Develop Bugs

Battery usage with GPS

Hi,
I am currently running a test to see how long my MDAC3 will run GPS continuously before the battery dies. I am curious if there is a higher battery usage with WM6.
I will be using:-
Tom Tom 6 (sceen on at all times, device set to run a route demo but also in a position to recieve GPS signal, device overclocked to 252mhz)
and
Memory Map 5 (set to goto backlight after 4 minutes but not turn off, device receiving GPS signal, deivce running at normal speed).
I did this when I first got the device and got the following run times for WM5:-
Tom Tom:- 4 hours 30 minutes
Memory Map:- 7 hours 50 minutes
I will post the results once the tests have been completed, Tom Tom one is running now.
Regards

Tom Tom Results.
Total run time was 4 hours 48 minutes.
First Battery reminder was after 4 hours 18 minutes.
Second Battery reminder was after 4 hours 38 minutes.
So 18 minutes longer than WM5.
Recharging now before starting the Memory Map test.
Regards

Memory Map Results.
Total run time was 7 hours 54 minutes.
Didn't record the first battery reminder times for this one.
Second battery reminder after 7 hours 40 minutes.
So it would appear WM6 and Toms ROM gives better battery usage than T-Mobiles orginal ROM on WM5.
I must admit I was a bit concerned when some folks reported poor battery results but I guess these must be device specific.
Regards

I should put my HTC Artemis to test.
Thanks for providing the results, gives me some idea of my potential usage as well.

spangelsaregreat said:
So 18 minutes longer than WM5.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
reliable and reproducible test ?!
from my pov and experience, I would say no more than 3 hours of autonomy with backlight turned on (mandatory for outdoors use) !

kulbut0r
Yes I would argue it is a reliable and reproducable result.
I have used Tom Tom a few times without the charger in the car and always get to the 4 hours mark before it dies.
I would also argue when using Memory Map there is no need to have full backlight on at all times. By letting it switch to minimum backlight after 4 minutes it saves battery time but keeps recording your track. If you want to check your position you simply touch the screen and the full backlight comes on.
The seven hours plus here reflects checking the screen about once and hour. Obviously if you check it more then the battery time will reduce.
Been using MM for 3 years in this fashion and get consistant results in line with my tests.
Regards

Terrible battery life?

I'm currenly getting around 9 hours with little use and without the WiFi turned on! The only app I'm running is s2u2.
Any ideas? Is anyone else experiencing such bad battery life?
Thanks.

Have no problem with battery life.
Probably best battery life I have had with HTC.
Mainly calls, text, checking email and some web access.
​

My standby time definitely has gotten better over time! In the beginning I was lucky to get one day (would leave in the morning, and in the evening I had to charge again). Now I get a day and half, or maybe even two.

No problem with mine... after 2 full days still with 60%.
Watched an 1 1/2 hours long movie on my TP2 only used 5 to 10% on my battery.

That's strange. I get 2 days on a W910i on the same network with similar useage... I've not yet a a full day on the TP2.

The Vario V (TouchPro2) has the best battery life of all HTC's I've owned. Maybe it's your S2U2 settings?

Indeed, maybe it's S2U2. I know that when I first had the TP2, I installed almost everything I found, including S2U2. Battery life wasn't good at that time.
After a hard reset I paid more attention on what I installed, and since then (and after some charge cycles) it became much better!

I get ~ 2 days with moderate use. Ive bearly used it this weekend, its on its 3rd day and still at ~80% power. No problems with that.

ripburger said:
My standby time definitely has gotten better over time! In the beginning I was lucky to get one day (would leave in the morning, and in the evening I had to charge again). Now I get a day and half, or maybe even two.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly my experience.
The firstday was horrible. after some hours it was nearly emty. but now a week later it is much better and at this moment this phone has the best batterylife from all my PPC's before!
so wait a week and charge it every night and it wel be better in a week ;-)
Ranney

ranney said:
Exactly my experience.
The firstday was horrible. after some hours it was nearly emty. but now a week later it is much better and at this moment this phone has the best batterylife from all my PPC's before!
so wait a week and charge it every night and it wel be better in a week ;-)
Ranney
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I took advice from a fellow member on how to charge it, 12 hrs the first charge, 8 the second, and batt life has been steady since then.

I've just been charging it till the light goes green, is that wrong?

