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Hey all, so I have a different theory on the GNex battery issue but I'm not sure how to test it. It also might explain why there has been such a discrepancy in people's battery stats.
My theory is that there is something wrong with the way ICS/GNex is charging/reading/identifying battery information. Here are a few of the reasons why I think this is the case.
1 - My phone will occasionally charge absurdly fast, like 20 percent in 10 minutes... but then it will die equally as quick. My first thought was that the phone just charges and discharges quickly... BUT
2 - After charging for, say an hour, when I do a battery pull and let it sit for a minute or two before putting it back all of a sudden my super quick battery charge to 62% is now only at 37% (actual numbers that happened to me tonight). So why did I do a battery pull...?
3 - Because I noticed that after 10 minutes my phone had gone from 62% to 56% and I thought that was absurd. Once I did the pull and was back to my (as I like to call it) normalized battery percentage I have only dropped 15% in 2 hours and that includes heavy data usage on maps, navigation and texting. And another strange thing
4 - I have actually seen it go the other way! I once was around 30%, rebooted the phone and it jumped to 50%. Now that I'm thinking about it I often see weird fluctuations in my battery reading. One minute it will be 28%, then I turn it off and turn it back on and it will be 29%. Oh... and for those of you wondering
5 - This has happened both on a stock rom, rooted stock (although not like that would make a diff) and a custom rom ARHD. But still there is one last question...
6 - Why is there so much disparity on the issue? My theory is because this battery madness is so unpredictable you, you don't know when you get a normalized charge or an inflated charge. And lastly...
7 - I think it's gotta be a SW issue, why else would Nexus S owners be seeing the issue as well? (So that's good news... hopefully).
Soooo, that's my little rant. I think part of the problem is people are getting distracted by all these other theories with kernel drivers and etc because of the absurdly high Android OS issue (although in all fairness my theory could be more misdirection).
So why post? Well if people could try their luck validating/disproving my theory I would really appreciate it!
Here's what I'd like (and what I am going to do).
Charge your battery for an hour, if it charges really fast note the percentage.
Optional: Play with the phone for a while and see if it discharges quickly.
Do a battery pull, let it sit for a sec and put it back in and note the percentage.
If the percentage is significantly lower (10+%) start using the phone now and note the time to discharge.
Thanks!
EDIT: Also a good thing to mention, I am not disagreeing about the Android OS bug - I think that's also very real and something I have experienced as well. BUT if you look at the other battery thread you'll see a lot of people posting battery success images with high Android OS utilization. I think it could be an indication of multiple issues contributing to a negative experience.
Oh and I submitted a bug report to Google.
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=23311
I've also noticed crazy battery drop after reboots or pulling battery. Easily drops 10%+ at times. Reminds me of my great blackberries back in the day
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
all good here. i'm very pleased with the battery life.
while there may be issues with the stats, the wake times are real for some users - as well as the heat generated (indicating the cpu is working) when the phone should be sleeping.
There is no question there are either bugs in ICS that cause wake locks to get stuck, or badly written apps that keep it awake that didn't keep awake froyo/gingerbread.
Agreed on the wake lock. In fact I really should have quantified that in my original post - I too have that ridiculous Android OS utilization.
I updated my post - you make a good point.
Charged to about 21%. Pulled battery and rebooted and reported about 31%. Running ARHD.
EDIT: Pulled battery again and rebooted and reports 20%.
I realized mine was charging extremely slow so I decided to turn it off and let it charge faster. It was only at 48% when I turned it off but as soon as the battery indicator showed up with the phone off it appeared to be well over halfway charged, I would've guessed close to 75% but I didn't think to turn it back on and see..
edit: I did charge it fully with the phone off then wiped battery stats in cwm before rebooting into the OS after this. Since then it seems to be charging normally and reporting the correct battery level
To prove this theory, I think you should check the reported voltage of the battery and compare that to the percentage meter. Most battery apps/widgets use the old Android "battery info" screen to report this data. There very well may be a problem with the GN/ICS meter, but to be sure there has to be some constant to go back to.
These batteries drop like a rock from full charge to something like 87-88%, and again from around 37-38% to zero. It's just the battery technology, perhaps exacerbated by not having enough battery stats to adjust the % meter.
As far as I know, an app/widget that reports battery voltage will do so from the information being provided by the battery circuitry itself, so it's not subjective or adjusted in any way like a meter will be, making it a far better correlation point for the discussion.
djp952 said:
To prove this theory, I think you should check the reported voltage of the battery and compare that to the percentage meter. Most battery apps/widgets use the old Android "battery info" screen to report this data. There very well may be a problem with the GN/ICS meter, but to be sure there has to be some constant to go back to.
These batteries drop like a rock from full charge to something like 87-88%, and again from around 37-38% to zero. It's just the battery technology, perhaps exacerbated by not having enough battery stats to adjust the % meter.
