I have no problems with my battery so you can cross these of the list:
Amazon
Barcode Scanner
Wikimobile
Spareparts
Places Directory
My Tracks
Pandora
Flixster
and Hanscent
Check your update frequency on the facebook app, check this: http://androidforums.com/370487-post187.html, apps like OS Monitor, GPS Status, and WiFi analyzer might be constantly checking data which will really hurt your battery.
Have you gone into SpareParts and looked at battery history and then changed the first drop down box to each category? If you have anything higher than android system in the partial wake history, that app is a problem.
Yeah, Spare Parts reports nothing unusual. It says there is a partial wake time for the Android System for a total of 33 minutes for roughly 12 hours of on time. Which I think would be normal. My percentage is 7 to 14 usually, nothing incredibly high. I just don't understand. I have disabled everything with the Facebook App disabling notifications and setting the update time to the highest available. This is ridiculous.
Maybe I am not charging it correctly, I was waiting till the battery completely died, and then charged it up. Did that for 4 days. Afterwards, I tried to wait until it would get down to about roughly 5 percent. Is there any good way to charge the battery? I do have two, so I can do some testing if need be.
Last edited by gh0atd; February 23rd, 2010 at 11:54 PM.
I decided to keep the phone since I do have 30 days to evaluate it. I changed some things based on some of the advice given here. I changed the scene to the blank slate and just added the widgets that I needed. No big time/weather update. I also turned off the location and only turn it on when an app needs it.
It's been 2 nights since I last charged and I'm still above 60%. Only had 2 calls and the longest was about 10 mins.
This I can live with and the apps that aren't made for Android aren't absolutely necessary to me so I can live without them.
Device(s): Sprint HTC Hero with ZenEXP OC to 691mhz
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ilee1990
I decided to keep the phone since I do have 30 days to evaluate it. I changed some things based on some of the advice given here. I changed the scene to the blank slate and just added the widgets that I needed. No big time/weather update. I also turned off the location and only turn it on when an app needs it.
It's been 2 nights since I last charged and I'm still above 60%. Only had 2 calls and the longest was about 10 mins.
This I can live with and the apps that aren't made for Android aren't absolutely necessary to me so I can live without them.
Does anyone have a weather app thats easy on the battery. I hate having to put in the zipcode every time I turn on my phone. Thanks for a great discussion!
Yeah, I tried. The program continually Force Closes for me, regardless of what data I put in it.
I am beginning to think that the battery is caused by a specific application that I have downloaded. I did a fresh wipe and reinstallation of the Gumbo Kernel and Fresh ROM 1.1 and my battery life was phenomenal. However, a day after I downloaded the programs and had to take out the battery, it was atrocious.
I'm not surprised. Give Android an extra day to get used to the new apps. Don't install or update any apps for 48 hours. Then see how you're getting on
I am not sure what the problem is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gh0atd
I have done everything in here, I have also uninstalled multiple programs to try and find the root cause. I want to think that it is a problem with a couple issues. Either because the security permissions allow it to boot, or because the security permissions allow it to monitor phone calls or other data. I am not sure.
If anyone could help me out I want to see if there is a common grouping with several applications:
Amazon.com
Paypal
Barcode Scanner
Facebook For Android
Wikimobile Encyclopedia
GPS Status
Battery Widget - HTC
Spare Parts
Moon Phase
Google Translate
Text To Speech Extended
FxCamera
WiFinder
Key Ring Reward Card
Logger
US Yellow Pages Search
ShootMe
Places Directory
My Tracks
Aldiko Book Reader
RMaps
Torrent-Fu
Unit Converter -ConvertPad
Nav4All
MoonStats
Skyscrape Medical
Wifi Analyzer
TuneWiki Social Media
Pandora Radio
Movies - Flixster
HAndcentSMS
gUnit Converter - Lite
OS MOnitor
SMS Backup & restore
I want to think that it is one or more applications that are causing these problems and I just havn't found the solution.
remove the battery app
also out of interest why do you have "key ring reward card"
Device(s): BB Pearl> LG Env 2> LG Dare> LG Voyager> HTC Touch Pro 2> Palm Pre> Samsung Moment> HTC Hero w/ Fres
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Quote:
Originally Posted by myet01
Thanks for getting back to me TF1984. Of course it would help if I actually had a Hero or a Moment to test that on but I am currently using a Blackberry and have been watching the forums to determine which Android device I want to buy before I make the switch.
