• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Desire battery consumption

Hi everyone,

I have had my HTC Desire for a few months now and up until a week ago was getting really good life out of my battery. Recently however my battery life has dropped dramatically. Last night I fully charged my phone before going to bed, then put my phone in airplane mode so it was using no 3G or Wi-Fi etc, when I woke up it had used almost 20% battery!

I know it must be something that I have recently installed using my battery inefficiantly but I don't know what. Does anyone know how I can find out? I think I read somewhere once there is a command you can call, something like *#*#4636*#*# and it will tell you what has been using battery but I can't remember exactly what it was.

It is really frustrating because I know that my phone can last a lot longer than it is. Any help would be appreciated.
 
mikecufc said:
Hey guys,

Im sorry Im a newbie but how do you guys know the percentage of your battery left?

Thanks for all the useful comments on here...am trying them as we speak!

Mikecufc
Click to expand...

You can use a widget such a BatteryLife or Battery Widget, both available from the Market. Put one on your homescreen and it will show you the percentage left. You can also go into Menu > Settings > About Phone > Battery and it will show you roughly how much is left to the nearest 10%.
 
I haven't had time to read through the entire thread, so apologies if this has been mentioned already, but I've found that the app 'Spare parts' has been extremely useful in determining what's using up the battery and the network connections. It's been quite enlightening actually.

My battery hasn't been as good as it's normally been over the last week or so, and I found out that the BBC news widget (android one, not HTC) has been preventing my phone from sleeping. Removed it and now battery life is back to being good again.
 
The longer I've had my Desire, the more disillusioned I get with it. Don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic phone, but the battery life is shocking and I wouldn't say I'm a heavy user. I've recently disabled a lot of features and still the battery life is lucky to last 24 hours and that's without making any phone calls or using it for any video content. It's not really good enough to have to disable the things that make it 'smart' and download non-standard apps to actually make it last.
 
Thanks Matt - I downloaded Battery Indicator and its working beautifully! Just hope it doesnt use up more battery than its worth!
 
mattharris26 said:
Hi everyone,

I have had my HTC Desire for a few months now and up until a week ago was getting really good life out of my battery. Recently however my battery life has dropped dramatically. Last night I fully charged my phone before going to bed, then put my phone in airplane mode so it was using no 3G or Wi-Fi etc, when I woke up it had used almost 20% battery!

I know it must be something that I have recently installed using my battery inefficiantly but I don't know what. Does anyone know how I can find out? I think I read somewhere once there is a command you can call, something like *#*#4636*#*# and it will tell you what has been using battery but I can't remember exactly what it was.

It is really frustrating because I know that my phone can last a lot longer than it is. Any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

Turn your phone off and on. Give it some time to waste the battery some more. Then type in the number *#*#4636#*#* go to battery history. change from since last unplugged to total since boot, and look at partial wake usage and other usage. The higher the blue/red, the more it's used.
 
karlcoot said:
Turn your phone off and on. Give it some time to waste the battery some more. Then type in the number *#*#4636#*#* go to battery history. change from since last unplugged to total since boot, and look at partial wake usage and other usage. The higher the blue/red, the more it's used.
Click to expand...

Oh! That is cool. Is there a way to save *#*#4636#*#* in my phone book so that I don't need to enter the numbers in every time I want to check this? Or is there a way to view it when I select menu -> setting?
 
Roze said:
Oh! That is cool. Is there a way to save *#*#4636#*#* in my phone book so that I don't need to enter the numbers in every time I want to check this? Or is there a way to view it when I select menu -> setting?
Click to expand...

You can get to the same information if you download spare parts from the market. Also as long as you can remember the correct order for the *'s & ~#'s the numbers spell INFO on the standard T9 keypad.
 
Figure I'll copy my post to here, since this seems to be the main battery one:

Sigh - I don't get great battery - I'm wondering about uninstalling locale - but I do find it useful.

But basically - In 12 hours, I'll often get the phone shutting itself down at the end, due to low battery. A typical day where such happens is yesterday:

Klaxon alarm, disconnect from charge around 8am, go to work, send a few texts, 2 5 min phone calls, turn it off for 45mins while in the gym. Have gmail on continuous push, but not get tons of emails. After work - 5 mins with gps on. Load bbc sports website check football, dim screen and recheck football score about every 30mins. 10pm - phone shuts itself down due to low battery.

I've looked at the apps that show what's running, and they really don't seem useful - maybe "m looking at the wrong bit?

