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[Battery] Fixes and Tips

ShadowKntSDS said:
I agree with you in that the focus should be on how long the battery lasts over the % shown on the display. But getting the calibration right to allow a complete charge CAN potentially have an impact on the total charge on the battery.
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I can't explain to you all of the behavior of the indicator lights (although I could guess in this case maybe it's that you just used some power when shutting the phone off, so there is some room to "top it off" or something).

However, what I can tell you is the phone doesn't control the battery. The battery itself contains the controller chip that manages it. The battery does not care what your phone's opinion of its current condition is and neither should you.

It may be annoying that you don't have a solid explanation of the indicator light behavior you're witnessing, but they're not an accurate indication of what's happening inside your battery.

If I were you guys, I'd be far more concerned that your actions are actually tricking the battery into an overcharge condition and you're going to wind up killing them in half their normal life expectancy rather than "how long does your battery stay over 95% on the completely inaccurate HTC meter?"


edit: I just realized my reply was to Shadow, but more worded towards the previous message. In response to your specific concern about the meter calibration, two things. First, the meter calibration won't affect how long your battery lasts, only how accurate meter reporting is. Second, if you want to calibrate your meter, constantly topping it off is NOT the way to do it. If anything, this will serve to make your calibration WORSE. If you want to calibrate your meter, you should run your battery until it shuts itself off, then turn it off and full charge it in one sitting (shutting it off so it's not constantly draining during the charge process). This should only need to be done ONCE to calibrate it and doing things like repeatedly topping as being discussed in this thread will HURT that calibration, not help it.
 
sounds like we need an app to reboot the phone 1 hour before you wake up in the morning so we can get that last 10% of charge!?!?! :confused:
 
jlb0305 said:
what does HTC consider acceptable then?

judging today from my texting, using facebook for like 10 mins, 10 mins of calls, surfing the web for about 20 mins and downloading an app from the market. I will be getting like 14 hours out of the battery. (7 hours currently since pulled off charger and at 56%)... this is pretty much more than my old RAZR (wouldnt last a work day), way less than my LG VX8300 (usually lasted 2-3 days), and on par/more than my centro (got through work day pretty low or dead by bed).

Is 14 hours acceptable or should I be complaining that I didn't get my day and a half?
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You absolutely should be complaining. Look at it this way:


> 14 hours? Could be better.

> The worst they could do is tell you that you don't qualify for a new battery/phone (although frankly I would ask for supervisors every step of the way until I got what I wanted).

> The more people that call and complain the more money it costs HTC (they have to pay people to answer phones, research the issue, replace the battery, ship the battery, etc). The more cost incurred, the more they want to actually fix the problem across the board. Also, this will push them to make sure things are correct ON RELEASE, instead of after the fact.

> You are paying a lot of money for this phone and you easily could take your business elsewhere. You have a right to expect the highest quality and if they can't/are unwilling to provide that level of quality, one of their competitors will (make sure they know that).


If after you finish complaining, they still won't budge, I would make a point of saying that you find it unacceptable that the Incredible was outfitted with a 1300mAh battery. At the very least it should be rocking a 1500mAh, IF NOT MORE.

If you don't let them know what you think, why the heck would they want to change? Change costs $. Got it?
 
jfunk said:
People are way too focused on what % their battery meter says.

You can do all the stuff you want to mess with the calibration of the meter, it's not going to affect how much energy is stored in the battery.

Worry about how long your battery actually lasts, not how quick it moves from X% to Y%.
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I think you are missing the point. sure we can talk about %'s and what not but the fact is: The phone continues to charge once you turn the phone off and plug it back in, several times over. That was over 5 hours ago and I am showing 85% charge right now. Usually at this point, my phone will have 15 % left in it and is about to shut off. I'll have a better reading on my battery life once I get through the whole day but I'm starting to believe that I do indeed have more battery now.
 
jfunk said:
....
Worry about how long your battery actually lasts, not how quick it moves from X% to Y%.
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Of course, that's the most important thing. However, when I first got the phone someone was asking about purchasing an Eris battery and if it would fit since the red ones are out of stock. I pulled my battery, put in the charged one from the Eris to determine that it worked. So I figured ah what the heck and leave it in. I got way more battery life that day, I mean noticeable difference. I thought it was just that the battery was conditioned but then it dropped to where the red one is now. I just charged the battery on the external charger, put it in the phone (1.5 hours ago) and I still have 100%. So there must be something to this not fully charge thing going on.

Edit: 2 hours now, Wifi, GPS, 3G, Live A, 100% screen, .... 99%
 
jfunk said:
I can't explain to you all of the behavior of the indicator lights (although I could guess in this case maybe it's that you just used some power when shutting the phone off, so there is some room to "top it off" or something).
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I'd wager that the phone burns more power during boot up than during shutdown.

jfunk said:
However, what I can tell you is the phone doesn't control the battery. The battery itself contains the controller chip that manages it. The battery does not care what your phone's opinion of its current condition is and neither should you.
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And it's a very real possibility that the controller chip just doesn't do as good of a job charging the battery when the battery is under load. You really only have voltage and current to go on, and both of those are different under load.
 
jfunk said:
I can't explain to you all of the behavior of the indicator lights (although I could guess in this case maybe it's that you just used some power when shutting the phone off, so there is some room to "top it off" or something).

However, what I can tell you is the phone doesn't control the battery. The battery itself contains the controller chip that manages it. The battery does not care what your phone's opinion of its current condition is and neither should you.

It may be annoying that you don't have a solid explanation of the indicator light behavior you're witnessing, but they're not an accurate indication of what's happening inside your battery.

If I were you guys, I'd be far more concerned that your actions are actually tricking the battery into an overcharge condition and you're going to wind up killing them in half their normal life expectancy rather than "how long does your battery stay over 95% on the completely inaccurate HTC meter?"
Click to expand...

No one is claiming the phone controls the battery (I hope.) There are numerous posts claiming the issue is with the battery, and said charging issue does not exist with the 1750 Seido or the 1500 HTC.

The overcharging is a valid concern, and just to clarify - the battery meter being used in tests like this should not be the HTC widget. Debug menu or spare parts should be used.
 
bjanow said:
Of course, that's the most important thing. However, when I first got the phone someone was asking about purchasing an Eris battery and if it would fit since the red ones are out of stock. I pulled my battery, put in the charged one from the Eris to determine that it worked. So I figured ah what the heck and leave it in. I got way more battery life that day, I mean noticeable difference. I thought it was just that the battery was conditioned but then it dropped to where the red one is now. I just charged the battery on the external charger, put it in the phone (1.5 hours ago) and I still have 100%. So there must be something to this not fully charge thing going on.
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Well if that's true, then it looks like we may have a bunch of defective batteries floating around. The good news is that if the batteries are defective, we at least know what to yell about when we go to HTC / Verizon.
 
The controller chip on the battery could be crap. A ton of people could have defective batteries. These are indeed possibilities.

I guess all I'm saying here, is that I would caution anybody reading this to not perform the actions that are being suggested here unless somebody actually does any real testing at all to determine what is happening after this.

So far, nobody on here has done anything except talk about what their battery meter reads a few hours after turning it on. Nobody has even seen how long it actually lasts.

I suspect (and obviously I could be wrong) that all that is happening here is the calibration of the meter is being messed with.

edit: I'll also note that I did fully charge (at least until the light turned green) both my wife's phone and mine before turning the power on when we first received them and let them both run until they shut off following that first charge. They have simply been charged every night when we go to bed since then. We use them (probably light to moderate) for about 17 hours a day (6am - 11pm). The only time either has died was my wife's yesterday, which died after I think about 10 hours because she left the GPS on all day.
 
Locoman said:
Been there done that.

I read an article about cell phones and their batteries and found this interesting and I copied and will paste it here.

"An active cell phone is in constant communication with the tower and consumes small bursts of energy once every second or so to check for incoming calls. The transmit power is adjusted to the signal strength. If the cell phone is close to a repeater tower, little energy is needed to communicate. Moving further away or entering an environment with high electrical noise, such as a shopping mall, hospital or factory, more energy will be required. An analogy can be made to sitting in a restaurant. In a quiet establishment the voice can be low, but as the crowd grows, everyone needs to talk louder to be heard.

Living in sight of a tower has advantages and your battery will run longer between charges. In essence, towers are the best friends to cell phone batteries."

I understand that a smart phone with added features will use more energy but when an HTC rep tells me she gets a day and a half with her INC and I get 5 hrs something is wrong! Maybe she lives right under a tower.
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I forgot to add that the HTC rep told me to use 3g rather than wifi because she said wifi uses more battery, I thought wifi uses less!
 
NiteRider said:
No my overnight charge was with the phone on. I then turned it off so that I could charge my battery faster while I was getting ready. But I kept having to do it over and over becasue It kept accepting more charging. I ended up being late to work this morning. :)
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I'm confused about turning off versus just letting the display turn off (without hitting the power button)... they both look like they do the same thing, but is hitting the power button actually doing something different?

On my blackberry i wouldn't get calls if i powered it off, but when i power the incredible off, it still wakes up and rings for calls.

(By the way, the first few days my batterly life sucked, but it has gotten way better and is now on a par with my old blackberry... I get a good day and a half out of a charge on the incredible now)
 
jfunk said:
The controller chip on the battery could be crap. A ton of people could have defective batteries. These are indeed possibilities.

I guess all I'm saying here, is that I would caution anybody reading this to not perform the actions that are being suggested here unless somebody actually does any real testing at all to determine what is happening after this.

So far, nobody on here has done anything except talk about what their battery meter reads a few hours after turning it on. Nobody has even seen how long it actually lasts.

I suspect (and obviously I could be wrong) that all that is happening here is the calibration of the meter is being messed with.
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I think the next logical step for everyone having issues is to contact HTC. Make it their problem. HTC has the resources, know how and personnel to handle this situation and come up with some solid answers. Make them do it.

This thread contains contact information.----> http://androidforums.com/htc-incredible/74873-fix-your-battery-charger-problem-call-htc.html

Also, realize that the more people that call and demand explanations, replacements, etc, the more money it costs HTC: when HTC loses $, they start giving a crap. This will effect your current situation and future HTC releases.
 
htc-thc said:
I'm confused about turning off versus just letting the display turn off (without hitting the power button)... they both look like they do the same thing, but is hitting the power button actually doing something different?

On my blackberry i wouldn't get calls if i powered it off, but when i power the incredible off, it still wakes up and rings for calls.

(By the way, the first few days my batterly life sucked, but it has gotten way better and is now on a par with my old blackberry... I get a good day and a half out of a charge on the incredible now)
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When you short-press the power button, you're just putting the phone to "sleep". If you long-press the power button, you'll get a menu asking if you want to shut the phone down. This will really turn it OFF and you won't get calls or anything until you turn it back on.
 
jfunk said:
When you short-press the power button, you're just putting the phone to "sleep". If you long-press the power button, you'll get a menu asking if you want to shut the phone down. This will really turn it OFF and you won't get calls or anything until you turn it back on.
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Ha -thanks, i did not know that :o:o soooo, i haven't actually turned it off in 10 days.

still, i'm quite happy with the batter life now (and i was one of the first to chime in here about my concern over batterly life when i got my phone early, but it seems like it has improved a bunch for me)
 
Even worse battery life today. Up time 3:34:24, Awake time 2:22:18. Battery was at 11% and back on the charger now. Perhaps I do have a defective battery. My Seidio 1750 should be here today so it'll be interesting to see how much of a difference there is.
 
I've experienced this back on my Eris also...You charge all night, green LED in the morning, unplug the phone and it immediately drops to 99% or 98%...Plug it back in and it takes 20 minutes for the LED to turn green again.

It does not go away with time as I dealt with it for months. I truly believe that there is some sort of a bug in the relationship between the battery, phone and OS that does not necessarily yield an accurate portrayal of the battery.

I also wonder how the battery information in the phone actually reports this to battery monitoring widgets or apps.
 
I called 866-449-8358...hold time 11min 28sec. They told me to speak to the Accessories Dept at 888-716-3594 and transfered me...hold time 4min 3sec. The Accessory Dept told me to speak to PCD (formerly UTStar) because they handle the CDMA devices at 800-229-1235...hold time zero. They told me I have two options because VZW never has replacement batteries. A) send them my battery with proof of purchase and they would replace it. Turn around time is 5 days or B) go to VZW and exchange my phone under the 30 day policy.

I'm getting better battery life now but wanted find out what the process is in case I need to replace my battery.

Total hold time 15min 31sec, total talk time around 2 min, outcome...their process sucks!!!
 
I was pumped about this early on. Recharge brought me up to 100% for the better part of a half hour this morning. BUT, my overall drain is on par with normal. In fact, I'm draining faster today than yesterday with similar usage. Neat deal finding this but I don't think it's gonna mean a whole lot in the long run. JMO.
 
well... I just topped it off, and it's down to 96% within 5 minutes of inactivity, so this didn't have any effect on me, seems to drop as quickly as before.

just another data point.
 
I'm not sure if this would work for everyone. I know for me it's looking good so far. I must add that half way through the day I also closed the calendar application which seemed to keep my phone awake. That could of also played a roll in this. If I had measurement instruments I could really test this battery out, but alas, I used my extra money going to casinos. :)
 
By the way. I have to add: When you unplug the charger from your phone, wait at least 30 secs before you plug it back in.
 
ok, so i tried this, and now, an hour after taking it off the charger, i have wifi/gps/mobile/ and a few widgets/apps that use some data on all.. been using it like i usually do, bout an hour of phone, some texts/gmail, and about 20 mins of web browsing and i'm only at 98%.. :-D usually i take my phone off the charger when the alarm goes off and by the time i leave the house 20 mins later, it's at 93%... so i can def. verify that THIS FIX WORKS!!! now if we can only et it to charge like this w/o turning it off because i'm on call and can't turn my phone off at night..
 
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