Develop Bugs

Battery Life

I have a widget that shows me how much I have left and when I unplug it after a full charge, I have 6 hours left.
Ridiculous.
This is on auto brightness, wifi, twitter/facebook/mail updating every 15 minutes.
whenever I take my phone out the house I have to bring a charger...
bloody ridiculous.

couple of points.
1) When you leave the house, don't leave your wi-fi on! I find wi-fi to be the biggest battery drain out of everything ( expect gps)
2) I use a brightness widget, therefore when your in doors you can have it on low, then when your out doors have it on high, i assume this will use less battery then auto brightness
3) why do you need facebook updating every 15 minutes?? Do you honestly look at your phone that much when your out? change the settings so it updates every 15 when your on wi-fi at home, and every hour for when your not.

Wifi isn't an issue. I leave it on 24/7 as well as bluetooth and still can get 36 hours out od a charge. Its hooked up to wifi 20hrs a day as well.

Phil750123 said:
2) I use a brightness widget, therefore when your in doors you can have it on low, then when your out doors have it on high, i assume this will use less battery then auto brightness
3) why do you need facebook updating every 15 minutes?? Do you honestly look at your phone that much when your out? change the settings so it updates every 15 when your on wi-fi at home, and every hour for when your not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks!
1) whats the name of this widget? sounds good
2) is there a setting for that? cant find it

I have a widget that shows me how much I have left and when I unplug it after a full charge, I have 6 hours left.
Ridiculous.
This is on auto brightness, wifi, twitter/facebook/mail updating every 15 minutes.
whenever I take my phone out the house I have to bring a charger...
bloody ridiculous.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Battery and other constantly updating widgets are one of the causes for battery drain. Get rid of it.
2. Battery widgets try to get an estimate of your typical use. They are mostly wrong in my opinion
3. I can get 6 hours of battery, yes, but only if glue the phone to my hand and use it constantly for that time
4. there are tons of battery threads around, use those suggestions (mid brightness, no live wallpaper, turn airplane on when you know coverage will be unavailable for long, etc)
5. Battery gets better in 10 days.
6. Most people can get at the very least one day of heavy usage. If you really need to hammer the battery get a spare one, they are cheap. Oh, and realize you are lucky because you CAN have a spare battery !
7. If you are using an automatic task killer, get rid of it.

callummc said:
thanks!
1) whats the name of this widget? sounds good
2) is there a setting for that? cant find it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) go to the market and search brightness level, or brightness widget, there are a number of these. The best i find is brightness level by curvefish, it lets you pick a percentage and keep at that .
2) Cant remeber actually where the settings are but there is a way. But i prefer to use another widget, autosync on/off, this allows you to update every 15 when on wi-fi, but when you want to save battery, turn auto sync off and it doesnt sync ,

I suggest you use switchpro widget. its like the power control widget but with more options to turn on/off things.

I typically charged my Nokia N97 every other day or so, even though I used it frequently, and needless to say the HTC Desire doesn't have the same stamina. I was quite frustrated by it, and I started thinking of ways to save power. I came up with 19 tips, and I have actually noticed quite a difference by following them
19 Tips to Keep the HTC Desire Running a Little Longer

Nice post thanks.ill give this a go. But I have a question to do with the positioning using data or gps. I believe your stating that you should turn data off for this purpose, and let the gps do it? however my phone was set to opposite. when I changed as you were suggesting and I clicked allow gps, I had a message come up saying to turn off to conserve battery? But your saying to turn on? And have data off? Also how do you get into htc facebook settings,i cant even find it!

dingdong3000 said:
I suggest you use switchpro widget. its like the power control widget but with more options to turn on/off things.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yep i also use this widget
also use a free juice defender or paid ultimate juice that keeps turning on and off your 3g every now and then depending on how you schedule it, my phone with snowstorm weather widget updating every 80 minutes + 30s of 3g every 5 minutes to update mail etc and average usage lasts about 36 hours which is good enough for me

I leave my WI-FI on at home and suffer hardly any drain.
At work like today leave my Mobile network on down to 47% with just twitter usage!
Pathetic is the mobile signals drain.

MapleDouglas said:
I typically charged my Nokia N97 every other day or so, even though I used it frequently, and needless to say the HTC Desire doesn't have the same stamina. I was quite frustrated by it, and I started thinking of ways to save power. I came up with 19 tips, and I have actually noticed quite a difference by following them
19 Tips to Keep the HTC Desire Running a Little Longer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, ive had another read of this and am now just even more confused! Are you saying to have gps turned off via settings and location aswell as data, or just having gps on? Are you saying that having gps selected via settings for the purpose of locating services uses les batty than via using data? Either way, it appeatss that the power control widget controls the gps the same as via settings. Right now ive deselected gps and the data location.

