Develop Bugs

Doubled battery life - but there's a down side

there is a setting under settings / wireless and networks / mobile networks that says "enable always on mobile data"
Switching this to off about doubled my battery life and everything still seemed to work okay as far as data goes. All my apps worked including things that check or update periodically in the background - so I'm not sure what this feature does.
The only downside is that the phone would crash periodically in areas with poor reception. It would go back to the sprint boot animation and come up after a minute and the uptime would not be reset.
Imconvinced part of the battery life problem is due ton inefficient use of data, but I'm wondering what can be done about it without sacrificing stability. Ahylne else have a similar experience or willing to try it out or have more information?

Trying this out, seeing what it effects it has on my normally used apps. So far (first 20 minutes of doing it) everything seems to run fine. I would guess this causes the phone to "hibernate" the 3g radio whilst locked.

I started doing this on Hero and continue to do it on the Evo. The biggest issue is that if you are using pandora (or similar app), it causes problems when the phone goes to sleep.
The setting stops your 3g connection when the screen goes to sleep. This prevents the phone from updating email, twitter or whatever else you use. As soon as you turn the screen on, it turns on 3g, downloads your email etc.
I check my phone often enough (for the time or whatever) that I don't mind not getting my email immediately (it downloads when I turn the screen on).
This has saves a ton of battery life. The only time I enable always on mobile network is to listen to pandora. I have done this since day 1 and have had no issues.

I tried this last week and it made a massive difference in battery life. I turned it back on though because I do like my phone to download things while it is idle. I also don't want to get used to the improved battery life just to have to switch it back later.

i dont know if any of you have heard of juice defender what it does the same thing pretty much. with a few exceptions. whereby you can set the program up to allow your phone to take data even if your screen is off at a certain duration of time, then it will go back to sleep.
thats a really simple explanation of what the app does. if anyone of you does decide to use the app let me know i can share my settings more specifically. I have increases my battery life by 87% and i have have 0 problems.

I have this option unchecked and not only has my battery life improved, but I don't notice any performance or stability issues.
Also, my data continues to download in the background as normal (regardless of whether the screen is on or off). I have Facebook and Twitter set to download data every so often and it continues to do so. Even Google Voice will notify me of messages even if the screen is off.
I think what this option does is, when checked, makes the radio work hard to find and keep a data connection (especially in low signal areas). I notice that with the option unchecked, my data connection drops a bit more often than with it on. I don't mind that though seeing that the data connection simply reconnects automatically and almost instantly.

thanks!
10char

Would you all mind doing an experiment for me? Turn this option off (so data is not constantly on) and turn your screen on and put it in your microwave so it loses signal*.
Watch it and see if it crashes. I suspect something about this setting being off is causing the phone to crash when it loses its cell connection momentarily.
*Don't turn on your microwave.

Okay so after more research I'm pretty sure the main instigator of poor battery life is the data connection constantly going wild. According to SystemPanel my phone hangs out doing nothing downloading at 100-200Kbps for large amounts of time. Not sure what it's downloading.
To find out what apps were causing this I used Spare Parts and saw this:
Click for full size
So a process with the PID of "0" is what is using most of the data connection, followed by UID 10011 which is contact/calendar/mail sync. I can click through to 10011 and get details, but if I try to click on PID "0" I get a force close.
There is also another preference under Accounts & Sync for "background data" and "auto-sync." I'm not sure what the difference is between this background data setting and the one in wireless & networks that says "enable always-on mobile data." Anyone have any thoughts on that?
Also interesting is what was happening when I had always on data disabled:
Click for full size
You can see where my phone was crashing but look at my battery life before and after the crash. It looks like it has dipped significantly. Also, the crashes only lasted a minute while the phone rebooted, not nearly as long as what was recorded here - so it's possible something was going on with the battery life before the phone crashed.

juice defender settings
mastermayhm069 said:
i dont know if any of you have heard of juice defender what it does the same thing pretty much. with a few exceptions. whereby you can set the program up to allow your phone to take data even if your screen is off at a certain duration of time, then it will go back to sleep.
thats a really simple explanation of what the app does. if anyone of you does decide to use the app let me know i can share my settings more specifically. I have increases my battery life by 87% and i have have 0 problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you please post you settings that you use with Juice Defender. Also, please post any suggestions about Juice Defender and Ultimate Juice.
Thanks, John.........

mastermayhm069 said:
i dont know if any of you have heard of juice defender what it does the same thing pretty much. with a few exceptions. whereby you can set the program up to allow your phone to take data even if your screen is off at a certain duration of time, then it will go back to sleep.
thats a really simple explanation of what the app does. if anyone of you does decide to use the app let me know i can share my settings more specifically. I have increases my battery life by 87% and i have have 0 problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I swore Juice Defender only works with GSM and not CDMA.
It even say this when you go to download the app. Although I did just google it an apparently people have it going on the Motorola Droid rooted.
Who with Android experience wants to prove this?