DJ_Enigma said:
I've just been charging it till the light goes green, is that wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here is some advice i got when i pretty much said the same thing... Hope it helps..
na leave it on charge as thats a false full charge. leave it for another 9 for sure. then use it till it prompts you to charge again and charge for another 8. after that fill your boots, but occasionally let it fully discharge. hope that helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

iridium21 said:
I'm currenly getting around 9 hours with little use and without the WiFi turned on! The only app I'm running is s2u2.
Any ideas? Is anyone else experiencing such bad battery life?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dats normal for me, my average is 9 hours everyday usage on EDGE network
BUT my push mail is always ON

mccune said:
The Vario V (TouchPro2) has the best battery life of all HTC's I've owned. Maybe it's your S2U2 settings?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is 'S2U2' please?
--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Since the last time I charged it:
75 - 80% left
42 hours standby
4 hours active use

I too have varying battery life... Sometimes I get to the end of the day with about 20% left, others, I get there with about 35% left...
Have put it on charge at the end of the day and leave it till I wake up the next morning. Is that a bad way to charge it?
Also, are there any true task managers, which show all the running processes, so that I can have a look at what might be causing my battery to drain the most?
@terrypin
S2U2 is a programme called Slide 2 Unlock 2. Never used it myself, but it's available here...

have no problems with battery life. mine lasted 1 week with advanced use, some texting, wifi was enabled, i played bubblebreaker a lot (adore this game ), watched a few mins of some films.......
i'm very happy with it

My battery is just making my life miserable. It comes down to 50% in first two hours after nightful of charging. If I were to watch a movie, the battery just drains down even before the movie has ended.
Must have done umpteen hard resets as per the cust serv guys. But still the same problem.
I am now planing to get my handset exchanged for a new one. Hope that sorts it out.

terrypin said:
What is 'S2U2' please?
--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let me google that for you S2U2

...just be carefull to set OFF the digital battery in s2u2 settings!!
I've noticed digital battery option drains the battery...
...my suggestion is to set off every possible s2u2 info option... weather, appointment notifications, digital battery... everything OFF... the battery life will be much longer!!

Firmware version related to battery life?

Since there now seem to be a few different firmware versions floating around, shall we see if any of them give better battery life.
Of course we don't have an objective measure of battery life, but we cna get an impression.
My experience:
TMobile UK f/w 1.15.110.10
Battery poor - It needs topping up through the day or I won't make it to teatime, worse than my Touch HD which was 18m old. Similar usage, ie push email, Twitter sync, intermittent browsing, an hour a day ebook reading.

T-mobile UK same firmware
Battery fine, much better than my old G1, need to charge every other day (as opposed to everyday/overnight each day).
Uses (per day):
Push Email
Light Web browsing
About an hour of gaming
About 40 SMS sent
Twitter/Facebook constantly
About 2 hours of music usage - Spotify
Music using BT Earphones, Bluetooth on around 2.5 hours.

That's a big difference in battery life between you two, I wonder if there is a bad batch of batteries?

I think it has nothing to do with batteries or software. It's all about how the phone is used, what the signal strength is, etc.
Mine lasts two days on moderate use, but I charge it every night anyway.

brummiesteven said:
T-mobile UK same firmware
Battery fine, much better than my old G1, need to charge every other day (as opposed to everyday/overnight each day).
Uses (per day):
Push Email
Light Web browsing
About an hour of gaming
About 40 SMS sent
Twitter/Facebook constantly
About 2 hours of music usage - Spotify
Music using BT Earphones, Bluetooth on around 2.5 hours.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also have the matrix style live wallpaper running http://www.cyrket.com/p/android/fishnoodle.digitalrain/.
It may be worth noting that I no longer charge overnight, only charging when it's low and until it's fully charged (I used to charge my G1 overnight or basically when I was on the desk, it became overcharged, battery swelled up, would only last about 2 hours but sometimes it would last about 10 minutes).
I also have no problems with signal and am pretty much constantly on HSDPA.

brummiesteven said:
I also have the matrix style live wallpaper running http://www.cyrket.com/p/android/fishnoodle.digitalrain/.
It may be worth noting that I no longer charge overnight, only charging when it's low and until it's fully charged (I used to charge my G1 overnight or basically when I was on the desk, it became overcharged, battery swelled up, would only last about 2 hours but sometimes it would last about 10 minutes).
I also have no problems with signal and am pretty much constantly on HSDPA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how long full charge takes ? at what battery % you start to charge ur phone?
did you charge till full since you first unbox your phone?