Your excellent and calm demeanor tells me it might be better to go with a Moment instead of a Hero as those users tend to be more polite and less dramatic when someone asks a question. They also don't appear to be so assuming either and ask additional questions to frame a question. However, since I don't have a unit yet I downloaded the PDF manual and could not find the "FRIGGIN MESSAGE" referenced anywhere in it. Perhaps it is a technical term only you understand and less trained people such as myself can only aspire to have in our vernacular some day. So, as you go to the podium to collect your employee of the year award for excellent customer service - Thanks again.
I'm not surprised. Give Android an extra day to get used to the new apps. Don't install or update any apps for 48 hours. Then see how you're getting on
I am not sure what the problem is.
remove the battery app
also out of interest why do you have "key ring reward card"
It was 2 or 3 days ago when I did download all those apps. Since then, the battery life has been an issue.
I have it because I work at a grocery store, and I actually do have a lot of different "Rewards" Based subscriptions, and I only like a couple things on my Keys. So, it works out.
It was 2 or 3 days ago when I did download all those apps. Since then, the battery life has been an issue.
I have it because I work at a grocery store, and I actually do have a lot of different "Rewards" Based subscriptions, and I only like a couple things on my Keys. So, it works out.
I tried to use a similar app in a local Tesco and scanner couldn't read the bar code off the phone. Was I doing something wrong?
Also have you removed
battery widget - htc
Last edited by bzzzzz; February 24th, 2010 at 05:49 PM.
The scanners they prolly use, the non-handheld's usually do have a hard time reading them. The Handguns can read them with ease. It is just how the scanners operate. For instance, if you have a certain product's barcode in a weird color, stationary scanners have an issue reading them because they can't detect the codes. It really is just up to a matter of luck and what not.
Nah, I had gone to the sprint store to see if they could test the battery for any defaults. I will be removing it today.
I just removed it, I will give it a few days or so to see if the charging and app updates that I did will have an affect on the overall battery life. I am using OSMonitor to actually look at the charge percentage.
Last edited by gh0atd; February 24th, 2010 at 10:06 PM.
I just removed it, I will give it a few days or so to see if the charging and app updates that I did will have an affect on the overall battery life. I am using OSMonitor to actually look at the charge percentage.
I'd get rid of OSMonitor as well. The problem with a lot of these monitoring applications is that they are on all the time and so don't allow the phone to go into sleep mode.
See how you go - but it may be an issue of removing applications one at a time. But do give the phone at least a day with no changes before deciding that things haven't been fixed.
So far, so good actually. My battery usually when I took it off the charger dropped to 99% instantly, now, it is still at 100%. Yeah, It has been about two hours, and the battery is still at 100%.
Last edited by gh0atd; February 25th, 2010 at 01:11 PM.
So far, so good actually. My battery usually when I took it off the charger dropped to 99% instantly, now, it is still at 100%. Yeah, It has been about two hours, and the battery is still at 100%.
Ok - what do you put this down to?
I keep recommending things to different people but I don't know if they've been successful.
Any sounds like your battery is improving which is good.
i just got my Hero 2 days ago. and ive been lurking the forums so far just seeing how everything is. i just read every post in this thread, partly because im at work and very sloowww
but i strongly believe, every person that gets a Hero, should read this thread post for post. i must have picked my phone up 15+ times to check a setting, or to confirm what i read.
great great thread.
and to the person posting about leaving the Hero to get the Blackberry, best of luck. i just made the reverse switch, blackberry to Hero. i got tired of the battery problems with, well, all 5 of the blackberrys i had. i had to have a change of scenery. i swore by blackberrys and got many of my friends/family hooked and they now have them.
i think i found something better
Last edited by Veritas; February 27th, 2010 at 12:32 PM.
Device(s): Sprint HTC Hero with ZenEXP OC to 691mhz
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Veritas
i just got my Hero 2 days ago. and ive been lurking the forums so far just seeing how everything is. i just read every post in this thread, partly because im at work and very sloowww
but i strongly believe, every person that gets a Hero, should read this thread post for post. i must have picked my phone up 15+ times to check a setting, or to confirm what i read.
great great thread.
and to the person posting about leaving the Hero to get the Blackberry, best of luck. i just made the reverse switch, blackberry to Hero. i got tired of the battery problems with, well, all 5 of the blackberrys i had. i had to have a change of scenery. i swore by blackberrys and got many of my friends/family hooked and they now have them.
i think i found something better
My wife just joined me with a Hero and switched over from her Blackberry. She compared it to going from dial up internet in the 90's to high speed broad band now and couldn't believe she had put up with her Blackberry for so long.
She also had a lot of problems with her 8330. She had to go change out the battery several times, it stopped charging a couple times (traded in her phone for another about 4 months in). The thing she hated the most, though, was the slow internet. she's been surfing the web on her Hero and loves Swype. That's made the transition much easier.
See, I don't understand this. Past three days, I have only had to charge it once. Today, the battery just dropped, magically. Havn't installed any new Applications, only thing I have enabled was GPS, which shouldn't give me that bad of a battery life. Not sure what it is going on.
Quote: Originally Posted by DFRESH Don't install Battery Widgets or apps ...THOSE WILL DRAIN YOUR BATTERY EVEN MORE!
Quote:
Originally Posted by DFRESH
Yes, I tested a few for over a week myself and all of them drained my battery even more. I uninstalled them and timed the battery once again and noticed that the phone battery runs longer without battery widgets, etc...
Does this include "Power Manager"?
Last edited by cephraim; March 3rd, 2010 at 10:51 AM.
Settings>Social Network>Menu>Account Settings and then change the update frequency of facebook. I just stumbled across this the other day. I really don't care how often my contacts list gets facebook updates so I changed it to 24 hours from the default of 2 hours. I went from about 35 hours to 42 or so. It's a lot of data to update so the less it does it the better.
If you do this, will it also affect how quickly you get notifications of FB messages, etc.?
I've implemented all of the tips in this thread and saw a nice change in battery life. Mainly, with a normal (moderate) day of use, I was around 15% by bedtime--7:30am - 1:00am. I've been hovering around 40% at bed time after implementing the tips in this thread.
One observation: I think the auto-dim setting eats battery. The first day I cleaned up the widgets, and turned off auto-dim is the first day I saw 40% @ 1am. A few days later, I turned auto-dim back on, and the phone went back to ~8% discharge per hour. I turned it off again today, and I'm sitting at 65% at 10:00pm. I'll continue evaluating it, and I can't explain it, but it sure seems like auto-dim contributes heavily to battery consumption. I set the brightness slider to about 25% which is fine inside.
My sister purchased a Hero at the same time I did. Something is keeping her phone awake 90%. She has not changed much at all and doesn't use it all that much. I installed spare parts and nothing unusual in the partial wake usage. would having unchecked voicemails or having the alarm on all the time keep the phone from sleeping? Thanks guys I'm somewhat stuck here. My Hero's awake time is down to 19% on average.
Why does everyone feel the need to have a weather widget that tells them what the weather is at your location? If your there already, cant you look outside and find out on your own?
I actually use the weather app to tell me the weather in a town that I am planning to move to in about 4 months. I have it auto set for THAT location, not my own location. I am just getting a feel for what my new life will be like (weather-wise).
__________________
Forget prince charming, give me a bad boy covered in tattoos!
How exactly do you set intervals? I'd like to do this for my Yahoo account. E-mail polling - Other than your GMail, if you are using the phone for e-mail, it helps to set it to check for new mail on a longer interval 20 minutes.
Do widgets do their auto checking/updating thing even if you do not have them on one of your pages?
When someone talks about an app "keeping the phone awake," does this mean the screen is lighting up periodically, or can an app keep your phone awake and you know even know it?
I seem to be having an issue with my battery again. I am typing this from the hero as we speak. My battery is at 50% with absolutely no interaction with the phone. I unplugged the phone at 11:30 this morning and have been at work. No texting, no calls, no browsing (until now). I am getting really frustrated. Is wavesecure known to run Tue battery down? I am getting lag, everything. Sometimes the autocorrecy feature doesn't work eithrr. This is really annoying me. I have taken the battery to get looked at by sprint, tjey saie it was fine. Help please!
How exactly do you set intervals? I'd like to do this for my Yahoo account. E-mail polling - Other than your GMail, if you are using the phone for e-mail, it helps to set it to check for new mail on a longer interval 20 minutes.
Do widgets do their auto checking/updating thing even if you do not have them on one of your pages?
When someone talks about an app "keeping the phone awake," does this mean the screen is lighting up periodically, or can an app keep your phone awake and you know even know it?
Go into mail, hit menu > more > settings > Send & Receive
When someone talks about an app "keeping the phone awake," does this mean the screen is lighting up periodically, or can an app keep your phone awake and you know even know it?
Menu>settings>about>battery -->There is a field for "awake time" and a field for "up time"
(on a 2.1 ROM now, but I think this it is the same menu path)
This is a great thread for tips to extend battery life...But you all knew thet
Clearly the biggest battery killer for me is when I'm on the fringe of the Sprint service area and the device is trying to get a signal...I lose 25% battery power every hour while in this area (where I work)
With no other adjustments (except backlight) my device with moderate use gives me plenty of battery life...(1 day plus) but I'm used to charging daily so I have no gripes about having to do this...nor do I feel the need to turn off anything that would change the phone from its intended operation.
I seem to be having an issue with my battery again. I am typing this from the hero as we speak. My battery is at 50% with absolutely no interaction with the phone. I unplugged the phone at 11:30 this morning and have been at work. No texting, no calls, no browsing (until now). I am getting really frustrated. Is wavesecure known to run Tue battery down? I am getting lag, everything. Sometimes the autocorrecy feature doesn't work eithrr. This is really annoying me. I have taken the battery to get looked at by sprint, tjey saie it was fine. Help please!
Hi gh0atd,
WaveSecure has been tested for CPU/memory/battery usage. See our blog post when we optimized the app for battery usage in Nov.
The battery usage is now negligible on Android when WaveSecure is in idle. It will use more battery when you are doing data backup, etc. though, due to the processing and wireless network usage.
ok so dumb question....what exactly consitutes light usage vs moderate vs heavy?
I text about 100 texts a day (handcent), check facebook (official android app) like 4 times a day for 5 minutes each, call for maybe 30 minutes a day, play games (robo defense, solitare, etc) for about 35 minutes, listen to music on my phone for about 45 minutes (android music app), play with my phone in general for about 45 min...etc
Would this be moderate or heavy usage? I'm still trying to figure out if im getting good battery life or bad, but not sure where my usage fits in before I decide that!
let's use % as a measurement for usage where 100% is heavy usage and 0% is no usage. based on your individual usage, I'd say you fall into the 41 - 43% range. increase your texts by 17 per day and play solitaire for another 9 minutes and you can be upgraded to 52% usage
The Following User Says Thank You to acp For This Useful Post:
i thought the maintenance release resolved the SMS battery drain. Since removing handcent and going back to the stock SMS app I have noticed a considerable difference in my battery consumption.
Just to confirm is there any app on the market which does not use the stock SMS app as a back end?
I do not understand why I would still be having performance issues with the my Hero.
If this is not useful, skip it. For me, I always value when 3-months of unfurling info is aggregated into a single post: Uses less of my human battery in reading. Plus, you can print single post and save paper too
======= THREAD SUMMARY TO DATE =====
nick325i
12-09-2009 01:43 PM
First and foremost, please make sure you have the Sprint 1.5 Maintenance Release already installed.
- Brightness - Disabling the Auto Backlight feature and setting your brightness to an acceptable low level.
Menu > Settings > Sound & Display
(I have mine halfway between middle and lowest and i'm considering going farther yet as the screen is still pretty bright down this low.)
- Screen Time-out - Set this as low as you can live with it.
Menu > Settings > Sound & Display
(I have mine at 30 seconds and make a habit to turn the screen off before I set it down)
- E-mail polling - Other than your GMail, if you are using the phone for e-mail, it helps to set it to check for new mail on a longer interval 20 minutes.
- Self Updating Widgets - The HTC Flipclock has been called out as a battery hog as well as some weather widgets.
(I try to keep it to one self updating widget per home screen.)
- On/Off Toggles - For Sense UI, HTC has widget toggles for GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. I toggle them all when needed. The extra 2 seconds it takes for them to turn on does nothing to impact my usefulness of the features.
- Location - Location Setting enabled but "Use Wireless Networks" disabled. When needed I toggle on my GPS. Also this will provide a much more accurate location for Google Maps and Sprint Nav.
Menu > Settings > Location
- Automated Task Killers not so good - They run in the background closing out your tasks that you leave open. Two things here that contribute to the bad battery life. If you have to re-open everything from scratch all the time it uses more CPU time. Since android apps enter a pause state when you are not using them the CPU is not being utilized.
(For this I recommend "Close Everything" you open it and hit close everything and if something is open that shouldn't be or what not it closes it. Also good for programs that don't force close on error or back key press.)
- HTC Weather - Turn of the automatic updates if you are using the weather widget from HTC. Possibly consider switching to another app/widget where you can set your update frequency.
App List > Weather > Menu > Settings
- Facebook and other Social Apps - Turn the update frequency down to an hour or more. FaceBook > Menu > Settings
- PRL Update - Your phone can struggle if you are in between towers or have a constant weak signal. As more towers are built or updated so should your PRL list be updated. Try to remember to update this once and a while incase something has changed in your local tower network.
Menu > Settings > About Phone > System Updates > Update PRL
- Disable Haptic Feedback on KB - This may be a smaller gainer but its still a gain. Disabling the vibration on every key press, especially if your a heavy text'r or tweeter.
Menu > Settings > Locale & Text > Touch Input > Text Input > Vibrate when Typing
The following tips will incur feature loss with the Hero
Disable Always on Mobile Network - This will make it so you have to manually update most of your widgets and applications.
Menu > Settings > Wireless controls > Mobile network settings
- Disable Background Data - This will disable all automatic sync of Gmail, Google contacts and calendars. If you do not use any of these, feel free to disable.
Menu > Settings > Data synchronization > Google > Background data
In addition to the above tips try charging your phone while its off for a much faster charge!
====
how much of a power hog is the htc flipclock? I like that it shows the current weather with it, although if its a huge battery hog I wouldn't mind finding a replacement.
Not sure how much of a power hog it is but I just realized the other day that having the clock set to "current location" might also hurt the life because it's always checking for the location. I just set it to my home town because I very rarely travel to a different time zone.
===== So "Use wireless networks" and "Enable GPS satellites" should be unchecked, leaving "Location Setting" the only thing that is checked? (I only turn on GPS when I need it).
Yes.
=====
I use the 1x1 weatherbug widget because
=====
weather widget by android apps.
===
Hero has three separate lines, "Use Wireless Networks", "Location Setting" and "Enable GPS Satellites".
Turn off the first and last.
===
Swift was released in the Market and I have been testing it all day. Features and speed are unsurpassed. Set it to update every 5 minutes for testing purposes and has been easy on my battery. I'll let you know what I see for the next couple days.
Being a big Twitter user, this app rocks better than any other I've seen so far. Yes even Twitdroid, and it's free
====-
Close Everything is a program freely downloadable from the market.
==
Originally Posted by TF1984 (Post 178384)
Quote:
Nick,
I tried your advice yesterday and wanted to add one thought (in my experience). I wondered about the task killer battery drain possibility. I personally use Advanced Task Manager (paid). Gerenally I have it auto start, run all the time and Auto end every 30 mins, all apps except excluded list.
Seeing your post I wanted to try a day without, so I did. My battery life was cut by a third without the ATK running. I used my phone 50% less than normal as well. So IMO and experience, I would say that at least having the auto end running in background will save a substantial amount of battery life. For me at least.
Excellent Test!
I do have a question for you though...
When you leave your applications to go to home screen or switch to a different app etc, what button do you press on your phone. Do you press the home button or do you use the back arrow.
