Develop Bugs

RTT mode for more battery life?

Obviously we don't need 4G or 3G running when we're just walking about town waiting for phone calls, emails, or texts. Is there any way to reduce battery drain by turning off the 3G EVDO radio and falling back to 1xRTT, in a similar way to how we currently turn off 3G UMTS/HSDPA on an iPhone and fall back to EDGE to preserve battery life?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

TKardinal said:
Obviously we don't need 4G or 3G running when we're just walking about town waiting for phone calls, emails, or texts. Is there any way to reduce battery drain by turning off the 3G EVDO radio and falling back to 1xRTT, in a similar way to how we currently turn off 3G UMTS/HSDPA on an iPhone and fall back to EDGE to preserve battery life?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
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I have been thinking about this and would like to know as well.

Just because 3G GSM is not as efficient with battery life as 2G does not necessarily mean the same problem exists for cdma technology, however I do not know for certain and its a good question

drewX2 said:
Just because 3G GSM is not as efficient with battery life as 2G does not necessarily mean the same problem exists for cdma technology, however I do not know for certain and its a good question
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Indeed. I don't know. And that's why I'm asking!

A few things might improve battery life:
-Turn off constant GPS; it chews up battery when not needed. It's on by default with the EVO and queried every 3 hours (default) by Sense UI for weather information. You can get the same information based on Cell Tower triangulation without firing up GPS needlessly.
-Sense UI (according to rumor) uses more power in and of itself than the stock Android GUI.
-Froyo (by virtue of JIT) should be more efficient and therefore consume less battery life as well.
One topic I'm not sure on is whether Android can scale CPU clocks automatically based on need, like mobile CPUs for laptops/netbooks do? If not, it should absolutely be implemented, and that would be my next project..

Coming from a samsung moment to the evo i can say that jumping back and fourth between evdo and 1xrtt cancause battery drain. Really theres no great method to combat this other than using common sense. If your not in need of gps- turn it off. Turn off queing for cell towers as well, while it doesnt consume as much power as the gps it does take some resource to triangulate your location. The only other thing i would say is using setcpu and establishing profiles that suit your needs. I.e. screen off can be the lowest cpu setting while battery at 50% you could set your profiles clock speed to sit at 600-700. But thats all providing an app like setcpu will play nice with the evo.
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It does not seem like the phone has 1x radio in it. I have never seen it ...not even once fall back to 1x even with zero bars.
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clubtech said:
It does not seem like the phone has 1x radio in it. I have never seen it ...not even once fall back to 1x even with zero bars.
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I assure you it does.

I manually set my wife's pixi to 1xrtt and her battery life has increased significantly, had to do some hidden code, so perhaps same for evo

It's ##EVDO# in WebOS. Not sure what the code is in Android.

Constant 4G and battery life

So, I'm fairly certain it's a well-established fact that the constant switching from 4G to 3G drains a lot of battery on our phones since 4G isn't a widespread service yet. I have also heard that 4G is a more efficient antenna and if you have a constant 4G connection, the battery life isn't impacted much. I was wondering how much of this is true- I live in Atlanta, which was one of the first cities to get Verizon's LTE service, and as a result, I have a sold 3-4 bar signal of 4G at all times. I go to school downtown, work in the metro area, and live in the metro area. Since I got the phone, I've just left it on CDMA, as the speeds are fine for me and I typically get 30 hours or so of battery life with data and sync on (and WiFi, when available). Would switching to 4G change that number drastically?
Thanks!
Also, a side question: I leave GPS turned on as that only polls when an application calls for it, but I've left Google's Location Services off. Is there a real need to leave that on? With GPS only, I tend to get an immediate reading with wonderful accuracy.

I'm calling bs. Please post a screenshot of your battery life of 30+ with gps and 3g all day.

rabaker07 said:
I'm calling bs. Please post a screenshot of your battery life of 30+ with gps and 3g all day.
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I'd be happy to post a screenshot the next time I run my phone down. As I said, GPS doesn't drain your battery at all unless you're using Maps constantly, so that isn't really a major factor for me. Also, I DO have the extended battery.
Also, I can't help but note how this doesn't really relate to the content of the thread at all.

rabaker07 said:
I'm calling bs. Please post a screenshot of your battery life of 30+ with gps and 3g all day.
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Not at all what the topic was about but it's easily possible. I've gotten 30 hours on 3G no problem. Right now I'm at 20% after 20 hours with moderately heavy usage. Close to 4 hours of screen on time.
As for the topic, best way to find out is to try it. Couldn't tell you for certain one way or the other.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

hotleadsingerguy said:
Not at all what the topic was about but it's easily possible. I've gotten 30 hours on 3G no problem. Right now I'm at 20% after 20 hours with moderately heavy usage. Close to 4 hours of screen on time.
As for the topic, best way to find out is to try it. Couldn't tell you for certain one way or the other.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
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Right, I suppose that would be the easiest approach. I just fear starting my day out on 4G and then realizing that my battery is shot when I really need it. Though, I could always just turn data off if I see my battery draining super quick.

