The Ultimate Hero Battery Life Thread (Tips & Discussion)

[MagnusRagnarok]

Spare parts told me that my batt was in good cond. so i took it to sprint to check it out. They said after less than a month of min. use it should not have declined to good status. So he swapped out my batt. for me. I am noting the life again,doesnt seem n e better yet, plus this one out of the box said good...so i dont know, maybe this is regular batt. life for this 1500 batt., gonna try looking into uninstalling my system monitors and taskpanel and taskkillers, If that doesnt lead me in the right direction guess ill be buying the 1750 for $50 or the 3200 for $69 kinda sux but i love this phone so i will continue with my trial and error.....asa i find something not listed above or remarkable i will report back......

 

[MagnusRagnarok]

What in God's name are you talking about? Yes I'm technically inclined. What you just said made absolutely no sense. And why would you spend that amount of time on a phone? Is this what you do when you have no social life, no girl, and no kids? Good lord...

Sorry you were not able to comprehend the subject matter of my last post. Obviously my explanation was not simple enough for you...from what i have read in this forum, seems most would have understood what i was talking about,So i hope that was just your attempt at humor @ the expense of your own level of intellect(from your pic. you dont look like your in high school anymore). I was just trying to help those with less knowledge about their phone than myself solve their batt. issues without taking all the time that i have....you know, WHAT the forum is about????And basically the whole day i am either using 1 of my 3 pc's or my phone, i repair pc's and mobile electronics for a living,you should understand....obviously you spend more time here posting than i do. FYI, I am a 31 yr old father with a 23 yr old fiance and a 5 month old son that i watch while my fiance works......social life????not anymore!!!OCD??? maybe a little.....

 

[TF1984]

you guys are funny.

When I post impolite posts, even once or twice I get haggled by no less than two mods per occurence. I better not be the only one getting spankd on the hand.... LOL.

 

[Slug]

you guys are funny

So long as everyone gets the joke, and it's kept civil.

 

[LLWesMan]

Spare parts told me that my batt was in good cond. so i took it to sprint to check it out. They said after less than a month of min. use it should not have declined to good status. So he swapped out my batt. for me. I am noting the life again,doesnt seem n e better yet, plus this one out of the box said good...so i dont know, maybe this is regular batt. life for this 1500 batt., gonna try looking into uninstalling my system monitors and taskpanel and taskkillers, If that doesnt lead me in the right direction guess ill be buying the 1750 for $50 or the 3200 for $69 kinda sux but i love this phone so i will continue with my trial and error.....asa i find something not listed above or remarkable i will report back......

Am I missing something? Good status is not good? Mine also reads good.

 

[dmm5157]

Am I missing something? Good status is not good? Mine also reads good.

Ditto. Mine's always read GOOD.

 

[nyx528]

I have gone back and forth on the whole task manager being evil or necessary thing. When I don't have one, I've found my battery life is worse cuz there are certain built in apps (namely the stupid f*ing voicemail) that just keep opening themselves and running when I don't need them to. Now just cuz an app is showing as open, doesn't mean it's actively running. So I have all the stuff I want to update in the ignore list and only the repeatedly stubborn running programs set to autokill. Using this method I've found my battery life is MUCH better. I don't think a kill all is needed, but if there's stubborn apps that won't stop opening it can be quite helpful.
I did just turn off all the auto update stuff so hopefully I'll get more battery life

On a related note, I noticed that someone asked about if it's best to let the phone completely die or to charge it once it starts harassing you to do so. I'm also curious about this. When I first got the Seido 1750 battery I was letting it die to set the full charge, but I would like to know if this is best in the long run.

 

[bzzzzz]

I seem to be able to get pretty consistent 30 to 40 hours worth of battery time with moderate to high use.

I'm using screebl - I'm not sure what else it does other than kill screen, but without screebl running the battery was draining much quicker.

 

[bzzzzz]

Not really used phone at all today. Just used it to check time and used remember the milk app to remind myself of a few things that i needed to do throughout the day.

Started this morning at 7am on battery 100, now at 9pm down to 96.

 

[JB in AZ]

Not really used phone at all today. Just used it to check time and used remember the milk app to remind myself of a few things that i needed to do throughout the day.

Started this morning at 7am on battery 100, now at 9pm down to 96.

