Battery Saving Tips

[tothenet]

I own D2G for about a month now and pretty much finished all the setup.

I was initially disappointed by poor battery time but not completely since my first Droid1 also had poor battery life in the beginning.

I tried several method and now run time improved quite a bit. So, I am trying to share my method and see other folks have better idea.

1. I changed to extended battery. I ordered from Verizon. $37 with corporate discount. Door included. This seems to improve 30% as spec states.

2. Changed Network mode to CDMA only. I don't know how much it improves but I heard from my friend who work for Modem chip that mode switching consumes quite a bit between CDMA and GSM/WCDMA. CDMA only mode searches CDMA signal when reception is poor. Global mode searches everything when reception is poor. If you are in downtown with good reception, this might not help.

3. Use only Push email. I have company email and gmail. Both support push so phone doesn't need to wake up every 15 min to check email. I have Yahoo account as well but I use google to download email from Yahoo. So, Google checks yahoo every 15 min and deliver to my phone when there's email.

4. I purchased Jrummy's overclock app. This is not to overclock my phone. This is to use ULV kernel. And also, I created profile to reduce clock to 300MHz when screen is off.

5. I use Timeriff to auto adjust phone settings. At home, I use wifi. when I drive to work, I created profile to turn on bluetooth, turn on auto brightness and turn off wifi. About the time to arrive at work, Timeriff turn off bluetooth and reduce brightness to minimum. While I sleep, it also turns off wifi as well.

6. Turn off auto update for twitter and facebook. I update manually. This also helps to reduce idle power consumption.

Any suggestions?

 

[sjwoodard]

I get about 2 days battery life and 1 to 1.5 hour recharge time with the following setup:

1) Extended battery
2) Reduce screen brightness to near zero (also changed in battery settings)
3) SetCPU to underclock 800mhz
4) JuiceDefend to auto-manage usage
5) Titanium Backup to freeze unneeded apps
6) Use ADW Ex Launcher and remove most visual enhancements
7) Running Fission 2.4.3
8) Use WiFi/GPS widget to keep usage minimal
9) Always charge with the phone off (don't know if this helps; it's just a personal habit)

That's all I can think of. Hope this helps.

 

[hookbill]

I saw another write up earlier tonight. It was extremely long, involved rooting the phone.....and after all was said and done he was getting the same life I get right now.

There are probably a thousand battery threads in this forum, and really it doesn't matter what phone you're talking about, they all have one thing in common: Battery life is short.

I don't recommend the extended battery, but I do recommend an additional battery. You can get one on Amazon for just 8.00. I recommend that you use a charging cradle if you sit at a desk during the day. I also recommend you pick up a wall charger off of ebay for 5.00.

If you have a back up battery you should be able to enjoy your Droid without having to do anything. 6 steps to me is 5 steps too many. You shouldn't have to think about what situation you're in and have to adjust your phone for better battery life.

The one thing I do and I really don't do it for battery purposes is use the wifi when I'm home. That's about it.

I'm not knocking the OP, his recommendations seem to be sound so by all means if you don't want 2 batteries give it a try. I just think it's too much to do.

 

[sjwoodard]

I have to say the extended battery was an absolute necessity for me. Also, I prefer to charge all of my battery-powered devices as little as possible. Most of the time I wait until they are < 10%.

 

[xXFlashXx517]

I own D2G for about a month now and pretty much finished all the setup.

I was initially disappointed by poor battery time but not completely since my first Droid1 also had poor battery life in the beginning.

I tried several method and now run time improved quite a bit. So, I am trying to share my method and see other folks have better idea.

1. I changed to extended battery. I ordered from Verizon. $37 with corporate discount. Door included. This seems to improve 30% as spec states.

2. Changed Network mode to CDMA only. I don't know how much it improves but I heard from my friend who work for Modem chip that mode switching consumes quite a bit between CDMA and GSM/WCDMA. CDMA only mode searches CDMA signal when reception is poor. Global mode searches everything when reception is poor. If you are in downtown with good reception, this might not help.

3. Use only Push email. I have company email and gmail. Both support push so phone doesn't need to wake up every 15 min to check email. I have Yahoo account as well but I use google to download email from Yahoo. So, Google checks yahoo every 15 min and deliver to my phone when there's email.

4. I purchased Jrummy's overclock app. This is not to overclock my phone. This is to use ULV kernel. And also, I created profile to reduce clock to 300MHz when screen is off.