OMGWTF_BBQ said:
I swore Juice Defender only works with GSM and not CDMA.
It even say this when you go to download the app. Although I did just google it an apparently people have it going on the Motorola Droid rooted.
Who with Android experience wants to prove this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 I thought this was the case too. i unchecked the data option. It's been a full day and no reboots

I'm running Juice Defender today and my battery life seems even worse. I'm talking 20-25% drop per hour.
SOMETHING is wrong here.

prjkthack said:
I have this option unchecked and not only has my battery life improved, but I don't notice any performance or stability issues.
Also, my data continues to download in the background as normal (regardless of whether the screen is on or off). I have Facebook and Twitter set to download data every so often and it continues to do so. Even Google Voice will notify me of messages even if the screen is off.
I think what this option does is, when checked, makes the radio work hard to find and keep a data connection (especially in low signal areas). I notice that with the option unchecked, my data connection drops a bit more often than with it on. I don't mind that though seeing that the data connection simply reconnects automatically and almost instantly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The option is not meant to enable/disable applications from using the data connection when the screen is off, so applications should be able to continue updating.
What the option is meant to do is to determine whether your phone should maintain data connectivity all the time, even when there are no apps using data. Unchecking the option means that when an app needs data, it must first connect, then make its request. This makes it take a little longer (or maybe a lot longer for 4G which seems to take longer to initialize a connection).

[Q] SetCPU and JuiceDefender, are they needed anymore?

Hello,
Title says it all...
I would notice overnight that my battery would be completely horizontal (no drop) and thought it was the combination of SETCPU and JuiceDefender (night profile + screen off drop mhz).
But, after unisntalling them, I noticed the same "flat line" at night and also achieved over 30 hours of battery life.
My question is... do these apps really make a difference on our phones?
Or, are the phones advanced enough to handle everything just fine?
your thoughts are appreciated.

I agree... I got about 27 hours of life out of my battery without set cpu or JD (i've never liked JD anyway because its like putting my kid on riddlin)

h20wakebum said:
My question is... do these apps really make a difference on our phones?
Or, are the phones advanced enough to handle everything just fine?
your thoughts are appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which version of JD are you using? If you have the Plus or Ultimate version, you can probably still gain some benefit, but you need to learn how to custom configure the settings so that you use the ones that are still relevant. For example:
Where Not Helpful: JD will turn off your GPS if an application isn't using it, but most of today's phones will do that anyway.
Where Helpful:: In advanced settings, you can provide a 'night schedule', wherein during this time, JD will disable mobile data, and thus polling, so your phone will not go out and check for mail, FB messages, Tweets, etc. Otherwise, mobile data is off unless you 'wake' the screen for some reason. Or another feature that 'trains' your wi-fi to only activate when you are at home or a 'recognized' wi-fi spot. These are a couple examples, there are others.
Where it MAY be Helpful: JD can disable mobile data for a custom # of minutes (10/15/30/60) and prevent background sync during those periods. It will awake, allow the sync, then turn mobile data off. Now some apps may only sync in these intervals anyway, but unless they're all syncing at the same time, you could have lots of 'up' time. Some of this may not 'wake' your phone from Deep Sleep, but depending on how sloppy the code is, it might.
Hope this helps.

h20wakebum said:
Hello,
Title says it all...
I would notice overnight that my battery would be completely horizontal (no drop) and thought it was the combination of SETCPU and JuiceDefender (night profile + screen off drop mhz).
But, after unisntalling them, I noticed the same "flat line" at night and also achieved over 30 hours of battery life.
My question is... do these apps really make a difference on our phones?
Or, are the phones advanced enough to handle everything just fine?
your thoughts are appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think really depends on the ROM you are running. ViperROM has a script that changes the CPU speed and governer on the fly. So no need for SetCPU there. I'd say Juice Defender can still come in handy with turning data off when you aren't using it.
My 2 cents. Your results may vary.

Capp5050 said:
Which version of JD are you using? If you have the Plus or Ultimate version, you can probably still gain some benefit, but you need to learn how to custom configure the settings so that you use the ones that are still relevant. For example:
Where Not Helpful: JD will turn off your GPS if an application isn't using it, but most of today's phones will do that anyway.
Where Helpful:: In advanced settings, you can provide a 'night schedule', wherein during this time, JD will disable mobile data, and thus polling, so your phone will not go out and check for mail, FB messages, Tweets, etc. Otherwise, mobile data is off unless you 'wake' the screen for some reason. Or another feature that 'trains' your wi-fi to only activate when you are at home or a 'recognized' wi-fi spot. These are a couple examples, there are others.
Where it MAY be Helpful: JD can disable mobile data for a custom # of minutes (10/15/30/60) and prevent background sync during those periods. It will awake, allow the sync, then turn mobile data off. Now some apps may only sync in these intervals anyway, but unless they're all syncing at the same time, you could have lots of 'up' time. Some of this may not 'wake' your phone from Deep Sleep, but depending on how sloppy the code is, it might.
Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use ultimate. I did run a night schedule, but that kind of points back to my original observation... I'd have night setup from 11pm - 7am and see a horizontal line for battery during this time (wow JD is really working)... BUT, with it uninstalled, during the same period of time 11pm - 7am my battery was also horizontal line... So did it really do anything? I'm on wifi at my house so when I'm sleeping the phone is wifi and not constantly pinging the mobile network (does that make a diff. being on wifi)?
I also did like the wifi only when home setting.
With ViperRom, I probably don't need set CPU anymore... Maybe i'll throw JD back on.
One question.. were you running the beta JD? I noticed the beta would always throw errors in the log stating i needed to uninstall, reboot, reinstall (I never did) anyone else have that happen?

