Help Bad Battery? Verizon says it's my Wi-Fi use...

[VFX]

Hey all,

So I made the switch from iPhone to Android and haven't looked back. My S5 is a great phone.

However, I have been disappointed at the battery life that I've experienced so far.

After say, 3 hours of light use (email checking, a few web sites, bluetooth off) my battery was already down to 74%. At the end of the day 6am - say 10 pm, with mostly email and some web surfing it's not uncommon to be down to 8 to 12%. This doesn't seem to jibe with what I've read about S5. Am I wrong?

So I chatted online with Verizon support. The tech was very friendly and responsive. After checking to see what processes I had running and if I had bluetooth and Wi-Fi on, she suggested I turn off Wi-Fi. I have done so, but don't *think* I see an appreciable gain.

While I don't use WiFi at work, I do at home. It seems odd to me that I have to turn off a major function in order to get the battery life claimed by the manufacturer.

As per the tech's suggestion, I am to see how it works today and get back to them if the situation doesn't improve.

Experiences, thoughts, impressions?

Thanks!

 

[Deleted User]

I always leave WiFi on regarless of whether I'm in range or not (and have for 3-4 years being on Android). Never been a problem that I've noticed.

What kind of screen time are you getting? For instance, when you check to see whats eating up your battery...

A heavy user will consider 6am to 10pm a decent day out of a battery....

 

[Caesars]

Can you post screen shots of your battery statistics?

 

[AZgl1500]

I always leave WiFi on, it does not use any measurable amount of current.
That tech is a Script Reader and does NOT have a clue how these phones work.

Any phone for that matter. Any time I have gone to Verizon, the first one to answer is a Script Reader. You will NOT get good service until you ask them to put a Technical Service agent on the phone with you.

Post a picture, screenshot, of the battery use so we can see how it compares to our phones.

That said, goto the apps store and install "Battery Doctor"

Let it analyze what is happening, it will give you so many options, your head will swim... just follow the suggestions, it is a great battery saver.

Now, the S5 have a super neat feature.
If you will get in the habit of Closing All background processes when you are not using the phone, that alone will double or triple your battery life.

The Double Menu key on the Task Bar, hit it once for attention, hit it again and it will present a list of apps running. Hit CLOSE ALL.

Then on Battery Doctor, hit the Widget to kill all unnecessary process.

 

[VFX]

Thanks for your replies everybody!

ToyotaTacoma - My stats from yesterday: 6am - 10:33pm (With Wi-Fi turned off at 10am)

Checked email pretty often (expecting some news) with the occasional use of Chrome.

Battery at 42% with 4.5 hours screentime. Though really can't believe I stared at my phone for 4.5 hours.

Having Wi-Fi turned off made a huge difference as I'd usually be at 8% or so percent at the end of the day. That said, I sure would like my Wi-Fi back.

Caesars

AZgl1500

Off to get Battery Doctor now!



Thanks again everybody! I love this phone and want to make sure it's money well spent!

 

[jhawkkw]

One good indicator is if you click the actual battery graph, it will blow it up and show a couple more bars on the bottom of the graph that give information about when the phone is awake, when the screen is on, and phone signal. Can you provide that screenshot because that will help determine if the phone is experiencing a lot of wakelocks or if there's signal induced radio changes are occurring. Those are usually 2 of the 3 largest battery wasting events.

 

[VFX]

One good indicator is if you click the actual battery graph, it will blow it up and show a couple more bars on the bottom of the graph that give information about when the phone is awake, when the screen is on, and phone signal. Can you provide that screenshot because that will help determine if the phone is experiencing a lot of wakelocks or if there's signal induced radio changes are occurring. Those are usually 2 of the 3 largest battery wasting events.

Roger! Thanks jhawkkw!

 

[Sandroidfan]

It's strange turning WiFi off makes it that much better. Like some others, I always leave WiFi on and don't see any harm to battery life. Maybe your WiFi signal is weak or there is some issue with router.

Here is couple of my favorite battery tips. 1) Set the location mode to battery saving in location setting. 2) Uncheck "always scanning for WiFi points for location service" in WiFi advanced setting. this way the phone is very efficient for Wifi and location related things.

 

[VFX]

It's strange turning WiFi off makes it that much better. Like some others, I always leave WiFi on and don't see any harm to battery life. Maybe your WiFi signal is weak or there is some issue with router.

Here is couple of my favorite battery tips. 1) Set the location mode to battery saving in location setting. 2) Uncheck "always scanning for WiFi points for location service" in WiFi advanced setting. this way the phone is very efficient for Wifi and location related things.

Thanks for the tips Sandroidfan!

