00b

i've noticed that a soft reset or power up will use 3-7% of battery depending on the weather (what else could it be )
don't have the ability to discharge but i agree that in many cases the battery usage drops drastically & there is no reasonable cause
hope someone can figure this out!

From 4pda.ru
http://4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=85754&st=100&p=2338080&#entry2338080
1. discharge the battery completely (by playing video, audio, etc.)
2. Remove the battery and wait about 1min then place it back (do not power on the phone)
3. Full Charge the phone, wait when LEDs stop blinking (do not power on the phone)
4. When fully charged - remove the battery (do not power on the phone)
5. Wait about 1min then place the battery to the phone and now you can power it on.
If battery is more or less OK it will re-calibrate.
I hope it will help!

STM123 said:
From 4pda.ru
http://4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=85754&st=100&p=2338080&#entry2338080
1. discharge the battery completely (by playing video, audio, etc.)
2. Remove the battery and wait about 1min then place it back (do not power on the phone)
3. Full Charge the phone, wait when LEDs stop blinking (do not power on the phone)
4. When fully charged - remove the battery (do not power on the phone)
5. Wait about 1min then place the battery to the phone and now you can power it on.
If battery is more or less OK it will re-calibrate.
I hope it will help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. I tried those steps yesterday and my phone is pretty much behaving the exact same way after the battery cycle.
After all the steps, the battery shows it's 100%. I unplug it, and it drops to 97% within MINUTES literally. Now I plug it back in, and it takes forever to get from 97% back to 100% (> 1hour)
I think it may be a battery problem and not a calibration problem. The drain averages ~ 120-150mA when phone on, screen on, no data, and below 100mA with phone on in standby mode. That seems pretty typical? I'd think the battery should last longer than 8 hours (till it completely dies) in that case.
Where do you guys suggest I buy a new battery for the Diamond (other than HTC directly)? I bought one from DealExtreme but the battery runs ~ 10C hotter than normal all the times ... I don't think I want that as my primary battery.

If you get through a full day with moderate-heavy use on your battery, I say that is normal and good battery life on a Diamond. So, why bother that the percentage is not proportional? I would not get a new battery for this since the problem is only in the reported percentage, not the battery life itself.
I've had plenty of cars that went from full to half tank on the meter significantly faster than from half to almost empty. You know about it and adapt to it, simply.

Hello !
I'm understand you, i have a ELF (Touch P3450), and a Diamond, the same problem appear for the two phones!
Every Morning, when i disconnect from charge my diamond, my level battery go to 93% in 10mns without reasons (One sms, no 3G, no Wifi etc).
My battery go down to 50~70% around 14H (2H pm), and stays at this level for many hours (4-5hours ~), i think it's not a problem with our battery, but a dysfunction of the sensor battery, which shows wrong data =/
By the way, that problem doesn't appear every day, for example, today my battery has that level : 83% (15h43), so today it has a good level.
Since i have flash that ROM : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=521941, with radio 1.13.25.24, i have less less issues with my battery, it's more stable!
That's all, hope that helps you.

