Battery Tweaks For HTC EVO 4G

Slick1020 · Aug 16, 2010

Very Important Tweaks (NOT ROOTED AND NOT USING ANY TASK KILLERS):

FOLLOW ALL OF THESE STEPS. I WILL EXPLAIN WHY AT THE END. If you don't use the apps I'm talking about, it doesn't matter. You must set up these apps accordingly.

First, 3G and 4G utilizes the most battery because CDMA phones always seek out the best signal. CDMA networks won't give you great battery life but you will have great call quality because the phones are constantly searching for the best signal.

IF YOU ARE NOT USING 3G, LEAVE THE 3G RADIO OFF. IF YOU ARE IN A BAD COVERAGE AREA, A LOW SIGNAL WILL DRAIN YOUR BATTERY ON A CDMA NETWORK.

Yes, 3G and 4G use more battery than Wifi! Use Wifi if its available and Sprint is working on changing the software so 4G isn't as power hungry.

ANIMATED WALLPAPER:
If you are not close to a power source DO NOT USE ANIMATED WALLPAPERS. ANIMATED WALLPAPERS CONSUME BATTERY POWER. I use them when I want to show off my phone or if I know I won't be out for long.

WIDGETS:
Widgets that need access to the internet in order to update themselves WILL CAUSE BATTERY DRAIN depending upon how often you have the app set to update the widget via the internet. Every app/widget is different but the following widgets need access to the internet: The stock clock/weather widget, any weather widgets, Friendstream, Facebook, News, News & Weather, Sprint Football Live, Stocks, Twitter, Mail, Nascar, and the Market. (For the time being DO NOT USE ANY OF THESE WIDGETS. I WILL EXPLAIN WHY AT THE END OF THIS POST. I WOULD JUST REMOVE THESE WIDGETS FROM YOUR SCREENS FOR NOW.)

SETTINGS:
Menu - Settings - Wireless & Networks "4G, HOTSPOT, 3G means Mobile Network, BLUETOOTH, Wifi - Turn off these radios by unchecking the boxes (Turn on when/as needed)

Menu - Settings - Location - "Uncheck USE GPS satellites box"

Menu - Settings - Wireless & Networks - 4G Settings - "Uncheck the Network Notification box if not already unchecked." In order to uncheck the box you have to turn on 4G, then uncheck the box. Remember to uncheck the 4G box. What does this do? It stops your phone from scanning on its own for a 4G signal, which drains battery. When you turn on 4G, the phone will locate the 4G network on its own.

Menu - Settings - Wireless & Networks - Wifi Settings - "Uncheck the Network Notification box." In order to uncheck the box you have to turn on WiFi, then uncheck the box. Remember to uncheck the Wifi box. What does this do? It stops your phone from scanning on its own for a Wifi signal, which drains battery. When you turn Wifi on, the phone will find all the available Wifi hotspots on its own.

Menu - Settings - Sound - "Uncheck Haptic Feedback box"

Menu - Settings - Display - Brightness - "Set Brightness to about 30-40% depending on your eyesight" (Using Automatic Brightness consumes more battery because the feature utilizes a sensor, especially when you are browsing.)

Menu - Settings - Display - Screen timeout "Set to 1 minute"

Menu - Settings - Display - Animation - "Set to No Animation" (This does not cut off your weather animation folks. I have yet to see what it affects.)

Menu - Settings - Accounts & Sync - "Uncheck Auto sync box"
All sync circles should go from green to gray, meaning syncing is no longer active for the following: Weather, News , Stocks, Google
- Tap News - Account settings - Update Schedule - "Set to Manual"
- Tap Stocks - Account settings - Update schedule - Should be gray in color meaning its not turned on/active
- Tap Weather - Accounts settings - Set to minimum usage for your use! (Once a day is all I need)

I leave background data checked so I don't have to always check the box in order to enter the market app. Since we turned all syncing basically off, background data will not cause any problems.

Open Mail App - Menu - More - Settings - Send & Receive - Set Frequency for Peak & Off peak times to "ONCE A DAY"
- Menu - More - Settings - General Settings - "Check Refresh upon Open box" When you open your mail app it will automatically download your mail upon opening. You don't have to use this function if you only check your mail once a day because that is what we set the mail app to do. But if you check your mail more than once a day, check the box so you control your battery consumption by manually checking your mail.

Open Fring App if you have it - Make sure you are signed out and logged off when closing. Menu - Settings - "Uncheck Automatic Startup"

Open Sprint Zone App - Menu - Settings - Set Update Frequency "Select Every month"

Open News App - Menu - Settings - Set Update schedule - Make sure it says "Manual"

Open Stocks App - Menu - Settings - Make sure Auto Sync data and Update Schedule boxes are grayed out and no check in the Auto Sync Data box exist. Uncheck the "Update when Opened box" if you do not use the stocks app. If you use this app, its basically set to manually refresh upon opening if you leave the box checked.

