Develop Bugs

Auto Backlight

Hello folks,
I'm used to keep the auto backlight option enabled. When playing around I disabled it and turned up the slider and i really like the phone with a brighter screen (well, don't we all ). I wondered what consumes more power though as I really haven't got a chance to test it. Does the auto-backlight consume less power than full constant brightness if you consider that when enabled, the sensor has to poll the lightstrength constantly (consumes power too i guess). Does it actually make a difference?
Secondly, does there exist an application which allows us to lift the level of the auto-brightness? (Like when it sets itself on 50%, the application makes it 50+10% = 60%). Windows mobile's G-light application came quite in handy in this story.
Thanks

massive difference for me when I turned this option on. As in a huge improvement of battery life. My screen is always the biggest power consumer according to my battery apps. The dimmer the better for batts. I am with you though I love them bright screens!

At a guess I'd say the brightness of the screen (no backlight, it's AMOLED! ) would be more of a factor than the low powered sensor which would most likely run constantly with the proximity and G-sensor.

The light sensor consumes zero power, it's a photovoltaic cell which supplies an electric charge in the presence of light.

Exca said:
Secondly, does there exist an application which allows us to lift the level of the auto-brightness? (Like when it sets itself on 50%, the application makes it 50+10% = 60%). Windows mobile's G-light application came quite in handy in this story.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm searchin for that since a while, too! But want to set the auto-brightness lower than normal.
And in night it could be much lower than the lowest possible setting... but no idea how to do that - with root it should be no problem!
Sent from my HTC Desire

[Q] Optimus G Pro Screen Brightness vs. Battery Life

I've owned an iPhone 3GS for almost four years now, and it's time to upgrade to something new. I've decided upon the OGP as my new device, but I have some questions about battery life. I've read a few reviews that said although not as good as that of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, the battery life is still great. Then again, I've also read a few reviews that have said that the battery life is horrid and that LG phones in general seem to use more battery than most while just sitting idle in standby mode. So, it seems to go both ways, depending on which review one reads.
My typical usage is about 90% browsing and reading webpages, and about 10% watching YouTube video, with a bit of music listening thrown in. With the iPhone I had to keep the screen set at about 50% to get me through a day of the above usage. Sometimes, an hour long recharge during lunch would give me battery life until the early evening. I hated having to keep the screen dimmed to 50%, but that's the way it is with that particular phone's power-hungry LCD. For video watching, I max the brightness so as to get as crisp of a picture as the phone is capable of.
I had looked at getting the Note 2, but I didn't care for the AMOLED's lack of whites and lack of brightness (and low resolution) in comparison to my dinosaur iPhone. If I did get that particular phone, I'd have to leave the brightness at max 24/7 although I don't know how that would affect batt life. Either way, the Note 2 screen did not appeal to my eyes, and the one on the OGP along with that of the HTC One were the best I've found in the larger phones.
So, my questions are, what do most people keep their brightness set to on their Optimus G Pro for most of the time, and how much screen time do you really get at that particular brightness level? And, does it seem that a few people have possibly gotten defective batteries? I realize that the G Pro's screen is an LCD with a white backlight on all the time the screen is lit, and probably won't be as efficient as an AMOLED, but with my type of usage (with the screen set to max) what kind of daily battery life can I expect from the OGP?

Well, I don't know if I can give you an estimate based on your exact usage, but let me share with you mine. I have my brightness set to 65% with auto brightness turned on. For me, that is a nice, comfortable viewing level that is easy on the eyes. I love the colors at 100% brightness, but it's almost too bright for me to look at for long times. Anyway, I only use my phone to send text messages and check web sites during the day, but then I play games in the evening (like super stickman golf). I can get through the day easily with 25% remaining when I plug in at bed time. I get about 4 -5 hours of screen on time out of that, so in total I could get about 5-6 hours if I were to drain the battery all the way.
So that doesn't exactly answer your question, but each person's usage is going to be slightly different. It also heavily depends on what you have for apps that are running in the background.

hmm
I'll say this much, screen is responsible for about 50% of your phones battery drain across the board so if 100% brightness is more important than another hour or two of usage time then go for it. This thing should get you a full day even at 100% charge and relatively heavy usage but get comfy with seeing 20 or 30% by early evening. The hardest thing to get used to is remembering that 20% can still mean 2-3 hours of usage and is not an emergency. Another plus of this phone is you can charge about 50% with one hour of charging (or 25% on 15 mins) so as long as you are using a good charger you can juice up in a hurry.

