Help I get terrible battery life

[kanezfan]

I see a lot of you have great battery life but mine sucks. Today for example, I've been home all day, and the only thing I've really done with my phone is exchange some texts with my gf. I've tried disabling bluetooth, wifi, and gps throughout the day to see if my battery would drain any less but it has not helped. I've seen screenshots from you guys that show like 30% battery left with 22h off the charger, I wish I could get that. This is my first android, am I doing something wrong

 

[irish]

Mine is really really good. I'm coming from a RAZR tho. So anything would be a massive upgrade! Woke up at 0800 and have used it quite a bit. Still sitting at 66%

 

[kanezfan]

I had an iphone 4. I just can't believe my sg3 is this bad. Maybe the battery is bad?

 

[SUroot]

It doesnt look good. Of course I do not know all the variables...

 

[SamMax]

I see a lot of you have great battery life but mine sucks. Today for example, I've been home all day, and the only thing I've really done with my phone is exchange some texts with my gf. I've tried disabling bluetooth, wifi, and gps throughout the day to see if my battery would drain any less but it has not helped. I've seen screenshots from you guys that show like 30% battery left with 22h off the charger, I wish I could get that. This is my first android, am I doing something wrong

Your screen has been quite active by looking at the usage trend. Have you been playing Angry Birds or something?

 

[matttye]

Can you take screenshots of Android OS and Android System in your battery stats and post them here?

That will tell us if there's anything that's keeping the phone from going into deep sleep. These are called "wakelocks" and can be the biggest culprits of fast battery drain.

 

[irish]

I agree. It shouldn't be like that. My screen is full blast brightness all the time. Still great battery life in my opinion.

 

[SUroot]

Its only 2 hours though. I've still got a full day out of the S3 with 3 hours +

 

[matttye]

Its only 2 hours though. I've still got a full day out of the S3 with 3 hours +

Mine is:

12h 32m on battery
1h 18m on screen
64%

 

[SUroot]

Mine is:

12h 32m on battery
1h 18m on screen
64%

Today I got:

16h 43m batt
2h 18 screen
1h 18m Real Racing 2
26%

 

[matttye]

Today I got:

16h 43m batt
2h 18 screen
1h 18m Real Racing 2
26%

Nice, really good for that much gaming!

I know everybody says it after an update, but the latest firmware really has made my battery a lot better. I flashed an unbranded firmware today using ODIN (coming from O2 branded) and I don't get any wakelocks now. Well, nothing substantial. The longest "stay awake" stat is Android OS for 12 minutes in the 12 hours my battery has been on. Before, I had hours worth of wake locks.

Usually my phone would be on about 30% or less by now.

 

[SUroot]

Hey thats good to know.

I'm just waiting for a Theme update before I update to the latest Wanam Lite. I need my ICS theme

 

[robnelle]

I see a lot of you have great battery life but mine sucks. Today for example, I've been home all day, and the only thing I've really done with my phone is exchange some texts with my gf. I've tried disabling bluetooth, wifi, and gps throughout the day to see if my battery would drain any less but it has not helped. I've seen screenshots from you guys that show like 30% battery left with 22h off the charger, I wish I could get that. This is my first android, am I doing something wrong

Have you installed a lot of 'free' ad-supported programs? If so, this could be a big contributor to your problem. The programs have services that pull ads constantly and use keep your wifi/wireless busy.

Ad-supported apps leave smartphones in high-power states, drain batteries | Ars Technica

 

[kanezfan]

I don't think I installed anything that would really keep my wifi/wireless busy, just apps that I had on my iphone that I really want to use but I guess I could delete them one at a time and see if I can find a culprit.

To reply to someone else, I wasn't playing Angry Birds or any games, just some texts really. Nothing unusual. Today again, took it off the charger around 10:30, and now five and-a-half hours later, again having only used it to text my gf a few times and used bluetooth/pandora in my car for 10 minutes tops, and used chrome for about 3 minutes, I'm down to 16% battery life.

