Want To Improve Battery Life? -- Here's How

Can the GPS settings be put on the home screen somehow so I don't have to go into Settings every time I want to use it? Right now I have it on as I like to use maps.

jack58 said:

Can the GPS settings be put on the home screen somehow so I don't have to go into Settings every time I want to use it? Right now I have it on as I like to use maps.

Click to expand...

Pull down the notification bar, hit the tools in the top right corner.

Make sure that Location is one of the items on the top bar.
Then you can touch that and toggle it off/on

I tried battery doctor couple of days after seeing AZgl's high praises on it here. It seems to me it's nothing more than task manager app plus power toggle widget. Can do the same thing without it just fine.

I personally find Clean Master app from the same developer more useful. CM will let you clean lots of junk files and clear RAM periodically when memory usage is too high.

AZgl1500 said:

Pull down the notification bar, hit the tools in the top right corner.

Make sure that Location is one of the items on the top bar.
Then you can touch that and toggle it off/on

Click to expand...

Getting to like this phone more and more all the time... and I loved it the day I got it.

This is a very interesting thread as I put up another thread yesterday where my exchange services is killing my battery. It is using up 50% of battery life. This a new phone on vzw that i got on thu nite. On sat, with a full charge at 8am, by 5pm i was at 28%, maybe 15 min talk, 5 texts, and 6 emails. 50% for exchange services.

I was thinking of returning and exchanging, but everything else is fine, so I can't believe it is the HW.

My exchange is set up exactly like on my razr and another colleagues S3 here, push notification.

boatman said:

This is a very interesting thread as I put up another thread yesterday where my exchange services is killing my battery. It is using up 50% of battery life. This a new phone on vzw that i got on thu nite. On sat, with a full charge at 8am, by 5pm i was at 28%, maybe 15 min talk, 5 texts, and 6 emails. 50% for exchange services.

I was thinking of returning and exchanging, but everything else is fine, so I can't believe it is the HW.

My exchange is set up exactly like on my razr and another colleagues S3 here, push notification.

Click to expand...

Not sure what phone you have. But assuming it has a Qualcomm snapdragon processor, you may try their BatteryGuru app. It will learn your usage pattern for three days and then intelligently re-adjust auto sync on every app in use for best battery life. I tried that app when I had Razr HD only to see marginal gain but it could be different on S5 or newer version is better.

jack58 said:

Since I like using GPS fairly often, is there a way I can have it on my homepage to turn it on and off so I don't have to go in settings every time?

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Sure can. You should be able to create a GPS widget and put it on your home screen. That's what I do.

Seriously if I do what some of you guys are doing to save the battery time, what good is it to have a Smart Phone like this???
Doing nothing for 6 hours at night, it was at 97%. Then lasted all day and was at 18% right before I went to bed.
Put on charger, Charged by the time unplug to go to sleep.

Here is my settings.
Things I turn off to save battery:
-Bloatware that cannot be uninstalled I disabled and stopped
-Uninstalled all unused and needless apps
-turn off auto sync for all apps.
-turn off GPS (almost a must if you want your battery to last)
-turn off WiFi (so it is not always hunting)
-leave phone on silent & use led notification only for texts.
-turn off mobile data when not in use
-Disabled all animations in Developers settings
-Turn on power saver mode for trips only or when I'm going to be away from a power source longer than a day.

*have wifi & gps in the notification bar so I can turn on/off when needed.

Things I leave on:
+Brightness to 80%, not auto. (why have great resolution if you turn it down???)
+Set screen timeout to 10min and soft touch keys to always on when plugged in.
(If I'm not using the phone, simply turn the screen off and the above two are moot.
+I have all apps I'm using turned on and in about 25 within reach in 4 screens.
+LED notifications set on full bore/repetitions.
+Vibration on full bore/repetitions.

I use Battery Doctor to help do some of the above -/+ tasks.
I use the "Ultra Power Saving Mode" or "Power saving mode" only IF I know I'm going to be away from outlet a while which is very rare.

Useage during the day:
* Lots of maps and GPU usage.
* Lots of email and text.
* Lots of internet and searching.
* Fair amount of 25 apps usage.
* Lots of use showing customers my images.
* Lots of playing around learning different camera features.

