Develop Bugs

Wifi drains too much battery?

I've bought Desire 4 days ago.
I've been running in some battery problems a lot. I've heard that battery should have 4-5 full draining and charging before having its max capacity, but I have a life span of about 16-20 hours of battery with Wi-Fi on.
How i found out that: Yesterday I went to the country and messed around with my gps and navigation (never used one, so felt like a little child with a brand new shiny toy). So the battery went dead and i charged it almost full. When i got home i turned the wifi on. Didn't manage to connect to my home network, due to Android still not supporting Ad-Hoc networks (sharing through my notebook) so i didn't bother more and used my data plan, but forgot to turn off the wifi.
In about 2 hours, the battery was nearly 60% from 90. When i went to see what's draining the battery I saw it was the Wifi. I turned it off and since last night, up to now (about 14 hours) the battery is 50% (only 10 percent for 14 hours).
Is there any way to make the phone not scan so agressively for Wifi when it's on ? I'm comming from iphone and it didn't matter too much if i had my wifi on or off there.

First of all, what you're experiencing is normal.
In fact, dropping only 30% with 2 straight hrs of heavy use is actually quite impressive.
If you don't want your device to scan for wifi, turn it off. Simple as that. Keep the WiFi setting widget on one of your homescreens for easy access.

It wasn't heavy use I killed all apps and left it there. 30% are just from WiFi scanning.
I know I must turn off wifi, i have the widgy button, but sometimes i just forget i have to shut it down. (Though that's a bit killing, since i didn't have to do this on my iPhone. Actually this is the only shortcoming i can think of now, great phone. Seems i have to get used to killing extra stuff )
Sadly i couldn't find an option to tell it to scan on rarer occasion, just to help absent-minded people like me.

Try downloading "Y5 - Battery Saver" from the Market.
It automatically switches WiFi on and off depending on your location (as determined by cell location, not GPS).
It allows you to leave WiFi in locations where you know you have WiFi, and automatically switches it off when you leave those locations.
I've installed it, but not exhaustively tested as yet as I've not really been out of WiFi coverage since I installed it.
Regards,
Dave

Try getting the WiFi On/Off widget from the market.
It lets you turn off the WiFi with one touch. Will save you a lot of battery when not using it.

@Gana1991 - i've already noted that i have the widget (no need to download from market)
@foxmeister - thanks, i will try that. (I have been secretly thinking about some app with this function )

indeed, there is a WIFI widget builtin.
If you really want another widget, check the WiFi Toggle by "JQ Soft", nice design.
The Y5-Battery Saver is nice....it seems to work properly.
But i am affraid it was causing some problems here, so i uninstalled.
I will reinstall and do some more tests.

WI-FI usage is actually much better than using the network which drains the battery more.
But deffo only have on when using, not all the time.

Or you'd use the standard HTC energy widged or the android wifi switch wich can be found @ widged -> settings -> wifi

Put the HTC battery widget on the screen, not only does it show what % you have left but selecting the widget pops up a small menu where you can adjust display, turn on /off WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth, vey handy indeed

I leave my WiFi on all the time at home because of the data constantly changing between G/3G it drains the battery amazingly fast. leaving WiFi on helps me save battery and keep a data connection. I took my phone off charge at 9 this morning, WiFi has been enabled all day and I have 80% battery.
once the battery has had a week or 2 of charging it will run loads better. also charging with the phone switched off gets you a bit more juice because of a firmware problem.

Software Guru said:
Put the HTC battery widget on the screen, not only does it show what % you have left but selecting the widget pops up a small menu where you can adjust display, turn on /off WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth, vey handy indeed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where is this battery widget? I cant find it anywhere.
Oops, didnt know i had to look for it on the market. Found it.

Go settings, wifi, menu button and this brings up advanced settings. From there you can disable wifi after 15 mins of inactivity. When the phone wakes wifi kicks in. I have data turned off, wifi turned off, but if I forget to turn wifi off after using it, it's not too bad as it will be deactivated.

What's that widget called? All I can find is the power widget.

