300% battery improvement....WOW

[veccster]

I have been struggling with battery life for some time now. I have tried every possible combination of settings on Juice Defender but ran into issues where my 3g wouldn't connect - forcing me to power cycle.

Anyway, I disabled JD but did not change anything else and now get a very noticeable improvement in battery life.

Here are screen shots from 2 separate days on the same battery from a fully charged state. In both, I am in my office, connected to the same router. I used the phone almost identically both days - talk time, screen on time, etc.

In the first shot, you can see Wifi disables and enables every 5 minutes - per JD. I also had it plugged in 2x for about 5 minutes each. I got 9.75hrs.

In the second shot, Wifi is on the entire time and JD is disabled. Not sure why it was "awake" for the long period of time in the middle of the day but it still didn't affect it. I got 28hrs.

The results are drastic - nearly a 300% improvement. I have read in other places that this phone does better with Wifi enabled constantly but here is the proof.

 

[Unforgiven]

I knew that because I noticed the difference, but its cool to see some proof behind it.

 

[Outatime]

I had similar results with JD. There are people that love it, but I tried it for awhile and deleted it. I get better idle life without it.

 

[quickaudi]

your WiFi actually connected, or just turned on?

 

[Unforgiven]

your WiFi actually connected, or just turned on?

For me, its only connected when I am at home but turned on all day. I can't explain why it works, but it does.

 

[Sandroidfan]

I wouldn't recommend JD if you are having any signal drop issue. Not just Nexus, many other phone users complained on data reconnection issue with JD, though a lot more others seem to be fine with JD. I put JD free version at balanced mode and enable it only when needed outside. It seems I'm getting about 40% more with it, not bad.

It was found shortly after Gnex release that leaving WiFi on makes longest battery life. But for some reason I don't like to leave Wifi on all the time. So I toggle it on only where I want to use it.

 

[TheOozyman]

huh. I never even heard of that I'll try this now, thanks

 

[jcash3]

For people that don't know (like me before I searched for it), JD is short for Juice Defender. Trying it out now.

 

[jcash3]

BTW, what were your settings to get such good battery life?

 

[Lucky Armpit]

I didn't get a massive improvement in battery life, but I did get a noticable improvement when I started leaving my Wifi enabled at all times. The only time my 3G is connected is when I'm away from work or home. It helped. When I go to Raleigh - which is the closest 4G area - I have a lot of fun doing things on 4G but maaaaaaan does it kill the battery!

 

[veccster]

your WiFi actually connected, or just turned on?

I do not turn wifi off but in both screenshots above, I am mostly connected. Only during the 5min drive to work was I on 3g.

I wouldn't recommend JD if you are having any signal drop issue. Not just Nexus, many other phone users complained on data reconnection issue with JD, though a lot more others seem to be fine with JD. I put JD free version at balanced mode and enable it only when needed outside. It seems I'm getting about 40% more with it, not bad.

It was found shortly after Gnex release that leaving WiFi on makes longest battery life. But for some reason I don't like to leave Wifi on all the time. So I toggle it on only where I want to use it.

There were times I could not get 3g to connect at all - even in a strong signal area. Very frustrating! I could cycle it on/off, disable JD, enable/disable airplane mode....nothing worked. The only way to get it back was to shut down the phone and power cycle.

BTW, what were your settings to get such good battery life?

Just to be clear...the results shown above were obtained when I was NOT using JD. I disabled the entire program. When I was using it, I had wifi disable and enable every 5min (or when the screen was turned on). That was really the only setting I used.

I also want to be clear that I'm not really blaming this on the JD app...I'm blaming it on the setting of disabling and enabling wifi - which is what most people use JD for. I could probably re-enable the app but remove that function of it and get similar results. The app itself does not consume much battery (at least I don't think).

I didn't get a massive improvement in battery life, but I did get a noticable improvement when I started leaving my Wifi enabled at all times. The only time my 3G is connected is when I'm away from work or home. It helped. When I go to Raleigh - which is the closest 4G area - I have a lot of fun doing things on 4G but maaaaaaan does it kill the battery!

I have a shortcut on my desktop to take me to the network settings where I can toggle 3g/4g. I usually leave it on 3g...unless I'm about to show my buddies a website or something - then I turn on the 4g and blaze it! It sucks down the battery but my friends are surely impressed

 

[jbdan]

Well there ya go! Thx for posting :cheers:

 

[Vance]

This makes perfect sense if the phone has to work harder to upload, download, "phone home", sync, etc, over the network compared to wifi.

 

[veccster]

This makes perfect sense if the phone has to work harder to upload, download, "phone home", sync, etc, over the network compared to wifi.

No...it does not turn on 3g when the wifi is turned off...it turns off everything.

When the 5 minutes are up though, it will reconnect to download or receive any data messages that are pending. It stays on for 30 seconds then shuts back off for another 5 minutes.

When using JD...one thing I did notice was when I would turn on the screen (which triggers an override to enable data transfer), 3g would enable for a brief moment before wifi would connect. This tells me that 3g connects faster while the phone is connecting to the router. This probably causes the process to use a bit more juice.

 

[Vance]

No, what I meant was that, as between wifi and 3g, the phone will have to work harder to send and receive over 3g, using more battery. I was not referring to the JD scenario, just the benefit of leaving wifi on.

 

[veccster]

Another day of decent battery life. This was after 1.5 hrs of screen time and 1 hr of talk time. Screen is always at 100%.

Interestingly...the drop off in the graph was a random reboot while typing a response to a thread on this site.

 

[Tim K]

That doesn't surprise me at all. Look at the awake time when you are using JD to turn wifi on and off. Every time wifi needs to turn on and off, the cpu needs to wake up, flip the switch. All that undoubtedly used more juice than just leaving wifi on.

Nevertheless, it looks like even without JD running you get a lot of screen off awake time. Your phone is doing something to keep busy in the background. Do you have a lot of services syncing?

 

[MSUgEEk]

It makes sense with your JD settings that you got better life without. The key to battery life on this phone is Wifi. Connect to a network via Wifi as much as possible. Only turn it off if there is not one nearby that you can connect to. There are two ways to go about setting up JD for two specific user groups. For those who have access to Wifi the majority of the time, you need to have JD leave Wifi on. For those who don't have access to Wifi all day, you need to have JD configured to turn Wifi off.

If you have a good Wifi signal and you are constantly enabling/disabling every 5 minutes, it makes sense why you got horrid battery life...your phone was disabling wifi, trying to connect to a mobile network for 5 minutes, then re-enabling wifi....repeat. That will KILL your battery. Give JD another try and leave wifi enabled and configure it to only turn on mobile network every couple of hours or when off of wifi. Can't remember exactly how to do that, but I know it's possible to do it some way.

 

[veccster]

That doesn't surprise me at all. Look at the awake time when you are using JD to turn wifi on and off. Every time wifi needs to turn on and off, the cpu needs to wake up, flip the switch. All that undoubtedly used more juice than just leaving wifi off.

Nevertheless, it looks like even without JD running you get a lot of screen off awake time. Your phone is doing something to keep busy in the background. Do you have a lot of services syncing?

Yeah, I can't figure out what else is keeping my CPU awake. No, I don't run alot of services. No weather widgets or facebook widgets. The only sync service I have is Google and it only syncs browser, calendar, chrome, contacts and gmail.

I do play Words, Hanging and Drawing but I don't think they keep it awake. Not sure how else to check.

It makes sense with your JD settings that you got better life without. The key to battery life on this phone is Wifi. Connect to a network via Wifi as much as possible. Only turn it off if there is not one nearby that you can connect to. There are two ways to go about setting up JD for two specific user groups. For those who have access to Wifi the majority of the time, you need to have JD leave Wifi on. For those who don't have access to Wifi all day, you need to have JD configured to turn Wifi off.

If you have a good Wifi signal and you are constantly enabling/disabling every 5 minutes, it makes sense why you got horrid battery life...your phone was disabling wifi, trying to connect to a mobile network for 5 minutes, then re-enabling wifi....repeat. That will KILL your battery. Give JD another try and leave wifi enabled and configure it to only turn on mobile network every couple of hours or when off of wifi. Can't remember exactly how to do that, but I know it's possible to do it some way.

Wait a second...I think this is what Vance was trying to say. When it turns wifi off after 5min, it doesn't switch to mobile data....it doesn't have any connection for the next 5min. The idea is, I only need to get my emails, updates or other data once every 5 minutes. When I'm at my office (near a wifi router), it turns off wifi every 5min but doesn't use mobile data AT ALL.
This is how I THOUGHT it was working

I'll run another couple days with different settings on JD - keeping wifi on all the time.

 

[quickaudi]

It makes sense with your JD settings that you got better life without. The key to battery life on this phone is Wifi. Connect to a network via Wifi as much as possible. Only turn it off if there is not one nearby that you can connect to. There are two ways to go about setting up JD for two specific user groups. For those who have access to Wifi the majority of the time, you need to have JD leave Wifi on. For those who don't have access to Wifi all day, you need to have JD configured to turn Wifi off.

If you have a good Wifi signal and you are constantly enabling/disabling every 5 minutes, it makes sense why you got horrid battery life...your phone was disabling wifi, trying to connect to a mobile network for 5 minutes, then re-enabling wifi....repeat. That will KILL your battery. Give JD another try and leave wifi enabled and configure it to only turn on mobile network every couple of hours or when off of wifi. Can't remember exactly how to do that, but I know it's possible to do it some way.

Bingo - turning WiFi on if you don't have a local access point to WiFi is pointless.

Turning WiFi on when you are near an access point is definitely going to use less power.

 

[Sandroidfan]

Bingo - turning WiFi on if you don't have a local access point to WiFi is pointless.

Turning WiFi on when you are near an access point is definitely going to use less power.

That's what I thought too just like most of us prior to Gnex. But for some reason, leaving WiFi on in Gnex all time regardless of presence of access point seems to help with battery. At least it doesn't hurt, it seems.

If your phone is connected to WiFi access point for most of time, you won't gain much extra juice from JD. It could be even worse if data refresh is set to very short time like 5 minutes. it should be 15 minutes or longer. JD will be very effective only if your phone is on mobile data most of time and spends a lot of time on standby.

 

[Gekko]

WiFi@Home

Achim Beinroth

Description
Save battery by automatically turning off WiFi when you are not at home.
This lean and easy to use App will toggle WiFi automatically when you cross a given distance around your home location.
The (approximate) location information is acquired from the network, not from GPS.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aebeinroth.wifihome&hl=en

 

[Tim K]

Yeah, I can't figure out what else is keeping my CPU awake. No, I don't run alot of services. No weather widgets or facebook widgets. The only sync service I have is Google and it only syncs browser, calendar, chrome, contacts and gmail.

I do play Words, Hanging and Drawing but I don't think they keep it awake. Not sure how else to check.

Only way I know is using better battery stats. $3 in the market or free for members of xda.

 

[andiroo]

Wow. I changed my nexus to keep Wifi on all the time too, and I have seen a huge improvement in battery life. My apartment gets terrible cellular signal, so switching back and forth was probably killing the battery.

 

[CopperWires]

I noticed that mine does better with wifi on all the time too but at work the wifi signal is weak. It causes problems with streaming when switching between wifi and 4G so I have to leave wifi off there.