Curious where you are located? It is 9PM where you are when its about 1:09 PM PST. (per your post time) Thanks

 

[bzzzzz]

Curious where you are located? It is 9PM where you are when its about 1:09 PM PST. (per your post time) Thanks

UK

 

[dmm5157]

I've been working pretty hard the past week at keeping track of battery useage and troubleshooting any problems that arise. I rooted my phone and flashed Fresh 1.1. Phone battery improved greatly.

Then, I started playing around with stuff like Lockbot (which I had on my phone). I removed that and my battery status widgets and battery improved greatly. For the first time, I made it over a day on a single charge.


Ok, again in trouble shooting I decided to put lockbot back on and see if that caused battery charge to drop. To my surprise it didn't drop. I decided to not add anything new (no new apps or other changes) and the phone worked well all day. The next day I pull the phone off the charger and the battery seemed to drain somewhat quicky (5-8% per hour). I uninstalled Lockbot and that seemed to do the trick. Battery drop went back to under 3% per hour with standard use. Dropped Lockbot back on to see if it would go back to 5-8% drop, but nope. It stayed at/under 2-3% per hour for the rest of the night.

Here's where things got weird. I installed two games, which dropped my internal memory to around 35MB. I played with them for a while and that was it. Popped the phone on the charger and that was that.

Next morning, I take the phone off the charger and it discharges down very quickly without doing anything. I decided on a hunch to delete those last 2 programs first, before doing anything with Lockbot and sure enough a couple hours went by and the battery was back to 2-3% drain.

Today the same thing happened. I hadn't installed any new programs, but my memory was down below 40%. I hadn't changed anything, except unplugging the phone from the wall and the battery dropped 5% in 30 minutes. I uninstalled 1 program (another large game) and cleared my cache and it put me at 48MB free space. The phone has been at around 2-3% per hour for the rest of the day, no other changes.


What the heck is going on??? I check Spare Parts and it shows my phone is sleeping normally and nothing is keeping it awake (8% awake time).

I am thoroughly confused. This has only happened the last 2 mornings. I'm going to keep an eye on it and maybe not uninstall any programs tomorrow if it's doing the same thing and see if it levels out and stops on its own, or if it continues chomping my battery.

 

[bzzzzz]

Wow your sleep time is lower than mine.

I've not rooted yet, but I've got 18% awake time.

My battery has dropped 5% in the last 14 hours.

If you have a task killer, get rid of it. Then leave it for a day or two and see what happens.

 

[JB in AZ]

UK

Got it! So you are using the GSM version of the Hero. I imagine that would explain different battery usage from the Sprint Hero CDMA.

 

[bzzzzz]

Got it! So you are using the GSM version of the Hero. I imagine that would explain different battery usage from the Sprint Hero CDMA.

I'm not quite sure what that means, but you may be right.

 

[dmm5157]

Wow your sleep time is lower than mine.

I've not rooted yet, but I've got 18% awake time.

My battery has dropped 5% in the last 14 hours.

If you have a task killer, get rid of it. Then leave it for a day or two and see what happens.

I don't use a task killer at all.


The only way I could get 5% drop in 14 hours would be in airplane mode. The best day I've ever had with decent usage (10-20 texts, a few e-mails, a little browsing, etc) is about 60% battery remaining after 18 hours off the charger.


I'm curious how that compares with others here. Seems to be middle of the road.

I know that Lockbot is hindering my battery life a little, but I'm willing to trade that for not having the phone unlock in my pocket accidentally or have to deal with the password lock. The day I uninstalled Lockbot to do my testing my phone dialed someone, changed a setting somehow that switched my phone to stock Android Home. I carry my phone in my pocket. There is no other option (I hate holsters and cases, as they snag on my office chair).

 

[dmm5157]

Update: Well, today looks like it's doing it again, except it didn't stop when I uninstalled a couple of apps and rebooted. I'm up to 60MB free and really running out of apps to install that I don't use.

Unplugged my phone from the wall at 7:20. It's been about an hour and my phone is now down to 90%. I checked the weather on the Weather.com app when it was down around 97% after about 20 minutes on. Read my e-mails and decided maybe it had to do with the gmail notification apps I got yesterday. Killed those, but it's still dropped 5% in 30 minutes after that.

Guess a nandroid restore is in my future tonight when I get home. Glad I made a back-up when my system was running well.

 

[sarspants]

Do you have Google Voice installed? I was doing great for awhile then discovered google voice to be the culprit after uninstalling and reinstalling it.

