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Optimize your Droid Eris battery life (READ THIS)
- Thread starter Caddyman
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- htc droid eris
Good question. And it appears from other users that this is certainly the case.
So, i made it a point to check my signal frequently today. I ALWAYS had 3G displayed except for a 2 minute stretch of back roads near my house where my signal was cutting in and out from 3G to 1X and i dropped a call coming and going (BBerry Curve never had issues in this area)
Also, I have the Network Extender in my home as i have poor signal without it and i get good signal with it (although i don't always see full bars, and sometimes very few or none, but i think this is a known phenomenah between Eris and the Network Extender?).
However, i've only been home for less than 1 of the 10 hours today so that cant be a major factor.
I can't imagine i can turn anything off on this phone to save battery life.
Also, i checked Spare Parts for a breakdown on CPU Usage. There was a sliver of usage in the "Mail" and "Android System" items and the others listed (Sense, Dialer, Browser, Touch Input, Google Apps and Android Processes are the others with no usage meter)
So, i made it a point to check my signal frequently today. I ALWAYS had 3G displayed except for a 2 minute stretch of back roads near my house where my signal was cutting in and out from 3G to 1X and i dropped a call coming and going (BBerry Curve never had issues in this area)
Also, I have the Network Extender in my home as i have poor signal without it and i get good signal with it (although i don't always see full bars, and sometimes very few or none, but i think this is a known phenomenah between Eris and the Network Extender?).
However, i've only been home for less than 1 of the 10 hours today so that cant be a major factor.
I can't imagine i can turn anything off on this phone to save battery life.
Also, i checked Spare Parts for a breakdown on CPU Usage. There was a sliver of usage in the "Mail" and "Android System" items and the others listed (Sense, Dialer, Browser, Touch Input, Google Apps and Android Processes are the others with no usage meter)
jamezelle
Well-Known Member
the command is there /system/bin/reboot
if ran via adb it will reboot the phone as expected. htc must have been to high to easily implement that function
. i guess its another add on to the "when we get root" todo list.
Frisco
=Luceat Lux Vestra=
the command is there /system/bin/reboot
if ran via adb it will reboot the phone as expected. htc must have been to high to easily implement that function
You're saying we have a shell to crack open in these Android phones?
Heck, if we've got CLI I'm a happy camper. I'll just put an icon on my home screen.
jamezelle
Well-Known Member
yes we have a shell just like any other *nix device/machine
just use gscript to run /system/bin/reboot and you should be good
CLI?
EDIT: ran reboot in connectbot and yea it rebooted
The network extender is voice/text messaging only, and will not do any data. So your phone, when it is attempting to do internet data, will try to reach out to the nearest tower for data services. This could be draining your battery.
I have a network extender for the same reason as you. I use WiFi at home for networking (rather than a weak 3G signal), and I've purchased the 1750 maH battery from Seidio Online. I pull my phone from power most days at 4:45 am, I usually charge for 20 minutes while in the shower, and go to bed at about 11 pm. I always have at least 40% battery by the end of the day, and that's with very heavy usage. Most days I am at over 50%. Right now at 10:30 pm I am at 63%.
However, based on what you've said, I'd say that the Eris just isn't for you. Either get a Droid, which I believe has better battery life, or go to a Blackberry.
It's not just the Eris; my old Windows Mobile phone had the same problem. I could spend days without charging when I was at a place with a good signal; at home, I barely got through the day.
Yeah, i realize that the NE doesnt help w/ Data, but i forgot about the fact that it's still using the poor signal for data. I have to remember to switch from Mobile Network to Wifi when at home, and that's certainly not a problem.
The problem is that i spent over 9 of my 10 hours today on the road, with good to great signal and always 3G.
What also troubles me is that you say you pull your phone off the charger and are able to go 16+ hours of heavy usage and still have 40% battery life, while having only placed it on charger for 20 minutes at some point throughout the day (presumeably when you get home from work?)
If i decide to keep the Eris, which i really want to do, i will be getting the $50 Seido battery.
I dont know of any other way to "reduce" the strain on my battery... hopefully Android 2.0/2.1 can help with our troubles, or disabling "Sense" next in line...?
Does the program Spare Parts display more accurate info for anyone else? It just shows a tiny little sliver in "Android System" and "Mail" and nothing for anyting else. Surely other apps are using CPU..heh.
No, it's when I take a shower in the morning, just to give it an extra shot.
I actually disabled Sense two nights ago and I definitely feel that I am getting both better battery life and definitely less lag. It may be different for you. Also, I do not use Spare Parts. You may want to try running without it; it may be that SP is draining some CPU.
