Phone battery going flat too quickly

[rans6andrew]

My shiny new-ish Android smart phone usually needs to be put on charge every third night or so, with my normal level of usage.

This week, after the phone ingested a code download (downgrade?) on Monday afternoon, it has been necessary to charge more than once per day. Between yesterday evening and this morning, while the phone was in idle mode, screen off and "power saving mode" set on, it used 46% of the battery in just 15 hours. I checked through the settings and didn't find anything unusual switched on, no GPS activity, no wireless hotspot, no hdmi transmit output, nothing.

This morning I pulled the battery out and put it back. I have used the phone a bit today, browsed via WiFi and checked the battery use a few times and it has only used a further 12% in 13 hours. Problem gone away.

What could have been using so much battery power and not show up in the task manager?

Rans6......

[timmcat]

Had a similar problem with Mrs Timmcat's android phone a while ago. We only tracked it down by downloading an app (i'm sorry, I cant recall what it was) which showed exactly what processes had used the battery, and by what percentage. Turned out to be a rouge app (eBay) which wouldn't allow the phone to sleep.

[giggitygiggity]

It's almost always either the screen or radios (2G/3G/wifi) that rinse your battery. Tweak your brightness and perhaps try 'auto mode' if your phone supports it. When your not using it, disable data mode (perhaps the name is slightly different). Power saving mode needs to be explored properly for it to do any good but is not really that useful.

Juicedefender is an app that turns down your brightness, turns off gps, wifi, 3g etc based on a set of rules you define. Something like "When the screen is on, enable mobile data" or "When I have google maps open, enable gps and data". It is pretty unintuitive to use unfortunately but with careful experimentation it does work. I live in an area of awful signal and I loose my battery very quickly when 3G/4G is enabled, the phone spends the whole time searching for signal of for a better signal and uses up a lot of power. Hope this helps.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

My shiny new-ish Android smart phone usually needs to be put on charge every third night or so
Thanks for the warning, I won't get one of those then - a week us just about acceptable to me, ten days is better, three days counts as broken.

Trouble is I can't get a replacement genuine battery for my phone any more, and the cheapo Chinese rip-offs will only hold their charge for four days, not the more-than-a-week that the real ones lasted.

Anyone know of any decent phones with decent battery life??

[giggitygiggity]

Gertrude, you can buy something like this for a normal phone iPhone Battery Extender | Maximize your iPhone (http://maximizeyouriphone.com/iphone-battery-extender) - It doesn't improve the look of the phone but if the size and weight is not as important as battery life, you can get significantly longer battery times. But it does mean you have 2 batteries to charge, I am not quite sure how that works as I have never used one.

[rans6andrew]

hmmm. My phone doesn't need to ingest a new code downgrade to occassionally draw too much current when it appears to be asleep. It did it again last night. During the night when it was in idle mode it drew about 4 times the idle current it drew during the day.

The OS is Android. How can I identify the rogue app/code module that is causing this. I have very few apps I have chosen to install, the one I am most suspicious of is a tv guide app from TV Guide UK TV Listings - UK's No 1 TV Listing site for Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, Freesat & BT Vision (http://www.tvguide.co.uk). It occasionally fails to launch properly, which I think is a problem if it is selected before the phone can lock onto our WiFi router.

Selecting "reboot" from the power key menu clears the issue and the battery use rate drops back to less than 1% per hour. The phone is set to use it's "power saving" mode.

Rans6......

[jimtherev]

As it happens, my excessive battery drain was a QR code reader. This was on a Nokia, though. Prob no connection.

[rans6andrew]

jimtherev, how did you decide which was the rogue app?

did the symptoms occur consistently after using the app?

did you just keep deleting apps till the problem went away?

Rans6........

[KBPsen]

You are not exactly making it easy for anyone to help you. Which phone are we talking about? What version of Android? What does "code download" mean? Is it an OS update or an app update or app download?

There are hundreds of phones running Android and a dozen or so versions of Android which the phone manufacturers have then further customized. Be specific.

[jimtherev]

jimtherev, how did you decide which was the rogue app?


Easy in my case: I've only added one app in the past 6 months. Downloaded and installed the qr app - can't remember which one now - and discovered that my battery went down to 2 bars in less than a day. Uninstalled the app; back to 3-5 day's battery use, dependent on usage.
Not very helpful, I know... but 'twas simple for me...

