Help Cell Standby, Battery Killer?

[Bundy]

I really wish we could get more information on this.

I've done the airplane trick, dialed *228, and even changed to CDMA using *#*#4636#*#*. I locked my phone at around 1 am this morning, and didn't touch it again until 11 am. After 10 hours of just sitting there, with Mobile Network, Wireless, GPS, Syncing, and Bluetooth all off, I went from 90% battery to 60%. 48% of battery was cell standby. I would be very happy with only losing 30% of my battery after 10 hours of usage (ecstatic really), but it literally was sitting there doing nothing. I turned off everything I could, other than leaving it in Airplane Mode, I don't know what's wrong.

The specs say the phone should get ~150 hours of standby time. Based on what I'm seeing, it's more like 35 hours. This was my 4th full charge, so it should be pretty close to broken in, and I'm using JuicePlotter to track my battery levels.

Could that alone be part of the problem with battery life? Every system utility you add that constantly runs/monitors your phone's operations is going to take power and drain the battery. I would guess that's why some people suggest not using programs like ATK, battery monitors, etc. They are always running and always using power.

 

[Bundy]

My cell standby has consistently been over 25-30%. Until today, my battery life has been over 24 hours. Today with heavier use it was more like 17 hours until completely dead.

I'd be interested to see if we can figure out what's behind the high cell standby.

Just thorwing a dart here, but I would guess that people with lower cell standby numbers aren't running many system utilities, don't have applications set up to poll at frequent intervals and don't play with the phone too much anymore in terms of settings, customizing, etc.

With that said, I expect to have my battery last aboout 8 minutes cause I' gonna be one playin' around MFer!

 

[Steel36]

I had a very low cell stand by % and very high Android System % until I rebooted my phone. Now Cell stand by is 38% and Android system is 4%? I think we need a real explanation of what all these #'s mean.

I had the same exact turn around after my first reboot. It seemed to extend my battery considerably as well. Over the weekend, I'm getting a solid 20+ hours with normal use. However, back at work today, where it's pretty shielded indoors and the signal is almost non-existent, the drain appears to have returned. We'll see how far it goes today.

 

[bxlxaxkxe]

I had a really high cell standy reading the first day or two that I had the phone and my battery wasn't lasting very long AT ALL. But I started switching off mobile network when not needed, via an easily accessible switch...widgets>settings widget>mobile network. Since using this, Android System is at 96%, cell standby and phone idle are both at 2%. And obviously, battery life is a million times better. Not sure if this is news to any of you but it has worked for me.

 

[SeattleYanksFan]

I had a really high cell standy reading the first day or two that I had the phone and my battery wasn't lasting very long AT ALL. But I started switching off mobile network when not needed, via an easily accessible switch...widgets>settings widget>mobile network. Since using this, Android System is at 96%, cell standby and phone idle are both at 2%. And obviously, battery life is a million times better. Not sure if this is news to any of you but it has worked for me.

What are the consequences of turning off Mobile Network?

 

[joehero]

you guys think you have high standby numbers? I just checked mine and it is at 78% cell standby and android system is at 5%. Phone idle at 10%, maps at 9% and wifi and display at 2%.

Anyone have any ideas? Does this just measure during the session since last having the phone off? If thats the case, I turned it on in Europe and have no signla so that might be something.

 

[Liquoredolce]

Currently I'm at:

85% battery
49% standby (went down a bit after I did the airplane trick, I think it was 60% earlier)
87% time without signal

Ideas?

I'll try *228 in a bit

 

[line6ix]

What are the consequences of turning off Mobile Network?

I just turned off my mobile network using the Mobile Network widget as suggested, and it appears to remove all "internet" functionality for the phone. So I think basically it is just a phone receiving calls and texts at this point. I went into gmail with mobile network turned off and sent a quick test message to myself and while it does "send the message" it looks like the phone holds the email because the mobile network is off. I waited about 5 minutes and the email never showed up, but i just tapped the mobile network widget to "on" and within 30 seconds the email was delivered. I don't know how having the mobile network off will affect battery usage personally yet as its been 10 minutes, but I imagine it would at least be useful to turn the mobile network off over night (or whenever it is that you sleep). My two cents.

 

[chris61292]

Up Time : 4 hours
Awake Time : 1 hour 10 minutes
battery power 85%
cell standby is 32% with 4 hours time on and 0% time without signal

 

[Lefort1]

I'm in the same boat, I have~25% from cell standby

 

[johnperkins21]

Could that alone be part of the problem with battery life? Every system utility you add that constantly runs/monitors your phone's operations is going to take power and drain the battery. I would guess that's why some people suggest not using programs like ATK, battery monitors, etc. They are always running and always using power.

