random battery level reading - G3 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So, I got an old G3 F400L with a looking good battery physically. No swell and pretty solid. But it dropping fast on any rom or kernel I've installed, including stock.
Tried some battery calibration apps which deleted batterystats.bin, not really help.
What seems to be a little helping is cycling battery charge and discharge fully, from 0% to 100%. And vice versa. Which people consider a bad practice but it did made my battery level reading better anyway. At first the battery would dropping fast to zero from 90%, 60%, 50%, gradually, and now it would drop fast to zero from 20%.
Now something crazy is happening. My battery was emptied for about a hour. Then I switched my phone on and it's suddenly on 4%. I charge it a little to 10% and leave it be. Now it start increasing to 11%, 12% and finally 15%, even though I'am not charge it. And then it dies.
What is actually happening? how do battery reading mechanic works? Is it on kernel, or something lower level? How did something like this could happen?

Battery levels are just estimates. Drop in internal voltage which happens due to the old age is giving you the random readings.
Get a new battery.

engmia said:
Battery levels are just estimates. Drop in internal voltage which happens due to the old age is giving you the random readings.
Get a new battery.
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Click to collapse
Any methods to check this? Just to make sure.
Anyway, this drop won't be restored by natural usage in time, or by any kind of method, right?

khnoizer said:
Any methods to check this? Just to make sure.
Anyway, this drop won't be restored by natural usage in time, or by any kind of method, right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sure, but you can double check the battery voltage by attaching a multimeter probe to the terminals.
No, the drops and battery life (and this behaviour in general) will only get worse.
This is very normal and expected of batteries, that's why those devices with non removable batteries don't make any sense (from users buying them perspective, from a manufacturer point of view it's just great since it's less work and more money)! You can find a lot of information about li-ion batteries online.

