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Help Random battery usage?

T

tenchy

Well-Known Member
I've had my Nexus nearly a week, and I have been impressed with the battery life.
Day one I spent working out how to send my existing contacts to it, and a fair bit of browsing, and I have over 7 hours of good usage before got down to 20% or something like that.
Then I have had two spells of lighter usage and battery lasting 2 days easy.
But oddly, yesterday I left home fully charged at 7.30pm, did 5 minutes of browsing, had sync on for maybe 4 hours, and it was at 68% by 11.30pm.
Before bed I ensure no apps are running (using the bottom right button) and turn off syncing and location etc.

By morning it was 40%. Checking the battery, it said 50% Android OS usage and 19% screen usage, plus few others.

It
 
trophynuts said:
when you left home and wherever you went were you always in a good signal area?
Click to expand...

possibly not, but I certainly was overnight.

68% to 40% overnight, good signal, no syncing, no apps (showing) seems a lot, and is much more than normal since I had it.
Plus, all that OS activity?

Screen has always been the big drain since I got it.
 
I restarted the Nexus when I got in to work, and it has only dropped a few % more since, and I'd looked at it a few times.

I can only assume something was crashed.

Are there apps like the windows task manager for the Nexus, to see what is using what?
 
1. I don't believe the task switcher (bottom right icon) actually does anything as far as closing apps. Its just a list of recently used apps for easy access/switching. Swiping them off screen simply removes them from the list/display but doesn't actually close them or stop the process. Go ahead and swipe everything out of the task switcher....then go into settings > apps > running..... you'll see most of those processes still running. The OS controls all of that based on system needs.

2. Android OS "excessive use" for me has always been about syncing. I recommend turning off any syncing you don't need. For me, gmail, email, calendar and contacts I need to keep in sync all the time. The rest of the stuff I don't. Google+ has been known to be a huge resource hog and it is strongly suggested that you turn off sync for that. I also turn off pictures, books, and twitter. Music sync can also get turned off. You can always turn it back on if you've added new music but if you don't change your music every day there is no reason to sync. As for the rest of the apps, they can all update when you open them assuming you don't need some kind of alert from twitter or google+...

3. You don't mention if you were on Wifi the whole time or not. That can make a big difference in battery use.
 
Tim K said:
1. I don't believe the task switcher (bottom right icon) actually does anything as far as closing apps. Its just a list of recently used apps for easy access/switching. Swiping them off screen simply removes them from the list/display but doesn't actually close them or stop the process. Go ahead and swipe everything out of the task switcher....then go into settings > apps > running..... you'll see most of those processes still running. The OS controls all of that based on system needs.

2. Android OS "excessive use" for me has always been about syncing. I recommend turning off any syncing you don't need. For me, gmail, email, calendar and contacts I need to keep in sync all the time. The rest of the stuff I don't. Google+ has been known to be a huge resource hog and it is strongly suggested that you turn off sync for that. I also turn off pictures, books, and twitter. Music sync can also get turned off. You can always turn it back on if you've added new music but if you don't change your music every day there is no reason to sync. As for the rest of the apps, they can all update when you open them assuming you don't need some kind of alert from twitter or google+...

3. You don't mention if you were on Wifi the whole time or not. That can make a big difference in battery use.
Click to expand...

I didn't use wifi at all last night.
All syncing was off overnight too. Just turned off google+, books and photos.
Do I need "Sync browser" on?? Can't see what that is for.
 
tenchy said:
I didn't use wifi at all last night.
All syncing was off overnight too. Just turned off google+, books and photos.
Do I need "Sync browser" on?? Can't see what that is for.
Click to expand...

If you can, use wifi all the time. 4G sucks battery like crazy and 3G is only slightly better. Wifi is by far the most battery friendly.