Today so far:
On charge all night. Klaxon at 8am. It's not 11am and I'm at 82% battery.
My use: 5 text messages, quick glance at gmails that came through in the night. I have locale running, gesture search is in the notify bar...

And that's it!
I've got via the *#*#4636#*#* to the information bit- but what bit should I be looking at?
'Partial wake usage' - Android System is at the top, the locale, then calendar...
Facebook uses the most network usage (which is weird, because I've tried to get it to stop syncing?)
After that, a process called '0'. :S

Sigh - I dunno. It just feels atm that I have to turn off anything that makes it a smart phone to make it last long enough to get home from work, and it's not like I'm using it much, as I'm at work!
 
Moogle said:
Sigh - I dunno. It just feels atm that I have to turn off anything that makes it a smart phone to make it last long enough to get home from work, and it's not like I'm using it much, as I'm at work!
Click to expand...
The biggest killer are apps syncing constantly and/or stopping the phone sleeping.

What is your awake and run times in settings>about>battery?

How often are your facebook syncs? If an hour or less, do you really need them that often?

Remember widgets getting updates from apps will be constantly running too, and that social stuff (peep, facebook) also has replicated settings in friend stream.
 
Just to add my experience to the pot - Mine finished its initial charge at about 4:30 today and I have been absolutely hammering it for the last 5 hours, Wi-fi, 3G, GPS, videos, high screen brightness, almost constant fiddling, 70 odd texts, push email - general testing and setting up of the phone...and I'm still on 40% battery. Initial impressions pretty good.
 
I am not going to say my battery is bad but, I am on Orange and noticed that my Cell Standby and Idle are both around 33% each by the end of a day. Mostly everything else even Android System (29% or so) sounds normal. These are the two highest operations.

Wifi seems to use alot understandably when I am on the home Wifi but seriously how does a simple cell poll and idling burn 33% of the life.

I could say that 66% doing almost nothing there.
 
On the note of battery life, just checked the battery stats in settings - apparently 94% of my used battery has gone into Android System. Is this normal for initial tinkering with apps etc? Bear in mind I've had the wifi on for hours (Although not done too much through it) and it's only reading 2% for that, and only 2% for the display.

On that note, looking at the testing pages, Android System seems to have logged 12 hours 19 minutes under 'Sensor Usage' when the phone has only been on about 6 hours in the entire time I've owned it. Odd?
 
To really extend HTC desire battery life watch this youtube vid especially from 3m50s.
YouTube - How To Get Longer Battery Life On The HTC Desire Google Android Smartphone

Beyond the usual advice of disabling Wifi/GPS/brightness etc this vid gives one additional (and biggest!) tip you can take to improve the Desire's (in fact any smartphone's) battery life in two 'clicks' ie disabling its connection from the internet during idle periods.

I saw this a few days ago and it really works - for most of the day while your phone is on but you only need receive/make calls/texts there's no need for internet connection, disabling its connection from the internet saves the majority of the phones processing power therefore battery. When you reconnect to the web to check emails etc the syncing will be done when you re-connect (again in two 'clicks' rather than it syncing constantly throughout the day.
 
nx1977 said:
The biggest killer are apps syncing constantly and/or stopping the phone sleeping.

What is your awake and run times in settings>about>battery?

How often are your facebook syncs? If an hour or less, do you really need them that often?

Remember widgets getting updates from apps will be constantly running too, and that social stuff (peep, facebook) also has replicated settings in friend stream.
Click to expand...

I've tried to make facebook sync only when I open the app! So - rarely? The only thing I want syncing all the time is my gmail. Should that really kill it? I also went from 14% to phone turning itself off in 30mins - that included one 10min phone call, but really?
 
mrockerfella said:
To really extend HTC desire battery life watch this youtube vid especially from 3m50s.
YouTube - How To Get Longer Battery Life On The HTC Desire Google Android Smartphone

Beyond the usual advice of disabling Wifi/GPS/brightness etc this vid gives one additional (and biggest!) tip you can take to improve the Desire's (in fact any smartphone's) battery life in two 'clicks' ie disabling its connection from the internet during idle periods.

I saw this a few days ago and it really works - for most of the day while your phone is on but you only need receive/make calls/texts there's no need for internet connection, disabling its connection from the internet saves the majority of the phones processing power therefore battery. When you reconnect to the web to check emails etc the syncing will be done when you re-connect (again in two 'clicks' rather than it syncing constantly throughout the day.
Click to expand...

I don't know why he messes about with the power button method for doing that. The phone comes with a widget that does the same thing.
 