[Q] Constantly in a bad reception zone

When I'm at school (5 days a week) most of my classes are in a building where I do not get a lot of reception, aka, my battery gets killed by the phone to keep up the signal. I do get reception, around 1-2 bars, but that still drains the battery extremely fast. Is there any app or something that I can do to help reduce the amount of battery drain?
I don't want to put the phone into air plane mode because I can still send and receive text messages, but it's just very slow.

Have you tried putting it in cdma only mode?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA

You could save a lot of battery life by either connecting to a wifi hotspot (if available) or by turning off background data. The problem your phones having is that it has to turn the gain way up on its cellular radio in order to transmit and receive data. By reducing the amount of background data usage (or off loading it to another network with better signal--i.e. wifi) you'll save a lot of juice.
If you can't do either, there are some things you can do with Tasker to reduce data usage to windows of time instead of always on. May be something to consider.
- chris

isinisterx said:
When I'm at school (5 days a week) most of my classes are in a building where I do not get a lot of reception, aka, my battery gets killed by the phone to keep up the signal. I do get reception, around 1-2 bars, but that still drains the battery extremely fast. Is there any app or something that I can do to help reduce the amount of battery drain?
I don't want to put the phone into air plane mode because I can still send and receive text messages, but it's just very slow.
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Drop it into 2G only or connect to WiFi.
taappel said:
Have you tried putting it in cdma only mode?
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He's in Canada, so using the GSM model.

Give juice defender a try. It used to almost double the battery life on my old X10 when I worked in a building that I could only get 1 bar at best.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

GreatBigDog said:
Give juice defender a try. It used to almost double the battery life on my old X10 when I worked in a building that I could only get 1 bar at best.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
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JD sucks on the Nexus, unless it has gotten an update since last month.. WiFi doesn't want to reconnect. I've seen others say the same thing.

WiredPirate said:
JD sucks on the Nexus, unless it has gotten an update since last month.. WiFi doesn't want to reconnect. I've seen others say the same thing.
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yessss someone else with the wifi problem.when in like a perfect wifi signal zone, my friends gnex connect oerfectly and mine just says saved, wont connect to the networj
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

The LTE/4G Hype

I was thinking why the hell do we need this 4G /LTE speed anyway if it's going to be such a battery hog? I catch myself switching to 3G to preserve battery all the time and on 3G for almost 95% of the day. What do you use the LTE speed for that I'm missing out on? As much as I despise anything Apple, no wonder they aren't in any hurry to bring it to the iphone. If you' asked me it was a great ploy by verizon to increase speed and then get rid of unlimited plans to make more money.
Just ranting. Missing my thunderbolt's HUGE extended battery.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

I agree 100%. I have a GSM Galaxy Nexus on T-Mobile and I think the HSPA+ speeds are sufficiently fast enough for what I do on the phone (browsing, Facebook, maybe watch an occasional video etc). 4G would just unnecessarily rape my battery.
In fact, I was a Sprint customer before and their poor excuse for "3G" was so slow, that I was floored when I got speeds up to 9-10mbps on T-Mobile as opposed to .98-1Mbps on Sprint.

I have a 3800 mah battery I bought for $20 on ebay, and it supports nfc. Problem solved. I use LTE for netflix, youtube, podcasts, ect. I could live without it, but it's insanely fast compared to vzw evdo 3g.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA

That's almost like asking why we need high speed internet at home when dial-up did everything we needed.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using xda premium

Im not going to say that 4g speeds are unnecessary or worthless but I dont use it. As I explained in another post the other day. We get great 3g coverage here and I can save alot of battery running 3g instead of 4g. With the exception of video everything works great. Video just needs a few extra seconds to buffer. But lets not blame 4g for getting rid of unlimited plans. Getting rid of unlimited was going to happen anyways.
DirgeExtinction- That's almost like asking why we need high speed internet at home when dial-up did everything we needed.
Almost? Not even close. There is no advantage to use 4g over 3g for 90% of the things your going to do on the internet. Assuming 3g coverage is as good as 4g your not going to pull a webpage up noticeably faster, Google Nav isnt going to run any better, and music streaming apps should be just fine. With your analogy even the most basic internet tasks were improved considerably. Do you even remember what dialup was like?

