My Battery Life Writeup

gqiq

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Okay you're the man but I have another quick question. How can you tell the exact percentages of your display brightness?

Sent from my DROID PRO using DroidForums App
 
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In quicksettings, there is an option for a brightness slider (also useful for toggling auto brightness), that shows % brightness.
 

chrstdvd

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I did all of this on my D2 today. Even if it does not work, it was worth it to "Disable Lock Screen". Good residence.

I surf the web a lot. The heaviest use is listening to Radio Stations. I like talk radio and it is mostly AM so these live streams are so much better than an actual radio. I listen with the speaker not the ear buds, so I will never get much more than 3 or 4 hours from a charge anyway.

I really did not like the screen going off in 15 seconds but screeble fixed that fine. I had it set to 30 min before and like one poster just turned the screen off when I put it down. Basically I still do 'cause it is habit now.

I do not not have "activities" when I long press the screen, so my data settings remain the same. I did turn "Mobile Data" off but then I could not use the net. My 3G was gone, but I do not know if the radio was actually off.

"To make a shortcut, long press your home screen, choose activities, go to Data Manager, and it's the first process." Any other way?
 
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You could try one of the apps like anycut or bettercut that let you make shortcuts to pretty much anything on your phone. It appears that is a difference between the D2 and the D2G. Also, I've discovered that quicksettings DOES turn off the 3G radio, and have switched to using the toggle in that app, if that's helpful.
 

bgrade

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Thanks for this writeup, i've had my global for 3 weeks now and with moderate usage and extended battery on a GSM network, i can now go 1 day and about 4 hours on a single charge (after breaking in the battery of course). heres what i did.

-Stock ROM
-Rooted
-Extended battery
-Bloatware removed with the bloatware removal script in this forum
-Freeze news and weather app with titanium backup
-keep screen on lowest brightness and never over 30% when im outside.
-use SMODA widget to turn off data when im not using it (in my case sometimes using the quicksettings option to turn off data, sometimes causes data to have trouble turning back on, so SMODA is the most reliable option for me)
-Use setcpu to force the CPU down to 300mhz when the screen is off and 800mhz when the CPU gets over 45*C.
-Ive set my screen timeout to 2 mins and just turn the screen off when im done using it
-I make at least 2-3 hours of phone calls per day with 190-220 texts per day.
35 minutes of web browsing per day.
-Keep things off using the power control widget and turn them on only when i need them.

And thats about it, right now my phone has been unplugged for 1 day 3 hours and 46 mins and its at 40% with only about 190 txts and 40mins of phone calls and 10mins web browsing.
 

biknut1

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Battery life, what else?

Hey there Nice Guys-

Dude, I just have to tell you- if I knew where you were right now I would get a ticket and fly there to---- kiss you on the mouth!!!!!

I read your original write up which made me start thinking. My D2G is rooted, Fission 2.4.3, bloatware frozen, screen set way dark, timeout in 1 minute. But I couldn't make it through a day of work with the stock battery, unless I just didn't use the phone.

I work in a factory, so my use time is limited to breaks- about 1/2 hour, and some talk time with the wife before work. Since we work different shifts, we chat on my way inside and at lunch, usually about 1 1/2 hours. With that talk-time and the 30 minutes of web and FB, I was lucky to get home with 20%. That was if I didn't try using it at all on the way home. I noticed this week that I would loose 10% every time I looked at the phone at break- every 2 hours. That is in airplane mode, or not changing anything. Side note: This past week I did start looking for anything that used current all the time and started deleting stuff. I deleted Google Search Bar, a clock built in to Fission, and a Battery Widget. I started seeing an improvement right away- I think it may have been the battery widget.

I have been reluctant to download a bunch of for-pay programs. Not because I am that cheap, but because I didn't want to pay for a truckload of junk and only use a couple apps. But today I downloaded your Battery Pro and SetCPU. I had no idea where to start with SetCPU, so I copied your settings as closely as I could.

Today at work I couldn't believe how much battery I had left! I talked with the wife both times today about normal amount of time, used Facebook and the web during my breaks, and I left work tonight with 50%!!! I am amazed!
After work I listened to my tunes during the 45 minute drive, and made it home with 40%. I am now sitting at the computer using the phone to tether with (for about an hour) and I still have 30% left!!

Some of the things you mentioned I was unable to do, I think because of running Fission. There are no battery options in Settings now, so I can't do anything there. I tried Screeble Lite for about 10 minutes, but didn't like it. I know- I didn't give it a fair shot. But I use the phone, then hit the off switch for a sec to darken the screen.

I plan on ordering the Gorilla Gadgets extended battery, so I can go many hours and still play all I want on the phone. I also plan on going back through some of the settings in everything and see what adjustments I can make.