Blade of 3 said:

Sure can. You should be able to create a GPS widget and put it on your home screen. That's what I do.

Click to expand...

Can you tell me how you did that? Thanks! :thumbup:

jack58 said:

Seriously if I do what some of you guys are doing to save the battery time, what good is it to have a Smart Phone like this???
Doing nothing for 6 hours at night, it was at 97%. Then lasted all day and was at 18% right before I went to bed.
Put on charger, Charged by the time unplug to go to sleep.

Here is my settings.
Things I turn off to save battery:
-Bloatware that cannot be uninstalled I disabled and stopped
-Uninstalled all unused and needless apps
-turn off auto sync for all apps.
-turn off GPS (almost a must if you want your battery to last)
-turn off WiFi (so it is not always hunting)
-leave phone on silent & use led notification only for texts.
-turn off mobile data when not in use
-Disabled all animations in Developers settings
-Turn on power saver mode for trips only or when I'm going to be away from a power source longer than a day.

*have wifi & gps in the notification bar so I can turn on/off when needed.

Things I leave on:
+Brightness to 80%, not auto. (why have great resolution if you turn it down???)
+Set screen timeout to 10min and soft touch keys to always on when plugged in.
(If I'm not using the phone, simply turn the screen off and the above two are moot.
+I have all apps I'm using turned on and in about 25 within reach in 4 screens.
+LED notifications set on full bore/repetitions.
+Vibration on full bore/repetitions.

I use Battery Doctor to help do some of the above -/+ tasks.
I use the "Ultra Power Saving Mode" or "Power saving mode" only IF I know I'm going to be away from outlet a while which is very rare.

Useage during the day:
* Lots of maps and GPU usage.
* Lots of email and text.
* Lots of internet and searching.
* Fair amount of 25 apps usage.
* Lots of use showing customers my images.
* Lots of playing around learning different camera features.

Click to expand...

I am a little confused, you said why shut all that down if you're going to have a smart phone, but you turn off GPS and mobile data... but later, say that your typical usage during the day is a lot of maps, wouldn't they use GPS? I am not trying to be smart, I am honestly trying to understand. I would like to save some battery life, but honestly, if I want to check my email, and have to go through steps to turn on my mobile data first, I might as well just turn on my PC and check that way...
On previous smart phones, I did a lot of the same as I do now and yet battery life was better, but I know each device is unique and this thing with it's awesome screen, and processor, obviously will be more taxing on a battery.

I think the best way to help with battery life is just go into settings / applications / application manager and scroll right until you get to running. That tells you everything that is currently running in your phone. Lots of things can be disabled that you don't use like Amazon apps and verizon apps . Aka bloat ware . If you use it don't disable it. If you don't use it disable it. Each person is different . I disabled all the stuff I don't use and kept the things I do. Not only did I get better battery life it also freed up more memory for other things. If you don't know what it is don't disable it because your phone might need it to work. I believe farther up in this post people gave lists of things that the disabled and that's how they did it. I keep GPS on all the time and mobile data and have great battery life.

beginning of this thread is very good advise and does work well.

made night and day difference for me.

Will have to figure out what I can disable...

jmatteis said:

I am a little confused, you said why shut all that down if you're going to have a smart phone, but you turn off GPS and mobile data... but later, say that your typical usage during the day is a lot of maps, wouldn't they use GPS? I am not trying to be smart, I am honestly trying to understand. I would like to save some battery life, but honestly, if I want to check my email, and have to go through steps to turn on my mobile data first, I might as well just turn on my PC and check that way...
On previous smart phones, I did a lot of the same as I do now and yet battery life was better, but I know each device is unique and this thing with it's awesome screen, and processor, obviously will be more taxing on a battery.

Click to expand...

Read the whole thing. I have a lot of stuff I don't use the S5 comes with, gobs of Apps. I delete or shut most of them down that I don't use. I keep the ones I want running. Except for WiFi & GPS.
GPS & WiFi ae heavy Bandwidth users, so it takes me all of one second to shut it down or turn it on when I need them.
*have wifi & gps in the notification bar so I can turn on/off when needed.
That is what a good smartphone will do... work with the adjustments that YOU make that works for YOU!

