Battery vs Mobile Network

[bjanow]

A couple of days ago I took some advice from this forum and switched off mobile networks. I sit by a computer all day with no need for email or internet for the most part. I have leak V2.1.2b. I use Touchdown for 4 email accounts although it will only sync one at a time and Gmail sync when on mobile. My battery life without mobile was about 90% last night whereas usually it would be at 30% or lower. I used the phone a lot yesterday, got some text messages, pretty much the same as the previous days. So what is going on? Why does the mobile network drain the battery so much? On my BB Pearl I had a mobile network on all the time, syncing 4 accounts every 15 minutes and never such drain as this. BTW, it was way worse drain on 1.5. It just sounds weird, like the radio is inefficient or something. Any and all thought welcome.

 

[Jazzy79]

HI,with my Eris it is the same.. using mobile network drains my battery, using WIFI it doesn't at all so when I'm at home..I work from home I always turn Mobile Network off also, more battery life with WIFI then mobile network.. Glad you posted this I wondered the same thing

 

[oxymojoe]

CDMA/EVDO 3G radio uses far more power than a GSM TDMA/UMTS 3G connection. It does not idle like the WiFi will on Eris when not in use.

In my switch from GSM to CDMA I have noticed this quite a bit more, but I knew it before hand. Some people who have come from ATT or TMO to VZ will very much notice the difference. Depending somewhat on device etc.

 

[cableguynoe]

I found this out also.
I tried, like many others, to delete many apps trying to figure out what was draining my battery.
Turns out it's the mobile networking.

Now, i realize that some of you probably need more constant access to the web than I do. However, i found that turning it off while driving and when at work will easily get me through the day without having to charge my eris.
I keep the on/off switch on my desktop for easy access.

Kinda a PITA, but it's the only fix i've found.

 

[ChiTownJim]

Yeah I don't need my mobile network all the time so I turn it on and off. For awhile I wasn't and by the end of the day I would be dead to 30% now I can easily be between 50-80% which is very usefull

 

[bjanow]

The difference is simply incredible. (no pun intended) Yesterday I was on the phone for an hour or so, text messages and the occasional mobile network on for email when I was out and weather updates. Went to bed 16 hours later with 80% battery. That just never happened with mobile on all day. I have a very good Wifi connection here and one of these days I'll try it with Wifi on all day, leaving mobile off. But not yet, I'm enjoying this too much.

 

[ChiTownJim]

Yeah I need to try wifi also, I just haven't taken the time to plug in the password for work and home, but that's a good chunk of my day I'm around awesome WiFi signals so I should give it a try.

 

[smacky]

I leave my 3G on all the time as well. In crappy coverage, or at least where it shows no more than one bar at any time. My battery lasts the whole day, a solid 16 hours.

Not sure why it won't last any more than that, but with constant emails from professors and the school itself, and then with other leisurely things, I can't afford to have network turned off. I'm only in a situation where I have to use a computer and not my phone so rarely, it wouldn't make sense to turn off 3G even for half an hour because I'd still be expecting something, or use the phone for something my computer can't, like texting (doesn't require 3G, I know, but...).

 

[bjanow]

I leave my 3G on all the time as well. In crappy coverage, or at least where it shows no more than one bar at any time. My battery lasts the whole day, a solid 16 hours.

I totally understand leaving it on all day, I would do the same if I weren't in front of a computer all day. I can get a solid 16 hours too but that usually leaves me with 10% at the end of the day. I have 4 email accounts that I need to check regularly, phone calls and I don't know what. But with 3G/Mobile off I can get 16 hours with 90% left some days, minimum 80%. That's a huge difference if you need the extra time while traveling or under heavy phone use. So the question is, why does 3G suck the battery dry?
As an aside, I turned on WiFi today, 3G off. Let's see what happens.

Edit: Wireless looking really good so far.

 

[eghill1125]

Ok.. I will post in here since this is about stuff I am looking for.

I go from 8am to 4 pm at work. My battery is usually around 65% left when I leave work. This is with the following on: Mobile Network, GPS. My signal is 0-1 bars at work. Bad reception area. I have WIFI at work also that is poor signal. Today I turned off the Mobile Newtork, and the WIFI is also off and through the first 4 hours I have lost 16-17%. That ends my day at about 68%. Not much gained. But also not much lost. As far as I can tell the only thing I am not getting with Mobile Network turned off is Gmail, Google Contacts, Calendar Sync and Weather. I have Beautiful Widgets for weather that updates on it's own, so other than Gmail ( which I don't really need at work ) I am not missing out on anything.