These numbers sound like you have the radio off and don't turn your display on. Pretty amazing numbers otherwise. Would love to know the rom + kernal you're using
edit: I see the post above you mention viperrom. Typically if you have data turned off and display off any device will last days. My OG evo lasts for around 48 hours just sitting there. Still really impressive if you're using your phone within that 30 hours

h20wakebum said:
One question.. were you running the beta JD? I noticed the beta would always throw errors in the log stating i needed to uninstall, reboot, reinstall (I never did) anyone else have that happen?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've never tried the beta; I started with standard, upgraded to Premium, then eventually upgraded to Ultimate (I use the 'Customize' setting, but rarely the 'Advanced' config).
I hear ya on the night-time wi-fi thing. But with this particular phone (and before I rooted and changed ROM/Kernel), on some nights I would be connected to wi-fi and get ZERO CPU sleep time, other nights it would sleep - I have no idea why. It is conceivable that if the only polling your doing is e.g., Gmail, that either it doesn't happen at night, or it happens in such a way as to not knock the phone out of sleep (it IS Google's OS after all).
On a related note, I'm using K-9 mail (my primary mail is Yahoo); it throws wake-locks all the time (set to poll every 15 minutes), but they don't seem to impact battery life or take the device out of deep sleep which is why I suggested that case above.
One other item I like about JD is the ability to permission each and every app for wireless/network access; obviously mail, calendar, phone, etc. need it, but some apps simply don't, and I've been surprised when I set it to 'notify' and some random game pops up seeking network access. Looking for an update? who knows, but I lock 'em down anyway.
AC

pandamaja said:
These numbers sound like you have the radio off and don't turn your display on. Pretty amazing numbers otherwise. Would love to know the rom + kernal you're using
edit: I see the post above you mention viperrom. Typically if you have data turned off and display off any device will last days. My OG evo lasts for around 48 hours just sitting there. Still really impressive if you're using your phone within that 30 hours
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not turn off data/radio (no airplane mode).
I'm running ViperRom 2.2 with the latest loskernal experimental.
My display was on for roughly 2 hours (again, just used it as i happened to during the course of the day) and data was on.

Capp5050 said:
I've never tried the beta; I started with standard, upgraded to Premium, then eventually upgraded to Ultimate (I use the 'Customize' setting, but rarely the 'Advanced' config).
I hear ya on the night-time wi-fi thing. But with this particular phone (and before I rooted and changed ROM/Kernel), on some nights I would be connected to wi-fi and get ZERO CPU sleep time, other nights it would sleep - I have no idea why. It is conceivable that if the only polling your doing is e.g., Gmail, that either it doesn't happen at night, or it happens in such a way as to not knock the phone out of sleep (it IS Google's OS after all).
On a related note, I'm using K-9 mail (my primary mail is Yahoo); it throws wake-locks all the time (set to poll every 15 minutes), but they don't seem to impact battery life or take the device out of deep sleep which is why I suggested that case above.
One other item I like about JD is the ability to permission each and every app for wireless/network access; obviously mail, calendar, phone, etc. need it, but some apps simply don't, and I've been surprised when I set it to 'notify' and some random game pops up seeking network access. Looking for an update? who knows, but I lock 'em down anyway.
AC
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting thing is with the latest JD build it has the bluetooth settings, so i can leave my headset paired, but the phone disconnects while not on a call and then when i get a call, it turns on... kinda cool.
In regards to the permissions... do i need to give the email applications permission for enable/screen off? (so that I'll still get the notifs?) or just enable (as in when screen on).
thanks,
RR

[Q] High "Awake" vs "Screen On" time

Let me preface this by saying I'm not complaning about battery life as 36h is very good. That said, I feel like my phone is awake much longer that it should be. Anyone have any ideas why my Awake time is so much higher than my Screen-on time?
Once again, I'm not complaining but considering my phone was awake almost 5x longer than the screen was on, I feel like I could squeeze some more life out of the phone. I had 1 exchange account @ 15min, 1 gmail on push, no talk/g+, ~2-3 hours off wifi (4g), gps on, bluetooth off, 4.0.4, leanKernel.
When analyzing the wakelocks, I don't see anything that would explain almost 6 hours of extra awake time:
Considering most of this charge I was on wifi, I think I should have been able to achieve more than 1.5h screen-on time. Especially when I see people getting 4-5+ hours on theirs. What could be causing this seemingly excess awake time?

Since those screen shots, I've done another full cycle and here are my results. Same settings as before. It looks as if I did a bit better with the ratio of awake vs screen on, but I still only got ~20 hours. I'll admit, this had much more 4g time and heavier usage.
As you can see it's better, as it was only awake about 3x as much as the screen. You can see where I was at home in the second screenshot (The long bar of wi-fi) and that included me sleeping yet it shows that the phone was consistantly waking up overnight without any usage. Short of "email", I'm not sure what could be causing it. I got MAYBE 3 e-mails overnight.
Signed out of talk/g+/latitude
Location services was NOT disabled in either set of screenshots. Disabled it and charging now. Maybe that will help?

Have you checked out your wakelocks using BetterBatteryStats (found here on XDA)? Also, download CPU Spy from the market and check how long your phone is in what state. If it isn't in deep sleep too often, you might have an app or service keeping your phone awake. Background Data of any kind usually does that. Also, the first culprit I would investigate is Google Maps. Uninstall that bad boy and test your phone out. I am betting you that 60% of the time, the problem with your phone being awake too often is with Maps running unnecessarily in the background. And to be clear, Maps self-restarts itself even after logging out of Latitude and closing the app completely

armanatz said:
Have you checked out your wakelocks using BetterBatteryStats (found here on XDA)? Also, download CPU Spy from the market and check how long your phone is in what state. If it isn't in deep sleep too often, you might have an app or service keeping your phone awake. Background Data of any kind usually does that. Also, the first culprit I would investigate is Google Maps. Uninstall that bad boy and test your phone out. I am betting you that 60% of the time, the problem with your phone being awake too often is with Maps running unnecessarily in the background. And to be clear, Maps self-restarts itself even after logging out of Latitude and closing the app completely
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have attached all the wakelocks to the previous two posts. I didn't attach CPU spy but I did check it every time. Usually it's between 60-80% but most often it's >70% in deep sleep.
Just did a fresh wipe with a app restore using the market. Location services have been disabled. I have uninstalled all gMaps updates and disabled the app. Is this good enough? Should I convert to user and uninstall using TB?

