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Spint Hero Battery Issues known fix Fix.. charges faster lasts longer

byrontessman said:
It's been two days since my last post, and my phone has been sleeping soundly. I went from 100% awake time to 15% awake time. To re-state what worked for me:

Factory reset,
Handcent SMS fix,

The only Apps I've installed:
-Handcent,
-Battery widget,
-Bank of America online banking,
-To do List

I have been able to remain logged in to facebook, browse the web whenever, and get email updates every 15 min. I must say, however, i really haven't noticed much difference in overall battery life whether i'm at 100% awake time, or 15% awake time. I think we all just care about it because we can monitor it now. I upgraded from an instinct and the battery life sucked on that too, but I'd rather have a phone like the hero that has a bad battery life and more options on it. Let's face it, if there was a perfect phone everyone would own it. Each phone has its own flaws, it's just a matter of what flaws you're willing to accept.
Click to expand...

I also downloaded the firmware update yesterday and everything was working good. UNTIL, I set the alarm clock on the phone. After the alarm clock on the phone went off this morning it started not sleeping properly again. Took another factory reset to fix.
 
there is a firmware update button in the system tab you can click to see if there are updates available.. most will be a simple OTA but some bigger files may need to be installed via USB.

to keep up on the latest updates, visit this sub forum frequently...


RollBravesRoll said:
What's the best way to get updates?
Click to expand...
 
Hi All. Have discovered something that may or may not help you all.
Up until now I have been using the default clock with weather bar on the home screen and getting terrible battery performance 8 hrs max.
Since I changed it to the basic analogue clock my battery usage has dropped like a stone. I am currently on up time of 27 hours with awake time of 9% and still have 60% of battery left.
Have installed Handcent, Battery widget and using gmail to access mail only.
The phone now lasts more than 6-8 hours before running out of juice.
I am thinking that it has something to do with the phone always trying to get weather data to display.
Its something to try that has worked for me.
Good luck
Stuart
 
The lag and battery issues bother me but I like this phone alot. Something really odd happened today though. I was in class all day for 8 hours. I used the phone to check for messages and email for about 15 minutes in the morning. Four hours into my school day the battery showed it had dropped to 40%. That was very unusual and upsetting since it was charged at 95% when I left the house. At the end of my day I checked my phone again heading home, having not turned the phone on at all in the afternoon and the battery had dropped to less than 10%. This really got me angry. I downloaded the latest android update and am using handcent and turned off my gps. I've never had a battery issue like this before so I'm not really sure what happened today. Something is sucking the power. If this continues I will be asking for a refund and a new phone.
 
Midas2k3 said:
Hi All. Have discovered something that may or may not help you all.
Up until now I have been using the default clock with weather bar on the home screen and getting terrible battery performance 8 hrs max.
Since I changed it to the basic analogue clock my battery usage has dropped like a stone. I am currently on up time of 27 hours with awake time of 9% and still have 60% of battery left.
Have installed Handcent, Battery widget and using gmail to access mail only.
The phone now lasts more than 6-8 hours before running out of juice.
I am thinking that it has something to do with the phone always trying to get weather data to display.
Its something to try that has worked for me.
Good luck
Stuart
Click to expand...


Switching to the analog clock w/o the weather seems to have helped mine significantly.

So far for me the best options that have helped maintain good battery life are:

-analog clock w/o weather
-FoxyRing >automatically lowers volume determined by ambient sound volume. It updates every 6 mins but that doesn't seem to have affected battery much at all
- battery widget
-auto brightness dimmer
-automatic task killer >You pick the tasks for it to 'kill' each time you goto standby. It's probably the most effective means to saving battery life! I swear by this
 
Since posting that I am using the analogue clock etc... thought I would update everyone on current usage stats...

The following is on one charge...

Uptime: 64 hrs 40 mins
Awake Time: 3 hrs 10 mins (5%)

I dont seem to use the phone as much as I thought.. :) but good news is that the battery is still at 35%.

Should be able to run it through the whole of tommorow as well.

I must admit that when I was getting something like 8 hours from a full charge I was hugely disappointed but now with the better battery time I am liking this phone more and more.

Stuart
 
You will need to delete your existing clock and re-add from the widgit menu.