Open Weather App - Menu - Settings - Ensure Update Automatically Box is Unchecked. This will allow you to refresh your homescreen clock/weather widget by hitting the refresh button in the lower left screen of the weather app.

Open Talk App - Menu - Settings - "Uncheck Automatically sign in box" and make sure you sign out. Do not back out, SIGN OUT

Open News & Weather App - Menu - Settings - Refresh Settings - "Uncheck Auto-refresh box" Now you can manually refresh your weather opposed to the app doing it for you and depleting your battery.

I DO NOT USE FACEBOOK, FRIENDSTREAM, OR TWITTER SO IF THOSE APPS HAVE SEND/RECEIVE SETTINGS YOU MUST SET THEM UP ON YOUR OWN.

With my setup your phone should drain in idle mode at 1% an hour. I can leave the Wifi and GPS Radios on, and my phone will still drain at 1% an hour while in idle mode. As long as the phone isn't sending/receiving data while in idle mode. You will see the 1% an hour battery drainage. When I say idle mode let the phone sleep for 2 hours and see what drainage you get. You should lose 2% and start from a fully charged battery.

Now you must work backwards folks. If the phone is draining properly, set up your apps to the frequency of how often you use the apps but you want them set to minimum usage. Don't set up mail to send/receive every 4 hours if you only check your mail once a day. Don't set up weather to send/receive data every 3 hours if you look at the weather once a day. That doesn't make sense. When an app needs access to the internet via 3G, 4G, or Wifi its going to consume battery life. So if you have 3 apps scheduled to send and receive data 4 times a day, your battery isn't going to last an entire day. That's why we tell everyone the EVO will use battery based upon how you setup your phone. That's if you even set up your phone.

Set up your apps. See what type of battery drain you receive over two days. Then if your battery drainage isn't bad then set up your widgets. Or you can do your widgets first, wait a few days and see how your battery drains, then set up your apps to minimum usage. Does this make sense?

After a week and you are happy with your setup and battery drain, play with the auto brightness features and animation settings to see how that affects your battery. Its a give or take thing with the EVO. You can't have all the bells and whistles on the phone going at once. Use what you need on the EVO.

The best way to get 100% juice out of your battery is to UNPLUG THE PHONE FROM THE CHARGER WHEN THE LIGHT TURNS GREEN. YOU WILL NOT SEE A 5% DROPOFF IN BATTERY POWER IF YOU UNPLUG THE PHONE AS SOON AS THE PHONE INDICATES FULLY CHARGED.

Slick1020 · Aug 16, 2010

Please put these tweaks in a STICKY and LOCK the THREAD for me mod? People shouldn't have to search through 14 pages in the battery tips sticky for this document. Especially those new to the EVO.

SoFLO · Aug 16, 2010

You can lock the thread yourself I believe.

novox77 · Aug 16, 2010

Slick1020 said:
[snip]

Now you must work backwards folks. If the phone is draining properly, set up your apps to the frequency of how often you use the apps but you want them set to minimum usage.

[snip]

Great post, and I especially agree with the quoted part above. Once you've optimized your battery life, you can then start tuning things based on your actual needs. I've gone a step further and done some tests on the effectiveness of certain battery saving tips; think of it as a cost/benefit analysis.

Haptic feedback does not put much of a dent in battery usage, so if you prefer the tactile feedback, keep this one on. You'll still have great battery life.

Weather syncing does not drain very much battery, especially compared to exchange activesync, facebook feed, etc, mainly because there's so little data being transmitted. So if you like to have accurate weather, you can keep it syncing every hour without much impact to overall battery life.

I've set screen timeout to 2 minutes because I hate having the screen turn off on me if I'm reading some email and/or thinking about what I'm reading. But I also make it a point to hit the power button when I'm done with the phone, so the screen isn't ever on more than it needs to be.

Same for brightness. I keep it on auto because I want the phone to be readable when I'm outside. I used to have it set at 10-20%, which is fine indoors, but when I go outside, I had to manually turn it brighter. Too much of a pain. Again, I just shut the screen off every time I'm done with it.

But, yeah, overall, this is a very good baseline for all Evo users. It definitely covers all the major battery drainers. No need for task killers if you follow this guide.

For rooted users with CPU throttling enabled, you can get even better idle battery usage. My overnight drain is 1% in an 8-hour sleeping period. And everything still works: emails come in; led indicator works, my daily alarm goes off, calendar notifications kick in, etc.

marctronixx · Aug 18, 2010

unlocked per OP request...let's not clutter up the thread or OT posts could be subject to deletion...