It was force closing every time I turned on my phone so I uninstalled and reinstalled it. It didn't fix the problem but whatever. I went into the settings to set up the notification interval and could have sworn that it used to push notifications like gmail. It doesn't. At any rate, I figured I would have to do 10 minutes, I would hate to be in an area with no service for a couple of minutes, miss a call, and then not find out until an hour later when the notifications refreshed. It turns out that this was killing my battery. Now I have voicemail notifications sent to gmail which then pushes to my phone.

Update: Well, today looks like it's doing it again, except it didn't stop when I uninstalled a couple of apps and rebooted. I'm up to 60MB free and really running out of apps to install that I don't use.

Unplugged my phone from the wall at 7:20. It's been about an hour and my phone is now down to 90%. I checked the weather on the Weather.com app when it was down around 97% after about 20 minutes on. Read my e-mails and decided maybe it had to do with the gmail notification apps I got yesterday. Killed those, but it's still dropped 5% in 30 minutes after that.

Guess a nandroid restore is in my future tonight when I get home. Glad I made a back-up when my system was running well.

 

[dmm5157]

Do you have Google Voice installed? I was doing great for awhile then discovered google voice to be the culprit after uninstalling and reinstalling it.

It was force closing every time I turned on my phone so I uninstalled and reinstalled it. It didn't fix the problem but whatever. I went into the settings to set up the notification interval and could have sworn that it used to push notifications like gmail. It doesn't. At any rate, I figured I would have to do 10 minutes, I would hate to be in an area with no service for a couple of minutes, miss a call, and then not find out until an hour later when the notifications refreshed. It turns out that this was killing my battery. Now I have voicemail notifications sent to gmail which then pushes to my phone.

No I don't have Google Voice, but thanks for the tip. I was looking at getting an account setup for my phone, but haven't yet.


I do want to give an update. I had installed 3 programs in the past week, 2 yesterday. The 2 from yesterday were Gmail Notitification and Gmail Unread Count. I kept Unread Count, but uninstalled Gmail Notificaiton.

I also had upgraded from Battery Indicator free to Battery Indicator Pro. I hadn't considered this as possibly draining my battery, but forgot that I'd upgraded. I went ahead and uninstalled that, then rolled back to the free version.


This was right after my post and I was at around 90%. It's not 10:16 local time (about 1 1/2 hours after my changes and reboot) and my phone is now at 89% and holding steady.


I'm not sure if Battery Indicator Pro had some kind of error or was even the culprit, but I'm going to stick with the free one as it seems to be working pretty well now.


All this tinkering to "fix" the battery is a little tiresome. Now I'm to the point where I'm afraid to install anything on my phone in fear that I'll screw up my battery life.

I'm definitely at a point where I only add 1-2 apps at a time.

 

[bzzzzz]

I added aldiko (ereader) quite a few people have it as highly recommended.

It's a very good app, and I managed to sit down and read a chapter of a book this morning.

Problem is since it was installed yesterday battery has been dropping like a stone.

53 when I left home in the morning

47 90 minutes later

32 2 hours further on

3 hours later phone has switched itself off.

I think there are two possibilities.

a) aldiko eats battery like nothing else, so get rid of it (or update to pro)

b) android likes to take a bit of time "getting to know" a new application. After a while it will figure out how much uptime an application needs.

 

[LLWesMan]

The biggest drain on battery is when you're in an area with bad signal. I lost 20% in an hour without turning on the screen or running any apps or widgets just because my girlfriends house is against the side of a hill and there is no reception there.

 

[bzzzzz]

The biggest drain on battery is when you're in an area with bad signal. I lost 20% in an hour without turning on the screen or running any apps or widgets just because my girlfriends house is against the side of a hill and there is no reception there.

Someone needs to write an app for that. Something along the lines of, if you're signal is so bad that it cuts out then cut off (amplified) transmission for 5 minutes. It could even give you a little message, when it does this - just to let you know.

 

[bzzzzz]

Took phone off charge at 99% at 7:30

It's now 11:30 and battery is down to 81%

It seems marginally better than its been all day, but considering I've done very little then I'm not over impressed.

I'm going to put the battery on overnight charge and will let you know how battery gets on tomorrow.

 

[imneveral0ne]

I'm running at 68% awake time and its been running for 4:18:15

what am i doing wrong? what should i get rid of?

 

[bzzzzz]

Started with 100% battery at 6:30 today.

Now 9:00am and its on 97%

Whatever was causing catastrophic battery use yesterday seems to have turned itself off.