It is my current understanding that if you use the back arrow the program closes and if you use the home button the program is left open.
======
my Advanced Task Manager auto-ends apps every thirty mins. so it takes care of that for me. Plus I have a real addiction to tapping my ATK widget on home screen to force close the non-excluded apps.
I buy it because i've tested it. If you open a bunch of crap and press home after you open each one go look in your task manager. Close it all then open a bunch of stuff and use back to get back to your home screen and see how much is still open.
My point is our difference in battery over the same time frame is the fact that I never use the home button. I always use back to close the apps. Then I run my "Close Everything" about 2-3 times a day for the other stuff that doesn't close when its done or has hung and not FC'd.
===
Posted by nick325i (Post 178953)
As far as my tests conclude back = close app. I think the reason the dolphin browser has the hold back to exit feature is because browsing is one of the only applications where if you press back it doesn't exit the program on the first one or two presses if you've been browsing for 15-20 minutes you'd have like 30 pages to go through and that would be annoying. I use dolphin specifically for this feature
============
Quote:
One question, I tried the back button with Gmail and it didn't close. Are you Holding back or pressing back?
Press the back button as many times as it takes to get back to one of your home screens, if your in a message you'd need to hit it twice.
==============
Quote:
Is it more efficient to leave Gmail set to automatically update or , is it better to manually check it, in regards to power consumption? Also, what about my Excchange email? Right now I have that set to manual. Would setting it for every 4-8 hours really degrade my battery that much more? Please HELP !
Manual VS Automatic checking is always better for battery when you manually check. Having it at 4 - 8 hours would be pretty good on your battery though. 1. Open market, locate "Spare Parts" & Download
2. Open Spare Parts> Battery History
3. you'll see two drop downs and a list of apps/services below. The "CPU" drop-down should be changed to "Partial Wake Usage" and the "since last unplugged" can change to whatever.
you want to look at battery history and change the drop down to "Partial Awake" to see which app is keeping your CPU from sleeping.
The top services and apps below are the ones keeping your phone from sleeping (partially). Note that there should be some apps there, but "android" should be on top. If you notice another app you have at the top, then you should delete it and find a replacement.
====
Also what is your awake time %?
Menu > Settings > About Phone > Status
If all of these are within reasonable parameters then you need to download Spare Parts b/c something is keeping your phone from entering "sleep" which puts the cpu into a power save mode. Get that, then open spare parts and check battery information, change drop down to "partial wake usage" and find what apps are keeping phone from sleeping. It's that simple.
If you have a brand new battery, with poor service coverage in signal and data, high screen brightness, long timeout, 4 email accounts constantly updating, problematic apps and constant usage - face the fact that you will need to adjust your "charging habits".
====
Advanced Task Killer Free" which seems to find more open applications that other task killers don't, and I did not use my silicone gel cover.
==
BTW - the widget Battery Life (CurveFish) kicks butt, IMO.
==
I think I figured out how to get it to show whatever location you pick rather than your 'Current City.' After trying to figure it out for a few minutes I deleted the HTC Clock widget from my home screen. Then I went in and added it back and it gives me the choice between Current City and adding a location. I added my location and it says 'Topeka' instead of 'Current City' now so I'm hopeful that will stick. Hope this helps someone else.
Just make sure the city you add is first on the list for that time zone. I added Chicago and it kept picking Kansas City before I rearranged the cities.
===
1. Look into an app called timerific. I have mine set to be silenced at 11:45pm, ringer at 45% volume at 5:20am which leaves
==
Posted by sleepybird (Post 264550) Wouldn't charging the whole night overcharge the battery?
When the little light goes green, it stops charging.
==
Battery widgets -- battery drainers?
Yes, I tested a few for over a week myself and all of them drained my battery even more. I uninstalled them and timed the battery once again and noticed that the phone battery runs longer without battery widgets, etc...
I was under the impression some of them did and some of them did not drain. Did you test "Batterylife" by Curvefish?
==
All Programs -> Missed Reminder -> Missed Call Preferences (or whatever service you are being notified for) -> Notification Intervals = 1m and Number of Repeats = 10
It was set to 1m and repeat forever.
==
Home -> Menu -> Settings -> About Phone -> Status
===
XxdejavuxX
So here is what I did:
Facebook app -> update every 4 hours Locations -> disabled wireless network and GPS( can be turned on manually when needed) Brightness -> very low but still brigh Screen time out -> 30s Advanced task killer -> I kill every app that I dont need on Battery widget and htc clock widget -> Ditched it stock gmail and handcent for sms installed
ditched youmail and locale, after checking spare parts( was keeping phone awake 100%)
I went from 6 hours of use to 18 hours without charge. I actually feel that the phone is sort of cold now when I hold it comparaded to before.
====
I use Lockbot Pro, so i can see the Notification bar even when it's locked). (Note: from reading this thread, still questionable to me whether Lockbot Pro impacts battery drain)
===
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
==
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.
==
Which is better? Gmail Notitification and Gmail Unread Count? I kept Unread Count, but uninstalled Gmail Notificaiton.
== From what I've managed to work out there are 3 basic rules
1) DON'T use a task killer
2) Try to go 48 hours without installing any new apps.
3) DO fully charge your battery
NB If you install a new app and your phone uses battery at an incredible rate don't assume that the app is bad. Leave it on for a day or two and see if the phone sorts itself out. If you still have problems then maybe you will need to uninstall.
===
You can stop Gmail by going into your SETTINGS->Data Sync->Google-> uncheck Gmail.
I think the stock e-mail service may be the source of your poor battery life. I was using it for my gmail and hotmail and it was killing my battery like crazy, even when I changed it to sync every 2 hours. I switched to the native Gmail app and haven't looked back. Battery life has been much better.
===
I don't use a task killer either. This was a huge drain on the battery when I was using it. I also have GPS on, using WiFi about 60% of the time and a few widgets. The key seems to be the app updating.
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bzzzzz
02-09-2010 12:13 PM
Another helpful pointer here is one made earlier
Don't go installing any new or updating any old apps if you're going to want good battery life.
It seems to take a day or so for Android to get used to the new app.
I charge my phone once every couple of days now.
I last charged my phone 36 hours ago. It's now on 50%
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Tip: Keeping your phone in 1x rather than Hybrid (when you go through long periods of non-data use, or heavy texting) mode saves tremendous battery life.
Settings>Wireless Controls>Mobile Network Settings>Mode of Operation
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Settings>Social Network>Menu>Account Settings and then change the update frequency of facebook. I just stumbled across this the other day. I really don't care how often my contacts list gets facebook updates so I changed it to 24 hours from the default of 2 hours. I went from about 35 hours to 42 or so. It's a lot of data to update so the less it does it the better.
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I like your calendar notification at the top. Which one is this?
It's called SMOOTH CALENDAR. It's a great handy little widget.
==== I'd get rid of OSMonitor as well. The problem with a lot of these monitoring applications is that they are on all the time and so don't allow the phone to go into sleep mode.
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My wife just joined me with a Hero and switched over from her Blackberry.She compared it to going from dial up internet in the 90's to high speed broad band now and couldn't believe she had put up with her Blackberry for so long.
The thing she hated the most, though, was the slow internet. she's been surfing the web on her Hero and loves Swype. That's made the transition much easier.
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When someone talks about an app "keeping the phone awake," does this mean the screen is lighting up periodically, or can an app keep your phone awake and you know even know it?
Menu>settings>about>battery -->There is a field for "awake time" and a field for "up time"
===== end === as of March 21, 2010 =====
The Following User Says Thank You to quicksite For This Useful Post:
Is there a "bigger" battery for the Hero than what comes in it? I really like this phone. I have been "playing" with some of the tips in this topic, i hope they help. I uninstalled the "advanced task killer" and installed "close everything" was this the right thing to do? I also am wondering about the Gmail and mail accounts, the only email i have is a Gmail acct. but i get 2 notification symbols when mail comes in. One symbol is the @ and the other is an envelope. There must be a way to stop getting both. Perhaps this will help me with my battery life too.
Thanks for some great reading, this is by far the most usefull info i have seen on the HTC Sprint Hero.