Just wanted to chime in and say I'm seeing a very similar profile to what you posted. And I'm not entirely sure, but I think this started when I flashed this ROM. What I feel like I'm seeing is that active use of the phone seems to be more of a drain than it used to, but I'm not sure how much of that would be placebo (i.e. remembering when I first got the phone around the holidays and there were a lot of relaxed days at home with constant wifi).
But right now I'm seeing 5.5 hours of awake time and 1 hour of screen on time, with 27% remaining. Total time is 42 hours, which seems to round everything out to a decent battery life, but again, 1 hour of use for 70% of the battery seems lower than what I remember. Not sure if a vote for seeing the same behavior is one for this being normal or us both having the problem, but I can try to post screenshots/more detailed info later if it would help.
This is on the above linked rom with stock kernel, 4.0.4 radios.

That's the same ROM I'm using and I agree, 70% usage for 1h screen time seems too much. I've seen people get over 2.5h screen on time on pure 3/4g
I'm going to see if disabling maps and location services help. Will report back.
I would be interested to see any SS you have, might help.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

This is after a fresh wipe, fresh kernel install, no maps, no g+, no gTalk, no GPS, no location services, just gmail and 1 exchange @ 15 minutes
Any advice as to what's going on would be very helpful. Thanks in advance.

I also have a problem with wake-locks.
Since phone is relatively new ~2weeks its still stock 4.0.2 GSM. After some time my battery life fell and thanks to XDA i think i found the problem Google backup.
I disabled Google backup to see if i get the same awake time tomorrow.
If the problem doesn't go away, is it possible to resolve this problem without factory reset of the phone?

Here are some screenshots I made the other day, taken a bit into a charge but immediately prior the phone was down to <6%. Didn't get a capture of the kernel wakelocks but as you reported, the screen on time falls far below the wake time, and the wakelocks don't seem to come anywhere near to explaining the difference.
I just installed the 6.3.0 google maps, which claims to increase battery performance for location and latitude services. I'll try to make a comparison next time my battery is drained.
I've signed out of latitude before but generally don't redo this upon rebooting the phone. Does it sign in by default on every reboot?

Well after disabling backup thing im still getting 90% wake time from backup service so i will try to do a factory reset over weekend and hope it goes away... Will post resoults in case some 1 else gets this problem.

JoeSyr said:
Here are some screenshots I made the other day, taken a bit into a charge but immediately prior the phone was down to <6%. Didn't get a capture of the kernel wakelocks but as you reported, the screen on time falls far below the wake time, and the wakelocks don't seem to come anywhere near to explaining the difference.
I just installed the 6.3.0 google maps, which claims to increase battery performance for location and latitude services. I'll try to make a comparison next time my battery is drained.
I've signed out of latitude before but generally don't redo this upon rebooting the phone. Does it sign in by default on every reboot?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This looks to me like some sort of Maps issue. Try to uninstall/disable maps and see if it goes away. Looks like it's stuck trying to locate you with maps somehow based on those wakelock names.

Catoss said:
Well after disabling backup thing im still getting 90% wake time from backup service so i will try to do a factory reset over weekend and hope it goes away... Will post resoults in case some 1 else gets this problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hopefully the factory reset will fix it, that is an odd problem.

It seems to me like my problem was the version of leankernel I was using. I went from 10.0exp2 to 2.01exp2 and it's much much better

Actually, the kernel upgrade did not fix my problem. I did seem to figure out what was happening though.
This entire time I've noticed that my phone would standby and sleep very well on Wi-Fi but when I switched to data it seemed as if I would bleed juice. I discovered that my "Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep" was set to "always" and I believe that was causing my excess wakes.
I've changed it to "Never" and I'm doing some tests. I'll be sure to report back if anyone is watching this thread.

Timdor said:
Actually, the kernel upgrade did not fix my problem. I did seem to figure out what was happening though.
This entire time I've noticed that my phone would standby and sleep very well on Wi-Fi but when I switched to data it seemed as if I would bleed juice. I discovered that my "Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep" was set to "always" and I believe that was causing my excess wakes.
I've changed it to "Never" and I'm doing some tests. I'll be sure to report back if anyone is watching this thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mine is opposite of that, i standby fine on data but terribly on wifi. im guessing that is background syncing. i just have to figure out what is doing it

i have my wifi set to never too for better battery life. It seems counter intuitive, but wifi is better on power than 3g/4g. So preventing the phone from leaving wifi back to cellular is better for battery. All my phones have been like this.

yeah thats what i thought it does but mine drains faster on wifi...i leave it on cause i barely get signal in my room an if i sit on 3g it just takes a long time to do anything

What type of drain do you get over 3g vs wifi?
Yesterday I was playing around on 3g all day and I was seeing an average of 6%/hr. My phone is consistantly awake 20-25% of the time according to betterbatterstats. Screen on will always be far less than half of my awake time. Wifi drains around 1%/hr
I did a wipe of my 4.0.4 install and flashed a fresh kernel download. I'm not logging into exchange because, for some reason, I think that's my problem.

Also, changing to Never didn't really fix my issue.