But I had to say "Thank You" for your article. You have certainly pointed me in the right direction. With a little more tweaking, I think I can finally learn to live with this phone.

Thank you again- I love you Man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


biknut
 

teal94z

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hey just wanted to let u guys know what kind of battery life i get out of my phone did what the OP did except for rooting it (my phone is stock) and i use juice defender, stock battery as well. now today i didnt use it much for data but i was still texting most of the day (like 100 or so) and listening to music for about 2 hours. it was at 50 percent
 

xXFlashXx517

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First: I'm no expert. I'm just a guy who reads a lot of forums, talks to a lot of nerdy people, and likes to tinker. I can only share with you what I've read, or seen for myself.

Second: I take no responsibility for anything that happens to your phone. I didn't write any of the apps that I recommend, etc., etc.,

Third: Some of the Apps I use require you to be rooted. If you haven't done it already, you should do some reading and make the decision for yourself. It's not hard (Z4Root is a one click root, with unroot option), and has almost zero risk, especially now that RSDLite 4.9 and the SBF are available. Now don't ask me any more questions about rooting (here, anyway), as that's not what this thread is for.

Fourth: I obviously can't promise that what works for me will work for you (or anyone). Usage habits play a large role in battery life. To give you an idea, I work 8-12 hour days, 5 or 6 days a week. I use my phone as an mp3 player (with headphones) for almost the entire day straight, as well as text, email, a few voice calls, and some light web browsing during my lunch break. The majority of my usage is with the screen off, and data turned off which obviously increases my battery life. If you play games, or stream music constantly, my suggestions will only help, they won't get you battery life like mine.

Fifth: I have the Motorola BP7X extended battery. If you don't have an extended battery, you obviously won't see battery life like mine, but my instructions should help prolong yours. I still regularly see >24 hours to go from 100% to 30% or so on my stock BP6X battery.

If you want to buy an extended battery, you should know that you can't use the battery door with any case on the market right now, but if you take it off, the battery fits PERFECTLY inside, with any case that I've tried.

If you have a WHITE D2G, you need this extended battery and battery door, which is for the Droid R2D2, but the white matches perfectly. The model number is the same as the regular one, but with a W on the end, if you go to the VZW store and they don't know about it, you can tell them that and they should be able to look it up.

If you have the BLUE D2G, you need this extended battery and battery door, which is the matching blue.

Before we begin, here are some articles I think you should read:

Your battery gauge is lying to you, and it's not such a bad thing.

Android task killers explained, and why you shouldn't use them

If you use a task killer, I won't answer your questions in this thread, because I'm being very explicit when I say: Task killers are bad for your battery life, and unnecessary in Android 2.2.

Ok, first off, things you can do without downloading or installing any apps:

1. Settings -> Wireless and Networks -> Mobile Networks -> Network Mode -> CDMA if you're in the US and don't plan on going global with your phone. You can set System Select (right underneath it) to automatic, assuming you have a nationwide plan. Some say that the GSM radio is only turned on to search for a signal when there is a weak CDMA signal, but I figure why risk it?

2. Settings -> Battery Manager -> Battery Mode -> Custom Battery Saver (Click the little gear next to it to access the settings)

Set your off peak hours according to your usage. I don't often use my phone once I'm home for the night, or before I go to work, so my off peak hours start at 10PM and end at 8AM, with data set to go off after 15 minutes. During peak hours, data is set to always on (never know when I might ACTUALLY be using the GPS, or streaming music or something).

Set the display brightness to fairly low after the battery <30%. For reference, I keep my screen at 28% brightness, and have that slider down around 15%.

3. Settings -> Data Manager -> Background data
You can uncheck this, but certain apps won't work, like the market. I generally keep both Background Data and Data Enabled unchecked except for when I'm actively using data. I have a shortcut on my home screen to this screen, so that I can disable them quickly. The advantage to turning your data off this way, instead of with most apps/widgets is that it actually turns off power to the 3G radio, whereas most apps/widgets simply change the APN, which doesn't actually turn the radio off. To make a shortcut, long press your home screen, choose activities, go to Data Manager, and it's the first process. If you MUST have a widget, I've found that SMODA Widget in the market works in the proper manner.

4. Settings -> Display
Turn off auto brightness. Set your screen to the minimum you can live with. I keep mine at 28% and it's usable outside, in sunlight, 99% of the time. (That's important, because I live in Florida). When it's not, I have an app that I use to quickly bump it up, but I'll get to that later.

