Some Thoughts, Suggestions, and Ideas About Razr/Maxx Battery Life Issues

YellowJacket

Active Member
Joined
Mar 1, 2012
Messages
589
Reaction score
35
Location
Knoxville, TN
I decided to post this here rather than the battery discussions because it seems like most people still post here about their battery problems.

I have given a lot of thought to this subject and have some theories based on what I have read and from some personal experience as well. Our devices are “connected” devices and for them to perform optimally, they must remain connected.
A lot of apps that we use will also use whatever network access they need in order to function properly. In addition, lots of free apps rely on location services and network access to push appropriate advertising. Read the privacy notices when you install them and you will be surprised at what you see.

Location services use both the cellular signal and WiFi in addition to the built in GPS. If you are in a building, GPS is much less likely to pinpoint your location so it will rely more on the cell signal and WiFi if available. With a weak cell signal then WiFi is its only remaining option. Given that, with the phone in its cleanest state without any apps installed and all of those services turned off, it will most likely behave and perform well on battery. However, poorly written apps, or apps that the devs want to gain access to that data stream or location could possibly override those settings and try to connect. The more apps that you have trying to do that, the more wake states you will have and battery life will decline.
I am not saying it is the problem but it could likely be related to it.

Some other things to consider…and this is based on my personal experience. First, I used to use the google email widget. Not the app, I still use that, but I had the widget on my home screen so I could see all my messages without opening the app up every time. It was a battery killer. With it running, I would barely hit a full day on battery on my Maxx and it would kill the battery quickly on my Xoom as well. I stopped using the widget on my Maxx first and battery life got much better. After a couple days, I decided to quit using it on my Xoom with the same results. I waited a couple weeks and reinstalled the widget on my Maxx and battery life dropped again. So, I no longer use it.

Other apps such as weather widgets, update quite regularly and also use location services, both of which consume battery rapidly. Pick a fixed location and turn location based weather off, then set your update frequency to 12 hours and it will make a huge difference.
Facebook not only uses a lot of RAM (mine is at 54mb right now) but it is constantly updating your feeds. Set the frequency to 12 hours or manually check your feeds and it will make a difference.

Cloud syncing programs such as DropBox, Box, Google+, Sky Drive, Backup Assistant, photobucket, Instagram, and many others are always doing things in the background. I recently had a problem with sudden drains in battery and very slow internet connections at home. As it turns out, I had DropBox, PhotoBucket, and Google+ both set to upload my pictures over WiFi. I had just come back from vacation and had taken dozens of photos with my phone as well as a few videos of my grandson. My first warning came when I got an email from my DropBox telling me that I had reached my limit. I initially tracked the problem down to DropBox and turned of auto upload but was still having some problems. Then I remembered I also use photobucket and google+ which were both uploading as well. Photobucket behaved well and quit uploading when I turned it off but google+ continued to try to upload 9Gb video even after I turned autoupload off. I ended up completely logging out of g+ and the problem was solved.
Some other things to consider are brightness settings and vibrate. IMHO, brightness is the single most battery hungry problem for our phones. I have mine set to “auto” and “save battery” and that seems to help but I have found that I can go as low as 30% brightness and still have a comfortable level for viewing.

Vibrate… IMHO, it take a lot of juice to push that little motor that makes our phones shake while they are in our pockets. The more calls you get, the more juice it uses to do its job.

Settling in… There is no hard facts on this but in my previous experience with smart phones, it seems like it takes a while for things to settle down a bit and for battery life to improve following a major OS update or FDR. Things such as the battery meter circuitry having to recalibrate and the OS cataloging all the files have been discussed in the past.

So, if you are going to do a FDR (Factory Data Reset) to try to solve your problems, try to stay as stock as you can for the first few days. Don’t install all of your apps at once and be careful about what you install. If you are installing from a previous backup, you may be bringing along some bad baggage that will end up on your phone again and lead to the same old problems again.

After waiting a few days, install the apps you absolutely need the most, then give it a few more days to see how things run. Next, install the apps you use regularly but are not your must haves…but you can live without them if need be. See how things run. All is well, move on to the next step and install the apps you use every once in a while. Problems? Go back a few steps and remove some of the apps to see what happens.

Also check out the smartphone battery discussions here on the forums. There are some very good discussions there, particularly the ones by FoxKat and his battery saving techniques affectionately called ‘round these parts “FoxKatting”.

Hope this helps…

David
 

Redsnk95

Member
Joined
Aug 24, 2012
Messages
514
Reaction score
14
Location
Houston, TX
Good thoughts. I am going to remove most of my widgets (Google Now, Keep, GSAM battery, Pandora, Play Music, Toolbox) and I have removed my extra screens. I have one screen and two widgets (One More Clock & Eye on the Sky) running on it. Will try this for a week to see how the battery life does.
 
Top