Ok guys, I've made a few discoveries that I figure I could share with everybody. Maybe you'll find it useful.
Last week I went on a trip and turned off the data connection while I was out of the country. Instead of letting the roaming charges kill me, I was relying on wifi to check emails and browse the web.
I ended up checking emails just as often, because where I worked had wifi AP.
Now, I could usually get 8, maybe 9 hrs out of my battery with moderate use before it's completely empty previously. So I was very surprised to find that with a similar usage pattern, but using wifi instead of EDGE/GPRS I still had 30-50% battery left at the end of 8-9 hours day everyday during the trip. I know data uses a lot of battery, but I always thought wifi drains even more, so that's quite a stunning discovery.
Now, I don't think it was due to wifi draining less than GPRS/EDGE (can't be true), so it must be something else. In trying to figure out what made the difference, I did a bunch of tests after the trip, and this is what I find-
1. Data channel dis-connection / re-connection is BAD
I used to always set my phone to auto-disconnect data channel (EDGE/GPRS) after 5 min of inactivity, in an attempt to save battery. What I found, was keeping the data channel open does NOT actually drain more battery than leaving it off at all. Transmitting data drains battery, but not leaving the channel open. However, disconnecting it, and re-connecting it all the times actually drains quite a bit of battery. I set my phone to check email every 30 minutes, and then there's also the odd weather forecast that needs data channel. In a 9 hrs day, that means channel disconnection + reconnection of about 40 times.
The last couple days I have left my data connection ON all the times, and I actually get more hours out of my battery. My battery used to drop ~ 10-15% per hour with moderate use. By keeping the channel on all the times it's been kept to under 10% per hour!!! I've only tested it for a couple days. I'll report more on it once I get to test it for longer, but the idea that 'keeping data connection off when you're not using it to save battery" seems to be a complete myth. The opposite actually saves battery!!!! And as a bonus, I don't even have to wait for the data channel to connect when I need it!!
2. Recycling the radio is VERY BAD
Everybody knows 3G is a real battery killer. However, similar to EDGE/GPRS, keeping the 3G channel open does NOT drain any more battery than turning it off, or turning on EDGE/GPRS channel. When the data channel is idling, it doesn't matter whether it's on EDGE, GPRS, 3G, or even completely turned off, the battery drain is close to zero in all cases.
Now, you do see a 1.5 - 2 times battery drain with 3G compared to EDGE/GPRS, so I've always turned 3G on only for web browsing or watching YouTube, and use GPRS / EDGE for regular emails update. The thing is though, if you're not transmitting much data (which you won't for regular email update), the difference in battery drain is minimal. SWITCHING between 2G and 3G though, requires a radio power cycle (turn off then back on to switch frequency) and THAT drains a lot of battery!!!
So if you're often switching between 3G and 2G, and you only transmit little data in 2G mode, you might actually be better off keeping it in 3G all the times instead of forcing the radio to power-cycle all the times.
I've tried keeping it in 3G all day long and I noticed minimal increase in battery drain. However, there might be another reason you want to consider - RADIATION. 3G not only drains more battery than 2G, it also transmits at a stronger power than 2G and as a result create more radiation. For that reason, I'm still keeping my phone to 2G for email updates and what not, and switch to 3G only for web browsing. For radiation you may try this thread if you want to read more about it.
3. VGA screen is a REAL battery killer
I do quite a bit of reading on my phone (ebook, on-line magazines etc) and reading ebook was never a battery concern in my days with the Touch (QVGA screen).
That's why I was quite surprised on the Diamond, reading the ebook for 1 hour, with EVERYTHING else turned off (GSM, EDGE, GPRS, 3G, BT, wifi), my battery level went down by 12% in ~1 hour.
The VGA screen drains a lot more battery than the QVGA screen. Now, if you need to use the phone you need to use the screen, there isn't much of a choice. It does make sense, however, that if you're using the screen for a while (like reading ebook) switching from a high brightness level to a lower brightness level.
Oh, and the auto-adjust brightness thing? That doesn't help you save battery at all. This is because it polls the light sensor every 2 sec (default value, but you can change it) and adjust screen brightness accordingly. This mechanism drains battery in itself, and in most cases end up using more battery than keeping the brightness constant at a low to medium level.
The auto-adjust thing is cool, and in theory it sounds like it can save you battery, but unless you constantly set the brightness to max even when you're in a dark environment, disable the auto-adjust and just set it to a constant 50-60% instead.
These are the few things I've noticed and I'm still trying things out, but over the last 2 days I've seen a significant drop in battery drain. I would be lucky to go through a 8-9 hrs day with moderate to heavy use before, the first 2 days I tried this I still had 60% battery left after 5 hrs of moderate use. The Diamond is very weak on battery life so every bit helps! I hope these tips are useful to you!

Thanks for your share

number16 said:
When I'm charging the battery, I also noticed the level went up from 0% to 70% very quickly ... pretty much over 40 min. BatteryStatus shows it's being charged at +600-700mA.
As the battery gets full, the charging is much slower ... BatteryStatus shows it is charging by ~ 100-200mA only.
With the battery level up to 99%, it took almost forever to finally get up to 100%. I think it took at least 20 min.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's exactly what the charging process is supposed to do.
Read more here:
The charge time of most chargers is about 3 hours...
Increasing the charge current does not shorten the charge time by much. Although the voltage peak is reached quicker with higher charge current, the topping charge will take longer.
Some chargers claim to fast-charge a lithium-ion battery in one hour or less. Such a charger eliminates stage 2 and goes directly to 'ready' once the voltage threshold is reached at the end of stage 1. The charge level at this point is about 70%. The topping charge typically takes twice as long as the initial charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
source:batteryuniversity (dot) com

