Develop Bugs

Which ROM has the best battery life?

I have searched and read thru 100s of the threads in the dev section. Im running the Baked Snack Rom now and no matter what kernel i use, battery life is horrible. I have ran the AVA rom and had the same issue. Is there any Rom that battery life is decent with or is this a phone issue. And by horrible i mean from being off the charger 30 minutes the phone drops to half battery. By 2 hours its getting the message to put it on the charger. Any help or suggestions will be apprciated.

has to be something wrong with your battery. bring it in to sprint.

acjames said:
I have searched and read thru 100s of the threads in the dev section. Im running the Baked Snack Rom now and no matter what kernel i use, battery life is horrible. I have ran the AVA rom and had the same issue. Is there any Rom that battery life is decent with or is this a phone issue. And by horrible i mean from being off the charger 30 minutes the phone drops to half battery. By 2 hours its getting the message to put it on the charger. Any help or suggestions will be apprciated.
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Battery probably defective.
Backed Snacks 9.7 (2.1 Eclair) has legendary battery life.

what froyo rom has the best battery life?

For me it was fresh(3.1.0.1) I notice that the Handcent messaging app, is great and all, kills a lot of battery. I had two evos for about a week and tried to do some battery testing and for me handcent was the big problem. My usage is about 25mb of data daily (not counting tethering), like 50+ txt easy, and like 20 calls. After all that I still get around 10+ battery by the end of the day. My day is from 11am to 2am
sent from my EVO

I'm running nerchey's (Yes, I know, I miss spelled that) rom and kernel. Better battery life than I got with fresh's and all the features of the phone work.

I doubt its the ROMs.. try looking at your partial wake usage..
So far the main two I've used has had excellent battery. Fresh 3.1.0.1 and DC 3.5 with battery saver profile.
But ROMs I use net's kernels, but I don't overclock.
Sent from my HTC Evo 4G using XDA app.

in my experience, cm6 has horrible battery life. fresh 3 has provided the best battery life for me.

cnstarz said:
in my experience, cm6 has horrible battery life. fresh 3 has provided the best battery life for me.
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Opposite for me
Wipe ur phone and use it for a day maybe its one of the apps u have. Of that doesnt work, unroot and go stock 2.1, If that doesnt do it, then try a new battery, and if that doesnt work then ur phone is fudged up
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

Ok i think this is part of the problem. I downloaded this program from the market called Battery History. When i check click on running, its basically showing that the phone never goes to sleep. I downloaded the program onto my vibrant and compared the two. After 6hours It shows "time spent without sleeping". For the evo is 6 hours and the vibrant its only 35 minutes. So it looks like the Evo is never going to "sleep" even when the screen turns off. Anyone else having this same issue?

acjames said:
Ok i think this is part of the problem. I downloaded this program from the market called Battery History. When i check click on running, its basically showing that the phone never goes to sleep. I downloaded the program onto my vibrant and compared the two. After 6hours It shows "time spent without sleeping". For the evo is 6 hours and the vibrant its only 35 minutes. So it looks like the Evo is never going to "sleep" even when the screen turns off. Anyone else having this same issue?
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I'm going to check it out, if thats true then it would explain the amount of drain happening across the EVO's that have been released. If there is a possible fix I wonder how long the average life on one charge would be.

Sounds like you might have an app that's constantly running in the background. Try rebooting the phone, and after it comes back on turn the screen off for a minute or two, then turn the screen back on and check your battery history. If it shows running at 100% then you need to find out what app is causing that. About a week ago there was an issue with the facebook app, and also Fring used to keep my phone from sleeping until I deleted it.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

abanh said:
Sounds like you might have an app that's constantly running in the background. Try rebooting the phone, and after it comes back on turn the screen off for a minute or two, then turn the screen back on and check your battery history. If it shows running at 100% then you need to find out what app is causing that. About a week ago there was an issue with the facebook app, and also Fring used to keep my phone from sleeping until I deleted it.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
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Will check that. I use bloo for facebook and dont have fring installed. When i check what programs are using the most power its always "android system"

aliaselchore said:
My usage... daily... 50+ txt
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Wow... I think I had three texts sent/received last month...
___
An army of pacifists can be defeated by one man with the will to fight.