As far as I know, an app/widget that reports battery voltage will do so from the information being provided by the battery circuitry itself, so it's not subjective or adjusted in any way like a meter will be, making it a far better correlation point for the discussion.
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I use current widget to tell me my voltage, as I don't pay attention to the meter. On a stock LTE battery, you should cap out at 4.203V
Voltage meter sounds like a reasonable way to approach the problem. I'm definitely not an expert on battery stats though - what should the voltages read? I know it caps at 4200mv, but what is the min?
Also how does mv relate to mah?
m0sim said:
Voltage meter sounds like a reasonable way to approach the problem. I'm definitely not an expert on battery stats though - what should the voltages read? I know it caps at 4200mv, but what is the min?
Also how does mv relate to mah?
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mv stands for millivolt which is a measurement of voltage. Examples you may have heard before are 9v battery, 110 volt wall outlet.
1mv = 1/1000 volt OR 1v = 1000mv, so you can see a mv is very small compared to a volt.
mAh stands for milliampere-hour and, in layman's terms, is a measurement of battery capacity, specifically how many hours a battery will last if the device it is connected to pulls a known amperage.
So, if a device pulls 500mA and the battery is rated 2000mAh, then generally the battery will last 4 hours (2000mAh/500mA). There are numerous other factors in the equation such as temperature, age of battery, etc. that can affect the battery life.
Hello!
I've been keeping an eye on my battery's activity with Battery Monitor Widget just like I do with all devices, and after some months of using the HOX I am concerned about the following: I have noticed the battery shows 4218 mV when fully charged, which seems to be an ok value. However, I sometimes find it showing 86%, but already 4214 mV. The current also drops when it's over 80%, from the usual 600-700 mA, gradually to 200, then 100 and even less. I know this is normal when the battery gets full, but I am worried I have a damaged battery that only takes about 88% capacity. Has anyone else noticed this?
Thanks!
IMO battery monitor widget and most other such battery voltage/amperage monitoring apps are not accurate on the One X. I have got few unrealistic values with those tools especially when charging. Voltage should be 3700mV+ when fully charged, not 1218mV.
I'm sorry, I must have been thinking about something else. The values are 4218 when full and 4214 mV at 86%. I have modified the post now. I have also noticed the current when discharging is not quite accurate (it shows less when playing music then when doing nothing at all), so you think I shouldn't be worried about the battery?
asp2010 said:
I have also noticed the current when discharging is not quite accurate (it shows less when playing music then when doing nothing at all), so you think I shouldn't be worried about the battery?
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Yes, I have also noticed similar discrepancies, for example I sometimes get a higher positive mA rating when connected to USB port compared to the wall adapter (which is clearly wrong). Therefore I don't know if any of those readings are really accurate or not.
Hey guys. Within a minute or so after my phones removed from the charger it drops to 95%.is this normal?im using the 1.8a LG charger that comes with the phone F240L.i read somewhere that they are using the LG charger 1.2a out of the box.does this phone have two different out of the box charger..thanks..
Completly normal. The method that seems to be employed for the battery percentage is read the voltage itself and make a guess
This high voltage drops down quite quickly both as a "load" is applied to the battery,. Plus there is not a lot of change in capacity from the very high voltages to the more normal voltages, in any li-ion battery. So while the voltage can be used to guestimate a range of charge levels, between like 4.0 and 4.3 there isnt much changed in the battery itself.
Further from what i have seen so far (not totally sure) they are charging to 4.35v which is a rescent slight change in the chemistry of the li-ion to allow for higher charge levels without it gassing or reducing the life (Havent tested that theory long enough yet either).
Also All li-ion alogrythms for charging do a CC CV charge, where the final charge is just "holding" the voltage at the high, till the batterys charge state floats up to that level. This can (not facted out yet) mean that leaving it on the charge past the time it claims it is fully charged , it will put tiny bits more into it. This happens more with my big fat zerolemon battery because it seems to have more resistance to the other connected cell items than would be desired.
Anyways all is well, just dont believe anything a computer tells you , and it will be fine The other methods have thier own deficiencies.
Other STUFF:
Li-Ion batteries really do not prefer to be left at their high charge voltages, as they degrade faster there. so when you read the above, or try "bump" charging methods (thats just restarting the charge) It is not good for it. The battery will be happier, using it like it was designed, taking it off the charge when it states it is full. all of this being more info than anyone needs to know, or freaking care about.
As a li-ion battery becomes old and weak, it will exhibit even more of these charateristics that have people wondering. It will drop off the highs quicker still, have less total capacity, and increse a tiny bit in resistance , which will cause it to drop even more under load. At some point the battery would be so bad at that, you would want to replace it.