Related

[Q] Desire Z Battery

What kind of battery time are you guys getting on the original battery?
I've had my phone for about 14 days now and im not getting more than 12 hours on a charge.. the first week iv'e been using the phone alot.
I have alot of apps installed and im wondering if that could have a impact on the battery.. i have tryed using a task killer and without..
From the battery usage statistics page the screen is definitely the one that uses the most. Voice calls is number 2.
Will all applications show on the battery statistics page or is this something the applications have to implement?
Sent from my HTC Desire Z using XDA App
My battery has gotten better since I got it. But I have been doing a few things to help my battery - e.g. I completely drain the battery (until the phone doesn't even turn on anymore) and then fully charge it overnight.
Read about task killers and Android here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=849974
All apps will show in the battery usage statistics. If the screen has been using the most power, that means exactly that - you've been using the phone a lot and as such the screen has been taking up a lot of power.
I would recommend though to try to completely drain and then overnight charge, and repeat that cycle as often as you can.. I'm no technician, but I do think how you charge the phone matters
i've read about the task killers and have decided to uninstall them compleetly and let android do what it wants.
Regarding the charging, i have ran the battery flat out almost every day..
Im going to try a few different charging methods and see if there is some difference..
however i suspect that if the indicator is saying 100% charge, thats exatcly what it is whatever the charging method. (i hope)
It does get better. When I first got the phone I was getting about 14 hours. Now I'm getting about 30 hours or so.
JuiceDefender and setCPU help preserve battery life, too.
I am lucky to even get 12 hours with minimal use. No calls, just some texting and maybe browsing my bank website. Screen is always the killer for me, even on 20% brightness. If I go lower the screen actually flickers.
I bought the red HTC Chichitech batteries and they didn't help me at all.
Tried overclocking module, didn't change much.
The only app that ever shows any significant battery use (over 5%) is Maps, when I use maps.
i always thought completly draining a Lithium-ion battery is a bad idea?
Yes, it is.
Older batteries such as Ni-MH should be completely worked out from full to dead in order to keep them going in the long run. Li-ion doesn't need to be worked out, in fact the more it is worked out the faster it will run through it's lifespan and stop holding a charge.
Now that batteries, phones, and chargers are all smart, it's supposedly good to keep them plugged in as often as you can instead of letting them run dry.
sukie said:
i always thought completly draining a Lithium-ion battery is a bad idea?
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Click to collapse
The post (#7) above is correct on this. You should not let the battery dip below 30%, since discharging it too low may prevent it from being able to take a charge. It happens to most of us on accident every once in a while. But you should avoid it if possible.
It is good to run through a couple charge/discharge cycles to calibrate the battery meter. Many people still think this is to "condition" the battery, but battery conditioning is only the case with the older NiCad type of rechargeable batteries. Charging/discharging the battery just helps calibrate the battery meter on the phone. For new phones or a new ROM flash, I usually charge the battery to 100%, then let it drain to 30%, and repeat a couple times.
sukie said:
i always thought completly draining a Lithium-ion battery is a bad idea?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's also a bad idea to charge a cold Li battery, but I believe that affects lifespan more than charge. For those of us in colder climes, remember to wait for the battery to warm up to room temp before plugging in.
On my DZ I usually get 15~20h of battery life and it's O/C @ 1.4Ghz
3G & wifi : always on
facebook, gmail, emails, news, weather updates each hour
about 1h per day of audio streaming (deezer, Synology DS audio)
1~2h of internet and games per day (baseball superstars, angry birds, psx4droid...)
less than 30min of calls per day and about 20-30 sms...
sukie said:
i always thought completly draining a Lithium-ion battery is a bad idea?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It depends what you mean by "completely". If you drain the voltage of a LiIon battery too low, you will damage it. But the circuitry of the phone is normally designed that there's a cut-off before you get to this, i.e. "completely" discharging it by running it till the phone turns off will be before this dangerous level, so should be safe.
It's unnecessary though, your phone can tolerate a *lot* more partial discharges/charges than full discharges/charges. If you drain it ten times from 100% to 90% and charge again, then that's roughly equivalent to one whole discharge/charge from 100% to 0% and back again.
As redpoint73 said, the main issues it "training" Android to get the battery calibration right, not conditioning the battery (which only applies to NiMH, NiCad, etc).
Li-Ion batteries are protected from deep discharges in two ways:
1. The Phone, it will stop you from discharging too low.
2. The battery itself. Each Li-Ion battery contains circuitry that stops it from discharging too low.
Basically both have to fail to have you end up with a dead battery -> rarely happens.
Li-Ions take the heaviest duty when charging the top 90-100% charge, charging just that bit stresses the battery more than from 0-80% (ofc 0 not really being 0 ) Note: This only has an effect on battery LIFE, not battery capacity! -> if you keep charging your battery from 90-100% (for example by keeping it plugged in after driving to work, then recharge after driving home, basically always going from 100-90-100 you're really doing your battery a disservice life-cycle wise)
If Li-Ions are not in use for a while they should be stored at around 60-70% charge.
Now as for batteries in Android devices, I'd estimate that most causes of extreme battery drain are due to rampant programs/too many internet accesses.
