[Q] ET4G: Initial Quirks - any suggestions? - Samsung Epic 4G Touch

Hey everyone,
Wondering if anyone has some across (and found a solution for) the below quirks I've discovered with my otherwise amazing phone.
1. Audio volume lowering when headphone jack is inserted. This is frustrating while driving, as I use my phone's audio output via an AUX cable.
2. Voice Search: "Set Alarm" voice action does not work - try it, you'll get a blank screen. My best guess, something conflicting in Samsung's native Alarm app.
3. Battery issues. I'm coming from an Evo so I get very used to the color coded battery power indicator icon. Can anyone explain why my Android OS seems to be occupying anywhere between 40-70% of the phone's battery use? I have all background data services disabled, but am using Samsung's native mail app w/ Exchange Activesync (which I read may be a culprit).
My anecdote is today when I rebooted my phone at seemingly 40% battery life, upon restart it started giving me the angry popup of "low battery status". This was after about 3 hours of heavy use. Do I need to juice defender this puppy?
The native Gingerbread power manager makes it more difficult (for me) to accurately gauge battery life since it shows aggregated data per each charge disconnect, versus when the phone is from full charge to none. Any third party apps that can help me better assess A) Battery usage and B) true battery life?
Thanks!!
(PS. Sold my Evo today, need to update my sig...)

Bump
Sent from my Samsung Epic Touch 4G using the XDA mobile app.

i get the blank screen while trying to do voice command: set alarm. i thought it was due to unnamed rom. the only relevant google search returns this page.

better battery stats app will help you assess your usage better... you may want to look into kobridge's tweaks, or just undervolt/under clock... that'll help extend battery life a lot... I get about a day and a half out of mine with no tweaks or undervolting on mijjahzs goodness rom so I'm pretty content... as to the voice search issue I would suggest just flashing the svoice ported from the gs3 that's in our apps/themes forum or baked into a few roms these days... its not perfect but it will search Google, open apps, and set an alarm!
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda app-developers app

Related

FAO Swype users... [swype battery issues]

Hey,
Wonder if you guys would mind doing me a favour...
When you next go to recharge your phone, go to Settings -> About Phone -> Battery -> Battery Use and note down the percentage beside Android.
Then try disabling Swype for a day and do the same process. Tell me if the results are any different.
I'm seeing a pretty big jump in the amount of battery Android uses when I have swype installed... in the area of 10-20%. And my battery lasts about five hours less.
I've just tested again over the last two days. Yesterday, with Swype installed, Android was using 43% battery. Today, without Swype, it's at 21%...
If you're seeing the same issue, vote for it and leave a post on the swype forum:
http://swype.uservoice.com/forums/17482-swype/suggestions/552945-battery-drain
bump.
still consistently below 40% without swype installed. anybody else try it?
if you text a lot i suppose it's because the word prediction that swype uses is different to that of the touch input
for example the touch input requires a lot of processing power to constantly make caulculations based on every letter you type.
perhaps swype does this less meaning that when you send a text or write an email less processing power is used resulting in more battery?
are you a heavy typer?
No, not at all. The day I noticed the unusual Android usage stats I had sent five short emails and three texts.
It seems like it's draining power even when I'm not using it.
Battery life seemed to drop sharply from the second I started using it. Seems like there's a bunch of other people out there who've noticed the same thing, but only anecdotal reports so far. Nothing concrete.
in that case dont use it then
it is after all a beta
perhaps the software is sending data over the internet which is using up battery?
Yes, but I want to use it, because it's great. Therefore I want people to vote for the issue so that they'll fix it
dial *#*#4636#*#* and you'll get a hidden menu.
select battery history, and in first dropping menu select partial wake usage, and you'll find out what is draining your battery.
I have the calendar issue, but with installing task manager the problem is partially solved.
when i turn phone on, i open calendar and then kill it, and there is no more battery draining by calendar.
but even with that done my battery lasts about 20-24 hrs, with wifi on all the way...
yeah, I'm aware of the calendar/flickr issue, this seems to be related solely to Android's power usage with swype installed.
Tested it today...without using wifi all the time, but just occasionally, 2 days without any problems
-------------------------------------
Sent via the XDA Tapatalk App
I'm not asking for figures on overall battery life.
Swype's battery usage is grouped in with 'Android' under battery usage. So, what I'm looking for is for people to check if the percentage for Android usage is higher with swype installed than without it.
With swype installed, the Android figure on my battery usage page is consistently over 40%
Without it, it's usually under 30%
To be honest, I've not noticed any decline in battery usage whatsoever. I am totally loving swype though, its truly awesome
-------------------------------------
Sent via the XDA Tapatalk App
tried swype... as I cant spell it's pointless!! I did not notice any battery improvement .. but then you have to look at the ROM , what you use in the background , widgets etc....
Tried Swype (buit-in the Samsung Teos i5800, along with the regular keyboard) and noticed 20% battery drain in 4 hours (device was fully charged yesterday evening, so I started the day with a 100% battery capacity).
Before using Swype, the battery reaches 80% generally at the end of the day, not a couple of hours after the device boot !
I'm switching back to regular azerty keyboard !

