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Help Droid Incredible Battery Charging

S

Submariner70

Member
Hello All,
I have a Droid Incredible (2.2 unrooted) on Verizon and I think I've done everything under the sun to try to conserve battery life, turn off gps and wifi, screen timeout. limit update frequencies to the minimum on all apps I know of (news, stocks, etc), back out of or close all apps not running. Tried ATK's, tried Juice Defender, I run Mobile Guard.. God forbid I surf the net or play games or music, I'll drain it fast. Usually take it off charge at about 6am, by noonish I'm at about 60% with very very moderate use. Charge it during lunch and it will be charging (LED red) for the entire lunch hour, maybe go up to about 80%.

I had Verizon send me a new battery. That didn't do much. So I called them again, as expected they said they weren't aware it was such an issue. So they said its probably the device (default problem resolution when all else fails as I'm sure the replacement will do the same).

Tech support said it should take MAYBE an hour to an hour and a half to fully charge the device even from almost dead not HOURS as mine does. I TOTALLY didn't agree with that since I've never seen it charge up that quickly. Even when I'm at 60-70% is STILL takes about 2 or so hours to charge up (wall charger, car charger, usb to pc).

I used to have a BB and it charged pretty quick (different device all together). My friends with iPhones say theirs charge in about an hour to an hour and a half it almost dead.

My question is (consider it a survey) is how long do most see for it to recharge the device (depending on what percent it's at). But I NEVER had it charge in one hour.

Thanks in advance, and if anyone has any other batter tips please advise...
 
Mine will charge to full from dead in about an hour or maybe 80 minutes. I'm rooted, but I have the stock rom. Make sure you got the last update that was sent OTA (over the air) from verizon, that's what makes a difference in charging time.
 
I'm going to try to avoid the techno-babble. HTC tried a new method of charging the battery in the Incredible. Basically, when your phone is turned on and hits 100%, the charging turns off, the phone runs off the battery, and the green indicator stays on. The battery will not start charging again until it drops below 80%. If you remove and plug the cord back in, the phone has to be below 96% to charge again. If the phone is turned off, it avoids these issues and charges to full.

So, you have a few options if you want a full charge, which will help considerably with battery life.

  1. Get multiple batteries and a wall-charger. The wall-charger will completely charge a separate battery, and you can swap as needed.
  2. Turn the phone off when charging overnite. This gets you a full charge when you turn the phone on in the morning.
  3. Bump charge. When you wake up, turn the phone off and let it charge to full before you start work or whatever else you do. Warning, this method could lead to adverse battery life in the long run as you are doing a full charge twice in one night, which causes unnecessary strain on the battery.
 
What's odd for me is that my HTC Incred started a) draining battery and b) taking a long time recharging. So one of these app updates must have done it. My phone used to charge with an hour or so. Now it takes four/five hours to recharge.

With all these updates, I have no idea what app is doing it though. damn.
 
Well to address the posts I've got so far:

Grossie- Wow you're lucky! I have never had my phone charge that fast, not even from like 80%. I got the OTA update (if that's the one that added VZ Apps and all that). I just did a restore about a week ago, did the *228 jazz. Same same. Did I miss some kind of update.

Medion- I have read lotsa mixed views on that theory. I'm gonna try to charge overnite with the phone off. Thing is when I have to charge during the day at work I leave it on so I don't miss calls and all that. But will try to charge it with off. Never had that prob with my BB.

Hansangb- I dunno if I have some rogue app that runs that I should be killing?? I close all I know that should be closed. Even closed HTC sense without knowing it would jack my GUI up, some of those apps you don't know if you should mess with or not. My phone never charged that fast, never an hour, wow I wish.

Thank you all so far...
 
Submariner70 said:
Medion- I have read lotsa mixed views on that theory. I'm gonna try to charge overnite with the phone off. Thing is when I have to charge during the day at work I leave it on so I don't miss calls and all that. But will try to charge it with off. Never had that prob with my BB.
Click to expand...

It's not theory, it's certified fact. Even HTC finally came out and admitted it a few months back. On top of that, we've seen the charge threshhold in the kernel itself (charging behavior changes when using AOSP kernels).

The phone doesn't run off AC. Plug in the phone, pull the battery, and watch the phone shut off, even with the cord in.

