Eris Battery

[Grimster]

I think the issue is with the battery gauge here. The last 15% (red gauge) of my battery lasts abnormally long.

We need to run two experiments here. It will be required to have your new battery correctly cycled a few time to get it to full capacity. After cycling it a few times full charge it overnight.

1. Call someone and have them connected via voice, time how long till the battery goes dead. Or just start calling people and talking to them non-stop till the battery goes dead. Report talk-time to this thread.

2. Fully charge the battery, DONT call anyone or use your phone to test standby time. Obviously this will kind of suck since you wont be able to use you phone for long time but it will be interesting to test standby times.

 

[DroidEric]

I agree with Grimster. It has something to do with the linux kernel versus battery temperature. That's how the battery gauge works. When we ported android to our HTC Vogues on XDA-Developers, that was always an issue with all releases of the OS. Even though every Eris is the same, not all batteries are created equal. The software is made to recognize 1300, but maybe the battery temperature fluctuates, and gives an inaccurate reading.

 

[lperdue]

Grimster, this is my primary phone for business, so the standby test I could not do. I do think I could just connect to the home phone and see what happens.

OTOH, those are both hassles that I have never had to deal with through two Blackberries of my own and with two other BBs and an iPhone currently in the household.

Something isn't right. I like the phone very much, so I'm pulling for the firmware upgrade ... or a better battery ... or a lousy battery meter (is there a different app for that?)

 

[fking29]

I totally agree. I have GPS, wifi and bluetooth off. My phone has been off the charger for 2 hrs and the battery is at 84%. There's no way it would make it to 373 hrs....lucky if it made it to 48 hrs.

 

[Grimster]

I think there is some confusion here. You have to have ALL wireless setting off. Even mobile network connection. Yes you can still send and receive calls if mobile network connection is off.

 

[Androidatic]

Hello everyone, first post here.

My lack of battery life issues brought me here.

After readying this thread, I have turned off everything except text notifications so I hope to get a full day out of a charge. It's a little frustrating to have a phone with all of these great features yet have to limit/restrict their use.

I have been waiting for the phone to fully discharge before charging. How long should I do this to properly condition the battery for maximum capacity? Once it has been properly conditioned how often should I allow it to drain fully before charging. I am trying to do the right thing from the beginning so that I don't screw up the battery.

Any advise or info would be appreciated.

 

[droidnut]

Hello everyone, first post here.

My lack of battery life issues brought me here.

After readying this thread, I have turned off everything except text notifications so I hope to get a full day out of a charge. It's a little frustrating to have a phone with all of these great features yet have to limit/restrict their use.

I have been waiting for the phone to fully discharge before charging. How long should I do this to properly condition the battery for maximum capacity? Once it has been properly conditioned how often should I allow it to drain fully before charging. I am trying to do the right thing from the beginning so that I don't screw up the battery.

Any advise or info would be appreciated.

Hello, Androidatic. This is my first post as well but my wife has the Eris and has great battery life that has been building up since she got it. First few days, she was getting about 10 or so hrs per charge w average use(5-10 calls and some surfin and texting). She let her battery die b4 charging. It gradually went to 15-18 hrs w same usage in a few days. As of today, she's at 30 hrs as we speak w 5% left.
She has wifi off and gps off but all else is normal settings. The key is to let your phone die b4 charging and to not overcharge. That was her experience, anyways.
Hope that helped.

 

[Hoto]

I'm not having any major problems with the battery life on my Eris. For instance yesterday I took it off the charger at 6:30 am. I made about 2 hours of phone calls during the day. Always had EITHER WiFi or network turned on. Read an ebook for about 2 hours, surfed some, downloaded a few apps, played a bit of solitaire - a basic day for me. When I plugged the phone back into it's charger at 10pm it was showing 15% battery life. Mind you also have an app killer program installed, and I'm pretty good about killing apps when I'm done using them. I'm not sure how much battery Solitaire really uses sitting the in background, but I kill it anyway.
My wife switched from a Razor cell phone to an Eris. She's actually getting much better battery life on her Eris than on the Razor. Generally she'd get just barely a day out of her Razor, and is getting two or three days out of the Eris (she doesn't surf the way I do). The main difference between the two is the lack of cell reception in her office. The razor would kill itself trying to find a cell signal. The Eris either has a signal, or is smart enough to quit trying after a while. I'm not sure which it is, but in any case it's a better fit for her.