Everytime you log onto the internet, or change speeds (3G -> Edge-> whatever) you take a lot more power than usual. Try to ensure that all your programs that regularly access the net, do so together (HTC Sense interface tries to do this)
Rampant Programs: Especially services that need to poll the clock a lot, or keep updating their info, keep their FPS high (games) It is for this reason I try to avoid installing a lot of programs at once, and keep it one at a time (especially for system programs) to see if there's a inordinate change in battery life.
Oh and do turn off unneeded things like bluetooth, wifi, and GPS if you don't need them... but thats a given.
Gee typed more than I was planning, just get tired of seeing these threads all over
Jacina said:
Li-Ions take the heaviest duty when charging the top 90-100% charge, charging just that bit stresses the battery more than from 0-80% (ofc 0 not really being 0 ) Note: This only has an effect on battery LIFE, not battery capacity! -> if you keep charging your battery from 90-100% (for example by keeping it plugged in after driving to work, then recharge after driving home, basically always going from 100-90-100 you're really doing your battery a disservice life-cycle wise)
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Click to collapse
Sorry but I disagree with that. Have you got any evidence to back that up ? Continually charging the battery from 90% to 100% should be fine and shouldn't shorten its life at all. Chargers will sometimes reduce their charge when the battery is nearly full, and a slower/lesser charge will actually increase its life (I have no idea whether the DZ's charger does this or not).
Jacina said:
Li-Ion batteries are protected from deep discharges in two ways:
1. The Phone, it will stop you from discharging too low.
2. The battery itself. Each Li-Ion battery contains circuitry that stops it from discharging too low.
Basically both have to fail to have you end up with a dead battery -> rarely happens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Coming from the Touch Pro 2 forum, there are somewhat occasional posts by users that discharged their batteries too low, and get stuck in a boot loop. Leaving the battery on the wall charger (USB is not enough) for a long period of time seems to solve the issue in some instances, while others are forced to replace the battery.
As you said, instances of this are relatively rare. I've drained my battery until the phone shuts down plenty of times on accident, with no ill results. But best to play it safe and not do it intentionally.
When you mention the phone prevents the battery from discharging too low, is that the hardware, or the OS? I guess either way, maybe the Desire Z or the Android OS are better at this then Windows Mobile and the Touch Pro 2. But I still wouldn't discharge the battery too low intentionally.
I'm pretty sure on the Touch Pro 2 it was software based (hence actually allowing you to boot before saying "not enough charge" )
I doubt that ANY charger that comes with a phone is anything but a normal "charge till full" charger...
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries
All information is gathered there. (other articles there are also highly informative)
nivlheim_o_O? said:
On my DZ I usually get 15~20h of battery life and it's O/C @ 1.4Ghz
3G & wifi : always on
facebook, gmail, emails, news, weather updates each hour
about 1h per day of audio streaming (deezer, Synology DS audio)
1~2h of internet and games per day (baseball superstars, angry birds, psx4droid...)
less than 30min of calls per day and about 20-30 sms...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is intense, are you serious?!
I barely make it through the day and I don't game or make many calls. usually just texts and emails.
My update intervals for emails are much more frequent though.
Lucky !
im usually not getting more than 10 hours on a charge... :s thinking about getting the 1800mAh mugen battery...
Sh0rty007 said:
im usually not getting more than 10 hours on a charge... :s thinking about getting the 1800mAh mugen battery...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you using it pretty heavily? I just got the phone Tuesday, and still playing with it a lot, so I can't comment on battery life yet. But what is your screen brightness set to? If you look at the battery use graph, you will see that the display uses the most power, and with any smartphone, the biggest culprit of short battery life. Turn the brightness as low as you can tolerate for your "average" viewing conditions. Also, be sure you've calibrated the battery meter as I've described in Post #8 above.
A word of caution as far as the Mugen extended battaries: one of the users here did a bunch of battary tests on OEM and different aftermarket brands, on various phones. The Mugen 1800 mAh batteries did not rate any better than the OEM 1400 mAh. Mugen tried to explain away the test results. But judge for yourself.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=583927
My screen brightness is just 25 or 45%. And i really don't make it to the end of the day.
I now have setcpu, so that when my screen is off my cpu is running on 300mhz. Think i can make it now through the day.
I use my phone a lot, thats true. But only to view the market or twitter things..
Ow and i don't use live wallpapers...
I think there is a lot to be said for keeping things turned off if you do not use/need them too much.
I leave my phone charging overnight (between 11pm and 6:30am). So when I leave the house in the morning it is fully charged.
I keep Wifi and 3G turned off unless I need to use it and I keep brightness to a minimum - again, only increasing it if I need it.
Normal usage for me would be about 1 hours music listening during my commute to work, a couple of texts a day and about 10mins worth of calls a day.
On top of that about 4 hours worth of data use (both Wifi and 3G) and I usually find I still have over 50% battery life left when I plug it back in around 11pm before going to bed (according to the Mini Info widget).
Granted this is fairly light use compared to some people, but I think if you take the time to control your app usage you should see better performance results!