High battery drain

Im trying to find out what is draining the battery on my EVO EVEN WHEN THE PHONE IS WITH THE SCREEN OFF and SUPPOSED to be in STAND BY MODE (using the power button on the phone). I have SETCPU installed to LOWER the CPU to 245/384 when the screen is off.. HOWEVER THE BATTERY SEEMS TO DRAIN .
This afternoon I charged he batter till the green light came on. Made one phone call for 10 minutes and then later another one for 10 minutes.. I do have GPS and BLUETOOTH ALWAYS turned on since I use them all the time WHEN the phone is on for various APPS and my bluetooth earpiece and car adaptor... After those 2 calls the phone is down to almost 70% from 100%...
I have SYSTEM PANEL and also JUICEPOLTTER, SPARE PARTS and MINIFREEMANAGER installed and the programs are set according to what I have been reading on here...
SPARE PARTS tells me the phone has be MORE THAN ONE DAY with sleeping and the most used app is ANDROID SYSTEM. I look at SYSTEMPANEL and UNDER MONITOR HISTORY I can see that even when there is NO DEVICE USAGE, I still have around 15-30% CPU Usage (is this normal?). I also have it set to get email etc automatically.. some every 2 hours and some software every 4-6 hours.
What could be causing the battery drain? What is the best program to use to see the cause?
Im also not 100% sure SETCPU is using the screen off profile.. HOW an I tell this??? Any help would be appeciated...
Have you tried turning GPS off? If it's not actually being used, it won't drain the battery much or at all. However, if you're actually using it, it will.
If you're using navigation, that's a big battery killer, as it does constant GPS + a large amount of data transfer.
One thing you can try is to open Spare Parts, then go to Battery History and choose "Partial wake usage" in the top box. Things with partial wake locks are generally the biggest idle battery users.
Noxious Ninja said:
Have you tried turning GPS off? If it's not actually being used, it won't drain the battery much or at all. However, if you're actually using it, it will.
If you're using navigation, that's a big battery killer, as it does constant GPS + a large amount of data transfer.
One thing you can try is to open Spare Parts, then go to Battery History and choose "Partial wake usage" in the top box. Things with partial wake locks are generally the biggest idle battery users.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In partial WAKEUP uage... I see the following:
MAIL
UID 10018
WUNDEREADIO
MEDIA
VOICEMAIL
DIALER
FACEBOOK
that is the orde they are in and I set it to TOTAL SINCE BOOT.
And to answer your question about the GPS.. the only time I use the GPS is to get the correct weather for when I am, YELP and when I am in the car (and PLUGGED IN TO THE CAR MOUNT), GOOGLE NAVIGATION.
I also just Installed a BRIGHTNESS WIDGET and turned off auto-brightness. the widget I am using has 8 brightness settings and double click for auto. I am using currently on the second brightness setting on the widget (it shows little ticks). I am told lowering the brightness from auto will help...
I read in another forum that there was a bug in the Facebook application that was causing the application to refresh its information several times an hour instead of once in a while at specific times.It would use power and bandwith when the phone is even in sleep mode with screen off. They also mentioned that there was a fix already issued for this. I cannot find the link any more to source it for you where I read this.
My stock EVO runs for days with the radios turned off until I need them.
Sometimes, if it ain't broke ...
My evo has been draining fast without all that on and well it's annoying. The only compensation I have is owning 3 batteries.
Sent from HTC EVO 4G via xda app
I haven't seen that Facebook issue. One other thing. In spare parts I have activity management set to aggressive. Could that effect battery life or does that help battery life. I also notice in spare parts that I See programs that I don't use ruining that I didn't see before.