Bad battery life when using custom watch face.

To start, I'll say I was moderately impressed with the moto 360 battery life when I got it a couple weeks ago based on all the poor things I had heard about it. My issue however is that it seems like if I use any watch face other than the stock ones that come installed already, the battery struggles to last more than 3 hours. When using something like minimal or classic (pre installed faces) I have no trouble getting 18 hours and having a bit to spare.
Could an element like having a weather display be whats hurting it so bad? I think most of the faces I tried show weather, but only update every hour or two hours. I can not imagine one or two updates eating up 80% of the battery.

Some of depends on what watch face you're using. Some show way more information than your standard stock watch faces so that uses up way more battery doing that. Could also be some are badly made and so therefore use more battery. What faces are you using?

yeah.. i agreed... custom watch face eats more battery.. even using simple custom that not showing weather information.. i can feel the different when using the one came preinstalled.

It shouldn't work like this way. I will buy a Moto 360 because of the feature of changing watch face.

Here are two of the watch faces I've been using and getting very poor battery life with: (both with ambient mode off)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.smartwatchface.watch.face.ranger.military
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stmp.minimalface
I'm currently using The Hundreds face and not sure how it will hold up. This is my first day with it. Trying with Ambient mode on.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=wearable.android.breel.com.thehundreds
In comparison however I have used the next few with very good battery results. I'm thinking the weather has something to do with it, because the ones that last all day do not show weather
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.smartwatchface.speeds.pro.watch.face
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atektura.dotswatchface

It seems like it is the faces that you are using. Rather than buying separate face apps, I use a single app called "Watch Faces for Android Wear" that has a gallery of thousands of free faces that you can download. I have never noticed a significant impact on battery life with any of the faces that I have tried. I usually get a good 18-20 hours with my watch and these faces.

I use many watch faces via Watchmaker app and haven't found any battery differences. My watch seems to consume about 3.5% of battery per hour.

For anyone that cares, I used "The Hundreds" watch face today. set the background to "random" and had ambient mode on all day. Got about 10 hours and it was at 20% when I stuck it back on the charger. This is okay for me on a weekend, but M-F when I work 12-15 hours a day I need it to last ALL day. Will probably use stock faces during the week and custom on the weekend unless I can find one I like that doesn't chew through battery like my dog eats those damn greenies.

you can use watchmaker and set the max fps to 15 , works good and doesn't take much battery

You mentioned that the "Ranger" watch face that you are using uses a lot of battery life. I have had the opposite experience with Ranger. I use it daily and get very good battery life with it. One thing I have noticed though and it applies to most, if not all watch faces is that battery life is dramatically impacted by the use of "ambient mode". Use of ambient mode guarantees me less than 8 hours of battery life with just about any watch face.
Also, if you don't mind having to push the side button on your watch to see the time, you can set it to theater mode and get about two days use.
David

Dave, do you have the weather enabled also on Ranger?

I've used ranger, without ambient and turned off tilt feature, and I get at least a full day of battery life. With the mentioned features on, I have to charge at least twice a day. With the tilt feature on, I noticed just walking around the screen would turn on all the time. Maybe, those having battery issues, should try turning off the tilt feature then report back about any battery issues. Currently, I use Odyssey and occasionally I can get a day and a half before needing a charge.

MrStig91 said:
Dave, do you have the weather enabled also on Ranger?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes.
David

I'm currently using a custom watch face on Watchmaker. It shows moon phases, time, date, temperature, what kind of weather it is, and battery life for both watch and phone. My watch has been off the charger since about 6:20 this morning, and i'm at 75%. I've only used 15% of my battery in just under 12 hours. What are you people doing to make your watches die so quickly? Although, I do have wrist turn turned off and ambient mode turned off. I work on a sales floor and a register so wrist turn gets annoying, lol.

matrix0886 said:
I'm currently using a custom watch face on Watchmaker. It shows moon phases, time, date, temperature, what kind of weather it is, and battery life for both watch and phone. My watch has been off the charger since about 6:20 this morning, and i'm at 75%. I've only used 15% of my battery in just under 12 hours. What are you people doing to make your watches die so quickly? Although, I do have wrist turn turned off and ambient mode turned off. I work on a sales floor and a register so wrist turn gets annoying, lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How often are you checking your watch? Messing with notifications from your phone?