Anyone else test this out yet?

i think baked snack 1.4 with kernel 2 is the best froyo rom for battery life. i let it sit overnight with wifi on, in 9 hours only 7% drop

Man if only someone made some unified test to see which ROM has the best battery life... o wait there is, check my sig if you would like to help fill in the battery tests for your ROM.
2 hours of battery life though doesn't sound like the ROMs fault or an apps fault for wake-ups, it is probably bad battery.

Definitely a bad battery, I have done my worse trying to drain a battery and even using all the wireless I could with constant GPS and streaming pandora to bluetooth couldnt kill it in two hours. Instead of returning your phone you could try buying an extra battery and then sending your old one back saying it is defective. Currently I use two stock evo batteries with a wall charger for the batts and never have to plug my phone in, I just keep the spare in my wallet and swap them out when one dies.

Calendar widget=culprit
acjames said:
Will check that. I use bloo for facebook and dont have fring installed. When i check what programs are using the most power its always "android system"
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I just saw in another post of the same topic but with a different phone. This guy said he tried getting rid of everything. on his phone's home screen, then added things one by one. the one that made the phone not sleep was the calendar widget. Surprisingly, I have the same problem and the calendar widget on my phone. Simply remove the widget. You can still put a shortcut to the app, just not the widget. Use any task killer to kill the calendar. Problem fixed.

[Q] Seriously? Cyanogen ROM kills battery like this?

I have done a bunch of reading since my first flash to Cyanogen's 6.1 but not finding really satisfactory answers.
With the old rooted stock deodexed...I was getting about 14-15hrs of moderate-high use. So basically I pulled the cord at around 7am and plugged back in around 6pm with about 40%.
Was fine.
Flashed 6.1 last night and now I am two hours off charge and sitting at 58%!! I have all syncs turned off and I have no wifi/gps/4g running. The ONLY widget at the moment is weather and it only updates when I hit refresh.
My search has shown something called battery calibration...but that doesn't make sense to me. I have done the long charge, power off charge, power on charge etc... But since I have a wall battery charger I have just moved away from that and occasionally swap out my batteries for a full charge in that thing.
Does that 6.1 REALLY need another voodoo approach to battery life? Also the threads I have found seem to be for the nexus one or the HTC Magic(?).
Anyone else suffering HORRIBLE battery life after flashing 6.1?
Anyone got a link to a fix for the EVO and maybe something that I can get through the day with (do not have my charger at work)?

When I flashed CM7 to my wife's phone the battery was horrible (Less than 2 hours). I recalibrated the battery and the next charge lasted 2 days. Give this a try:
Battery recalibration
If you're experiencing higher than normal battery drain, try the following:
Charge the device to full battery; let it keep charging until the battery says it is fully charged. Do not just wait until the light is green, it isn't always fully charged, causing a lot of inaccuracies. (You can check by going to: Settings -> About device -> Status -> Battery Level = Full.)
Boot to recovery mode and delete the battery stats
NOTE: To have the most accurate of battery stats, reboot the device immediately after wiping the battery stats and wait for CyanogenMod to boot completely to the desktop. Once your entire boot is done and you have full access to the device, go ahead and pull the charger and continue with this troubleshooter.
Do not charge the device until after draining the battery completely, resulting in it automatically shutting off.
Recharge the device completely and then use as you normally would.
Also, CM6.1 or CM7 should get decent battery life. If it still doesn't try flashing a different kernal. I found that savaged zen bfs sbc kernal extended my life considerably.

sablesurfer said:
I have done a bunch of reading since my first flash to Cyanogen's 6.1 but not finding really satisfactory answers.
With the old rooted stock deodexed...I was getting about 14-15hrs of moderate-high use. So basically I pulled the cord at around 7am and plugged back in around 6pm with about 40%.
Was fine.
Flashed 6.1 last night and now I am two hours off charge and sitting at 58%!! I have all syncs turned off and I have no wifi/gps/4g running. The ONLY widget at the moment is weather and it only updates when I hit refresh.
My search has shown something called battery calibration...but that doesn't make sense to me. I have done the long charge, power off charge, power on charge etc... But since I have a wall battery charger I have just moved away from that and occasionally swap out my batteries for a full charge in that thing.
Does that 6.1 REALLY need another voodoo approach to battery life? Also the threads I have found seem to be for the nexus one or the HTC Magic(?).
Anyone else suffering HORRIBLE battery life after flashing 6.1?
Anyone got a link to a fix for the EVO and maybe something that I can get through the day with (do not have my charger at work)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats a old cm, cm is now cm 7... maybe try that one..
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA Premium App