Sent from my EVO4G using Tapatalk.
dahauss said:
In partial WAKEUP uage... I see the following:
MAIL
UID 10018
WUNDEREADIO
MEDIA
VOICEMAIL
DIALER
FACEBOOK
that is the orde they are in and I set it to TOTAL SINCE BOOT.
And to answer your question about the GPS.. the only time I use the GPS is to get the correct weather for when I am, YELP and when I am in the car (and PLUGGED IN TO THE CAR MOUNT), GOOGLE NAVIGATION.
I also just Installed a BRIGHTNESS WIDGET and turned off auto-brightness. the widget I am using has 8 brightness settings and double click for auto. I am using currently on the second brightness setting on the widget (it shows little ticks). I am told lowering the brightness from auto will help...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From your list I can only see two things I would kill these programs and wait and see what happens.
WUNDEREADIO
FACEBOOK
Everything else must run. For me Slacker radio kept my EVO on all day long eventhough I was not using it. The new version seems to fix that issue. I am guessing your problem is WUNDEREADIO. I would reboot (resets your battery information) kill Wundereadio. Then go to Settings, About, Battery and monitor your Awake Time vs Up Time. Write down the numbers. Turn off your phone and wait 10 minutes. You should see a gap in time. If so then it is Wundereadio.
Good luck
I think slacker and wunderradio were in the list because I just used them.. wunderradio inst in the list today.. BUT SLACKER is but not in the partial wake.. its in background ...
I changed my backlight setting from auto to using a widget that has 8 brightness settings and it is on the 3rd setting.. I dont know what the AUTO backlight was setting the screen at...
I also adjusted the MINIFREEMANAGER according to some settings I found online..
also I have SPARE PARTS set to AGGRESSIVE... would that have anything to do with it??
Check systempanel first thing when you wake up, but go into monitor, then history, and switch plot to top apps. It will tell you exactly whats been using the battery/cpu when there's been no usage.
As you know, the bt sucks a lot of battery, if you really do use it often, with a bunch of apps, you may want to consider tasker, which can be set up to turn bt on only when your on a call, or using certain apps.
Sent from my blah blah blah blah
Will tasker turn on bluetooth when a call comes in? IE will it let the bluetooth earpiece ring so I can answer it from the bluetooth earpiece?? also can I set tasker so that when get in my car, it will KNOW I am in range of a bluetooth speakerphone and it will turn on BT and connect??
I leave BT on all the time for these reasons....
Looks like tasker wont do anything for me with Bluetooth. The earpieces take too long to connect when a call comes in or I make a call and some even auto answer when they connect which I don't want. I wonder how much battery drain Bluetooth and GPS use if left on but idle?
Sent from my EVO4G using Tapatalk.
Yeah, it would have depended on how long it took to pair. Still try checking the apps through systempanel after a few hours of non-use though. That should help.
And gps doesn't use much until its being used for something, but bt is a constant drain.
Double post
On my old tp2 Bluetooth didn't the battery much. I guess it does on the evo
Sent from my EVO4G using Tapatalk.
OK so I have been running for the past day and 1/2 without blutooth turned on.. I only have 3G and GPS turned on. Still it seems the battery drains faster then it should. I look at SPARE PARTS and it doesnt show anything out of the ordinary on PARTIAL WAKEUP. I have SETCUP to 384/245 when screen off. I do use SYSTEMPANEL to look at what is running and it does show a LOT of stuff such as SLACKER, SOUND HOUND, JUICE PLOTTER, etc... what else can I do for battery life.. I left for work at 8:00 and when I got to work at 8:15, the battery was already at 90% without doing anything....
Aldo how much battery drain does BT take if I leave it on? its a pain to remember to turn it on when I get in the car and turn it off when I leave...

