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Source of poor battery life (not let's fix it)

flipz

Lurker
Oct 14, 2009
4
0
My friend and I both purchased Heros and we are both seeing pretty poor battery life. Using a couple of different things we believe we have figured out where the problem lies, but we are unsure how to fix it!

Here's what we know:

Menu < Settings < About Phone < Status < Awake Time

Both of ours have an awake time of 100%. According to other Android users, the lower this number is the better your battery life. So basically this is saying that even when the phone is off, it's not asleep. It is fully awake 100% of the time. Up time should not be the same as awake time.

Using an app called Spare Parts (Cyrket - Spare Parts) you can dig a little deeper.

Spare Parts < Battery History < Partial Wake Usage < Since Last Unplugged.

My phone is showing that the dialer has a wake lock for 16h. This appears to mean that the phone can't sleep because the dialer has locked it.

You can also check under "Other Usage." I have "Running", "Screen on", and "Phone on." Running says:

Time spent without sleeping: 16 hours (100%).

PowerManager | Android Developers
Android Developers said:
PARTIAL_WAKE_LOCK

Wake lock that ensures that the CPU is running. The screen might not be on.

*If you hold a partial wakelock, the CPU will continue to run, irrespective of any timers and even after the user presses the power button. In all other wakelocks, the CPU will run, but the user can still put the device to sleep using the power button.
So now the problem is how do we fix it?!

Edit: I also posted this on Sprint's forums to maybe get some attention from the big guys. Source of Hero's poor battery life
 
My friend and I both purchased Heros and we are both seeing pretty poor battery life. Using a couple of different things we believe we have figured out where the problem lies, but we are unsure how to fix it!

Here's what we know:

Menu < Settings < About Phone < Status < Awake Time

Both of ours have an awake time of 100%. According to other Android users, the lower this number is the better your battery life. So basically this is saying that even when the phone is off, it's not asleep. It is fully awake 100% of the time. Up time should not be the same as awake time.

Using an app called Spare Parts (Cyrket - Spare Parts) you can dig a little deeper.

Spare Parts < Battery History < Partial Wake Usage < Since Last Unplugged.

My phone is showing that the dialer has a wake lock for 16h. This appears to mean that the phone can't sleep because the dialer has locked it.

You can also check under "Other Usage." I have "Running", "Screen on", and "Phone on." Running says:

Time spent without sleeping: 16 hours (100%).

So now the problem is how do we fix it?!
That would certainly kill the battery. Have you restarted your handset? I'd start with that as it seems something got crossed somehwere.

Give it a few mins and see if you are getting any "sleep time"
 
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I also wanted to add this just to show that it makes sense:

PowerManager | Android Developers

Android Developers said:
PARTIAL_WAKE_LOCK

Wake lock that ensures that the CPU is running. The screen might not be on.

*If you hold a partial wakelock, the CPU will continue to run, irrespective of any timers and even after the user presses the power button. In all other wakelocks, the CPU will run, but the user can still put the device to sleep using the power button.
My phone has been restarted multiple times without any change. His phone is doing the same thing. They were purchased at two different Best Buy's across the country from each other.
 
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And you have killed the dialer using your task manager?

The dialer itself actually doesn't show up in the one I'm using (TasKiller). Can you make another recommendation? This is my first android phone.

Ok, using TaskControl I was able to find voice dialer and I killed that. We'll see if it makes any difference.

PROGRESS! Using Task Manager 1.10.7 (http://www.cyrket.com/package/com.wingtseng123.SystemMemoryMonitor) I was able to kill "Phone." After hitting the power button I immediately started getting a difference between Up Time and Awake Time (5 minute difference now). I was able to both call and text my phone. After doing so "Phone" showed back up in task manager however the phone is still sleeping properly. I'm not sure if a reset will cause it to break again yet.
 
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I am going to continue this thread over on sprint.com because it's getting a lot more attention (Source of Hero's poor battery life) but I wanted to update you all with what I found.