Usually check my watch about 3 times every hour (if anything important comes through, my watch will vibrate so there's really no use in constantly turning it on to check for notifications). My girlfriend and I text a lot so i'm constantly getting text notifications. I get weather updates (2 cards, one for home, one for work) as well as traffic updates. Even when I traveled earlier this week and had maps going (2hr round trip), I still had great battery life. Finished off a day with 30% battery (the navigation really took a toll but I made it through about 18ish hours up to that point.). Google fit is also constantly running and I walk an average of 10k-13k steps a day so it's tracking a lot.
My phone battery, though.....wow, lol. Talk about piss poor when the watch is connected. I have to keep it in battery saver mode so it'll last me

I.M.famous XMAN said:
I've used ranger, without ambient and turned off tilt feature, and I get at least a full day of battery life. With the mentioned features on, I have to charge at least twice a day. With the tilt feature on, I noticed just walking around the screen would turn on all the time. Maybe, those having battery issues, should try turning off the tilt feature then report back about any battery issues. Currently, I use Odyssey and occasionally I can get a day and a half before needing a charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As much as I like the Ranger face, I will not use it if the only way for a full days battery life is turning off the tilt feature. With ambient AND tilt off, we are just getting further from a watch, and closer to a gimped phone.

MrStig91 said:
As much as I like the Ranger face, I will not use it if the only way for a full days battery life is turning off the tilt feature. With ambient AND tilt off, we are just getting further from a watch, and closer to a gimped phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Imho, if I don't need to look at it, then there is no need for the screen to be on. I work in the car audio install business so I'm constantly moving, therefore I turn off tilt. And to honestly compare the moto to a phone, that's just ridiculous. It's not even close to a phone. It's just a fully customizable watch that allows you to see most notifications from your phone. In my line of work, I don't have time to constantly reach in my pocket to check my phone. So to each his own. I'm getting a day or more out of the battery. I'm very happy with the way it performs. No complaints. I'm just saying, it's a way to increase battery life if you need it.

I have also noticed better battery life using stock watch faces. I use Facer and paid for the "premium" watch faces, which often have date, weather and battery level on the face (some even have the digital time too). I've been switching back and forth between the Motorola custom watch face and I get much better battery life with it. Today while using the stock custom watch face I was left at 55% battery after nearly 15 hours of use. I keep the display at level 1, turn to wake on, ambient mode off, I get weather updates regularly, all texts and some emails; every notification is set to vibrate as well.
When using a Facer watch face my watch will often die by the time I get home. Sometimes it'll die sooner depending on how much I used it that day, but all in all the differences in battery life is substantial between the different watch faces.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA Free mobile app

I use FaceMaker and have good battery life. Took it off the charger at 9 AM and now at 5:26, it's showing 68% battery\17 hrs left.

Do you leave always on display/clock on?

Do you guys leave always on display on? Should i leave it off the save battery?

I turned mine off. Kinda pointless IMO.

I don't think it is a substantial hit. It turns off when in a pocket.
Sent from my SM-N930T using Tapatalk

Only you can decide what amount of screen on time you want and what gets sacrifices to get there. I'm easily getting through the day without turning it off and I like having the information. If you like it and you're getting the battery life you want by all means leave it running. Shiny new toys would just be new toys without the shiny.

I have it on from 6am to 10pm then off while I sleep. I find it useful at times during the day.
Sent from my SM-N930P using Tapatalk

I have it on, not a great batt drain, it loolks awesome, thknk about this, You want a great device, full of functions, real unique charateristics, , so? why all rhe compñaints about battery life? if so concened boit batt life, go get a chimese unbranded set

I turned mine off the day I got it. Reason for that since it uses AMOLED screen which means over time you'll get burn in (actually it's really burn out) which can't be fixed. From what I understand it moves slightly to prevent that. Still why chance it?