 

[VFX]

Here is my battery 2 hours and 14 minutes off of the charger, with WI-FI on.

I should note, while I have WI-FI on, I don't connect to it at work, so the only time I've actually connected (off charge/on battery) was between 6am and 7am.

Should I call Verizon back? For whatever reason, WI-FI eats my battery up, where as others seem to have no trouble...

 

[jhawkkw]

All that graph is showing is that WiFi is on, not that it's eating your battery. It's mostly used to determine if your phone is changing between LTE and 3G often, or if you're having wakelocks. Wakelocks are when your phone is doing something even though the screen is off. Best battery life will occur if awake graph is identical to your screen graph. In the latest one, there are a lot of marks where the phone is awake while the screen is off. That means that at least one if not more apps are waking the phone up or keeping it awake. This could be something as simple as social media/email syncing, an app that wasn't closed properly, a "rogue" app, or worse case scenario a kernel wakelock. The key is to find out what it actually is. The problem is that with the changes made to the 4.4 framework, battery diagnostic apps can't determine what causes wakelocks without root.

 

[VFX]

All that graph is showing is that WiFi is on, not that it's eating your battery. It's mostly used to determine if your phone is changing between LTE and 3G often, or if you're having wakelocks. Wakelocks are when your phone is doing something even though the screen is off. Best battery life will occur if awake graph is identical to your screen graph. In the latest one, there are a lot of marks where the phone is awake while the screen is off. That means that at least one if not more apps are waking the phone up or keeping it awake. This could be something as simple as social media/email syncing, an app that wasn't closed properly, a "rogue" app, or worse case scenario a kernel wakelock. The key is to find out what it actually is. The problem is that with the changes made to the 4.4 framework, battery diagnostic apps can't determine what causes wakelocks without root.

Thanks again jhawkkw,

I know this is probably near impossible to know, but in your experience do you think could be a hardware issue, or an unfortunate confluence of settings and loaded/running apps? The phone is less than a month old, and I'm pretty sure none of what I've loaded and am using is particularly exotic.

 

[jhawkkw]

Thanks again jhawkkw,

I know this is probably near impossible to know, but in your experience do you think could be a hardware issue, or an unfortunate confluence of settings and loaded/running apps? The phone is less than a month old, and I'm pretty sure none of what I've loaded and am using is particularly exotic.

It's possible to know if you're willing to root your device, but only you can decide that and I'm not sure on the current root status is of the Verizon S5. You'd have to check in the Verizon All Things Root subforum for instructions on how to do that. It's possible it's hardware, but doing a factory reset to wipe the device clean can indicate if it's app or setting related. If it's kernel related, you would likely need to wait for an update to come from Verizon for a new kernel.

 

[AZgl1500]

WiFi is not eating up your battery... there is something else doing that.

I just wrote a post on that

http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s5/846210-battery-draining-quickly.html

 

[VFX]

Well, I stopped a few apps, like Double Twist (music) Podcast Addict, Facebook, and a few others, AND I turned WIFI back on. Well it's 8:32 (took off charger at 6am) and I'm at 44%. This is after mild to moderate use. That doesn't seem terrible and it certainly is an improvement.

Nonetheless, I'm going to investigate further. I'll likely uninstall the Amazon App that lives on one of the 'desktop' pages.

I don't have the guts to root at this point, but it may come to it.

The ambiguity of the situation bugs me. Software/hardware, chicken/egg.

I appreciate everyone's help!!

 

[AZgl1500]

That Amazon app suite was consuming half of my battery power. I noticed the difference immediately with that being the only change i made when i uninstalled it.

 

[PsychDoc]

That Amazon app suite was consuming half of my battery power. I noticed the difference immediately with that being the only change i made when i uninstalled it.

+1 I, too, noticed that the Amazon crap was killing my battery. IIRC it was the #2 drain when I opened up "battery" to check what was using my battery. Immediately uninstalled and so far so good.

I also agree that there should be almost complete correlation betweem "screen" and "awake" under specific battery use graphs. As another poster said, it the phone is seen to be "awake" a lot more than when the screen is on then it's some app or process running in the background (think email, Facebook, etc) that needs to be killed.

 

[VFX]

How did you all uninstall/disable the Amazon Suite.

From what I gather it can't turned off. Furthermore, I don't see it in the App Drawer, and thus can't disable it.



2 hours and 15 minutes into my day and already down to 91%

Is this truly a case of those having amazing battery life merely managing their apps? It's going to be something of a pain in the butt to be constantly having to shut down apps to extend battery life.

It doesn't help that I'm having difficulty getting the straight dope on battery life. There's so much hype on the web and not as much real-world data yet...

