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Battery Life

DroidKid

DroidKid

Newbie
So I just got the Motorola Droid, last night, I played with it til it died last night, Stuck it on the charger over night, and now my phone been on for at least 6-7 hours, and is at 15% battery life, I expect a new phone battery to last 2-3 days before dying, I've never had a brand new one die on me so quick. Is there a way to expand the life of this battery? I recently learned to turn off un used Apps. I recently downloaded "Spare Parts" and it shows my battery usage etc, and its showing the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth suck up the most life. I recently turned them off, and it still high lights red.
 
6-7 hours and 15% is worse than you should be getting, depending on several factors...

Did you have GPS, WiFi, and Bluetooth on all the time, and were you using any of them for a significant amount of time?

Are you in a location w/good, average, or poor signal? If you don't have a strong 3G signal hunting between 1X and 3G will eat your battery alive on any VZW phone.

Try turning off services (GPS, WiFi, BT) that you aren't using. Charge the battery and give it another go to see if things improve.

I had to exchange two Droids until I got one w/good battery life - there are duds out there, and you may have gotten one and might have to eventually exchange it if things don't improve...
 
Durkan said:
2-3 days really? for a smartphone? i dont think that is possible lol
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This.

DroidKid, you have to realize a few things, already discussed here extensively.

If you use location based apps/gps a lot, it will drain the battery fast.

Here's a quick example, weatherbug. Use location/gps, and it WILL kill your battery, but there's an option to manually select your location and not use gps.

I used my phone all day today, few calls, about 2 hours of streaming audio, txt's, etc.... so about 10 hours of what I would call "light use, maybe medium to others", it performed very well!

Case and point is "YMMV". check the battery info under settings and see what the culprit is!

WOW, the app i installed and used a lot today was 47% of my usage :) I'm at 70% right now, and this was a test for about an hour with friends checking it out and leaving that hungry app ON during the drive home!
 
Durkan said:
2-3 days really? for a smartphone? i dont think that is possible lol
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Well... Technically, the palm treos (e.g., 700wx) are considered smartphones. I used to have one and with reguar usage, I could easily get 3-4 days out of it. With minimal usage, i could go over a week without recharging. But I digress. That is pre 3g, no wifi, and with a form factor about 3x the size :D
 
rhyno said:
Well... Technically, the palm treos (e.g., 700wx) are considered smartphones. I used to have one and with reguar usage, I could easily get 3-4 days out of it. With minimal usage, i could go over a week without recharging. But I digress. That is pre 3g, no wifi, and with a form factor about 3x the size :D
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We should be discussing modern smartphones and battery management. This is huge on winmo and bsd kernel type other phones that are less popular on the trend right now.
 
Droid Kid, your battery will last longer after about a week of charging cycles. New "smartphone" batterys need a breaking in period before they reach max potential.
 
colnago said:
Droid Kid, your battery will last longer after about a week of charging cycles. New "smartphone" batterys need a breaking in period before they reach max potential.
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I don't believe that ;)

I got mine, it was on, and then I had to drive to another store, etc.... about 20 im's and calls during this time... I was thinking like "leave me alone, I want to check this phone out more when I get home:)"

Mine has performed very well every single day since my first charge... and then I did let it charge up fully when I got home!
 
Whats the best possible way to condition the battery for the best potential results?

Thanks for any advice!
 
syntrix said:
I don't believe that ;)

I got mine, it was on, and then I had to drive to another store, etc.... about 20 im's and calls during this time... I was thinking like "leave me alone, I want to check this phone out more when I get home:)"

Mine has performed very well every single day since my first charge... and then I did let it charge up fully when I got home!
Click to expand...


I have (3) OEM batteries for my Moto Q and a 4th from Seidio. I went thru (2) different Droids...all of the mentioned batteries performed the same out of the box and improved over the first week. Seidio also sends documentation stating the same with every new battery...just my experience.

Even if I do work from home and was constantly playin..er, testing the phone, it should have lasted longer than the 6hr constant use rating, which neither did.
 
