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).

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).

Poor Battery Life

I am getting very poor battery life. Fully charged at 8am and dead by 5:30. Hardly even using it. I have a limited number of apps on, just a subset of those on my Nexus One and no rouge ones at all. Made a few calls, no web, a couple of gtalk posts and that is it.
See attached usage screen charge to dead and charging again!
The phone is useless like this... any ideas????

Are you in a building with poor reception? I noticed this issue when I left data on when my company moved buildings.

moa77 said:
I am getting very poor battery life. Fully charged at 8am and dead by 5:30. Hardly even using it. I have a limited number of apps on, just a subset of those on my Nexus One and no rouge ones at all. Made a few calls, no web, a couple of gtalk posts and that is it.
See attached usage screen charge to dead and charging again!
The phone is useless like this... any ideas????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is that solid blue bar from your WiFi being on all the time, or is that your awake bar on 100% of the time from a bad app?
That battery life looks atrocious. Show us the second screen to see the "awake" times.

martonikaj said:
Is that solid blue bar from your WiFi being on all the time, or is that your awake bar on 100% of the time from a bad app?
That battery life looks atrocious. Show us the second screen to see the "awake" times.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The phone is now changed so, the history has gone! I'll do more screens tomorrow.
I am not sure what you mean by awake bar?
I keep wifi and bt on all the time, as I did on my old N1. I am in the same place in the day as I was with that and will have same reception, which is not bad.
App installed are not strange at all;
Adobe Reader
Android Task Killer
AL Voice Recorder
Amazon MP3
Astro
Google Authenicator
Compass
ConnectBot
Currency Converter
ixMat Scanner
RealCalc
StopWatch
That's it, like I say a sub-set of those on my N1 and all solid apps.
I normally listen to mp3 on the N1, but have not had time on the Galaxy yet, so it;s getting less use.

moa77 said:
The phone is now changed so, the history has gone! I'll do more screens tomorrow.
I am not sure what you mean by awake bar?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When clicking on the graph, there is a blue bar showing how often/when the phone is "awake", like in the screenshot I've attached.
I keep wifi and bt on all the time, as I did on my old N1. I am in the same place in the day as I was with that and will have same reception, which is not bad.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do you keep mobile data turned on? if so, do you keep 3G turned on, or just 2G?
App installed are not strange at all;
Adobe Reader
Android Task Killer
AL Voice Recorder
Amazon MP3
Astro
Google Authenicator
Compass
ConnectBot
Currency Converter
ixMat Scanner
RealCalc
StopWatch
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get rid of the task killer!
Other than that, don't see anything crazy... This battery life is really strange. When your screen is using less power than the 'Android OS' it shows you're really not using the phone much, but the phone is still tanking on battery life.

I'll post those screen shots for today when I get home tonight.
A few things I have noticed though. It seems to level off at midday, this is when i leave work and go home for an hour. While at home I will be on wifi. I do not connect to wifi at work.
Secondly, while at work I notice my data often changes between "3G" and "H", while the phone is in the same place. Probably 60% H and 40% "3G". It is not practical to turn "2G" only on, as I get the volume bug and the phone becomes unusable.
I am wondering if the data signal is draining it somehow? If so, how can I work around that? Like I said, I have a N1 before the GN which sat in the same place on my desk every day and had no battery drain issue at all.

I unplugged mine yesterday at 7.30am and it died at 9pm
I used the internet on/of all day made a couple of calls and about 50 texts, screen on time was about 4 hours.
Today i've used it in a similar manner and as of now (3pm uk) 7 and a half hours in its on 57%
The battery in this thing is better than my desire, granted, not much in it but it will easily get a normal user from one sleep to another
Stret

moa77 said:
App installed are not strange at all;
Adobe Reader
Android Task Killer
AL Voice Recorder
Amazon MP3
Astro
Google Authenicator
Compass
ConnectBot
Currency Converter
ixMat Scanner
RealCalc
StopWatch
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, it's strange you have a task killer on Ice Cream Sandwich. WTF? This isn't Eclair. Get rid of the damn task killer.

moa77 said:
A few things I have noticed though. It seems to level off at midday, this is when i leave work and go home for an hour. While at home I will be on wifi. I do not connect to wifi at work.
Secondly, while at work I notice my data often changes between "3G" and "H", while the phone is in the same place. Probably 60% H and 40% "3G". It is not practical to turn "2G" only on, as I get the volume bug and the phone becomes unusable.
I am wondering if the data signal is draining it somehow? If so, how can I work around that? Like I said, I have a N1 before the GN which sat in the same place on my desk every day and had no battery drain issue at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd say with 95% certainty it's just signal-hunting causing the drain. With my Fascinate at work, I'll easily lose 50% battery within a couple of hours, even if I'm not using it, while at home it'll last me between 15-20 hours before getting low. Easiest solution is to just buy another charger for work, and leave your phone plugged in whenever it's on your desk.