Related

Battery Issues with any rom

I'm surprised that nobody is mentioning the poor battery performance on the tilt 2.
I'm at 50 percent already with 8 hours standby (sleeping) and 2 hours of work.
I have my email update after every 15 minutes, and bluetooth on. No wifi.
Is it just this device or the ROM. I'd rather not say the ROM to implicate, but can we get an honest evaluation from Touch Pro users about how long their batteries are lasting??? Please.
hi, battery calibrations are lost when flashing roms. It is said to take a full discharge and full uninterrupted charge to restore these calibrations which cause reduced battery performance and also using the phone for a few days also helps too. I admit I would like to see better battery life generally, but its the price we have to pay for such a feature-rich amazing device.
Things like Lumous (auto back light software) can help out controlling how bright the backlight shines in certain scenarios. Setting backlight to switch off after 10 seconds and device to sleep after a minute can help out too along with not having 3G connected when not needed as with data connection, bluetooth, wifi etc.
Hope this helps out.
in regard sto battery calibrations, I have done that, and i have been with the same rom for 5 days
hmmm yeah I do know what you mean though about the performance of it, perhaps invest in a new battery, an extended one maybe? My TP2 lasts on average 2-3 days with some music playing, weather updating, not much calling, alot of texting and maybe some internet use.
same battery issues here with 6.5 stock rom but after hard reset
battery live is 30 hours with stil 2 stripes on batt indicator
pres green-red button-powerbutton read the message and then volume up.
Oh and I think the first battery loading is done 2 quickly the green Indicator after 1.5 hour was green < hold the device loading for 4 hours
yea i always perform a hard reset after flashing a new rom, i personally find the full discharge and recharge a good way to get things back to normal. However currently experiencing a max reading of 99% despite green light and it stopping charging. Have let it fully discharge until it turns off, and then left the device in bootloader to make sure the battery is completely dead and left it charge overnight but yet still only get such a reading. Perhaps when I flash an updated rom the reinstall may restore (which won't be too far away I'm sure, loving the Cell Pro series, thanks Sergio!)
There are a lot of reasons for the battery life to go down quickly. I have used many different ROMs (mostly cooked ones from the chiefs here) and have not found a lot of difference in my battery performance. It has been noted somewhere on this forum (room-mate read it somewhere here) that the stock radio on the tilt2 seems to be best battery life for most who have used it.
So to sum some things up:
- Version of radio
- how bright the screen is kept at all times
- number of applications running all the time (including auto updates for stocks, weather, push web pages, etc.)
- Temperature (going from a warm house to the cold outdoors)
- speed of processor
- size of screen/resolution
can all lead to shorter battery life.
Living in a rural area vs. downtown in a major city can also greatly affect your battery life. Most buildings will have cellular devices attached to them as companies receive some money from cellular companies for hosting their equipment. So battery life is much better downtown as the phone does not have to search as much for a lock on a good signal.
cd993 said:
yea i always perform a hard reset after flashing a new rom, i personally find the full discharge and recharge a good way to get things back to normal. However currently experiencing a max reading of 99% despite green light and it stopping charging. Have let it fully discharge until it turns off, and then left the device in bootloader to make sure the battery is completely dead and left it charge overnight but yet still only get such a reading. Perhaps when I flash an updated rom the reinstall may restore (which won't be too far away I'm sure, loving the Cell Pro series, thanks Sergio!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Never fully discharge the battery! Most all devices will use Li-lon batteries and when over charged or fully drained you can kill the battery. Most devices are intelligent enough to charge up to (approximately) 98% and only let the battery drop to no less than 2% of life before shutting off. I used to do support for HP notebooks, and when they introduced lithium-ion batteries, people would demand a new battery when it would not charge past 98%. This made them change the way the software was reading the battery to reflect the 98% to read 100% on a full charge.
There is a good link in the wiki for our phones... I'll give it free of charge this time: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=519673
Dangerously said:
Never fully discharge the battery! Most all devices will use Li-lon batteries and when over charged or fully drained you can kill the battery. Most devices are intelligent enough to charge up to (approximately) 98% and only let the battery drop to no less than 2% of life before shutting off. I used to do support for HP notebooks, and when they introduced lithium-ion batteries, people would demand a new battery when it would not charge past 98%. This made them change the way the software was reading the battery to reflect the 98% to read 100% on a full charge.
There is a good link in the wiki for our phones... I'll give it free of charge this time: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=519673
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the info, will give that wiki a read!