Slick1020 · Aug 20, 2010

I want this to be clear. The EVO loses battery power through idle time drainage and through usage drainage. However the phone drains through your usage nobody can fix that. If you have apps sending and receiving data while you are on the internet I dont think your battery is going to last 4 days if that is what some of you are expecting. I can fix your phone if you are losing battery as the phone sleeps but I can't fix how you use all the battery power in your phone. Remember its a phone first. This phone can go days using it strictly as a phone.

If you want 2.5 to 3 hours of additional battery juice get the Seidio 1750mah battery like me. The stock battery will get you 4 to 4.5 hours of NOTHING BUT STRAIGHT INTERNET USAGE. The Seidio 1750 will get you 6 to 6.5 hours OF NOTHING BUT STRAIGHT INTERNET USAGE. My DELL laptop can go for 2hrs and 30 mins on a single charge in comparison. I use my EVO more than my laptop browsing now. You can either use your laptop folks for 2hrs to browse or use the EVO to browse for 4 hrs or in my case 6hrs.

takedown609 · Aug 25, 2010

For some reason after doing all of this, my battery is going down 3x faster than usual..no idea what I did wrong. It went from 100% before I went to sleep at 2am to 28% when I woke up at 10:30am. I checked to see what has been using the battery and besides standby and idle, it said Android OS and Android System. It wasn't like this before so I'm wondering what I could've done?

takedown609 · Aug 26, 2010

takedown609 said:
For some reason after doing all of this, my battery is going down 3x faster than usual..no idea what I did wrong. It went from 100% before I went to sleep at 2am to 28% when I woke up at 10:30am. I checked to see what has been using the battery and besides standby and idle, it said Android OS and Android System. It wasn't like this before so I'm wondering what I could've done?

Can anyone help me out here?..I can't figure out what is using the battery so freaking much. I don't know why my battery use is saying Android OS and Android system, what could be running? I did all of this right before I slept so I didn't even touch my phone after doing this. I backtracked and still can't figure out what the hell I did that is causing the phone to be draining my battery like crazy (just drained 5% in 13 minutes doing absolutely nothing but check the battery percent every couple minutes). This is driving me nuts.

mmuscaro · Sep 1, 2010

I went from 5-6 hours to 13-15 hours using this. Using the 1800 battery off of ebay.

WUESTSIDER · Sep 3, 2010

I just got a 1750 MAH battery, now I was wondering is it normal for the battery to drain kind of fast at first? I mean, while using my original battery with the settings posted within this thread my battery life was long lasting. However, I installed the new battery, charged it up, unplugged it as soon as the green LED appeared, but I noticed an immediate drop of 2 to 5%. Please tell me that is normal for first time use.

brushrop03 · Sep 4, 2010

mmuscaro said:
I went from 5-6 hours to 13-15 hours using this. Using the 1800 battery off of ebay.

Geez you must use your phone ALOT!

I get 13hrs on the oem battery.

JohnJSal · Sep 4, 2010

Thanks so much for these tips. Some are things I would have done myself, but others are options I would never have even thought to find! One question:

Slick1020 said:
Menu - Settings - Wireless & Networks - 4G Settings - "Uncheck the Network Notification box if not already unchecked." In order to uncheck the box you have to turn on 4G, then uncheck the box.

Does this mean that sub-options that are checked are still active even if the main option is unchecked? So in this case, even if 4G is turned off, the phone will still constantly search for a 4G signal if that sub-option is checked?

ak1984 · Sep 9, 2010

Slick1020 - Thank you so much for all these tips! I appreciate you taking the time

Slick1020 · Sep 11, 2010

WUESTSIDER said:
I just got a 1750 MAH battery, now I was wondering is it normal for the battery to drain kind of fast at first? I mean, while using my original battery with the settings posted within this thread my battery life was long lasting. However, I installed the new battery, charged it up, unplugged it as soon as the green LED appeared, but I noticed an immediate drop of 2 to 5%. Please tell me that is normal for first time use.

My Seidio battery came with specific instructions. If you buy a new lithium ion cell phone battery you are supposed to charge the battery in the phone for about 11 hours with the phone off. The LED will turn green after about 4 hours but the battery isn't fully charged. So the battery will basically lie to you so you think the battery is charged but its not. Brand new lithium ion batteries must be initialized. The companies that make the batteries do not initialize the batteries anymore. It's the buyer's job. Through initialization, you allow your battery to reach its maximum charging capacity by allowing it to charge for 11 hours.