Don't like seeing android os at the top of that list! Does the nexus share some of the problems that have plagued the galaxy s line of phones, the android os bug!? :O
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

copkay said:
I'd say with 95% certainty it's just signal-hunting causing the drain. With my Fascinate at work, I'll easily lose 50% battery within a couple of hours, even if I'm not using it, while at home it'll last me between 15-20 hours before getting low. Easiest solution is to just buy another charger for work, and leave your phone plugged in whenever it's on your desk.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I kind of think you might be right. However, a phone that drains itself while doing absolutely nothing useful at all, is no use to me. I carry it about and am in and out the office though out the day. It would be unworkable to keep putting it on charge every time I come back in the room. I need a phone I can carry around for a working day without charging. My old N1 did. If this can't do it I'll need to get short of it and get something more practical. Seems ridiculous though.
Btw, task killer just got installed by default when I upgraded. All the apps that were on the N1 were installed when I signed in. Just never deleted it

Do you leave your Wifi on all the time even if you don't have Wifi signal available? Don't do that.
If you are too lazy to manage your data connection manually all the time, I highly suggest getting the app Juice Defender from the market. You can save the battery by setting a schedule for data connection and also it will disable your wifi automatically if your phone can't find a wifi spot it can connect to.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

Chrono_Tata said:
Do you leave your Wifi on all the time even if you don't have Wifi signal available? Don't do that.
If you are too lazy to manage your data connection manually all the time, I highly suggest getting the app Juice Defender from the market. You can save the battery by setting a schedule for data connection and also it will disable your wifi automatically if your phone can't find a wifi spot it can connect to.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I leave wifi and bt on. I want to be able to do this. I am not asking for it to run for days. 1 full day is all, I have not issue charging every night.
I could look at the juice monitor, however, it does not seem too much to ask to be able to get 1 full day from it of average use. To me, it seems perfectly reasonable to expect the device to work for a full day with all services running.
Is there any tool than can be used to prove that the signal hunting is eating the power? Currently is seem to be in the big pot called "Android OS"??

Well, I'm not gonna defend the phone. Leaving all radio processes on, especially when there is no signal available, is well known to drain a lot of battery since the phone uses more power to search for available networks than when it has a stable connection to one. If you leave it on in a place with spotty or no signal it will make the problem worse.
Juice Defender (the basic one anyway) is free and pretty much manages the connections for you and basically extends your battery life with minimal effort. Give it a go for a couple if days.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

I strongly agree with chrono.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using xda premium

+1 with Chrono.... Turn off Wifi completely if you are not using it.

if you are a new android user, you should also check the settings of the phone:
hit *#*#4636#*#* in the dialpad.
this will bring up a menu. there you should try phone (i think, my n1 got stolen a while ago). there, you scroll down and there is a menu to adjust the preferred network mode.
if it's set to CDMA preferred, it will search for a cdma single. you just adjust it (i think) to gsm only. google will help you a bit here.

Help me figure out how to improve the battery life

I am running AOKP M3 with franco kernel #15.2, turtle governor, 350/1000 w/ stock franco voltages. I also modded the auto brightness levels to ones of the MID mod. I use WiFi at home; I have set the power saver to switch to 2G after 1m of screen off time. However, I an unable to get more than 2-2.5h of screen on time no matter what I try. I plan to purchase the extended battery, but in the meanwhile what can I do to improve the battery life? I have the GSM phone.
Thanks in advance!

I've tried all sorts of stuff and 2 and a half hours is the most i've been able to get.
In order to do that I was using mostly wifi, auto brightness and I had undervolted as much as possible.
I've tried all different kernels and i've just accepted the fact that with this phone and the way I use it that's as good as it's going to get. To be honest i'm satisfied with that because in order for me to get 2+ hours of screen on time it has to be my day off, otherwise i'm too busy.
Also, i'm pulling 14-16 hours per charge with 2-2.5 hours of screen on time which in my opinion is great. I just want it to last all day and for me it does.