Ok found it
Only seems to be a meter though, no adjustments?

Go settings, wifi, then WiFi settings, then press the menu button,. From their you can select advanced WiFi settings.

When i got home i turned the wifi on. Didn't manage to connect to my home network, due to Android still not supporting Ad-Hoc networks (sharing through my notebook) so i didn't bother more and used my data plan, but forgot to turn off the wifi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you were using your data plan then your wifi wouldn't be on as the phone turns it off when your connected via 3G, it only uses one or the other not both at the same time.
That's the way it is on my Desire.

I've not used WiFi at all today yet apparently its consumed 25% of my battery. I've got it switched off via widget and its also set to disable after 15 minutes of inactivity.
Any thoughts?
thanks for any help

It's just occurred to me that perhaps the percentages run and run and are not reset after a charge?
Anyone know how it works?

Why would having WiFi turned on kill my battery?

I have a Verizon G4 that is not getting the great battery life many speak of. I've tried a lot of things...only syncing the bare minimum of stuff (gmail, calendar, contacts), running Lux for auto brightness, used Access lock to turn off most all permissions in most all my apps, disabled/turned off most LG and Verizon bloat, and still I end up getting only 6 to 8 hours before the 15% battery warning, with 30 to 40 minutes screen time (I've been scared to use it more). GSam shows nothing eating up my battery except for Android System, which is typically using 35% to 60%, with all other apps showing minimal usage. My cell signal is strong everywhere I am, as is my WiFi signal.
So, today, on a whim, I decided to turn off WiFi when I got up and unplugged. Now after 8 hours on with 1 hour screen time, I've got 70% battery left and Android System has only used 17%. I consider this GREAT! Ultimately though, I need to get WiFi back on due to data restrictions.
Why would using WiFi be killing my battery? I did notice the day before that, even though I have "Allow WiFi scanning" un-checked, my WiFi screen was showing "searching" every 10 seconds...forever. That seems very battery hog-atious, but I've been told that it's normal (even though it doesn't seem normal to me).
Does anyone know why WiFi is killing my battery or if there is any troubleshooting/testing I can do?

Wifi can be a hog as it is constantly searching for available and open wifi signals. Depending on settings, even while the screen is off it is pinging around looking for open signals. That can kill a battery. In the past, we have had mods to reduce the time between checks from say every 10 second to every minute.
As a rule of thumb I NEVER run wifi unless I am using it. Same with Location or BT for that matter. Hogs always looking for signals.

Disable Wifi Scanning in advanced wifi settings.... I would also turn off google now and limit syncing of google stuff.. I actually have auto-sync off...

A LOT of it can also have to do with the particular Wi-Fi source. At my work, signal is strong, but there's something about it that drains my battery about fifteen percent per hour, even when not in use. And this is across my current g4 as well as my galaxy s4 and s5. Once I get home and connect to my home Wi-Fi, I regularly lose as little as between 0 to 1% over 6 to 7 hours overnight while I sleep. I've started using my laptop (which also uses the work Wi-Fi, but remains plugged in) as an ad hoc Wi-Fi source to which I connect my phone, and that drops my battery drain to about 3% an hour.
Edit* I also leave absolutely everything syncing all the time. Regardless, I lose extraordinarily little (~1% overnight) on home Wi-Fi.