When the phone charges to full, even while still plugged in, the charging stops, and the phone continues to run off the battery. It will report a 100% battery until unplugged, and then rapidly drop to the actual remaining charge.

While plugged in, it won't resume charging again until it drops below 80%. If you unplug it and plug it in, it has to be below 96% to charge again (unless turned off).
 
I charged it last night with the phone OFF. I did the same routine as every other day, closed apps and all that jazz. Used it about the same as most days. It is lasting a bit better today. Was at about ~80% at round 11am or noonish. 1:50pm and its about 70% ish.

So that isn't all THAT bad (would like a little better) but the thing I am still concerned with still is the time it takes to charge.
I've NEVER seen it charge from any level (except near full) in an hour or so. I guess I'm going to try the replacement phone Verizon sends (hate refurbs) and see if the charge times differ.

So roughly 1-1.5 hours to charge for most of you??
 
Submariner70 said:
I charged it last night with the phone OFF. I did the same routine as every other day, closed apps and all that jazz. Used it about the same as most days. It is lasting a bit better today. Was at about ~80% at round 11am or noonish. 1:50pm and its about 70% ish.

So that isn't all THAT bad (would like a little better) but the thing I am still concerned with still is the time it takes to charge.
I've NEVER seen it charge from any level (except near full) in an hour or so. I guess I'm going to try the replacement phone Verizon sends (hate refurbs) and see if the charge times differ.

So roughly 1-1.5 hours to charge for most of you??
Click to expand...

When off, it takes roughly 1 hour to go from 0-80%, and another 2 hours to go from 80-100%. When turned on, it will charge significantly slower. This is normal behavior.
 
I did notice that with charging the battery last nite with it OFF, the battery did last a bit longer. Moderate use, was at about 50% at about 4pm, not too bad I guess. I got my replacement phone today. Curious if it will charge faster.

Jsstritz- I am using a stock battery. In fact, this is now a replacement battery that Verizon sent.

Medion- When people said it will take about an hour to fully charge I didnt realize it was while powered off, kind of a bummer to have to shut ur phone off to get it back up there but I do understand with a powerful processor it is chuggin away even at idle sometimes. Wow, TWO hours from 80-100% thats crazy. So now I wonder if it was my phone or is it just normal behavior. Like I said, from having a BB that thing charged fast (about an hour even when very low) but it had a fraction of the power the Inc has.

I'm up to date on all the last S/W OTA updates that may affect.... still at a loss. Too chicken to ROOT lol. Dont know if that helps battery life at all. Shame you cant get some descent life out of a phone without hacking it.
 
hansangb said:
No, I meant that your trickle charger may be damaged. If it takes *that* much longer than others, it's worth a shot.
Click to expand...

Oh, no, I wasn't complaining about my charging speed. I was explaining how the phone is designed to charge in an effort to help Submariner70 extend his battery life a little. While there are numerous tricks, this was the first one to bring up.

@Submariner70:

Now that you've got that down, here's a few more tricks to further extend your battery life.

  • Go to menu/settings/wireless & networks/mobile networks. From there, DISABLE always-on mobile data. This will turn off mobile data unless called for by you or the OS. This does affect some apps, I'm told, but none that I've seen. It's also a HUGE battery saver.
  • If you have wifi in your home, leave your phone on wifi and connected at all times. Wifi uses very little battery when inactive, and significantly less juice than 3G when transmitting.
  • Each of the above two points will save you a ton of juice and do not require root. However, when combined, they don't double your gains. It's more like a small boost over just using one or the other. Still, I recommend using both.
 
Medion- You've been awesome with all your posts. I have tried the turning off Mobile Network i.e. that is your 3G. It does affect data (internet, IM, etc, not sure about mail). Turning off 3G allows you to get calls and texts (not MMS though). I was always under the impression that WiFi ate more battery. I will try it this way as well as I do have a wireless router at home.
FYI- Just went into the yellow ~30% or so about 8pm so charging it now. I am DEFINETLY going to charge while off at night, though can't use my phone as an alarm clock though. BB used to wake up to sound alarm even if it was powered off.
Still think its a drag to have to go through all this to get a days worth of battery. My friends with iPhones say theirs lasts for hours and charge faster.
Don't know why mine takes so long to charge though, dont know if a replacement phone will be any different. Wonder if they are working on a patch for this eventually.

