Help Battery life is terrible!

[JPFX]

1st time poster so sorry if this has been discussed. I just got my LG Ally and have never owned a cell phone with such terrible battery life! I am coming from a Blackberry which would last me all day and night. I am lucky if my Ally gets me to noon w/o the 10% warning coming on. I go to settings and check my battery usage and I really don't know what to make of it. Yesterday it showed 93% battery use was from the Android system. Today it shows 81% is the Whoopee Cushion (app). I did use the Whoopee Cuchion app for about 3 minutes earlier today so why is that taking up 81%? I guess what I'm asking is - there anything to conserve battery life? Do I need to turn something off? Change a setting? I did take the advice of a friend and installed Advanced Task Killer but I have noticed NO difference in battery life since then. Any help would be greatly appreciated. And please keep it simple...like you're explaining it to a 5 year old. Thanks!

 

[UncleMike]

The general consensus is that task killers do more harm than good. I would recommend removing ATK. Does your friend happen to work at a Verizon store? (rhetorical)

Many people are experiencing what's known as the "50% bug" with the Ally. You can search for more info (there are a couple of threads on it), but briefly, turning on airplane mode for a few minutes seems to help with that.

As for the other things that appear to be draining your battery, I'll let more experienced Ally users jump in.

 

[DavidPuddy]

First off the battery will get a little better during the first week or so that you have it.
Second, read through the "50% Bug" thread. These phones almost all have a bug that has a simple fix.
Third, get rid of the Advanced Task killer. It won't help much, and will probably use more battery.
Forth, install Juice Defender from the market.
Fifth, keep GPS off when not in use, and do the same with WiFi and Bluetooth.

 

[JPFX]

Thanks guys and I just read through the 50% bug thread. I deleted Task Killer, turned off my Wi-Fi as well. How does putting your phone in Airplane mode for 5 minutes help your battery life? Am I missing something? The way I read those posts, I just turn on Airplane mode each day for about 5 minutes and my battery life will be double what it is now? How the heck is that possible?

 

[jamesnmandy]

i do all of the above and simply use it to stream Pandora music for i'd say 4 hours a day, the rest of use is mostly auto sync Exchange server and Gmail email.....and i am lucky if my battery lasts 12 hours......thats no GPS, no WiFi, to ATK, and i even have setCPU downclocking my CPU to 245Mhz when not being used and topping out stock at 600Mhz, running the latest 0.2 Velocity ROM and running the latest kernal with JIT support

so im doing everything everyone says to do, and i am simply using my phone like it is intended to be used, and my battery life is crap

 

[dots]

i do all of the above and simply use it to stream Pandora music for i'd say 4 hours a day, the rest of use is mostly auto sync Exchange server and Gmail email.....and i am lucky if my battery lasts 12 hours......thats no GPS, no WiFi, to ATK, and i even have setCPU downclocking my CPU to 245Mhz when not being used and topping out stock at 600Mhz, running the latest 0.2 Velocity ROM and running the latest kernal with JIT support

so im doing everything everyone says to do, and i am simply using my phone like it is intended to be used, and my battery life is crap

How much battery life are you expecting? I have auto sync/max brightness usually have irc constantly connecting, sometimes streaming last.fm, but i do have my ally overclocked to 729mhz with the JIT kernel. Since overclocking i have experienced more/better battery life. Even with velocity v.2 and no overclocking i had good battery life. Now what does kill my battery is Wifi Tethering.

Idk maybe it varies person to person but i do not consider 12 hour battery life crap.

 

[sookster54]

Thanks guys and I just read through the 50% bug thread. I deleted Task Killer, turned off my Wi-Fi as well. How does putting your phone in Airplane mode for 5 minutes help your battery life? Am I missing something? The way I read those posts, I just turn on Airplane mode each day for about 5 minutes and my battery life will be double what it is now? How the heck is that possible?

Turn on airplane mode for a few mins (5 mins)
Turn phone off for 5 mins
Turn on phone and turn off aireplane mode after a couple minutes.

People say that fixes it.

 

[Johnny Langton]

Keep GPS off when not in use, and do the same with WiFi and Bluetooth.

I don't understand why people think that these radio devices that consume power should be ignored when they're worried about battery life. Maybe folks need to go grab a netbook using the same types of applications and see if you can get anywhere near the battery life that you do with a smartphone.
Fact is, too many people use their smartphone like a PC replacement, and then want to complain and whine that their battery dies too quick.
If you're gonna use it like that, plug it up when you're sitting idle at work, or in the car.
JL

 

[JPFX]

Johhny L. - Not to beat a dead horse here, but there are some of us out there (myself included) that do not understand computers, causes of battery drain, etc...
I have read where some people defend the short battery life of the Ally and are fine with having a charger at their office, home, car, restroom, breakroom....just to keep the darn phone on. Like I said in my 1st post, I had a Blackberry prior to this and the battery would run 24 hours on a charge. That was with the same internet use, texting, phone calls etc. So it was quit a change for me. What makes Droid phones use so much more power than other 'smart' phones?
Here is a perfect example - my Ally was on the charger ALL night last night and I took it off at 830 this morning. I made 5 very short phone calls and 2 text msg's and my battery is already at 91% !!!
Keep in mind I knpow NOTHING about computers but I find it hard to believe that putting it in airplane mode for 5 minutes will help the battery.

 

[dots]

Johhny L. - Not to beat a dead horse here, but there are some of us out there (myself included) that do not understand computers, causes of battery drain, etc...
I have read where some people defend the short battery life of the Ally and are fine with having a charger at their office, home, car, restroom, breakroom....just to keep the darn phone on. Like I said in my 1st post, I had a Blackberry prior to this and the battery would run 24 hours on a charge. That was with the same internet use, texting, phone calls etc. So it was quit a change for me. What makes Droid phones use so much more power than other 'smart' phones?
Here is a perfect example - my Ally was on the charger ALL night last night and I took it off at 830 this morning. I made 5 very short phone calls and 2 text msg's and my battery is already at 91% !!!
Keep in mind I knpow NOTHING about computers but I find it hard to believe that putting it in airplane mode for 5 minutes will help the battery.

How high do you have the brightness and do you have auto sync on? Those things will drain the battery more than you think.

 

[JPFX]

Thanks Dots! My brightness was almost all the way up and I turned off my auto-sync. We'll see if this helps. It's been less than 30 minutes since my previous post and I'm alreay down from 91% to 84%. WTF!!!???

 

[Math-Uhhh-Saurus]

Keep in mind I knpow NOTHING about computers but I find it hard to believe that putting it in airplane mode for 5 minutes will help the battery.

I don't know much about computers either (bad because I'm an EE major lol), but I do know that the airplane mode fix does indeed work. I don't quite understand how, but I do know that it is a bug and that often times, bugs have weird fixes...I think it's because the phone searches for a signal (which drains the battery) even though it has already found one and going into airplane mode kind of "resets" the part of the phone that searches for the signal, by cutting it off (hope that makes sense)

 

[gutted]

This may sound too simple, but I swear my battery life improved when I just stopped worrying about it. Rather than constantly checking it and fooling around with settings I just used my phone. I stopped freaking out when my phone got to 50%. I stopped leaving it unplugged to see what I could get for standby time and just plugged it in while in the car or at home, etc.

I've used my Ally as my camera for vacation and trips and it's never died on me, so I won't complain any more.

As stated, I see it as more of a compromise between my laptop and my old flip phone. I leave the auto sync on and that's it (what's the point of a smartphone if I don't at least get emails sent instantly??)

I dunno, I used to fret about the battery life too, so I understand where you come from. But honestly, now that I don't really "worry" about it, I swear I'm plugging it in less!