[Q] Desire Z Battery

What kind of battery time are you guys getting on the original battery?
I've had my phone for about 14 days now and im not getting more than 12 hours on a charge.. the first week iv'e been using the phone alot.
I have alot of apps installed and im wondering if that could have a impact on the battery.. i have tryed using a task killer and without..
From the battery usage statistics page the screen is definitely the one that uses the most. Voice calls is number 2.
Will all applications show on the battery statistics page or is this something the applications have to implement?
Sent from my HTC Desire Z using XDA App
My battery has gotten better since I got it. But I have been doing a few things to help my battery - e.g. I completely drain the battery (until the phone doesn't even turn on anymore) and then fully charge it overnight.
Read about task killers and Android here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=849974
All apps will show in the battery usage statistics. If the screen has been using the most power, that means exactly that - you've been using the phone a lot and as such the screen has been taking up a lot of power.
I would recommend though to try to completely drain and then overnight charge, and repeat that cycle as often as you can.. I'm no technician, but I do think how you charge the phone matters
i've read about the task killers and have decided to uninstall them compleetly and let android do what it wants.
Regarding the charging, i have ran the battery flat out almost every day..
Im going to try a few different charging methods and see if there is some difference..
however i suspect that if the indicator is saying 100% charge, thats exatcly what it is whatever the charging method. (i hope)
It does get better. When I first got the phone I was getting about 14 hours. Now I'm getting about 30 hours or so.
JuiceDefender and setCPU help preserve battery life, too.
I am lucky to even get 12 hours with minimal use. No calls, just some texting and maybe browsing my bank website. Screen is always the killer for me, even on 20% brightness. If I go lower the screen actually flickers.
I bought the red HTC Chichitech batteries and they didn't help me at all.
Tried overclocking module, didn't change much.
The only app that ever shows any significant battery use (over 5%) is Maps, when I use maps.
i always thought completly draining a Lithium-ion battery is a bad idea?
Yes, it is.
Older batteries such as Ni-MH should be completely worked out from full to dead in order to keep them going in the long run. Li-ion doesn't need to be worked out, in fact the more it is worked out the faster it will run through it's lifespan and stop holding a charge.
Now that batteries, phones, and chargers are all smart, it's supposedly good to keep them plugged in as often as you can instead of letting them run dry.
sukie said:
i always thought completly draining a Lithium-ion battery is a bad idea?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The post (#7) above is correct on this. You should not let the battery dip below 30%, since discharging it too low may prevent it from being able to take a charge. It happens to most of us on accident every once in a while. But you should avoid it if possible.
It is good to run through a couple charge/discharge cycles to calibrate the battery meter. Many people still think this is to "condition" the battery, but battery conditioning is only the case with the older NiCad type of rechargeable batteries. Charging/discharging the battery just helps calibrate the battery meter on the phone. For new phones or a new ROM flash, I usually charge the battery to 100%, then let it drain to 30%, and repeat a couple times.
sukie said:
i always thought completly draining a Lithium-ion battery is a bad idea?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's also a bad idea to charge a cold Li battery, but I believe that affects lifespan more than charge. For those of us in colder climes, remember to wait for the battery to warm up to room temp before plugging in.
On my DZ I usually get 15~20h of battery life and it's O/C @ 1.4Ghz
3G & wifi : always on
facebook, gmail, emails, news, weather updates each hour
about 1h per day of audio streaming (deezer, Synology DS audio)
1~2h of internet and games per day (baseball superstars, angry birds, psx4droid...)
less than 30min of calls per day and about 20-30 sms...
sukie said:
i always thought completly draining a Lithium-ion battery is a bad idea?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It depends what you mean by "completely". If you drain the voltage of a LiIon battery too low, you will damage it. But the circuitry of the phone is normally designed that there's a cut-off before you get to this, i.e. "completely" discharging it by running it till the phone turns off will be before this dangerous level, so should be safe.
It's unnecessary though, your phone can tolerate a *lot* more partial discharges/charges than full discharges/charges. If you drain it ten times from 100% to 90% and charge again, then that's roughly equivalent to one whole discharge/charge from 100% to 0% and back again.
As redpoint73 said, the main issues it "training" Android to get the battery calibration right, not conditioning the battery (which only applies to NiMH, NiCad, etc).
Li-Ion batteries are protected from deep discharges in two ways:
1. The Phone, it will stop you from discharging too low.
2. The battery itself. Each Li-Ion battery contains circuitry that stops it from discharging too low.
Basically both have to fail to have you end up with a dead battery -> rarely happens.
Li-Ions take the heaviest duty when charging the top 90-100% charge, charging just that bit stresses the battery more than from 0-80% (ofc 0 not really being 0 ) Note: This only has an effect on battery LIFE, not battery capacity! -> if you keep charging your battery from 90-100% (for example by keeping it plugged in after driving to work, then recharge after driving home, basically always going from 100-90-100 you're really doing your battery a disservice life-cycle wise)
If Li-Ions are not in use for a while they should be stored at around 60-70% charge.
Now as for batteries in Android devices, I'd estimate that most causes of extreme battery drain are due to rampant programs/too many internet accesses.
