I have been getting excellent battery life with my EVO running Baked Snack 1.7 and Netarchy's kernel. Typically I'll end the day with ~70% battery left.
Last tuesday however, I went out to the US Open in Flushing, and it was drain city. When I got home, I had ~20% battery left. Keep in mind, I had full or mostly full bars the whole time, so I don't know that it was really a signal problem.
Weds-thursday, my battery was fine as I stayed here on Manhattan and was back to getting my ~30% total drain in a day.
Last night I went back out to Flushing again for a Mets game, and came home with ~18% battery left.
WTF? Is there something wrong with my EVO? I had heard a rumor about these phones having trouble connecting to Motorola towers or something like that, but not sure if it's true. Is there anything I can do to fix this?
Stay in manhattan.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
is 4g enabled while in flushing and not in manhattan?
If in Manhattan, your phone is connected to WiFi access points, it will favor that connection over 3G and its time syncing data using that lower power radio. When you are not around a WiFi point (maybe when you are in Queens), your phone is forced into 3G.
One thing that will help in general, is to make sure the following is set:
Settings / Wireless / Mobile Networks / (uncheck always-on)
Thanks - much appreciated. Unfortunately, I had wifi off, and 4G off as well, so I don't think it was related. I typically keep wifi off when not at home and don't see that much of a drain.
It happened again today when I was visiting a friend in Dumbo. It seems like the phone is constantly searching for towers, even though it has a connection. I don't know.
So, I'm fairly certain it's a well-established fact that the constant switching from 4G to 3G drains a lot of battery on our phones since 4G isn't a widespread service yet. I have also heard that 4G is a more efficient antenna and if you have a constant 4G connection, the battery life isn't impacted much. I was wondering how much of this is true- I live in Atlanta, which was one of the first cities to get Verizon's LTE service, and as a result, I have a sold 3-4 bar signal of 4G at all times. I go to school downtown, work in the metro area, and live in the metro area. Since I got the phone, I've just left it on CDMA, as the speeds are fine for me and I typically get 30 hours or so of battery life with data and sync on (and WiFi, when available). Would switching to 4G change that number drastically?
Thanks!
Also, a side question: I leave GPS turned on as that only polls when an application calls for it, but I've left Google's Location Services off. Is there a real need to leave that on? With GPS only, I tend to get an immediate reading with wonderful accuracy.
I'm calling bs. Please post a screenshot of your battery life of 30+ with gps and 3g all day.
rabaker07 said:
I'm calling bs. Please post a screenshot of your battery life of 30+ with gps and 3g all day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd be happy to post a screenshot the next time I run my phone down. As I said, GPS doesn't drain your battery at all unless you're using Maps constantly, so that isn't really a major factor for me. Also, I DO have the extended battery.
Also, I can't help but note how this doesn't really relate to the content of the thread at all.
rabaker07 said:
I'm calling bs. Please post a screenshot of your battery life of 30+ with gps and 3g all day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not at all what the topic was about but it's easily possible. I've gotten 30 hours on 3G no problem. Right now I'm at 20% after 20 hours with moderately heavy usage. Close to 4 hours of screen on time.
As for the topic, best way to find out is to try it. Couldn't tell you for certain one way or the other.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
hotleadsingerguy said:
Not at all what the topic was about but it's easily possible. I've gotten 30 hours on 3G no problem. Right now I'm at 20% after 20 hours with moderately heavy usage. Close to 4 hours of screen on time.
As for the topic, best way to find out is to try it. Couldn't tell you for certain one way or the other.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right, I suppose that would be the easiest approach. I just fear starting my day out on 4G and then realizing that my battery is shot when I really need it. Though, I could always just turn data off if I see my battery draining super quick.
Hello everyone.
So I bought this phone this past Friday and been having a blast with it. I bought the 2100mah verizon/samsung extended battery yesterday to have a bit better battery life with it. I have patience with battery life, so I'm ready to try anything.