[Q] battery drain

Background:
Got an incredible last august, rooted, tried many roms, loved CM. CM gave me the best battery life and the most functionality. Three weeks ago I crushed my incredible in a bike accident. I was fine, incredible and other items in pannier were not. Long story short, got a new incredible through insurance, rooted, jumped to CM 7 and was immediately confronted with what I would describe as unusable battery life. I wake at 5:30am having charged overnight. Battery reads 100%. By 9:30am I am already below 30% with light usuage. Let me describe light usage. Read an email or two when i wake up, send a few text messages, check the time every 45 mins to an hour.
kernal: incredikernal (smartass governor with multiple profiles)
display settings: carbon copy of those in a discussion on CM7 Automatic Backlight Settings
I have made two changes with this new phone:
(1) I am using both the gmail app and the built in email app to sync an exchange account as well instead of just gmail
(2) I installed google music app and have been uploading my music from my computer for approx 6 days now
The (2) was my first guess as to what is draining my battery but when I view battery use I see display trumps everything (usually around 65%).
I have been trying really hard to figure this out via google but searching has led me to something of an impasse. Most info points to display but I am hesitant to believe that my display settings are incorrect due to the number of users who claim these to work well.
Any help/ideas/advice is appreciated!
I am on my second dinc also. Luckily I haven't had any issues like this.
Suggestions :
1) cm has a builtin set cpu. Just pick a gov and min/max. Let the kernel do its thing.
2) chads beta11 kernel is the best I've tried. It has an Ingenious gov that works great.
3) vipermod. It's a zip that you flash in recovery. Use terminal emulator to lower voltage.
4) battery calibration app. It's free in the market.
Chads kernel and the vipermod are both found here on xda.
Good luck
Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk
I will give these a try. I am pretty sure i have already given the battery calibration a go but manually instead of through an app. I assume the app is just doing rm /data/systems/batterystats.bin? I was running both setCpu under CM7 so i got rid of that am letting the kernal do its thing with min 128 max 844 and smartass gov. I am going to experiment with vipermod when i get out of work as I have not read much documentation on it and would like to read before flash stuff that messes with voltage. Thanks for the advice, i will let you know how it goes.
No problem. The vipermod thing you open in terminal. It's very cool and easy. Adjustable voltage on the fly. I'm undervolted -100 on chads beta 11 cm7 99 nightly. 8hrs of hard use. Smooth as butter. Can't remember exactly what the battery calibration wipes. It tells you in the app.
Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk
Wanted to bump this to see if any fellow forum members have noticed increased battery drain after installing the Google music beta app? I'm having a hard time figuring out what's going on, I've tried different radios, kernels, etc, but to no avail. Haven't tried uninstalling the app yet (but I don't really want to, its pretty convenient). When I look at what is using the battery in the settings menu, I've noticed the music app is never displayed (same thing with Netflix) but it seems to be using a decent chunk of memory.
Wondering if this is the root of my battery problems, it does seem to have gotten worse ever since I got the music beta invite..
Noticing battery drain also. Ill monitor it and get back to you. (Nexus S).
to k_nivesout: i have been narrowing down the list of possible culprits since first posting this. In my case it seems to be either music beta by google, cell standby or a partial wakelock caused by maps. I turned off my location which caused a drastic increase in the battery life but still did not give me the life I had with my last incredible. Cell standby was showing significant battery use most likely do to my lack of signal in my office where i work this summer. On the weekends I notice slightly better battery life in my house where i have full reception. This being said, music beta by google is the only thing that has actually changed since my last incredible. I am contemplating uninstalling it....
k_nivesout said:
Wanted to bump this to see if any fellow forum members have noticed increased battery drain after installing the Google music beta app? I'm having a hard time figuring out what's going on, I've tried different radios, kernels, etc, but to no avail. Haven't tried uninstalling the app yet (but I don't really want to, its pretty convenient). When I look at what is using the battery in the settings menu, I've noticed the music app is never displayed (same thing with Netflix) but it seems to be using a decent chunk of memory.
Wondering if this is the root of my battery problems, it does seem to have gotten worse ever since I got the music beta invite..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a good observation! Well my phone is at 99% battery now, and I just uninstalled Music Beta. Will see if my battery life increased, because I too have seen an decrease in battery as of late.
Thanks for the replies everyone, I'm definitely curious to see if music beta is indeed what's causing the battery drain. I might have to uninstall it for a day or two and see if things improve. I'm assuming it would be easy to redownload and sync everything, I'd be interested in your guys' experience.
same terrible battery life on my D1 after installing the google music app....my library is also still uploading from my home computer, not sure if that makes a difference or not. one difference, however, is that in my battery stats, google music was at the top of the list. not sure why its not showing for you guys, but i uninstalled and everything seems back to normal now.
i will try re-installing it once my library uploads completely and see if that makes the difference....hopefully so!
Unfortunately I didn't really notice things get better even after my library was uploaded. Good info though, were you looking at battery usage from the settings menu?
With google music you could turn off auto sync. Especially when you are uploading from your computer.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
Here are my tweaks. Right now I'm at 7 Hours 46 Minutes with 66% Battery life. Couple hours of listening and downloading podcasts/audiobooks/music, some web browsing, app downloading and uninstalling.
Turn off Google Music Auto Sync
Turn off Google Book Sync
Check Weather Apps, stop any auto sync or location tracking
Turn softkey light off whenever possible (CM7 settings)
Screen time out 30 seconds (15 would be even better)
Juice Defender Ultimate (Controls Data/Syncing, huge difference for me)
No DSP Manager Tweaks
Remove any excess apps/ games
Ad Free Android (blocks ad downloads)
Incredikernal, ondemand governor
Turn off Bluetooth
Turn off GPS
I just got this phone a few days ago, and my battery life went from 60 to 30 in 20minutes while it was syncing for the first time. Its working much better now! I even considered extended batteries, but I don't think I'll need them anymore.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004WPCS18/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=A3TL612O1BLQIV
and
http://www.amazon.com/QUALITY-Incre...d-Battery/dp/B004BGSFOC/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_cart_3
cruud said:
Turn off Google Music Auto Sync
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the Vibrant and am seeing massive battery drain all of a sudden. I too have recently installed Google Music. Music upload from my PC is finished. Hasn't made any difference to the battery. I don't see any option to turn off Auto Sync in the Android app and in the settings. Where is this option?
Accounts and sync>Google account
Music sync will be in there.
k_nivesout said:
Accounts and sync>Google account
Music sync will be in there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh! It was in the google account! I thought that was just for gmail and didn't look there. But it makes sense. Thanks!
Strangely, I don't see any battery drain today. I haven't been using my phone. I just wanted to monitor it (using Android Assistant) to see what app was using the most battery. Yesterday, without any use, the battery completely ran down. Today, it's down 13% since morning. And I have been gradually adding background processing, GPS etc.