People said the same thing during the transition from Edge to 3G. "Where'd my battery go? 3G uses too much battery. I'm always going to keep it on Edge." The chipsets and batteries will catch up, and in a year or so, turning off LTE will seem as silly as "leaving it on Edge."

Cabal_ said:
People said the same thing during the transition from Edge to 3G. "Where'd my battery go? 3G uses too much battery. I'm always going to keep it on Edge." The chipsets and batteries will catch up, and in a year or so, turning off LTE will seem as silly as "leaving it on Edge."
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Thank you!
I couldn't have said it better than myself.
LTE is 1st gen tech in current devices. Of COURSE it has issues such as battery drain.

IFLATLINEI said:
Im not going to say that 4g speeds are unnecessary or worthless but I dont use it. As I explained in another post the other day. We get great 3g coverage here and I can save alot of battery running 3g instead of 4g. With the exception of video everything works great. Video just needs a few extra seconds to buffer. But lets not blame 4g for getting rid of unlimited plans. Getting rid of unlimited was going to happen anyways.
DirgeExtinction- That's almost like asking why we need high speed internet at home when dial-up did everything we needed.
Almost? Not even close. There is no advantage to use 4g over 3g for 90% of the things your going to do on the internet. Assuming 3g coverage is as good as 4g your not going to pull a webpage up noticeably faster, Google Nav isnt going to run any better, and music streaming apps should be just fine. With your analogy even the most basic internet tasks were improved considerably. Do you even remember what dialup was like?
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That is entirely subjective to the user.
And...yes, LTE DOES browse faster. You would be wrong there. Is it fast enough to matter? Once again, entirely subjective.
I can get where I need to go in a Hyundai Elantra. I rather do it in a Porsche.

Fyi, lte is not the 4g protocol.
Sent from my i9250 using Forum Runner

bk201doesntexist said:
Fyi, lte is not the 4g protocol.
Sent from my i9250 using Forum Runner
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Yes it is.
http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/2010/48.aspx
As the most advanced technologies currently defined for global wireless mobile broadband communications, IMT-Advanced is considered as “4G”, although it is recognized that this term, while undefined, may also be applied to the forerunners of these technologies, LTE and WiMax, and to other evolved 3G technologies providing a substantial level of improvement in performance and capabilities with respect to the initial third generation systems now deployed.
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Leave it on 4G and be done with it! Mine is on 4G all day long and the battery gets low... I charge it!
---------- Post added at 09:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:50 AM ----------
Also, it is not just HYPE. Everything is MUCH better with 4G than with 3G.

Why the hype? Because it's fast, really fast. When your battery gets low, charge it.
Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

Excuses, excuses. Battery life was excellent, actually about as good as my Hspa+
nexus, using my old s2 skyrocket. If we don't need "lte", then we don't need
high speed internet at home either. Browsing, watching videos, etc.. is
substantially faster on Lte. With the certain exception of some phones, battery
life on Lte is not that bad, and will improve drastically with the newer releases this year.

If you don't think it's worth it, turn it off. Personally I think it's great and hate it when I'm in an area without it. It's not hype to me it makes everything better faster. The best part is, you can turn it off when you want better battery life.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Have you USED the verizon 4g? Its soooooo ****ing fast. It even rivals the speed of the internet I get at home with comcast. When my brother is hogging the internet, I just switch to tether and use it on my home computer and it's awesome. Yes, it does eat up battery, and I usually switch it off if I'm going somewhere for an extended period of time. But when I'm actively using my phone, why would I not want to download at 2 megabytes per second?
Your ranting argument is hilarious...
Why do we need dual core smartphones, all it does is eat up battery...

I totally don't care about lte cause with hsdpa 42Mbps I'm fine with it. I'm sure at some point I'll change my mind. But I'm not looking forward to lte battery drain until the chip sets get smaller and more efficient in a few years.

