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Using battery when turned off
- Thread starter Da_Coynul
- Start date
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- Tags
- motorola droid
I have been waiting for this phone to come out. Almost went to iPhone, but like Verizon Network. I still have my Blackberry but this thread concerns me. My BB goes on the charge every other day for an hour and is fully charged. Admittedly, in the beginning the battery didn't last as long asd it does now, but was always a quick charge. I NEVER turn my phone off because I'm on call 24/7. Does anyone else leave their phone on around the clock? How do you find the battery life when you do?
As stated above, my phone loses about 50% charge over night when I turn it off (If I pull the battery out, it doesn't lose any charge). Last night I left it on all night as a test. 80% at 11PM. 70% at 7AM. Only lost 10% over night. I'm going to just leave it on all the time. Should last about 3 days for my moderate usage.
My battery run time is actually pretty good. But I still want to know what the phone is doing when turned off that causes a 30% charge drop over 7-8 hours. So I went by the Verizon Wireless store in Clearwater, FL on Gulf to Bay Blvd. today to inquire. I talked to a useless clerk who told me that it's normal for smartphones to be running when they are turned off. Told him my old Motorla Q didn't do that and he said "Well, that phone is really off when it's turned off. A couple other phones aren't." He also mentioned something about GPS (not a factor here since I had already disabled it). He did not offer to exchange the phone or battery. Anyway, I like the phone otherwise, so I am going to hold on to it for now...
Reading this stuff is definately a bummer. I lose 40% of the battery overnite when I power it down. I tested it last nite and closed all running apps with advanced task killer ap first and still lost 40%. It does't seem to lose anywhere near this when I leave it on so I am going to test it by leaving it on overnite and then see what happens. This is definately not right and I hope a fix will be coming. I also can't believe that the reviewers didn't pick this up in there reviews. I have no problem leaving it on if thats what it takes because I do like the phone so far. Not as easy as using a standard cell, but the additional features eg. internet and aps., well make up fotr that. Blackberry keys are way to small for me to use. I am wondering what effect charging the phone to full power will have on battery life if I keep charging it before battrey runs down very low, since I can't turn off the phone due to the power drain. It sure will be a pain if I need to remove the battery every nite. Any feedback is welcome. 
I thought about taking the battery out every night, but I don't want to risk wearing out the battery door so I'm just going to leave it on over night since I'm just losing 10% of the charge. I can live with that even if they can't fix it with a software upgrade. I really love the phone otherwise.
Hopefully they fix this w/ the nxt update. After reading this thread i went ahead and tried it out last night on my own phone, so i powered the phone off for 30 mins and turned it back on to make sure the battery reading was "right" and it still said 100%, so i turned it back off overnight and sure enough i was down to 70%. Now most nights i leave it on cause i use it as an alarm and it goes down to 90% so all it uses is 10% all night...i nvr turn off my phone at night anyways so it doesn't really matter i just did it to help you all get more info...so apparently its all the droids doing this. Hope that helps a bit 
gotwillk
Android Enthusiast
I've never powered it off overnight but ill try that tonight and see what happens. losing 30% overnight while the phone is off definitley doesn't seem normal to me. I lose 10% overnight with the phone on and I still think that's a lot. my friend has the mytouch and he only loses 5% overnight. which leads me to believe that 2.0 needs some serious patching.
I've had some major issues with battery life on this phone. Now I don't know if I have a bum phone or it's the Droid in general. It seems that there ARE people out there getting very good battery life, which is encouraging. I have a feeling there is a batch of phones out there that are not properly utilizing the battery power.
I had mine off charge Saturday by 3pm with me with all services off knowing I possibly have a problem with the battery or phone and by 1 am the phone was dead - out of juice. I figured it was a crappy battery so I went to Best Buy and they swapped batteries for me no problem. I charged up the new battery and took it off charge at like 5 pm. By 10:30 I was at 60%. I left it running and went to bed. I don't know what time it died, but when I woke up at 6 am the thing was totally dead. I hooked it up to the charger for a few hours, got it to 100% and took it off charge at 10 am today. By 10:30 I was at 90% and by 11:30 it was at 80%. I'm not even using the phone - it's just sitting here discharging at an alarming rate. I figure it's about 10% every hour on average.
I am going to swap out the phone for another phone. I really don't want to b/c I've been using it for a week and a half already and it's fully customized for me but I can't use the phone like this. I will report back once I get a chance to return the phone.
I had mine off charge Saturday by 3pm with me with all services off knowing I possibly have a problem with the battery or phone and by 1 am the phone was dead - out of juice. I figured it was a crappy battery so I went to Best Buy and they swapped batteries for me no problem. I charged up the new battery and took it off charge at like 5 pm. By 10:30 I was at 60%. I left it running and went to bed. I don't know what time it died, but when I woke up at 6 am the thing was totally dead. I hooked it up to the charger for a few hours, got it to 100% and took it off charge at 10 am today. By 10:30 I was at 90% and by 11:30 it was at 80%. I'm not even using the phone - it's just sitting here discharging at an alarming rate. I figure it's about 10% every hour on average.
I am going to swap out the phone for another phone. I really don't want to b/c I've been using it for a week and a half already and it's fully customized for me but I can't use the phone like this. I will report back once I get a chance to return the phone.