If you get great battery life, please share your tips here!

I'm currently on the CM7 ROM, I have juice defender and done all the minor tweaks as far as disabling wireless network location, turn off the wifi and GPS, and an app killer. I still only manage at max 9 hours before my phone tells me to recharge.
If your getting great battery life, help me and others by sharing your tips here.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Best tip is to stay on wifi as much as possible. I got 3 days on wifi and about 4 hours use.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
I turn data off when im not using the internet and when I'm just listening to musc I just put my phone in airplane mode
Yeah, I need some help too. I get about a day and a half with no use at all, and about 10 hours with minimal use. 4 hours with real world usage... I can't deal with this. Could it be the battery? It performs like a 1 year old, used, refurb battery came with a stock phone!
Sent from my Samsung Epic 4G with Tapatalk
Have you configured the battery since flashing the rom?
I get decent enough battery life, with light usage I can go about 36 hours w/o a charge but on my heavy usage days I usually have to use the car charger a few times a day.
kennyglass123 said:
Best tip is to stay on wifi as much as possible. I got 3 days on wifi and about 4 hours use.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
masaidjet said:
I turn data off when im not using the internet and when I'm just listening to musc I just put my phone in airplane mode
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
liquiddetox said:
Have you configured the battery since flashing the rom?
I get decent enough battery life, with light usage I can go about 36 hours w/o a charge but on my heavy usage days I usually have to use the car charger a few times a day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
all of these... biggest one is to turn off data when the phone is in your pocket. use wifi when u can, avoid using 4g unless plugged in, configure the battery in recovery (i've actually notice that this helps less than anything else for me), and finally: get an extended battery. it's worth the extra hours u can squeeze out of it. don't expect more than 4-5 hours screen on time with any rom/kernel/modem combo with a stock battery.
liquiddetox said:
Have you configured the battery since flashing the rom?
I get decent enough battery life, with light usage I can go about 36 hours w/o a charge but on my heavy usage days I usually have to use the car charger a few times a day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I also did that wipe battery stats at recovery.
I just thought maybe my expectations were too high, although it seems as if my battery drains drop pretty fast.
I would say about -10% battery drop every hour, just checking the time and send/receive text messages. Occasionally I surf the Web on the phone when on break at work. Other than that the phone is in my pocket, and after my 9 hour workday my phone demands the charger.
This is with the stock battery, so I guess this is normal unless I'm using the extended battery?
...
Sent from I guess my SPH-D700 using XDA App
u could also run a kernel that allows for over (under) clocking/undervolting. that helps some, too
get the duricell portable battery extender, add milliamps to your arsinal in one way or another with extended batterys or whatever, if you call sprint and complain loudly and dickly they will rebate you the cost that u spend on a new battery or batt extender whatever... that being said all the above options work great, u can also use night mode on chainfire 3d to save battery, or perhaps half your pixel rate, or perhapes turn off some colors (havent seen an app to do this yet) and reset your battery memory in cwm, kill ur batt, charg while off, then cycle again like that. (theres an app for that) if your not rooted, root your phone. if you dont want to root your phone, cycle ur battery the old fasion way or pop it into a rooted phone and do it.
I used to get really poor battery life (due to my phone not sleeping as evidenced by Spare Parts app). I rooted, used Titanium Backup to freeze various apps, and got an Zboost antenna booster for the office and called Sprint who sent me an Airave for the house. I wiped battery stats and cleared my Dalvic cache and the thing the finally got me right was finding out the Amazon MP3 app was still logged in though not running. Once I made sure I was logged out of that and Lattitude (Google Map feature) and Facebook, I haven't had any problem with a sleeping phone. Stock Froyo, standard battery, but rooted. When they say a bad app keeps your phone from sleeping I think they mean an app that requires log in...although this does not seem to be a problem if you stay logged in from a browser, only from an app!
Breezy357 said:
I'm currently on the CM7 ROM, I have juice defender and done all the minor tweaks as far as disabling wireless network location, turn off the wifi and GPS, and an app killer. I still only manage at max 9 hours before my phone tells me to recharge.
If your getting great battery life, help me and others by sharing your tips here.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You may be shooting yourself in the foot with some of those things. App killers aren't that useful on Gingerbread since they keep killing apps that just reload on their own, and every time the reload it uses power. Just because an app is loaded doesn't mean it is running. Try letting the system take care of it. Juice Defender may help a little but it keeps shutting down data and starting it up, which means you don't get as much usefulness out of the phone and may waste power in some circumstances.
See what you have set to sync. Turn off any autosyncs you don't need, like weather screens, facebook, etc. If at all possible set them to only sync when you open the program.
I use the exchange option for gmail using the stock samsung app, which gives me push email but doesn't have to keep polling the server. I don't know if that makes a difference compared to imap, but it works well for me. don't think you have that option in CM7.
Wifi is a much more efficient way transfer data than 3G, use it whenever you can, and set it to never sleep. Otherwise the 3G radio keeps starting up again and wasting battery.
You can freeze the DRM stuff if you don't use it. I don't know if it really makes a difference but everyone thinks it does, so I do it.
Having a black wallpaper helps a little because on a AMOLED screen a black pixel uses no power.
The biggest battery killer is being in a bad signal area. If you always have 0 or 1 bars then your phone is going to always be draining the battery trying to find a good cell. In that case Roam Control may help you.