I have mine on all the time, but honestly I find it can be distracting often. I have gotten to the point of NOT wanting my phone to be bothering me 24/7, and have found actually turning it off for days at a time is a good thing. But that's kind of a different point... fact is, the AOD is something that attracts the eye and attention, and I find myself turning my phone face down or away from me so that I am not constantly looking at the AOD. Not the phone's or AOD fault, just how this works. It is nice to have the option of AOD and I don't think it effects the battery life much.

Mine is only off at night because I like to sleep in the dark. All day long it's super handy to be able to glance down at the phone to see the time and other info, plus it looks cool.

I keep it on 24/7. The battery consumption is too minimal for me to loose the information it provides if I were to disable it. As long as my device can last two days on a single charge I'm happy.

under what I would class reasonable use I'm getting from 6am till midnight and still having 40%+ of battery so can't really complain as it's not running the battery down enough to the point where I would want to save battery.

Love this feature and never turn it off. Makes a great night clock.
Sent from my iPhone 6

I found it too bright for me.

ChodaBoyUSA said:
I found it too bright for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cant you control the brightness?

Battery consumption is definitely minimal. Two great things I learned from this thread: you can change the color, and you can set on/off times. Sweet.

Scott said:
Cant you control the brightness?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sadly i can't see an option to. I would love the ability to turn it down a bit as well

It can auto-off AOD when in the pocket or facing down.