Yea Cm6 is dated. But that shouldn't matter.. I actually had fantactic battery when I was on cm6, much better than what I get on cm7.
First, check spare parts for wakelocks and make sure you don't have any. After that, follow Fazulkas advice to reset battery stats, follow it correctly tho. I never thought wiping stats would make a difference, but it surely does.

Ok, I'll try that process when I get home tonight. (Guess I can survive w/o a phone for a few hours?!?! :^O) Haven't set up more than just the google account on this ROM as I wanted to test it first. So maybe tomorrow it will win me over.

DATED?!?! LOL! It was only just a final release a few months back...;^) It has all the important stuff working where as 7 doesn't and it is still a RC.
:^P
(Have you seen my sig? Old dogs only try the proven tricks thank you very much. :^)

CM6 is not dated. In fact CM 6.1.3 is the most current stable-release version of CM available!
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

Its not the ROM. Anytime you flash a ROM, you need to calibrate your battery. By calibrate it isn't the plug in over and over method.
You charge to 100%, discharge it fully. Charge back to 100% then wipe battery stats in recovery. Then use your phone.

Flashed 6.1 last night
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There is your problem. Anytime you flash a new rom, you need to give it at least a day or two to fully calibrate everything in the rom.

sekigah84 said:
Its not the ROM. Anytime you flash a ROM, you need to calibrate your battery. By calibrate it isn't the plug in over and over method.
You charge to 100%, discharge it fully. Charge back to 100% then wipe battery stats in recovery. Then use your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HUH...this is my fourth ROM flash, first one away from stock rooted and I have never had this issue. Maybe the stock ROMs do not have this issue?

An odd problem

Got a Desire Z, but the battery seems to go down too fast, even when not in use. Same thing when the phone is off also.
I get around 5-7 hours of the phone being on with about 15mins use and the battery is dead.
When the phone is off, I get about 8 hours.
I know its not the battery as I've tried a few. Ive also tried a few ROMs aswel as stock ROMs.
Any ideas on how I could fix this?
Thanks

dpgc213 said:
Got a Desire Z, but the battery seems to go down too fast, even when not in use. Same thing when the phone is off also.
I get around 5-7 hours of the phone being on with about 15mins use and the battery is dead.
When the phone is off, I get about 8 hours.
I know its not the battery as I've tried a few. Ive also tried a few ROMs aswel as stock ROMs.
Any ideas on how I could fix this?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Every time you flash a new ROM you're wiping the battery stats and it takes the OS a few days to re-learn your battery. Wipe the stats manually and give it a few days.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

OriginalGabriel said:
Every time you flash a new ROM you're wiping the battery stats and it takes the OS a few days to re-learn your battery. Wipe the stats manually and give it a few days.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App
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Ive been doing that.

dpgc213 said:
Ive been doing that.
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Yea but how long do you wait before you end up reflashing or wiping again?

Around 3 days.

Have you checked to make sure you don't have some sort of errant app that's causing your battery to run down?

Bharakrama said:
Have you checked to make sure you don't have some sort of errant app that's causing your battery to run down?
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x2 this happens a lot especially going from ROM to ROM. The built in function works ok, but I generally use Android booster to narrow down errant specific apps even built in Android apps like sync. It helped me go from 15 or so hours to 24+ especially if you use autostarts and TB to freeze or prevent from startup

3 ish days is probably not enough for Android to learn the battery levels properly. It takes a few charge cycles to get the values right. I wouldn't have thought its good to wipe battery stats constantly.
With the Touch Pro 2, you could force a learn by discharging it completely until it doesn't power on the firmware any more, pull the battery for a minute, charge overnight while powered off, pull the battery again for a minute then power on. This updates the values in the firmware too.
I have read it works with the Desire Z too, and I've tried it after a ROM flash just to wipe. Obviously, while you can still get into recovery, wipe battery stats prior to this.
Disclaimer: Do this once only, its very bad for Li-ion batteries to repeat this. Do this at your own risk.
If that don't work:
If it does it in airplane mode then its probably an app.
Make sure you flash something like a rooted stock ROM and make doubly sure you wipe everything before first boot. Data / Cache / Dalvic cache etc.
If you haven't installed any apps and it still does it, RMA the phone for repair / replacement.
Hope that helps!
Craig

Thanks for all the help above. Will try for a few more
Days.
Though the battery even dies when the phone is off.