Try LeanKernel.
I get at least 4 hours battery life with:
Version: GSM GNex
ROM: AOKP Milestone 3 (power saver mode off)
Kernel: Lean Kernel
Battery: 2000 mAh
Frequency: 350/1200 Conservative
UV: Stock
3G/HSPA/LTE: 3G/HSPA and my network doesn't support 2G
What's off: BT, WiFi unless I'm home, Sync for Calender Contacts Browser and Photos.
Brightness: About 40-50%
Daily, I use: Netflix/Poweramp/Spotify/Reddit on my daily commute. Phone/Poweramp/Spotify/Reddit/Browser+ in between commute.
Even without the extended battery like you I would at least get 3.5 hours.

#1- people getting over 3 hours of screen time are on wifi the whole time, have 4g off, are minimalists with no syncing and no voice calls, or a combination of any of these.
#2 - based on your graph you have a lot of wake locks. Look at how often your phone is awake when your screen is off. That is KILLING your battery life. Disable or uninstall rogue apps, and turn off GPS and location services seems to help with this. Also reduce your amount of sync intervals if you can.
I have stock 4.0.2 unrooted GSM with extended battery.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

republitarian said:
#2 - based on your graph you have a lot of wake locks. Look at how often your phone is awake when your screen is off. That is KILLING your battery life. Disable or uninstall rogue apps, and turn off GPS and location services seems to help with this. Also reduce your amount of sync intervals if you can.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look at the betterbatterystats for wakelocks; looks like lookout kept half an hour, the rest are mostly sync.

Try to remove all widgets for a while. This can rule things out.

I'm running the exact same thing M3 with Franco 15.2 except I have the extended battery. This is with almost 0 idle time. Literally playing games, rrading forums, texting, etc.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

Sorry posted wrong one. Here is my screen time.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

Aww c'mon *cry*
I only have the calendar, clock and palmary weather widges (6 hour auto update). As far as I can tell Lookout and Sync are the *****es - literally. But that doesn't solve the idle drain, with the phone sleeping, it seems like 2-3% every hour or something like that.

That doesn't sound right. I have everything running as well. I don't use lookout any longer though. I'm sure if I just did the idle test I can get over a day of on battery time and still reach nearly 5 hours of on screen time. That's mostly Wifi which is suppose to drain more battery life, but I haven't seen the difference from being on 3G. This is a good set up.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

I don't know if this is important but its a good note, I have not touched the performance settings or done any UV, not experienced enough, but I still produced those results.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

I think you should try removing lookout. Take for example my awake times when screen is off. I sync Gmail, photos,remember the milk, and beautiful widgets.
Also major battery awake drain in beginning of my graph is due to streaming Google music when screen was off so perfectly normal.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

Alright, I will remove Lookout. What alternative do you recommend, in case someone pick pockets my phone? Preferably free or cheap w/ Internet access. I'm thinking of Cerberus, as it'll be impossible for any wanna be thief to remove; I suppose the 3 EUR license is for device, right? Does it persist through ROM flashes (i.e. based on IMEI).
As for WiFi drain, on 3G it would be worse - it's longer range thus it needs more power and if the signal is bad (lucky I get top notch at home, not so at school), it's even worse.
When I get some more cash I'll order the extended battery and a dock off eBay, then I'll have a large main battery and the original one as a reserve.
EDIT: I've added the stats for this day. Better overall, the phone was used more intensively so getting a bit higher screen on time is good. I disabled Google Talk, I see it keeping the phone awake for a significant time, but I never use it. I also get rid of Palmary Weather and switched to the built in app, I'll see tomorrow how it goes.

The screenshots on the original post show sharp increase in battery drain when there is a) screen on and b) no mobile network signal.
In my opinion, these are two if the biggest culprits. The screen is obviously a power hog, especially with max brightness, and the lack of a network signal forces the phone to increase power to the radio in order to find a stable connection.

samizad said:
In my opinion, these are two if the biggest culprits. The screen is obviously a power hog, especially with max brightness, and the lack of a network signal forces the phone to increase power to the radio in order to find a stable connection.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well with the screen there's nothing you can do; A big screen will use a lot of power, a dense screen with use a lot of power, both is even worse. If this were an LCD instead of OLED the battery life with Holo would be horrible. Turning the brightness even lower than my tuned auto levels is not an option - the phone would be impossible to use due to the glossy nature of glass. As for the network, I can't do anything about that - the school building is built from reinforced concrete, that sucks up the signal pretty well and it's downtown, where the signal is already quite shoddy; at home I have a celullar tower 1km away so I get excellent reception, not so downtown.
But I'm not complaining about those. I mean the background activity, mostly the idle wake time. I'll see what I get tomorrow now that I killed Lookout and Talk, those seemed to be two major hogs.

Seems like you have a lot of awake time. Try disabling Maps, Google+ and remove all widgets and test it for a day. If it is better now, you have ruled out signal problems.

Is there any way to reduce the interval of Google sync events? (gtalk_async_conn) When I was at home on WiFi I got a sync maybe once every few hours (seen as wake). As soon as I left and turned WiFi off the sync was like every 10 minutes, which is weird, as in the AOKP ROM Control power save settings I set it to PREFER WiFi.
Why do I get a LOT more sync wakelocks on mobile data than on WiFi when the ROM is set to prefer WiFi syncs?

best pattery save I have found is turning off various radios
I use an app Profile that can turn on/off bluetooth and wifi based upon the time of day. So it turns on wifi at 7 PM M-F and turns it off at 6 AM when I leave for work. I get great battery life, and I think it is due to the radios I turn on and off.

LeanKernel stable... all the way!!... ive tried his OC 1.42/230 but you start feeling the drainage...
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Believe it or not, activating wi-fi when I'm at home has actually increased my battery life substantially. No need to even turn it off; at the end of the day, it takes about 2% of your total battery life.
Care to post the "Power saving" app you are using, TC? The one that can activate 3G after the screen turns off? For so long I've been looking for such a powersaving app.

Ways to save battery on a rooted G2/Desire Z?

I have a rooted G2/Desire Z. What are some ways that I could save battery? It seems it takes only a few hours for it to reach 50%. Granted the phone is now >2 years old and the battery is probably aging. I've done all the basics such as screen brightness set to auto, dim after 30 seconds, etc. etc. etc. What more could I do?
Alternatively, are there any apps that can control the phone/cpu to work a certain way to save battery life?
Thanks

valeous said:
I have a rooted G2/Desire Z. What are some ways that I could save battery? It seems it takes only a few hours for it to reach 50%. Granted the phone is now >2 years old and the battery is probably aging. I've done all the basics such as screen brightness set to auto, dim after 30 seconds, etc. etc. etc. What more could I do?
Alternatively, are there any apps that can control the phone/cpu to work a certain way to save battery life?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Setcpu,set screen off profile to lower clock..freeze some bloatware up..and also try v6 supercharger
Sent from my HTC Desire Z using xda app-developers app

Easiest way:
Uninstall fabebook app, flash a sense rom where you can access most fb functions without the app.
For real, my battery life went from about 10% an hour to 4% an hour on average.
Sent from my HTC Vision using xda app-developers app

Honestly, way number 1 is to get a new battery. Old batteries just start to drain much faster as they get older. Pick up an Evo Design 4G stock battery for a nice boost.
2. Turn brightness off auto and put it as low as you can handle. Keep a brightness slider on your notification bar for those situations you need to turn it up quickly.
3.Turn everything that "syncs" off of push and set it for 1hour+ intervals if possible.
I have had great standby time using the OC daemon that is packaged with the mimicry ROM as well.

There is this trick that helps. On a monthly bases drain the battery and re-charge with the phone on ie also a good Rom an a good radio version like .19 will keep your battery good don't use lots of ram manager apps and bettery saver apps the run backgroung processes that drain your battery fast
HIT THANKS IF I HELPED
Sent from my HTC Desire Z using xda premium

With 2 year-old battery there are only 2 options:
1. Replace the battery
2. Buy a new phone