I'm getting what I consider very questionable battery life to this point, but I'm giving it a bit more time. I did have WeatherBug set to "find my location" (stupid app), and disabled that, so we'll see.

It seems like when my phone gives me warning to plug my charger in - 15% battery life remaining - that it is nearly no time at all from that point to completely dead. Too fast.
 
There is no break-in or conditioning affect w/the lithium batteries in our Droids.

The batteries prefer partial discharges rather than full discharges.

They do not have any memory issues.

You can leave it on the charger overnight or whatever...it will stop charging when full, and no damage will occur.

You should run the battery down every 30 days or so to calibrate the battery meter on the Droid.

Them's the facts...
 
So why did my battery only last 2-3 hours constant use the first 2 days, and then 5-6 hours later in the week, with both of my droids? Why did my batteries from my other smartphone have increasingly longer life after the first set of charging cycles? Why does Seidio send out brochoures stating the same? Why are so many people saying that after the first week or so with their Droids, their battery life has improved?
 
IMMensaMind said:
I did have WeatherBug set to "find my location" (stupid app), and disabled that, so we'll see.
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If you have your GPS off and "Use Wireless Networks" enabled in Location settings, you shouldn't see any considerable battery drain, as it will only use cell tower triangulation to locate you (should be accurate within ~1500m).

Anyways, I have WeatherBug set to 15m refresh with "My Location" turned on and I can always make it through a whole day of moderate usage.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone. I recently turned off Wi-Fi and Blue tooth over the coarse of the night the new app I downloaded, I forget what its called, was showing me that Blue tooth and Wi-fi was going down after I turned them off, Ill see what happens tomorrow. I let the battery fully die as well, before I charged it.
 
Durkan said:
2-3 days really? for a smartphone? i dont think that is possible lol
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Funny, I just got 3 days on one charge with my Motorola Droid. I was surprised as many say in the forums and reviews that it barely makes it through the day for them.

I just had it less than a week and the first day or two I used it a lot and had to charge it by the second day.

But after that I got just under three days (three full days at work). I was busy working and not doing a lot of playing with it. So it was mostly operating as a cell phone. But I did play a bit with it at home.

I kept the WiFi on at home, in the evenings and night. I really didn't try to conserve power much other than that.
 
syntrix said:
We should be discussing modern smartphones and battery management. This is huge on winmo and bsd kernel type other phones that are less popular on the trend right now.
Click to expand...

My Treo - 750 lasts 2-3 days when I hardly use it - but when I use it to send/read 30-40 emails throughout the day I am lucky if it lasts 1 day. And forget it if I use the web browser and the phone also seems to suck it dry.

When I first got my droid they were both on the charger everynight - new toy syndrome. Now the treo is on the charger everynight and the droid gets me through at least 1.5 days - which I think is good considering the other devices I have had. I use the droid for a moderate number of phone calls about 1/2 with blue tooth. Web broswer for 2+ hours a day.

All about level of usage - defined as what you are asking the devide to do (email, gps, rss, bluetooth, screen activity/brightness etc). I have seen direct relationship between battery life and what I am doing/using.
 
colnago said:
So why did my battery only last 2-3 hours constant use the first 2 days, and then 5-6 hours later in the week, with both of my droids? Why did my batteries from my other smartphone have increasingly longer life after the first set of charging cycles? Why does Seidio send out brochoures stating the same? Why are so many people saying that after the first week or so with their Droids, their battery life has improved?
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You're actually correct - there is some initial improvement w/Lithium Ion batteries that occurs in the first few charges, but my point was that there is no "conditioning process" - the simple act of using and then charging the battery is all that is required. You don't have to run it down to any specific level or follow any conditioning process...that is the point I was making.

These batteries are pretty much idiot-proof - just use them and they will give you their best...they don't require babysitting or any "techniques" other than what I mentioned above about re-calibration of the battery meter at maybe 30-day intervals...
 