Moogle said:
I've tried to make facebook sync only when I open the app! So - rarely? The only thing I want syncing all the time is my gmail. Should that really kill it? I also went from 14% to phone turning itself off in 30mins - that included one 10min phone call, but really?
Click to expand...

What are your facebook and friend stream sync setting set to?

Do you have locale or flicker set up?
 
I've disabled most things that have auto sync and have only left a few things to do this, some only once a day, in an effort to help my poor battery life.
 
mjpartyboy said:
I've disabled most things that have auto sync and have only left a few things to do this, some only once a day, in an effort to help my poor battery life.
Click to expand...

I know the battery life is not the best, I charge mine whenever im in my car, at night and sometimes at work but when you consider it is powering a 1 Ghz processor and the massive lovely screen the battery is never going to be the best is it?
 
1600mAh batteries for under a tenner on eBay.co.uk, search for "
1
1600 mAH Battery HTC Desire" and you'll be given a selection. I've just bought one so I'll give it a couple of weeks to condition and then post a review.

After more than a month on the standard battery I have now noticed I get much, much better battery life. Don't even have to charge it every day any more, but I do anyway. Could be conditioning, but also could be me using it less.

I get about 3-4 hours from full charge as a satnav and with GPS enabled it won't charge from my laptop in the car. If it were a hard disk, a dual USB cable would solve that issue, but I suspect the Desire will only draw 400mA over USB no matter what, as someone else has pointed out. I would attempt to use a car charger but I usually leave the laptop plugged into that :-)

I always have JuiceDefender running, although I have a sneaking suspicion that if I accidentally have its Data setting disabled that the battery lasts longer! Wonder if the suggestion above that Always On Mobile actually drains it more has something to do with that.

Have just removed Flickr from my sync accounts, the rest are Google, Facebook for HTC Sense, Last.fm, Stocks (how on earth do I remove this??) and Weather. Set to Auto-sync once a day (which only applies to Last.fm and Facebook) and Background Data is enabled.

mrockerfella said:
So this widget is? Will be much more straight forward if there is, thanks
Click to expand...
Long press desktop > Widget > Settings > take your pick from that list. I prefer using the individual widgets rather than the HTC master switch as it has more flexibility.

Geordie Ahmed said:
i have found that my battery has improved a lot of late - I uninstalled AdvancedTaskKiller, so that might have helped
Click to expand...
I'm thinking about disabling Advanced Task Killer permanently - I disabled it this morning after it possibly stopped my alarm going off, and I now have MUCH better battery life than normal. (As I understand it, it's a bit of a misnomer anyway as Linux doesn't truly multi-task and "killing" an app that runs in the background won't stop it running in the background!)

EDIT:

Installed "SystemPanel Lite" instead. See also http://androidforums.com/htc-desire/118446-global-alarm-fail.html
 
karlcoot said:
Turn your phone off and on. Give it some time to waste the battery some more. Then type in the number *#*#4636#*#* go to battery history. change from since last unplugged to total since boot, and look at partial wake usage and other usage. The higher the blue/red, the more it's used.
Click to expand...

My battery had dropped over 15% again when I got up this morning after leaving my phone on airplane mode. How can it use over 15% battery in 7 hours when it has no data or cell connections active and the screen is off?

I had a look at the usage you suggested but it didn't really tell me much as it was mostly Android System.

This is really frustrating as I swear it didn't used to be this bad. I'm tempted to try buying a replacement battery.

Also tempted to try doing a factory reset and starting from scratch but then I've heard there are problems with factory reseting a rooted Desire, you have to fiddle around with re-flashing the ROM and rooting again.
icon8.gif
 
mattharris26 said:
My battery had dropped over 15% again when I got up this morning after leaving my phone on airplane mode. How can it use over 15% battery in 7 hours when it has no data or cell connections active and the screen is off?

I had a look at the usage you suggested but it didn't really tell me much as it was mostly Android System.

This is really frustrating as I swear it didn't used to be this bad. I'm tempted to try buying a replacement battery.

Also tempted to try doing a factory reset and starting from scratch but then I've heard there are problems with factory reseting a rooted Desire, you have to fiddle around with re-flashing the ROM and rooting again.
icon8.gif
Click to expand...

I have the same problem as you. The last week or so its been really bad and i haven't installed or changed anything (to my knowledge).
It drops at least 20% during the night on Flight Mode.
Not entirely sure what i'm looking for in Battery History but everything is low on the Partial Wake since boot.

just noticed after unplugging from a full charge, and checking Battery Usage through the dialer its gone down 3%. Also when web browsing it seems to decrease 1-2% every minute.
I think i need a new battery...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom