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I just picked up a spare battery and was curious to hear some opinions on what would affect the battstats the most.
Would the stats and battery drain be less accurate if I were to bump charge multiple times a day, or if I swapped out batteries when needed?
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
What my girlfriend and I have noticed is at the beginning multi battery straight swaps aren't that bad. Over time though the stats get bad and charge life BLOWS GOATS. Also on another note I purchased an extended battery 3600mAh and that thing sucked horse malarkey! To get it to fully charge we had to use an external charger. when u put it on the phone it rocked at 100% for about 30 minutes then dropped to like 15%, then 5%, then sat at 1% for 16-48 hours straight depending how it was charged. The ongoing low battery notification was just too annoying so we tossed it.
Overall a single battery is your best bet but a secondary battery will get you by in a pinch. That's how her an I both roll now and seem to get much better battery life with a single battery.
sent from muh googlabox
Sorry to ask a probably popular question but search on the XDA app is very meh.
Phone idle will always be the top battery killer for the average user. That's just because the phone is isle more than awake most of the time.
You can get an app like setcpu and have a custom profile to underclock your cpu while you're not using your phone though
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App
tight686 said:
Sorry to ask a probably popular question but search on the XDA app is very meh.
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What do you call murdering?
Is your battery dead in 2 hours, or do you see idle as the top user after 12 hours with 70% left?
Why don't you charge the phone while on. When 100%I turn it off. (Don't unplug power in this whole process ) then pull battery. In a couple seconds you will see a battery with a ? In it. Then place the battery back in. It should say 5%. Let it sit for 3-4 hours. Boot to recovery and while battery status. If no recovery, boot to os and wipe battery status. Then phone idle ( the phone only shows "phone idle" to give you will a total of 100% since before your battery once had about 60% of normal battery life. Now that you have alot Battery, phone idle is a much smaller % than you had before.
Not murdering but in a 2hr space 50+% of my battery is eaten up due to Phone Idle.
I'll try that fully charge trick tomorrow. Thanks.
tight686 said:
Not murdering but in a 2hr space 50+% of my battery is eaten up due to Phone Idle.
I'll try that fully charge trick tomorrow. Thanks.
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Before I did that I had ..... 4 hour talk time max. Now im 6+hrs. You'll see. Thank me later
Put your battery in the witness protection program. But seriously if in 2 hours ~50% is gone, I don't think its phone idle. Also something to consider is terrible reception eats battery. And 4g even though its not true 4g those higher speeds come at a cost. I think you can guess what the cost is.
I voided my warranty.
pukemon said:
Put your battery in the witness protection program. But seriously if in 2 hours ~50% is gone, I don't think its phone idle. Also something to consider is terrible reception eats battery. And 4g even though its not true 4g those higher speeds come at a cost. I think you can guess what the cost is.
I voided my warranty.
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Even if I heavy grind on the phone until its dead.. it will not have a whole lot of battery left, nor will idle consume so much of his battery. So he needs to try the basics of battery maintenance first.
Sorry guys I described that horribly.
I mean of OVERALL drain 50% is Phone Idle. Not 50% battery life.
tight686 said:
Sorry guys I described that horribly.
I mean of OVERALL drain 50% is Phone Idle. Not 50% battery life.
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well now that you describe it like that, use the search and read up on the many threads about phone idle. peeps can't seem to wrap their head around it. and read up on display time too.
Phone Idle should be the remainder of everything else draining your battery, basically the minimum power draw. If you add everything up you should end up with about 100%. I say "about" because android rounds the numbers up/down to whole numbers.
If your phone idle is at 50% you're doing bugger-all with your phone. So long as your actual battery life is normal then there's nothing wrong. If your battery life sucks, then possibly your battery is dead/dying or something like the minimum CPU frequency is set higher than normal causing a constantly higher power drain.
Well as long as he followed the steps. Phone idle will not take such a high % of battery usage on the battery manager. If he talked on the phone for an hour and did pandora for an hour. You would see idle would take a small % vs the talk time and pandora streaming combined/separate.
Had a bender last night and just found my phone with 40% battery life. When I checked the battery usage graph it says it's been on battery for 17 hours, wow. This phone is awesome.
But, do I need to drain the battery to zero now and then or anything else to keep my battery in good health?
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
i dont think lithium ion really needs to be fully drained. i know that, u should never keep it drained for long periods of time because that will kill the battery. the phone has to go through a few charge cycles to get used to things. it adjusts certain settings on its own.
The way I usually fly mine is to charge it to 100% and once it hits 15% I charge. And that has done really good for me not destroying my battery. But I guess it's different for everyone.
