Battery life sucks (revisited)

[moopuna]

Now that we are well into the half year of this phones existence is anyone having disgustingly bad battery life? Any new tips?

I always run 3g, wifi when available, have syncs all turned off, brightness low, juice defender sometimes (never really see a difference), gps/location off, nfc off... Basically everything that is supposed to make the battery better i do... And yet here i am at 22% with 5 1/2 hours on with not to much crazy usage... Screen time on has been 1 hour and 48min...

This is just atrocious... Any tips? Any suggestions? I google battery life almost on a daily basis and it's getting incredibly frustrating

Thanks so much

 

[The_Chief]

Moopuna, that is some CRAZY bad battery life!

I use 4G all day, lots of widgets, phone calls, texting, surfing, near CONSTANT bluetooth streaming of my music ALL DAY, some video streaming... and this thing can go from 6AM to 9PM+ on a charge.

I have the extended battery and running Juice Defender Plus from the Market. Some people (like me) swear by it; others report conflicts with syncing and connectivity (of which I have none... well, other than the usual Nexus stuff).

Try the free version for awhile in balanced mode: if it works well for you, I recommend upgrading to Plus in default mode.

Hope this helps

EDIT: I know this isn't necessarily a "new" tip, but it's one that works brilliantly for me. I am unrooted stock BTW so no ROMs or custom kernels to help battery life.

 

[moopuna]

Thanks for the reply chief!

I envy you so much. I would love that. Maybe it's my battery? I have extended as well. I also has Juice Defender Ultimate and i dont know if i ever really notice a difference. What setting in juice defender to you keep it on? Balanced, aggressive?

It is just ridiculous, it shouldn't be this bad.. I have even gone into apps that i think are background syncing and turn off any i can find. I dont use widgets as well, just a clock and calendar one

 

[The_Chief]

Thanks for the reply chief!

I envy you so much. I would love that. Maybe it's my battery? I have extended as well. I also has Juice Defender Ultimate and i dont know if i ever really notice a difference. What setting in juice defender to you keep it on? Balanced, aggressive?

It is just ridiculous, it shouldn't be this bad.. I have even gone into apps that i think are background syncing and turn off any i can find. I dont use widgets as well, just a clock and calendar one

WOW... an extended battery that burns out THAT fast (especially with JD Ultimate) would immediately indicate a problem to me. It's GOT to be hardware: either the battery is a dud or your phone is consuming it up at an unnatural pace. You might want to call or visit Verizon and see if they'll replace the battery.

BTW I am on balanced mode. Also in a strong signal area... the only other thing I can think of is you're in a weak signal area.

 

[moopuna]

Funny thing is i have had 2 replacement phones so i dont think it could constantly be the phone hardware.

I guess ill look into getting a new battery

Here is screen shots of my battery stats as well

 

[The_Chief]

Is your screen really on THAT much? Nope, I'd try a new battery and see if that resolves it. Verizon should replace it for free under warranty

 

[moopuna]

Right?! Nothing really stands out as being a battery drainer right?

 

[The_Chief]

Yeah... your SCREEN! If it's not really on that much - I mean, if you're trying to watch Lord of the Rings or something and leaving the screen on that much it's understandable - then you have a definite issue. Have you tried setting auto-brightness down?

I'm reaching here... but if you're not killing this thing with a whole bunch of screen time, then there is a real problem and I'd jump on that battery first. Especially since you've already replaced the phone.

 

[moopuna]

When my screen is on i am either playing a quick game for 5min, looking at news, checking Facebook real quick, or looking at a website...

I read a while back that some people who got the extended battery were actually experiencing worse battery life so maybe i indeed got a dud... Thanks for the help chief

 

[The_Chief]

My pleasure. Post back and let us know if a new extended battery helps

 

[Sandroidfan]

When my screen is on i am either playing a quick game for 5min, looking at news, checking Facebook real quick, or looking at a website...

I read a while back that some people who got the extended battery were actually experiencing worse battery life so maybe i indeed got a dud... Thanks for the help chief

If you are using facebook, google+ apps, just remove them and see if that helps. I'm sure it will because those SNS apps are known battery hogs on android unfortunately. I use browser to check facebook.

Also if your screen on time is that long, juice defender is not going to help much because it's basically working only when screen is off.

 

[Tim K]

1. When you say brightness low what is low? 30%?
2. There is definitely something wrong.
3. I would pop your original battery back in, charge it up and see how that works.
4. I would try turning off juice defender for a day and see if that's helping or hurting.
5. Android OS and Chrome beta usage are really high. Android OS on my phone sits at 2% and Chrome doesn't even register most days. If you click on those for details do they report anything?