Here's part 1 of my post (radio): So I'm on 4.0.4. I have the radio that comes with it. I noticed I can only get 1-2 bars (rarely 3) of signal at times. I read that the best way to post about this is in dBm so here are mines: -100 to -120 80% of the time. This is on 3g/4g/wifi. And it's rarely on 4g, it is always jumping to 3g. My mom has a thunderbolt and to test, I saw the thunderbolt had better dBm and always had a 4g signal, 3-4 bars constant, rarely 3g. I'm in Miami, Florida if it matters, which is a strong 4g area. When it's on 3g it gets very good signal, 3-4 bars and -80 dBm. Though sometimes I noticed my wi-fi gets 4 bars for like 10 minutes and returns back to 2 bars.
Anything I can do as far as the Radio, some people have fixed it with a new sim card but before I go get one (are they free?) let's see what I can try? Perphaps a new radio?
Part 2: Alright now as for the battery life. Here are my phone "stats": (screenshots are posted at the bottom of post for battery)
-4.0.4 Stock ROM nothing changed, just an unlocked bootloader.
-WiFi on when at home, off when using 3g/4g.
-NFC On.
-No syncing, everything updates when I open app (twitter, weather)
-Gmail is set to push, atleast I think so. It notifies me of a new email every time.
-48% Screen Brightness
-Signed OFF from Google+
That's it I believe, if anything else is needed let me know.
I have the XDA version of BetteryBatteryStats, so I guess I have the tool to fix it just need to pinpoint what the problem is. I'm draining at 2%-3% per hour with wi-fi, and no usage, just idle. Again this is with 4.0.4 update. I'm seeing people's battery life becoming awesome with some tweaking, so would like assistance on that.
Here are my screenshots:
Day 1 with ext battery on 4.0.4:
Day 2 with ext battery on 4.0.4:
Have you confirmed that you have the new radios installed?
I515.09 V.FA02 / I515.FA02 (or could show as I515.10 V.FA02 / I515.FA02)
You probably did that, but just wanted to be sure.
I have: I515.09 V.FA02 / I5I5.FA02
I appreciate the help!
How far off are you on strength from the T-Bolt? I think it's the 4.0.4 radios and I'll get into why I think that. Note that the following isn't scientific and I haven't really tested it, so don't spread this like it's fact. I live in a really strong 4G area, so in general I haven't noticed a difference with any of the various modems (I've tried them all). I will say that I worked for a week once in an area with poor Verizon coverage, and I noticed that the 4.0.2 radios worked better for me than the 4.0.3. Like, no coverage with 4.0.3 after upgrading to it, so I whipped my laptop out and pushed the 4.0.2 radios and got from zero bars w/ coverage to 1 bar. I don't know how the 4.0.2 radios compare to 4.0.4, but you might give that a whirl.
In general, I think that radio hype is just that, hype, and there's a reason why a slew of radios never make the final cut, but with Verizon trying to patch 3G/4G connectivity, I do think it's worth trying some other radio's out to see what they do in your area.
I hesitate to say the following because I have NOT paid that much attention or done significant testing on our radios, which is something I've done with previous devices. So do NOT take this as gospel, rather with a healthy dose of salt.
In my limited observation with 4.0.4, at least in my neighborhood/area of Birmingham (I have an LTE tower practically in my back yard), the 4.0.4 radios ARE weaker. With 4.0.2 radios for example, I want to say I got -70dBm on CDMA/1X in the house and usually -72dBm to -75dBm on LTE in the house. Right now, typing this thread on 4.0.4 with the phone showing 5 bars, I just checked my strength on LTE and it was registering -94dBm here at the house when I rolled onto CDMA, it showed -75dBm. When I rolled back onto LTE, it showed -75dBm (displaying 5 bars the entire time) then went to -87dBm a few minutes later. This is with the phone sitting on it's normal spot on my desk.
Random, first thoughts with 4.0.4:
1) We know that Verizon requested "updated" display bars for 4.0.4
2) There could be an issue in 4.0.4 with dBm updating/display. I haven't been at the house all day, I have roamed around, but I doubt very seriously that my real signal strength on LTE was really -94dBm here at home. When I say I have an LTE tower in my backyard, I'm literally talking about 1/4 of a mile away, on top of a hill.