Rechargable batteries these days generally have a lifespan beyond the length of time you'll actually use your phone. For purposes of longer charges, it does help to charge, reset stats, drain, then charge and reset stats again, although the phone will sort of self-calibrate over the course of a couple weeks. If you're worried about lifespan of the battery, you shouldn't have to replace it before you're ready for an upgrade unless the battery itself has a defect.
One of the worst things you can do to a lithium battery is discharge it completely. They don't suffer from "memory" yet every time someone here in the forums complains that they are getting crappy battery life the instruction to discharge and recharge to 100% before clearing stats pops up.
For those who are interested here is an article that explains in detail.
batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
My main question- Is there some function in android that looks at the maximum depth of discharge level of the battery or is it that most people don't understand the characteristics of L-ion and confuse them with those of Ni-Mh or Ni-Cad?
I want to know because if I need to completely discharge to get better perfomance, despite the reduction in charge cycle lifetime, I will do it but only infrequently.
I've only let my battery discharge completely once, and it wasn't on purpose. From the posts I see here I think I get above average battery life. About 18 hours miui before I go for the charger and on 2.2 roms I'd get 20 hours and still have 40% or so to go. So no I don't think completely discharging your battery does anything for battery life.
Sent from my T959 using XDA App
I have never run mine down completely. Gotten it to about 6% but that was because I was fighting ROM flashing problems. I usually call 25-30% enough for me and plug in then. I am also getting 30 hours out of my 2.2 with a good deal of use. I used to have a Motorola and their batteries are total crap. If you EVER let it get down below 10%, it took some real work for it to charge correctly and boot up. Even as much as a hardware mod where I have had to cut the wires on a USB charge cord and charge it rigged up with the wires pressed against the battery and prongs in the phone. Very dangerous, but worked for a last resort.
Discharging the battery is not for the sake of the battery,but more so for the ROMs data and how it acquires the battstats usage. I only run it up and down and clear stats when flashing a new ROM, but I do use my phone moderate to heavy daily and have had great success in battery life the way I calibrate it.
The solution I think is to use a larger capacity battery and regulate it to narrower window of operation never fully charging or discharging.
The fastest killer though seems to be heat.
I have read several times that your phone does not fully discharge the battery...that there is still a minimal amount of charge,not enough for the phone to opperate but enough to not damage the battery when it shuts down
Maybe the batterystats file can be saved after being calibrated once and then restored after every wipe oor flash.. that would save some time aabd according to you guys, batt life too
Sent from a cell tower to the XDA server to you.
I've only ever calibrated my a few times and only after flashing a new rom. I never run my battery down after resetting the stats. I just use my phone as I normally do. My understanding of calibration is that it's not about squeezing more life out of the battery despite what most people think but of getting a more accurate measurement of the battery's actual charge. Also while it's true that the phone will shut of before the battery is completely discharged damaging the battery, allowing the battery charge to drop that low shortens your battery's life and decreases the amount of charge your battery can hold.
What gets me is I also read somewhere that for optimum battery life you should keep your battery level somewhere between 70%-40%. Of course that doesn't stop me from charging my phone to 100% everyday. I don't remember where I found that article but I'll post a link if I can find it again.
The reason this bad advice about completely discharging your battery persists is probably the same reason people keep recommending automatic task killers.
batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
ok, ok ill volunter, ill watch porn till my battery"discharges" At least my log will be interesting
radiohd said:
One of the worst things you can do to a lithium battery is discharge it completely. They don't suffer from "memory" yet every time someone here in the forums complains that they are getting crappy battery life the instruction to discharge and recharge to 100% before clearing stats pops up.
For those who are interested here is an article that explains in detail.
batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
My main question- Is there some function in android that looks at the maximum depth of discharge level of the battery or is it that most people don't understand the characteristics of L-ion and confuse them with those of Ni-Mh or Ni-Cad?
I want to know because if I need to completely discharge to get better perfomance, despite the reduction in charge cycle lifetime, I will do it but only infrequently.
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Click to collapse
Discharging the Battery & Running the Battery Dead is 2 Different things!
We recommend running the battery dead ( Phone Shuts Off ) & recharging while off to train the Android OS from Full > Empty..
Running the Phone until Dead is not Going to hurt the Battery in anyways shape or form despite what you may think or read!
The Reason is, the battery is never fully Discharge & still holds Voltage.. The Calculations of Charged / Dead is at the Kernel Level, so even when dead it still has a 3.4v still or roughly..
As long as the kernel isn't tampered with, discharging the battery via the Phone will never hurt the battery period!
