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Jelly Bean, Power Drain & Auto Brightness

J

john_g

Android Enthusiast
Hi,

Seeing so many threads here which talk about excessive power drain since applying the Jelly Bean upgrade, I thought I'd start a new conversation to re-state something I'd written in one of those threads. Here it is:

"Jelly Bean now apparently allows us to tailor the display's brightness to suit our individual needs, even when set to auto, but I can't see any explanation of how to do this. What I've concluded is that, when set to auto brightness, the associated slider biases the display to be brighter or dimmer even though the relative level is still controlled by the ambient light. I'd suggest looking at this - if it's all the way to the right, try setting it to mid-way and see how that affects things for you."

​
I've just installed GSam Battery Monitor to see whether I can extract data which will confirm my theory. Over the next few days I will use my phone with a variety of auto and manual brightness settings and try to extrapolate some meaningful information.

I'd obviously be interested to hear other people's views and experiences regarding this. For myself, I *think* that JB has led to a small increase in power consumption, but I was most aware that this might be so when I had the auto-brightness slider all the way to the right (max brightness).

John
 
I've definitely noticed an increase in battery drain (when in standby mode) since upgrading to JB. I was around 3 to 3.5%/hr drain, and today it's jumped to 4.6%/hr. It's definitely noticeable.
 
I haven't noticed any increase in battery drain. I have noticed that when I put my phone on airplane mode, it drains the battery a lot slower in JB than in ICS.
 
My battery drain is the same as on ics AFTER I toggled which google now options I wanted to use. With everything checked on google now I lost about an hour of battery compared to ics. Now it's the same. One thing I hate is charging. It charges so quick until you finally reach 100%. Once it reaches 100% it still takes 15-20 minutes to finally pop up that it's fullt charged and for the led to green. Odd.
 
I had issues with power drain, as "Media Server" was eating up 30+% of my battery.

I did a factory reset and reformatted my SD card and it appeared to fix my issues.
 
When you tick auto brightness, then move the slider, you are essentially setting the minimum brightness.

Any measurement of light (recorded in lux) that would correspond with a brightness level higher than your minimum (under normal autobrightness mode), will still adjust the screen brightness higher as usual. Any lux recorded that corresponds with a brightness level lower than your minimum obviously has no effect.

You're not shifting the thresholds (in lux) higher when you move the slider to the right. Anything right of your slider position acts as per normal autobrightness. Anything left - ceases
 
SUroot said:
When you tick auto brightness, then move the slider, you are essentially setting the minimum brightness.

Any measurement of light (recorded in lux) that would correspond with a brightness level higher than your minimum (under normal autobrightness mode), will still adjust the screen brightness higher as usual. Any lux recorded that corresponds with a brightness level lower than your minimum obviously has no effect.
Click to expand...

When I move my slider it unchecks my auto brightness. I'm on Verizon in the USA.
 
Sprint model also un-checks auto brightness when you move the slider, but just position it where you want it and then re-check it.
Good Luck!
 
I actually just turn the slider off all together. I use the "display brightness" app which puts an invisible slider over the status bar.

Built in auto brightness waste power polling the light sensor all the time so I simply make my own using tasker. Set to only poll on screen wake event.
 
SUroot said:
I actually just turn the slider off all together. I use the "display brightness" app which puts an invisible slider over the status bar.

Built in auto brightness waste power polling the light sensor all the time so I simply make my own using tasker. Set to only poll on screen wake event.
Click to expand...


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Since my upgrade to JB on Verizon Galaxy S3 my battery drains quickly.

In battery, I have usage as follows:
Screen 32%
Android OS 20% - WTF?
Maps 14%
Android IRC 8%
Media Server 5%
Cell Standby 4%
and down from here.

The android OS is a significant usage of the battery since my update to JB. Any ideas?
 
Volt9000 said:
I've definitely noticed an increase in battery drain (when in standby mode) since upgrading to JB. I was around 3 to 3.5%/hr drain, and today it's jumped to 4.6%/hr. It's definitely noticeable.
Click to expand...


Me too. Used to use about 2% overnight and is now about 6%. Same issue on my two tablets as well. ICS appears to have been better on battery and same performance.
 
Similar issues - I noticed that this sudden drain had developed after I downloaded 4.1.1 via Keis. I am on AT&T.

The battery usage screen is as follows:
Android System 21%
Screen 20%
Android OS 12%
Internet 8%
Media 7%
Cell standby 6%
Device idle 6%
sdcard 4%
Google search 2%
Maps 2%

Blutooth and GPS are always off. My screen brightness has always been at 15%. I am connected to wifi for most the day which is no different from how I used the phone before the udpate.

I searched the internets and found people who said to discharge the phone to 15%, turn it off and fully charge to 100%. I did this yesterday and with no luck the phone started dropping as quickly as before.

I am going to try gsam and will report back with screenshots when I can. This really sucks. :(
 
That final 15-20 minutes sucks! I'm always looking at it to see the green light and it seems like eternity. I hate unplugging it before it is completely charged.

mikes1 said:
My battery drain is the same as on ics AFTER I toggled which google now options I wanted to use. With everything checked on google now I lost about an hour of battery compared to ics. Now it's the same. One thing I hate is charging. It charges so quick until you finally reach 100%. Once it reaches 100% it still takes 15-20 minutes to finally pop up that it's fullt charged and for the led to green. Odd.
Click to expand...
 
funkylogik said:
I say use the s3 like a tablet.. get a spare batt' or stay close to a socket :)
Click to expand...

See, but I had awesome battery life initially. With my HTC Inspire, I was lucky to make it to the end of the day before needing to charge. With my S3, I was getting to the end of the day with 40% left on average. Suddenly I was at 12% at noon!
 
I haven't noticed any difference between ICS and JB.
I also think that there could be differences but there are too many variables to say for sure without a formal test.
 
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