Smart actions killing my battery?

Raydee35

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I have my smart actions set up to shut everything down when my screen shuts off and the phone isn't moving around. Lately I have noticed that my battery life is getting pretty bad so I took a trip to the Verizon store to see what I could do. The tech guy there looked at my phone and then told me to remove all my smart actions because every time the phone screen comes back on the phone has to reconnect to the network it will use more battery. He said it would be better on the battery to leave 3g or 4g on all the time. Does that sound right?? I will say that so far it seems to be working better.

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SANhacker

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I shut down cellular data when I am within range of a known Wi-Fi network. 90+ % of the time I am within a known network.
I also change ringer volume depending on the network I am using. Smart Actions are working great for me.
 

FoxKat

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I have my smart actions set up to shut everything down when my screen shuts off and the phone isn't moving around. Lately I have noticed that my battery life is getting pretty bad so I took a trip to the Verizon store to see what I could do. The tech guy there looked at my phone and then told me to remove all my smart actions because every time the phone screen comes back on the phone has to reconnect to the network it will use more battery. He said it would be better on the battery to leave 3g or 4g on all the time. Does that sound right?? I will say that so far it seems to be working better.

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The issue is that in the process of authenticating to the network, it goes through at least three iterations...
  • First the phone tries to connect via the minimal cellular connection (X1)
  • Then the phone attempts to connect to 3G and authenticate for data
  • Finally it attempts to authenticate for 4G Data
Those processes are far more taxing on the phone's battery than the simple pinging it does to a network that it's already authenticated on. Now, if your 4G is strong in your area it won't tax all that much more than the 3G, but if the range is farther away it will eat up a lot even during the simple pinging, so in that case, I'd shut down 4G, especially since you are in a WIFI network.
 

LoneWolfArcher

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The issue is that in the process of authenticating to the network, it goes through at least three iterations...
  • First the phone tries to connect via the minimal cellular connection (X1)
  • Then the phone attempts to connect to 3G and authenticate for data
  • Finally it attempts to authenticate for 4G Data
Those processes are far more taxing on the phone's battery than the simple pinging it does to a network that it's already authenticated on. Now, if your 4G is strong in your area it won't tax all that much more than the 3G, but if the range is farther away it will eat up a lot even during the simple pinging, so in that case, I'd shut down 4G, especially since you are in a WIFI network.

Kind of like fluorescent lights. They use more energy turning on than just running. (we won't get into the crappy light they provide!)

Going to disable that smart action. Thanks.
 

Robotics

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Personally I haven't seen any change in using smart actions, and indeed has used more battery no matter what configuration I choose to use. I have been messing with this option for 7 weeks, and I have given up. Myth busted!
I don't use it at all any more. The phone does quite well without using this "smart" feature. Actually it does very well without this feature.
 
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Raydee35

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Well it does seem to be true, I have had the smart actions turned off for a few days now and my battery has been much better. Right now my phone has been off the charger for about 12 hours and I am still at 80%. With the smart actions on I had to recharge my phone after about 10 hours but now I can easily go a full day without a recharge. I will say that at home I only use wifi and when i am away from home I use 3g instead of 4g most of the time.

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