I have my brightness set to half way and have watched a few movie clips lasting maybe 20 mins and have just done a bit of brief messing about and i find the battery drains to about half way after this.
I have not let it drain out yet but it does not look like it would last a day if i had to listen to music surf and do a bit of gaming.

patp said:
Since there now seem to be a few different firmware versions floating around, shall we see if any of them give better battery life.
Of course we don't have an objective measure of battery life, but we cna get an impression.
My experience:
TMobile UK f/w 1.15.110.10
Battery poor - It needs topping up through the day or I won't make it to teatime, worse than my Touch HD which was 18m old. Similar usage, ie push email, Twitter sync, intermittent browsing, an hour a day ebook reading.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My firmware is same but battery is brilliant for me, try using a power manager and maybe look at widgets draining battery. I'm not using any widgets and have net off when not in use.

I wonder if it's about signal strength. By far the biggest drain on a smartphone is 3G, and my signal is quite variable.

patp said:
I wonder if it's about signal strength. By far the biggest drain on a smartphone is 3G, and my signal is quite variable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've just came back from Austria where I was using the net a lot over there for various things and I can tell you now, the signals over there are top notch!
The speeds remain consistent and the signals never go down by more than by one bar.
The T-Mobile network works perfectly even in the Underground!
This I feel had contributed to my battery lasting so long the last 3 days!
I've already noticed more of a drain since being back at home today!

cez10 said:
how long full charge takes ? at what battery % you start to charge ur phone?
did you charge till full since you first unbox your phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe about 2/3 hours? Maybe more, I don't exactly time it.
I put it on charge when it starts blinking so less than 14%
Yes I charged it full when I got the phone but that was only for an hour.

brummiesteven said:
I also have the matrix style live wallpaper running http://www.cyrket.com/p/android/fishnoodle.digitalrain/.
It may be worth noting that I no longer charge overnight, only charging when it's low and until it's fully charged (I used to charge my G1 overnight or basically when I was on the desk, it became overcharged, battery swelled up, would only last about 2 hours but sometimes it would last about 10 minutes).
I also have no problems with signal and am pretty much constantly on HSDPA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think if you continually charge from when you have 30-90% the battery will perform worse than if you charge it from dead / near dead. I have been charging my tp2 over night when the battery is extremely low and can now squeeze 3-4 days use out of it.

shure2 said:
I think if you continually charge from when you have 30-90% the battery will perform worse than if you charge it from dead / near dead. I have been charging my tp2 over night when the battery is extremely low and can now squeeze 3-4 days use out of it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I charge it when its below 15%

brummiesteven said:
Maybe about 2/3 hours? Maybe more, I don't exactly time it.
I put it on charge when it starts blinking so less than 14%
Yes I charged it full when I got the phone but that was only for an hour.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
great thanks for the info

shure2 said:
I think if you continually charge from when you have 30-90% the battery will perform worse than if you charge it from dead / near dead. I have been charging my tp2 over night when the battery is extremely low and can now squeeze 3-4 days use out of it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't really matter with Li-ion batteries. It is recommended to do a full discharge every 30 charge cycles or so for the gauge to recalibrate, but the battery itself has no "memory" effect.
There's no difference if you charge it from 70% or 15%

choccy31 said:
I've just came back from Austria where I was using the net a lot over there for various things and I can tell you now, the signals over there are top notch!
The speeds remain consistent and the signals never go down by more than by one bar.
The T-Mobile network works perfectly even in the Underground!
This I feel had contributed to my battery lasting so long the last 3 days!
I've already noticed more of a drain since being back at home today!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That must cost a fair bit on the data doesn't it?
I've found with my T-Mobile Desire that the battery is really struggling and I can't get it to last a day as yet. I spent 3 hours with a friend that has an unbranded one and I saw my T-Mobile rom'd battery life deplete faster than his doing the same things. I think the T-Mobile ROM needs an update asap!

Since my last post, my battery the last few days has been bad.
I've also noticed now that it will only charge up to 98% and will only go to 100% if i remove cable and put back in. Then only to drop back to 98% straight away after I have removed it and then drop rapidly.
On T-Mobile using the older firware. Have asked T-Mob if the Firmware is the issue.

My honest guess is that all you guys will see an improvement in battery life over the next few days. Li-on batteries do need a few cycles before they'll give best performance and obviously no-one here has had their phone for more than a week or two.
I'm sure as the phone is rooted/custom roms appear/htc release the kernel/blah blah improvements will be made, but if I were you I'd definitely sit out any changes made purely on the basis of battery life until you've had the phone a couple of weeks. If it's still crappy after that, then it's obviously worth looking deeper.