Yup, the S5 is a SmartPhone....
It knows how to respond to what I want it to do.....

Blade of 3 said:

-turn off auto sync for all apps.
-turn off mobile data when not in use (especially if you have Sprint like me)
-put brightness to as low as you are comfortable with, not auto.
-turn off GPS (almost a must if you want your battery to last)
-leave phone on silent if you do not need to be notified
-run on power saver mode

Click to expand...

Gosh, with all this stuff (and more) turned off, why not just buy a dumb phone (vs a smartphone)?

monicakm said:

Gosh, with all this stuff (and more) turned off, why not just buy a dumb phone (vs a smartphone)?

Click to expand...

Maybe to say "I HAVE A SAMSUNG GALAXY S5"!

I have Juice Defender Ultimate which was my best purchase ever. I set it on "balanced" and enable it and it does all those things people are obsessing about in the text above. IT turns on/off wifi, syncing gps etc as soon as your phone is shut off since it assumes (correctly) if you are not looking at the screen, you don't need wifi. There is a ton of other options you can use but balanced works well for me. I bought the app with my S3 as it was a power pig. My S4 was more efficient but I'd get home from work at 35% so I loaded JDU and it jumped to 65% when I got home. It syncs on a periodic basis which you can control. Wifi comes up once the screen is powered up. I forget most of the functioonality since I purchased it years ago. The S5 is pretty efficient so I didn't load it initially but I got caught out on a business trip and had to load my spare battery. Now it's up on the S5. Don't get me wrong I like to fiddle as much as the next guy but physically turning things on/off through the day, well, I'm too busy. It's a phone not a pet. There's an app for that. Set-Forget.

jack58 said:

Read the whole thing. I have a lot of stuff I don't use the S5 comes with, gobs of Apps. I delete or shut most of them down that I don't use. I keep the ones I want running. Except for WiFi & GPS.
GPS & WiFi ae heavy Bandwidth users, so it takes me all of one second to shut it down or turn it on when I need them.
*have wifi & gps in the notification bar so I can turn on/off when needed.
That is what a good smartphone will do... work with the adjustments that YOU make that works for YOU!

Click to expand...

how do i get mobile data on/off switch on my quick settings? I have tmobile version.

Bobby R said:

I have Juice Defender Ultimate which was my best purchase ever. I set it on "balanced" and enable it and it does all those things people are obsessing about in the text above. IT turns on/off wifi, syncing gps etc as soon as your phone is shut off since it assumes (correctly) if you are not looking at the screen, you don't need wifi. There is a ton of other options you can use but balanced works well for me. I bought the app with my S3 as it was a power pig. My S4 was more efficient but I'd get home from work at 35% so I loaded JDU and it jumped to 65% when I got home. It syncs on a periodic basis which you can control. Wifi comes up once the screen is powered up. I forget most of the functioonality since I purchased it years ago. The S5 is pretty efficient so I didn't load it initially but I got caught out on a business trip and had to load my spare battery. Now it's up on the S5. Don't get me wrong I like to fiddle as much as the next guy but physically turning things on/off through the day, well, I'm too busy. It's a phone not a pet. There's an app for that. Set-Forget.

Click to expand...

Battery Doctor does what you say that JDU accomplishes also.

I just choose to be pre-emptive. I also choose to control what my phone does.

Your thoughts on JDU aside, there is no way that left to its' own management programming that it could have accomplished what my technique just did. 4 days on one charge and it still had 20% battery left.

There is nothing in this world that requires being sync'd up on any schedule. Not today, or ever.... I have my phone set to NEVER. I don't want it and don't need it.

Text messages come through just fine, and that is the only thing I care about. I do NOT want apps to be updating on their own. That can and has, broken things w/o me knowing what occurred and how to back out of it. No thank you. I will update things "one at a time" IF, and only if, it is needed.

Programmers have an obsession with sending out the littlest little do nothing updates. All of that updating requires contact with the outside world and that requires battery power. No thank you, not needed and not wanted.