That's about all I do, and with the latest Stock gingerbread EH17 and EI22 I'm sitting with about 40 to 50% left after 12 hours, that's with light to moderate use.
I've been through the ringer with this. I'm pretty comfortable now, routinely managing to have 33% of battery left after 12hrs w/3g always on, sync always on, intermittent music listening, 2.5-3hrs of gaming and general "screen on" time (auto brightness), 1.1 GHz OC, no undervolting, and GPS always on. Here's what I'd suggest:
Flash a ROM w/ NO CIQ (thanks k0nane!) - In addition to being a leech on your privacy it's a leech on your battery. It's old news to long-time Epic owners at this point, but ditching CIQ improves battery life and overall responsiveness of the Epic. A popular stable Froyo ROM for this is SFR 1.2.
Minimize always-running services - Long press your homescreen, select "shortcuts," select "settings," and select "running services." Tap this to see what's running ongoing services (not apps) your phone is running. All of these are drawing current to stay in RAM. Things like Juice Defender, Tasker, and others show up here and draw power in doing so. JD and Tasker especially can drain a lot because they perform constant tasks as well. Uninstall them and let your phone manage itself.
The same goes for task managers and app-stoppers - Froyo and above does this fine on it's own
Freeze/Uninstall system services you don't use - This includes things like Sprint voicemail, the "Email" app, and the "SprintAndroidExtension.apk," and SNS services. You'll most likely find these on the "Running Services Page" as well. You can Titanium Backup to uninstall them, but I recommend the SDX Stock App Remover as that can restore them (TB can't reliably). TB can freeze these as well, which accomplishes basically the same thing. SNS is connected to Facebook, so if you use that a lot you might want to keep it. DRM services can also be removed, but may cause problems reading the SD card. I stay away from it.
Use Spare Parts to monitor wakelock and CPU usage - If you notice something giving you persistent trouble, shut it down. This is time-consuming, but you'll get a good feel for what apps are out there to accomplish similar tasks and which one best suits your needs.
Uninstall apps you don't use - Next time you wipe and flash a new ROM, reinstall or restore backed up apps as you need to use them and not all at once. You may find you don't need quite a few of them, allowing you to keep more space open on your phone and requiring less current to maintain them
Don't charge the battery overnight - most phones can reach capacity in 2-4 hours depending on charge level. Beyond that, holding at or around fully charged will degrade the battery by denying it the ability to release the stored energy. I charge mine in the evening a few hours before bed and top it off in the morning before leaving for work.
Get an 1800mAh battery sold for the Epic Touch - this is what moved me form "getting by" to "definitely comfortable." For around $25 (incl shipping) on ebay, I've gotten a new lease on my Epic's life. It may seem like cheating to bring in a new battery, but it makes a lot of difference WITHOUT adding more bulge to your phone (makes it a tad heavier though).
Hope this helps. Remember, of course, that what works for one phone won't necessarily work for another. Despite being the same model, minor imperfections in silicone can create individual temperaments for each phone.
I as always trying to make my battery last by stopping this and uninstalling that. Then I thought; why did I buy this phone with all of these capabilities to turn them all off
So, something like the "Hyperion Sprint Samsung Epic Touch 4G 2 x Battery + Charger" (too "young" to post a direct link)
Would fit in/work with the Epic 4G (without needing a new cover)? Even though its for the Touch?
Lol, I've been doing many of the suggestions across the board, and have gotten much better results. But I'm still not "comfortable" with my battery strength, especially when I'm unable to charge my phone all day...
Looking into your running services is a big one. week ago my battery life greatly decreased. I kept seeing market update pending and it wouldnt go away. Never update never go away. I manually updated the market and the battery is back to wonderful. It drops 2-3% at night off charger. Thats about 8 hours.
A sticky with all the main running services and which ones you can stop would be wonderful. I have sns services running. I think i can stop it but not positive. I also have sanservice running supposedly some type of samsung update. Its not doing anything but its been running for 2 days. No negative effect on battery(that i notice) but its running. Also make sure you turn location off. Ive also noticed that even when you back out of google maps its still in running services. A restart fixes that but thats annoying.
themow said:
Looking into your running services is a big one. week ago my battery life greatly decreased. I kept seeing market update pending and it wouldnt go away. Never update never go away. I manually updated the market and the battery is back to wonderful. It drops 2-3% at night off charger. Thats about 8 hours.
A sticky with all the main running services and which ones you can stop would be wonderful. I have sns services running. I think i can stop it but not positive. I also have sanservice running supposedly some type of samsung update. Its not doing anything but its been running for 2 days. No negative effect on battery(that i notice) but its running. Also make sure you turn location off. Ive also noticed that even when you back out of google maps its still in running services. A restart fixes that but thats annoying.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SNSservice is a Facebook and Feeds and Updates Widget service. ALWAYS stop it. It does not matter to Facebook, even if you use it, but if you remove the Feeds and Updates Widget on one of your screens, that service continues to search for it and will kill your battery in a matter of hours (it starts a "restarting" loop). Either leave the widget on or kill this service after every reboot or if you are rooted, freeze it along with DRM service.
My other battery tips are to log out or sign out of every app such as Lattitude, Facebook, Amazon MP3 (it's ok to use them, but don't just back/exit out, actually sign out of them so you have to log back in next time). Apparently, staying signed in causes your phone to not sleep and you can't find what is causing it (i.e. you can't see it "running" anywhere...people call it a misbehaving app, and you would have to delete apps one at a time to find it by trial and error).