Dunbad said:
Ok, ive had another read of this and am now just even more confused! Are you saying to have gps turned off via settings and location aswell as data, or just having gps on? Are you saying that having gps selected via settings for the purpose of locating services uses les batty than via using data? Either way, it appeatss that the power control widget controls the gps the same as via settings. Right now ive deselected gps and the data location.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe this is what I'm saying:
"To let your device learn your location via wireless network triangulation requires less battery than by using the GPS for this purpose. However, using both methods simultaneously is probably not a good idea from a battery point of view. The GPS can handle this task by itself, although it will get a fix on your location a little bit slower. Also, wireless network positioning will be used to collect anonymous Google location data, which will drain the battery further. You can change this option from Settings > Location > Use wireless networks. "
In other words, to only use wireless network positioning will supposedly use less battery than by only using the GPS, but using both methods will naturally use the most juice

For me...
- Turn GPS On when I needed.
- Turn WiFi On when I needed
- Turn Bluetooth On when I needed
- Use 2G Network for standard internet, we use 3G if we want more speed such us watch video

jauhari said:
For me...
- Turn GPS On when I needed.
- Turn WiFi On when I needed
- Turn Bluetooth On when I needed
- Use 2G Network for standard internet, we use 3G if we want more speed such us watch video
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can get get good days heavy usage (except games) from mine, I haven't tried the 2G thing yet.
Apparently it is the connectivity thing that kills the battery, but turning off 3G, doesn't that take all the fun out of it???
If you just use it as a phone then I reckon you can get a couple of days out of it, or so I've read...

[Q] can't get GPS to work properly

I keep having problems with getting a gps fix on my DHD.
I turn on the GPS on the phone, also setting it to checked in the "Location" settings, and I wait forever. Yesterday I tried using the Compass app (By Catch.com), the GPS Status app, Tried using My Tracks and RunKeeper, and couldn't get a fix.
Every time I go back to the "Location" settings, and check and uncheck the "Use wireless networks" box, and also turn on or off the WIFI radio. But nothing seemed to work.
This morning I tried again, set My Tracks to record the road, and it did get a fix after about 5 minutes - So sometimes it does work.
I did manage to get fixes at various times, using all the apps above, but most times I need to fiddle with it quite a lot before it works, by checking and unchecking stuff. Sometimes it finally gets a fix with the "Use wireless networks" checked, and wifi turned on (even on locations where I have no wifi), and sometimes when its off.
Using the GPS Status app I see it usually finds 8-11 satellites, and they all seem green and with high bars, but I get no location at the end. Also with the Compass - I can see it connects to 10/10, but there is no long/lat.
What can cause all this mess? Is there some known bug with the gps? Or maybe some apps are interfering with others?
I also don't have any data plan (2g or 3g), so I only surf on wifi. Maybe this trows the location off somehow?

My location results are less accurate than 3g but still usable. Have you had better gps results from other devices? Your area might have some problems.
Cheers from my DHD.

When it works, it works just fine. Today on my way to work it succeeded in getting a fix after several minutes (which I still consider to be a bit too long - it should do it in less than a minute).
Last week, during a short jog outside of my house, it got a fix using RunKeeper.
Two days ago, while walking outside for well over an hour, and seeing in all the apps it finds multiple satellites, I could not get any fix at all. I want to use GPS only, no need for 3g or wifi. It should be enough (And had been enough on other occasions).
And it wasn't only defective two nights ago - many times I can't seem to get a fix. And only occasionally I get it to work properly.

I have the same problem ,i flashed a few different radios to try them and getting a gps lock was a nightmare.Originally i was on radio 26.03.02.26 and it was actually fine(shouldnt have messed with something that works.I have now flashed back to that radio and same problems.
i am sitting here with the misses hd and it instantly finds 6 sats and gets a gps lock while my hd finds one and does nothing.
i turn off gps on both phones ,turn back on and now her phone gets a lock at least 1 min faster.
Seems to be first time using gps after booting phone,once i have turned gps on give it a few mins then turn it off.I now run gps status on both phones,gps turns on and now get 2 more sats and a much lower error reading.