Heat, the li-ion cells dont like these extreeme heats. they prefer to work more at normal room temps and cold but not extreeme cold. So take that in also as a factor in keeping your battery more happy, again if you want to waste half your life pampering the thing
runwithme21 said:
Hey guys. Within a minute or so after my phones removed from the charger it drops to 95%.is this normal?im using the 1.8a LG charger that comes with the phone F240L.i read somewhere that they are using the LG charger 1.2a out of the box.does this phone have two different out of the box charger..thanks..
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It's the calibration. Happens to me too sometime. Drops rather fast to 95%, then goes stable around 89%. Just leave it on charge for an extra 45 minutes or so, then let the battery die down to at-least 10% before charging again. Not exact science, it's just what I do.
So I have a zerolemon 10000 mah battery for my note 3, I just switched to cm11 and noticed the battery percentage meter was going wacky and wasn't being accurate (eg. It would jump up 10 percent after a reboot or last hours on 1 percent with heavy use) so I followed the instructions for fixing it, I let it drain completely and then I charged it to 100 percent while the phone was off, then I turned it on and charged it again until it showed full just like it said to do in the instructions, after this I went into my battery status app just out of curiosity, there I saw that the battery had 4250 mv , I am alarmed by this because the battery is only supposed to be 3.9 voltz, is my battery damaged? I always thought that the batteries have circuits in them to prevent overcharge then how come it overcharged my battery??
Sent from my SM-N900T using XDA Free mobile app
Actually battery voltage is a little bit tricky:
first of all it will show higher with no load than with load on it and higher the load, lower the voltage, full charge or not.
Secondly for example my original phone battery is rated 3.8v, but at full charge will be higher than 4 volts.
I don't remember how Li ion batteries are rated, but for example NiCd are rated at 1.2v, which would be the voltage the battery shows when under full load, under no load the voltage will be more than 1.5v and if that NiCd battery shows 1.2 v under no load it usually means it's close to being completely discharged. I don't have specs for your particular battery, but I'm sure fully charged with no load will show more than 4v.
Since the battery has protective circuit, it should still be within specs, before the damage occurs, so I don't think you should worry too much, however if you were doing this all the time, I'm sure you will shorten battery life.
Full charge for lipo is about 4.2V. So the battery is not overcharged. The batteries have a protective board on them, and the charge control on the phone won't allow overcharging either.
I purchased my 5t about 4 weeks ago and the stats in AccuBattery are now showing my capacity at 2930 mah and the health at 89%. If accurate, these are somewhat concerning considering how new the phone is. Anyone else seeing similar stats? I ran AccuBattery on my Nexus 6p and it always seems pretty accurate.
That's the same capacity I get on my phone with AccuBattery. Other people on the OnePlus forums also had the same results so I think that it is probably normal.
I don't trust that application any more (even if I bought it 2 days ago). So i purchased my phone 4 days ago and after the second charge it says 89%.... Many battery applications are useless on the Play Store.
It is a little wonky on certain phones sometimes. Have you done several charge and discharge cycles? I know it definitely won't be too accurate until you run it a few times. Since you said you used it on your 6P though, I'm guessing you know this already. As long as battery life is still good, I guess I wouldn't worry too much.
I run Accubattery on my mine, it says 92% after a couple of weeks. Battery lasts for a full day of heavy use, and then some.
I also ran it on my 2 year old Moto X Style, and it said 51% - and I felt it was telling the truth, since I got about 2hrs SOT from it if i was lucky!
Same for me, showing about ~3000 mAh from the beginning.
It's also showing ~107% on a Nokia 3 of a friend of mine, so I guess you just can't trust the app on that perspective.
lol, guys
ok now, several factors to consider before you jump to conclusions (ive been using accubattery for several months now with great results):
1) your sample size is waaay too small. every scientist/engineer/mathematician, etc out there will tell you that u cant jump to a conclusion based on just two samples. give it some time, use the app regularly for several weeks and only THEN can you make assumptions about the accuracy of the collected data.
2) ive noticed that the final capacity reading is more accurate, the closer a charge cycle is to 100%. which makes sense if you think about current quick charging technologies: they provide high amperage at steady voltage at first up to like 75-85%, then they switch more and more to trickle charge with low amperage. advantages: fill up the battery quickly, but without putting too much wear onto it.
thus: if you just do a quick charge cycle, say from 30-50% then the slope steepness is way higher, thus the calculated capacity will differ. so there is a dilemma: either do large charging cycles with higher wear on the battery, but more accurate capacity data in the end, or do smaller charging cycles with inaccurate data but less wear on the battery.