 

[Grimster]

My battery lasts about 6 days....turn off your wireless connections when not needed INCLUDING "Mobile Network"

You dont need "mobile network" enabled to send or receive calls or txt msgs and other features. You are KILLING your battery when you have the cell radio powered on for no reason...

Yes my battery lasts 6 days....

 

[uujim]

I used my Eris to call my wife's plugged-in phone and left the connection open until the Eris battery was completely drained. It went for 250 minutes. And that was with the "Enable always-on mobile" checked ON, but wi-fi, GPS, and Bluetooth turned OFF.

 

[GLuis]

A great general info article on Lith-ion batteries and their care/usage. It does cite laptops, but cellphone would apply, too.
How to prolong lithium-based batteries

I think item 1 from below applies after you have conditioned your battery. From the article:
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Simple Guidelines
[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Avoid frequent full discharges because this puts additional strain on the battery. Several partial discharges with frequent recharges are better for lithium-ion than one deep one. Recharging a partially charged lithium-ion does not cause harm because there is no memory. (In this respect, lithium-ion differs from nickel-based batteries.) Short battery life in a laptop is mainly cause by heat rather than charge / discharge patterns.

Batteries with fuel gauge (laptops) should be calibrated by applying a deliberate full discharge once every 30 charges. Running the pack down in the equipment does this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate and in some cases cut off the device prematurely.

Keep the lithium-ion battery cool. Avoid a hot car. For prolonged storage, keep the battery at a 40% charge level.

Consider removing the battery from a laptop when running on fixed power. (Some laptop manufacturers are concerned about dust and moisture accumulating inside the battery casing.)

Avoid purchasing spare lithium-ion batteries for later use. Observe manufacturing dates. Do not buy old stock, even if sold at clearance prices.

If you have a spare lithium-ion battery, use one to the fullest and keep the other cool by placing it in the refrigerator. Do not freeze the battery. For best results, store the battery at 40% state-of-charge.
[/FONT]

 

[ryanc2]

After changing my brightness setting to around 11%, my battery life has improved dramatically.

Today, I took off the charger at 8:30 am. I have BT and GPS off, WIFI on, Push HTC mail and Google on, manual updates for weather, facebook, etc. No task killer installed at all. Set to sleep immediately when done.

I have read emails, surfed the web a bit, and taken a few short calls. At 3:07, my battery has dropped 2 bars.

 

[damian015]

Here is what I dont understand....We are buying smart phones that come loaded with useful and power features...WIFI, Bluethooth, G3 Speeds, Calendars, Facebook apps, Twitter apps and so forth. Then we are obligated to....just turn them all off so that we can use a day's worth of usage(get what we can out of our phones). Is there anything wrong with that picture???? It gets me a little upset when I read these forums and see users making ridiculous changes to the way they use their equipment just so the can squeeze two more hours out of their battery when they shouldnt have to. Crazy!!! Battery is poor and it needs to be corrected period. Verizon/HTC needs to be all over this and correct this problem. I have been using smart phones for a very long time and I have never seen this kind of performances. Hopefully an update will correct these issues...if they are software related.

BTW this probably has been mention here before but Seidio.com will be releasing a battery with better MAH that hopefully will make all of our life's easier and allowed us to use our smart phones as...yeah you guest it smart phones.

 

[Doheny]

Here's some options if you need inexpensive chargers: Amazon.com: GTMax Rapid Car Charger + Home Travel Charger + Sync Tranfer USB Data Cable for Verizon HTC Droid Eris CDMA Cell Phone: Cell Phones & Service


Also, would you guys trust this (as well as the stuff in the above link?): EMERGENCY AA BATTERY CHARGER FOR VERIZON HTC DROID ERIS - eBay (item 280425110687 end time Dec-17-09 06:28:55 PST)

 

[steelydan]

Good explanation Gluis.... right on time.