HTC Hero - Battery Power Management

[Dem]

Searched the forum for an existing thread, and couldn't believe there wasn't one on this subject!

I didn't expect the battery life to be great, but it's worse than I'd hoped! I think it's been on about 8 hours so far today, since removing from charge and I've done the following;

About 60 minutes of talktime (30 minutes via Bluetooth Headset)
10 SMS messages
5 minutes of WiFi.

Of the 8 hours, I've had it in "Flight Mode" for about 3 hours.

(Bluetooth and WiFi are turned off except when used as described above)

Battery indicator is still green, but close to 50% I would say.

Any tips on improving battery life?

Obviously, setting the screen brightness to minimum is one way. I've also tried to see if you can 'turn off' applications which may be running in the background, but can't find a way to do this. My previous Nokias allowed you to see what programs were running, and you could turn them off to save battery power. I know a selling point of the Hero is that you can switch to applications quickly without 'loading them up', but is this killing the battery?

Thanks!

 

[bodger]

You should find that it will last you a day - you will need to charge it overnight. You could probably do everything you've done already once more and have a little bit of life left. I've bought myself an in car charger and plug it in whenever I'm in the car now to help keep it topped up.

The Hero will stop the apps when you're not using them, but if you really want to make sure they're actually 'killed', you can download programs from the Market. I use 'Taskiller'. There's a free and a paid version, it has a red logo with a skull. The free version is fine. You just run it and click what you want to close.

If I think of anything else, will post again!

 

[Dem]

You should find that it will last you a day - you will need to charge it overnight. You could probably do everything you've done already once more and have a little bit of life left. I've bought myself an in car charger and plug it in whenever I'm in the car now to help keep it topped up.

The Hero will stop the apps when you're not using them, but if you really want to make sure they're actually 'killed', you can download programs from the Market. I use 'Taskiller'. There's a free and a paid version, it has a red logo with a skull. The free version is fine. You just run it and click what you want to close.

If I think of anything else, will post again!

Excellent! Thanks matey! I will download it!

 

[jimeller]

The battery will last a day and a half if you turn off GPS, and mobile internet and only turn them on if or when you need them. WiFi too. screen brightness is another good way to save battery. you can download Battery Widget from the market too (free), and that helps you track your battery life as a percentage also.

In fact if you lok around on the net there are several pages about battery life and power saving tips.

 

[Dem]

The battery will last a day and a half if you turn off GPS, and mobile internet and only turn them on if or when you need them. WiFi too. screen brightness is another good way to save battery. you can download Battery Widget from the market too (free), and that helps you track your battery life as a percentage also.

In fact if you lok around on the net there are several pages about battery life and power saving tips.

Thanks dude. Will try the Battery Widget to have (hopefully) a more accurate view of the battery condition!

 

[Merlycat]

My battery status is an excellent free simple battery monitor. It runs in the notifications bar.

 

[SFA_AOK]

There's conflicting advice on charging...

The manual that came with my G2 Touch says that the battery will need several full discharge/recharge cycles to reach its full capacity. However, a thread over at Vodafone forums says that initially you should charge your battery often (actually talking about the Magic but it's probably the same battery or similar enough that the advice stands) and that overcharging is A Good Thing.

The people at the VF thread posted follow ups that after a week or two they were noticing better battery times. I charged mine up for nearly a day when I first got it, I've let the battery dip to below 50% twice and charged it up for several hours. Today is the first day of proper usage- (my number has only just been ported so until now, it's mostly been sat at home. Took it out the charger last night, on a train from London up to Manchester, so far it's down to 90% but I've been customising (rather than working! ). I'll let you know how I get on...

 

[m1.carson]

Hi,

Been checking up on batts, went to a site called "the battery university", yes really, it gave pretty good advice, mainly it said:-

DO your best not to get the battery hot/warm with full charge discharge cycles.

Small charges/discharges are better for it, keeps it cooler, and approx. every 30 small charges give it a full cycle.

This info. seems to be backed up by Dell.

Max.

 

[dmhepworth]

...turn the internet connect off and only turn it on when you check your e-mail.*

It's quick enough at connecting and if you are blessed enough to have a job, you don't want e-mails and tweets reminding youevery 5 minutes that you have a life outside of work. This is the simplest way and the battery life is about two days constantly on without worrying about the odd call or two. Otherwise it will use 10% of your battery life every hour.

It's certainly easier than going through 14 different settings menus!

BTW - I've found that it is always best to abuse your battery - charge it half way or from half way, leave it on charge all night then only charge it until until its full. Never do the same thing twice and it will last longer and perform better!

* just hold the power key down for two seconds and press "internet connect off" or put the internet connect widget on your scene.

 

[Slug]

overcharging is A Good Thing

No such thing with modern Li-Ion batteries. They contain control circuitry that monitors charge level and automatically curtails the current when a "full charge" state is achieved.

/Al

 

[computerboyo]

1) Turn off 3G networks and switch to 2G networks saves a lot of battery

2) Turn off GPS saves lots of battery

3) Turn off wireless location also saves battery

Haven't charged my phone for 3 days now and its coming upto 50%.