[Q] Huge Battery Drain after Phone reparation

I've brought my Desire Z back for reparation (Mainboard died and replaced by an official repair center).
I've bringed it with my stock Battery fully loaded (I took it from the charger and 30 minutes later it died). When i picked it up, the battery was totally empty. Nothing in it. The Phone didn't even turned on!
It taked a while on the charger, but finally it turned on and was charged to 100% in normal time.
Since that, I experience a huge battery drain. When I release my phone from the charger on 7.30AM, it is dead on 4.30PM with no use! No SMS, phonecall, nothing. Only Gmail sync.
I've tried different ROM's (With- and without sense) and did restore my phone to stock. It doesn't solve my problem, the drain still stays huge, even with no apps installed!!!
I've tried another battery > same problem!
What can this be? Normally, my Desire Z last about 1,5 days oder 2 days when nothing happens. Why it's draining so fast, even if it's not used?
What can I do to resolve this ??
JassyNL said:
I've brought my Desire Z back for reparation (Mainboard died and replaced by an official repair center).
I've bringed it with my stock Battery fully loaded (I took it from the charger and 30 minutes later it died). When i picked it up, the battery was totally empty. Nothing in it. The Phone didn't even turned on!
It taked a while on the charger, but finally it turned on and was charged to 100% in normal time.
Since that, I experience a huge battery drain. When I release my phone from the charger on 7.30AM, it is dead on 4.30PM with no use! No SMS, phonecall, nothing. Only Gmail sync.
I've tried different ROM's (With- and without sense) and did restore my phone to stock. It doesn't solve my problem, the drain still stays huge, even with no apps installed!!!
I've tried another battery > same problem!
What can this be? Normally, my Desire Z last about 1,5 days oder 2 days when nothing happens. Why it's draining so fast, even if it's not used?
What can I do to resolve this ??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try a new battery? Reset battery stats and give it a few days to actually get accurate readings? 8 hours isn't unheard of especially if your battery is giving up the ghost. give those thigns a try and maybe turn off sync and/or data to see if that makes a differance.
killj0y said:
try a new battery? Reset battery stats and give it a few days to actually get accurate readings? 8 hours isn't unheard of especially if your battery is giving up the ghost. give those thigns a try and maybe turn off sync and/or data to see if that makes a differance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! I've already tried a new battery, but that makes no sense.
I'm now draining it to zero, i.e. when it's fully dead, and then charge it to 100% for 8 hours. When it's charged, i'll wipe battery stats. Let's see.
When anybody has more tips, i'm pleased to hear them!
Here's a tip: don't drain your battery to zero. This is a great way to shorten the life of the battery, or completely ruin it.
For purposes of battery meter calibration, draining to 10-20% is plenty sufficient.
There should be no problem draining a battery to zero as shown by software. There is a myth/misunderstanding that this is a bad thing because people confuse it with the fact that Lithium Ion batteries can be permanently damaged if they are drained too low.
BUT any device using such batteries will have its circuitry setup to have 0% set to a point above this damaging threshold.
So the "too low" point in hardware is likely to be below the zero point that the phone's firmware and software will let you go to.
Sent from my Desire Z running CM7.
redpoint73 said:
Here's a tip: don't drain your battery to zero. This is a great way to shorten the life of the battery, or completely ruin it.
For purposes of battery meter calibration, draining to 10-20% is plenty sufficient.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
x2 I concur with this. No need to fully discharge the battery, one it probably doesn't even fully discharge because I'm pretty sure the software is saving you from yourself, plus when the battery stats are uncalibrated I'm fairly certain it reads as discharged but in fact is only partially thus the calibration is off. Lastly I'm if the opinion that throwing different charge levels works better because it more closely resembles real life charging situations. Also letting it charge for that long does nothing because the phone charges only a trickle when full in order to not ruin the battery, similar to a laptop. Overcharge protection....
Thanks again!
Now I did charge it to full and wiped Battery stats.
After 1hour 30 minutes, it lost 10%. Did only send 2 short mails with Gmail.
Here is the usage chart:
- Screen 54% (Time active 4m 51s), Brightness ~20%
- Mobile Stand-By 20% (Time active 1u 26m 13s)
- Phone inactive 18% (Time Active 1u 21m 21s)
- Gmail 5% (CPU Total 31s, CPU Foreground 25s, enabled 51s)
- Android OS 3% (CPU Total 21s)
CPU is on idle ~10%, as always. I don't see any apps that are burning my battery.