SGSIII / General Android Battery Tips (Can triple battery life!) | Updated 8/27/12

This thread that I've revamped from my Evo 4G/3D days, hoping to share some of the love with newer users. Over the time I've been on android, I've learned a few simple things that can greatly assist in the battery life of our wonderful smartphones.
If you get anything out of the thread, please don't hesitate to rate it and drop me a thanks!
If you read the thread and like the tips, have a new one to suggest, or have a revision, please post it.
On a similar note, moderators, thanks for the sticky!
General Lithium Ion Battery Information
^^This link includes stuff about charging, including trickle charging aka SBC (Why NOT to use it, or at your own peril)
My tips for good battery life:
Tips for Non-Rooted users
1. Turn off all radios when not in use.
(Bluetooth, wifi, data, 4G/Wimax/LTE, NFC, etc) Use a widget like the default power widgets, Switchpro, or a similar app from the market. Newer android versions generally allows users to access these radios and other settings from the notification pulldown menu, , under the "Quick Settings" tab or a row at the top of the pulldown. The radios of the phone draw power if on even if the user isn't actually utilizing the radio's functions. A radio searching for signal (if you are in a low-signal area) drains more than a radio with good signal, so again, turn 'em off when you aren't using 'em.
To manually turn off radios without a toggle, go to menu>settings>wireless & networks.
Wifi uses less battery than 3G, so use wifi when you can.
Unlike the others, GPS radios only draw power when you actually need them, so you can leave it on all the time.
2. Juice Defender is one of my favorite apps. Basically it controls your data for you to maximize life.
More explanations are on their page, search it on the market for free, or upgrade for more features.
Here are my settings for it: Click me
Note that for me at least, juice defender likes to deny apps data privileges whether you allow them or not, so screen on = data on works best for me.
3. I love live wallpapers, and I’ve always been a fan of pixel zombies, but they are really only good for showing off due to their battery drain.
4. Sadly, the "always on mobile data" setting is gone. This tip is invalid.
Go to menu>settings>wireless & networks>mobile networks>disable always on mobile data.
Product F(RED) said:
To clarify, "Always On Mobile Data", when turned off, lets the 3G modem go to sleep after the screen has been off for 5 minutes. It doesn't interfere with anything like email or any other application that requires an internet connection at that moment because it turns on on-demand rather than being on all the time and wasting battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
5. Set your screen timeout to something that fits you.
The screen is the highest drain of battery power on any smartphone. BY setting the timeout, you can prevent your phone from staying on when you don’t manually turn off the screen. Also, manually turn off your screen when you’re done with your phone.
Menu>Settings>Display>Screen Timeout
I use 30 seconds.
6. Task killers used to be the shiz, but no longer.
Here is the ultimate, in depth, graphically assisted, explanation by the famous Fresh ROM's chef, Flipz. Shortly, in light of recent testing, really don’t do anything but force apps that the android OS needed to be open, and thus didn’t close, to re-open. So try not using them, unless for stuff like trying to figure out why your phone isn’t sleeping with system panel. You really won’t notice a performance difference, and the adverse effects you aren’t seeing will stop
+=+ A good alternative is the application SystemPanel Pro. It has a free version, but I highly reccomend purchasing the paid app. It basically monitors everything going on with your phone's usage both in real time an in terms of usage history. If your battery is draiging fast, it tells you what app was doing it, how much it was doing it, and allows you to stop it.
7. I'm sure you have all heard around that your phone isn't "sleeping".
This is referring to the phone's "awake" time, hence the name. When you go to Menu>Settings>About Phone>Battery>click on the small battery graphical, you can compare the two lines, time on and awake. Generally, up time refers to the amount of time since the last reboot. The "awake time" is how long the screen has been active. The problem is, a lot of the time, due to the endless possibilities of inconsistencies between apps/ROMs/kernels/phones, the phone will not go to "sleep", drawing power proportionate to the screen being in use when it reality the phone is sitting idle.
If you compare these numbers, and they are the same, or if you note the difference, turn off the screen for a minute, then re-check and they are the same, then your phone is not sleeping.
One solution is to reboot.
I recommend two apps to help monitor:System Panel and Better Battery Stats. These two apps (explained in their FAQ's and descriptions greatly aid in finding those rogues.
Usually, SystemPanel will show an app that has gone "rogue" and is keeping your phone awake.
-This is done by hitting menu>settings>monitoring enabled. Then after some time has passed, ht menu>monitoring>history>change tab to top apps, and see if anything is above, say, 2-4%.
Uninstall applications/reinstalling them slowly, checking after every install to see what is causing it is one tedious but surefire solution.
Lastly,
Follow these steps that I have discovered almost always work.
1. Reboot phone.
2. Instantly upon reboot, as soon as you gain control, open up some type of monitor/taskkiller
3. "kill all" tasks on startup; about 5 times in quick succession should do the trick.
4. Turn off the screen and leave it for about five minutes.
5. Check the up time v. awake time and see if they are the same.
6. If they are, repeat steps 1-5. If they are different, you are good.
8. Apps and Combinations to watch out for!
-Facebook- Tries to sync live feed all the time, HIGHLY recommend unchecking this box, as it creates a massive draw on data
-Skype- This app reportedly (I've seen it myself) likes to sync random data and open up the network for fun. Sign out of app when not in use to fix
A rogue process called "gsiff_daemon", associated with the gyroscope. Changing its name seems to be the only semi-permanent solution. It's located in system/bin.
Lightflow is a pretty damn cool notification/led manager, but it eats up ridiculous system resources using its alarm wakeups. Use at your own risk.
9. Manage your syncing.
This is a big one, and it differs from person to person. Go to Menu>Settings>Accounts and Sync, and take a look at what's going on there. The green or checked or activated box to the right of the option means that there is an account syncing data. I for example have four email addresses, facebook, dropbox, box, weather, etc. That is bad. You should go through and turn off syncing for nasty apps you didn't even know where accessing the internet, or limit the access of apps and services that you do want to allow.
The problem lies in the way this syncing is handled. Each app/service runs on its own schedule, making it particularly likely that your phone could almost always be establishing a data connection and trying to download data for your various apps. See step 2 regarding the app Juice Defender to handle this problem.
10. Vibrate Settings
Vibration and haptic feedback eat up a surprising amount of battery. If you have the haptic feedback enabled, then every time you press anything your phone puts out some juice to make itself dance.
At least on the GSIII, the settings are in menu>settings>sound
Some apps have their own haptic feedback settings, and notifications are their own set entirely.
Root Tips LIVE
Tips for Rooted users:
1. Try out custom kernels.
By going to the Galaxy S III Android Development section of the forums, you can see all of the different kernels being developed. These allow for all kinds of modifications like underclocking the CPU and undervolting, both of which save battery. To see how to use them, read the FAQ's in each thread's OPs.
Here is a great guide to custom kernel's by mroneeyedboh.
2. Use SetCPU in compliance with whatever your custom kernel allows.
This site will explain the basics of SetCPU: http://www.setcpu.com/
-Profiles from SetCPU should usually involve these for battery life optimization:
-Screen off at the minimum clock speed for both, with the max raised on level if sluggishness is apparent
-A temperature greater than “X”
-General power related profiles that lower cpu speed at lower battery levels
-Here are my SetCPU profiles: 1 , 2 , 3
-My profiles change a lot as time goes by, because different kernel creators recommend different settings. I suggest reading up on whatever kernel you are using to gather settings.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTES:
*Some apps or processes begin to run at startup and keep the phone awake. These apps are not detected by things like spare parts or system panel, unless sometimes represented in the "system" process, in which case its usage will be unusually high.
This shouldn't take more than three repeats, and if it does, you need to factory reset, and slowly add apps back to see what's causing the problem.
___--- When it comes to actually "calibrating" one's battery, there are a couple of methods floating around. The method I first learned is to charge the phone all the way, boot into recovery immediately, and "wipe battery stats". Then reboot quickly, and run your phone all the way to death without charging it, then charge it all the way without interrupting it, and you should be good to go. Do this when changing ROMs/kernels for best results.
----When it comes to people claiming 20 plus hours of moderate/heavy use out of their current setup or other ridiculous absurdities, consider my position: No matter what you do, the Evo battery is the Evo battery. You can tweak it and customize it with kernels, ROMs, and settings, but none of that will turn it into a car battery. The main problem (besides a false sense of pride) that leads to these reports is the misunderstanding of what the usage levels are, so here’s my best summary:
* *Light usage – Phone screen actually on for maybe 0-2 hours. Things like a few texts, some emails, 20 minutes web browsing, etc.
* *Moderate usage – You watched a few youtube videos or similar apps, sustained web browsing, hundreds of texts, some games. Hours range from about 2-5 of screen on
* *Heavy usage – LOTS of video watching and games, 3D pics or video, or some high def gaming/movie watching for at least an hour to an hour and a half in total, with lots of emails and texts, browsing, and other app shenanigans. 5+ hours
*I’m sure everyone doesn’t agree with all these numbers, but this is most likely a good average of what powerusers think. All specific hourage may vary due to differences in phones, batteries, ROMs, and kernels… Which also means that most battery comparisons are pointless; it’s only what you can improve on that counts!
I’ll update this whenever I see good stuff, people remind me, or I remember/come across things I do.
Hope it helps everybody!
Hit the "THANKS" button if I help you!
Vote for Your Favorite Tip

