How to Improve Battery Life for the Samsung Epic 4G

[jvoegele]

I have written a detailed blog post about how to get improved battery life for the Samsung Epic 4G. I thought I would share it here since it seems like a common problem for many people on this forum:

Unweaving the Rainbow: How to Improve Battery Life for the Samsung Epic 4G

Hope it helps.

 

[Flaspeneer]

Your piece is thoughtfully written and the tips it contains are useful, Jason. I appreciate it when a writer explains each step of a process succinctly without assuming that any step will be too obvious.

You've also managed to be readable without affecting a jokey tone or resorting to tedious asides. Many writers are more concerned with appearing human than saying anything useful. You're already human and thankfully don't have that problem.

​

 

[KillerQ97]

One caveat: You write:
Trouble is, I see no Advanced Menu under Wi-Fi Settings. I'm running Build DI18. How about you?

Just hit the MENU key on the bottom of the phone when you are in WiFi settings. ADVANCED will pop up.

Thanks,

Matt!

 

[Flaspeneer]

Thanks for that, KillerQ97. I'd assumed he was talking about a submenu accessed by clicking on Wi-Fi Settings. I should have noticed he'd enclosed the word Menu in parens.

 

[iBleedBlackNgold]

thanks for the explanation behind the advanced wifi setting relating to it sleeping. I asked the question in regards to that many times on threads and those urging folks to do it never provided a response. I'm having a slight battery issue but mine seems like its been since either di07, di18 or both. again thanks!

 

[boomerbubba]

I have written a detailed blog post about how to get improved battery life for the Samsung Epic 4G. I thought I would share it here since it seems like a common problem for many people on this forum:

Unweaving the Rainbow: How to Improve Battery Life for the Samsung Epic 4G

Hope it helps.

I think most of the main recommendations in the blog article are sound. In fact, they are precisely what I was already doing, with decent success:

• Set WiFi to never sleep while it is enabled to avoid use of cell data.
• Toggle Airplane mode to defeat the Time Without Signal bug on the Epic.
• Stop the DRM service whenever it starts, using a monitoring utility. (I use AutoStart Killer.)

I dissent from the recommendation to use Locale to automatically tweak the WiFi sleep settings, because using Locale to search for the WiFi SSID requires WiFi to be enabled in the first place. I prefer to just leave the sleep setting in place, since it only applies while WiFi is enabled. I only use WiFi when at home or at some occasional hotspot where I deliberately want to connect. So in all other cases, I toggle WiFi off completely at the notifications bar. That's easy for me to remember.

One other thing I do at home, where my 4G connection is marginal and I'm using WiFi for data anyway, is disable 4G.

So my typical habit, driven by my particular situation, is to go to the notifications bar when I leave home, and with two clicks disable WiFi and enable 4G. I reverse the process when I return home.

That double change of state could all be automated with Locale or Tasker, but it would depend on using the WiFi radio to sense where I am. As you mentioned in the comments on your blog, that convenience has some cost in battery juice so it is a personal choice.

 

[jvoegele]

I dissent from the recommendation to use Locale to automatically tweak the WiFi sleep settings, because using Locale to search for the WiFi SSID requires WiFi to be enabled in the first place. I prefer to just leave the sleep setting in place, since it only applies while WiFi is enabled. I only use WiFi when at home or at some occasional hotspot where I deliberately want to connect. So in all other cases, I toggle WiFi off completely at the notifications bar. That's easy for me to remember.

You are correct that the Locale trick does require wi-fi to be enabled all of the time. However, the Locale plugin that I recommend (Locale Wifi Connection Plugin) is based on connection state rather than location polling. Now I am not the developer of this plugin and I'm not familiar with the implementation details, but if the plugin does truly work as advertised it should require no polling and should be strictly event based. This means that, when I am at home, the connection status is true and my wi-fi sleep policy keeps wi-fi alive for me, and when I move out of range of my home wi-fi network an event is triggered and the wi-fi sleep policy reverts to the default Android configuration. This does not completely disable wi-fi, but I personally do not want to completely disable wi-fi, I just want polling to act smarter.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[boomerbubba]

You are correct that the Locale trick does require wi-fi to be enabled all of the time. However, the Locale plugin that I recommend (Locale Wifi Connection Plugin) is based on connection state rather than location polling.