My battery shows the biggest usage is Cell Standby at about 45%, but only a 12% signal loss. My question is this. Should I go ahead and run the WIFI with poor signal and would that stop the Cell Standby from looking for signal so much even when it has a signal still? It must be checking and that is where my battery is losing, even though it finds a signal by showing only 12% loss.

Basically asking this:

Is WIFI with poor signal still better than nothing turned on at all?

Am I correct with the Mobile Network only checking what is under the accounts and sync tab in settings? And not doing anything else? Also, not sure about this, but does Gmail sync up on WIFI also or just with Mobile Networking on?

Long post. Sorry. Thanks for looking.

 

[smacky]

Ok.. I will post in here since this is about stuff I am looking for.

I go from 8am to 4 pm at work. My battery is usually around 65% left when I leave work. This is with the following on: Mobile Network, GPS. My signal is 0-1 bars at work. Bad reception area. I have WIFI at work also that is poor signal. Today I turned off the Mobile Newtork, and the WIFI is also off and through the first 4 hours I have lost 16-17%. That ends my day at about 68%. Not much gained. But also not much lost. As far as I can tell the only thing I am not getting with Mobile Network turned off is Gmail, Google Contacts, Calendar Sync and Weather. I have Beautiful Widgets for weather that updates on it's own, so other than Gmail ( which I don't really need at work ) I am not missing out on anything.

My battery shows the biggest usage is Cell Standby at about 45%, but only a 12% signal loss. My question is this. Should I go ahead and run the WIFI with poor signal and would that stop the Cell Standby from looking for signal so much even when it has a signal still? It must be checking and that is where my battery is losing, even though it finds a signal by showing only 12% loss.

Basically asking this:

Is WIFI with poor signal still better than nothing turned on at all?

Am I correct with the Mobile Network only checking what is under the accounts and sync tab in settings? And not doing anything else? Also, not sure about this, but does Gmail sync up on WIFI also or just with Mobile Networking on?

Long post. Sorry. Thanks for looking.

No, cell standby time and time without signal is solely on reception not your WiFi strength or anything.

I really don't make many calls but I do have weather, two email accounts, Facebook syncing every hour or so. I'll try turning off data and see what it does from here on out, but I have a feeling I will break at some point and turn it back on.

I doubt I will get what you guys are getting, ending the day with about 68% or close to that.

 

[ChiTownJim]

I totally understand leaving it on all day, I would do the same if I weren't in front of a computer all day. I can get a solid 16 hours too but that usually leaves me with 10% at the end of the day. I have 4 email accounts that I need to check regularly, phone calls and I don't know what. But with 3G/Mobile off I can get 16 hours with 90% left some days, minimum 80%. That's a huge difference if you need the extra time while traveling or under heavy phone use. So the question is, why does 3G suck the battery dry?
As an aside, I turned on WiFi today, 3G off. Let's see what happens.

Edit: Wireless looking really good so far.

80-90% wow that is insanely good I took my phone off the charger at 630 am and it's 1115 and I'm down to 84% already (with mobile, gps and wifi all off and not a lot of use maybe 10minutes of phone, 20-30 texts and turned on mobile for about 5 minutes to check a website and this is a 1500mah battery)

 

[bjanow]

I go from 8am to 4 pm at work. My battery is usually around 65% left when I leave work. This is with the following on: Mobile Network, GPS. My signal is 0-1 bars at work. Bad reception area. I have WIFI at work also that is poor signal. Today I turned off the Mobile Newtork, and the WIFI is also off and through the first 4 hours I have lost 16-17%. That ends my day at about 68%. Not much gained. But also not much lost. As far as I can tell the only thing I am not getting with Mobile Network turned off is Gmail, Google Contacts, Calendar Sync and Weather. I have Beautiful Widgets for weather that updates on it's own, so other than Gmail ( which I don't really need at work ) I am not missing out on anything.

My battery shows the biggest usage is Cell Standby at about 45%, but only a 12% signal loss. My question is this. Should I go ahead and run the WIFI with poor signal and would that stop the Cell Standby from looking for signal so much even when it has a signal still? It must be checking and that is where my battery is losing, even though it finds a signal by showing only 12% loss.

Basically asking this:

Is WIFI with poor signal still better than nothing turned on at all?

Am I correct with the Mobile Network only checking what is under the accounts and sync tab in settings? And not doing anything else? Also, not sure about this, but does Gmail sync up on WIFI also or just with Mobile Networking on?

