Help How to diagnose what is killing my battery?

flu13 · Dec 25, 2009

In the past week or so, I've noticed my battery life drastically decrease. I could easily go a day and a half with moderate use (some web surfing, all my apps and widgets going, etc.). Last week, my battery was gone one day in about 7.5 hours. I thought it was from installing Screebl Lite. I disabled Screebl, same problem. So I uninstalled Screebl, same problem. I have Spare Parts installed, but it's not the most intuitive thing in the world. I try looking at the battery usage stats, but it says "Android System" is the biggest battery user. And I don't know what is good, what is bad, what is normal.

Any help is appreciated.

Example: Today, I had my phone at 100% charge. Took it off the charger around 10 AM. Around 11:00, I paired up the new Bluetooth headset I got for Christmas. I made a call. Listened to a couple of songs. Watched a couple of minutes of video. I browsed the Market for a few, disabled bluetooth and went about my day. By about 6:00, I was at 5%.

AndroidSPCS · Dec 26, 2009

It's really tough. This is what's nice about Droid & Android 2.0, there is a battery status screen that shows you the apps or function that is taking up the most power.

That said, anything that uses GPS, the screen heavily, bluetooth, or data will be pretty power hungry.

raiderep · Dec 26, 2009

The same thing is happening to my phone. I did the power cycle thing for about a week then I got about 2 weeks of good charge life...a day and a half or so for each charge. Now about 3 days ago it has gotten very spotty. I have to charge mine after 8 hours or so. I am hoping for it to even out and be consistent, that's all.

flu13 · Dec 26, 2009

I have GPS disabled. I never had bluetooth enabled until yesterday, and that was only for maybe 20 minutes. Wifi is disabled as well. The only things that use data are Gmail, Calendar, K9 Mail (set to check every 30 minutes), and Weatherbug (using a fixed location and set to update every 30 minutes).

nate f · Dec 26, 2009

Can you figure out what apps you have installed between the good batt life and the bad and maybe uninstall them one at a time or all at once and then get them back one at a time to see which ones are killing you batt.

I did a factory reset on my phone and left everything on GPS, Bluetooth, all the widgets that came on it, not using any mail checking anymore I just go to the site once in a while and check them.

My batt life over the next two day went from 4.5 hrs to 24 hrs easy with play online and lots of NFL network football time. I had an app or two that was killing my batt and now I can find out which ones are not good for the batt life.

massiveian · Dec 26, 2009

Nate: care to share which apps was killing your battery life

B1ny · Dec 26, 2009

I removed Facebook widget, Twitter widget, a YR weather widget and a currency widget and went from around 12 hours to around 24. I now have only one weather widget that update once each hour and 3 that update once each day left on my Acer Liquid.

Moment · Dec 26, 2009

Weatherbug is known to cause issues.

kiddk1 · Dec 26, 2009

I took my phone off the charger it was at 100% didnt use it for 2 hrs and it went to 80%, used it to surf the market for about an hour and I was below 50% and it was downhill from there.

Moment · Dec 26, 2009

kiddk1 said:
I took my phone off the charger it was at 100% didnt use it for 2 hrs and it went to 80%, used it to surf the market for about an hour and I was below 50% and it was downhill from there.

That's because, like mentioned over and over in the Battery thread, the Moment does not properly display how much battery life is really left. The only way to see how much battery life you ACTUALLY have, is to boot in Test mode (Turn your phone off then hold the end key, the center key, and the talk key to boot in Test mode). The phone has more battery life than you think. That's why it lasts forever with like 50% and when it says it's empty it lasts for like 3 hours. It's a flaw and I hope its fixed soon..

PiggyGirl · Dec 26, 2009

I installed Ringtone Scheduler and WeatherBug within the last week and since then there has been a noticeable decline in performance. There were also updates to Handcent and PandaHome--I finally uninstalled Handcent today because I think it was slowing everything down. The culprit probably is WeatherBug, since I set it to update every 15 mins, but I like it, and it's very useful here in TX where the temp can drop 50 degrees overnight. I seem to go into yellow within 3-4 hours nowadays after semi heavy use (sms, email, web, youtube, and maybe 1 brief call), but I'll just keep a charger handy.

nate f · Dec 26, 2009

massiveian said:
Nate: care to share which apps was killing your battery life

If I can remember them I had RingDroid (made 4 ringtones), Updated The Weather Channel widget (which I currently have running still), Solitare, Handcent, a Battery indicator?, Shopsavvy, 10001 Cokctails, Advanced Tank Manager, Phit Droid, and Shot 2.

I think that is all of them. I also am not using the e-mail through the phone anymore which is different than my Instinct which is the part of the phone that I loved. I would never miss an e-mail or auction. People would email me on a craigslist item and I would call them back in minutes and they would say wow that was quick I just sent you the email. I do miss that but going to the site once in a while to get my email is ok.

I do have a wallpaper from the market right now and the battery seem good. I will be trying new app slowly over the next few weeks to see if I can pinpoint any similarities between the one that use more battery than others.

kiddk1 · Dec 26, 2009

Moment said:
That's because, like mentioned over and over in the Battery thread, the Moment does not properly display how much battery life is really left. The only way to see how much battery life you ACTUALLY have, is to boot in Test mode (Turn your phone off then hold the end key, the center key, and the talk key to boot in Test mode). The phone has more battery life than you think. That's why it lasts forever with like 50% and when it says it's empty it lasts for like 3 hours. It's a flaw and I hope its fixed soon..

thanks moment, I throughly read thru the battery sticky when i first got my phone and did the power cycle thing, i dont recall seeing the test mode part, must have missed it.

njbianco · Dec 27, 2009

I almost guarantee it was from the Bluetooth you had on for a wile every phone ever had Bluetooth will kill a battery quick

flu13 · Dec 27, 2009

NJ, the bluetooth wasn't on long enough to account for the rapid battery drain. It continued to drain quickly even after bluetooth was off.

I think I may have found the culprit, though. In response to Nate's question, I went to "My Downloads" in the market to see what I had most recently installed. I tend to go in there every few days to check if there are updates for any of my apps. Apparently, the last time I checked, there was an update to TaskPanel. It was still sitting there saying "Downloading..." and had apparently been attempting to download it for days. I could definitely see that sucking the battery dry. I canceled the download and started it over and all appears to be good. I'll see if the battery life improves once I hit full charge again.

nate f · Dec 27, 2009

The bluetooth being on doesn't kill the battery although it may drain if you have a device connected. I haven't tried that yet but my bluetooth setting and GPS has been on for the last 2 days and my phone has been at 5% for 6 hrs. The problem with it being that low is the camera will not work.

I am installing apps except when they say "prevents the phone from sleeping" and so far so good. The weather has been on and the NFL has been updating all day and the phone is still on 5% for 6 hrs. I hope they send an update for the battery gauge.

DoormanIsGod · Dec 27, 2009

if anyone cares i downloaded this app called switchpan and turned off every external module besides the radio. so data, bluetooth, gps...all off. I txt mostly and use my phone and when i do need to use the net i turn data back on. I get a full day and then some easily out of my moment now but i do agree that it shouldnt have to be micromanaged. secondly, the battery gauge is highly inaccurate. I've gone 2-3 hours of use when battery level is reading at 15 percent.

flu13 · Dec 28, 2009

Well, I was down to only about 5-7 hours of battery life, so I uninstalled almost everything that I had installed. It has been 3 hours since I took it off the charger and it's between 80 and 90 percent battery right now. That's a pretty good improvement. I figure I'll start slowly adding apps back and see what tanks the battery life.

AndroidSPCS · Dec 28, 2009

nate f said:
The bluetooth being on doesn't kill the battery although it may drain if you have a device connected....

Wrong, bluetooth simply being on will kill the battery. On my old Motorola RAZR and my Blackberries the battery life went down significantly if bluetooth was turned on.

nate f · Dec 28, 2009

AndroidSPCS said:
Wrong, bluetooth simply being on will kill the battery. On my old Motorola RAZR and my Blackberries the battery life went down significantly if bluetooth was turned on.

