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It's 3pm.. Do you know where your Droid charger is?

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djrobsd

Lurker
Well, I am on my first day at work using the Droid after buying it over the weekend. I had it on the charger all night. Here is my usage for the day:

-Listen to a 128kbps Shoutcast stream using MediaWiki - aproximately 2 hours
-Looking at the traffic on google maps when the freeway ground to a halt
-Received several emails through ActiveSync and Google Mail
-Light web surfing
-A few calendar alerts
-A few texts back and forth to my friends

3pm... Battery dead! I didn't even TALK on the phone today, just some light usage... What gives?

And of course, my charger is at home, and none of the USB chargers here at work will fit my droid without an adapter!
 
Same thing.... but I was at school and had it turned off and in my locker. I used it 3 times between 7:30 and 3:30, and each time I turned it OFF! Not on standby or in lock, but completely OFF! In the morning, I had it at 60%, checked my email at 7:30 and showed off to some people for 15 minutes. Was off by 8 o'clock, didn't turn it back on until 11:30, used it for half an hour then used it from 3-3:30 and was at 15% battery and it started warning me. By 4 it was dead. Anyone else having these issues?
 
I used mine a decent amount today from 8:30 to 5. and i was at about 30-40% when I got home.. make sure you manage apps and stuff. Multitasking stuff can murder your power usage if you don't watch it.
 
A nice feature I found, if you go into Settings - About Phone - Battery Use it will actually break down where your battery is going to waste at. If you click on each item, alot of the times it will give you suggestions on how to conserve battery power. One of the main things I did was turn off my GPS, because I don't really use it in day to day situations.

Hope this helps!
 
Use the Power Control Widget [or Settings Menu] to turn off WiFi, BluTooth, GPS, and Auto Synch when unnecessary. Otherwise, be sure all unnecessary apps are closed - through the use of any of the Free Download Task Managers. Some apps can be "backed out" of and that will shut them down.

Doing this I have not had any problem with battery life - even playing music and using GPS all day.

Yeah - it's a PITA, and the OS should do that for you, but I've not come upon any OS that didn't have some compromises.
 
I'm new to the android forum and the forum industry in general but I thought id give some of my own input on this certain topic, I've had my motorola droid for about two months now and the first day the battery died in a heart beat so it was quite a disappointment, but here's what I've learned:
The power control widget is very helpful pin that to one of ur screens and use it, try to keep the brightness on auto, it usually does a good job of that on its own, but there are two things that really drain ur battery which is the gps and the auto sync, if you don't need them on all the time leavem off. As far as bluetooth and wifi goes don't turn them on until you need them, and the widget is great at turning any of these on or off really fast.
If you do all these u will notice a great difference in ur battery life and with low usage ur battery might last all day, if u are a big user like I am and are on it all day, my advice would be a second battery, u could find it on ebay for 25 dollars with free shipping, I've bought two of them so don't go for the 30 dollar ones. Two batteries will definitely last u all day tho just charge them both overnight.
Hope this helps
 
Manage your apps and learn which ones to manage by going to settings and phone status and battery usage. Also, you will find that GPS usage will drain battery fast. so look at any program that is using GPS. Cell signal strength, well lack of actually, will drain the battery too.

You will find that most heavy users still get a full day out of their batteries. If you can't, you either have a defective battery or defective phone. But I'm betting on app management.
 
I forgot about the two most important things: 1) screen brightness - turn it down. 2) Screebl - download it and use it. It detects the phones orientation and therefore can tell when you are using it. It will keep the screen on while you are using it. what this does for you is let you set a very aggressive time limit on the sleep function (15 seconds). That way the phone goes to sleep much quicker when you are not using it. Save power and aggravation.
 
one thing i really noticed was after about 5 run downs and good overnight charges my battery seemed to hold a charge a lot longer
 
The battery gets conditioned over time. Don't worry. My battery life was pretty bad at first, barely lasted through the day. Now I have 30-40% charge on average at the end of the day.