3) 4.0.4 is not always registering/reading signal strength correctly, which is causing devices in a weak area to fall off of 4G and onto 3G when the issue isn't really with the tower, physical hardware, or the modem package, but on the way 4.0.4 is interpreting the signal information it's pulling in (based SOLELY on watching the signal range I just observed on LTE). That said, it easily could just be the tower this afternoon. AGAIN, take it all with a grain of salt.
I recommend trying the 4.0.2 radios, at a minimum. I would list them, but I don't know our radios off the top of my head yet (too much Vibrant info is still in my brain). Search for them, they're easy to find. BE SURE to push the CDMA/LTE radios paired together. Like, the 4.0.2 radios together, 4.0.3 radios together. Do NOT mix and match.
Generally speaking for people in good LTE areas, I think the 4.0.4 radio package is GREAT. I've noticed zero slow down. Yeah, -87dBm (which is what I normally see here at the house) IS "weak" and it SUCKS to have wrong bars displayed but I haven't noticed any slow down on the network. I think slightly scaling down LTE strength is what has helped improve battery life. CDMA radio strength does not appear to have been affected, which is what you're gonna be on in rural areas anyway so unless you're on the fringe of LTE signal like the OP, I don't think this radio package is anything to complain or be worried about.
---------- Post added at 03:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:06 PM ----------
Also, in my experience as someone that travels all over for work, the only time that "weak" signal drains battery is when you're on the fringe of no connection and the OS is boosting power to the cell antenna's. On the old/real signal indicator, this was when you had a connection to Verizon with 0 bars and it was boosting you to 1 bar. I'm not comfortable stating a -dBm range because I can't remember what I observed and I didn't write it down. If you already have 1 or 2 bars (again, on the "old" signal indicator) you really don't see a boost given to the radios. By "boost", I mean you can click on the battery graph and see where signal strength went up and battery consumption did too, while your phone sat in the same place. I have a screen shot of this that I will try to find, and update this post with.
Looking at your screen shots, I don't see that affect. In general terms, your battery life looks "fine" "normal", whatever we want to call it. Bear in mind that our LTE GNex's don't get the same life as our GSM counterparts.
Edit:
Found the screen shot I was talking about. This was on stock 4.0.2 in my hotel room one night in a rural area. The night before I had data/sync on and noticed that when I woke up my battery was about dead. I knew it was due to signal strength since I was used to losing about 8% over night. So the following night I turned off data/sync and let it run over night, not wasting the opportunity to watch what would happen to battery life with and extra boost to the radio to get improved signal strength along with removing app/data activity from the battery consumption mix by keeping data/sync off. If I remember correctly, I went to bed @ 100% and woke up 7 hours 44 minutes later with something like 72% battery. Not only did the phone boost the power to the cellular antenna, but this activity also kept the phone from sleeping properly. I'm GLAD smart phone's can do this, but at a minimum, it turned a roughly 8% battery drain over X period of time into a 28% battery drain.
I hope my info/experiences haven't confused things further for you.
CDMA Input
So what have others found about CDMA battery life?? Mine is poor no matter what ROM or Kernel I seem to try to run. I also have attempted under voltages in SetCPU to see if that helps. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Peace.
photolarry said:
So what have others found about CDMA battery life?? Mine is poor no matter what ROM or Kernel I seem to try to run. I also have attempted under voltages in SetCPU to see if that helps. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Peace.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to define "poor". Everyone's use is different as are their apps. If you truly have poor battery life no matter what, look at the three things that are always probably the same. 1) Your physical battery. Is it defective? 2) The apps you use. Perhaps you have an app that is acting up and syncing like crazy or wasting CPU cycles. 3) The area you live in. Do you have poor signal strength?
The biggest drain on your battery is ALWAYS going to be your screen, and data/sync. In my personal use, my biggest drain is: Screen Brightness 100%, Netflix running, Audio 100% through the speaker. This equals about 30% per hour with the Verizon Extended Battery depending on what all else syncs in the background...with a live wallpaper.