[rans6andrew]

Sorry about phone/OS version. I was hoping someone would point me to an Android OS task manager or process analyser which might be capable of telling which processes are going to keep part of the phone "more awake" than it should be when asleep.

I actually put "code downgrade" as in my experience every time a computer takes what is called an OS download it ends up slower and more bloated than before.

The phone is a Galaxy S3, two months old, which has downloaded a new OS twice now. It is running Android 4.1.2. The only Apps I have installed are the aforementioned TV guide and the Android version of Free42, a working emulation of a RPN HP programmable calculator. A few of the standard load Apps have seen fit to load newer versions than originals.

Rans6.....

[KBPsen]

You already have a task manager. Press and hold the home button and it will open. From there you can stop apps or background processes either individually or in bulk.

To see what is using up the battery go to "settings" and then "Battery". There you can see what app/processes have used how much of the battery since the last recharge. Note that the battery stats are reset every time the phone is recharged.

It is possible after a major update to the OS that the battery may appear to discharge faster than normal. After a few charge cycles all then appears normal again. Apparently some battery management systems needs a few cycles to charge or indicate correctly again.

[Zeppelin]

I had the Galaxy Ace which started using a fully charged battery in a matter of hours.
Took it back to the shop and was told Samsung were changing these batteries free of charge as there was a fault with 'em.
Battery life still pretty crap- with wifi on only lasts about a day :(

[rans6andrew]

I have been watching the battery usage. Normally the phone idle uses about 30%, cell standby about 28% and screen uses about 25%. When it all runs down too quickly it shows the screen using about 35% and the other main consumers less than usual. The other few % is split between a load of processes.

When it uses too much power overnight, there must be some big user that doesn't show up in the usage monitor or the 3 main users all use more power than usual. The change in the screen usage figure doesn't account for the fact that the actual discharge rate has gone up by a factor of 4.

One issue with the Applications Manager is knowing which processes would normally be running at any time. ie, if I don't have any alarms set, stopwatch running, countdown timer for me dinner etc, would it be normal for the simple clock to be running 1 process and 1 service? What will fall over if I stop them? There is 15 of these processes and matching services things running at present and the phone is using it's normal 1% of battery an hour.

And then there is how to tell which ones are still doing stuff when the phone goes to sleep.

Rans6........

[Exascot]

My Galaxy SIII is driving me crazy with the battery drain and the re-charge times. I have looked at every suggestion on all the forums on the internet and tried all the ideas. Some say drain it right down and then recharge it switched off. Others say take the battery out to reset it. Other ideas are completely mad. One day I will do one thing and it behaves the next day there are no changes in my SOP and it will behave completely differently. Yesterday it took 8 hours to charge to 75% from 4% switched off. Today it took 4 hrs from 15% to 100% switched on.

Any views on this: The best ways to stop your smartphone battery running out? AVOID fully charging it, don't let it drop below 50% and keep it out of the sun | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2352232/The-best-ways-stop-smartphone-battery-running-AVOID-fully-charging-dont-let-drop-50-sun.html)

Incidentally I looked for the software recommended in the article for battery management but it said that it was not compatible to my system!

[mixture]

Is the GPS on ? Is the WiFi on ? Is the Bluetooth on ?

The more radio gubbins you have turned on, the greater the battery drain.

[Ancient Observer]

There are only 3 rules about battery life for "smart" phones on Android......(Why did they call it Android, and not something more interesting like Ingrid? or Anneka?)

1. Turn everything off whenever you can.
2. Keep an eye on Settings/Applications/Battery Use. See what has been using your battery. If it is something other than Display and/or standby, and or phone idle, then turn it off. e.g. Daughter used Farce-book, which downloaded some sort of chat thing. Used up the battery in 2 - 3 hours, even with everything off. Deleted the App., problem solved)
3. See rule 1.

[seacue]

Years ago a member of Management where I live noted that his Blackberry ate battery charge very rapidly. He finally discovered that it kept searching for new WiFi access points as he walked around the place. Turning off the WiFi feature greatly extended battery life.

[mad_jock]

Wombat, Nokia 101 and it has two sim slots.