Highly doubtful, but still a remote possibility. Based on stats from System Panel, Juice Plotter has used a total of 48 seconds of processor time in the last 13.5 hours. And this should also be recorded in my battery stats under Android system, but since my usage looks like this:

Cell Standby - 39% (3% without signal)
Phone Idle - 37%
Android System - 12%
Wifi - 7%
Screen - 5%

I don't think it's any of my running processes that is causing the issue. Unless it's one of my widgets syncing, but the battery monitor doesn't sync.

Cell standby seems to indicate time when it's not talking to the towers, which seems like it should take very little battery. I guess it's just that high because of how often my phone is inactive. I just think I would feel better if my phone idle was around 90% of my battery drain, since that's more reflective of how it's being used, or not being used as the case may be.

It is simply disconcerting that seemingly so much of my battery is eaten away by doing nothing, especially when they rate the phone for 150+ hours of standby time.

 

[woop]

What does cell standby do exactly? Mine is at 29%, which is higher than Android System which is at 28%. I don't really understand why it's taking up so much of my battery.

I have the same %'s.

 

[tetrismaster]

I believe the %s show how much of your battery was eaten up by what since last charge. It says on the top "since unplugged" so it must be an accumulation, not current power demands.

If your standby is high, it probably means you haven't used your phone very much since most of the battery used up is from it in standby. If you're constantly playing with it, then obviously standby is going to have a lower percentage because it's never in standby.

 

[Zomb!e]

My cell standy hsn't gone over 3% since I've had it on launch day. Not that I've noticed anyway.

 

[johnperkins21]

I believe the %s show how much of your battery was eaten up by what since last charge. It says on the top "since unplugged" so it must be an accumulation, not current power demands.

If your standby is high, it probably means you haven't used your phone very much since most of the battery used up is from it in standby. If you're constantly playing with it, then obviously standby is going to have a lower percentage because it's never in standby.

This makes sense to a point. If the phone is locked and not being used, standby would be the main battery drain. However, why does it continue to drain as much as it does is the question. If it's just sitting there, with everything turned off, it should last for days. Based on my tests, with everything turned off (though not in Airplane mode) the phone will last for ~35 hours, and half of the battery drain will be from Cell Standby. That's disconcerting, and a puzzle I'd like to get to the bottom of.

I don't really want to have to turn my phone off every night, but that seems to be the only option other than leaving it plugged in all night which is a bad idea.

 

[kcl71]

Hey all...loving this phone after too long with a Storm. Just reading through this it sounds to me like cell standby is time actually spent receiving data. Make a phone call and while talking attempt going home, click internet and try a Google search. You won't see 3g icon and can't get any pages to load. I would consider the cell standby number to be reflection of your actual data time usage not some evil battery killing glitch.

 

[pwsfinest]

The specs say the phone should get ~150 hours of standby time. Based on what I'm seeing, it's more like 35 hours. This was my 4th full charge, so it should be pretty close to broken in, and I'm using JuicePlotter to track my battery levels.

This phone has a Lithium Ion battery. There is no break in period for Li-Ion batteries. You can educate yourselves at this site Charging lithium-ion batteries

"Lithium-ion is a very clean system and does not need priming as nickel-based batteries do. The 1st charge is no different to the 5th or the 50th charge. Stickers instructing to charge the battery for 8 hours or more for the first time may be a leftover from the nickel battery days."

As far as cell standby and battery drain, you have to remember it's a percentage. You can not compare your total battery drain with what is displayed, since you don't know what criteria the phone is using to display these percents and no one here has explained what "cell standby" is actually measuring. I'm not convinced this battery information is even correct to begin with since it's showing that it's been unplugged for 2 hours when in actuality it has been off the charger for nearly 4 hours now.

 

[johnperkins21]

Ok, I am now convinced that cell standby is not an issue. My issue was caused by the phone not being allowed to sleep. The problem is that the battery info did not show what process was keeping my phone awake, so the two main processes that the phone could report on were the two that it was supposed to be doing most of the time, standing by.

For anyone who thinks they have issues with cell standby, please check your up time vs. awake time, the two should be quite a bit different depending on usage. Mine were exactly the same, meaning that my phone would not sleep. This is a good thread to look at for some info. My issue was somewhat solved, more of a work-around, by doing a force stop on the calendar process in Settings - Applications - Manage Applications.