All great questions, wish I had the answer to all of them. The only thing you get with WiFi and Mobile off is phone calls and text. One particular question I have for you is when did you turn off everything today? Was it as soon as you unplugged? I turned off everything right away and 6 hours later I have a full charge still if phone calls are a minimum. But today I turned on WiFi as a test, and yes, Gmail comes in, email, weather etc. My cell standby is 23% now, over 5 hours in. I made some calls, text, internet, email, weather and my battery is still 100%. I mean, what? How can that be? This just seems so odd to me.

Smacky, try to hold out or do it on the weekend when you won't have to go on access withdrawal.

 

[eghill1125]

Wow.. No idea how you are managing that with 100% still. I am showing right now 5 hours and 48 minutes since unplug and a signal loss of 21% and I am at 76% on my battery. I am running Helix too. I don't know if that is the reason I am losing battery consistently or not. I have not used my phone much today at all. Maybe it is Heix.. Shows up first in appllication usage in Spare Parts with a lot more MS than anything else.

 

[smihalik]

So i just tried to post a longer explanation, but it didn't work. Here's the short version:
go to wireless and networks
scroll to the bottom to mobile networks
uncheck always on enable data

My phone has been up for 37hrs and says it has 3hrs usage. Before I did this it was something like 138hrs and 133hrs. This works for me, hope it helps you, too. It still allows you to use 3g when you have it, but doesn't push emails or updates anymore. There's always a trade-off. Good luck!

 

[bjanow]

Wow.. No idea how you are managing that with 100% still. I am showing right now 5 hours and 48 minutes since unplug and a signal loss of 21% and I am at 76% on my battery. I am running Helix too. I don't know if that is the reason I am losing battery consistently or not. I have not used my phone much today at all. Maybe it is Heix.. Shows up first in appllication usage in Spare Parts with a lot more MS than anything else.

Sorry, I don't know what Helix is. Hey, what version OS are you on? I'm running 2.1 and found that it was much better than 1.5 with the same basic setup.

 

[eghill1125]

I am also running 2.1 on mine. Helix is another Home option instead of Sense. I usually end my night with about 30% left on my battery. That is from 6:15AM to about 11:00PM. I guess that is about as good as I am going to get and really isn't bad. Not using the phone a lot though and would worry if I actually had to use it for more than I am now.

 

[bjanow]

I am also running 2.1 on mine. Helix is another Home option instead of Sense. I usually end my night with about 30% left on my battery. That is from 6:15AM to about 11:00PM. I guess that is about as good as I am going to get and really isn't bad. Not using the phone a lot though and would worry if I actually had to use it for more than I am now.

I felt the exact same way regarding using the phone extensively. I therefore bought another battery and keep it in my jeans change pocket if I know I'll not be near a charger. But now with 3G off and the battery seemingly charging on light waves, I might not worry so much. I really need the phone more than anything. Thanks to, I think it was, Caddy for showing me the mobile widget. When I need to check my email and I'm out, I just turn 3G on, check it and turn it off. Ok I confess, I update the weather too.

 

[smacky]

Ok, so I turned off auto updates and the battery definitely seems to be responding well.

I have just one question: is there a sync widget I can hit so I can manually sync my mail whenever I want to?

 

[gruss]

you can do that with the android power control widget, second from the right is the "sync". At least I think thats what your asking?

 

[smacky]

you can do that with the android power control widget, second from the right is the "sync". At least I think thats what your asking?

Yes, it was. It takes up the whole damn row though. I could put it on another page, but I missed a few emails in the couple of hours I've tried manually syncing it. I'm just sticking to less frequent updates but still auto. I can't live without it.

 

[ChiTownJim]

80-90% wow that is insanely good I took my phone off the charger at 630 am and it's 1115 and I'm down to 84% already (with mobile, gps and wifi all off and not a lot of use maybe 10minutes of phone, 20-30 texts and turned on mobile for about 5 minutes to check a website and this is a 1500mah battery)

Right after I wrote this I connected to wifi used the phone for 2 short calls a couple text messages and a good amount of internet crusing actually and now at 330 I'm down to 69% so it only used 15% battery over 4hrs and 15minutes that's not too bad at all. I'll be using wifi much more plus obviously the internet is much faster connected to a good wifi signal.

 

[smacky]

I don't think stuff gets pushed to your phone over WiFi. Does it? For me it didn't/doesn't.

 

[bjanow]

I don't think stuff gets pushed to your phone over WiFi. Does it? For me it didn't/doesn't.

It does but it's sketchy.

 

[smacky]

It does but it's sketchy.

Yeah, I don't want sketchy. I want a damn Picasso-like push notification system.