Tips and tricks: improve JB idle battery life.

Confirm the following option is unchecked:
Maps/Settings/Location settings/Report from this device.
If it is checked, uncheck it.
Here's the difference in battery life -
About half the battery drain with the option unchecked.
Thanks for the tip
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda premium
It looks exactly the same lol. Just one was running on battery longer than the other?
ReapersDeath said:
It looks exactly the same lol. Just one was running on battery longer than the other?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What are you talking about? Did you zoom in to see screen on/awake usage? Both are about 7.5 hours of idle time.
I updated my phone to JB and followed the battery saving measures and the battery is dropping very quickly.
Before it could last up to 3 days in standby, now I'll be surprised if it lasts 8 hours.
I'll give it another day then try a factory reset if it does not improve.
Anybody else seeing this?
I have watchdog on the phone and it shows zero cpu off time.
Just install better battery stats, there is also a way to dump the same info in terminal but I don't use it. You are looking for alarms apps cause. It's most likely maps, followed by talk, exchange client, or anything like Twitter, FB,g+,stocks.... but most likely maps location settings
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
I have been doing a lot of research and the end result is that JB out of the box will eat your battery and yes disabling the settings under maps does in fact help a lot but there is a lot more you can do to get good life... for starters get the simple stuff out of the way, DELETE FACEBOOK MOBILE APP!!!...and twitter and anything that actively accesses the internet in the background... I know this may sound taxing but it is so worth it if yiu just make a bookmark in your browser and view it periodically than have an always active app... next if you are not in a primarily lte covered area set your phone to cdma only... go into settings and go to data usage and here you can see what is using data in the background I.e. facebook... and go there and check the restrict app box.., disable auto brightness and some have said that if you disable sprint connection manager thing you can do even more.... now that one I cannot be sure about I will post results in the coming days of what I find
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app
OZGBLACK said:
I have been doing a lot of research and the end result is that JB out of the box will eat your battery and yes disabling the settings under maps does in fact help a lot but there is a lot more you can do to get good life... for starters get the simple stuff out of the way, DELETE FACEBOOK MOBILE APP!!!...and twitter and anything that actively accesses the internet in the background... I know this may sound taxing but it is so worth it if yiu just make a bookmark in your browser and view it periodically than have an always active app... next if you are not in a primarily lte covered area set your phone to cdma only... go into settings and go to data usage and here you can see what is using data in the background I.e. facebook... and go there and check the restrict app box.., disable auto brightness and some have said that if you disable sprint connection manager thing you can do even more.... now that one I cannot be sure about I will post results in the coming days of what I find
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are pretty much correct the FB app sucks but I never really had much problems with it.
A lot of these tips though in general (not directed towards you) are stupid.
Like someone said a while ago I refuse to gimp my phone to sip a little bit more life out of it. What's the use of having a smartphone if you're not going to use it like one.
I always have high brightness unless its dark out. I broke my syncs intervals up to about 4 hours per sync and have push notifications from twitter and weather.
With those apps all I have to do is refresh when I enter the app having those syncing all the time is worthless unless you're constantly checking every 10 seconds.
I say I get fairly decent battery life granted I'm on wifi most the time and 7-8 hours with about 2 hrs screen on playing HD games youtube poweramp and my background processes.
Well in regards to the act of extending the life of your battery these are simply tips that you can utilize in the event you are someone who is out for extreme amounts of time.... I average anywhere from 13 to 17 hrs of battery life with 100% brightness, wifi 3g all of my favorite apps... instagram xda kik kindle Skype etc. And 5 to 6 hrs of screen on time. .. so these gimping tactics more than double my phones live time and doubles my life.... but hey if you can get to a charger after 8hrs by all means but for the most part I cannot until after 13 but i do in fact appreciate your incite
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app
Also even though you are disabling sone of these apps like google now.... you can still use it your just turning off the background nonsense
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app
OZGBLACK said:
Well in regards to the act of extending the life of your battery these are simply tips that you can utilize in the event you are someone who is out for extreme amounts of time.... I average anywhere from 13 to 17 hrs of battery life with 100% brightness, wifi 3g all of my favorite apps... instagram xda kik kindle Skype etc. And 5 to 6 hrs of screen on time. .. so these gimping tactics more than double my phones live time and doubles my life.... but hey if you can get to a charger after 8hrs by all means but for the most part I cannot until after 13 but i do in fact appreciate your incite
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what rom and kernel are u using
Even with changing that setting in Maps I still am not getting the same battery life as I did with ICS. Maps is still coming up as my most used app when I check battery usage even though I rarely use it. Wonder if it may be Google Now causing Maps to keep running.
nabbed said:
What are you talking about? Did you zoom in to see screen on/awake usage? Both are about 7.5 hours of idle time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh wow. Sorry from my phone I couldn't zoom in. I see now lol. Thought I saw 90 and 89 or something like that
I had the Maps setting turned off for a few days and also had A LOT of stuff disabled, but unfortunately my battery life (and my wife's as well) wasn't as good as ICS, and quite a bit worse actually.
Sadly, today, it looks like I figured out what the killer is:
Google Now.
This morning, 100% charged, I turned it off. My wife (who still had it on) and I were out and about together for about four hours, we both barely used out phones for that time. When we got home I checked both phones: I was at 96%, she was at 80%.
The only difference that I hadn't already accounted for:
Google Now.
So, unfortunately, it looks to me like one of the two biggest reasons for wanting JB in the first place (Butter being the other of course) turns out to be a big battery hog I don't yet know if there's maybe some setting within it that is a specific problem or if it's the whole thing in general... maybe you just need to disable a card or change an update frequency or something (I didn't touch any so I'm running whatever the defaults are), I don't know yet... but all indications are that's where the problem lies.
That, my friends, sucks.
Well since my phone has calmed down I am getting 13-16 hr easily. Brightness maxed of course and about 4-6 screen on time I will never cripple my phone. Hell I bought it so I can use not to look at. Lol thanks for the post of this though if I'm ever I. A die hard , situation I'll know what to do
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app
Orbiting234 said:
Even with changing that setting in Maps I still am not getting the same battery life as I did with ICS. Maps is still coming up as my most used app when I check battery usage even though I rarely use it. Wonder if it may be Google Now causing Maps to keep running.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google Now uses the "Report from this device" and "Enable location history" maps location settings to determine your driving patterns so it can suggest alternative routes and report traffic delays. Disabling "Enable location history" will disable the driving pattern suggestions completely.
FWIW Settings | More settings | Mobile networks | Network mode
Changing from "CDMA" to "LTE / CDMA" has gained me better battery life. My wife also noticed the same.
(To save time, I'm cutting & pasting my post from another similar thread.)
> http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1963689&page=3
"I have had my Galaxy S3 for a week now. Battery life stabilized after the initial syncing, etc. I updated to Jelly Bean v4.1.1 two days ago, and battery life didn't seem noticeably different. However, that was until today. My phone was off of the charger, around 10AM, and had < 5% charge by 4:30PM. I was very busy, so I was hardly using the phone all day. It was in my pocket or on my desk most of the time. One of the only settings I changed last night, was enabling 'Use wireless networks' and enabling 'Location and Google search' under 'Location Services' in 'Settings'. I just disabled both settings, and will see if the battery drain is any less tomorrow. Also, Google Now was off, and was never enabled on my phone. I'll try to post the results, if at all possible..."
So, for me, it seems to be Location Services may have caused my poor battery life, and was definitly not Google Now, as it was never enabled. I'll try using the phone with the settings off, and see if that changes anything...
Toney Starks said:
what rom and kernel are u using
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stock stock stock jellybean ota... that's it
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app
I do love Jelly Bean; as it is ICS only improved or enhanced. But battery life has definitely taken a hit. I can barely make it through 24 hrs. On ICS I could do a day and a half to two days with really light use. I've tried just about everything mentioned with little change. Good thing I have an extra battery. Thank you Samsung for making a phone with a user replaceable battery.
Thanks for all the ideas/suggestions anyways,
El Mono
I noticed the huge difference as well. I was walking around Chicago yesterday and not using my phone. After 4 hours I looked and my battery was at 50 %.
Sent from my GT-N8013 using XDA Premium HD app

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