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Optimize your Droid Eris battery life (READ THIS)

bigdroid said:
They messed everything up when they aimed the new towers inline with each other. Makes me angry but at least with the Network extender I have full signal for calls and I use my wifi for data.
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Yeah 3G is pretty useless being CDMA anyway. But every time I get to thinkin that I look at my sig. :D
 
bigdroid said:
Here is my question. I have ordered another HTC Eris. Obviously it comes with a partial charge. Is it better to run down the battery with what charge it already has on it first or charge it up then run it down?
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It make absolutely no difference in the long run. There are about a many, many posts on this forum referring to 'seasoning' or 'conditioning' the battery. The lithium ion batteries manufactured today have no memory and require no such treatment. Depleting the battery entirely will have no positive impact on the battery's ability to provide more milliamp hours (mAh). In fact, the reverse might be true- discharging the battery fully may cause the battery to lose some capacity.

I am fairly certain what is going on here is that fully cycling the battery allows the handset to more quickly calibrate itself to battery discharge and provide a more accurate reading of remaining charge. The same thing would happen through normal usage over time. To my knowledge, there are only two things that are must-knows about preserving the longevity of lithium ion cells- do not operate them at elevated temperatures (in the case of cell phones this usually manifests during long calls) and do not store them fully discharged.
 
rswanson said:
It make absolutely no difference in the long run. There are about a many, many posts on this forum referring to 'seasoning' or 'conditioning' the battery. The lithium ion batteries manufactured today have no memory and require no such treatment. Depleting the battery entirely will have no positive impact on the battery's ability to provide more milliamp hours (mAh). In fact, the reverse might be true- discharging the battery fully may cause the battery to lose some capacity.

I am fairly certain what is going on here is that fully cycling the battery allows the handset to more quickly calibrate itself to battery discharge and provide a more accurate reading of remaining charge. The same thing would happen through normal usage over time. To my knowledge, there are only two things that are must-knows about preserving the longevity of lithium ion cells- do not operate them at elevated temperatures (in the case of cell phones this usually manifests during long calls) and do not store them fully discharged.
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I was of the opinion as you are regarding the calibration of the meter.

However, why would the user manual state (paraphrasing) that the battery may perform better after several full charge - discharge cycles? Is that meter alone?
 
Needsdecaf said:
However, why would the user manual state (paraphrasing) that the battery may perform better after several full charge - discharge cycles? Is that meter alone?
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I can't say. There may be a circuit in the battery and completing several power cycles of the battery may help the handset calibrate itself to the battery's output and read that circuit more effectively to establish better baseline values. Or, possibly, the folks at HTC are simply covering their bases. Or, they are simply wrong, subscribing to the same myth that you see often attributed to li-ion batteries.

However, it is factual that depleting a lithium ion cell of can cause damage that will prevent the battery from maintaining optimum capacity. This happens when the cobalt component of the cell becomes oxidized, due to too many lithium ions being intercalated into the cell's cathode component. Fortunately, most li-ion batteries contain a circuit to prevent full discharge. I would still hesitate to drain my phone completely. Good practice is to recharge the cell before its charge falls below 10% of usable capacity and never store it at low charge levels.

Every recharge of the cell increases its internal resistance, inhibiting the current that can be drawn from the battery. Eventually, the battery will no longer be able to supply enough power to operate the device it is installed in. Aging also produces this effect and higher operating temperature exacerbate it. So charging a lithium ion battery shortens its life, as does heat, and the cell will die a natural death after a period of time.
 
..where where you last week? :P Solid info, and from my little knowledge of lithium ion I had a hunch that "conditioning" the battery didnt' work. I did the 3 times things, and my battery is fine now after a week, so I guess it was partly in my head.
 
W4LLY said:
..where where you last week? :P Solid info, and from my little knowledge of lithium ion I had a hunch that "conditioning" the battery didnt' work. I did the 3 times things, and my battery is fine now after a week, so I guess it was partly in my head.
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im so confused...
though that makes since its just hard to not recognize the difference...
could be psychological also :)
thanks!
 
Keep in mind this is one anonymous dude (dudette?) on the interwebz saying this. I'm NOT saying this person doesn't have their ducks in a row but, like anything else, take it with a grain of salt and independently verify this info if you are so inclined.

Personally, I'm happy with my phone's performance thus far. Yes, it took a little tweaking and the learning curve can be a little arduous but I'm happy now.
 
I like my battery too.

You are all random people on the internet.

Working with Lithium ion batteries in computer at work (Apple) I've been told a lot of different things about the batteries, and one of them was that you can't really condition them.