Nice tips

I'm not quite sure if leaving the GPS on actually eats up battery now. I've seen articles now that state that GPS is only used if a program needs it. When I go into battery and usage, GPS will only show it has been used only a couple times with the apps that I opened such as Facebook, Speed Test or Gas Buddy. I think with ICS, it has changed in the way that GPS actually works and it is not actually constantly using battery.

jhuff83 said:
I'm not quite sure if leaving the GPS on actually eats up battery now. I've seen articles now that state that GPS is only used if a program needs it. When I go into battery and usage, GPS will only show it has been used only a couple times with the apps that I opened such as Facebook, Speed Test or Gas Buddy. I think with ICS, it has changed in the way that GPS actually works and it is not actually constantly using battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is correct and I have confirmed it. Just haven't updated the op.
Thanks for calling that to my attention.

The one about turning radios off is one that makes all the sense in the world, but I'm not sure in practice if it makes a significant enough difference to override the inconvenience of having to flip things on and off as needed.
I can only speak from personal experience but for about two weeks my wife and I, both with S3's, were shutting radios off when not needed out of habit from our Epic days. However, since then (well over a month now) we just leave everything on all the time... and I do mean *everything*: GPS, Wi-Fi, NFC, cell radio, BT... and the difference has been... wait for it... so little it's actually been hard to quantify!
My own take on that rule is to leave everything on and see what you see... it's always easy enough to turn things off if you find your battery life not living up to expectations and if it winds up being a trend, so be it, leave things off as suggested in the OP. For my wife and I at least we can get through an average day and finish up before going to bed around 30%-40% battery most days. To me, even if I could get that to 40%-50% left, that 10% difference I can accept for never having to worry about what's on or off.
Laziness has a price, and it's around 10% of my battery life apparently

great tips!!!! definitely improved my battery with these!