My phone was losing charge at night while being off and making sure all tasks were ended before powering it off.
Last night I did a test. I ended all tasks and put the phone in "airplane mode" then powered it off. I put it down with 100% charge and this morning after turning it on it had 100% charge still.
Might be worth some of you trying putting the phone in airplane mode to shut off all radios. Seemed to have worked for me.
Last night I did a test. I ended all tasks and put the phone in "airplane mode" then powered it off. I put it down with 100% charge and this morning after turning it on it had 100% charge still.
Might be worth some of you trying putting the phone in airplane mode to shut off all radios. Seemed to have worked for me.
...so i turned it back off overnight and sure enough i was down to 70%. Now most nights i leave it on cause i use it as an alarm and it goes down to 90% so all it uses is 10% all night...i nvr turn off my phone at night anyways so it doesn't really matter i just did it to help you all get more info...so apparently its all the droids doing this. Hope that helps a bit
Thanks, that confirms what I have been experiencing. I think I am going to start leaving mine on at night too (in airplane mode) until there is a fix. Otherwise, the overall life of the battery is going to be shortened by the excessive cycling.
I wouldn't exchange it just yet. Check out the first post in this thread, I just updated it
Dave17
Member
I don't have an SMS plan and would love the ability to deactivate the messaging app altogether. Even an ability to disable it via a settings option would be appreciated. It bothers me that this app is poling (and draining my battery) even though I don't need it (same goes for Coporate Calendar).
Dave
gotwillk
Android Enthusiast
the default messaging app included on the Droid works fine for me. i have it on all day long and it doesn't suck up battery life. i think the OP was referring to 3rd party IM apps draining the battery. some apps aren't optimized properly for Android 2.0 so it sucks up a lot of battery life. i read that for the android OS, if an app is not in the foreground being used, it should only take up only a little bit of battery if at all. for me, it seems to be true. i leave on whatever i open, and have it unplugged, sync off and gtalk signed out, the next day i wake up 7 hrs later still with 100%.
dakotaj2000
Lurker
my battery was at 100% last night after charging in the usb port of my laptop. i powered off the screen (not the phone because i am on call this week) when i woke up the phone was dead. i plugged into the usb and it wouldn't turn on...i then plugged into the wall and it powered up with no problem...showing 5% battery. So i can only assume that some app was running in the back ground last night. i've install a battery monitor app and will watch the graph for clues. this is the 3rd night it's done this (out of the 5 nights i've owned it) the other two i completly powered it off
dakotaj2000
Lurker
i installed the app battery graph...it is supposed to monitor while in sleep mode
Dave17
Member
I'm with you, but given that we're all talking about battery life, it's put me into a very miserly mood. My main point was that core apps that I don't use shouldn't need to be running at all--regardless of how much juice they might use. To me it's like leaving my wall wart plugged in with nothing attached to it. It may not hurt anything, but it still makes sense to unplug it.
Hyper-miling Droid Style!
Dave
Dave17
Member
Seems like one of the most popular ones is Spare Parts.
Dave17
Member
Last night I ran my battery down until the phone went dead. Then I waited about 20 minutes and there was enough remaining juice for a full boot, but then it went dead again and wouldn't turn back on. I left it off and put it into the cradle for 8 hours and it had reached 100 percent (first full cycle recharge). It's been on now with light to moderate usage for 6 hours and is at 90 percent (and that's with a -90 dB signal.)
Here's what I did beyond a full cycle recharge:
1. I uninstalled everything that I didn't really need.
2. I set every sync cycle to off, or as long as I can reasonably stand.
3. Set screen brightness at minimum. (It's easy to ramp it up if I want.)
4. Using WiFi whenever it's available (I'm guessing that the phone has to work less hard with WiFi).
Now my biggest user of power is the core OS (partial wake usage). It's becoming entirely clear to me that the OP was right; namely, that the biggest culprits are the aftermarket apps. Hope the devs are listening.
Dave
Here's what I did beyond a full cycle recharge:
1. I uninstalled everything that I didn't really need.
2. I set every sync cycle to off, or as long as I can reasonably stand.
3. Set screen brightness at minimum. (It's easy to ramp it up if I want.)
4. Using WiFi whenever it's available (I'm guessing that the phone has to work less hard with WiFi).
Now my biggest user of power is the core OS (partial wake usage). It's becoming entirely clear to me that the OP was right; namely, that the biggest culprits are the aftermarket apps. Hope the devs are listening.
Dave
johnlgalt
Antidisestablishmentarian
I can understand. A lot of the apps that rely on sync simply stay on in the background. That is one of the main reasons I still like Twidroid, even though Seesmic is a better interface - in Twidroid, using the menu key, you have the Exit Application button that does just that - exits out of Twidroid, removing it from memory, just as you would any application on your PC.
Devs do need to listen - and start adding a similar function to such apps as well.
Devs do need to listen - and start adding a similar function to such apps as well.
I wouldn't exchange it just yet. Check out the first post in this thread, I just updated it
Da_Coynul...have you tried reinstalling apps since your updated post? I just got the droid 2 days ago, and am having the battery drain issue while the phone is powered off. The only outside app I have installed so far is dx top home alternative.
I see your post is from November, so I'm just trying to see if anyone's found any other solutions or suggestions. I'd hate to have this phone, and not be able to put apps on it..??