Lastly, it's odd how 'Battery' only show a handful of apps running where as the application manager shows around 40, as 'running.'

 

[PainFX]

How did you all uninstall/disable the Amazon Suite.

From what I gather it can't turned off. Furthermore, I don't see it in the App Drawer, and thus can't disable it.



2 hours and 15 minutes into my day and already down to 91%

Is this truly a case of those having amazing battery life merely managing their apps? It's going to be something of a pain in the butt to be constantly having to shut down apps to extend battery life.

It doesn't help that I'm having difficulty getting the straight dope on battery life. There's so much hype on the web and not as much real-world data yet...

Lastly, it's odd how 'Battery' only show a handful of apps running where as the application manager shows around 40, as 'running.'

I'm having same problem. First time charging the phone within first hour i already lost 10%. Disabled all unwanted apps already. Im not sure if this is a phone problem or a battery problem. My iphone 4 in 4 years of use is not even this pathetic.

 

[VFX]

I used Wavelock detector for PC, as my phone is not rooted.

It appears google's backup transport was taking up a lot of Juice.

wavelock_screen by LeeAllanWilliamson, on Flickr

I have since done a factory reset, with a **marginal** improvement. Weird.

Prior to my reset, I spoke to Verizon for a second time. They want to send me a new battery. I'm inclined to think it's the phone not the battery. My phone continues to be 'awake' quite a lot, despite the screen being off.

I'm tempted to go back to the Verizon store and do an exchange, before my 30 days are up. Unfortunately I put a really nice (and expensive) tempered glass screen protector on it and don't want to have to buy another.

What a pain in the butt!

 

[AZgl1500]

How did you all uninstall/disable the Amazon Suite.

From what I gather it can't turned off. Furthermore, I don't see it in the App Drawer, and thus can't disable it.

I found it in the 'Running' apps IIRC, or in the 'ALL' apps... It does not show up as an app anywhere else on my Verizon phone. It cleverly hides itself from you. I just scroll through every one of the Manage app menus until I find what I want.

It definitely made a difference in battery life.

I have noticed one other "feature" that is not talked about. You need to disable Notifications on the app you are going to Disable first. If you don't, it does not always "Disable" and go hide.

This is particularly true with Amazon Suites. It refused to disable until I unchecked the Notifications box first, then I disabled it and it finally gave up the ghost and went away.

 

[AZgl1500]

I just looked on my phone and Google Backup Transport is still on it, but I am still getting good battery life by using my method of putting the phone to sleep.

I've posted before about using Battery Doctor's Widget to turn off GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, DATA, Sync. Then I make sure all apps are closed, then I hit Battery Doctor's battery icon Power Saver widget which kills all background apps that you have programmed to be disabled.

I am getting 3 to 4 days of use per charge with moderate use. The occasion phone call and quite a bit of texting. both work fine with all of the above turned off.

I tried in install Wakelock Detector on the phone, but it won't unless it is rooted. Was not aware of a PC version, so I will do that and report back on this thread with my results.


.EDIT.... I read through the install stuff for the PC version and for me, it is not worth the effort as I have my S5's battery use just about strangled to death. Going to use the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" method.


.

 

[VFX]

I just looked on my phone and Google Backup Transport is still on it, but I am still getting good battery life by using my method of putting the phone to sleep.

I've posted before about using Battery Doctor's Widget to turn off GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, DATA, Sync. Then I make sure all apps are closed, then I hit Battery Doctor's battery icon Power Saver widget which kills all background apps that you have programmed to be disabled.

I am getting 3 to 4 days of use per charge with moderate use. The occasion phone call and quite a bit of texting. both work fine with all of the above turned off.

I tried in install Wakelock Detector on the phone, but it won't unless it is rooted. Was not aware of a PC version, so I will do that and report back on this thread with my results.


.

Hey,

Your advice regarding Battery Doctor is good. That said, I can't imagine the shut-downs will help me go from barely a day's use to 3+.

Here's the link to Wavelock Detector for PC.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1r3VlhZIZVSufZlAeICJet6QBtyAF7z06_ysl1kUKME4/edit#slide=id.p

 

[AZgl1500]

I edited my previous post.... As I have my S5 battery use under control, I going to leave well enough alone. For my Verizon phone, I don't see the benefit in trying to install Wavelock Detector.

I also looked at BetterBatteryStats and I can't imagine that doing me any good either. Battery Doctor is doing a supreme job of managing things for me.


.

 

[VFX]

.EDIT.... I read through the install stuff for the PC version and for me, it is not worth the effort as I have my S5's battery use just about strangled to death. Going to use the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" method.

I hear that!