5. I use Timeriff to auto adjust phone settings. At home, I use wifi. when I drive to work, I created profile to turn on bluetooth, turn on auto brightness and turn off wifi. About the time to arrive at work, Timeriff turn off bluetooth and reduce brightness to minimum. While I sleep, it also turns off wifi as well.

6. Turn off auto update for twitter and facebook. I update manually. This also helps to reduce idle power consumption.

Any suggestions?

Just a few questions... currently running Squidly .2 and my battery life easily lasts from 12-16 hours now.
Im new to the android system... first smart phone EVER.
So I have a question for each bold/ underlined step above.

2. How do i change the network to CDMA only... I have a D2 not a D2G so is this just for the D2G? If not how do I change it?

3. I have a yahoo and a gmail... how do I use push to send my yahoo mail to my gmail and what apps should I freeze using titanium to just use gmail instead of having both running at once?

5. Does using wifi enhance battery life or whats the purpose of using wifi at home? Sorry very newb question right there.

6. How do I turn off auto updater? I use facebook for my contacts so would turning off auto updater effect my contacts?

 

[douglasman100]

Just a few questions... currently running Squidly .2 and my battery life easily lasts from 12-16 hours now.
Im new to the android system... first smart phone EVER.
So I have a question for each bold/ underlined step above.

2. How do i change the network to CDMA only... I have a D2 not a D2G so is this just for the D2G? If not how do I change it?

3. I have a yahoo and a gmail... how do I use push to send my yahoo mail to my gmail and what apps should I freeze using titanium to just use gmail instead of having both running at once?

5. Does using wifi enhance battery life or whats the purpose of using wifi at home? Sorry very newb question right there.

6. How do I turn off auto updater? I use facebook for my contacts so would turning off auto updater effect my contacts?[/QUOTE]

:icon_ banana: no you should not have to worry about number 2

 

[tothenet]

Just a few questions... currently running Squidly .2 and my battery life easily lasts from 12-16 hours now.
Im new to the android system... first smart phone EVER.
So I have a question for each bold/ underlined step above.

>> 2. How do i change the network to CDMA only... I have a D2 not a D2G so is this just for the D2G? If not how do I change it?

This is just for D2G. D2 is CDMA only and more power efficient.

>> 3. I have a yahoo and a gmail... how do I use push to send my yahoo mail to my gmail and what apps should I freeze using titanium to just use gmail instead of having both running at once?

You will need to go to google page and need to add yahoo account.
Settings -> Accounts and Import -> Add Pop3 email account.

This enables google to check your Yahoo account regulary and send email to your phone when there's email.

>> 5. Does using wifi enhance battery life or whats the purpose of using wifi at home? Sorry very newb question right there.

wifi is more power efficient to transfer data. Just imagine your phone needs to send signal to base station half mile away. And phone needs to process a lot of data just to maintain channel conditions. it requires pretty huge power. wifi AP is usually within 50 feets or less and there's no channel conditioning. However, when you are using internet, turning off wifi helps battery life since phone doesn't need to interact with AP continuously.

>> 6. How do I turn off auto updater? I use facebook for my contacts so would turning off auto updater effect my contacts?

Everyapp has refresh settings. For facebook, you can change this from setting -> Refresh Interval

:icon_ banana: no you should not have to worry about number 2[/QUOTE]

 

[xXFlashXx517]

Just a few questions... currently running Squidly .2 and my battery life easily lasts from 12-16 hours now.
Im new to the android system... first smart phone EVER.
So I have a question for each bold/ underlined step above.

>> 2. How do i change the network to CDMA only... I have a D2 not a D2G so is this just for the D2G? If not how do I change it?

This is just for D2G. D2 is CDMA only and more power efficient.

>> 3. I have a yahoo and a gmail... how do I use push to send my yahoo mail to my gmail and what apps should I freeze using titanium to just use gmail instead of having both running at once?

You will need to go to google page and need to add yahoo account.
Settings -> Accounts and Import -> Add Pop3 email account.

This enables google to check your Yahoo account regulary and send email to your phone when there's email.

>> 5. Does using wifi enhance battery life or whats the purpose of using wifi at home? Sorry very newb question right there.

wifi is more power efficient to transfer data. Just imagine your phone needs to send signal to base station half mile away. And phone needs to process a lot of data just to maintain channel conditions. it requires pretty huge power. wifi AP is usually within 50 feets or less and there's no channel conditioning. However, when you are using internet, turning off wifi helps battery life since phone doesn't need to interact with AP continuously.