Thanks. I did not know that. I may give the automated method a try, either with Locale or Tasker, which I believe can use Locale plugins. But I think I still would need to keep the WiFi radio enabled and seeking open access points, or it would never know to connect to my SSID in the first place, thus setting the state.

 

[Aero1]

Jason, nice. I am glad someone has busted the idea that turnign off gps saves battery, as another battery saving thread claimed, when tests show it doesn't.

I am also glad you mentioned a start up auditor and or root to kill DRM, because the updated Epic has much worse battery life than the introduced Epic precisely becasue of the DRM. It is amazing that Samsung updates harmed battery life!

 

[Flash9]

Jason, nice. I am glad someone has busted the idea that turnign off gps saves battery, as another battery saving thread claimed, when tests show it doesn't.

I am also glad you mentioned a start up auditor and or root to kill DRM, because the updated Epic has much worse battery life than the introduced Epic precisely becasue of the DRM. It is amazing that Samsung updates harmed battery life!

Why does everyone call Media Hub DRM? When it's listed under running services as MHService. Since the last update my battery life has doubled and I have never killled the running media hub service.

 

[jvoegele]

Why does everyone call Media Hub DRM? When it's listed under running services as MHService. Since the last update my battery life has doubled and I have never killled the running media hub service.

The DRM service that we are referring to comes bundled with Media Hub. I actually have two DRM services on my phone:

* DRM Protected Content Storage
* DRMContentLauncher

I disable both of these with Startup Auditor.

I do not have any "MHService" listed under Running Services.

 

[Aero1]

Since the last update my battery life has doubled and I have never killled the running media hub service.

You are the guy who said there was upload speed problem> LOL.

Doubled? Bull, and you are neglegting to state the known facts.

You have it backwards. there is no question whatsoever that the original firmware resulted in better battery life than the aggregate of the last two updates. the phone objectively now has worse battery life and management than when we bought it.

When you say the last update helped battery life, yes, but that is after the first update destroyed it!

I think you also apparently dont understand that media hub installed the drm service, whcih is persistent background batter killer. We all know that. There are workarounds, like rooting.

I don't know anyone in their right mind who would not wish we never gotten media hub. the products are insanely overpriced and it harms the general utility of the phone with its battery draining.

 

[Flash9]

The DRM service that we are referring to comes bundled with Media Hub. I actually have two DRM services on my phone:

* DRM Protected Content Storage
* DRMContentLauncher

I disable both of these with Startup Auditor.

I do not have any "MHService" listed under Running Services.

Thanks for the write up jvoegele!

Here is my phones info.

Menu → Settings → Applications → Running services
Media Hub 6.0MB
Process: com.sdgtl.mediahub.spr
MHService
Started by application: touch to stop

Menu → Settings → Applications → Manage Applications → Menu → Filter → Running

DRM Protected Content Storage (Used by Android)
8.00KB
Media Hub
1.96MB

Menu → Settings → Applications → Manage Applications → Menu → Filter → All

DRM Protected Content Storage
76.00KB
DRM Protected Content Storage (Used by Android)
8.00KB
DRMContentLauncher
0.00B

Just saying

You are the guy who said there was upload speed problem> LOL.Doubled? Bull, and you are neglegting to state the known facts.

Yes it

 

[Aero1]

Yes it’s me, don’t make me prove you wrong again Aero1.

You were 100% wrong with your laughable bogus claims on upload speed on stock Epic, and we all know it. You just proved you didn't know how to use the speedtest software, nothing more.

