Ok boys and girls, so while my battery life hasn't been horrific, I have been disturbed by how much battery it seems to use while it's sleeping. After much poking around and reading and using various system/battery/monitor apps in a non-methodical manner, I think I found it.
I noticed that a process called 'compass' at /system/bin/akmd was persistent in utilization on my phone. While it only ever showed like 1-6% cpu utilization, it seemed to be showing it constantly. I uninstalled a 'compass' app I had DL'd from the market, but that had no effect.
With some searching, I found some threads over at XDA that discussed this process misbehaving in some recent builds, although the conversations didn't seem to be about the EVO. Nonetheless, I decided to disable the auto screen orientation (Menu -> Settings -> Sound & Display -> Display Settings/Orientation = unchecked) and lo and behold, I'm not sure the phone even uses battery in standby now! (exageration for effect...)
Now, this will require more testing, but it seems to be at the root of *my* battery issues. And I'm thinking after reading at XDA that this could be a broad problem. I'm also hopeful though, that this could be a relatively easy software fix for HTC/Google. Especially because I don't particularly find disabling the screen rotating an acceptable long term solution... but one I can live with for now, if it makes the HUGE battery gains it seems like it might.
Thoughts?
I noticed that a process called 'compass' at /system/bin/akmd was persistent in utilization on my phone. While it only ever showed like 1-6% cpu utilization, it seemed to be showing it constantly. I uninstalled a 'compass' app I had DL'd from the market, but that had no effect.
With some searching, I found some threads over at XDA that discussed this process misbehaving in some recent builds, although the conversations didn't seem to be about the EVO. Nonetheless, I decided to disable the auto screen orientation (Menu -> Settings -> Sound & Display -> Display Settings/Orientation = unchecked) and lo and behold, I'm not sure the phone even uses battery in standby now! (exageration for effect...)
Now, this will require more testing, but it seems to be at the root of *my* battery issues. And I'm thinking after reading at XDA that this could be a broad problem. I'm also hopeful though, that this could be a relatively easy software fix for HTC/Google. Especially because I don't particularly find disabling the screen rotating an acceptable long term solution... but one I can live with for now, if it makes the HUGE battery gains it seems like it might.
Thoughts?