 

[sookster54]

I don't know much about computers either (bad because I'm an EE major lol), but I do know that the airplane mode fix does indeed work. I don't quite understand how, but I do know that it is a bug and that often times, bugs have weird fixes...I think it's because the phone searches for a signal (which drains the battery) even though it has already found one and going into airplane mode kind of "resets" the part of the phone that searches for the signal, by cutting it off (hope that makes sense)

Since the Ally is CDMA (that's what Verizon uses right?) then I'm lucky the Shine Plus is HSPA and gives me an option of GSM or WCDMA only so I set it to WCDMA only since Telus doesn't have GSM and this would lower the amount of battery consumed so the phone wouldn't have to constantly flip between the two when signals get weak. My Blackberry CDMA eats batteries (inorite?) because I live in a shady signal area and it constantly flips between EDGE and GPRS.

 

[bjones6416]

Keep in mind I knpow NOTHING about computers but I find it hard to believe that putting it in airplane mode for 5 minutes will help the battery.

I agree, it seems strange -- but have you tried it? It won't hurt to try, and it has seemed to work for me. I flip airplane mode on and then back off when I take it off the charger in the mornings.

I'm hoping, though, now that I have the update I won't even need to do that.

 

[turbine]

Here is the airplane mode thing. The software that controls the cellular radio has a problem where it believes it is outside of the service area and basically goes into a mode where it is screaming to try and find a tower, but it is in fact connected and screaming unnecessarily, so it's draining the shit out of your battery. The 50% bug is from the fact that when you look at the battery usage under Settings/About Phone/Battery use/Cell Standby it says that 50% of the time it has been on, it has been out of range. Putting on airplane mode, turning off your device and rebooting, then turning off airplane mode for whatever reason corrects this error. I went from not being able to stay on a whole day just the original poster to only recharging every other day.

 

[Johnny Langton]

Here is the airplane mode thing. The software that controls the cellular radio has a problem where it believes it is outside of the service area and basically goes into a mode where it is screaming to try and find a tower, but it is in fact connected and screaming unnecessarily, so it's draining the shit out of your battery. The 50% bug is from the fact that when you look at the battery usage under Settings/About Phone/Battery use/Cell Standby it says that 50% of the time it has been on, it has been out of range. Putting on airplane mode, turning off your device and rebooting, then turning off airplane mode for whatever reason corrects this error. I went from not being able to stay on a whole day just the original poster to only recharging every other day.

Exactly.
JL

 

[JPFX]

Battery still sucks! Did the whole airplane mode thing yesterday late afternoon. Went to bed, the phone charged all night, headed to work at 7a.m. and by 930 a.m. I was at 82% with just a few texts and calls. FYI, I have done everything you guys have said. Thanks God I have charges everywhere!

 

[skater95]

Battery still sucks! Did the whole airplane mode thing yesterday late afternoon. Went to bed, the phone charged all night, headed to work at 7a.m. and by 930 a.m. I was at 82% with just a few texts and calls. FYI, I have done everything you guys have said. Thanks God I have charges everywhere!

Have you tried an app called juicedefender?

 

[darkxsun]

i do all of the above and simply use it to stream Pandora music for i'd say 4 hours a day, the rest of use is mostly auto sync Exchange server and Gmail email.....and i am lucky if my battery lasts 12 hours......thats no GPS, no WiFi, to ATK, and i even have setCPU downclocking my CPU to 245Mhz when not being used and topping out stock at 600Mhz, running the latest 0.2 Velocity ROM and running the latest kernal with JIT support

so im doing everything everyone says to do, and i am simply using my phone like it is intended to be used, and my battery life is crap

Streaming Pandora for 4 hours is going to slaughter your battery, doesn't matter what you change...

 

[UncleMike]

Battery still sucks! Did the whole airplane mode thing yesterday late afternoon. Went to bed, the phone charged all night, headed to work at 7a.m. and by 930 a.m. I was at 82% with just a few texts and calls. FYI, I have done everything you guys have said. Thanks God I have charges everywhere!

I had very poor battery life with the used Ally I bought two weeks ago. After changing to GSM/CDMA (auto) I saw no noticeable improvement. Then I changed back to CDMA only and saw some improvement. After changing back to CDMA auto (PRL) (where I started from) I've seen no degradation in battery life.

It's possible that all my watching of battery life to virtual depletion, followed by a full charge about 10 times had something to do with it too.