Undervolting is a misleading thing. People will disagree with me, but when you look at power consumption tables, undervolting does very little. When our phones display battery % remaining, it's not based on the actual juice left in the battery. It's a calculation based on charts that the phone manufacturer (probably Google in our case) took from the hardware manufacturer and put into play that basically says that at this Processor Speed (X), this Level of Power Consumption Occurred (Y). It happened for this Amount of Time (Z) and then it compiles that data and solves for an amount of power used giving us a percentage of remaining battery life. In general, this is VERY accurate. However, there are no values programed in to account for undervolting...or OVER clocking for that matter. For example, if you're overclocked to 1350MHz, then Android is going to use the values for 1200MHz. If you put a timer on your battery life, you'll see a longer run if you run your phone until it shuts itself off. But it's not THAT big of a difference. All the while when your watching how quickly your battery bar drops with your use, you can't see a a measurable difference.
In my experience with undervolting, doing so got me maybe an extra 5% boost in battery life. I can't equate that to a time because again, usage is different. In general, a 5% swing in a charge cycle can be easily accounted for by other things. Does your processor use more juice @ 1200MHz with normal volting compared to 1200MHz undervolted? Absolutely, but undervolting isn't going to get someone hours of extra battery life, especially when our screens usually account for 60%+ of our battery consumption. All said and done, undervolting results in gaining us very few percentage points in terms of what percentage of battery life our processors consumed.
Seems like the kernel and rom do make some difference not just apps. I use AutoStarts to prevent a mess of them starting upon boot. I am sure the screen takes a ton of it. But I am convinced that it depends on voltages and kernels too. Since I notice differences.
I recommend trying the 4.0.2 radios, at a minimum. I would list them, but I don't know our radios off the top of my head yet (too much Vibrant info is still in my brain). Search for them, they're easy to find. BE SURE to push the CDMA/LTE radios paired together. Like, the 4.0.2 radios together, 4.0.3 radios together. Do NOT mix and match.
Generally speaking for people in good LTE areas, I think the 4.0.4 radio package is GREAT. I've noticed zero slow down. Yeah, -87dBm (which is what I normally see here at the house) IS "weak" and it SUCKS to have wrong bars displayed but I haven't noticed any slow down on the network. I think slightly scaling down LTE strength is what has helped improve battery life. CDMA radio strength does not appear to have been affected, which is what you're gonna be on in rural areas anyway so unless you're on the fringe of LTE signal like the OP, I don't think this radio package is anything to complain or be worried about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok KWK, but there's a trade off here. If I try the 4.0.2 radios, that some people reported bad battery life on, it's just because it had a bad trade off for SOME
people right? So that means 4.0.2 radios could be good for me and result in better battery? Can I be on 4.0.4 and have the 4.0.2 radios?
Anyone know where to find these 4.0.2 radios and how to flash?
As for the battery life part of my post, what do you guys think I should try doing in betterbatterystats? A recent thread on here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1483829&page=3 (Go to page 3 and last post) He got his life fixed. So that's nice to know there's tweaks that can be done. Any suggestions? Look at the http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1488680&page=6 thread too. "draining at 1% per hour in sleep mode & how are you doing it?"
I disagee with your comment about old 4.0.2 radios since 4.0.4 (FA02) radios have improved signal reception. It is possible that maybe it affects battery, but I kind of doubt it. Based on all the research so far, seems mostly screen eats it a lot as well as how you use all the apps on the phone as mentioned above. I mean isnt this a matter of some electrical engineering info (ie voltages etc) and how to tweak such things? I have CS degree but admit my hardware knowledge is not greatest.
Ugh, I'm in a mess now, lol. I called Verizon yesterday and followed their usual "signal solution" got me to 4 bars of 4g. Turned on WiFi - 2 bars, turned it off, back to 1-2 bar 4g that last for 30 seconds.
I'm starting to think it's the sim card.