Some poorly written apps can contribute to battery drainage. Out of your list, the only one that might actually contribute to that would be mediawiki, if it continued to stream or something. I've never actually used it myself so I'm not sure.

GPS definitely takes it's toll (remember that when droids use google maps, they're downloading maps via 3G while utilizing GPS signal, i.e. lot's of power demand.

Trust me, though, give the battery some time. To give you some idea, I am running my droid at 950 mhz (400 mhz higher than stock) and I have plenty of charge left at the end of the day
 
brnr17 said:
one thing i really noticed was after about 5 run downs and good overnight charges my battery seemed to hold a charge a lot longer
Click to expand...

I don't believe that's the battery holding the charge, rather that the meter is becoming properly calibrated.
 
Biggest help to my battery was turning off the auto-brightness. On auto, it is constantly polling and changing its brightness. It will adjust even when it is still. This is a complete waste of battery. If you do not make a lot of calls, Display will always be the top of the list for battery drain.

Use the power control widget or download Quick Settings from the market. Either will allow you to quickly control the brightness level.
 
mine phone died alot when i first got it now it last two days without a charge i turn the brightness all the way down and i make sure all apps if not using them are closed by going into settings then to applications and running services
 
meekrab said:
The battery gets conditioned over time. Don't worry. My battery life was pretty bad at first, barely lasted through the day. Now I have 30-40% charge on average at the end of the day.

Trust me, though, give the battery some time.
Click to expand...

Totally agree with this, The battery runs better with time. Also it never hurts to plug in your phone when you can. There was an article out there about how people just need to adjust their own conditioning because until battery tech. catches up this is just how it will be with smart phones. Lithium ion batteries experience none of the dreaded "memory" effects of ni cad batteries and can be put on and off a charger harmelesly throughout the day. I have had my droid for about 3 weeks now, and the battery lasts about 5 to 6 hrs longer then the first day.
 
I have my settings so that only when I'm in Gmaps or something the GPS is on. It automatically shuts off when I leave the app.
 
I get barely one bar of reception in my office... Im at 30% by the time I leave work.

Surf web for 45 mins,
send 20 or so texts
check emails

Thats it, zero talking. I wish VZW would improve service here
 
My battery easily lasts all day. I never turn off wifi or GPS. THE GPS is only active for certain apps. Programs like locale probably drain the battery faster.
 
from what the vzw reps tell me, i am getting pretty average life, and they may not know updates, but you know all vzw reps have droids or storm 2 or something like that, best of the best it seems haha. i just wonder how some people get 2 days of battery! i can barely barely get 1!

i have twitter on, but hell i use it! it updates tweets every two hrs
i check facebook
i barely surf web lately
i text very little, 1-20 a day
i have widgets
screen brightness down and not adjusting
i have screebl
i take the phone off charge at noon and by like 6:30 we are at 50 percent
so i plug it in at about 7

i use it minimally after that but jeez that seems bad to me!
 
I'm using battery left to guage my usage--at 84% accuracy, it says my battery will last 16.5 hours. This is about accurate. With MY normal usage, 16 hours starting on full charge, my phone is around 15% when I plug it in before bed. So it will actually last a bit longer than reported. For example, if i don't charge it that night, it will still be at 15% in the morning so I would get a full 24 hours plus a bit longer depending on usage once I wake up.

One thing you all need to remember is it is VERY hard to gauge and tell you if your battery is defective without some quantitative numbers. Saying "light" or "heavy" usage and blah blah is useless because this is very subjective--what is heavy to one person could be normal to someone else. Do yourself a favor and get an application that will allow you to see the battery history screen that the phone provides. Spare Parts is one. Better Cut is another. Battery Status widget is a third. This way you can see numbers for how long your device has been running (vs sleeping), and how long wifi, bluetooth, and gps have been both on and running. You will also be able to see your partial wake usage by application, so you can find out if you have an app going crazy and keeping your phone from sleeping. These tools will help you get a better gauge of if your battery is really messed up or is normal. Some simple math will tell you your running usage per hour, screen use per hour, etc and really help how you use your phone qualitatively, and it will help you compare to someone else.