Well, Ive still got the same problem. Ive realised aswel, when the battery dies and I go to charge it up the orange led flashes for around 5-10 minutes and then turns a solid orange.
Same thing happens with a replacement battery.
Im guessing its probably a hardware fault

dpgc213 said:
Well, Ive still got the same problem. Ive realised aswel, when the battery dies and I go to charge it up the orange led flashes for around 5-10 minutes and then turns a solid orange.
Same thing happens with a replacement battery.
Im guessing its probably a hardware fault
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Click to collapse
I've had the orange led flashing before after a completely flat battery. Its probably something to do with a dangerously low voltage from the battery. Its extremely bad for Li batteries to get very low..

Have no idea. Must be sg wrong with the HW, get it to a service station or ask for replacement where you have bought it. Mine goes for days. (bought in Austria, factory unlocked, Android 2.3.3)

Battery Life

My battery has been depleting at a very rapid rate and am wondering if it's normal or something I can do on my end to fix. For example, I made a phone call and left a voicemail and the battery went down about 3%. I was thinking of just buying a replacement battery, but if there is something I can do to try and fix the current one, I'm open to that.
Thanks!

pchieng said:
My battery has been depleting at a very rapid rate and am wondering if it's normal or something I can do on my end to fix. For example, I made a phone call and left a voicemail and the battery went down about 3%. I was thinking of just buying a replacement battery, but if there is something I can do to try and fix the current one, I'm open to that.
Thanks!
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Depending on your reception (and length of call/voicemail), that could be quite normal. There are other factors as well; is this a new phone? Have you recently flashed a new ROM, restored a backup or done a factory reset?
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

OriginalGabriel said:
Depending on your reception (and length of call/voicemail), that could be quite normal. There are other factors as well; is this a new phone? Have you recently flashed a new ROM, restored a backup or done a factory reset?
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App
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I just checked my phone since I posted the initial thread and it went down another 8%?! It definitely didn't used to be like this. The phone isn't new, it's about 14 months old. And yes I did recently root my phone and flash CM7 on it, but I thought it would have improved the battery life, not make it worse!
Let me know if any other info is needed, thanks!

Using the phone in the same location (like work or home) as you previously used the phone? Reception is often tied to location. I get rapid battery drain when in poor reception areas.
How long ago did you flash the ROM? You should cycle the battery from full charged (100%) to about 20% (but not empty) and repeat this a couple times in order to properly calibrate the battery meter. This needs to be done every time you flash a new ROM, in order for battery readings to be accurate. You can also clear the battery stats before you do this, to make sure any previous data is not screwing up the calibration.

pchieng said:
I just checked my phone since I posted the initial thread and it went down another 8%?! It definitely didn't used to be like this. The phone isn't new, it's about 14 months old. And yes I did recently root my phone and flash CM7 on it, but I thought it would have improved the battery life, not make it worse!
Let me know if any other info is needed, thanks!
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Click to collapse
As redpoint stated, you need to cycle a few times after flashing a new ROM.
Let's say your battery was at 60% when you flashed CM, the ROM is basically going to think that 60% is as full as it gets; after a few cycles, the ROM will "learn" your battery.
Additionally, there are so many tweaks one can do with CM that you can actually kill you battery faster if you max everything out (overclock all the way, turn on all the eyecandy, etc.)
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

Check your parameters, set OC profiles in order to optimize energy consumption, also as said upper calibrate battery meter and then see how your battery holds, i don't think it's a physical defection because hardware is well made but you never know so do this and then we'll see.

download battery monitor widget from market and track the history and usage statistics, that will give you a starting point to trace the issue. as a reference, my DZ running miui and cm7 kernel is using roughly 26-29 mah with screen off
Sent from my HTC Desire Z using xda premium