I can agree with the temperature thing though, that's a fact.

I'm sure wikipedia knows the real answer, im just too lazy right now to check it.
 
W4LLY said:
I like my battery too.

You are all random people on the internet.

Working with Lithium ion batteries in computer at work (Apple) I've been told a lot of different things about the batteries, and one of them was that you can't really condition them.

I can agree with the temperature thing though, that's a fact.

I'm sure wikipedia knows the real answer, im just too lazy right now to check it.
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My good sir, please allow this particular random internet person to offer some potentially real advice.

I couldn't find any remotely definitive answer to the whole Li-ion "conditioning" question; some say it's necessary, others say only Nickel batteries need it, others say it's needed to allow the phone itself to evaluate the battery charge level... so I emailed HTC asking them.

My first response was an auto-response telling me basic battery tips; I post it here so you guys can at least hear HTC's stand on some of the topics being debated here:

"Thank you for contacting HTC! There are a few ways you can save your battery life. Some suggestions are: checking to see which applications you have running and shut off any unnecessary applications, Shorten the length of the backlight in use.You can also charge the battery fully and let it drain all the way before recharging. When not in use, make sure that the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is turned off. Also, if you have your phone set up for pull e-mail you may want to set a longer wait between connections. Each time your device searches for e-mail it uses a data connection, which is one of the quickest ways to drain your battery. If you are still experiencing these problems after trying these steps, our Technical Support will be more than happy to further assist you and they can be reached by calling 1-866-449-8358. You can find additional support at our user forum HTC Smartphone Wiki - HTC. Thank you for contacting HTC!"

I pressed them for more information specifically regarding the Li-ion, informing them that after a few days of "conditioning" the battery as best I could had resulted in (what seemed to be) improved battery life. Within minutes had the following response:

"Thank you for contacting HTC! A lithium-ion battery provides 300-500 discharge/charge cycles. The battery prefers a partial rather than a full discharge. Frequent full discharges should be avoided when possible. Instead, charge the battery more often or use a larger battery. There is no concern of memory when applying unscheduled charges. In this case the battery does not need conditioning. "

So, I don't know if this qualifies as conclusive or not, and it still doesn't explain why I am noticing increased performance after a few cycles of "conditioning." But, it's the word from the folks that made our phone, so there you go.
 
I made the hard decision and returned my Eris on Friday, and am back using my Blackberry Curve. I hated to do it, but have to admit, the battery life on the Eris doesn't even come close to comparing to the battery life on the Curve. Additionally, the Curve is a bit more user-friendly, but certainly lacks all of the bells and whistles.

At the end of the day, I think the fact that the Exchange security on Android not being up to snuff, which led me to have to download my e-mails every 5 minutes via the POP server was the biggest issue. I read these forums for hours and hours, and tried every last modification, but the battery life simply didn't cut it. I wanted an Android more than anyone I know, and here I am, back with the Curve.

Let's see what the HTC Bravo brings. Anyone with similar experiences?
 
hrbib21 said:
Keep in mind this is one anonymous dude (dudette?) on the interwebz saying this. I'm NOT saying this person doesn't have their ducks in a row but, like anything else, take it with a grain of salt and independently verify this info if you are so inclined.
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I'm not a chemist or physicist. But, a little bit of Google will confirm everything I have written. In fact, a large portion of it comes from the Wikipedia article on lithium ion batteries-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery.

I did a fair amount of research on these batteries a while ago, when diagnosing issues with a laptop. I also have lots of personal experience with li-ion cells, as I am sure many people visiting this forum have. I feel it's safe to say that lithium ion batteries do not have a 'memory' and do not need to be conditioned. Unless they are using some new type of li-ion battery technology that I am not informed on any suggestion by HTC to discharge the battery completely is either wholly or partially incorrect or pertains strictly to calibration of how the Eris handset interprets the state of the battery.

To be accurate about this someone needs to measure the current draw of the handset in m-Ah, under typical user conditions, and measure that against the battery supplied with the device. If it's drawing, say 130 m-Ah and the phone is dying after 10 hours of usage, then the phone is using the 1300 m-Ah cell correctly (as I suspect is probably the case).

The good news is this is something that could very possibly be addressed or tweaked with future software updates. If this doesn't come to pass, one can purchase an extended life battery such as the one that will be offered by Seidio that everyone is talking about.

In any event, getting all OCD about charging your battery X amount of times is probably wasted energy.
 
Quick question: if I turn off background data synchronization for Google, how exactly would I "refresh" my contacts list to pull down any new updates I make online? Just curious. Thanks!