Also, I do not use the Mail app, but only gmail. If you are using mail, you may want to reduce the polling interval to a longer period. Basically I am using gmail's external mail checker to get mail from four other accounts which I use, put those automatically into labels. You can then use mail (without polling - set interval to manual) if you ever need to reply from a mail address that is not your gmail account.
Forgive me for not looking back in history, but if you are using vibrating alerts or haptic feedback, try turning them off - vibration uses more power than audio alerts.
Frisco
=Luceat Lux Vestra=
I don't see how the system in general, including the daily life of the battery, could bear the same load in usage with Sense running as it does with Sense not running.
Maybe that's because I am not schooled at all in the workings of a cell phone.
I tried using Home with Sense disabled the other day and did notice a small but significant speed difference in the device; I'm nearly certain that would have translated to less battery drainage over the long haul if I'd kept it that way for, say, a week or so.
As it is I like Sense and the difference was not enough to justify having it not there as my default user interface.
jamezelle
Well-Known Member
just tried AUTOMATIC Task Killer, it works great!!! you chose apps you dont want to run in the background out of your whole list of apps. then when you put the phone to sleep it kills those apps and shows you how much ram was cleared once you wake up the phone, and everything is snappy! (im running sense)
Ok, good suggestions. I'll uninstall SP (it was more of a curious factor but it hasnt been really helpful)
As for Vibrate, i have the haptic feedback enabled (i assume this is the small vibe response you get when selecting stuff on the phone. I'll try w/o it but coming from a hardware keyboard i'm not sure how i'll fare..heh.
I do have my phone to always vibrate when ringing, so i'll turn that off when it's in ring mode, but i almost never have it on ring since the phone is almost always in my pocket and i'm more likely to feel the vibe than to hear it. ALthough, the vibe is not as good as other phones i've had. I'll play around with this though and see if it helps, definitely something to think about.
And for Email, i use the straight mail app, which i've been not too pleased with but i'll try to stay on topic. But i'm curious as to your use of the GMail app. As of now, my mail app is set to poll every 15 minutes (the minimum time). Which is working fine (for the most part). But I would actually prefer more often (every 5) not less.
I'll have to check out the fwd'ing to gmail option to get everything into one and convert to a gmail fanboy..lol. But, setting to "Manual" is not an option for me as i really need to get my email as soon as possible (IT Consultant) or else my people get onery.
Do you get mail coming into your phone automatically w/ the Gmail Sync? and does it save battery vs the regular Mail App? Your post was sort of confusing in that regard.
Thanks for your reply..
Same with Blackberry and probably every other phone out there, even my Razr would die at my old office at 2pm b/c of bad signal.
I've turned off gmail auto sync and turned my exchange activesync down to 15 minutes and it's done wonders for my batt life.
The gmail app uses push mail, so you can notified as soon as receive a new mail message. I am fairly certain, though not 100% sure, that polling for new mail on a schedule uses more data than receiving pushed notifications. Of course, it may depend on how often you receive mail. But if you receive 3 emails an hour, and you have polling set to 5 minutes, you are sending and receiving data about 12 times an hour, while the gmail app is only bugging you those 3 times.
Another advantage to using gmail for this (and the actual reason that I use it this way) is that gmail has a fantastic spam filter - better than anything else I have ever used, free or pay. If I were to use the mail app for my ISP account, which gets about four spam messages for every good one, I'd be checking mail far more often than I need to. And the gmail app on the phone has the option to mark a message as SPAM in case one sneaks through, so I can train the filter from my phone. (And you can still go to the SPAM label periodically if you do not trust it - those messages do not notify you, but you can still check them, if you wish.)
I actually do not forward to gmail. Gmail has the ability to check POP servers for mail from other accounts and put them in your gmail inbox. As part of the process, you can label them as well. It's explained pretty well here.
So, for example, I have an account on me.com. Gmail retrieves those messages using POP, puts them in my inbox, and automatically labels them with a label of my choice (the email address at me.com is what I used.) Gmail on the web can also be set to reply from that address, so people will not be confused when they sent a message to my me.com address but received a reply from my gmail account.
To continue with what I wrote above, one issue with the gmail app on the Eris (and also gmail from a mobile browser, as far as I can tell) is that, unlike gmail from a "normal" desktop OS web browser, you cannot reply from an address other than the gmail account.
However, if you continue to have the mail set up for your other accounts, and turn off polling, if you receive a message in gmail for one of your other accounts on your phone and you want to reply to it using the original account, you can start the mail app, manually refresh, and then reply from there.
