S21Ultra - Battery life getting worse after 1 year?

[mystical_ice]

Hi -
Galaxy S21 Ultra here. Got the phone and started using it just over a year ago last week. I have a work profile on it to connect to work apps, but other than that a typical user - Instagram, web browsing, Netflix, google maps, etc

It might be my imagination but the battery life is getting awful. to the point i have battery anxiety. i have it set to charge to 85%, and i charge it nightly (and maybe 2 or 3 times during the day to get a few %).

Can someone that's smarter than me please look at the below screenshots and see if it looks like normal use? I could (if necessary) do a factory reset if someone thinks that would help.

I've uploaded images (screenshots) of the battery usage, apps using it, and accubattery

https://ibb.co/vhGpLPZ
https://ibb.co/s2rrkWN
https://ibb.co/pvWb2Qq
https://ibb.co/qYL4qj8
https://ibb.co/3770f11
https://ibb.co/vVL8RRX
https://ibb.co/wyWRp8G
https://ibb.co/9pvF9PV

 

[Hadron]

Are these all from the same session?

Thoughts:
* In the first and last shots, how is the Google app responsible for 15% of battery usage in less than a minute (out of a 12 hour session)? That's insane, and must be being mis-reported (no app could use that much power in a minute). It's interesting that Google doesn't show in Accubattery's usage stats.
* I don't think I can read much into short sessions, but at least in some of your sessions the battery seems reasonable (e.g. 15% used in 2h 9m screen-on time seems OK).
* I'm a bit surprised by the battery wear of 7%. My s21 has only been used since November but still shows 99%, and never showed more than 99%. I also only charge to 85%, but I rarely do top-up charges, mostly just do slow charges overnight (I keep fast charging turned off: I don't need it, and don't see any reason to risk any thermal stress by charging faster - though if I do need a top-up I will turn fast charging on temporarily and turn it off afterwards).
* Your average battery usage with the screen on (13%/hour) is a bit higher than my s21 (9%/hour), but this does depend on both what apps you are running and how bright you run your screen, so it's impossible to say from that alone whether there is a problem.

Overall there's nothing that leaps out at me as dramatically wrong here (for a phone in general, I don't know this particular model), though you clearly burn power a bit faster than me. A plot that shows it using 70% in 12.25 hours isn't insane for a phone, though the s21 Ultra should have a very large battery as well as a very large screen. But there are a lot of factors that affect this: signal strength, what apps you allow to update in the background, how bright you run the screen, whether you allow location to be constantly monitored or just when an app that needs it is active, etc, so it's hard to say what it right or not. What sort of battery life were you getting when it was new?

 

[mystical_ice]

Are these all from the same session?

Thoughts:
* In the first and last shots, how is the Google app responsible for 15% of battery usage in less than a minute (out of a 12 hour session)? That's insane, and must be being mis-reported (no app could use that much power in a minute). It's interesting that Google doesn't show in Accubattery's usage stats.
* I don't think I can read much into short sessions, but at least in some of your sessions the battery seems reasonable (e.g. 15% used in 2h 9m screen-on time seems OK).
* I'm a bit surprised by the battery wear of 7%. My s21 has only been used since November but still shows 99%, and never showed more than 99%. I also only charge to 85%, but I rarely do top-up charges, mostly just do slow charges overnight (I keep fast charging turned off: I don't need it, and don't see any reason to risk any thermal stress by charging faster - though if I do need a top-up I will turn fast charging on temporarily and turn it off afterwards).
* Your average battery usage with the screen on (13%/hour) is a bit higher than my s21 (9%/hour), but this does depend on both what apps you are running and how bright you run your screen, so it's impossible to say from that alone whether there is a problem.

Overall there's nothing that leaps out at me as dramatically wrong here (for a phone in general, I don't know this particular model), though you clearly burn power a bit faster than me. A plot that shows it using 70% in 12.25 hours isn't insane for a phone, though the s21 Ultra should have a very large battery as well as a very large screen. But there are a lot of factors that affect this: signal strength, what apps you allow to update in the background, how bright you run the screen, whether you allow location to be constantly monitored or just when an app that needs it is active, etc, so it's hard to say what it right or not. What sort of battery life were you getting when it was new?

Yeah some of those statistics don't make sense. And Accubattery has been running for at least 6 months.

I would say 99% after 9 months of usage seems a little more unrealistic, but maybe I'm just a pessimist

I do the same thing you do - i only use fast charging when i absolutely need to, otherwise it stays off, charge to 85%, etc.

Might just be that this is the phone operating the way it's supposed to

All I know is i used to never have to charge during the day when I first got the phone, but now I do at least once during the day

 

[Hadron]

Some decline in capacity with time is to be expected, though 7% in 1 year seems a little high with protective measures (e.g. the 85% charging limit) in place: that's marginally above what my previous Pixel 2 did with no option to turn fast charging off (except using an old charger) and always charging to 100%. And that was measured by the same app, so hopefully as comparable as such estimates can be between different phones. Of course if you've not been using Accubattery from the start you don't know what the initial capacity estimate was: batteries vary by a few %, and you can get one that's slightly below nominal capacity as well as slightly above, so it's also possible that degradation is overestimated.

The usual thing is to check for any apps that are consistently using more power than they should - something that is complicated by the fact that different apps definitely estimate app usage differently!

Maybe an s21U owner will show up to give a more direct comparison.