Now, Based on the link you posted you would have to run the battery down past the safe discharge point.. Via some other means of killing the battery, other than using the Phone.
To help ease your mind, Remember this:
~ Charge levels is controlled by the kernel
~ Even when Phone powers off, there is still plenty of charge in the Phone's Battery
~ Battery is never Fully charged, as this also hurts lithium batteries
Roughly every Android kernel does not let lithium battery get below 3.4v and at most 96% charged.
Hope this helps,
~Eugene
If you are still concerned wait until your phone turns off and stick your battery on a meter. You will see there is still power left in it...
My original battery that came with the phone got great life, then couple of months later it was discharging in like 2-4 hrs(froyo), so I called, they sent another one free...5-6 months later that one started doing it as well, so I pulled out the old one from the drawer, it powered on at like 85% ! and I was getting crazy ass life out of it on miui over 30 hrs one time...now that one is acting up again, so I'm going to try to swap again..lol...maybe there's something to not using them for a while...
I've used diff roms and combinations of draining/recharging...calibrating, not calibrating...it's always different results..honestly I don't think there's any rhyme or reason to it other than the fact that many vibrants have diff hardware and there will always be some weird quirk on a per user basis...
As far as hurting it by draining it all the way, I hardly think that's the case seeing as with both batteries I've always let it run down...not on purpose but there has been many many times I've plugged in at 1% or had to power back on because it died...charged it up and got 20-30hrs no prob..usually issues come up when flashing a new rom...
i think it all comes down to luck of the draw. ive had my vibrant since launch day, and i still manage great battery life. my battery is actually stamped 7-02-2010. every 2 weeks or so ill drain the battery completely, turn it back on and allow itself to die again, and finally allow it to fully charge overnight or 4 hours. i usually get a good 7-8 hours of constant use on cm7, or over 24hours if let on standby.
im still debating if i want to grab an epic 4g touch battery as well to increase it even more.
qpinto said:
im still debating if i want to grab an epic 4g touch battery as well to increase it even more.
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what's this about?
Epic 4g batteries are 1800 and fit in our vibes.
Dr.Stainedglove said:
what's this about?
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http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1262035
in there they tested in a store since the epic 4g touch battery fit into a regular epic 4g, if it would fit into a vibrant. only thing is you have to put the battery in facing inside, and it fits and works 100%
Yeah the Epic 4G batteries fit in our Vibrant's. You can buy knock-off one's (that work well) for 19.99$ US! Here's a thread about it...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1316492
Epic touch battery for the win. I've been rocking it for a few weeks. I was on miui and getting 14-16hrs. I recently went back to froyo and yesterday I got 12hrs off of a 67% charge.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using xda premium
dont know if people have seen this article but i thought it was pretty interesting about the battery stats file not actually needing to be deleted...
http://www.androidcentral.com/wiping-battery-stats-doesnt-improve-battery-life-says-google-engineer
jonen said:
dont know if people have seen this article but i thought it was pretty interesting about the battery stats file not actually needing to be deleted...
http://www.androidcentral.com/wiping-battery-stats-doesnt-improve-battery-life-says-google-engineer
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Lol one of the biggest flukes in our forum haha.. people will harm their battery to calibrate it and it doesn't even do anything ...
Thank god I only calibrated once
sent from the xda app on my android smartphone.
My wifes x2 display is using 59% battery. Weve changed the timeout to 30s and brightness down really low. But her. Battery still dies very fast. Its only 2 months old. We ha e disabled bt wifi and gps. Any other tips?
One other question. When her phone dies she cannot plug it in and turn it on or it gets stuck on the motorola logo. Qe have to wait till droid boot animation to plug it in. Any ideas?
Sent from my DROID4 using xda premium
If you plug it in from off do you see the charging screen? Try plugging it in and holding the power button simultaneously if the phone is off.
Is the phone rooted and romd or stock?
Is it running 2.3.4?
Sent from my DROID X2 using xda premium
Its running 2.3.4 rooted but not romd. I had the phone for about a month and had no issues with it. However i never allowed it to die. Shes not a heavy user but my main concern is why the display uses 59% where my d4 uses only 26% on the same settings as hers. Can i unroot the phone in case i have to return it under warranty?
Sent from my DROID4 using xda premium
when the phone dies you need to plug it in and wait until the battery on charge only screen shows at least 10% before the system will, allow you to turn it on
if you have BSR installed tho, as soon as it dies you can plug it in and when BSR comes up you can just choose reboot system now.
and the reason you d4 uses less battery on screen it's because I believe it is an amoled screen, which consumes much, lower power levels than an LCD screen
Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk
Have you tried recalibrating the battery too?