My instinct had no battery loss with the bluetooth setting left on 24/7 I never turned it of and the battery life was great. I guess it depends on the phone with my Renegade I did not notice a difference.

cre8ivenail · Dec 28, 2009

I am I've made a horrible error. I never conditioned my battery and I kept my cell on a charger for most of its short life. I think I've had my phone a little under 6 months. Should I try to condition now or buy a new battery?

Also, when I check to see what's using the most battery power it has always been the display. Always 50%+. Am I doing something wrong?

My original reason for my battery research here was because I was looking for a good home app that wouldn't drain my battery or take up a lot of internal memory. Any help\advice will be appreciated.

CriticalCritic · Dec 28, 2009

cre8ivenail said:
I am I've made a horrible error. I never conditioned my battery and I kept my cell on a charger for most of its short life. I think I've had my phone a little under 6 months. Should I try to condition now or buy a new battery?

Also, when I check to see what's using the most battery power it has always been the display. Always 50%+. Am I doing something wrong?

My original reason for my battery research here was because I was looking for a good home app that wouldn't drain my battery or take up a lot of internal memory. Any help\advice will be appreciated.

-The references made about conditioning the battery, particularly in this forum, are provided as a method to assist with semi-calibrating the Samsung Moment's botched battery meter readings. So I don't know about your G1, but conditioning may be completely unnecessary for your situation.

-Typically, the display is the biggest battery hog on ALL computer devices. It takes more power to fire up those pixels than it does to press a button.

-Please define "a good home app" Do you mean a home customization app like Open/Panda home?

cre8ivenail · Dec 29, 2009

CriticalCritic said:
-The references made about conditioning the battery, particularly in this forum, are provided as a method to assist with semi-calibrating the Samsung Moment's botched battery meter readings. So I don't know about your G1, but conditioning may be completely unnecessary for your situation.

-Typically, the display is the biggest battery hog on ALL computer devices. It takes more power to fire up those pixels than it does to press a button.

-Please define "a good home app" Do you mean a home customization app like Open/Panda home?

Yes, that's what I mean by home app.
I thought that leaving it plugged up most of the time messed up my battery so I started leaving it unplugged and it drains quickly. I get about 3 to 4 hours of cell use. I am a heavy texter and internet user. When I installed panda it drained faster. I also love downloading apps. I store as many as I can on my sd card but I have quite a few private apps that won't let me save them.

cre8ivenail · Dec 29, 2009

CriticalCritic said:
-The references made about conditioning the battery, particularly in this forum, are provided as a method to assist with semi-calibrating the Samsung Moment's botched battery meter readings. So I don't know about your G1, but conditioning may be completely unnecessary for your situation.

-Typically, the display is the biggest battery hog on ALL computer devices. It takes more power to fire up those pixels than it does to press a button.

-Please define "a good home app" Do you mean a home customization app like Open/Panda home?

Yes, that's what I mean by home app.
I thought that leaving it plugged up most of the time messed up my battery so I started leaving it unplugged and it drains quickly. I get about 3 to 4 hours of cell use. I am a heavy texter and internet user. When I installed panda it drained faster. I also love downloading apps. I store as many as I can on my sd card but I have quite a few private apps that won't let me save them.

flu13 · Dec 29, 2009

My phone has been off the charger for about 19 hours now and is showing 70-ish percent battery. Clearly, some app (or combination of apps) was destroying the battery. I'm most suspicious of PandaHome and K9 Mail.

Help How to diagnose what is killing my battery?

Android Enthusiast

Android Expert

Newbie

Android Enthusiast

Newbie

Member

Lurker

Member

Android Enthusiast

Member

Member

Newbie

Android Enthusiast

Android Enthusiast

Android Enthusiast

Newbie

Newbie

Android Enthusiast

Android Expert

Newbie

Newbie

Android Expert

Newbie

Newbie

Android Enthusiast

BEST TECH IN 2023

Smartphones

Best Android Phones

Upcoming

Best iPhones

Upcoming

Tablets

Best Tablets

Upcoming

Laptops

Best Laptops

Upcoming

Televisions

Best TVs

Upcoming

Game Consoles

Best Game Consoles

Upcoming

Wearables

Best Wearables

Upcoming

Smart Home

Smart Home Tech

Upcoming

Similar threads