Everytime you log onto the internet, or change speeds (3G -> Edge-> whatever) you take a lot more power than usual. Try to ensure that all your programs that regularly access the net, do so together (HTC Sense interface tries to do this)
Rampant Programs: Especially services that need to poll the clock a lot, or keep updating their info, keep their FPS high (games) It is for this reason I try to avoid installing a lot of programs at once, and keep it one at a time (especially for system programs) to see if there's a inordinate change in battery life.
Oh and do turn off unneeded things like bluetooth, wifi, and GPS if you don't need them... but thats a given.
Gee typed more than I was planning, just get tired of seeing these threads all over
Jacina said:
Li-Ions take the heaviest duty when charging the top 90-100% charge, charging just that bit stresses the battery more than from 0-80% (ofc 0 not really being 0 ) Note: This only has an effect on battery LIFE, not battery capacity! -> if you keep charging your battery from 90-100% (for example by keeping it plugged in after driving to work, then recharge after driving home, basically always going from 100-90-100 you're really doing your battery a disservice life-cycle wise)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry but I disagree with that. Have you got any evidence to back that up ? Continually charging the battery from 90% to 100% should be fine and shouldn't shorten its life at all. Chargers will sometimes reduce their charge when the battery is nearly full, and a slower/lesser charge will actually increase its life (I have no idea whether the DZ's charger does this or not).
Jacina said:
Li-Ion batteries are protected from deep discharges in two ways:
1. The Phone, it will stop you from discharging too low.
2. The battery itself. Each Li-Ion battery contains circuitry that stops it from discharging too low.
Basically both have to fail to have you end up with a dead battery -> rarely happens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Coming from the Touch Pro 2 forum, there are somewhat occasional posts by users that discharged their batteries too low, and get stuck in a boot loop. Leaving the battery on the wall charger (USB is not enough) for a long period of time seems to solve the issue in some instances, while others are forced to replace the battery.
As you said, instances of this are relatively rare. I've drained my battery until the phone shuts down plenty of times on accident, with no ill results. But best to play it safe and not do it intentionally.
When you mention the phone prevents the battery from discharging too low, is that the hardware, or the OS? I guess either way, maybe the Desire Z or the Android OS are better at this then Windows Mobile and the Touch Pro 2. But I still wouldn't discharge the battery too low intentionally.
I'm pretty sure on the Touch Pro 2 it was software based (hence actually allowing you to boot before saying "not enough charge" )
I doubt that ANY charger that comes with a phone is anything but a normal "charge till full" charger...
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries
All information is gathered there. (other articles there are also highly informative)
nivlheim_o_O? said:
On my DZ I usually get 15~20h of battery life and it's O/C @ 1.4Ghz
3G & wifi : always on
facebook, gmail, emails, news, weather updates each hour
about 1h per day of audio streaming (deezer, Synology DS audio)
1~2h of internet and games per day (baseball superstars, angry birds, psx4droid...)
less than 30min of calls per day and about 20-30 sms...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is intense, are you serious?!
I barely make it through the day and I don't game or make many calls. usually just texts and emails.
My update intervals for emails are much more frequent though.
Lucky !
im usually not getting more than 10 hours on a charge... :s thinking about getting the 1800mAh mugen battery...
Sh0rty007 said:
im usually not getting more than 10 hours on a charge... :s thinking about getting the 1800mAh mugen battery...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you using it pretty heavily? I just got the phone Tuesday, and still playing with it a lot, so I can't comment on battery life yet. But what is your screen brightness set to? If you look at the battery use graph, you will see that the display uses the most power, and with any smartphone, the biggest culprit of short battery life. Turn the brightness as low as you can tolerate for your "average" viewing conditions. Also, be sure you've calibrated the battery meter as I've described in Post #8 above.
A word of caution as far as the Mugen extended battaries: one of the users here did a bunch of battary tests on OEM and different aftermarket brands, on various phones. The Mugen 1800 mAh batteries did not rate any better than the OEM 1400 mAh. Mugen tried to explain away the test results. But judge for yourself.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=583927
My screen brightness is just 25 or 45%. And i really don't make it to the end of the day.
I now have setcpu, so that when my screen is off my cpu is running on 300mhz. Think i can make it now through the day.
I use my phone a lot, thats true. But only to view the market or twitter things..
Ow and i don't use live wallpapers...
I think there is a lot to be said for keeping things turned off if you do not use/need them too much.
I leave my phone charging overnight (between 11pm and 6:30am). So when I leave the house in the morning it is fully charged.
I keep Wifi and 3G turned off unless I need to use it and I keep brightness to a minimum - again, only increasing it if I need it.
Normal usage for me would be about 1 hours music listening during my commute to work, a couple of texts a day and about 10mins worth of calls a day.
On top of that about 4 hours worth of data use (both Wifi and 3G) and I usually find I still have over 50% battery life left when I plug it back in around 11pm before going to bed (according to the Mini Info widget).
Granted this is fairly light use compared to some people, but I think if you take the time to control your app usage you should see better performance results!