Go to Animation -> No animation

Screen timeout -> Again, the minimum you can live with. I have mine at 15 seconds, but I use an app to keep the screen on when the phone is in use (as detected by motion and/or the orientation of the phone.. Again, I'll cover that later)

In Pocket Detection: I don't know if it actually saves battery, but I recommend you turn this off. The forums are littered with stories of people whose phones turn the screen off when their finger gets too close to the sensor, and I found that whenever I forgot to turn the screen off and put the phone in my pocket, the phone never turned it off anyway, so what's the point?

5. Settings -> Wireless and Networks -> Wifi Settings then press your menu key (the haptic one, at the bottom of the screen) and press advanced. Set your wifi sleep policy to never. This means that when you turn wifi on, your phone will ALWAYS try to send data over wifi first, which uses less battery than 3G. HOWEVER, if you are NOT in range of a wifi network that you can connect to, this will COST you battery life, as your phone will poll for an open network more often. So if you do this, remember to turn your wifi off when you're done with it.


Ok, next: Bloatware. We all know the D2G comes with lots of Verizon crap installed that we don't want/need/use. Theoretically, this stuff shouldn't really tie up system resources, because android 2.2 should kill the stuff whenever it needs those resources. Well, the nerd in me isn't happy with that, I want that stuff gone. HOWEVER, you NEED all of the stock bloatware (Amazon, Kindle, Blockbuster, CityID, VZWNavigator, etc etc) to get any updates from Verizon. The reason for this is that the updates run as patches, so they look for the original system files, then update them. If ALL of the system files aren't there, the patch won't run (In fact, your phone won't even perform the CHECK for updates).

So your options are to root your phone, and then use a root explorer program to find all the .apk files for this bloatware and change their names from CityID.apk to CityID.bak or something like that, so that they won't run, but when you want an update, you can go back and rename them to .apk. However, this is tedious. I use an app called Titanium backup to freeze these programs. It does essentially the same thing, but with a nice gui, and the ability to do backups of your apps and/or data, as well as doing it on a schedule if you choose.

List of things I have frozen in Titanium backup:
(Note, again, I take no responsibility for any of these causing instability in your system, but this works FOR ME with no problems)

3G Mobile Hotspot 2.2
Admin Notifier 2.2
AdService 1.0
Amazon MP3 1.8.14
Android Live Wallpapers 2.2 (Obviously, you need this if you use live wallpapers)
Backup Assistant 2.2
Backup Assistant Client 1.0 (Need these if you use BA)
Blockbuster 0.9.99
Calendar 2.2
Calendar Service 2.2
Calendar Storage 2.2
Calendar Sync Adapter 2.2.1
CarDock 1.0
CityID 1.0.30
DLNA 0709.69
DLnaSystemService1.0
Email 2.2 (Note: DO NOT freeze Email Client, it will make your text messaging non-functional)
Emergency Alert 1.0.0
Global Phone Authorization...Mode Switch 2.2 (If you won't go global)
Global Unplug 1.0: (This used to kill the "unplug your charger from the outlet" message, but since the last update, it doesn't... oh well)
Help Center 2.2
Home Screen Tips 2.2
InPocket 2.2 (This never worked right for me, so screw it)
Kindle 1.0.2.80600055
Live Wallpaper Picker 2.2 (Again, if you use Live Wallpapers, don't freeze)
Magic Smoke Wallpapers 2.2
Manage Sim Card 2.2 (If you're not going global)
MediaShare 1.0.0
MediaSync 1.0.0
News 2.2
News and Weather 1.3.01
Print to Retail 1.0
Quick Office 3.3.67
SIM Contacts 2.2
SIM Toolkit 2.2
Skype Mobile 1.0.0.20
Social Networking 2.2
Social Sharing 2.2
Social Status 2.2
Sync Service 1.5.7
Toggle Widgets 2.2
Voicemail 1.1 (But holding 1 to check your voicemail still works)
VPN Client 1.0
VPN Services 2.2
VZ Navigator
Weather 2.2
Work Contacts 2.2
World Clock 1.0
Yahoo Contacts 2.2


Ok, that's bloatware gone.

Next up, Apps I have installed to help improve my battery life.

1. Battery Indicator Pro doesn't really improve my battery life, but it's a nice app to have for monitoring it. It can place another battery indicator in your notification bar, with a text readout of the battery percentage, as well as color indicators. It can also display a window with approximate usage times left (Unfortunately, the usage times are set based on user defined times, not actual predictions, but it's still cool, if you have a good baseline to plug in).

It looks like this in your notifications bar: (The battery icon changes colors to yellow and red when the battery hits levels you define)
VB7L2.png



It looks like this when you click on it:

naL9I.png


The View Battery Use button takes you to the stock battery manager for a detailed rundown of battery runtime, usage statistics, etc.