Here are the screenshots someone else requested above.

Really appreciate the help folks

P.S. In the time it took to write this (I took the screenshots right before I started writing, then edited them to make them 405x720) the battery went down to 14%. Took me at most 10 minutes to do this. Oh and screen time on says 1h 34m right now.

 

[kanezfan]

Oh and here's one more I thought might help. Should that Mobile Network Signal be practically a solid line like that? Is that normal?

 

[Devz]

I don't think I installed anything that would really keep my wifi/wireless busy, just apps that I had on my iphone that I really want to use but I guess I could delete them one at a time and see if I can find a culprit.

To reply to someone else, I wasn't playing Angry Birds or any games, just some texts really. Nothing unusual. Today again, took it off the charger around 10:30, and now five and-a-half hours later, again having only used it to text my gf a few times and used bluetooth/pandora in my car for 10 minutes tops, and used chrome for about 3 minutes, I'm down to 16% battery life.

Here are the screenshots someone else requested above.

Really appreciate the help folks

P.S. In the time it took to write this (I took the screenshots right before I started writing, then edited them to make them 405x720) the battery went down to 14%. Took me at most 10 minutes to do this. Oh and screen time on says 1h 34m right now.

The first picture shows your screen time as being on 45% of the time during that 5 hours and 21 minutes. That's 2.6 hours of the screen being on. That uses quite a lot of juice.

 

[mrbutters]

I would check out the Juice Defender app. Is your wifi and BT on all the time like that? Its possible you live in an area where the reception isn't good? When your phone is searching for signal a lot, it will drain insanely fast. I got about 13 hours yesterday when I hit 9% and put it on the charger at bed time. Been using Juice Defender today on the basic mode just to see how it works. Looks pretty good so far.

 

[fezzle]

I added Juice Defender and the stats show the draining is significantly slower. I may consider the Pro version if it will help it last even longer.

IMO, if the battery can't stay alive from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, it's not good enough.

 

[jerofld]

I don't think I installed anything that would really keep my wifi/wireless busy, just apps that I had on my iphone that I really want to use but I guess I could delete them one at a time and see if I can find a culprit.

To reply to someone else, I wasn't playing Angry Birds or any games, just some texts really. Nothing unusual. Today again, took it off the charger around 10:30, and now five and-a-half hours later, again having only used it to text my gf a few times and used bluetooth/pandora in my car for 10 minutes tops, and used chrome for about 3 minutes, I'm down to 16% battery life.

Here are the screenshots someone else requested above.

Really appreciate the help folks

P.S. In the time it took to write this (I took the screenshots right before I started writing, then edited them to make them 405x720) the battery went down to 14%. Took me at most 10 minutes to do this. Oh and screen time on says 1h 34m right now.

How much of the time were you on LTE? How much of the time was LTE on but you were in a non-LTE area?

The one thing I dislike about Android power reporting is that it doesn't record power used by the data antennas. It records cell antenna strength (used for voice communication), but not when it's searching for LTE signals or 3G signals.

If you see this in time, try to charge it as much as you can before going to bed and then turn on airplane mode and let it sit off the charger all night in airplane mode. Depending on active apps and such, normal drainage over an 8 hour period with zero interactions should be less than 5%, but can be up to 10%.

If your phone is in this range, let us know. If you experience more than 10% drainage overnight or an 8 hour period with airplane mode on, then factory reset your phone. After a factory reset, only install the bare essential apps. Facebook and Twitter are not essential. Ideally, this would be just logging into your Google account to sync your contacts.

I think your problem is 1 of 2 things, or both:

1) Your cellphone is constantly searching for LTE signal. This slaughters cell phone batteries. Turning off LTE or using WiFi as much as possible will reduce this.

2) Some app is constantly auto-syncing (like Facebook, Twitter) and keeping your phone awake, like others have said with the wakelocks. Because these apps can be installed in as system apps, they'd be logged under Android OS.