I'd suggest flashing a new kernel for better battery life if all else fails.
Currently I'm running EliteMod's kernel, U flash it just like you would a rom
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1246682

I've been getting some bad battery life but not nearly as bad as you have.
I suggest fiddling with SetCPU or turning off all your usual wireless services like Wi-Fi, 3G and GPS

I bet the problem is that you got sync on! That NAILS AND KILLS BATTERY FAST!
Here you new gameplan.
Step 1: Download battery dr.
Step 2: Shut off all sync (manually sync when you need email updates etc.)
Step 3: buy 2 backup batteries from Ebay for cheap
Step 4: Shut off volume vibrate on keypress, shut off all animations, shut off volume noise on keypress, turn screen of from inactivity to 15 seconds.
That should help. Let me know your results.

Guys please help!

Okay, I am having a very frustrating problem that I did not originally have. My phone can last me half the day!! It is very frustrating to have my phone turn off on me everyday at 5 pm ..I love this phone but this is unbearable, especially considering that this is with very, very, very minimal use. If I actually use it the phone intensely, it will drain completely in 1.5 hours. ..It was not this bad a couple of months ago.
I have bullet kernel, and stock GB rom (2.3.5)
I had it always used it on "lag free" setting OC to 1.6 but I changed it to conservative mode to try and see if that would help and it didn't. I even used the core sleeper script from the developer's section and that didn't help either. I had changed radios a number of times when I was tinkering with custom ICS roms. I got my gf this phone a few weeks ago and put the same setup on the phone and she is getting the same battery life. I bought it used.
Does anyone have any suggestions!?? ...I would really appreciate it

You can extend battery life anumber of ways.. Tell me what Is on bt by wifi sync the screen ways ths most energy so turn that down as low a you can... Sounds like you are on an old ROM ...prolly eagles blood?
I suggest digital warfare 2.7 if you are on TMobile. Great battery life. Also flash your radio before your ROM and make sure you are flashing over a clean slate.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda premium

Rushing said:
You can extend battery life anumber of ways.. Tell me what Is on bt by wifi sync the screen ways ths most energy so turn that down as low a you can... Sounds like you are on an old ROM ...prolly eagles blood?
I suggest digital warfare 2.7 if you are on TMobile. Great battery life. Also flash your radio before your ROM and make sure you are flashing over a clean slate.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda premium
Click to expand...
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I am running on the Stock ROM with android 2.3.5
I am running off a nandroid backup I had restored after having an ICS rom on the phone for a few days. I used darkside superwipe, then flashed radio, then restored the ROM backup.
I always keep GPS, wifi and bluetooth off when I am not using them. I keep wifi on if I know I will be home for the day so I can use that instead of 4G ...I keep my brightness on the lowest setting.
Even with the sleeper core script, turning off 1 core, its still drains out at over 7% per hour without ever even touching the phone. Something is definitely wrong because I read people on the Sleeper Core thread saying they lost 3% in about 6 hours of standby with the script running.
the battery really should be in good condition because the phone is less than 8 months old and I frequently switch between a backup battery (cheap eBay battery), so that should preserve the original a little and even w/o the 2nd battery, the battery shouldn't need replacement this soon.

Have you tried using an app like Badass Battery Monitor to check what's app or process is eating up your battery?
Also, does your spare battery die quickly as well?

ipowyourface said:
Have you tried using an app like Badass Battery Monitor to check what's app or process is eating up your battery?
Also, does your spare battery die quickly as well?
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Click to collapse
No, I haven't used a 3rd party battery monitor app, I just look at the system menu section that tells me what things are using battery and it is says my screen is using 50% ...my spare battery dies very very quickly. But it always has died this quick since the day I bought it because it is a crappy Chinese battery from eBay that I bought for $4 ...the first few times I used it, it would last about half as long as my original samsung battery

You should try to forget about the extra battery... and charge your phone while off then after ten or more mins of it being fully charged unplug then wait and plug back in to charger... It will likely charge again for a minute... Do that little cycle to get a full charge. After i do that i enter CWM and reset batty stats. There is more on this if you google it.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda premium

Make sure apps like Facebook, twitter, news, weather aren't syncing on a rampage top often.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda app-developers app