And prove what wrong on DRM, EVERYONE commented that the first update significantly harmed battery life. You want to again claim to be the one in a million? people will again just laugh.

As far as Ego, posting bogus claims on download speeds or improved battery life with DRM service running, shows a problem, not my comments which are 100% consistent with users experiences here.

 

[Aero1]

Why does everyone call Media Hub DRM? When it's listed under running services as MHService.

Because everyone knows that mediahub includes the DRM as one of its services, which is the service that costs the battery life

 

[epic-mike]

Wow! Killing that DRM really works...I probably had one of the worst battery problems out of all of you, from time off charger in the morning till battery was drained normaly took 2.5-3.00 hours and I'm a very heavy internet user and use 2 real time stock streamer apps for daytrading all day. I used to have to charge my battery 3 times a day on average. I read the article above, most of the stuff I had already done and I use juice defender as well....I did not know about the DRM thing...today, with DRM killed for the first my epicgot off the charger at 9am, it is now 3:20pm and I still have over 3/4 of my battery left. Granted, I haven't used the phone today like I normally do but I've still given it some heavy use today (3 hrs browsing 1.5 hours of texting and phone use an an hour of instant messaging with google talk. Normally that alone would have drained me almost completely....I highly recommend doing this, I'm astonished!!! That was my only complaint with the epic, to make an incredibly beautiful.and high tech phone like this and then throw a crap battery in it makes no sense to me! I'm still waiting for the extended battery, I don't care how bulky it makes my epic, I live on this phone.

 

[o0Syn]

I followed the tips recommended and also added juice defender and task killer. With light use I am getting a little more than a day and a half of life out of my battery now. First day I got it I killed it in 5 hours with heavy use lol. Haven't had to use it heavily since then so we'll see how well it does next heavy useage.

I know everyone claims gps and wifi dont drain but that is really not that true it is a signal that requires intermittent power therefore it drains power from the battery sure it's small but it adds up. If you dont need it at the moment disable it. It's not like we have to go into the settings menu to re enable it just pull down the task bar and enable it woopi.

 

[BWFBezerk]

Idk if this is just an issue with my phone or not, but I play music from my phone a lot, and after disabling DRMLauncher I tried playing music and when the screen locks it shuts off the music program. I'm using the stock Music app to play songs. I found out after enabling DRMLauncher again it will play like normal.

 

[Anderdroider]

Great tips. Thanks for sharing.

 

[hayzooos]

Idk if this is just an issue with my phone or not, but I play music from my phone a lot, and after disabling DRMLauncher I tried playing music and when the screen locks it shuts off the music program. I'm using the stock Music app to play songs. I found out after enabling DRMLauncher again it will play like normal.

I've been playing music on my Epic for a few weeks now, and have not noticed the same problem and I too disable the DRM stuff after every reset. Might be something else...

 

[unirower]

The recommendation on here is to just kill unnecessary apps every now and then but that doesn't address them restarting randomly and frequently. Media Hub, Amazon MP3, GTalkService and DRM services keep restarting every time I look at my phone and they all drain the battery for no purpose given that I don't use them. How can you keep them from restarting in a simple manner that is not more costly to the battery than just leaving them running?

 

[Ledhed79]

I'm new around here and with the epic as well, I wanted to say thank you very much for the advice you posted. I would have never known how to fix all of that. My battery life is still not the best but I see a big improvement, it really helped a lot. I'm contemplating rooting as I'd really love to clean house and unload Sprint's "junkware" along with some other garbage. It's my phone and I'd like to personalize it precisely to my liking. I'm just not that confident in my abilities yet and I don't want to risk trashing my phone. I'll be up in the air about it for awhile, but thanks again.

 

[alanhagg]

Well, it's two years since that last post, but I figured I'd mention Root App Delete. It will dump ANYthing, if you tell it to. DRM goes away. and stays til you re-enable. Or you can completely delete it...