s there something abnormal here?
just compared it with my statistics (running virtuous affinity)...
Mobile Stand-By seems to be very high... i have 4% (time active 2 h 30 m)
maybe radio related?
hoffmas said:
just compared it with my statistics (running virtuous affinity)...
Mobile Stand-By seems to be very high... i have 4% (time active 2 h 30 m)
maybe radio related?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This stats come from Virtuous Affinity also. I'd had never had any problems with such a drain with my 'old phone'. As soon as I got it back from the repair center, the battery drain is huge.
I've reflashed the latest radio for my phone, made a Superwipe and made a fresh install of Viruous Affinity. Let's see.
I think that 'Cell Standby' is killing my battery. It is at the top of the usage list with 38% and it's all time active. My phone was left it's charger at 7.15AM, now at 9.00AM it lost 20% of it's battery on idle use only. On 9.00AM, I've turned my phone on airplane mode. Let's see if that works.
I will recover the phone to stock tonight. If this isn't working, I'll return the phone to the store.
Even with the phone on airplane mode the battery is heavily draining. My last escape is to remove the SD Card. If the draining continues, then I will bring my phone back.
Does the battery came hot? Like more than normal?
With temp+cpu app you can monitor your temperature.
Because if on idle the temperature's around 25-28 C, you should be alright.
And then you can consider what steviewevie said; lithium battery can be damaged if you go on a too low voltage. Even if the phone as his ''protection'' to not get the battery to a critical level, the battery can loose power even if its not used.
Lithium ion, its cool but not perfect.
Try a OEM brand new battery.
steviewevie said:
There should be no problem draining a battery to zero as shown by software. There is a myth/misunderstanding that this is a bad thing because people confuse it with the fact that Lithium Ion batteries can be permanently damaged if they are drained too low.
BUT any device using such batteries will have its circuitry setup to have 0% set to a point above this damaging threshold.
So the "too low" point in hardware is likely to be below the zero point that the phone's firmware and software will let you go to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've seen plenty of people on XDA with this phone and others that have rendered their battery unable to charge by letting it discharge to zero. Yes, there are failsafes meant to prevent over-discharge, but they apparently do not always work. The damage is not "permanent" in that its just the protection circuit of the battery kicking in. But the only way to bring the battery back from "sleeping" is with a special battery meter with boost function, which most people do not have access to. So for all practical purposes, its cheaper to just buy a new battery.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/low_voltage_cut_off
Yes, over-discharge will not LIKELY kill your battery in this way. But there is no point in taking the risk. The battery meter is far from accurate in the best of conditions. So there is zero benefit to letting the battery drain to zero, as opposed to 10 or 20 %, just for the benefit of calibrating the battery meter.
Also, even if over-discharge does not instantly "kill" the battery, running full cycles at the least will shorten the overall life of the battery. Its best to avoid full cycles and charge often.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/do_and_dont_battery_table
Now this is just my experience from reading the experiences of others on XDA. I know there are hardware techs that can give much more first hand experience with batteries and may disagree. But as I figure, better safe than sorry. Especially when you consider there is no real benefit to letting it drain to zero on purpose.
oVeRdOsE. said:
Does the battery came hot? Like more than normal?
With temp+cpu app you can monitor your temperature.
Because if on idle the temperature's around 25-28 C, you should be alright.
And then you can consider what steviewevie said; lithium battery can be damaged if you go on a too low voltage. Even if the phone as his ''protection'' to not get the battery to a critical level, the battery can loose power even if its not used.
Lithium ion, its cool but not perfect.
Try a OEM brand new battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The temp of the battery don't exceed 28 degrees, I test this with Battery Indicator Pro. When discharged, the Voltage is around 3,6 (Which is normal behaviour). When charged, it,s 4,2V which is normal also.
I have already tried a new battery, and it doesn't make sense. Same behaviour.
I'm really clueless, because it drains the battery always. Airplane mode an removal of the SD card makes no difference.
I will return to stock tonight, charge again, and see if it behaves the same. When yes, then I will return the phone as I don't accept such behaviour (Normally, my Battery last 30+ Hours on idle).
Thanks for your tips and help for so far! I will report.