Battery Performance Testing

I saw some other threads out there (mainly on samsung's site) complaining about battery drain issues. I found them because I was having battery drain issues. So why am I starting a new thread? because I'm not complaining here. I am as scientifically as I have the patients for documenting what my battery life is while playing with various settings. I am starting by trying to get the most extreme positive battery life as possible. Then I will work my way back with features I would like to use to determine what is worth it and what is not. Feel free to join in the conversation with your own tests and results as well as requests for me of additional information on my settings or tests you would like to see. The more conversation here I see the longer I'm likely to continue running tests.
Hardware
46mm Bluetooth Galaxy Watch
Note: I also have access to a 42mm Bluetooth Rose Gold Galaxy watch and 2 Gear Classic watches.
Background
I started doing this because I upgraded to the 46mm Galaxy watch because I was only getting ~2.5 days out of my wonderful Gear S2 Classic. The advertized 4 to 5 day battery life with rumors of 7 days was just too good to pass up on. Plus I found an open box for a very reasonable price. By day 3 I was noticing that my battery life was terrible. At best it was the same as my Classic.
So I ran a little test. I wiped the phone Saturday morning. Charged to 100% and waited for the show. By 15 hours I was at 85%. That would total out to 4.16 days of battery life. Well not exciting but it does meet the advertized performance. So I turned on goodnight mode and went to sleep. 5 hours later I woke up and I was at 65% battery. By 29 hours I was at 50% (granted I left goodnight mode on for a lot of that).
After finding out that samsung customer support knows NOTHING about their own products (told me that my S2 didn't have sleep tracking, that the 42mm and 46mm had the same battery capacity, and asked me what color my 46mm BT watch was) I returned it to the store and got a new one. Since then I've been running various tests.
If you have questions about a given test please include the Test # in your post.
Test 1:
Always On Display - Off
Brightness - 3
Screen Timeout - 10 Sec
Good Night Mode - On From 11pm to 7am
Bezel Wake-up - On
Wake Up Gesture - Off
Bluetooth - On
NFC - Off
Notifications - On
Turn On Screen (Notifications) - Off
Samsung Health (Heart Rate) - Manual Only
Samsung Health (Step Tracking) - Off
Samusng Health (Sleep Tracking) - On
Samusng Health (Automatic Excersize Detection) - Off
Screen Capture - Off
Watch Face - Basic (3 Different)
OS Version - 4.0.0.1
Test Length - 2 Days
Battery Drained - 1% every 1:45 to 2 hours. Estimated at 8 days.
So this is the extreme test. Low brightness. No novelty features. No workouts.
I have 4 gmail accounts and 2 email accounts so there is a lot going on there. I've disabled instant messaging notifications and facebook becuase I just find them annoying. If I got a message I looked at it. Check the time whenever I felt like it. I would consider it normal usage. Everytime I would change a little setting I would charge back to 100% so I could get a solid measurement.
What a great number on this. Add in how fast this thing charges and it's a dream. I don't like to shower with watches on so I'll just throw it on the charger for 15-20 minutes and I feel like I might be recovering an entire day's usage. What have I learned? I'm keeping this watch and I'm turning some features back on.
Test 2:
Same settings as test 1 except I'll be putting the brightness up to 5. This is my preferred setting. This will be a short test. Probably let it drop 2% during the busy time of work. Then I'll be moving on to test 3. This will be done today.
Results
This went really well. still about 7.5 days of use estimated. And it was a very busy time for me message wise. This was a small test so I'm moving on.
Test 3:
Also a short test to be completed today. I'm going to put a fancier watch face on. The ones I've been testing with so far were very basic and mostly black. Tomcat has some bonus features but the other two were very very basic.
Edit - Changing this test. Found a watch face I really liked but instead of needing more color it needs more brightness. Brightness of 7 on this one so you can see the detail as it's a really dark face with grey on black text. Watch face is Stealth by ZWF ($1). I'll probably let this one run the rest of the day.
Results
Had great results on this. so these settings were left for my 3 day trip.
Test 4:
This test will be for the rest of the week. Almost a performance test the other direction. I'm going on a trip to the north woods MN with no internet. Just lots of hiking. For this I'll be turning back on heart rate and step tracking. Also When hiking I'll use exercise detection with GPS. But still no automatic exercise detection. I suspect that that feature drains a fair amount of battery given how effective it is.
Results
Well I'm back from the trip in 3 days of heavy use. Flash light app. 15k steps a day. 10+ flights of stairs registered a day. I still had just over 50% battery. After charging up and letting it run for the last 2 days of more normal use I'm seeing about 10% battery used a day. Here is my opinion on some of the settings as I've seen them.
Always On Display - Can be a huge impact on the battery life. Based on my small experiments with it I think it would last a couple of days but not much more. For me it's not worth it.
Brightness - With my other chosen settings this isn't a major impact since the screen isn't on much. I've been running at 7 and still getting 10% per day.
Screen Timeout - 10 Sec is good enough for me. As long as you are interacting with the watch it says on. No point in unnecessary screen time.
Good Night Mode - Slightly improves battery life at night. I'm seeing about 1% every 3 hours. Turns on automatically so there is no real need to turn it on manually.
Bezel Wake-up - This was a big one for me. I can't express how often I bumped the bezel turning on the screen. I'm happy to use the button to turn it on.
Wake Up Gesture - Same as above. Leave it off if you want the best battery life.
Bluetooth - Required on for use of the watch. Ignore people who tell you to turn it off unless you have LTE. Even then Bluetooth is more efficient than LTE.
NFC - I've had this on for most of my testing. No impact to battery. I'm leaving it on.
Notifications - What's the point of the watch without notifications. I do leave it off for facebook because I find the frequency irritating.
Turn On Screen (Notifications) - Leave this off. Unless you are planning on looking at every message that comes in then this is wasted screen time. It's a definite off for me.
Samsung Health (Heart Rate) - I'm leaving this one off for now. I'll run a test with it on once I have good solid data on my current preferred settings but I suspect (based on the time that I had it on) that it's taking a few percentage per day.
Samsung Health (Step Tracking) - Turning this back on had no impact on my battery life. I'm not sure it ever actually turned off in the first place. Which is good news since I like this feature.
Samusng Health (Sleep Tracking) - Leave it on. No real impact on battery life from what I can see. Again. I'm not sure turning it off is really possible.
Samusng Health (Automatic Excersize Detection) - I have this on for Running and Cycling on and everything else off.
Screen Capture - Why? never tried it since I don't care. Off
Watch Face - I tried a few here. Nothing too colorful since I don't like the style but with the screen off most of the time then it doesn't seem to matter much.
If you are seeing poor battery life then try these settings out. Your usage can change the results however if you are down in the 3 day or less range without AOD then I would return your watch and get a new one like I did.