I have a Galaxy S Fascinate that has been running "just fine" for 3 years and it has never had an update. It also has never been attacked by the boogie man. I did allow AVG Antivirus to run on it and it apparently did its' job.

That phone is now working in the background for me as an Alarm Clock. With Battery Doctor installed, and everything except Alarm Clock Plus TURNED OFF it just completed TWO FULL WEEKS since the last charge. No Wifi, No Data, No Bluetooth, No GPS, No Service.... just idling along with the most menial of tasks, "counting the seconds until it is time to wake me up to go to work".

Yes, I also have Alarm Clock Plus running on my S5.... but I have been known to not hear an alarm, I fall asleep wearing headphones watching TV.... I need a backup because my employer does not tolerate being late.

There are many apps which only just mirror the functions of another one. That is fine, but most of them are copy cats created by kids who don't know how to program and they just use an app to copy an app and put a different UI on it. They want to push out changes almost everyday... I am not into messing around with things, I enjoy the KISS principle. It has worked great ever since it was invented, long before my grandfathers were born. If it ain't broke, don't "fix it".

I have no objection to those who enjoy their programmable toys, indeed let them have at it.

For me, I have a fantastic smartphone now in the S5 that when I awaken it, is ready to take off like a racehorse and do anything that I ask it too. And it will have a battery full of vim and vigor to accomplish that task when needed. I enjoy not being tied to a charger every 6 hours or 10 hours, or even every day.... Being beeped at that the battery is finally down to 20% and needs me to put it on a charger "sometime today" is great on the Fourth Day of service. Not bad, not bad at all.

Please leave condescending tones at the office. Those who are asking questions deserve good answers and without attacking their right to do so.


. good night, time to get ready for tomorrow.

Tied to the charger? I flip my S5 on the Qi wireless charging pad and voila I wake up and it's 100%. And I sleep every nite. If it's at 35 or 95% when I get in bed it doesn't matter to me. Maybe if I was walking the Pacific Coast trail your techniques might come into play but for the 99.5% who charge when we sleep, it's navel gazing. There are apps for phone battery management that aid anyone who wants to manage usage more efficiently. Sorry for the condecending tone but I'm not working today.

Took the phone off the Qi pad today, wife had a doctor's appointment in town. Then she wanted to go to Garden Ridge and shop in their inside mini mall... garsh that place is huge!

Then we had to go across town to find El Fogon Mexican Food in Owasso, Oklahoma. Best I have ever eaten and family run and attentiveness to the customers is job #1.

I digress.... Wife's needs required a lot of DATA use, searching for the where things are: calling stores and reserving things to be picked up at the Will Call counters...., and me, left to twiddle thumbs in the waiting room surfed all over the forums.

Phone got a lot of online use via Verizon and no WiFi around. Our daughter's job sends her all over the state, and we chit chat quite a bit w/Text Msgs. Not power hungry there, but busy none the less. The Bluetooth headset was on nearly all day and....

It's 1800 hours here and the battery is 87%.
Not bad for 6 hours of fairly heavy use.

.

I'm getting great battery time on my S5 as well now that I have it all set up.
Very happy with that and the S5.
This will very easily keep me happy until my 17 months are up in time for the next great thing from Samsung...

Bobby R - Thank you thank you thank you.... My S5 was going on ebay this week and I seen your post last night. I downloaded Juice defender and it was a gift from the gods. My battery has lasted almost 15 hours today and still has 25% left. Ive been using 2 batteries a day since I got it.
Fingers crossed and hopefully that's the problem solved. Cheers.

jack58 said:

I'm getting great battery time on my S5 as well now that I have it all set up.
Very happy with that and the S5.
This will very easily keep me happy until my 17 months are up in time for the next great thing from Samsung...

Click to expand...

I agree and same here. Loving the S5 so far, best phone I ever had for sure.

PS Nice Avatar, I am so ready for some retribution

Bear

Carpe Nocturnal said:

PS Nice Avatar, I am so ready for some retribution

Bear

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The REAL Super Bowl was that Hawk/Niner game! That was a nail biter and could have gone either way right up to the end... I'm hoping the Hawks put the Niners out of the way sooner next time...

You know, I still miss the Joe Montana days...