Sync browser is only good if you care about syncing pages and bookmarks with your desktop. If you use the Chrome beta version you can surf a page on your desktop....get up and go to the couch and have the same page waiting for you on your phone. Other than that, no you don't need to sync it. I do, and have seen no harm.

google+ and photos are seemingly the worst offenders. I've also had issues with google backup (not a sync but a setting) getting hung up for hours.

Like I said though, if you don't need it constantly updating, turn off the sync.
 
thanks for the info.
I deffo don't need browser sync then.
I use wifi where I can.
And I turn sync and location off (via that 5 icon widget) at night too.
 
Tim K said:
If you can, use wifi all the time. 4G sucks battery like crazy and 3G is only slightly better. Wifi is by far the most battery friendly.
Click to expand...

Actually I feel like 3G/CDMA is about twice more efficient than 4G/LTE. But I agree WiFi is the most efficient on battery like 3~4 times better than 4G/LTE.

The OP seems using GSM Nexus with 3G/HSPA+ radio. So I'm not sure if turning HSPA+ off is possible like turning LTE off on CDMA Nexus.
 
Sandroidfan said:
The OP seems using GSM Nexus with 3G/HSPA+ radio. So I'm not sure if turning HSPA+ off is possible like turning LTE off on CDMA Nexus.
Click to expand...

Yep, you can.. but there's really no need to. The GSM Galaxy Nexus shouldn't have any major problems with battery life.. I'm on stock and without any juice defenders or anything.. I can get about 4hrs of screen time and 10-13hrs of total usage with that amount of screen time. Much more of course if screen time is at 2 hours or something.
 
How do you switch to 3g on gsm?

Just curious, I do see an option to switch to 2G but that doesnt work as I cant even get 2G signal.
 
3G is HSPA+.. so what you're usually using. 2G is EDGE in our case.

Recently, the committee in charge of the naming conventions (2G, 3G, 4G, etc..) made it so that any network that has a considerable speed increase over HSPA (3G), can call itself 4G.. So now every HSPA+ carrier calls their network 4G even though nothing has changed (since HSPA+ is faster than HSPA but it is the same technology).

I find it ridiculous because 4G is really supposed to refer to LTE which is a different technology (generation) than HSPA. But now for some dumbass reason we refer to the same technology (HSPA) as 3G and 4G which confuses everyone.
 
stenzor said:
Yep, you can.. but there's really no need to. The GSM Galaxy Nexus shouldn't have any major problems with battery life.. I'm on stock and without any juice defenders or anything.. I can get about 4hrs of screen time and 10-13hrs of total usage with that amount of screen time. Much more of course if screen time is at 2 hours or something.
Click to expand...

this is the thing. That sounds like mine normally.

In fact I was going to do a 'first impressions' thread where I said how impressed I was wit the battery life.

I assume yesterday was some glitch due to something screwy.
This morning, after leaving the charger at the same time as day before last night, but admittedly no surfing, I was at 96% battery, with screen at 5%, and idle at 50%. More like it.
 
stenzor said:
3G is HSPA+.. so what you're usually using. 2G is EDGE in our case.

Recently, the committee in charge of the naming conventions (2G, 3G, 4G, etc..) made it so that any network that has a considerable speed increase over HSPA (3G), can call itself 4G.. So now every HSPA+ carrier calls their network 4G even though nothing has changed (since HSPA+ is faster than HSPA but it is the same technology).

I find it ridiculous because 4G is really supposed to refer to LTE which is a different technology (generation) than HSPA. But now for some dumbass reason we refer to the same technology (HSPA) as 3G and 4G which confuses everyone.
Click to expand...

Marketing BS!!
 
Sometimes the device just wiggz out... I've had it happen with the phone app... it used up 30% of battery overnight somehow... just bugs. usually a reboot will stop whatever process is stuck/hung. My guess is alot of the battery drain happens on 4G, maybe an updating or syncing app had a lapse in network connectivity and it couldn't reconnect even though the phone reconnected... that would be a software bug imo.
 
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