Save the Battery!

[the1who]

I am working with someone, who I won't say their name, they can come in here and post it, but I have an interesting battery saver that I have not yet seen mentioned anywhere. I am still building up some detailed information, but the tests before I messed with the phone and got it locked up and caused an excessive battery drain on reboot, were very promising.

Lets say, Google has it right when it comes to Gmail and Gtalk, I'd say the other forms such as Samsung may have overlooked something and left out a configuration option that allows users to choose what they want to really do.

Preliminarily, I disconnected my phone around 10 am, it's a good round number to use, it was probably before that as I went to get my haircut at a place that opens at 9 am, but I can't remember when I left. At 11 am I checked and the phone was 100% on battery status. Around 1 pm, I checked again and it was 98-96%. That's a 2-4% drop over at least 3 hours if not more. That's compared to my experience of 5% or so every hour.

What is helping this save battery...well I'd like to build more information as I said to make sure it isn't a fluke or placebo effect. I have read many different articles on the web of how to save battery, even Samsung's official video of force stopping applications that are running through the manage application area, such as Amazon MP3, where they say if it is needed, it will start up again without causing any problems. That's their words folks. I guess what I'll do is, until I can get a good foothold for sure that this really is the fix for our battery problems for the majority, I'll let you all speculate. I'd really like to have enough information to have a real good thread going to create a sticky on. If someone gets it right, aside from my accomplice, haha, I'll just continue on from there...hint...

It's related to messaging...to be continued

 

[the1who]

Since 11 AM, I have been dropping 2.25% an hour at the moment. Sync/GPS on, WiFi/Bluetooth off, 2g selected. Been doing my usual avocations, such as messaging the wife and getting updates. I still have probably more widgets and stuff that I could delete off the home screens, might get better than 2.25% eh? Just reporting in, I think a day at work tomorrow would give more real world results too to see if this method really does the job. Again, at 11 AM unplugged, checked at 12 PM and it still said 100%. At about 1 PM it said 98%, for the last 4 hours have dropped 9% overall and that calculates to 2.25%, so hope these numbers sound good to someone.

 

[the1who]

It has been 9 hours, I am at 81% now. I have dropped 9% in total usage since disconnecting from charger. Same settings as it has been all day, except I read about making a black wallpaper so I used my camera and used a voice call a couple times, other than that, messaging primary use. I have dropped 2.11% per hour. Folks, what I am getting at is I think I have found the solution. I am tired of hiding it as well, it hasn't really been that long, but I highly recommend this as the results are promising.

I haven't tested this out as much as I have wanted, wanted to try it out tomorrow. I will still give some information about tomorrow's use, but I want to share what I have done differently compared to last week and since 8/6 essentially. Again, my average use was around 5-10% per hour depending on how much I did. I am getting far better battery life and I could probably succeed if I was a real picky person and get even more if I disabled the social networking and refreshing/syncing updates that I let the phone do. I also have been using Gtalk the whole time as well as getting e-mail updates and checking when I get them.

What I did was real easy and I think it is essential that we should have some more control over this. Luckily we have an app to replace the default message app. I disabled the native notifications from the message app and downloaded handcent. I have used it before on the Behold 2 but since I couldn't disable native notifications, I got two notifications in the bar and it was rather annoying. When you disable the native notification without using handcent, you don't get any notification in the notification bar. It also won't trigger, wake whatever you want to call it, the display on. So, how many have looked at battery status or battery use rather and noticed the top use was display?

When you setup handcent, make sure that enable popup is disabled, notifications can be checked, menu into the notification settings and make sure screen on is unchecked. I have had MMS messages trigger the display, but all SMS messages have not. This is all that I have done and the results are promising. Results will certainly vary depending on what else you use the phone for, camera, gps, streaming music, but I certainly wasn't paranoid and disabled all syncing and I am getting very favorable battery life results. I recommend this to anyone that can disable the native notification and setup handcent, as I am sure it will help for phones like the Vibrant where they don't have a screen on/off option in the native settings. Thanks Robo for listening to me, I hope you see similar results as well, and to everyone else!

I have searched the web, and no one really takes this into consideration I think, like the messaging app triggering the display. Unless handcent does on their site, I have been through the android forums and there is no mention of this to save the battery. Whoever does these tech blog articles I highly recommend they revise and add this as an option. I imagining it solving a lot of people's battery use complaints.

In closing, I am saying this now to hopefully get some others who read this before they go to sleep, to try it out by adding the app, setting it up, before tomorrow's use as well, while it is charging tonight. In hopes of drawing up some other results of hopefully, satisfactory progress.

 

[thehumble1]

1) Is this really working still?

2) How did you disable the native notification?

thanks.

 

[the1who]

Yes it still works. But at work I don't get good reception so I probably consume more battery from it always trying to acquire service. The phone's biggest battery use reported was cell standby instead of display. It had reported to me that it was 55% without signal? I can't remember and as I look at the phone battery use menu now it has of course, changed since yesterday/past week at work. All in all. I unplugged my phone at 7 am this morning and it is at 99% currently. I am using 3g at the moment and downloading an app right now from the market.

To disable native notifications, open the default messaging application. For me I have changed the two shortcut icons at the bottom that I could, but if you haven't yet, you should have the shortcut for messaging there.

Once opened, hit the menu key in the bottom left, then select settings, scroll to the bottom and uncheck the box for notifications. You will no longer receive notifications on any messages unless you have activated them through Handcent. At this point, I would change the shortcut icon in the app drawer if you want it to still be going to your message inbox to the Handcent icon.

Go to applications, hit menu key, select customizable grid, find the Handcent shortcut, select and hold and drag in place of the default messaging app.

Then if you haven't setup the Handcent notifications, this is what I have it set to. Remember, you can change this for each individual too, but setting the default would be recommended. Open Handcent, you should see a mirror image of your old message inbox if you didn't delete anything. Hit the menu key, select settings. Then select notification settings. Uncheck popup if it is enabled if you like, however inside the popup settings below that you can disable turn screen on as well. I don't use this feature but will try messing with it over this weekend. At this point, if the notifications checkbox is unchecked, you won't receive notifications still, select it to get notifications of messages in the notification bar. Then you can customize the notification through the notifications settings menu below that.

If you want to customize per contact, go to the contact you have sent/received a message, by selecting them to view the messages. In the upper right hand corner is the settings for the individual and you can divert from the default settings a bit, can't enable popup per contact but you can change the icon in the notification bar, but if a new messages from someone else comes after this individual it will change to the default or that custom setting. You can also select the notification tone here for that contact as well.

Hope this helps. It has for me and well, it has eased my mind tremendously not having to necessarily worry more about my battery than my use.

 

[Veetus]

I am gonna give it a shot, but the Handcent app itself doesn't run too smooth.

 

[the1who]

I personally don't have issues with the app running. Can you elaborate on not running smooth? It is definitely more customizable, so it could have some issues from the stock messenger. I don't ever use the stock messenger, so I can't really remember what it was like. If you exclusively use the Handcent app, I am sure it would probably slip your mind, I hope. I also got rid of the shortcut to the stock messenger in the app drawer at the bottom, or whatever it is called.

 

[Jhnboy]

whats the average battery life for you guys?
and so its been confirmed that this helps with battery life?

 

[GalaxyS_Superphone112]

Im trying this starting tomorrow morning ill tryn keep you guys posted on my phone usage and battery and all that good stuff

 

[GalaxyS_Superphone112]

well i took my phone off the charger at 4am or a lil earlier but ill say 4am and its 830pm now and my phone is on 21% ive been using it A LOT (text phone calls web market) this is amazing im so happy i got this phone the battery is great and even better with this lil "fix" i guess thanks the1who this is a good find its only one day of observing but it seems like its helped my battery usage is around 25% for the display

 

[the1who]

Glad you have found it useful. It may not be for everyone that wants a notification visually of something happening with their phones. I however follow a relatively small amount of twitter accounts that are mainly news, so I get quite a few tweets throughout the day. It is nice not having my screen turn on for every tweet that I may not necessarily have the time to read or care to read every one as it comes through. I usually read during my breaks or when I can.

Today, I survived to 8 pm after taking it off the charger at around 8 am, 12 hours use, and only 27% total battery drain. That's 2.25% per hour. I do vary and have moments of 3% per hour and 4% and the dreaded 5% moments. Usually rebooting the phone tends to help. I also use timeriffic to help address other items I would normally mess with, such as volume and brightness. I have it turn off my wifi in the morning and then turn it on when I get off. The wifi was on when I checked it last before I made this hour long call to T-Mobile right now for the add a line for $0.

 

[GalaxyS_Superphone112]

i 4got to mention im also using the black.png wallpaper bcu ive heard that it helps battery as well and im trying to get atleast 24hrs of usage with no charge. coming from a G1 my battery on the galaxy s is AMAZING! lol

 

[Daruff]

Ive got a better and easier method then the one above.
What I did was disable notifications in the android settings. Then I downloaded a free app named "SMS Popup" by Adam K
I went in to the configuration of this app and enabled notifications and disabled the popups. Now I get notified in my notification bar (no backlight comes on) from this app and when I tap on the notification it takes me to the stock SMS app.

 

[Arcadia]

I don't feel like reading these essays you posted, can you simply post how your doing this?