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Help S4 Accelerated Battery Drain after 4.2.2 Update

I am experiencing accelerated battery drain since receiving the last OTA update. I have not made any changes to the device settings and I have the exact same apps on the phone as before the update. The acceleration is significant in my opinion.

Prior to the update, I could get 25+ hours of moderate use, including 6.5 hours or so of screen time before the low battery warnings would start popping up. After the update, I am getting 15-17 hours of moderate use with 3.5 or so hours of screen time. On days that I want to use the phone heavily, I have to charge it twice in a day. These are the numbers when I'm on Wifi. If I have to be away from home or work where I have no Wifi, the numbers are worse.

Let me add the top battery users as found in the settings menu prior to my last charge: Battery at 6%, Screen used 70%, Device Idle 8%, Android OS 5%. So nothing is really putting great strain on the battery outside of the screen.

Let me also list the steps I've taken to address the post-update issue:

1. I contacted AT&T via chat, but was referred to Samsung to discuss the update and AT&T offered a used replacement (not a viable solution to me).

2. As directed by Samsung, I performed a factory reset via the settings menu, then charged the phone for 3 hours.

3. As directed by Samsung on a second inquiry, I performed a hard reset via the recovery menu, then charged the phone for 3 hours.

One more note: I have been given the typical tips to conserve the battery (turning off background data, GPS, Bluetooth, Smart features, etc.), so we can skip those. I utilized most all of those tips and no one I have spoken to wants to recognize that my phone's settings are set to where they were and address the the apparent issue, which is THE UPDATE.

So my question is, what is the solution? Did the update change something in my settings that I've missed? The only real changes that I noticed (other than the drain) after the update were the battery manager icon and the translucent status bar.

The post-update drain issue is prevalent on forums across the web. Does anyone on this forum have a solution?

Thank you.
 
Just wanted to add to this that I happened to charge the phone without the Otterbox Defender equipped yesterday evening (had just taken it off to retrieve battery info for ATT). After charging the phone with the Otterbox off, right now I've gone 14+ hours on the battery, 3 hrs 15 min screen time, and my battery is still at 58%.

Is there some way that the Otterbox could be impacting the charge and therefore the battery life? I put it on about the same time I received the last update, which is what I assumed was causing the problem.

I'll post again later to update on this particular charge, but unless this last 58% drains very fast, this charge is going to get me the hours and screen time I was getting before the update.
 
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I doubt the case is affecting battery life unless you feel excessive heat from the phone and case.

That's what I was thinking too. I'm not sure why I got so many hours out of it this time around. I used it the same as I always do, same settings, etc.

I got off the phone with ATT yesterday about the situation, had to pull the battery to get the IEMI. Left the case off while it charged. Today I was off work and used it heavily, and this is what I got:

0


0


Hopefully whatever the problem was just worked itself out. I'm going to charge it tonight with the Otterbox on though and see what the result is. I doubt that's the issue, but it's worth a test.
 
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Couple of things I could think of.

The OS learns how to manage the power over period of time. Phone tend to deplete battery faster, when straight out of the box, and it improves over time. Depends on your usage, it can take up to two weeks. Given you have new OTA, it will start the process all over again.

There are new services from Google (under sync settings) like Auto-Backup, etc... If selected, they will back up your entire gallery content to Google Plus' private gallery. This happens when the phone idle, in the background, and depends on the amount of content, can be very battery hungry, uploading photos and videos.

Few changes in Google Now, to improve targeted, location relevant search results. For that, Google uses location sharing & location history.

I would not ask you to disable that feature entirely, as it is useful for things like weather widgets, etc... But do disable for apps like Google Plus, maps or gallery, Facebook and other social network apps which seek your location (photo location tags in Instagram), and whatever apps you can find
that comes with such setting, but you are not required to use it. It will improve your battery life instantly.

Do a test, and disable Location Services through system settings, at least for a day. You should see difference right away.

If you are not using google Now, turn it off (under google now's setting menu), or at least the location sharing and history.

There is also problem with Google Play, being overly active, and the update which supposed to fix that, is rolling out as we speak.

Other than that, I think you good to go :)

Play around with the location sharing, and let us know if you notice any difference.

Cheers

p.s. Your photos appear as broken links. Perhaps upload them to imgur.com (free service) and use the Forum/Message board links to paste it in. I'm curious to see what was that :)
 
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Just noticed the links. I will correct it later. Essentially though, I got just over 22 hours of use, with 6 hrs, 27 min screen time. That is what I had gotten out of the box. Maybe you're right and the phone is just correcting itself after the update. It had been a couple weeks I think since the update. I'll see how it progresses.

Thanks for the other tips.

Screenshot_2013-08-06-20-48-24.png


Screenshot_2013-08-06-20-48-11.png
 
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