As for GPS, if you leave GPS on, it is drawing more power then if it is unchecked. Good apps won't USE the gps when they arent in the foreground, yes, but the GPS circuitry is still enabled and thus draws more power than if it was off (but of course less than if it was actively being used). So, if you don't need GPS, you can save some battery by turning it off. Same for WiFi and BT, although they aren't as hard on the battery as GPS. The display is definitely a killer, so try to keep the display brightness as low as you can. I am not a fan of auto brightness.

Motorola rates the battery life as about 6 hours of usage. Just doing rough numbers, that is about 16% battery used per hour using the phone continuously. For estimate sake (things aren't really linear, but let's pretend they are), if you use the phone half as much, 30 minutes per hour, your battery life might double to 12 hours. If you use a quarter as much, 15 minutes per hour, your battery life might be 18 hours.

MY normal usage is about 10-15 minutes per hour, and that is using the actual battery history numbers for how long my phone is 'running' and my life is consistent with that 18 hours number, albeit a bit better.

Last, I too think the software needs a calibration. You aren't "making your battery last longer" by cycling it, but rather I believe it is the software calibrating to your battery to give you a better reading of what your battery status truly is.

Sorry for the length, just want to point out what I have picked up since getting my Droid a month ago. There's a battery post every other day. If you use the tools I outlined, you can really see how YOUR use of the phone affects your battery life and come up with the methods that work best for you to improve your battery life.
 
djrobsd said:
3pm... Battery dead! I didn't even TALK on the phone today, just some light usage... What gives?
Click to expand...

...There is no such thing as "light usage" :) Let me break it down based on my own "light usage" habits, and let me do it as fast as I can so you don't get bored:

-Listen to a 128kbps Shoutcast stream using MediaWiki - aproximately 2 hours
...two hours of the data antenna going full-bore, about 10-20% of batt
-Looking at the traffic on google maps when the freeway ground to a halt
...If you locked the screen with google maps still in the foreground, it never cut off the GPS antenna, and I'd guess you left it there until you got to work, leaving the GPS going full-bore for about 45 min, about 10-20% of batt
-Received several emails through ActiveSync and Google Mail
...data connection on from 8am-3pm, up to 10% of batt
-Light web surfing
...web surfing is pretty easy on the battery, up to 10% of batt
-A few calendar alerts
...data connection already accounted for; alerts have no significant impact on batt
-A few texts back and forth to my friends
...texts sent/received and more alerts; if you sent dozens of texts with 'vibrate' on you might start to affect batt, but I'm betting no significant use.

Total batt usage: estimated at about 60%
I can see why you'd be frustrated with a dead battery. For a 'light usage' test, I strongly recommend going for an entire day with NO streaming music and NO maps usage (also no gaming), only web surfing and texting, and see how the battery fares. If it's down below 50% at day's end, you might have a problem.

ALSO: To those of you who seem to have complained that the droid drains its battery overnight, it's been discussed before. This might help: https://supportforums.motorola.com/thread/16953;jsessionid=17D47F51ED6EFD2A52595F9EA06F6A64.node0
 
Yesterday, I streamed Pandora on the way to and from work, sent about 20 sms's, browsed the web for about 1 hr., and made a few phone calls. Also, I had Weather w/ gps update in the background running the whole day. I finished a 14 hr. day with 20% battery left, and was really happy with it. Use the Power Widget to turn backlight off, that's the biggest battery saver I've found. I turn it on in full daylight, but turn it off indoors and never notice the difference. Also, make sure you're not losing a signal, searching for a signal can burn up the battery.
 
I tend to listen to podcasts via doggcatcher on my commute for about an hour total per day.

Light web browsing and twitter usage throughout the day

Maybe some market browsing, a little amazon, some SMS and the like.

I tend to have about 20-40% left when I go to bed. I get a good 20 hours of battery life most days.
 
I have similar battery issues with everything on the power strip off most of the day. I do get bad reception at work though.

I keep autosync on, but just turned it off. What is this used for?
 
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