The one thing I did notice was that early on in the day there was a big dip that corresponded to a chunk of awake time with the screen off. That usually indicates either a background process chewing through data or something like streaming music with the screen off.... so if you weren't streaming something, an app or process may have gotten stuck in a sync that drained about 15% of your battery.

Also, screen usage does add up. Here's a little test I did a few weeks ago (note that this was with a standard battery so figure the extended would fare a little better)

Doing nothing else. Just a static Google browser screen.

At 70% screen brightness
15 minutes equals a ~7% drop = ~28%/hr or less than 4hrs of screen time available.

At 30% screen brightness
15 minutes equals a ~5% drop = ~20%/hr or approx. 5hrs of screen time available.

At 10% screen brightness
15 minutes equals a ~4% drop = ~16%/hr or just over 6hrs of screen time available

 

[moopuna]

Hmmm never thought the OS was eating a lot but if you say yours usually does about 8% then ya i guess youre right!

Here are in depth screen shots of OS and Chrome (taken a few few minutes ago)

 

[Tim K]

Hmmm never thought the OS was eating a lot but if you say yours usually does about 8% then ya i guess youre right!

Here are in depth screen shots of OS and Chrome (taken a few few minutes ago)

My phone has been unplugged for 8+ hours. Android OS is at 3%. Details have it keeping the phone awake for 9 minutes. Something is running your CPU like mad. 4hrs is crazy. I suggest better battery stats to track what's doing it. You can find info on it in my sig.

 

[moopuna]

My phone has been unplugged for 8+ hours. Android OS is at 3%. Details have it keeping the phone awake for 9 minutes. Something is running your CPU like mad. 4hrs is crazy. I suggest better battery stats to track what's doing it. You can find info on it in my sig.

So just downloaded Better BatteryStats. Looking at my battery right now o have 29% left since being unplugged for 6 1/2 hours.. Android OS says 33% so after what you guys are saying something definitely has to be eating away in the background.

 

[Turdbogls]

My phone has been unplugged for 8+ hours. Android OS is at 3%. Details have it keeping the phone awake for 9 minutes. Something is running your CPU like mad. 4hrs is crazy. I suggest better battery stats to track what's doing it. You can find info on it in my sig.

yup, see if there is a partial wakelock issue with an app. it is most likely a rogue app keeping the phone from going into deep sleep mode, hence keeping your "Android OS" higher than it should be.

While over 2 hours of screen on time is not bad by any means, it seems you could squeeze a little more juice out of the phone by finding what is keeping it awake. i find, no matter how long i have the phone off the charger, after about 2 hours screen on time, i am searching for a charger.

like this weekend i went 18+ hours off a charger (wifi) but i was at 2.25 hours screen on time.
then yesterday, i had a busy day, 6.5 hours off the charger, at 10% and i was at 2 hours 3 minutes screen on time. just goes to show that having the screen on really kills battery...especially if using data or running a game (since the processor is working harder during the game) yet keeping the screen off really doesn't eat much battery at all....i have my partial wakelock and deep sleep mode figured out.

 

[Stigy]

From statistics I've seen a screen on time of 3-4 hours is normal no matter what ROM/kernel you are running. Just the nature of a 4.65" 720p beast.

 

[breadnatty08]

Not to beat a dead horse too dead, but if the above is true, you're mirroring the average user including myself. I've been tethering for two hours and have only run down to 45% (from 100%).
There are only so many tweaks you can make for the Nexus, but with LTE, large screen and the constant fiddling we all like to do, battery life isn't the best.
I've seen widely varried Android OS usages which can be weird too. The biggest battery drain you'll find is the screen. And, generally screen usage is couple with data usage so keep that in mind.

 

[Tim K]

So just downloaded Better BatteryStats. Looking at my battery right now o have 29% left since being unplugged for 6 1/2 hours.. Android OS says 33% so after what you guys are saying something definitely has to be eating away in the background.

In BBS set it to "since unplugged" and "partial wakelocks". Either post a screenshot or list off the top offenders.... things that list lots of minutes and seconds or a red bar. Some things will have lots of partial wakelocks but be perfectly normal (checking email, texts, gtalk, etc). You might see something that has 900 wakelocks but only 9 seconds of usage...and that's fine. For me, when I had a "stuck sync" it showed like 11hrs or wakelock on a stuck google backup.