 

[zemerick]

Ok, first thing that pops up is the first network SS you show, has a ton of Wi-Fi on it. Wifi uses less power while on than 3g, but uses significantly more power in idle.

Have you by any chance been leaving your wifi on all the time? If so, this is likely one thing juice defender is adjusting for you. When there is no network, the wireless continues to search and search, eating power. I believe juice defender can stop this.

Now, I still don't have my SGS3 ( Blargh Verizon ), so take everything I say with a bit of a grain of salt.

Next up, your network signal. I'm not exactly sure how that graph works, but I'm betting the grey is idle time and green is being used. Black is probably bad: IE no signal. When your phone goes in and out of signal, that can obliterate your battery. Start looking into if you are moving between 1x, 3g, and 4g. Look at your signal strength, etc. Notice if there are trouble spots, etc. Example: If you get poor signal at work, consider turning off your mobile network while there.

Finally, have you calibrated your battery meter recently? To do this, you must fully drain your battery until the phone shuts itself off. Leave the phone off, and fully charge up. You should do this approximately once a month ( but not much more than. )

The first picture shows your screen time as being on 45% of the time during that 5 hours and 21 minutes. That's 2.6 hours of the screen being on. That uses quite a lot of juice.

False. That percentage is the percent of the battery used among the items tracked. So, the screen could have been on for 1 second, or 5 hours 21 minutes. It's just saying that the screen has accounted for 45% of the power drained from the battery.

 

[kanezfan]

Battery was at 100% at 8 PM. It's now 11:41 PM and battery is at 46% with the only use having been a few texts. Cell standby says that it's been on 3h 39m 21s. In other words, it's been on since the moment I took the phone off the charger. I'm gonna call AT&T tomorrow to ask them if there's some kind of service outage which is making my phone constantly look for a tower or something.

 

[DroidX_Gamecock]

Okay I understand LTE is a batt hog if it's constantly searching which my S3 must do until VZW gets off their duff's and puts another tower up. Anyway does anyone with VZW S3 or any other LTE S3 for that matter know how to turn the LTE radio off?... without rooting? TIA

 

[zemerick]

Battery was at 100% at 8 PM. It's now 11:41 PM and battery is at 46% with the only use having been a few texts. Cell standby says that it's been on 3h 39m 21s. In other words, it's been on since the moment I took the phone off the charger. I'm gonna call AT&T tomorrow to ask them if there's some kind of service outage which is making my phone constantly look for a tower or something.

Actually that is how it should be. Standby is just that...it's idly standing by waiting for a request to do something. If the standby time was appreciably lower than the on battery time, then it would have been used for that time...which would have been bad as you did almost nothing. However, the difference of approx. 1 min 20 seconds is sufficient for a few texts, and not a source of massive battery drain.

What percentage of the battery drain did it list for the Cell Standby? What about other items? If the Cell Standby is a high percentage of the battery drain, with nothing else of note on the list ( IE: No Angry Birds using up 43%, etc. ), then it is indeed possible that you are losing signal. Especially since you say you're on AT&T.

Now, I'm not sure if "Cell Standby" includes the data radios or not, but I can tell you it includes the Cellular radio. You can test this by disabling your mobile network entirely, and checking your Cell Standby time. Even with the data radios off, your Cell Standby time will continue to increase. This is because your phones Cellular radio is still on and listening for a phone call.

I still don't have my phone, so I can't say for certain where the option to disable your "Mobile Network" is at. On the HTC Incredible running Stock Gingerbread 2.3.4, it's Menu->Settings->Wireless & Networks->Mobile Network. That should at least give you an idea of what to look for. The Incredible is 3g only, so no idea about an LTE only option either. Someone call up Best Buy and tell them to give me my phone already

 

[SUroot]

Don't forget the cell standby reporting values are incorrect (see signature for details) so that could be a red Herring

 

[barryl85]

I know 4 different people with this phone (including myself) and all of us complain about the battery life.

Im charging mine twice a day with normal usage.