I have the same issues with gps, if I leave my phone flat on the dashboard of my car so that the screen is facing upwards, the gps seems to work without losing a fix, maybe because it connects to more satellites.
when I place the phone in my dash mount, it seems to drop signals and loses location.
I have tried a solution which I found while browsing the net extensively for the problem you mentioned and there does not seem to be much info on the issue. The solution I found on the net seemed to have made a huge difference although more testing is needed.
I have downloaded a program called "Tracker Booster - Tracker Booster is a small utility to help sports tracker applications (e.g. Endomondo) to get best possible GPS signal by keeping the GPS unit active in the background." It is available for free from the market, the way to use it is by starting this program up and then clicking "Start Booster" followed by "send to Background", then load GPS Status, hopefully once you see some satellites on GPS status and have a fix, you can now load your sat nav software or google maps, I use co-pilot.
Once you have finished with using the GPS, remember to stop Tracker Booster as it runs in the background and keeps your GPS on constantly which will no doubt drain the battery.
This so far has worked for me and as I have stated earlier, I need to do a few more trips before I can say that it works all the time.
I think this is the best solution until something better comes up.

This is not whats happening to me - When it's not working properly, I can't seem to get a fix at all, even after a long while. When I do get a fix, it works just fine even when the DHD is in my pocket, or facing sideways.

Has anyone one of you guys tried using gps status from android market?
Download it reset agps data than redownload agps data and that's it.
I get a fix in aprox 10s without it is few minutes
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

To turn off, or not to turn off

I am using android 2.3.7 (inc deck gingerbread).
Ok, I just read that the GPS check box (in the setting menu, or quick settings or whatever) does not actually turn the GPS antenna on and off, it only gives permission to the apps (gps-using-apps) whether they can turn the antenna on and off. Therefore, changing the GPS checkbox does not really save any battery. Simply by turning off gps-using-apps the antenna gets shut down, and then the icon disappears. The checkbox is simply there in case I don't want the app to have the ability to turn it on, as needed.
I just was hoping to get confirmation that this is true, yes?
Ok so that leads me to wonder about the Wifi and and Mobile Data check boxes (or toggles, whatever). When my phone is connected to Wifi and the 3G icon disappears, does that mean my phone just automatically turned off the 3G antenna?
I just upgraded to the Pro version of that fabulous little app Automateit... and just wonder if it is pointless to set up a rule to turn off 3G when it is connected to Wifi.

Yep. I would keep GPS ticked on because it does not actually go on unless you have an app (like navigation) open.
- Other programs may use GPS for a few seconds just to read your location, then they turn it off (such as weather programs) - this type of GPS usage really doesn't affect battery.
When you turn WiFi on it does turns off mobile data (3G) and you only have 1x.

GPS is only used when asked by an app or maybe the browser. Wifi on the other hand is always scanning. I recommend turning it off if you don't need it.
Sent from my HTC Droid Incredible

Thanks guys.
I have my wifi scan interval set to scan every 5 minutes. Hopefully that won't waste too much juice. he he
And if that wasn't stingy enough... with Automateit, my GPS, wifi and 3g get deactivated when the screen is off (all activate when screen is on). My battery life is pretty good, even overclocked . When I plugged in, going to bed the other night, I had 85% of my battery remaining (14 hours unplugged).
I should probably stop worrying about battery life.

iowabeakster said:
Thanks guys.
I have my wifi scan interval set to scan every 5 minutes. Hopefully that won't waste too much juice. he he
And if that wasn't stingy enough... with Automateit, my GPS, wifi and 3g get deactivated when the screen is off (all activate when screen is on). My battery life is pretty good, even overclocked . When I plugged in, going to bed the other night, I had 85% of my battery remaining (14 hours unplugged).
I should probably stop worrying about battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah you really shouldn't have to be worrying about battery life, it's something that use to drive me insane so I just bought a 2150mah battery and haven't looked back since.

Seeing equal or better battery life on wifi vs bluetooth

There were lots of comments (and still are) about how wifi is a battery killer on android wear. I'm not seeing this to be the case at all, when it's working like it's supposed to.
Since 5.1.1 my battery use has been around 3% and hour with all features on. Turning off bluetooth on my phone, with a 2/3 wifi signal on the watch, I'm seeing 2.5 to 3%.
Quick drain happens when walking around the edge of bluetooth range, as the watch switches back and forth between bluetooth and wifi. It seems that as long as it's not finding bluetooth, battery use is normal at worst for me.
I know that the moto 360 will switch to a state of only checking for updates occasionally to save battery, but I don't see this happening. Notifications are coming to the phone, and shortly afterward on the watch. I have not seen a time when a notification was delayed more than a few seconds.
The downside to wifi-only use: some apps that communicate with a phone app don't work. My watchmaker face doesn't update the phone battery level. Google voice commands fail too often, maybe half of the time.
I think google should change the frequency of attempting to reestablish bluetooth connection while on wifi.
Has anyone else tried this? Either turn off your phone's bluetooth, or make sure it is well out of range.