[Q] My Sprint S6 get's terrible battery life

Now.. I'm on my phone a lot normally. I text, and use FB messenger, and a lot of Google Now. Because my phone battery dies so quickly, it sits plugged in a lot, and I don't use it nearly as much as I'd like to.
If I am using my phone a lot, I can take my phone from 100% to 15% 3 times in a day.
I factory reset recently, and just let my phone sit with nothing but Google Messenger and Facebook. It still dies from a full battery in ~4-5 hours, without me touching it. Thing is, all the battery stats show less than 5% usage. And there's no crazy crap like games, etc running. I can't figure out what's eating the battery.
I just put the phone in Airplane mode, and enabled Wifi. I'm getting all my emails, fb messages, gmail, google voice, so on. Battery only went down 30% in 28 hours. I turned off airplane mode (it's not connected to Sprint at the moment, I took it off the account), and I have an Airave...battery dropped 15% in about 30 minutes. Went back to airplane mode with Wifi on, and back to a really slow drain.
Right now, I'm planning on packing up my phone tomorrow and sending it to Samsung for a battery replacement. Because my standard 2A-5V can charge this phone from 10% to 100% in an hour...which isn't right. Not the original QC2.0 charger.
Update: I turned off airplane mode again, and the phone is steadily losing 10-12% battery an hour.. and there's nothing running. It's sitting face up on my coffee table.
What can I do to stop the battery bleed? It's completely stock, on the latest update from Sprint, with no root.
I got an RMA from Samsung to send it in for a battery replacement.

Attached are screenshots of my battery stats. It just makes no sense. Even after a factory reset, not everything using the battery is reporting to that page. The sharp drops in battery are from when the phone is not in Airplane mode (only wifi on)

I've got the same issue. No better than 7-8 hours of standby time. My cpu will also heat up to 160 degrees while running very basic apps.

Any guesses on what's wrong? What have you tried?

turn off:
mobile networks > Connection optimizer
wifi > always allow scanning
these worked for me. hope helps you too.

besotsima said:
turn off:
mobile networks > Connection optimizer
wifi > always allow scanning
these worked for me. hope helps you too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes this is a battery hog for sure shut off that Connection Optimizer, also I set my screen brightness to auto (little check box after the slider) and I noticed a big difference in battery life, I use to crank up the brightness and battery would drain fast, I been on 2 days now at 79% battery..... also not sure but I shut off notifications everywhere too, I don't need facebook telling me everytime a monkey posts on another monkeys wall every 2 minutes, that helps on battery drain as well.

ditto.
This has gotten much worse since I updated to 0I1 rooted with unikernal v9
Also for some reason now... even though both the connections optimizer and wifi scanning turned 'off'-- wifi still keeps randomly turning itself "on" frequently. That with the incredibly poor battery and overheating is frustrating.

Good for you

I had the smart connection optimizer, and wifi scanning off. I also have the wifi location scanning thing turned off.
None of that helps.
My phone is on it's way back to Samsung right now to have a new battery installed.
At this point, I'm pretty sure it's faulty hardware.

Battery life

I am suprised, there still is no battery life thread.
People must be very happy with their battery lifes or nobody is buying this tablet
I do have one big issue with battery life.
WIFI is the biggest battery hog, using 2-3 times more battery than the screen.
For 3 hours WIFI roughly 1400mAh.
So I only manage like 5 hours of SOT.
Btw. I have set WIFI to be disabled, when the screen is off.
Any suggestions?

I haven't had mine off charge long enough to really be able to comment about this yet but I can't complain with it so far.

Mine seems good so far. Had one freeze as you can see. 33% left.

bill3508 said:
Mine seems good so far. Had one freeze as you can see. 33% left.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Still, I think it is strange (as seen in your screen shots), that WIFI accounts for almost half of your battery usage. And 5+ hours SOT is only 6%?
Could you be so kind and post the screen for wifi too, so we can see the "computed power use"?
When looking at my phone, wifi is at 52 mAh power use over an 18 hour period, on this tablet it is 2700 mAh for 10 hours.
An alarming discrepancy.
Or am I missing something?

supersquishy said:
Still, I think it is strange (as seen in your screen shots), that WIFI accounts for almost half of your battery usage. And 5+ hours SOT is only 6%?
Could you be so kind and post the screen for wifi too, so we can see the "computed power use"?
When looking at my phone, wifi is at 52 mAh power use over an 18 hour period, on this tablet it is 2700 mAh for 10 hours.
An alarming discrepancy.
Or am I missing something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here you go. I'm guessing screen is only 6% because the tablet has been up now for 4 days, so 6 hours is a small portion of the activity.

supersquishy said:
I am suprised, there still is no battery life thread.
People must be very happy with their battery lifes or nobody is buying this tablet
I do have one big issue with battery life.
WIFI is the biggest battery hog, using 2-3 times more battery than the screen.
For 3 hours WIFI roughly 1400mAh.
So I only manage like 5 hours of SOT.
Btw. I have set WIFI to be disabled, when the screen is off.
Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesnt Wifi use more battery when its connecting and reconnecting with it disabled when the screen is off?