So we have determined exactly when it happens. We tried all of the following:
receiving e-mail
checking e-mail
browsing the web
loading google maps and locking location
receiving text
reading text
making a phone call
receiving a phone call

Every single one allows the unit to go back to sleep without any issues. There are two things that prevent it from sleeping every time:

Send a text
Turning the phone on with no activity



So sending a text is obvious. Every single time we sent a text, the phone would stop sleeping. Receiving a text is fine. What i mean by turning the phone on with no activity is if I turn the phone on and just let it boot up and disable the screen on it's own and never send or receive a text, it will stay awake even though the screen is off. The phone ends up turning the screen off before it actually boots 100%. Once I turn the phone back on and actually look at my home screen (after it's done booting) and then turn it off again, it will sleep properly.
 
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Verification results: I sent a txt message and then went to home screen and left the phone to go into standby on its own (without me touching the end call button to force standby), and the phone stayed awake (screen off). You are right sending txts keep the phone from sleeping. This absolutely sucks, I sold my iphone to get this phone and the hero is suffering from a fairly large power management issue.
 
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Verification results: I sent a txt message and then went to home screen and left the phone to go into standby on its own (without me touching the end call button to force standby), and the phone stayed awake (screen off). You are right sending txts keep the phone from sleeping. This absolutely sucks, I sold my iphone to get this phone and the hero is suffering from a fairly large power management issue.
Right, because the iPhone was so power efficient?! Most of the people I know with the iPhone have to charge their phones several times a day.
 
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This info from the Sprint forums:
CONFIRMED: Fix for HTC Hero "Dialer"...

THIS IS THE FIX!!!!

The Messages app is keeping the phone from sleeping, and the fix is to use a different app for texting:

Go download ChompSMS for free from Marketplace. Use that instead, it looks just like iPhone SMS and works great. I've tried sending/receiving a bunch of texts and Dialer is behaving!!! I LOVE ANDROID. No other mobile OS could you just download a different SMS client!


-----

More of a work around than a fix but you are 100% correct! Just tested and confirmed on my phone too. I don't really love the client heh. But My phone is sleeping properly after having sent a text through comp instead of through the original sms client. And I agree completely, no other phone would let you just do that.

-----
When you start up the phone, make sure you are the one putting it to sleep and it's not auto sleep (screen dims). Then it sleeps.


Finally when sending/receiving texts use either ChompSMS or another SMS client other than the built-in Messages app and you will be flying high!!


Make sure you reboot (poweroff/on) your phone before you start using ChompSMS or another SMS app exclusively so any issue caused by the Messages app has been cleared.


Not only is the battery drain gone for me my phone is charging twice as fast!



-----

Go to Messages (The app) > Settings > Notifications. You can turn it off there. I had been using chompsms since I got the phone, knew about it before I got it, and it's a great app.
 
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First off, awesome job on tracking down the source of this problem. I noticed that my Awake time was oddly high (85%+), but haven't had time to look into it. Thankfully there is a work around.

Thanks.

I also loaded Locale last night and saw my battery plummet today, so I just dumped it.

I installed Locale a couple of days ago and haven't noticed much difference (keeping in mind that my battery life was poor to begin with), but I LOVE the app. Might have to do some more testing and see how it impacts battery life. Anyone have experience with it?
 
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Yea, the more ways you let it determine your location, the more precise it is, but the harder it is on the battery.

My current profiles are generic enough that I don't need GPS level location, Mobile Network works just fine.

Honestly, the only time I have the GPS turned on is when I'm trying to get un-lost with Google Maps.
 
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I want to make certain I'm understanding this... I've changed the setting in "Messages" and removed it from the "desktop". Then I installed Chomp (whose UI I really like). Then I restarted.

I'm only getting notifications from Chomp, but when I open Advanced Task Killer, it shows "Messages" and has a check box like I need to kill it. Can/should I ignore it?

Thanks.
 
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I installed Locale a couple of days ago and haven't noticed much difference
Anyone have experience with it?

I use it constantly and don't find it significantly affect battery usage. As mentioned, tracking GPS sats will hammer the battery fastest. In urban areas though I find that the location awareness is precise enough just using the cell masts so I don't need GPS.
 
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So I downloaded chompSMS and it looks like a great app. My question is, even though we use chompSMS isntead of the "Messages" app, wouldnt the Messages app still be active in recieving SMS's? In other words, when we recieve an SMS wouldnt we get TWO notifications - one from chompSMS and one from Messages? If there was a way to I guess "turn off" or disable Messages that would be cool...
 
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