[Q] Battery drain

Hi... I have an Xplay rooted on 2.3.4 and removed light bloatware, but still my battery drains fast...
I must charge phone every day and I dont use a lot of heavy gamming... I only play in bed at night and normaly to drain the rest of the battery before charging.
I almost never use 3G, but have always wifi turned on...
So, resuming, my battery only lasts about 12h-14h per day...
As you can see, in the attachemt I have 2 times the same thing (portuguese language, but will translate):
- Inactividade do telefone 28% (Inactivity off phone)*
- Wi-Fi 21%
- Telefone inactivo 15% (Phone inactivity)*
* This 2 things arent the same?
I have a few questions:
1º - I have read about people who can have phone about 2 or 3 days, others with 20h or more. What is the most accurate and normal on this phone?
2º - If wi-fi always turned on, will drain battery?
3º - Why most off % is used when phone is inactivity?
Sometimes the phone dont loose battery when "sleeping" (it take 2h to loose 1%), but other times, when sleeping, battery drains 10% or more in one hour. I have read about a bug in Android OS that drains battery when phone sleeping. Does this bug applys in ALL ANDROID phones, or only Samsung? Read it on here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1290020
If I charge phone every day will get battery "addicted"?
One thing im shure: the 3 first itens on the screenshots are draining my battery whitout a reason (i can understand wi-fi, but can't understand why 2 things saying phone inactivity, uses 43% of battery)
In that screenshot, battery is on 60%, so I losted 40% in 6hours with 20 minutes of gaming... and on those 6 hours, almost half, phone was "sleeping", again, it shouldnt drain battery when sleeping.
Thanks in advance for your help
What's shown as draining your battery the most is your phone's cell standby (your 3G & 2G network, or 4G if you have it). The third on the list describes your phone when it's not in use (screen off). Don't worry about that one, a higher % only means your phone is often in standby.
Having Wi-Fi on will often use more battery than using your phone's own network. To save even more battery, turn off 3G connectivity when you're not using it (you will still receive calls, just no internet, but you use Wi-Fi anyway).
Charging your phone every day is perfectly fine, just make sure you unplug it once it hits 100%. If you leave it plugged in while it's fully charged, it gets bad for the battery after a while.
That article about the battery drain in standby is likely just for Samsung devices. What is likely draining your battery are apps and services that run in the background and use the internet while in standby.
jacklebott said:
What's shown as draining your battery the most is your phone's cell standby (your 3G & 2G network, or 4G if you have it). The third on the list describes your phone when it's not in use (screen off). Don't worry about that one, a higher % only means your phone is often in standby.
Having Wi-Fi on will often use more battery than using your phone's own network. To save even more battery, turn off 3G connectivity when you're not using it (you will still receive calls, just no internet, but you use Wi-Fi anyway).
Charging your phone every day is perfectly fine, just make sure you unplug it once it hits 100%. If you leave it plugged in while it's fully charged, it gets bad for the battery after a while.
That article about the battery drain in standby is likely just for Samsung devices. What is likely draining your battery are apps and services that run in the background and use the internet while in standby.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
95% of the time, 3G connection is OFF. I use Wi-fi connections, because I have many hotspots for it...
I don't have many APPs and the ones that I have installed (non-stock apps), dont run in background.
Today, I turned off wi-fi, and only turned on when need, and for more than 2 hours, only losted 1% of battery (have takken photos, and made phone calls only).
After this I used wi-fi for 20 minutes, and losted 8% off battery. So I think, Wi-fi is the problem. Please correct me if im wrong:
- If I have wi-fi always on, phone is always searching for wi-fi connections, even when sleeping, so battery drains much faster.
As you can see on the screenshot, with no wi-fi, for a little bit more than 2hours, only 1% of battery losted
Well you answered your question. Wifi is the problem. If it searches for wifi networks all of the time the battery will surely drain.
Definitely Wifi. It absolutely murders my battery when I forget to turn it off when I'm not using it.
Yes... for shure... its crazy like hell... lol... half an hour playing... half an hour surfing (youtube for my son... i put videos for him, once in a while)... and wi-fi drained more battery than gamming (FIFA 2010, Angry Birds, Spider-Man... also my son played)... funny thing, he has 20 months old, and love Xplay, more than me...
So... the hole day, I kept wi-fi turned off, and only turn it on, when needed... more than 12h latter, still have 62% off battery... and for the first time, will not charge this night...
Was so simple, as turning wi-fi off... check the screens...
Thanks all that helped

battery life of 900, is it good?