ZiggSVO said:
Doesnt Wifi use more battery when its connecting and reconnecting with it disabled when the screen is off?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really don't know. You may be right.
I guess the high wifi in battery stats is a reporting error / miscalculation. I have wiped the cache partition in recovery (to fix my ambient light sensor) and ever since wifi is at the bottom of my battery list.
And I did not get any better SOT, so there could not have been any real battery drain from wifi even when it held the top spot in the stats.
Still disappointed with only 4-5h SOT.
Thanks everybody for helping out.

ZiggSVO said:
Doesnt Wifi use more battery when its connecting and reconnecting with it disabled when the screen is off?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No its still going to use far less unless your picking it up every 30 seconds or so.

bill3508 said:
No its still going to use far less unless your picking it up every 30 seconds or so.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my understanding of how android has utilized the wifi sleep policy is that its best to leave wifi always on when sleep. It will use more battery to reconnect to the wifi network when it is woken up and disconnect when sleeping.
Any sources to support your theory? I'd like to read up on it more.
Info I've always followed. This is from 2011 as well:
"This tip is one that seems counter-intuitive, but you can save a lot of wear and tear on your Android phone's battery if you tell it to keep the Wifi radio turned on and connected while the phone is sleeping. Your phone needs a lot of juice to keep pinging those cell towers, and even more to transmit data to and from them. Wifi radios use much less power because of their design, and they don't have to keep searching for a better access point. It's the way cellular data communication was designed, and it's a necessary evil.
But what if you're spending all day (or all evening) in one place, connected to Wifi? If you tell your phone to shut off Wifi when idle, it bounces back to cellular data (be it 2G, 3G, or 4G) and starts sucking down the electrons again when the screen shuts off. That's no good, and easy to fix:
Open the advanced Wifi settings by pressing the menu button, then Settings, Wireless & networks, Wi-Fi settings, and tapping the menu button again. You'll have a choice to either Scan, or go Advanced -- go Advanced.
Tap the Wi-Fi sleep policy entry, and you'll get a pop up dialog with the choices you see in the picture above. Choose Never.
Now even when your phone goes into standby mode, you'll stay connected to Wifi and be able to get mail and messages without turning the cell radio back on and trouncing your battery life. And for the times when you're not in an area with a Wifi connection, just shut Wifi off, either through the menu or with a handy toggle widget. Your battery will thank you for it."

ZiggSVO said:
my understanding of how android has utilized the wifi sleep policy is that its best to leave wifi always on when sleep. It will use more battery to reconnect to the wifi network when it is woken up and disconnect when sleeping.
Any sources to support your theory? I'd like to read up on it more.
Info I've always followed. This is from 2011 as well:
"This tip is one that seems counter-intuitive, but you can save a lot of wear and tear on your Android phone's battery if you tell it to keep the Wifi radio turned on and connected while the phone is sleeping. Your phone needs a lot of juice to keep pinging those cell towers, and even more to transmit data to and from them. Wifi radios use much less power because of their design, and they don't have to keep searching for a better access point. It's the way cellular data communication was designed, and it's a necessary evil.
But what if you're spending all day (or all evening) in one place, connected to Wifi? If you tell your phone to shut off Wifi when idle, it bounces back to cellular data (be it 2G, 3G, or 4G) and starts sucking down the electrons again when the screen shuts off. That's no good, and easy to fix:
Open the advanced Wifi settings by pressing the menu button, then Settings, Wireless & networks, Wi-Fi settings, and tapping the menu button again. You'll have a choice to either Scan, or go Advanced -- go Advanced.
Tap the Wi-Fi sleep policy entry, and you'll get a pop up dialog with the choices you see in the picture above. Choose Never.
Now even when your phone goes into standby mode, you'll stay connected to Wifi and be able to get mail and messages without turning the cell radio back on and trouncing your battery life. And for the times when you're not in an area with a Wifi connection, just shut Wifi off, either through the menu or with a handy toggle widget. Your battery will thank you for it."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know that leaving WiFi on runs your battery down on any device when its connected and it takes all of 2-3 seconds to connect. No reason to leave it on full time when your not using it. Also, the device is continuously checking and sending small amounts of data to maintain that connection.
Were talking about the pixel here and not a cellular device.