No. How do i do that? Thanks
Sent from my DROID4 using xda premium
First, make sure the battery is completely charged, then boot into custom recovery (BSR). Go to advanced options (towards the bottom of the list) and there should be an option that says 'recalibrate battery'. Once you recalibrate it, reboot back into android. I usually always let my battery run completely out after doing a recalibration before recharging it after a re-cal. If you find on your first discharge after recalibrating that your phone tells you you've only got 20% left and it would normally only last an hour before, depending if it needed the re-cal it may last 2 hours. Those numbers are just hypotheticals. Point is, recalibrating lets android know it's for sure 100% full at the start, but it doesn't necesarily know the end point until it gets there by allowing a full discharge. Also, the lithium batteries our phones use do best when recharged around 15-20%. It's actually bad to let them completely discharge all the time. And if you have multiple batteries and one may be sitting for a while, it's best to store them between 30-40%. Let me know if you need any more clarification.
Im going to try that thank you
Sent from my DROID4 using xda premium
More importantly, if you are already rooted and such, why not run a custom ROM? CM7 and/or Eclipse should give you a good boost in battery life. Running CM7 my standard battery lasts 18-24 hours with light ish usage. And that's with my original battery from when the DX2 first came out. I also have an extended battery I am running right now, but don't have data on that one yet since it's still discharging now. I do know that swapping between batteries of different capacities pisses android off sometimes though lol. Aside from custom roms, there are scripts and apps/software-based mods that can help it significantly too. Namely, wifi vs 3g usage, turning 3g data off when your phone is not being used, etc... I started off with an original DX but VZW gave me a free upgrade to DX2 after my 6th warrantied DX. I miss Rubix's ROM and being able to overclock and undervolt... My DX would last 2+ days sometimes when I had it all dialed in.
Its now my wifes phone. Since she already has had time getting used to stock i doubt she'll let me put a rom on it lol. But ill try
Sent from my DROID4 using xda premium
Well fortunately you've got a Blur-based and AOSP-based option for it. I know what you mean though, my gf likes her Sense-based UI, but had to give it up for a semi-funtioning Eris. I think she is getting a Bionic sooner than later... HTC is garbage.
Maleko48 said:
First, make sure the battery is completely charged, then boot into custom recovery (BSR). Go to advanced options (towards the bottom of the list) and there should be an option that says 'recalibrate battery'. Once you recalibrate it, reboot back into android. I usually always let my battery run completely out after doing a recalibration before recharging it after a re-cal. If you find on your first discharge after recalibrating that your phone tells you you've only got 20% left and it would normally only last an hour before, depending if it needed the re-cal it may last 2 hours. Those numbers are just hypotheticals. Point is, recalibrating lets android know it's for sure 100% full at the start, but it doesn't necesarily know the end point until it gets there by allowing a full discharge. Also, the lithium batteries our phones use do best when recharged around 15-20%. It's actually bad to let them completely discharge all the time. And if you have multiple batteries and one may be sitting for a while, it's best to store them between 30-40%. Let me know if you need any more clarification.
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Click to collapse
Or you can download the app battery calibrator (haar a red Android as the pic) and follow the directions
Sent from my MB870 using xda premium
letting your battery die completely is not recommended no matter what you've been Told
Li-on batteries were designed to last longer when you don't let it die completely
start charging around 15%-10%, 5 is pushing it cuz its most likely gonna shut down before you see 5, trust me, it's bad for the life of tour battery to let it drain completely, just Google Li-on battery life, recommendations and u can read for yourself lol
ashclepdia said:
letting your battery die completely is not recommended no matter what you've been Told
Li-on batteries were designed to last longer when you don't let it die completely
start charging around 15%-10%, 5 is pushing it cuz its most likely gonna shut down before you see 5, trust me, it's bad for the life of tour battery to let it drain completely, just Google Li-on battery life, recommendations and u can read for yourself lol
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Yeah I know you're not *supposed* to let them discharge all the way but sometimes you have to and sometimes it just happens. For instance, my extended battery that I just did a re-cal on the other day has been sitting at 1% for the past few hours and is currently reading 1day 12 hours of uptime. (I shut it off the other night though and it is still discharging from its initial charge that I did the re-cal on.) So if I would have recharged it at 5% or whatever, I would be losing a decent chunk of available battery because android thought it was empty when it really wasn't, thus skewing the battery's voltage window.