guys i want to know if the battery life of your lumia 900 is good? mine sucks, I got the phone about 10 days ago, I find the battery drains very fast. normally the first 3-4 hours are good, but then it will drop like 20% within 30 minutes, then drains very fast, after around 10 hours it's only 20%ish. I use the phone in normal way, check emails as they arrive (about 20 emails a day), text 10-20, phone call 20-30mins, that's all.
I live in UK. first time I launch Nokia Music it stopped response, I had to reset my phone for it to work properly.
is this normal? what should I do to improve the battery life?
I found the battery life alot better on the 900 than my Titan and Lumia 800, I have 2 email accounts on sync every 15 mins and just a weather app running in background, I have tried hard to run the battery out in a day of heavy use and just managed it, It can depend greatly on how strong your signal is from your Network provider as if it has to struggle to find 3G or keep switching then this will drain the battery more, Maybe change email sync to either every 15 min or 30 min to see if that helps, Screen time-out at 30 secs and dark theme can also help conserve power, Check background tasks in settings and switch off unnecessary apps, Also a new battery will need several charges/discharges before it reaches its optimum capacity, Try not to run the battery out completely, Normally just after you get the low battery warning is best then charge overnight.
AndyFZ1S said:
I found the battery life alot better on the 900 than my Titan and Lumia 800, I have 2 email accounts on sync every 15 mins and just a weather app running in background, I have tried hard to run the battery out in a day of heavy use and just managed it, It can depend greatly on how strong your signal is from your Network provider as if it has to struggle to find 3G or keep switching then this will drain the battery more, Maybe change email sync to either every 15 min or 30 min to see if that helps, Screen time-out at 30 secs and dark theme can also help conserve power, Check background tasks in settings and switch off unnecessary apps, Also a new battery will need several charges/discharges before it reaches its optimum capacity, Try not to run the battery out completely, Normally just after you get the low battery warning is best then charge overnight.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the tips mate. i've changed the sync to every 15mins. I also manual input apn option and turn of the location service. hope this will help...
Are you connected to a MicroCell anytime during the day. They are known to drain battery quickly. I have a lot more running than you (email & background) and my average "screen off" drain is about 3.5% per hour, or 56% per 16 hour day. That leaves me about 4 hours of screen on time before my battery is nearly drained (screen on/data/calls drains another 9-10% per hour). Pretty impressed with my battery actually.
Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express Pro
How do you guys measure the % drain per hour on the lumia? I know android does like a graph and stuff is there an app for it?
I have
Four email sync
Twitter
facebook
weather app
and take photos
and a few calls.
lasts me anything between `12 hours - heavy use to around 19 hours of mild to normal use and am actually quiet impressed with the battery.
Suggestions :
Turn off WIFI when not in use as it uses power to search for signal
Poor Network coverage will DRAIN battery as well.
Disable any Background tasks which you do not need.
And I charge my phone every night regardless of the battery percentage even if its 50% left
Search feature of the forumn... is it good?
thread in this forum all about battery life.
If you are in a known WiFi area, like home or work, no need to turn off WiFi. Uses less power for data transfer than LTE, but of course, may be a bit slower. Out and about and have your screen on a lot; might be a good idea to turn of WiFi. WiFi uses almost 0 power when your phone is sleeping.
Just finished a series of Background Task tests. Comparing drain with tasks enabled/disabled. About 0.5% per hour or 8% per 16 hour day. That's with 8 tasks running; USA Today, Fox News, Weather Channel, Mehdoh, Urban Dictionary, Network Dashboard, Clever-To-Do and Battery Meter. Btw, Battery Meter is a homebrew app, but you can check percentages on the Settings>Battery Saver screen.
Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express
tfn said:
How do you guys measure the % drain per hour on the lumia? I know android does like a graph and stuff is there an app for it?
I have
Four email sync
Twitter
facebook
weather app
and take photos
and a few calls.
lasts me anything between `12 hours - heavy use to around 19 hours of mild to normal use and am actually quiet impressed with the battery.
Suggestions :
Turn off WIFI when not in use as it uses power to search for signal
Poor Network coverage will DRAIN battery as well.
Disable any Background tasks which you do not need.
And I charge my phone every night regardless of the battery percentage even if its 50% left
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The diagnostic mode will help see the battery percentage and power drained per second.
Just press ##634# and you will be able to see it.
ehe12 said:
The diagnostic mode will help see the battery percentage and power drained per second.
Just press ##634# and you will be able to see it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do know about the diagonistic mode... but uninstalled it as there are rumours it eats battery as well
Why would the Diagnostic App, which can't be uninstalled, as its part of your ROM, have anything to do with draining your battery. How do these rumors start. Guess this is another "truth" I will have to prove. Running a series of articles on Mobility Digest to squash all these urban legends. So far, push email, battery saver and background tasks. More to follow.
Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express Pro
I don't think it does, I loaded it up yesterday to check what my battery drain was, since then my phone has used 27% in 22 hours. Perhaps it uses a lot of power while you're using it, but surely not just by having it installed.
jimski said:
Why would the Diagnostic App, which can't be uninstalled, as its part of your ROM, have anything to do with draining your battery. How do these rumors start. Guess this is another "truth" I will have to prove. Running a series of articles on Mobility Digest to squash all these urban legends. So far, push email, battery saver and background tasks. More to follow.
Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express Pro
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It can be uninstalled as I have installed and uninstalled it quiet a few times now, probably it on a hidden partition of the ROM, but you can remove it.
Just for the sake of it I kept it all day today and my battery life was not affected as such,, so rumours are rumours after all
No, all you are doing is making it visible or invisible. Its always there. Do you actually see it installing like a Marketplace app, or does it just magically appear when you type in ##634# (or whatever it is). Oh, never mind.
Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express Pro
Got the phone brand new yesterday so below are the first discharge stats with wifi ON only and cellular data off and max speed set to edge.
Remaining battery: 57%
Time since last charge 7 hours.
I've been playing with it from time to time since I unplugged it. 2 emails fetching every 15 minutes, whatsapp, downloading and testing apps.
How does it rank for a first discharge?
Difficult to say. The first thing you should do is dial ##634# on the phone keypad which installs the diagnostic app, then you can check the battery discharge rate. It usually jumps around for a few seconds and then settles down to around 90mA - 110mA. If it's higher than this, something is draining the battery.
I'm finding that sometimes various apps seem to start up some sort of process that continues to drain the battery even when it's not doing anything, and the best thing to do in that case is a soft reset.
Doing this I managed 60 hours between the last two charges, and since then I've gone 80 hours with 29% still left. That's with very light use and no apps installed though.
redwhiteandblue said:
Difficult to say. The first thing you should do is dial ##634# on the phone keypad which installs the diagnostic app, then you can check the battery discharge rate. It usually jumps around for a few seconds and then settles down to around 90mA - 110mA. If it's higher than this, something is draining the battery.
I'm finding that sometimes various apps seem to start up some sort of process that continues to drain the battery even when it's not doing anything, and the best thing to do in that case is a soft reset.
Doing this I managed 60 hours between the last two charges, and since then I've gone 80 hours with 29% still left. That's with very light use and no apps installed though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My drain reads around 100ma so I guess I'm good.
i'm not getting good usage with the battery now, on my 3rd charge, and so far only able to last 1 day, and i'm not even consider as a heavy user, no text, only few whatsapp (around 10) 15-20min calls and little browsing and market downloads. i didn't even on the auto update for emails... hope that the battery will improve after a few more charge...