Pretty happy with the C.

I haven't really payed attention to how long this device lasts, I use it pretty casually so it lasts me up to a week. I have used it to stream movies and it has lasted me the whole day (8 hours) watching movies with about 30% left. Compared to other tablets I've had including the nexus 9 this one blows them all away. My old nexus 9 would die after a few episodes (about an hour)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I streamed a good 6 hours of a live feed on battery and the device used around 50%, can not complain with the battery life at all with this device

bill3508 said:
Pretty happy with the C.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Was that with bluetooth (and keyboard) on?

Ves said:
Was that with bluetooth (and keyboard) on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, just WiFi, don't have a keyboard.

As a heads up, there appears to be a WiFi issue with MM itself. I'm seeing the same issue on my Nexus 7 2013 running a MM ROM, and I found a thread online talking about it...maybe from the Android Central forums or something, I can't remember now. People seem to be unsure as to whether or not WiFi is actually causing a battery drain, or if it's just reporting incorrectly. But at least on my N7, the battery can drop 40-50% in one day while on standby, and when I have WiFi set to Off when it's sleeping. And I used to get DAYS of standby time before going to MM.
Edit: Here's an XDA thread about it: http://forum.xda-developers.com/google-nexus-5/general/guys-call-wifi-battery-drain-6-0-t3219870

I had the same issue with WiFi battery bug on the nexus 5. Fixed it via router by turning off the auto disconnect (the option where router decides if a device can connect based on signal strength) on both 2ghz and 5ghz. After this the Wifi went back down to the bottom of the battery list. Long shot, and most likely not even related, but hope it helps anyone.
On a Asus rt router.

Question A52s 15% battery drain overnight - 0 screen on time, no apps used

Hi, I bought 2 same devices (A52s 5G) for my parents. Problem is with just 1 device (they are set up absolutely the same). The problem is with overnight battery drain. I suspect WiFi is the soruce of the problem, because our WiFi router is set to power of Wifi transmission overnight for 6 hours and turn it on automatically in the morning. The problem is - if I don´t turn WiFi off on the affected device, it eats up 15 percent in 6 hours. On the second device there´s no such problem. WiFi could stay on and in the morning the percentage is down by 1-2 % which I think is perfectly normal since the device is still powered on. Percentage graph shows absolutely nothing in app consumption. For example i fully charge it in the evening and in the morning there is 85 % battery left and battery stats shows screen on: 0 minutes, screen off: 8 hours, no apps used. I think the affected device has problem with searching for WiFi and it want to connect all the time to the router? I would really appreciate your suggestions . Thanks

I'd wipe cache then run device care/optimize.

At night try this. Turn off Wifi, Location. and Bluetooth if enabled along with data.. I do this every night before bed.. When I wake up in the morning i usually have 97% left if it is not on the charger.. When I take it off, and go to work with 100%. It will stay at 100% for up to 3-4 hrs if I leave all mentioned still off.

doubledragon5 said:
At night try this. Turn off Wifi, Location. and Bluetooth if enabled along with data.. I do this every night before bed.. When I wake up in the morning i usually have 97% left if it is not on the charger.. When I take it off, and go to work with 100%. It will stay at 100% for up to 3-4 hrs if I leave all mentioned still off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, if I turn WiFi off, it loses just about 2 percent at night. But if WiFi stays on (parents forget to turn it off in the evening, you know) and it can't connect because my router powers off automatically night, it loses 15 percent, which I think is crazy, isn't it? Can you please try this situation? Would be really grateful

tamas970 said:
I'd wipe cache then run device care/optimize.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried, with no luck

matthew1811 said:
Yes, if I turn WiFi off, it loses just about 2 percent at night. But if WiFi stays on (parents forget to turn it off in the evening, you know) and it can't connect because my router powers off automatically night, it loses 15 percent, which I think is crazy, isn't it? Can you please try this situation? Would be really grateful
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is losing that much, because the wifi is constantly looking for a connection... Keep it on at night and see what happens...