New Battery Theory - Bad Percentage Reading

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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.

[Q] Verizon Nexus Battery percentage going up?

I have been noticing something strange. I have gotten in the habit of draining my battery down to single digits before charging in an attempt to keep my battery life up. I usually use netflix on 4g to do this as it does a pretty good job of sucking the juice down quickly.
A few times I have noticed that after I shutdown netflix and let the phone sit a little while that the percentage actually goes back up. For example, I kill netflix at 4% battery left. I set the phone down for a bit and when I pick it back up the battery is at 10%. I have seen this multiple times.
Just curious if anyone else has noticed this and anyone has an explanation for why this happens.
I believe it has to do with the battery meter displaying how much battery you have left based on what you are doing? So when you stopped being resource intensive it adjusted itself.
That's one explanation I have heard.. there is also one that has to do with the amount of current going to the battery.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
trevoryour said:
I have been noticing something strange. I have gotten in the habit of draining my battery down to single digits before charging in an attempt to keep my battery life up.
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I can't answer your question directly as there could be multiple reasons. (Battery capacity estimation is tricky business, and I don't know what algorithm they're using.)
But I can tell you that the common belief that one ought to discharge batteries before recharging them is not applicable to modern lithium batteries.
I was (to some extent) true for old-fashioned NiCd cells, but modern Li-ion cells shouldn't be excessively discharged. If you want to prolong battery life it's more important to keep the battery cool. (Lithium cells degrade much faster at elevated temperatures.)
(To contradict myself I have to add that the battery capacity calculation can be improved by discharging the battery completely from time to time - but again, this depends on the battery capacity calculation algorithm they're using.)
I understand the way current battery tech works. The discharge is not for the battery itself. Its for the Android OS. I have noticed that whenever I plug my phone in in the middle of the day, the next day my battery doesn't last as long. In fact the poor battery life will remain an issue for about a week until it levels itself back out. I have noticed this behavior on multiple phones by multiple manufacturers.
You end up going in a circle. You use heavy data one day and as a result you have to plug in in the middle of the day. The next day your battery doesn't last as long so you plug in again. Unless you allow your phone enough time to level back out then it will always appear that your battery life is aweful. Since i've been discharging my battery I am able to unplug my phone at 7:30 am, use it moderately all day with GPS, Bluetooth, 4G on/wifi off with a live wallpaper running. At 11:30pm when its time for bed I still have around 60-70% battery remaining. I find myself having to watch a few hours of netflix on 4g in order to drain the battery so I can plug it in.
I'm not sure if this behavior is a result of an issue with the battery stats file or what but I do know that when I flash a new ROM it appears my battery life is reset to how it was before I had shortened it by plugging in the middle of the day.
many of us have seen the percent rise slightly, its normal. when under heavy load watching videos or something and then you are finished, the voltage gets relaxed and pops up some. since this phone uses some type of voltage calculation to determine percent, it will jump up once in a rare while, typically right after you placed it under heavy load then went to idle.
it's normal..