Bought new Z play/kind of disappointed with the battery life

Hello all,
I bought a new Z play to replace my ageing phone, and I have mixed feelings about the battery life. The phone has received universal praise for its battery life, and while some of it is true in my case, I can't seem to get those high SoT numbers that everyone brags about.
It's very difficult for me to break the 6h SoT barrier, and I consider myself a light user: whatsapp, browsing, some reddit, and the occasional music (through headphones). I don't play any games, or perform heavy tasks. Also the phone is connected to WiFi 85% of the time, get decent signal, and the screen is set on auto-brightness.
Running latest version of the stock rom, and I performed factory reset + wiped cache + reset network settings countless times as per suggestions.
Attached some stats for 50% that I just took.
Is there something I'm missing?
Take it with a grain of salt, just because people brag about numbers does not mean they are real or obtainable by everyone. Battery life will vary for every user and phone. The time you have is in the acceptable range and I would not worry.
Yes, even I have never achieved the 8-9+ hrs of SOT that's I've seen in some threads. Based on my usage I get a minimum of 6.5hr SOT with the phone lasting a good 25-27 hours before I have to plug it back in.
Since the phone is new it might take a few cycles for the battery to truly show its stamina.
Those answer are definitely right. It all varies on the users. . Also please makes sure you have bluetooth and wifi scanning off. (Location> Scanning > Bluetooth & Wifi Scanning) Another factor is apps. Get rid of facebook and facebook messenger. Apps that use GCM eat battery like a range rover eats gas. I've hit 8--10 hr of SOT before. Let your phone get use to your daily activities. I believe it'll optimize itself over time.
It's normal.
I was also getting earlier 5-6 hrs SOT(When the device was new) but not I'm getting 8-9 hrs SOT.
So as your phone is new it might take few cycles for the battery to show its full stamina!
Cheers!!
Thanks for the replies and for putting my mind at ease.
Bluetooth and wifi scanning are off (forgot to mention that).
Anyway, I understand. Those insane SoT of 10+ are best case scenarios with careful use of the device. Still happy with my current capacity (anything which lasts until the next morning is great).
And yep, the phone manual (who reads those anymore), did mention the battery taking a few cycles before reaching its capacity.
Now, for a different issue. If I'd like to disable turbocharging/quickcharging my phone, would a USB C to A cable coupled with any charger (including the quickcharging ones) do the trick? Based on my understanding, the cable limits the chargining power, so any regular (quality) C to A cable should restore normal charging speeds even when using a fast charging charger. In case you're wondering why I'd like to do that, it's because the phone gets way too hot for my liking when using the Moto turbocharger and I'd like to reserve that for when necessary.
Well, guyz do have a point.
The screenshots are showing you have almost 3hrs SoT after day and a half. This is normal.
Those >10 hrs of SoT aren't achieved with careful usage. Coming from my experience, I got 10.5 hrs SoT with 10% battery left, BUT, in one day. My Moto can last up to 3 day with one charge, but in those 3 days I'll have maybe 4hrs SoT. So, in average, my Moto lasts up to 2 days with 6/7hrs SoT (I mostly use FB, Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber, YT, Instagram, stock 6.0.1). It simply depends how you use it. That big, almost 11hrs SoT, I could only achieve on weekends, coz otherwise I don't have the time to stare in my phone so much.
On that other thing, Moto does get pretty hot while charging. And you're right, the cable does limit the charging power so it will probably work.
I was one of those users getting 10h SoT early on. But I was doing that inside a 24h usage window. Your 50% stats have you stretched out to like almost 3 days off charger. Idle time vs. screen on time is ALWAYS a trade-off.
I look at battery drain in terms of drain rate at idle, and drain rate with screen on. Early on I was seeing 6% drain per hour of screen on, and 1-1.5% per hour screen off. So basically 5 hours of idle time costs you 1 hour screen on. Those were my numbers on the original MM build. My battery life has gotten worse with every software update. I have NOT done a factory reset, mostly because I don't want the hassle and I still get a day off normal use with plenty of battery to spare. But I usually see 18h off charger and 3-4h SoT in a normal day, and that leaves me at 40-50% when I plug in.
Looking at your stats, if screen on costs you 6% per hour, you have 17% worth of screen on drain. That leaves 33% idle drain over 38 hours, or sightly less than 1% per hour idle. Seems pretty darn good to me.
Your cell signal is definitely not helping your battery life. Switch to 2g when on wifi, your signal bar should be full and it'll probably help your battery life.
Enjoy the fact that this phone lets you keep BT/WiFi scanning/Facebook/etc. on without having to worry whether or not you're going to make it a full day. I use all that stuff, have multiple live widgets updating, brightness at least half way, T-Mobile Digits running, and still make it a full day. Additionally, it's great to know that if you do have to make it 2-3 days with minimal usage because you don't have a charger handy, you can. However, I'm willing to bet that 99% of users are able to charge their phone daily. To those users, I say enjoy all the features and don't worry about it.
Really depends on the screen brightness...I can hit those number with my screen brightness turned down a good bit...probably around 30 percent and auto sync off...if i have brightness anywhere above 60 percent then battery life drops a good amount...still well enough to get me through a 12 hour work day but there is a difference
Sent from my XT1635-01 using Tapatalk

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