Any suggestions for battery life? Seems my phone can't sleep. It's down to 83% after 5 hours. And all I've done is send 2-3 text messages. Do I turn off NFC for a start?
edit: Now I'm at 4 bars wifi. Goddam radios, they are so random, we'll assume the phone is trolling and continue to the solution.
bump for the night scary how fast it got to page 2.
let's get these issues fixed!
If your phone is searching for signal, then your battery life is already sucking it up. A "stronger" radio that uses a little more juice won't cause more drain than your phone will cause by throwing everything it can at the phone antenna. Just look at my screen shot from before...28% battery drained in 8 hours...an additional 20% due to the phone trying to keep a signal.
Like I said about your original screen shots, your battery life doesn't seem to be that "off to me". Just push different radios, and try them for at least a day.
Okay will do. Where can I find these other radios and how do I flash them?
Lastly, anyone here an expert on fixing phone isn't sleeping? Seems to be my major idle battery drain.
Icey34 said:
Okay will do. Where can I find these other radios and how do I flash them?
Lastly, anyone here an expert on fixing phone isn't sleeping? Seems to be my major idle battery drain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can find the radios here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1481095
If you have the 4.0.2 radios, you can flash that ZIP in Clockwork Recovery Mod.
It will take a few minutes so leave it be and don't do a battery pull.
Well I have the 4.0.4 radios, does that change anything?
edit: after looking at that link you provided, are those even radios only? Seems like a bootloader & radio update from 4.0.2 -> 4.0.4. And I'm already on 4.0.4. But with horrid signal.
I have had the best results with the 4.0.4 radios but you mention you are already on them.
You can try flashing some older radios but I am not sure that will help your signal issues.
As far as finding out why you are having deep sleep issues, you can use Better Battery Stats to narrow down wakelocks.
With that said, if the phone is constantly in an area with poor signal, that will cause unnecessary battery drain as well.
Where can I find these older radios?
edit: I'd like to try the 4.0.2 radio.
Update 1: So today I powered it on after having it off from 7:00 AM to 2:45 PM. It's been idle, checked email for replies on this post and this is my battery:
Something is eating up it's idle time.
I noticed on the way back to my House it picked up a strong 4G signal for 5 minutes or so. Still looking to find where the 4.0.2 radios are. Noticing a stronger WiFi signal though, and the usual 4bar 3g. All I can find is the post from adranalyne about the radios from 4.0.2 -> 4.0.4. Something I was thinking about: If I flash 4.0.2 radios, say they are bad and I need to go back to 4.0.4 would that require a whole new flash of 4.0.4 or are there seperate radios?
Here are the betterbattery screenshots: (I have for last unplugged and charged not sure where it needs to be)
I too have an LTE Galaxy Nexus and have been switching from franco's and lean kernel in an attempt to gain battery life. I have a feeling you're not going to get much better battery life with LTE turned on. I've turned off sync and LTE overnight and the best I've gotten in deep sleep is about 1-1.5% an hour. That's all after hunting down all my unnecessary wakelocks and shutting them down (GTALK_asnyc, etc) and keeping my running programs to a minimum (email, lightflow, and weather1 are the only ones ever running besides stock apps with sync on weather1 on a 6 hour cycle)
All of the two day battery life posts I've seen all seem to be GSM phones, and typically I've been getting a full day pretty comfortably...
8 hours while sleeping + 8-13 hours of light to moderate usage (1-3 hours of screen time generally)..all with about 10-25% remaining at the end of my long days
That's excellent. But one problems: (1) I can't even get a 4g signal, at most for 5 minutes in an area that I regularly get it. I have a thunderbolt next to me running 3-4 bars. I know the GNex has a bad radio, but sheesh I atleast want to have SOME 4g.
Been trying to find a radio, can't find one though, if you can link one that'd be appreciated.
Anything you see there in betterybatterystats I should shut down, and do they start backup after boot? I see the GTALK thing you were talking about on mines too, how do I get rid of it?
edit: just a few hours after my first post today:
I was just curious what you guys and gals were actually seeing from your batteries?