Just to mention, i got 80 hours from the battery in rotal before i relented and gave the phone some juice :)
 
I have the Droid Eris (which seems to have the same battery problems). I know a lot of people have said that Task Killers are evil and you should not download them. Well I completely disagree. I was about to reset everything and start over (I even backed up all my apps and texts). Then as a last ditch effort I downloaded Advanced Task Killer. It has saved my battery life. Only downside is you have to use it to kill apps everytime you want to conserve battery after using them (also kill ATK).

Last night with hardly any use, it stayed at 100% for 3 hours (normally it'd be at around 80% or less in that amount of time). I also realized that YouMail was keeping my phone awake and draining the battery. ATK will kill that app and allow phone to sleep.

Hope this helps. Also, got the Eris update yesterday, so that may have helped the battery too.
 
Okay, so I've done E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G I've been told to do as a means of disabling the default Messages program, yet whenever I send a text it starts running automatically (as do about 10 other apps!) I know this by checking Advanced Task Killer. I have gone into the app and unchecked Auto-retrieve and Notifications, yet it STILL runs! Does anyone know how you actually DISABLE this thing, as well as how to keep all those other apps from launching when you send a text???
 
Aladinsane1969 said:
Okay, so I've done E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G I've been told to do as a means of disabling the default Messages program, yet whenever I send a text it starts running automatically (as do about 10 other apps!) I know this by checking Advanced Task Killer. I have gone into the app and unchecked Auto-retrieve and Notifications, yet it STILL runs! Does anyone know how you actually DISABLE this thing, as well as how to keep all those other apps from launching when you send a text???
Click to expand...

Have you run the sprint MR update?
 
I've gone into "Settings" > "About Phone" and done all the "System Updates," but if you're referring to something else, then I probably haven't. I've had the phone for about two weeks, BTW.
 
You can not disable it. Just stop the notifications, while in Messages go to Menu > Settings and uncheck Auto retrieve. Are you using another program, the update fixed the awake issue so you should be fine.
 
thanks Mrniceguy for the advice. I just got rid of my Iphone and love the hero but the battery life is killing me. I'm trying your method today. You are awesome.
 
OK I followed your instructions and had a miraculous extension of battery life. Went from about 6:30 AM till now at 7 PM and still have 1/3 power left, where before I was completely dead by 2 or 3. I can't thank you enough. :D
 
Yes that happens to me too. Like 5 or 6 programs open up as soon as I text..Any way to stop that from happening???
 
You got me, Man--I'm still waiting for a reply to my post from someone who might know what to do. I love this phone except for the fact that I constantly (meaning every damned time I use it) have to use Advanced Task Killer to keep it from being hellishly slow as a result of all the programs that open themselves automatically.
 
I feel your pain...Hopefully someone has something for us to fix this problem.....Just like you I LOVE this phone as well but it's just a pain in the a$$ to use advance task killer every time u text....
 
Midas2k3 said:
Hi All. Have discovered something that may or may not help you all.
Up until now I have been using the default clock with weather bar on the home screen and getting terrible battery performance 8 hrs max.
Since I changed it to the basic analogue clock my battery usage has dropped like a stone. I am currently on up time of 27 hours with awake time of 9% and still have 60% of battery left.
Have installed Handcent, Battery widget and using gmail to access mail only.
The phone now lasts more than 6-8 hours before running out of juice.
I am thinking that it has something to do with the phone always trying to get weather data to display.
Its something to try that has worked for me.
Good luck
Stuart
Click to expand...


How do I switch to Analog Clock? I have not sent any text messages thru the phone since I got it. Thanks in advance.
 
I got the phone with the latest update installed and it was still having a 'sleep' issue... so I installed handcent and the 'sleep' issue went away... however, the battery is still draining quicker than I think it should.

Do you have to un-install the native messaging client?
 
There is no way to uninstall the native messaging client. The bottom line is that the battery life on this thing straight-up blows if you have it check your email on a fairly regular basis (every 30 minutes or less). I have followed every suggestion on every forum, as well as kept track of what program uses the most juice, and it's the e-mail program. This is ridiculous; I refuse to only have it check my email every four hours--or more--so I can have more battery life. Every other phone I had checked my email every 15 minutes, and I got a full-day's use out of it every day as long as I wasn't doing a bunch of talking or texting . I'm basically resigned to having to plug it in and charge it up on the way home from work every day, but what about when I'm on a trip? Hopefully, they'll do something about this in the next software update, but who knows.... The bottom line is that this is VERY disappointing, and if it wasn't for the fact that iPhone plans are so damned expensive and that I'm on Sprint's Advantage Plan because I have a relative that works for them, I would have had one a LONG time ago!
 
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