I'll give it a go tomorrow at the office and report back.
Sent from my Xperia Z3

Thanks to a heads up by DarkRazorZ, I learned wifi can be turned on in airplane mode. Will be looking to see if this makes any more difference.

Watch maker has been my biggest battery drain. It also makes the drop down menu laggy and impossible to use.

Yeah, I had that problem with watchmaker. I use intelligent and it seems to work well. Other people report facet works too.

I concur. Wi-Fi uses a lot less battery than Bluetooth, with an acceptable lag - 1-2 seconds on notifications. Bluetooth seems like a big battery drain on the phone and on the watch.
Sent from my Xperia Z3+

Battery life

I am suprised, there still is no battery life thread.
People must be very happy with their battery lifes or nobody is buying this tablet
I do have one big issue with battery life.
WIFI is the biggest battery hog, using 2-3 times more battery than the screen.
For 3 hours WIFI roughly 1400mAh.
So I only manage like 5 hours of SOT.
Btw. I have set WIFI to be disabled, when the screen is off.
Any suggestions?

I haven't had mine off charge long enough to really be able to comment about this yet but I can't complain with it so far.

Mine seems good so far. Had one freeze as you can see. 33% left.

bill3508 said:
Mine seems good so far. Had one freeze as you can see. 33% left.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Still, I think it is strange (as seen in your screen shots), that WIFI accounts for almost half of your battery usage. And 5+ hours SOT is only 6%?
Could you be so kind and post the screen for wifi too, so we can see the "computed power use"?
When looking at my phone, wifi is at 52 mAh power use over an 18 hour period, on this tablet it is 2700 mAh for 10 hours.
An alarming discrepancy.
Or am I missing something?

supersquishy said:
Still, I think it is strange (as seen in your screen shots), that WIFI accounts for almost half of your battery usage. And 5+ hours SOT is only 6%?
Could you be so kind and post the screen for wifi too, so we can see the "computed power use"?
When looking at my phone, wifi is at 52 mAh power use over an 18 hour period, on this tablet it is 2700 mAh for 10 hours.
An alarming discrepancy.
Or am I missing something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here you go. I'm guessing screen is only 6% because the tablet has been up now for 4 days, so 6 hours is a small portion of the activity.

supersquishy said:
I am suprised, there still is no battery life thread.
People must be very happy with their battery lifes or nobody is buying this tablet
I do have one big issue with battery life.
WIFI is the biggest battery hog, using 2-3 times more battery than the screen.
For 3 hours WIFI roughly 1400mAh.
So I only manage like 5 hours of SOT.
Btw. I have set WIFI to be disabled, when the screen is off.
Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesnt Wifi use more battery when its connecting and reconnecting with it disabled when the screen is off?

ZiggSVO said:
Doesnt Wifi use more battery when its connecting and reconnecting with it disabled when the screen is off?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really don't know. You may be right.
I guess the high wifi in battery stats is a reporting error / miscalculation. I have wiped the cache partition in recovery (to fix my ambient light sensor) and ever since wifi is at the bottom of my battery list.
And I did not get any better SOT, so there could not have been any real battery drain from wifi even when it held the top spot in the stats.
Still disappointed with only 4-5h SOT.
Thanks everybody for helping out.

ZiggSVO said:
Doesnt Wifi use more battery when its connecting and reconnecting with it disabled when the screen is off?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No its still going to use far less unless your picking it up every 30 seconds or so.