Maleko48 said:
Yeah I know you're not *supposed* to let them discharge all the way but sometimes you have to and sometimes it just happens. For instance, my extended battery that I just did a re-cal on the other day has been sitting at 1% for the past few hours and is currently reading 1day 12 hours of uptime. (I shut it off the other night though and it is still discharging from its initial charge that I did the re-cal on.) So if I would have recharged it at 5% or whatever, I would be losing a decent chunk of available battery because android thought it was empty when it really wasn't, thus skewing the battery's voltage window.
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that will only happen with extended batteries or one of those "Chinese", aftermarket batteries
regardless, battery life of Li-on batteries will decrease from letting it completely discharge, the more times you do it, the less your battery health will be.(BTW when do you "have to" let it discharge completely? , I'm not "calling you out or trying to "make you look stupid" or anything, I'm just curious what you meant by that?)
when I say 15-5% don't look at it as when Android reports that percentage, the x2 will, NEVER show an extended battery percentage correctly no matter how many times you "calibrate" that's just how it goes, it doesn't realize there is a higher capacity battery in the device larger than 1500mah, what you wanna do is use a battery voltage widget to monitor battery left, when it starts to get around 3500mV is when you are gonna want to charge I believe, (I think that 3200 is completely dead, and 4200 is topped off)
also,, wiping battery stats is a useless practice, not long ago I believe a Google developer wrote about why it's useless, apparently battery stats only has to do with the battery use settings stats about which apps have used which amount of battery. the battery stats gets reset/wiped EVERY time you get to a near fill-full charge (hence why the battery use graph resets itself when u almost fully charged, if you stop charging around 60-70% it wont reset)
reference:: http://rootzwiki.com/_/articles/wiping-battery-stats-is-pointless-says-google-r316
ashclepdia said:
that will only happen with extended batteries or one of those "Chinese", aftermarket batteries
regardless, battery life of Li-on batteries will decrease from letting it completely discharge, the more times you do it, the less your battery health will be.(BTW when do you "have to" let it discharge completely? , I'm not "calling you out or trying to "make you look stupid" or anything, I'm just curious what you meant by that?)
when I say 15-5% don't look at it as when Android reports that percentage, the x2 will, NEVER show an extended battery percentage correctly no matter how many times you "calibrate" that's just how it goes, it doesn't realize there is a higher capacity battery in the device larger than 1500mah, what you wanna do is use a battery voltage widget to monitor battery left, when it starts to get around 3500mV is when you are gonna want to charge I believe, (I think that 3200 is completely dead, and 4200 is topped off)
also,, wiping battery stats is a useless practice, not long ago I believe a Google developer wrote about why it's useless, apparently battery stats only has to do with the battery use settings stats about which apps have used which amount of battery. the battery stats gets reset/wiped EVERY time you get to a near fill-full charge (hence why the battery use graph resets itself when u almost fully charged, if you stop charging around 60-70% it wont reset)
reference:: http://rootzwiki.com/_/articles/wiping-battery-stats-is-pointless-says-google-r316
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Thanks for pointing that out. I regularly swap between my standard and extended batteries (both straight from VZW) because I'm always out and about and have used re-cal's to keep the perceived percentages from being skewed since I like to know how much life I have left in my phone so I know if I am gonna be able to find my way home or not, lol. (I ride my bike far and wide.)
I remember reading a while back that every time you un-plug your phone from a full charge that battery bin file gets re-written as 100%. So regardless of what android reports, yes, you will always get to use your battery until it is fully dead, but when swapping between two different capacities of batteries the reported percentages get skewed. And as I mentioned before, more often than not I am far from home on a bicycle in a city I only know a fraction of, and many nights somewhat inebriated, haha. I <3 my android, but it can certainly be a lot of work to keep up with.
Maleko48 said:
Thanks for pointing that out. I regularly swap between my standard and extended batteries (both straight from VZW) because I'm always out and about and have used re-cal's to keep the perceived percentages from being skewed since I like to know how much life I have left in my phone so I know if I am gonna be able to find my way home or not, lol. (I ride my bike far and wide.)
I remember reading a while back that every time you un-plug your phone from a full charge that battery bin file gets re-written as 100%. So regardless of what android reports, yes, you will always get to use your battery until it is fully dead, but when swapping between two different capacities of batteries the reported percentages get skewed. And as I mentioned before, more often than not I am far from home on a bicycle in a city I only know a fraction of, and many nights somewhat inebriated, haha. I <3 my android, but it can certainly be a lot of work to keep up with.
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trust me, I know exactly what you're talkin bout
except mostly riding buses/trains for mE
I have two standard and one extended, I always use the extend first since it will never report correctly when I'm out, then I switch to the standard ones so when they are running low, I KNOW when they will die lol
same here, wifes x2 battery last 2 days..awesome