3) when charging to 100%, dont unplug the phone when it reads 100%! rather check the current charging amperage in accubattery. only when that drops to zero (or -1 mA in my case) is the battery fully charged and ull get a more accurate capacity reading than when stopping the charge when 100% is reached. if you unplug it too early, the capacity calculation will be on the low side
hope this helps!
cheers
jbmc83 said:
your sample size is waaay too small. every scientist/engineer/mathematician, etc out there will tell you that u cant jump to a conclusion based on just two samples.
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Yup, am scientist, can confirm
Same thing happened to me, even after using AccuBattery for a couple of weeks (and thus collecting more than a couple of samples, both Dash charge and "normal") it still showed 89% battery health at around 2940 mAh. Got my phone one month ago.
I don't think there's any problem with the battery itself, especially as it's not just me having this problem.
Maybe the battery is 3000mah and they are lying about it ???
Explyy said:
Same thing happened to me, even after using AccuBattery for a couple of weeks (and thus collecting more than a couple of samples, both Dash charge and "normal") it still showed 89% battery health at around 2940 mAh. Got my phone one month ago.
I don't think there's any problem with the battery itself, especially as it's not just me having this problem.
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what kind of charging cycles did u have? the range i mean...
jbmc83 said:
what kind of charging cycles did u have? the range i mean...
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I'd say 30% of the times 10 to 100%
40% of the times 30/40 to 100%
And the rest just random stuff: 50 to 100, some top ups here and there
This is not scientific data though, that's just what I recall from the couple of weeks I used AccuBattery. I'll try to find a screenshot but I doubt I have any.
I reinstalled it today and from a single 14 to 80% charge it gave me ~2930 mAh and 89% health. I'm on OOS 5.0.2 stable, will try the app for some time and share my results (more scientific this time)
After several weeks of use, the reading is still constant at 86% ~ 2827mAh. Not sure what to think. As previously mentioned the first 5t I purchased and returned for the 128gb version came in at 89% same as @Explyy. Is it possible I have an inferior battery?
hm, there indeed seems to be a pattern emerging with so many different users reporting identical capacity values at 2900-3000 mAh for their new op 5t. two possibilities: either accubattery cannot properly read out and analyze the 5t's battery charge controller. or the battery capacity is indeed around 2900-3000 mAh instead of the advertized 3300. its normal for battery capacities to be around -100 mAh from the official value, but -300 to -400 would be crazy.
guys, just to be sure: did you leave your phones plugged in until the charging rate in accubattery dropped to 0 mA? as i said before, if you unplug the phone once it shows 100% but still charging, the resulting capacity will be less than the actual one.
Sent from my Xiaomi Mi Max 2 (Oxygen) using Tapatalk
jbmc83 said:
hm, there indeed seems to be a pattern emerging with so many different users reporting identical capacity values at 2900-3000 mAh for their new op 5t. two possibilities: either accubattery cannot properly read out and analyze the 5t's battery charge controller. or the battery capacity is indeed around 2900-3000 mAh instead of the advertized 3300. its normal for battery capacities to be around -100 mAh from the official value, but -300 to -400 would be crazy.
guys, just to be sure: did you leave your phones plugged in until the charging rate in accubattery dropped to 0 mA? as i said before, if you unplug the phone once it shows 100% but still charging, the resulting capacity will be less than the actual one.
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Yes, I left the phone plugged until the charging current dropped to 0, as I noticed that when it reaches 100 it's still charging at a few mA
On a related note I charged my battery from 10% to 100%, until the mA rate dropped to 0mA. I had the phone hooked up to a USB power meter during this time. The USB meter only read about 2500mAh charged. So since I only charged 90% of the battery I figured it should be around 90% the capacity of the battery, which is 2,970mAh. If I assume the battery is 3000mAh then a 90% charge would be around 2700mAh, closer to my reading. I'm going to run some more charge cycles and see if I get the same results.
Edit: forgot to say that I used a standard 2amp charger, not the dash charger that came with the phone.
yerger said:
On a related note I charged my battery from 10% to 100%, until the mA rate dropped to 0mA. I had the phone hooked up to a USB power meter during this time. The USB meter only read about 2500mAh charged. So since I only charged 90% of the battery I figured it should be around 90% the capacity of the battery, which is 2,970mAh. If I assume the battery is 3000mAh then a 90% charge would be around 2700mAh, closer to my reading. I'm going to run some more charge cycles and see if I get the same results.
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Did you use the dash adapter or just a regular one?
Explyy said:
Yes, I left the phone plugged until the charging current dropped to 0, as I noticed that when it reaches 100 it's still charging at a few mA
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and still no difference in the calculated capacity in that particular cycle?
jbmc83 said:
and still no difference in the calculated capacity in that particular cycle?
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As far as I remember no, always reading ~2950mAh
Explyy said:
Did you use the dash adapter or just a regular one?
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Someone who's having accubattery report ~3000 mah should download AIDA64 and look and see what it reports the battery size to be......