Thanks, any other suggestions or input is more than welcome.
 
Not to be 'blogging' on here but I've had it on charge for about an hour or so and it's only gone up about 10% in charge. So I'm only at about 40% now vs. 30 an hour ago.
Also took Medions advice and switched off 3G and turned on WiFi.
Hmmm, yeah definetly doesn't take an hour to charge up. At least while its powered on. New battery too.
 
Submariner70 said:
Not to be 'blogging' on here but I've had it on charge for about an hour or so and it's only gone up about 10% in charge. So I'm only at about 40% now vs. 30 an hour ago.
Also took Medions advice and switched off 3G and turned on WiFi.
Hmmm, yeah definetly doesn't take an hour to charge up. At least while its powered on. New battery too.
Click to expand...

I would seriously just buy this:

CHICHITEC SPRINT HTC EVO 4G BATTERY 1800mAh high capacity OEM Verizon Incredible Droid TOUCH PRO2 HTC HERO

Also, as for your charging speed, are you charging via AC or USB? (AC is using the USB plug and the wall adapter that the phone was supplied with). Phone charges twice as fast on AC.
 
Mostly I use the AC wall adapter. At work I use the USB off the computer. Either way, it never EVER charges in an hour to hour and a half :-(
 
Submariner70 said:
Mostly I use the AC wall adapter. At work I use the USB off the computer. Either way, it never EVER charges in an hour to hour and a half :-(
Click to expand...

Nor should it. It's specced to charge from 0-80% in about an hour, 0-100% in about 3 hours. Anything grossly different than that, and you have a problem somewhere. Also, those figures are for when the phone is turned OFF. When on, it's even longer.
 
Medion, yes it does take a long time to charge while on. OMG it was at about 60% a bit ago and it's been charging about 2 hours now and it's only at about 80% now. Sheez!
Another question, you suggested using Wifi at home yet all these apps and some other people suggest turning Wifi off when possible. What's the real story? Does your 3G suck more than Wifi? Or the other way around.
I HATE how long it takes to charge this thing up. If this is a Lion battery and laptops are the same then why such a difference?

Thanks again for all your help.
 
Submariner70 said:
Medion, yes it does take a long time to charge while on. OMG it was at about 60% a bit ago and it's been charging about 2 hours now and it's only at about 80% now. Sheez!
Another question, you suggested using Wifi at home yet all these apps and some other people suggest turning Wifi off when possible. What's the real story? Does your 3G suck more than Wifi? Or the other way around.
I HATE how long it takes to charge this thing up. If this is a Lion battery and laptops are the same then why such a difference?

Thanks again for all your help.
Click to expand...

Both Wifi and 3G are radios. What do you think takes more battery, a radio communicating with a device 20-25 feet away, or a radio that has to throw its signal a mile away? :)

Disabling always-on 3G data will give a huge battery boost. Using wifi when available will also help. Going from 60-80% in an houw while on isn't bad, especially fi you were using it. Batteries have a form of internal resistance, so they charge faster at lower levels, and slower at higher levels.
 
Update-
I did in fact get my replacement phone and before I even activated it, took the battery out of MY Inc which was at about 60% or so and just put it on charge. In about an hour it was almost fully charged. Now I don't know if it was because it was STRAIGHT STOCK with it not activated, not searching or polling for a network, no apps running in background.... which probably is the case but MY Inc had NEVER charged that fast. I wanted to test this out BEFORE I transferred to the Replacement phone and it be the same ol same ol with the battery issue.
 
Submariner70 said:
Update-
I did in fact get my replacement phone and before I even activated it, took the battery out of MY Inc which was at about 60% or so and just put it on charge. In about an hour it was almost fully charged. Now I don't know if it was because it was STRAIGHT STOCK with it not activated, not searching or polling for a network, no apps running in background.... which probably is the case but MY Inc had NEVER charged that fast. I wanted to test this out BEFORE I transferred to the Replacement phone and it be the same ol same ol with the battery issue.
Click to expand...

The battery wasn't calibrated in the new phone yet. So it's completely possible the battery wasn't fully charged even if the phone said it was.
 
Well hopefully it will last longer than the last phone did. I put the batt in the new phone and have been using the new one as normal. Backing up and restoring everything of course which is a pain in the butt
 
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