I have an LTE GNex that is rooted with APex ROM and Franco Kernel.
Everything i read is about all this fantastic battery life... im just not experiencing that. I did purchase francos app to keep the kernel updated and to support him. I am also running Antutu Battery Saver on Level 3. My phone will lose 10% an hour just replying to a few texts and sitting idle in my pocket. If i watch a few youtube videos or listen to some music itll drain quickly. Has any one experienced similar?
CPUspy shows that the phone spends most of its time in deep sleep... what is going on?
From the looks of your screenshot, it shows you have low signal. The phone could be dying faster trying to hold onto extra signal if you spend most of your time where the screenshot was taken
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium
00svt said:
I was just curious what you guys and gals were actually seeing from your batteries?
I have an LTE GNex that is rooted with APex ROM and Franco Kernel.
Everything i read is about all this fantastic battery life... im just not experiencing that. I did purchase francos app to keep the kernel updated and to support him. I am also running Antutu Battery Saver on Level 3. My phone will lose 10% an hour just replying to a few texts and sitting idle in my pocket. If i watch a few youtube videos or listen to some music itll drain quickly. Has any one experienced similar?
CPUspy shows that the phone spends most of its time in deep sleep... what is going on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
first thing i would do is get rid of that battery saver u dont need it and make sure ur on a current radio , mine and a few others battery posts are on frankos kernel thread page 747 . the first 20% OF my battery from full charge always drops fast than after that slows down . hope helps u
wow, thanks for the quick replies!
I thought maybe it could be struggling with a signal.. this house is the dang bermuda triangle of cell service... however with the same 2 bars of LTE im still getting decent speeds....
I am on the 4.0.2 radios only other ones i saw were the leaked 4.0.4 and from what i have read about them, they are iffy...
Thanks so much for posting a page number!!!!!!! i was getting worn out reading and finding nothing on his kernel page!!
I will ditch the battery app and see what happens with that...
I am also losing my OC... is this the fault of the kernel and the rom fighting to own the permission to OC ??? ill set it and check it a while later and ill be back to 1000mhz...
thanks again for the replies
much appreciated,
j
LTE will usually give you good speeds even with one bar. The problem is when the radio senses a weak signal the phone pushed more power to the radio in an attempt to catch and hold onto that signal
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium
joshnichols189 said:
LTE will usually give you good speeds even with one bar. The problem is when the radio senses a weak signal the phone pushed more power to the radio in an attempt to catch and hold onto that signal
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oohhhh that makes more sense then. so it could still be this dang house! lol
i will be in BFE west texas next week without a hint of LTE... ill put phone on CDMA and i bet my battery goes a full day then...
the Kernel Page only had 245 pages ... i didnt find the battery stuff... ill keep after it and see what i can come us with...
thanks again...
J
i have a gsm gnex and my house is also a very low signal area, 2 bars or 100 dBm is very good and the phone is constantly switching from edge to 3g but even with all this i still get excellent battery life. try switching radios like other said, certain radio are better at switching from 2g to 3g or LTE. im also using apex with the apex kernal. its the best one in terms of battery life, very simple and minimal but works great. there wasnt anything causing wakelocks.
did you check if you have any apps or process interrupting the phones sleep? 10% an hour seems more than just a radio problem but i could be wrong since LTE does use more power. try downloading better battery stats, its free, and will tell you what process or apps are waking your phone.
I would turn off lte and sync when not needed ...try stock rom and see how the battery life is...use it for few days then install a custom rom if needed
OK, So i downloaded better battery stats and found that i had a process that was really doing a number on me it was... "mobi.mgeek.TunnyBrowser" I did some research on it and found that it had to do with dolphin browser. I removed the browser, the bookmarks to SD, and the faster load... the process then went away and the battery percentages appeared to be more normal.
However im still losing battery really quickly. I unchecked some synced things that i dont use, browser, calendar, photos, music and wallet... hopefully this all helps.
I was sad to lose dolphin but i found Chrome instead... very very nice!!
I will watch the processes... i did not see anything that was waking the phone..
Thanks again!
J