JohnJSal · Sep 11, 2010

Slick1020 said:
My Seidio battery came with specific instructions. If you buy a new lithium ion cell phone battery you are supposed to charge the battery in the phone for about 11 hours with the phone off. The LED will turn green after about 4 hours but the battery isn't fully charged. So the battery will basically lie to you so you think the battery is charged but its not. Brand new lithium ion batteries must be initialized. The companies that make the batteries do not initialize the batteries anymore. It's the buyer's job. Through initialization, you allow your battery to reach its maximum charging capacity by allowing it to charge for 11 hours.

Does it hurt the battery not to initialize it (for 11+ hours) on its first charge?

AHWagner · Sep 11, 2010

Can you still initialize the battery after its been used?

Slick1020 · Sep 11, 2010

It doesn't hurt the battery per say. By initializing the battery you are telling the battery its maximum capacity. If you don't charge the battery to maximum, then the battery will never figure out the largest charge it can take. Not initializing the battery, you are basically telling the battery what it thinks its maximum capacity should be. The battery memorizes its maximum charging capacity. I do not know if you can initialize the battery after its first use.

JohnJSal · Sep 12, 2010

Slick1020 said:
It doesn't hurt the battery per say. By initializing the battery you are telling the battery its maximum capacity. If you don't charge the battery to maximum, then the battery will never figure out the largest charge it can take. Not initializing the battery, you are basically telling the battery what it thinks its maximum capacity should be. The battery memorizes its maximum charging capacity. I do not know if you can initialize the battery after its first use.

If you don't do it the first time, does that mean the battery will never last as long as it could?

JohnJSal · Sep 12, 2010

WUESTSIDER said:
I just got a 1750 MAH battery, now I was wondering is it normal for the battery to drain kind of fast at first? I mean, while using my original battery with the settings posted within this thread my battery life was long lasting. However, I installed the new battery, charged it up, unplugged it as soon as the green LED appeared, but I noticed an immediate drop of 2 to 5%. Please tell me that is normal for first time use.

I had a similar experience on my first night. My battery drained after about 2-3 hours of use, but then after charging it overnight, it has since consistently given me 12+ hours. In one case, more than 24 hours, but I didn't use it that much during that time.

With Slick's tips, and even with 3G turned on, my battery seems to drain at less than 1% per hour while idle.

I don't know about initializing a battery, but like he said in his reply to you, my experience has been that immediately taking it off charge when the light turns green (I'm talking about any device, not just the Evo) doesn't seem to give a full charge. That's why I let my devices charge overnight, in a sense "overcharging" them, but that seems to ensure that they actually get fully charged.

KevD47 · Sep 14, 2010

I've been lurking/reading for a while, but have something I can finally share that I have seen re: battery optimization.

I have seen a marked improvement in battery life by going into the Qik app, and going to Menu>Settings and change the "Sync Video Chat" to only sync when the app is opened, instead of every 15min. like it's set to from the factory...anyone else try this?

JohnJSal · Sep 14, 2010

KevD47 said:
I've been lurking/reading for a while, but have something I can finally share that I have seen re: battery optimization.

I have seen a marked improvement in battery life by going into the Qik app, and going to Menu>Settings and change the "Sync Video Chat" to only sync when the app is opened, instead of every 15min. like it's set to from the factory...anyone else try this?

Hmm, I just realized that I opened Qik for the first time the night before my battery seemed to start draining a lot, and now I see that it has been running since then, presumably syncing every 15 minutes! Thanks for the tip! I turned off the syncing and also signed out completely (although it still shows that it's running) and I'll see how that goes.

If it's still running later, I guess I'll have to try to Force Stop it. I never noticed if it was something that just remains running even if you never opened it before or don't use it.

kesroesweyth · Sep 16, 2010

Thank you for your post, Slick1020. I have followed these steps and noticed a huge difference in my battery life. I hate having so many apps running that I don't use, especially when they are constantly sending and receiving data throughout the day.

I have one really important tip that I didn't see in your post. I posted it to my blog. Feel free to add it to your post in this thread so everyone can see it, or just use the permalink below.

HTC EVO Battery Life Tip

Thanks again!

AHWagner · Sep 16, 2010

So why does the EVO scan the GSM if we only really need CDMA?

Edit: My EVO is already set to CDMA Auto, is that common?

kesroesweyth · Sep 16, 2010

AHWagner said:
So why does the EVO scan the GSM if we only really need CDMA?

That is a good question, and I do not know the answer. I wonder if other HTC phones designed for use with the Sprint network share the same default setting?

I've noticed that the EVOs in use at my company that don't have this problem are the ones that have already been updated to Froyo (2.2). Maybe someone recognized this as an error and fixed it in the update?

JohnJSal · Sep 16, 2010

AHWagner said:
So why does the EVO scan the GSM if we only really need CDMA?

Edit: My EVO is already set to CDMA Auto, is that common?

I was just reading about the issue and it seems to be fixed in 2.2.

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