mruwek said:
With 2 year-old battery there are only 2 options:
1. Replace the battery
2. Buy a new phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^This (regards to #1), and working batteries are rather cheap, the fat one I got (3500mAh) was 9$, but you can easily get a stock replacement of the 1300-1500 range to fit with the default battery cover.
Far as tips, rooted or not:
1) Screen to automatic, or avoid 'full brightness'. Your screen consumes the most of your battery, automatic or lower brightness can improve the life significantly. This is the big one as your screen will typically be 80-90% of your battery life.
2) If you are near wifi often, System Setting -> Wifi -> Advanced (via menu) -> Sleep profile to always on. This will set it so that the wifi connectivity is always on even with the screen off. A connected good wifi connection uses far less battery than your 2G/3G data constantly searching for a good or better data connectivity. Simply turn off wifi completely when not in an area with wifi (or if you're driving around).
3) Avoid unnecessary applications. Don't use twitter? Freeze/Disable the application under manage app or under Titanium Backup (generally it's not good to 'uninstall' an application completely if it came with the rom).
4) SetCPU with profiles is one way to do it, unless your rom comes with a CPU Daemon already (ie: mimicry with virtuous OC Daemon), When setting a "screen off" profile, try not to go below 768mhz for the maximum, as going with 384mhz for example may be too slow for the phone to effectively wake up when a call or notification comes in.
5) You can use an app such as Tasker (not to be confused with task killer). Where you can assign automatic tasks, such as automatically setting Radio to 2G when connected to wifi (some roms like AOKP do this automatically under power control), or other tasks depending on the circumstances.
6) The first time you get a new battery, make sure you leave it on the charger for a good 5-6 hours so that it accurately 'tops off', the phone won't know accurately what's 100% and what's 0% until it has been fully charged (least 6 hours minimum), and fully drained, after which it'll more accurately report your battery % as it's used and will have more accurate usage stats.
7) If you're a T-Mobile subscriber, consider the 26.13.04.19 radio as well as the T-Mobile Wifi calling app, wifi uses less power in the long run than your radio via cell towers. If you'll be in a location that has wifi often you will benefit from this over not using Wifi Calling. (The main downside is you cannot currently send/receive MMS over wifi calling, but Calls and SMS[txt] work fine). Even if you don't use the wifi calling app, the 26.13.04.19 radio provides better battery life over the older one.
---------- Post added at 10:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:48 AM ----------
strip419 said:
There is this trick that helps. On a monthly bases drain the battery and re-charge with the phone on ie also a good Rom an a good radio version like .19 will keep your battery good don't use lots of ram manager apps and bettery saver apps the run backgroung processes that drain your battery fast
HIT THANKS IF I HELPED
Sent from my HTC Desire Z using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Course it helps to clear battery stats before performing this task so that the OS/Battery-Stats records the new maximum and minimum values of the battery. Though you don't need to do it monthly, I would say closer to 6 months would be appropiate if you don't want to make a monthly habit of it.
You mainly only do this on account of battery aging (over time the battery will not hold as much charge as it once did), You normally know if you need to do this task again if it appears to be on 98% or 99% forever never reaching 100%, meaning that the battery is no longer able to hold the juice to provide the former-maximum mV value, re-doing the battery stats simply makes the new maximum marked as 100%.
PS: Strip419, on an off-topic note, I tend not to 'thank' people who ask/beg for it. If your post is worthy of thanks, they'll be clicked on their own accord.

OK MAN I'LL KEEP THAT IN MIND
Sent from my HTC Desire Z using xda premium

Best rom I've ever used for battery life is EliteMod. That rom did something crazy, cause my phone lasted for days before it need charging, and I use facebook and all that good stuff. It's not as fast as other roms, but battery life is certainly the best on that rom.
Also yea, before with stock battery my phone would last a day at best, and now I have a 1800 battery that makes it last for 2 days easy. So if your phone is at least 2 years old, get a new battery. They're dirt cheap on Ebay or Amazon. The phone comes with a 1300 stock.

simply change for normal use 2G instead of 3G.

A couple of questions--I'm using EliteMod CM7
kbeezie said:
2) If you are near wifi often, System Setting -> Wifi -> Advanced (via menu) -> Sleep profile to always on. This will set it so that the wifi connectivity is always on even with the screen off. A connected good wifi connection uses far less battery than your 2G/3G data constantly searching for a good or better data connectivity. Simply turn off wifi completely when not in an area with wifi (or if you're driving around).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My Advanced settings don't look quite like yours, alas. (I'm using EliteMod cm7.) The section is entitled "Wi-Fi sleep policy, Specify when to switch from Wi-Fi to mobile data" and the only options are " When screen turns off," "Never when plugged in," and just plain "Never." I assume that the "Never" option, that is, never switch from Wi-Fi to mobile data, is what you mean...that is in any event the default (set by this particular ROM?)
But my problem goes beyond not quite understanding the semantics of "Never" (off?) vs. "Always on." What I continue to find odd is that my highest battery usages, at least according to Battery Monitor Widget, are never the screen at all; rather they are cell standby, Wi-Fi, phone idle and Android System...Display is down at 6% just now, for example (and I've been up for hours, have read the news on the phone, emailed, texted, etc. This is on EliteMod only, btw, I used Flinny's latest build (.94?) for a few days recently, and while battery usage was worse, at least the display was at the top of the list, where it (presumably?) belonged.
I have all the latest and greatest tweaks from the the forums (for cm7 roms, that is) the .19 radio and sd-ext and all ext4 partitions. Am running the generic 3500mah "fat boy" battery...drained and refilled several times, all according to instructions...mine only shows maybe, umm, 2300 or so mah, but that's not the issue for just now...it's why my usage looks so odd, and how to fix it, if need be.
thanks to all,
p-d
oh yeah. I have long used (pre-rooting) Lookout and Pouzerate's Green Power free apps...have now turned them off (well, uninstalled them, in fact) just to see if, indeed, battery helper apps make things worse, running in the background... any thoughts on that topic would be welcome as well.

Moving to Q&A