The radios are extremely dependent upon your area, signal strength, the walls of your house, the apps you have installed that actually call upon the data... So ideally, if your area has amazing signal, your walls are hyper radio permeable, and you don't have many data intensive apps, then you can probably get by with minimal loss. People who are feeling the itch to test should certainly go ahead and try, but the same could be said with most of these tips. This is simply a guide of suggestions. YMMV
fzammetti said:
The one about turning radios off is one that makes all the sense in the world, but I'm not sure in practice if it makes a significant enough difference to override the inconvenience of having to flip things on and off as needed.
I can only speak from personal experience but for about two weeks my wife and I, both with S3's, were shutting radios off when not needed out of habit from our Epic days. However, since then (well over a month now) we just leave everything on all the time... and I do mean *everything*: GPS, Wi-Fi, NFC, cell radio, BT... and the difference has been... wait for it... so little it's actually been hard to quantify!
My own take on that rule is to leave everything on and see what you see... it's always easy enough to turn things off if you find your battery life not living up to expectations and if it winds up being a trend, so be it, leave things off as suggested in the OP. For my wife and I at least we can get through an average day and finish up before going to bed around 30%-40% battery most days. To me, even if I could get that to 40%-50% left, that 10% difference I can accept for never having to worry about what's on or off.
Laziness has a price, and it's around 10% of my battery life apparently
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Gps Radio?
Really? The radio, even if left on, uses power only when an app needs the position. I am kinda boggled by this? Wouldn't it take longer to aquire the location from the 3-7 sateilites upon the request and then shut back down. What would be the diference? This can't be true about the GPS not sucking any power in ICS when idle.
BUMP

551skydiver said:
Really? The radio, even if left on, uses power only when an app needs the position. I am kinda boggled by this? Wouldn't it take longer to aquire the location from the 3-7 sateilites upon the request and then shut back down. What would be the diference? This can't be true about the GPS not sucking any power in ICS when idle.
BUMP
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try leaving it on for the day and go into battery and click on the graph. You will see that it should be black across the board for GPS if the signal was not used. Only time it would be green is when a program utilized it.

ICS changed the Battery Stats. It doesn't display that information in About Device. Uptime is there but awake time isn't.

sekigah84 said:
ICS changed the Battery Stats. It doesn't display that information in About Device. Uptime is there but awake time isn't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, that's incorrect. Menu>Settings>Battery>click on the small graph picture. It gives you many things, including time on battery, Awake time, Screen on time, and charging time. It's just graphically represented.

How do you accomplish #4?
Go to menu>settings>wireless & networks>mobile networks>disable always on mobile data.
---------- Post added at 08:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:06 AM ----------
found it under Data Usage
---------- Post added at 08:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:09 AM ----------
well, when I turned Mobile Data Off, didn't receive any data (emails, etc.) so I turned it back on

I'm curiouis about this 1 as well. How do we accomplish this as I don't see that option?

Remove that "wipe battery stats" from your tips. its a old myth that needs to die permanently.

Shoulon said:
Remove that "wipe battery stats" from your tips. its a old myth that needs to die permanently.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are correct.
www.landofdroid.acom/2012/to-wipe-battery-stats-or-not-to-in-androidthat-is-the-question/

I disable everything when I go to sleep at night, or when I am putting my phone on charge in middle of the day to maybe help it gain battery while not draining it, sort of like a power charge I like to think. It's so easy to do, just slide down status bar, uncheck everything (WiFi, Mobile Data, Sync, dim screen all the way) and that's it. I had 22h1m running since last charge today when I was at 4%.

General Android Battery Tips (Can triple battery life!) | Updated
Thank you for sharing this is to improve life of the battery

battery
shuiguo said:
Thank you for sharing this is to improve life of the battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It helps to use the right ROM and know how to work your phone:
:good:

Also, apparently Google apps backup is broken for some users. I had a problem with the phone not sleeping and traced it to google backup, apparently it's a common problem with ICS. This is unrelated to contacts/calendar sync. If you have the phone device rooted and use titanium you can leave this off, and as long as you don't lose your phone it's no big deal. Setting is under system settings -> backup and reset.
Figure I would show this off here, had the flu last week and was basically comatose for 30 hours. Only about 2 hrs screen on time, but all radios on and even passed out with navigation on after checking traffic at one point. 51 hours
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda premium

I would try disabling Google backup so it no longer updated/synced my info to the web until I next turned it on, but the option says it deletes all the info already stored on the web. I suppose this is good if someone wanted to delete this info for privacy concerns, but there should be an option to just turn the syncing off, or to schedule it for once a day or something.
I have not tried disabling it as I do not want to wipe my info.

Wifi Battery Drain

Hi guys
I have a LTE Note II and have had this battery drain on standby where wifi will absolutely destroy my battery. This has been going on for months and months and I'm just not sure if Samsung are ever going to resolve this and it is quite the pain in the arse.
I've done many tweaks to my phone, and all location services are off. Also, I've set it as a static IP, but nothing seems to help. I think this is related to the wlan_rx_wake wakelock? I get the impression my phone is responding to the wifi and getting woken up constantly.
Does anyone else experience this and do you have any suggestions?
P.S. please don't mention my apps causing it. It definitely is not. I know my way around Android and also, my Nexus 4 with the same setup (but location + google now turned ON) absolutely annihilates my Note II battery life on standby. This is clearly a Samsung problem that they have ignored for the best part of a whole year, and it seems to be related to wifi.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Do u have some figures about this battery drain to be able to compare with my phone?
It could be a bad modem/connection. What is your configuration?