I'm on tmob contact phone with my firmware version @ *.11 think some ppl have *.10 so not sure if the ota update will come to me but I've found that if I turn everything to manual update and turn 3g off when not using it I can get 3 days out of it with about 1 and a half hours each day of general use. Before that it wasn't lasting a full day! What firmware is every1 on??

eLv./.G1 said:
I'm on tmob contact phone with my firmware version @ *.11 think some ppl have *.10 so not sure if the ota update will come to me but I've found that if I turn everything to manual update and turn 3g off when not using it I can get 3 days out of it with about 1 and a half hours each day of general use. Before that it wasn't lasting a full day! What firmware is every1 on??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine is .10 - the Battery at first was really good, I used it abroad in first few days and was great, 3G was used everynow and then, but wasn't a drain like it is over here in UK.
Now i'm getting last few days were on charge it sticks at 98% and drops pretty quickly.
T-Mob have asked me to factory reset it today and monitor to see if any apps are causing the issue rather than the firmware.

So how is autonomy for the Wildfire's battery?

Yes, people who have already received this unit, how is the battery life in a not very intensive use? It has something to do with the advertised 690 hours?
Thanks for the answers.

The Battery
The battery is more efficient than that of Desire and with the same use more than double the autonomy!

kalimerobleu said:
The battery is more efficient than that of Desire and with the same use more than double the autonomy!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply.
And how many days does it last?

depends on your usage, coverage etc
i get 2-4 days on the wildfire
and 1-2 days on the nexus one

OK. Tank you for the information.

2 days, not so many calls.
but maps, wifi, game a lot.more than 1 hours a day.
feels good than other smart phone i used.

I'm not getting anywhere near this sort of battery life. I've had the phone just over a week, and I'm having to charge it twice a day. I woke up this morning and the battery was on red. Previously I'd thought it was feral apps, but today it had been on for 16 hours and reported
cell standby 34%
phone idle 33%
android system 19%
open gps tracker 6%
display 6%
voice calls 2%
(that's not the only apps I'd been running. I'd also used Google Listen and Hapi podcast)
I've tried the battery tuning techniques, so my battery must be as good as it can be.
Any suggestions welcome
Edit: I realised that I also had "Guardian Anywhere" that had downloaded the complete contents of a newspaper overnight, but didn't show up on battery usage. I think that might explain things. More later, when I see how it behaves with that off

full charged , i was listening for 4 consecutive hours music because of a trip , then normal usage with 3-4 phone calls about 20 minutes a day , camera , wifi , games , texting . battery lasted for 3 days ! it was very good . when im having long lasting phone calls (about 2 hours a day) while using apps too , i have to charge it every 2 days .

WOWWWWW i only get a day of battery with my wildfire with not much usage, also what is autonamy?

I get 1-3 days worth of usage.

Turn off GPS, Wifi and 3G when your not using it, saves a lot of batterytime.

Lasts me about 3 1/2 - 4 days.
That would include a total of 40-60 mins of calling and texting.
No browsing, music, videos or even gaming.

Before I put ATK, my battery lasted 2 days with minimal use. Now I have almost 4 days with normal use.

what is ATK ?

My only guess is Android Task Killer.
Sent from my HTC Wildfire using XDA App

To All the guys with 2-3 battery life, are u on stock Rom(2.1 or 2.2) or have you been using custom roms or some apps like setcpu?
My battery lasts just a day and I'm on official froyo.
Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk

Just made a test : I flash the RUU (2.1, the same original version I had with the phone) did not install anything, no wifi, no 3g, no call ... and did not even use it, just waited.
result : from full to empty battery : 11 hours.

at beginning it was like one day, then i just turned off background data (had fb and gmail sync) and now it is 2-3 days , with moderate usage, calls, msgs, net, fb...

If I really use it (music, apps, games, wifi, BT, 3G, text, phone calls) lasts ~2 days.

Battery life depends also on the network coverage. When it is poor, the phone will consume more energy (must give more power to antenna). 3G consumes less energy when you are near the BTS (transmitter), but more when you are far from BTS. So, when you live in the city - choose 3G, when you live in the countryside - choose 2G. Battery off your phone will live longer

Battery Life Observations - very good!