Also, does having even one widget decrease performance? I quite like the flipclock/weather widget but if it's going to take a lot of battery, it isn't worth it.
 
i think if you turn off auto sync the contacts/gmail/calendar below that turn into buttons that you can refresh in settings.
 
rswanson said:
I can't say. There may be a circuit in the battery and completing several power cycles of the battery may help the handset calibrate itself to the battery's output and read that circuit more effectively to establish better baseline values. Or, possibly, the folks at HTC are simply covering their bases. Or, they are simply wrong, subscribing to the same myth that you see often attributed to li-ion batteries.

However, it is factual that depleting a lithium ion cell of can cause damage that will prevent the battery from maintaining optimum capacity. This happens when the cobalt component of the cell becomes oxidized, due to too many lithium ions being intercalated into the cell's cathode component. Fortunately, most li-ion batteries contain a circuit to prevent full discharge. I would still hesitate to drain my phone completely. Good practice is to recharge the cell before its charge falls below 10% of usable capacity and never store it at low charge levels.

Every recharge of the cell increases its internal resistance, inhibiting the current that can be drawn from the battery. Eventually, the battery will no longer be able to supply enough power to operate the device it is installed in. Aging also produces this effect and higher operating temperature exacerbate it. So charging a lithium ion battery shortens its life, as does heat, and the cell will die a natural death after a period of time.
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This is true.

What is also true that running down a LiIon battery in a "smart" consumer device doesn't really run it down all the way. It shuts the phone off before it gets out of a range that will start to significantly shorten the battery life. There are some hybrid and plug in hybrid cars that run less than 50% of the battery's capacity to prolong battery life.
 
I personally think the best fix would be to get one of those sedio 1700 batteries once they hit the streets :p
 
Is there any difference how the phone charges whether its via the Outlet (which uses the usb plugged into the outlet charger), plugging the USB into your computer, or using a car charger?

I am in the process of trying to kill my battery playing videos, etc..with the intention to do the 3 - 4 full recharges.
 
absolutebica said:
Is there any difference how the phone charges whether its via the Outlet (which uses the usb plugged into the outlet charger), plugging the USB into your computer, or using a car charger?

I am in the process of trying to kill my battery playing videos, etc..with the intention to do the 3 - 4 full recharges.
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It charges quicker via the wall outlet or car charger than plugged into the USB of your computer.
 
rswanson said:
I'm not a chemist or physicist. But, a little bit of Google will confirm everything I have written. In fact, a large portion of it comes from the Wikipedia article on lithium ion batteries-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery.

I did a fair amount of research on these batteries a while ago, when diagnosing issues with a laptop. I also have lots of personal experience with li-ion cells, as I am sure many people visiting this forum have. I feel it's safe to say that lithium ion batteries do not have a 'memory' and do not need to be conditioned. Unless they are using some new type of li-ion battery technology that I am not informed on any suggestion by HTC to discharge the battery completely is either wholly or partially incorrect or pertains strictly to calibration of how the Eris handset interprets the state of the battery.

To be accurate about this someone needs to measure the current draw of the handset in m-Ah, under typical user conditions, and measure that against the battery supplied with the device. If it's drawing, say 130 m-Ah and the phone is dying after 10 hours of usage, then the phone is using the 1300 m-Ah cell correctly (as I suspect is probably the case).

The good news is this is something that could very possibly be addressed or tweaked with future software updates. If this doesn't come to pass, one can purchase an extended life battery such as the one that will be offered by Seidio that everyone is talking about.

In any event, getting all OCD about charging your battery X amount of times is probably wasted energy.
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My co-worker said something extremely similar.

So it makes me wonder if the full-recharge users happen to be doing so at the same time as killing tasks, changeing settings..hence giving the illusion the "full recharge" actually makes a difference.
 
Oh great, so now I'm really confused :) After ordering my Eris online, I started reading the forums like crazy and thought the battery conditioning was a must, now I'm not so sure.

I sounds like if you do the 3-day trick, it won't hurt at least, correct?

It does sound like to me from what I've read in various places on this forum and others, it's the hardware-to-software connection that might be off?

Someone talked about how it seemed to run down to 25% quickly, but then that last 25% seemed to last forever, I think guy watched the entire batman movie or something.

Anyway, I'm just glad we have a device that you can go out and buy a new or even bigger battery for if/when it's needed.
 
i have text threads with like 1000 texts and everytime i try to delete them it freezes my phone do i really have to go through and delete them one by one??!?
 
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