Now, it may suit you better just to switch to a gmail account anyway and reply from that account, but that does give you an option to work that way from your phone. An awkward way, but a way nonetheless.
Bswartz95
Android Expert
I guess I should clarify that my Eris (both I've had) doesn't receive the same signal strength as other Verizon phones right next to it. When my Eris has 1 bar or less, often my friends phones (LG Env & Blackberry Curve) have at least two more bars. Based on this scenario, the Eris would drain faster.
Fortunately, this isn't a problem in my home. It's only an issue when I'm at a certain friend's house or in the arena for a hockey game (this is frustrating). I've never had a problem with good signal in the hockey arena before my Eris.
It just seems the signal is very touchy on these phones.
Thank you very much for your thoughtful and clear insight. Everything you said makes total sense and I was in a complete "aha!" moment allll the way until you got the part about not being able to "reply as" from the phone.
After some searching, i found a video of Android 2.1 Gmail on the Nexus one that shows that you can access separate accounts, but no definitive answer from the video as to whether or not you can "reply as" from those accounts. Maybe i'm quick to assume, but it appears you can.
Anyone know for sure? If it's just a matter of waiting a month or 2 for Android 2.1, then i'm all in. If not, then i think it's back to BBerry por moi, some features you just can't live w/o. Although i'm really warming up to the idea of Gmail...
Edit: Those "Separate Accounts" i've come to learn actually mean "Separate GMAIL Accounts".. ugh. I guess the Eris and 1.5 already support Multiple Accounts (As Gmail already does) but we need to be able to REPLY AS from these accounts from the phone, just like GMAIL for a desktop OS Browser...
arg.
tispectrum
Member
My gmail does not push. Is there a setting for this? Also what I don't like about the gmail app is you can't delete multiple messages as you can in mail.
gmail is able to delete multiple messages. If using the gmail app and a gmail account email is pushed instantly. No so if importing pop email.
tispectrum
Member
Not really clear on this. I have a gmail account, and am using the gmail app in the Eris. I have gmail coming into outlook on my desktop. Don't know if that makes a difference. And how do you delete multiple messages? I have to check each one and than delete.
If you leave your desktop client open, new messages should be pushed to both. They do for me. However, if you read message on desktop client, it won't show as new on the phone.
There's a little check box next to each message, click it, then watch what happens at the bottom of your screen
tispectrum
Member
Sorry if I'm being obtuse. My desktop is always open, but when I get a message there, I have to refresh the Eris before I see it on the phone. That happens even if I don't read it on the desktop.
About the check box, you have to check each message than hit delete. In mail, you say mark all, than delete. No matter how many messages you have, they're gone at once.
First, to make sure that mail is being pushed, from home go into "Settings", "Data Synchronization", "Google", make sure that "Auto sync", "Background data", and "Gmail" are set.
Second, to delete (or archive, or mark read, or mark spam, etc) multiple messages, in "Gmail", hit "Menu", "Settings", and make sure that "Batch operations" is checked. When that is checked, when you go into Gmail you'll notice that each message has a check box control next to it to allow batch deletions, etc.
I've literally had my phone off the charger (Was charging overnight to 100%) and have only used it to check the time, turn off Wi-Fi and Enable Mobile Network (When left the house), mark read 3 emails and sign out of Google-Chat.
10% down after 1 hour of basically NO use.
I uninstalled my Task Killer, and Spare Parts, but i'm reaaaally thinkin this was a bad idea..
Actually, Hotmail, i just checked, is polling for messages every 5 mins. I just changed it to 10.
But could this be the ONLY drain? I get Full Bars at work and "3G" with a little "D" underneath it.
I may just switch Gmail to pop my hotmail account and see how that goes for the day...but i have to have my work acct separate so i can "reply as" from it.
I'll letcha know how it go.
Edit: But if i turn off polling for hotmail that means i have to "enable" all of the Google Sync... i know Google is Push vs Hotmail is Poll but can it really make that much diff?
10% down after 1 hour of basically NO use.
I uninstalled my Task Killer, and Spare Parts, but i'm reaaaally thinkin this was a bad idea..
Actually, Hotmail, i just checked, is polling for messages every 5 mins. I just changed it to 10.
But could this be the ONLY drain? I get Full Bars at work and "3G" with a little "D" underneath it.
I may just switch Gmail to pop my hotmail account and see how that goes for the day...but i have to have my work acct separate so i can "reply as" from it.
I'll letcha know how it go.
Edit: But if i turn off polling for hotmail that means i have to "enable" all of the Google Sync... i know Google is Push vs Hotmail is Poll but can it really make that much diff?