RogerPodacter said:
I totally don't care about lte cause with hsdpa 42Mbps I'm fine with it. I'm sure at some point I'll change my mind. But I'm not looking forward to lte battery drain until the chip sets get smaller and more efficient in a few years.
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Except that...the Galaxy Nexus doesn't support 42Mbps from Tmo.

If couldn't turn it off I could understand the *****ing, but you can. Problem solved. And that is the price you pay for adopting 1st/2nd Gen tech. You're making it cheaper and more efficient for us guys when we decide to go for it. I played a with a gs2 skyrocket today and was impressed it got 3 megabytes dl speed. Faster than my 1.5 megabyte cable internet hardwired. I wish I could test run it just to see how bad battery is but I'm cool with it. I would probably adopt lte faster if carriers gave us a decent amount bucket data plans for the price, not to mention tether for the same data. If I had something to ***** about it would be the measly data plan, with no tether, you get for $30 that you can go through in 30 minutes if you wanted. As a matter of fact you should. Adopting it early and then *****ing about a trivial problem instead of a real problem means you like getting bent over. And you happily paid for it when you got the phone. And you cant say you didn't because you knew there hasn't been a magic phone with lte. Yet. And I don't see apple pulling it off for at least another generation of lte phones.
bow chicka wow wow.

I guess I'm glad that it's there if I want it. But functionally, I've never once actually gone and toggled it on because I was doing something that I wanted more speed for. So maybe I'm not the target customer.
Like most things that service providers do in the public sphere, I think the excessive marketing that goes into the feature is a complete disservice to everyone, and I think the mindset that demands new features to be hyped up like this is a complete disservice to the industry. It's like some kind of trainwreck symbiosis. But the way the advertising wing of these companies is set up, a prominent suggestion that 4g is anything less than BLAZING FAST AND AWESOME is not going to happen.
I do think that the correct implementation of this on current phones should be prominently featured toggles to turn it on/off at will, instead of a setting buried under a few layers of menus. I remember when I first got my phone, there was no way to set a 4g toggle that just performed the function, instead of being a shortcut to that menu. Custom roms offer that. I wonder if Sense et al have these toggles built into them by default.

number3pencil said:
Have you USED the verizon 4g? Its soooooo ****ing fast. It even rivals the speed of the internet I get at home with comcast. When my brother is hogging the internet, I just switch to tether and use it on my home computer and it's awesome. Yes, it does eat up battery, and I usually switch it off if I'm going somewhere for an extended period of time. But when I'm actively using my phone, why would I not want to download at 2 megabytes per second?
Your ranting argument is hilarious...
Why do we need dual core smartphones, all it does is eat up battery...
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ranting is not an argument. ranting is....well, ranting dude. It's my opinion. Not arguing anything.
And yes, I have used the LTE. I've used it since the very first day the Thunderbolt came out (first LTE phone). The point of my "argument" was that I (stress, I) really don't need it for anything I (again, I) do on my phone. Accessing info I need is fine on my 1.2 Mbit/s 3G speed.
The comparisons with home Internet speeds and dual core processors is rubbish. Totally different scenarios. CPU speed and home Internet is necessary. But please, don't tell me that we need 20+ Mbit/s on our phones to watch the latest viral video of the guy fingering his dog's nose on YouTube.
Here is another one for you, lets just get rid of this damn youtube.
I just wanted to see what people were wasting bandwidth on.
I do love the answer that hardware will catchup eventually and we don't have to "argue" these points.

3-5 Hours Screen On Time

I've seen screenshots of people getting 5 hours of screen-on time. Is anyone here getting that? If you are, please post screenshots below of your setup, and be VERY specific on what you are running, and how you are doing it. Please share the knowledge. Oh, and please don't bother posting if you're using an extended battery.

I'm running Liquid Smooth 1.4 and the (supposed) 3800 mAh Trexcell battery that I bought for $20 on Amazon.
With the standard battery the most screen-on time I ever got was 2:30 hrs. Now I get 3:30-4:00 hrs of on-screen time. Not quite double, but an improvement.
Frankly I don't know how anyone is managing 4 hours of screen-on time with the stock battery.
As an addendum: Even when I was running stock, I was getting equal-to or worse values for screen-on time.

95% of the people getting 4-5 hours of screen on time are on the GSM version. 2-3 hours is typical for Sprint and Verizon users.
Setups don't make a huge difference. What makes the difference is usage while the screen is on.

Depending on the usage, i can get 4 hours screen time on stock 1750mAh battery.
Just occasionally surfing the web using WiFi, no 3G connection, occasionally pressing the power button to check the time and 30% brightness.