I'm done with my testing for now. I'm happy with my settings. If anyone has questions let me know but in summary the battery life on this thing is amazing. I can charge the battery to 100% while I'm in the shower after a day's use.

Getting 6 days of battery life

Ranop11 said:
Getting 6 days of battery life
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With HRM on that seems consistent with me. I went 3 days without any charging of normal use (including a couple of phone calls) and ended with 53% battery life. I'm going to get it charged up and see how things go with AOD. I'm guessing based on my short tests it's going to drop down to around 3 days.

I have the 46mm. I'm happy getting 2+ days while having Always On enabled and brightness at 7. Previously with my S2 Classic, I could barely limp to the end of the day with those settings, and sometimes it didn't quite make it, depending on use. I generally recharge it every day anyway, but it's nice that it only needs a brief charge at this rate, and I can disable Always On any time I need it to last longer. I guess I'm just old school and feel like the watch doesn't "feel like a watch" if I can't look at it any time and see the time.
The only power-eating feature I don't use is gesture wake... because it will annoyingly not activate sometimes when you want it to, and of course it activates dozens of times or more every day when you don't intend for it to. I looked forward to trying this again with the Galaxy Watch and the battery life that would make this feasible to use, but in the end I disabled it.

Apart from intensive fitness tracking, step counter is pretty hungry battery eater. I observed that during work hours ( 9a.m. - 3 p.m. ) when I do not move much battery consumption is in average 4-5%. total As I get home and move more ( 4p.m. - 11 p.m. ) it is 15-20%.
I left switched it on as I like it

sancmat said:
Good Night Mode - On From 11pm to 7am
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do you set Good Night Mode to a schedule or automatic? I can't find any schedule or automatic detection settings for it anywhere on the phone or watch.
sancmat said:
Samsung Health (Step Tracking) - Off
Samsung Health (Automatic Exercise Detection) - Off
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same question as above for all the Samsung Health stuff. I found a setting for manual heart rate but can't find how to turn actually off the things quoted above. All I can find is an option to disable notifications, nothing else. I can't find any settings for them anywhere on the phone or watch.
Thank you for the help!

Maniac78 said:
How do you set Good Night Mode to a schedule or automatic? I can't find any schedule or automatic detection settings for it anywhere on the phone or watch.
Same question as above for all the Samsung Health stuff. I found a setting for manual heart rate but can't find how to turn actually off the things quoted above. All I can find is an option to disable notifications, nothing else. I can't find any settings for them anywhere on the phone or watch.
Thank you for the help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have to go into the Samsung health app on the watch itself. Scroll all the way down and you'll see settings.

davtse said:
You have to go into the Samsung health app on the watch itself. Scroll all the way down and you'll see settings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's odd, I have very little under the Samsung Health App settings. All I see is:
Profile, Units, Workout Detection (Healthy Pace, Cycling, Elliptical, Rowing, Dynamic), Inactive Alerts (off/on), Help
And I can't find any of those options under any of those settings menus.
Samsung Gear app on my phone says all apps and the watch OS are up to date. So not sure why I wouldn't have those options but it's not a big deal anyway, I was just curious.

Maniac78 said:
That's odd, I have very little under the Samsung Health App settings. All I see is:
Profile, Units, Workout Detection (Healthy Pace, Cycling, Elliptical, Rowing, Dynamic), Inactive Alerts (off/on), Help
And I can't find any of those options under any of those settings menus.
Samsung Gear app on my phone says all apps and the watch OS are up to date. So not sure why I wouldn't have those options but it's not a big deal anyway, I was just curious.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On app on the watch itself? Weird mine has those settings.

The watch it's self. However I don't see any relevant settings in the phone app either.

Something I have noticed since the recent uodate is Samsung Health being #1 in battery usage. During my time with the S3 and the month or so with the Galaxy, watch faces has always been the main user. After the recent uodate, Health is always first now. I don't notice a decrease in battery drain so maybe it's how they calculate usage now.

I have a 42mm galaxy watch , in your opinion what would be the best settings to get maximum battery life.