SO I have had the SW3 for about 4 days now and the battery life is excellent! Here are my results so far
- Day 2- Took off charger at 7 am, some e-mails, texts, 4 mile (35 minute) run with GPS and Bluetooth on watch, by 9 pm, I had around 45% left
- Day 3 - Off charger at 7 am, some emails, texts, no workout, by 9pm had around 65%
- Day 4 - 7 am off charger, lots of voice interactions, music for 1 hour, 9pm at 59%
Update
- Day 5 Morning: 7 am off charger, noon, with 3 emails, 1 call, 5 texts checked, battery at 86%
- Day 5 Full Day: 7 am off charger, 10pm, 25 emails, 10 texts, 3 calls, battery at 57%
I am sure if you just use it for normal emails, basic usage and not the GPS/Bluetooth music, this will easily go 1.75-2 days. Plus with more tweaks from google, I expect this only to get better

Thanks for your interesting remarks, I'm receiving mine tomorrow
What do you think about the accuracy of the SW3 GPS compared the GPS in your phone?. My Nexus 5 is accurate enough but only when I hold it in my hand... Once I put it in a pocket I get at least 10% more distance in Endomondo due to all the zigzagging.

gusano38 said:
Thanks for your interesting remarks, I'm receiving mine tomorrow
What do you think about the accuracy of the SW3 GPS compared the GPS in your phone?. My Nexus 5 is accurate enough but only when I hold it in my hand... Once I put it in a pocket I get at least 10% more distance in Endomondo due to all the zigzagging.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just checked my tracks and I have 4 saved runs (3-5miles each). They are pretty spot on GPS wise and as good as my garmin FR620 running watch. The Garmin locks to the sattelites much faster (10-15 seconds), while the sony takes 20-30 seconds. The biggest thing at the moment is the lack of app support...I need something with speed and laps...tracks only has time and distance.

Off at 8am, at 3pm is 86% with regular use. Going to try it overnight and see how long I really can get

It is better than my moto x, so the driving force will be my phone that needs a charge first.

So how did you fare? Or is it still going? I'm interested as I'm on the fence for this watch as well...

24 hour report....
Off charger at 8am, normal usage, (calls, texts, voice), at 24 hour mark it was at 50%. . I did put it on night stand at night (off wrist) , but pretty good to me. I imagine you could easily get 36-40 hours on this until you charge it on the second night after work .
On another test, it seems music drains the battery at around 10% an hour if Bluetooth streaming.

I sleep with the watch and charge it at the same time every day for about 20mins and it's at 50% in average - So seems reasonable to expect 48h of battery.

I sleep and run with it and only throw on charger when in shower and never have had it go below 30% yet. GPS will bring down much faster but quickly charges back up

After a day of heavy usage, showing it off, playing with it, using voice commands and a bit of navigation I had 48% battery after 08:00 to 22:40.

Mine can only last about 14 hours....

Noticed that since a couple of days the battery use increased drastically (wouldn't last 24h now). I just upgraded my Phone firmware - not sure if it's related.

Be carefull if you use watchface like F03 from Smartwatch Bureaux, some have severe bug and drain 10% bat by hour even if you do not use it on watchface on screen but it is installed on your watch.

My watch lost 20%+ over night (7hrs approx) in airplane mode. Anyone else monitored airplane mode loss?

The battery used to last about 2 days, but has recently dropped to less than one day.

what do you mean with "it last 2 days" ? Because at least this watch can last 36-38 hours. If you use it for 12 hour per day,ok, it last "2 days"; but if you are telling me that your sw3 live for 48 hour in a row :silly::silly::silly::silly: i cannot believe it x)

I got 36-44 in a row with normal use

gs05 said:
I got 36-44 in a row with normal use
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
really ? how many app do you have ? the screen was always off ?

Powright said:
really ? how many app do you have ? the screen was always off ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can see my posts on this thread about this. I have easily had 34+ hours on a charge without issue. I dont use facer and use itellicom watch faces, which do not eat up much battery. It is on always on mode (with ambient). I dont check my watch for the time that much and only for notifications.
I have these items installed
- Keep
- Calculator
- Runkeeper
- Mini maps
- Wear launcher
- Fit
- Audio recording
- Flashlight
- Play Music
I get maybe 10-20 emails a day on the watch, like 5-10 text messages and use it for running with runkeeper and playing music.

gs05 said:
You can see my posts on this thread about this. I have easily had 34+ hours on a charge without issue. I dont use facer and use itellicom watch faces, which do not eat up much battery. It is on always on mode (with ambient). I dont check my watch for the time that much and only for notifications.
I have these items installed
- Keep
- Calculator
- Runkeeper
- Mini maps
- Wear launcher
- Fit
- Audio recording
- Flashlight
- Play Music
I get maybe 10-20 emails a day on the watch, like 5-10 text messages and use it for running with runkeeper and playing music.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, i have: evernote, @here,fit ,wear mini launcher and MIB. Screen is always on with the minimun intensity. I use only stock watchfaces plus 30-40 whatsapp per day and i get 50% every 12 hours. Hope my watch is fine