Is there a "bigger" battery for the Hero than what comes in it? I really like this phone. I have been "playing" with some of the tips in this topic, i hope they help. I uninstalled the "advanced task killer" and installed "close everything" was this the right thing to do? I also am wondering about the Gmail and mail accounts, the only email i have is a Gmail acct. but i get 2 notification symbols when mail comes in. One symbol is the @ and the other is an envelope. There must be a way to stop getting both. Perhaps this will help me with my battery life too.
Thanks for some great reading, this is by far the most usefull info i have seen on the HTC Sprint Hero.
Ben
Where are you getting the envelope symbol? On the notification bar (top of the screen) or on a shortcut on your home screen? Is it possible you have your gmail setup both via the gmail app and the HTC mail app?
Where are you getting the envelope symbol? On the notification bar (top of the screen) or on a shortcut on your home screen? Is it possible you have your gmail setup both via the gmail app and the HTC mail app?
Both show up on the notification bar. Is there a way to get rid of one? i cant see needing both.
Both show up on the notification bar. Is there a way to get rid of one? i cant see needing both.
Sorry, I should mention I am using a HTC Hero. What device are you using?
If you are using an HTC phone, go to All Programs --> Mail. That should bring up HTC's mail app. Then Menu --> More --> Account list. What do you see there? If you see your gmail account, select it. Then go to Menu --> More --> Settings --> Send & Receive. There you can set the download frequency. You can choose Manual. That would only have the default gmail app checking your mail and thus showing one notification.
When you see the two notifications (@ and envelope), does clicking on each bring you to the same spot (like the gmail app)??
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I am on the Hero too. If i remember correctly it took me to two different screens. or maybe it was 2 different notifications that went to the same place. Anyhow, i checked manual in the HTC mail app. maybe this will simplify things and help with battery life too.
I am on the Hero too. If i remember correctly it took me to two different screens. or maybe it was 2 different notifications that went to the same place. Anyhow, i checked manual in the HTC mail app. maybe this will simplify things and help with battery life too.
Do you remember what the retrieval setting was? If it was set to get mail frequently, like every 5 or 10 minutes, you should see improvement with your battery life now that it is set to manual.
I believe it was set at 5 mins or so. So if i understand correctly, now when i want to check my Gmail i would just go to my Gmail and click the little symbol that looks like a circle made up of two arrows to "refresh", right?
I believe it was set at 5 mins or so. So if i understand correctly, now when i want to check my Gmail i would just go to my Gmail and click the little symbol that looks like a circle made up of two arrows to "refresh", right?
Actually, the gmail app is probably set to push. That way you don't have to do anything. When you receive new mail in your inbox, you will automatically be notified via the @ symbol in the notification area.
To verify you have push turned on, open Settings (All Programs --> Settings). Then go to Data synchronization --> Google. Make sure Auto-sync is turned on. I also have Background data checked.
Actually, the gmail app is probably set to push. That way you don't have to do anything. When you receive new mail in your inbox, you will automatically be notified via the @ symbol in the notification area.
To verify you have push turned on, open Settings (All Programs --> Settings). Then go to Data synchronization --> Google. Make sure Auto-sync is turned on. I also have Background data checked.
Cool. Thanks, i will see how this works. Do you know if there is a bigger battery for the Hero? That would help a lot.
Cool. Thanks, i will see how this works. Do you know if there is a bigger battery for the Hero? That would help a lot.
When I asked what phone you had, I forgot this was the HTC Hero section! So should have know what phone you were using!
As far as a bigger battery, Seidio has a couple. One that is just a little more capacity than the stock battery (but same physical size), and one that is over 2 times the capacity (but makes the phone thicker). I haven't tried either, so can't tell you how much better they are than the stock battery. I just keep a charger in my car / office desk / home....
ok so I installed a taskkiller JUST to see what is running currently. I know not to use a task killer and am going to remove it. Out of these, is there anything out of the ordinary-something that is running that generally shouldn't all the time?
touch input
htc IQagent (or whatever) (backwards D with yellow serrated circle)
java
com.coremobile something
com.androide....
messages
com.htc.provi....
pc synchronization
htc sense
omadm (backwards D symbol)
Need a few clarifications..
Here's my composite of this whole thread, to date