 

[Brian_83]

Okay guys, this is easy. The percentages are the percent of battery use each item has used. If you add them up they come out to 100%. Basically 36% cell standby means that your cellular radio in your phone used 36% of the battery life that's been used. If you aren't doing a lot on your phone then cellular radio will be the highest. It doesn't mean it's using too much though. It just means it's using more than anything else because you aren't doing anything else. Of course a "CELLULAR" phone is going to use CELL standby. That is your phone connecting to the network waiting for calls and texts and keeping your signal. Again, a high number isn't bad. Actually those with the higher cell standby are probably getting longer batter life. If Android System is using the most then you're using your phone a lot. That means the Android System has used a higher percentage of your batter then cell standby. I can't exactly explain this the way I want but there is no issue. Let me put it this way... cell standby isn't using a ton of your battery. If it's the highest percentage and used the most of your battery then you probably haven't actually used much of your battery. If you're at 90% battery charge and cell standby is 40 percent then that means that 4% of that 10% used was by cell standby. Hopefully that helped.

 

[Odin3]

What about "phone idle". I would have thought this was the time the radio was active but not used for a call. Maybe cell standby is power spent without signal.

 

[Odin3]

I'm at standby 38% - 59% no signal, phone idle 18%.

 

[joehero]

Has anyone figured this out yet? I work where there is no service most of the time and I lost my entire charge in 5 hours today.

71% no signal. Airplane trick work? I know when I had my Incredible in Europe I turned off the cell radio and ran WiFi and GPS all day every day and had days of battery life.

 

[MedfordMan]

Okay guys, this is easy. The percentages are the percent of battery use each item has used. If you add them up they come out to 100%. Basically 36% cell standby means that your cellular radio in your phone used 36% of the battery life that's been used. If you aren't doing a lot on your phone then cellular radio will be the highest. It doesn't mean it's using too much though. It just means it's using more than anything else because you aren't doing anything else. Of course a "CELLULAR" phone is going to use CELL standby. That is your phone connecting to the network waiting for calls and texts and keeping your signal. Again, a high number isn't bad. Actually those with the higher cell standby are probably getting longer batter life. If Android System is using the most then you're using your phone a lot. That means the Android System has used a higher percentage of your batter then cell standby. I can't exactly explain this the way I want but there is no issue. Let me put it this way... cell standby isn't using a ton of your battery. If it's the highest percentage and used the most of your battery then you probably haven't actually used much of your battery. If you're at 90% battery charge and cell standby is 40 percent then that means that 4% of that 10% used was by cell standby. Hopefully that helped.

+1
For example, took my phone of the charger today at 7:30 a.m. Didn't use the phone that much today at all. At 4:30 p.m., I have about 3/4 of battery life left (9:13 hours up; 1:05 hours awake). My usage shows that cell stanby is 36%. REMEMBER -- that is 36% of the battery that has been used thus far, NOT 36% of the battery. [it's 36% of the roughly 1/4 of the battery I've used so far today).

 

[howarmat]

Okay guys, this is easy. The percentages are the percent of battery use each item has used. If you add them up they come out to 100%. Basically 36% cell standby means that your cellular radio in your phone used 36% of the battery life that's been used. If you aren't doing a lot on your phone then cellular radio will be the highest. It doesn't mean it's using too much though. It just means it's using more than anything else because you aren't doing anything else. Of course a "CELLULAR" phone is going to use CELL standby. That is your phone connecting to the network waiting for calls and texts and keeping your signal. Again, a high number isn't bad. Actually those with the higher cell standby are probably getting longer batter life. If Android System is using the most then you're using your phone a lot. That means the Android System has used a higher percentage of your batter then cell standby. I can't exactly explain this the way I want but there is no issue. Let me put it this way... cell standby isn't using a ton of your battery. If it's the highest percentage and used the most of your battery then you probably haven't actually used much of your battery. If you're at 90% battery charge and cell standby is 40 percent then that means that 4% of that 10% used was by cell standby. Hopefully that helped.

haha i just read this thread and finally found the guy who gets it! took a week almost

 

[joehero]

haha i just read this thread and finally found the guy who gets it! took a week almost

I get it too, but I am losing my entire charge, not just 25%. So this is a real issue for me.

Anyone have any ideas? Is it just because my programs are pulling data from a non-existent service all day?