I use AOKP + Franco (both latest), and always get around 3h - 3.5h. Half the time I'm using wifi, and I never use data. I don't have cell service 25% of the time, and usually have weak cell service.

Most of them are on wifi... like me I can get 5hrs of display time over wifi but only about 3hrs on my terrible 3G speeds and connection.
With the stock battery.
Sent From My Sprint Galaxy Nexus via XDA Premium

When I was running AOKP build 36 with Franco Kernel 166 I was able to get 3:55 with the stock battery. I did underclock to 1036MHz with some slight undervolting. I never use WiFi and my data is only on when my screen is on. I also played games for about an hour and a half.
Now I'm on AOKP build 38 with Franco's Milestone 4, and I usually average 2-3 hours of screen on time.

Unless the spring and verizon versions are so wildly different, I'm going to ask for screenshot proof if this. I bet you're mistaking "awake" time for screen-on time.

absoluteparanoia said:
Unless the spring and verizon versions are so wildly different, I'm going to ask for screenshot proof if this. I bet you're mistaking "awake" time for screen-on time.
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They are wildly different. They use different cellular technology.

But you just said at the top of the thread that Spring and Verizon have comparable times, now they are wildly different? They are both CDMA. In the case above its WiFi only.

absoluteparanoia said:
Unless the spring and verizon versions are so wildly different, I'm going to ask for screenshot proof if this. I bet you're mistaking "awake" time for screen-on time.
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No problem...
Sent From My Sprint Galaxy Nexus via XDA Premium

absoluteparanoia said:
But you just said at the top of the thread that Spring and Verizon have comparable times, now they are wildly different? They are both CDMA. In the case above its WiFi only.
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I thought you were talking about Sprint/Verizon and the GSM model, that is my fault.
BUT, Verizon has LTE for the majority of people, which will suck the battery dry faster than EVDO Rev A on Sprint.

joshnichols189 said:
I thought you were talking about Sprint/Verizon and the GSM model, that is my fault.
BUT, Verizon has LTE for the majority of people, which will suck the battery dry faster than EVDO Rev A on Sprint.
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I concur... usually if you have good LTE speeds and connection.. your battery life will be better same goes for 3G... i've seen people with full bars on 3G pull almost 4hours with the stock battery, yet with a 1-2 bar connection and a .50mbps speed... i can almost get 3 hours. I would assume that LTE would be less of a battery drain unless you have terrible connection to it.

ÜBER™ said:
I concur... usually if you have good LTE speeds and connection.. your battery life will be better same goes for 3G... i've seen people with full bars on 3G pull almost 4hours with the stock battery, yet with a 1-2 bar connection and a .50mbps speed... i can almost get 3 hours. I would assume that LTE would be less of a battery drain unless you have terrible connection to it.
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LTE is more of a battery drain than EVDO I believe. Unless you have full signal. All the time.

joshnichols189 said:
LTE is more of a battery drain than EVDO I believe. Unless you have full signal. All the time.
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hmm doesnt make sense, i figure the faster speeds would help... then it wouldnt have to struggle to pull something up through, lets say the web browser. I mean if you have 1bar of LTE then yeah thats gunna drain faster or similar to 3G. But 3-4 would be optimal.... i assume im terribly wrong but.. these are just my thoughts and assumptions

ÜBER™ said:
hmm doesnt make sense, i figure the faster speeds would help... then it wouldnt have to struggle to pull something up through, lets say the web browser. I mean if you have 1bar of LTE then yeah thats gunna drain faster or similar to 3G. But 3-4 would be optimal.... i assume im terribly wrong but.. these are just my thoughts and assumptions
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In terms of data transfer, sure but I believe just getting and holding onto an LTE signal, especially for a CDMA-based phone causes a lot of the problems.

HOW!!!!! What are you running, what apps you have, etc.

Like I said over all wifi. Skanwich and Samurai Kernel. I don't have anything that syncs. I dont use any "battery" apps and this is just Xda and various other games and YouTube... it just doesn't show up... for some reason. Also its undervolted but stock frequencies. Using the on demand governor.
Sent From My Sprint Galaxy Nexus via XDA Premium

joshnichols189 said:
LTE is more of a battery drain than EVDO I believe. Unless you have full signal. All the time.
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I can vouch for this. When I am at home I drain battery as slow as EvDo when on LTE. But I have a better signal than most people out there.

Whatcha running?