As you can see, it also has an option to disable the lockscreen, which works well, but seems like an odd additional feature haha.


2. Quicksettings is a nice, free app for one click access to toggle things like GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth (And data, but it does the APN trick, so I don't use it for that), as well as adjusting things like volume, ringer, brightness, etc, AND it's got a built in flashlight. It's on my homescreen, and I love it. For maximum battery life, I keep ALL my data (including 3G) off except when I'm actively using it. I'm not important enough to need true push email, and when I'm at work, I'm generally too dirty to want to do a lot of emailing anyway.

3. Screebl Pro is an app that monitors the orientation of your phone, and when it leaves certain, user defined ranges (different for portrait/landscape) it turns the screen off. But if the phone is being moved, or within those ranges, it will keep the screen on. This lets you set your screen timeout super low (15 seconds), without being constantly annoyed by the screen going off when you're browsing webpages, emails, etc. It also SAVES you battery life.

4. SetCPU lets you set different profiles for your processor, based on different variables (how full the battery is, if it's plugged in, WHAT it's plugged into, if it's too hot, etc). SetCPU require root access. SetCPU lets you set a profile that has a maximum and minimum processor speed while the phone meets those conditions. It follows your profiles in order of priority. Obviously, the higher the priority, the higher the precedence. So for example, mine is set to 600MHz/300MHz(max/min) when the screen is off, but 1200MHz/300MHz when it's plugged in or fully charged (>60% battery). The screen off profile has a higher priority, so even if the phone is plugged in, it will throttle to 600/300 when I turn the screen off. You can tinker with these settings yourself. The priority numbers don't matter (as far as I'm aware) so long as they're in the right order numerically. Scaling should always be ondemand (that is, the system will speed up the processor as there is a demand for more power).

My profiles, in order of priority from highest to lowest:

Temp > 42.0C 600/300 (~40C is where performance starts decreasing and the battery actually drains FASTER, but I've read that the batteries are rated SAFE up to 60C)

Charging AC/Full 1000/300 (This is to keep it from getting too hot while charging from the wall charger, which provides ~850mA vs the ~500mA that a USB charger delivers)

Charging/Full 1200/300 (This is the standard profile, when the battery is >60%, and not plugged in)

Battery <16% 600/300

Battery <31% 800/300

Battery <41% 1000/300

Remember, the system can only read the battery values in multiples of ten (down to 20%, then it can read 15%, 10%, 5%, I believe), so that's why I have the steps at 16, 31, 41.


So, what does all this do for me? Well, last night, I got my brand new BP7X in the mail (with the white battery door, I originally got the blue one, cuz I'm a tard), I plugged it in until it was 100% and I pulled it off. I haven't used it a whole lot, so this isn't NORMAL or anything, but here's how it looked this morning before I ran off to work:

iY3oO.png


Here it was at 2:30

9B4YI.png


I'm currently at 17h 29m 48s since unplugged, and at 90% battery.

I don't have many more screen caps, but here's one from the other day, when I was using my stock BP6X battery, while waiting on my new BP7X to come in the mail:

s9rBX.png



I think that just about covers it, for now. As I think of things, I'll edit this post. Feel free to add your input, I'll edit good things into the original post, and when we feel like this is pretty comprehensive, maybe we can get a mod to sticky it?

I kinda have SetCPU the same way, I have a D2 but the only thing is because I overclocked my phone to 1.2ghz SetCPU only allows me to go from 300, 600, 800 then 1200... it skips 1000 for some reason.
Charging: 1200max/ 300min
Battery < 41% 800max/ 300min
Battery <16% 600max/ 300min
Charging USB: 800max/ 300min
Temperature > 42* C 600max/ 300mn
Screen Off: 300max/ 300min
 

volsfan1965

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just a quick question I followed all the apps u said to freeze and it really messed up my contacts I had to restore to fix it I dont know which one did it but I wish I knew so I could freeze them all
 

joeyx2

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Go to defrost and see if u checked an extra one by mistake or see if u notice on the has to do with contacts.
 

TRIKOTRET

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I am getting the extended battery you pointed today. When I get it do i plug it in and charge it until fully charged? Or do I just put it in and let it drain then fully charge it after phones powers down?
 

joeyx2

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II would let it drain all the way then charge. I've read u should also let it charge for a few hours after it says its full to be sure it is.
 

TRIKOTRET

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II would let it drain all the way then charge. I've read u should also let it charge for a few hours after it says its full to be sure it is.


By the way. My standard battery was at 70 and when I plugged in the extended it still says 70 :icon_eek:
 

joeyx2

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Mine was at 60% I think when I put it in so it sounds about right. Yes wipe! let it drain till it dies on u also.
 
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