doubledragon5 said:
It is losing that much, because the wifi is constantly looking for a connection... Keep it on at night and see what happens...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But you have to turn off your WiFi router, thank you! I tried it on my S21 Ultra, and I lost 3 percent overnight, big difference, right?

Something is quite tricky here , you have 2 same phones with same identical settings and one of them loose over night lot of battery ?
In my humble opinion if you're sure about it there can be only a faulty phone

muppetz said:
Something is quite tricky here , you have 2 same phones with same identical settings and one of them loose over night lot of battery ?
In my humble opinion if you're sure about it there can be only a faulty phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This night I put both phones next to each other, same scenario, before going to bed at 100%. This morning one shows 86 and second one shows 87 percent. Battery stats shows nothing used as usual. So it is problem of both phones, new discovery

Ok , I understand ... There are several settings (look for it) which can save battery over night . 15% battery drain overnight is overall quite too much . My phone , debloated , set with right choices , with moderate use have enough battery for almost 3 days .

What does it mean right choices? Phones are debloated, set with right choices, only thing if parents forget turn off WiFi before bed, in the morning they have 15 percent less battery. So WiFi searching must be culprit. Because WiFi router shuts itself down automatically in the evening. Can someone please confirm that if you leave WiFi ON in phone and turn WiFi router OFF, if you have that much battery drain overnight? Keep everything else off in phone, except WiFi. Thank you

Any recommended debloat/setting guides for the newcomers?

My phone started the same few days ago. I just updtated everything now, will wipe cache, turn off wifi and see what it does overnight.

Turn off 5G, keep only 4G/LTE. This improved my battery life a lot.

I don't have this device so I'm not sure if this works, but Wi-Fi advanced settings should have an option to turn off automatic scanning for Wi-Fi. Try turning that off

I always find always on display feature draining my battery excessively. Try turning it off and see if theres a difference

chirogan said:
I always find always on display feature draining my battery excessively. Try turning it off and see if theres a difference
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They don't use always on. Anyone who is able to try turning WiFi router OFF at night, but keep WiFi ON (in phone) please? That is the only thing which will tell us more...thanks.

matthew1811 said:
They don't use always on. Anyone who is able to try turning WiFi router OFF at night, but keep WiFi ON (in phone) please? That is the only thing which will tell us more...thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Always on display is activated by default (default settings is "Tap to show") Unless you turn it off manually on the settings, it still is always on and drains that much battery as it needs to be always ready to be tapped. Not using it and not seeing Always on display text means it is off in the settings

chirogan said:
Always on display is activated by default (default settings is "Tap to show") Unless you turn it off manually on the settings, it still is always on and drains that much battery as it needs to be always ready to be tapped. Not using it and not seeing Always on display text means it is off in the settings
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I said, always on display is turned OFF in both devices. WiFi is the problem, when it´s turned off in phone, it drains 1 percent (max.) at night, when forget to turn WiFi OFF, it drains 15 percent overnight, which I think is crazy.

Arobase40 said:
That could be a problem in the conception of your apartment or your house and the material or furniture in between one of the phone and the wifi router. I have got such a problem but with bluetooth headset when going to the water closet (interference issue) in a temporary apartment when my main one has burnt... ^^ lol
So try to switch both phones at least once and see if the problem persists...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It has nothing to do with signal, if phone is connected all night (router stay ON), there is no drain. But when I turn router off (which I want to) and forget to turn WiFi OFF in phone, it drains 15 percent overnight. On both A52s phones. On my S21 Ultra there is zero drain overnight, I can calmly leave WiFi on and turn router off.