bill3508 said:
No its still going to use far less unless your picking it up every 30 seconds or so.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my understanding of how android has utilized the wifi sleep policy is that its best to leave wifi always on when sleep. It will use more battery to reconnect to the wifi network when it is woken up and disconnect when sleeping.
Any sources to support your theory? I'd like to read up on it more.
Info I've always followed. This is from 2011 as well:
"This tip is one that seems counter-intuitive, but you can save a lot of wear and tear on your Android phone's battery if you tell it to keep the Wifi radio turned on and connected while the phone is sleeping. Your phone needs a lot of juice to keep pinging those cell towers, and even more to transmit data to and from them. Wifi radios use much less power because of their design, and they don't have to keep searching for a better access point. It's the way cellular data communication was designed, and it's a necessary evil.
But what if you're spending all day (or all evening) in one place, connected to Wifi? If you tell your phone to shut off Wifi when idle, it bounces back to cellular data (be it 2G, 3G, or 4G) and starts sucking down the electrons again when the screen shuts off. That's no good, and easy to fix:
Open the advanced Wifi settings by pressing the menu button, then Settings, Wireless & networks, Wi-Fi settings, and tapping the menu button again. You'll have a choice to either Scan, or go Advanced -- go Advanced.
Tap the Wi-Fi sleep policy entry, and you'll get a pop up dialog with the choices you see in the picture above. Choose Never.
Now even when your phone goes into standby mode, you'll stay connected to Wifi and be able to get mail and messages without turning the cell radio back on and trouncing your battery life. And for the times when you're not in an area with a Wifi connection, just shut Wifi off, either through the menu or with a handy toggle widget. Your battery will thank you for it."

ZiggSVO said:
my understanding of how android has utilized the wifi sleep policy is that its best to leave wifi always on when sleep. It will use more battery to reconnect to the wifi network when it is woken up and disconnect when sleeping.
Any sources to support your theory? I'd like to read up on it more.
Info I've always followed. This is from 2011 as well:
"This tip is one that seems counter-intuitive, but you can save a lot of wear and tear on your Android phone's battery if you tell it to keep the Wifi radio turned on and connected while the phone is sleeping. Your phone needs a lot of juice to keep pinging those cell towers, and even more to transmit data to and from them. Wifi radios use much less power because of their design, and they don't have to keep searching for a better access point. It's the way cellular data communication was designed, and it's a necessary evil.
But what if you're spending all day (or all evening) in one place, connected to Wifi? If you tell your phone to shut off Wifi when idle, it bounces back to cellular data (be it 2G, 3G, or 4G) and starts sucking down the electrons again when the screen shuts off. That's no good, and easy to fix:
Open the advanced Wifi settings by pressing the menu button, then Settings, Wireless & networks, Wi-Fi settings, and tapping the menu button again. You'll have a choice to either Scan, or go Advanced -- go Advanced.
Tap the Wi-Fi sleep policy entry, and you'll get a pop up dialog with the choices you see in the picture above. Choose Never.
Now even when your phone goes into standby mode, you'll stay connected to Wifi and be able to get mail and messages without turning the cell radio back on and trouncing your battery life. And for the times when you're not in an area with a Wifi connection, just shut Wifi off, either through the menu or with a handy toggle widget. Your battery will thank you for it."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know that leaving WiFi on runs your battery down on any device when its connected and it takes all of 2-3 seconds to connect. No reason to leave it on full time when your not using it. Also, the device is continuously checking and sending small amounts of data to maintain that connection.
Were talking about the pixel here and not a cellular device.

Pretty happy with the C.

I haven't really payed attention to how long this device lasts, I use it pretty casually so it lasts me up to a week. I have used it to stream movies and it has lasted me the whole day (8 hours) watching movies with about 30% left. Compared to other tablets I've had including the nexus 9 this one blows them all away. My old nexus 9 would die after a few episodes (about an hour)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I streamed a good 6 hours of a live feed on battery and the device used around 50%, can not complain with the battery life at all with this device

bill3508 said:
Pretty happy with the C.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Was that with bluetooth (and keyboard) on?

Ves said:
Was that with bluetooth (and keyboard) on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, just WiFi, don't have a keyboard.

As a heads up, there appears to be a WiFi issue with MM itself. I'm seeing the same issue on my Nexus 7 2013 running a MM ROM, and I found a thread online talking about it...maybe from the Android Central forums or something, I can't remember now. People seem to be unsure as to whether or not WiFi is actually causing a battery drain, or if it's just reporting incorrectly. But at least on my N7, the battery can drop 40-50% in one day while on standby, and when I have WiFi set to Off when it's sleeping. And I used to get DAYS of standby time before going to MM.
Edit: Here's an XDA thread about it: http://forum.xda-developers.com/google-nexus-5/general/guys-call-wifi-battery-drain-6-0-t3219870

I had the same issue with WiFi battery bug on the nexus 5. Fixed it via router by turning off the auto disconnect (the option where router decides if a device can connect based on signal strength) on both 2ghz and 5ghz. After this the Wifi went back down to the bottom of the battery list. Long shot, and most likely not even related, but hope it helps anyone.
On a Asus rt router.