>> 6. How do I turn off auto updater? I use facebook for my contacts so would turning off auto updater effect my contacts?

Everyapp has refresh settings. For facebook, you can change this from setting -> Refresh Interval

:icon_ banana: no you should not have to worry about number 2

[/QUOTE]

2. Perfect I dont have to worry about that then.

3. Agh! I have to pay for the Mail Plus for Yahoo to be able to do the POP3 thing. Thanks though, think Ill just make yahoo my primary account.

5. Agh! I see... so you use wifi at home to conserve battery and your still able to browse the web atleast right? I normally turn off airplane mode and set wifi on.

6. I changed my fb interval to never and turned off notifications but they continue to pop up on my drop down menu. I normally update myself as well.

 

[NiceGuysFinishLast]

I saw another write up earlier tonight. It was extremely long, involved rooting the phone.....and after all was said and done he was getting the same life I get right now.

There are probably a thousand battery threads in this forum, and really it doesn't matter what phone you're talking about, they all have one thing in common: Battery life is short.

I don't recommend the extended battery, but I do recommend an additional battery. You can get one on Amazon for just 8.00. I recommend that you use a charging cradle if you sit at a desk during the day. I also recommend you pick up a wall charger off of ebay for 5.00.

If you have a back up battery you should be able to enjoy your Droid without having to do anything. 6 steps to me is 5 steps too many. You shouldn't have to think about what situation you're in and have to adjust your phone for better battery life.

The one thing I do and I really don't do it for battery purposes is use the wifi when I'm home. That's about it.

I'm not knocking the OP, his recommendations seem to be sound so by all means if you don't want 2 batteries give it a try. I just think it's too much to do.

For the record, it was extremely long because I was ASKED to do a full writeup, and only one of the apps I listed require root. I also highly doubt that you get a full 48 hours out of your phone.

I honestly don't see why you'd rather swap out a battery twice a day than have one extended battery that never needs to come out. Maybe it's just because I have a case, but I'd hate to remove my case, remove my battery door, swap batteries, replace the battery door, and replace the case twice a day. Granted, the upside to having two batteries is that the BP6X is available on amazon for like $5, versus the $50 you have to pay VZW for a BP7X with battery door.


Edited to add: Hookbill, you have a D2.... Battery life for the D2 vs the D2G is apples and oranges. You may actually see 48 hours, I was wrong there... But find me ANY other D2G user who can pull 48 hours, even on mostly standby. (For the record, I'm at 49hrs 20 mins, and I played an hour or two of games today, as well as making more voice calls and texts).

 

[tothenet]

I saw another write up earlier tonight. It was extremely long, involved rooting the phone.....and after all was said and done he was getting the same life I get right now.

There are probably a thousand battery threads in this forum, and really it doesn't matter what phone you're talking about, they all have one thing in common: Battery life is short.

I don't recommend the extended battery, but I do recommend an additional battery. You can get one on Amazon for just 8.00. I recommend that you use a charging cradle if you sit at a desk during the day. I also recommend you pick up a wall charger off of ebay for 5.00.

If you have a back up battery you should be able to enjoy your Droid without having to do anything. 6 steps to me is 5 steps too many. You shouldn't have to think about what situation you're in and have to adjust your phone for better battery life.

The one thing I do and I really don't do it for battery purposes is use the wifi when I'm home. That's about it.

I'm not knocking the OP, his recommendations seem to be sound so by all means if you don't want 2 batteries give it a try. I just think it's too much to do.

I missed another thread on battery saving so I started mine just to share some ideas. D2G is great phone and very useful for the guys like me traveling oversea time to time. It's my most important companion to trip.

I was considering to return my phone since battery life was horrible but now it's running reasonably long hours with single charge. If single charge can last up to 24 hr, battery swap is not really necessary.

Talking about Amazon battery, it's very hard to find decent OEM battery from Amazon. From my experience with Droid1, it took 10 hr to drain 20% in standby but another 1 hr to drain another 65% meaning compatible batteries usually fake indicator. I decided to go with only Genuine battery after that.

Now I am getting 2 days use with single charge if I am use infrequently. Standby time is not big concern anymore since it takes around 6~7 hr to drain 10%. Even simple feature phone I used before didn't last more than 3 days so, I think D2G battery life is quite decent. Maybe it could be better if there's better idea.