Primokorn said:
Do u have some figures about this battery drain to be able to compare with my phone?
It could be a bad modem/connection. What is your configuration?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No exact figures but I have been observing it for months now and it hasn't been the case with any other phone I use. With wifi on, it'll drain around 20% overnight. With Wifi off, it'll drain 5 or so %. With Wifi on on every other phone I own/owned, it will barely drain at all overnight.

Type *#0011#
Check wifi setting
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app

This is what I got when I entered that it

After *#0011# go to menu and select wifi in order to see if power safe mode is on.

Yeah it is on
Is that bad?
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

That's not bad, it improves battery usage. I don't recognize your problem. Does the phone go into deep sleep with wifi on? Which rom do you use?

Hielko said:
That's not bad, it improves battery usage. I don't recognize your problem. Does the phone go into deep sleep with wifi on? Which rom do you use?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stock ROM. And yeah, but it is constantly being woken up.

Sorry for the bump, but this hasn't changed.
I'm not sure if this is to do with just the N7105, but it is something that just won't go away. I'm now finding I lose between 20 and 30% overnight (around 7 hours) with wifi on, or about 10% with data on. With these both turned off but the phone radio still being on, it only drops about 2% in the same time. This was tested with bluetooth/gps and sync turned off.
I don't really have the time to write up everything that I have tried, but suffice to say I have tweaked the phone a lot over the past few months trying to sort this out, but nothing works.
Here is a quick summary of the stuff I have done.
Firstly, I have to run a stock rom and kernel because there is an app I need that will not work on custom roms/kernels. It also doesn't work on root but I have found a procedure to toggle unroot/root when need be and it works fine. Therefore I'm stuck on 4.1.2 as I want to be rooted but I cannot use any custom rom or kernels.
I have tried factory wiping the phone/installing later versions of 4.1.2, etc etc and the same problems still exists with a freshly wiped phone and no apps installed. This problem also doesn't happen with my Nexus 4 or any other phone I have owned with the same setup, so I am very certain it is not due to a misbehaving app.
I have frozen a lot of bloat with titanium backup, I have hibernated a hell of a lot of stuff with greenify (including system app where there are no perceivable negative consequences)
I have added a few tweaks to the build.prop such as to disable fast dormancy and a few other supposed power saving ones which are meant to help with the msm_hsic wakelock.
There are many other things such as setting a static IP, and also tweaking with my router based on some advise I found on these forums. Nothing much has helped.
Location services and google now are off, and I'm not using the Samsung bloatware apps.
I use betterbatterystats and the partial wakelocks are fine. Very low infact.
However, IMO it is two "kernal wakelocks" which are causing me the problem.
wlan_rx_wake - in regards to the wifi
mdm_hsic_pm0 - in regards to the data
These are by no means outrageously high. My estimation is perhaps 10 mins wake up time and around 2000 "expire time" (whatever that means) every 3 hours or so. However, these two are always the highest kernel wakelock depending on if i'm using wifi (wlan_rx_wake) or data (mdm_hsic_pm0). My phone is also not being kept awake too long too in general.. at a guess around 3 hours awake time for every 2 hours screen on time for every 15-20 hours.
I can't remember if these kernel wakelocks were super duper high in the past, and the fixes I tried actually lowered them, but I still notice this massive Idle drain when on data or wifi (just over 1% per hour - or 2-3% per hour respectively).
In regards to the Wifi.. I suspect that packets are being sent from my router which are constantly waking up my phone. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to solve this problem with any of the router-side fixes I've tried.
This leads me to suspect that the wifi and data radio of the N7105 is power hungry, or I've had a faulty unit since day one. I keep hearing about this stellar battery life for this phone but, for me, the best I've ever got is around 20 hours. This may sound good but the problem is it is 20 hours with 6 hours screen on time, or 20 hours with 2 hours screen on time. This doesn't seem to make a difference where I should be getting two days when I only have 2 hours screen on time.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, and any experiances of others with the N7105 may help find out if it indeed is more power hungry. I'd also like to add that my network does not support 4G yet so this is all on 3G and NOT LTE.
Thank you, and sorry for such a long post.

fade2black101 said:
Hi guys
I have a LTE Note II and have had this battery drain on standby where wifi will absolutely destroy my battery. This has been going on for months and months and I'm just not sure if Samsung are ever going to resolve this and it is quite the pain in the arse.
I've done many tweaks to my phone, and all location services are off. Also, I've set it as a static IP, but nothing seems to help. I think this is related to the wlan_rx_wake wakelock? I get the impression my phone is responding to the wifi and getting woken up constantly.
Does anyone else experience this and do you have any suggestions?
P.S. please don't mention my apps causing it. It definitely is not. I know my way around Android and also, my Nexus 4 with the same setup (but location + google now turned ON) absolutely annihilates my Note II battery life on standby. This is clearly a Samsung problem that they have ignored for the best part of a whole year, and it seems to be related to wifi.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I ain't expert...
but, I would suggest like this :
Go to wifi, press menu and then Advanced (advanced setting of the wifi).
uncheck/untick "Scanning always available"
"Keep wifi on during sleep" = set to Never.
uncheck / untick "auto network switch btwen wifi network and mobile networks"
all these helps me to minimize the usage of wifi during night times (when I sleep). Anyway, device also need to have a deepsleep
Hope can help you as well.
Sent from the corner of this rounded earth.