after doing a full discharge and a recharge

After doing a full discharge and a full recharge. My battery is doing amazing. I don't know if I should be doing this every day? What do you guys think. I thought it was April 5th update but it was not. Any suggestions?
bradmill08 said:
After doing a full discharge and a full recharge. My battery is doing amazing. I don't know if I should be doing this every day? What do you guys think. I thought it was April 5th update but it was not. Any suggestions?
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You basically let the system calibrate the battery, which I do as well from time to time. I typically go to about 20% then charge to 90-100% Seems to work fine for me :good:
bradmill08 said:
After doing a full discharge and a full recharge. My battery is doing amazing. I don't know if I should be doing this every day? What do you guys think. I thought it was April 5th update but it was not. Any suggestions?
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Click to collapse
Badger50 said:
You basically let the system calibrate the battery, which I do as well from time to time. I typically go to about 20% then charge to 90-100% Seems to work fine for me :good:
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I must admit, I still do this every now and then. Though it's up for debate as to the necessity to do it, but my OCD tells me too - especially after flashing a new rom. I'll then let it fully discharge, reboot a couple times until its completely empty, give it a full uninterrupted charge then use a battery calibration app to wipe clean the battery stats app. As mentioned, there'll be some people (rightly or wrongly) who'll disagree with this method with arguments saying that its bad for the battery and/or that the android system is intelligent enough to handle this by itself, which may indeed be true (e.g. perhaps not supposed to drain fully at risk of this being bad for the battery etc.). Though having saying this, I not only feel better for doing so but I, across many devices with this Pixel 2 XL included, experience great battery life throughout the lifespan of me having it.
I don't use any battery calibration apps or anything I don't root my phone at all. I used to do rooting but with stock Android it works awesome without rooting in my opinion.
Wow my phones battery life is amazing now after letting it completely die and charge back up. I am at 90% after almost 6 hours!
Isn't this a bad practice for battery health?
Prattham said:
Isn't this a bad practice for battery health?
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Yeah, it's not recommended to let Li-ion batteries drain completely too often or keep them charged at more than 80-85% for extended periods of time without using them. That's pretty much the reason why phones aren't fully charged when you buy them.
Hi
Battery technology and charging circuits are pretty advanced these days that it should not make any difference doing a full charge cycle, which if anything is not good for the battery. The battery capacity with lithium chemistry is mostly measured by voltage, it's not very precise at full capacities, but as the battery level falls it becomes a more reliable indicator.
I suspect all that is happening is on a full charge cycle, the stresses involved to the battery and effort of the charging circuit pushing a high current into it, is causing the battery voltage to peak higher and remain a bit higher whilst it is full. This has the side effect of causing the battery gauge to read higher for longer, however it will simply even out and drop more quickly as the battery capacity falls, the end result is it doesn't run for any longer, put just feels like it is doing better as the top end of the gauge isn't reading a drop quite as quickly.
The other thing that can cause a seemingly better battery drain is at what time we disconnect the charger when it reads 100%. Typically it will read 100% before it has actually finished charging. This happens as to get from a real capacity of say 90% up to 100% takes a longer time, and it's all about the impression of fast charging these days. Also when the phone is left charging, it will charge and then discharge, then top up, then discharge until its off the charger, as you can't leave the battery continuously trickle charging, and so that it doesn't look broken if we've left it on charge all day and it only reads 95% because a couple of hours ago it stopped charging and is in a run down phase before topping up again, the gauge is set to read 100% even if it is lower.
In other words there is extra capacity in the battery above what we are told is 100% and depending on when we take it from the charger, we might have 105%.
Regards
Phil
Thank you all for your answers! They are really helpful

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