Redflea said:
...there is some initial improvement w/Lithium Ion batteries that occurs in the first few charges, but my point was that there is no "conditioning process" - the simple act of using and then charging the battery is all that is required. You don't have to run it down to any specific level or follow any conditioning process...that is the point I was making.

These batteries are pretty much idiot-proof - just use them and they will give you their best...they don't require babysitting or any "techniques" other than what I mentioned above about re-calibration of the battery meter at maybe 30-day intervals...
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Exactly.

;)

FWIW, after a few months, I've noticed that the battery(s) started depleting at a much higher rate. I put them in the freezer overnight, thawed/dried the next day, and they regained normal operating longevity.
YMMV however.
 
IMMensaMind said:
This type of battery isn't supposed to require conditioning - though it is alleged to prefer not completely going dead before recharge...
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Lithium based batteries do not like being deeply discharged, this is true. They do not like being left discharged - doing so can damage the cell.

It's not a bad idea to let the battery get low and then charge it back up to full periodically.

"Topping off" will also not have an adverse affect on lithium based batteries either.

There was a post recently about a third party that is working on a higher capacity battery that will not be physically bigger. I think their goal is about 150% of the OEM battery's capacity. They will also be working on a double thickness battery (will require a new back cover) that will double battery life.


LarryQW said:
Funny, I just got 3 days on one charge with my Motorola Droid. I was surprised as many say in the forums and reviews that it barely makes it through the day for them.

I just had it less than a week and the first day or two I used it a lot and had to charge it by the second day.

But after that I got just under three days (three full days at work). I was busy working and not doing a lot of playing with it. So it was mostly operating as a cell phone. But I did play a bit with it at home.

I kept the WiFi on at home, in the evenings and night. I really didn't try to conserve power much other than that.
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Note that the default WiFi setting is to turn off when the screen turns off. So if you didn't play with the phone much, WiFi was probably off most of the time.

You probably also get pretty good cell signal at your location, which alleviates battery usage.
 
Here's the battery info from the Droid User Manual which I found on line, see the one that in red. Please note that I have had my Droid for about 1 week. Yesterday I adjusted all the setting so that I wasn't using the Mobile connection except when I wanted to check emails (you can still get phone calls and text messages and gmail), but I was using it pretty normally other than that (WiFi at home), I turned it on at 7 am and at 12:45 last night I finally turned it off with 15% battery life. I was actually trying to drain it for about two hours prior to that and it stayed at about 23% and then 17% for hours. I have read conflicting information about conditioning so I'm really not sure which is fact at this point. Here's a link to the full manual: http://member.america.htc.com/downl...erizon/DROID_ERIS_Verizon_English_UM_11_5.pdf



DOs
Only use the battery and charger approved by the manufacturer.
Only use the battery for its original purpose.
Try to keep batteries in a temperature between 41
 
Peaser said:
Here's the battery info from the Droid User Manual which I found on line, see the one that in red. Please note that I have had my Droid for about 1 week. Yesterday I adjusted all the setting so that I wasn't using the Mobile connection except when I wanted to check emails (you can still get phone calls and text messages and gmail), but I was using it pretty normally other than that (WiFi at home), I turned it on at 7 am and at 12:45 last night I finally turned it off with 15% battery life. I was actually trying to drain it for about two hours prior to that and it stayed at about 23% and then 17% for hours. I have read conflicting information about conditioning so I'm really not sure which is fact at this point. Here's a link to the full manual: http://member.america.htc.com/downl...erizon/DROID_ERIS_Verizon_English_UM_11_5.pdf



DOs
Only use the battery and charger approved by the manufacturer.
Only use the battery for its original purpose.
Try to keep batteries in a temperature between 41
Click to expand...
 
So it would seem there is a bit of a 'break in' with the battery. Makes sense to me. The last few devices I bought that have lithium batteries recommended first fully charging, then 'fully' discharging before charging again.

The increase in life may be attributed to this breaking in, but may also factor in the phone calibrating itself to the battery in it.
 
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