My Samsung S3 battery goes from fully charged to "low battery" often before I get home from work. I just put up with it because troubleshooting Android is such a pain even with Better Battery Stats.
But by exceeding my data quota this month I see exactly what the problem is. Android 4.3 disabled data last night because I went over my quota.
It is now 6:02PM and my battery is at 82% when it would usually be at 5% by now. I still used my phone almost exactly the same amount as I have a desktop at work. My battery usually goes down to 5% just doing nothing in my pocket and making a few calls and texts and some music listening.
My poor battery life is due to all the data transfer bull Google is doing in the background every day.
Better battery stats can identify the process like Bam_dmux or fast dormancy, but it doesn't tell you which apps are actually calling the wakelock.
If Android did keep proper track of this I am sure many apps would be deleted (including Google Apps) from phone in a instant.
But it is too much trouble to try to figure out which one it is so we just put up with 6 hour standby battery life when the manufacturer claims 72 hours.
What a mess ..... I am going to have to research "restrict background data" now to waste more of my time.
Looking at Data Usage in setting doesn't help much because it only tells how much not how often
HaHaHaHa: Google Search on = android "restrict background data" gives 192,000 hits
Does anyone know a good site or method to do this?
Fixed Battery Issue
Well I managed to solve my battery problems at least until the next round of updates.
Previously ..... Galaxy S3 goes from full battery to empty by about 4:00PM in the workday ... mostly phone is sitting in my pocket. No surfing, occasional call.
Then I blocked background data for:
1) Play Store (I am tired of useless updates anyway)
2) Medscape
3) MPR
4) EMAIL ( confirmed this does not affect Gmail notifications )
Then Removed Accounts:
1) All associated with Samsung
2) WeChat and program
So only Accounts for Dropbox, Google, Scribd and Whatsup are left
Nothing else changed
It's 10:00PM and I still have 60% battery ..... sometimes getting pissed helps as I have been putting up with this for a month.
Unfortunately I don't know which were the offenders.
Sirandar said:
My Samsung S3 battery goes from fully charged to "low battery" often before I get home from work. I just put up with it because troubleshooting Android is such a pain even with Better Battery Stats.
But by exceeding my data quota this month I see exactly what the problem is. Android 4.3 disabled data last night because I went over my quota.
It is now 6:02PM and my battery is at 82% when it would usually be at 5% by now. I still used my phone almost exactly the same amount as I have a desktop at work. My battery usually goes down to 5% just doing nothing in my pocket and making a few calls and texts and some music listening.
My poor battery life is due to all the data transfer bull Google is doing in the background every day.
Better battery stats can identify the process like Bam_dmux or fast dormancy, but it doesn't tell you which apps are actually calling the wakelock.
If Android did keep proper track of this I am sure many apps would be deleted (including Google Apps) from phone in a instant.
But it is too much trouble to try to figure out which one it is so we just put up with 6 hour standby battery life when the manufacturer claims 72 hours.
What a mess ..... I am going to have to research "restrict background data" now to waste more of my time.
Looking at Data Usage in setting doesn't help much because it only tells how much not how often
HaHaHaHa: Google Search on = android "restrict background data" gives 192,000 hits
Does anyone know a good site or method to do this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Day5
Since I made these changes my battery life has been greater than 60% every single night no matter how much I use the phone. Maybe it was WeChat.....
Play Store Issues from the OP
My battery life bliss was cut short by issues with my gmail account and sync probably caused my "restrict background data" on the play store.
Previously restricting background data on Play Store and WeChat improved my battery life from 100%-0 in 8 hours to 100% to 90% in 8 hours
BUT
This seems to cause issues with gmail and Google sync. Neither would work and I had to uninstall and clear data for both to get them working again. It said the sync was "experiencing difficulties".
Uninstalling and reinstalling gmail and play seems to have fixed my battery issues .... even without background data restrictions.
Sirandar said:
My Samsung S3 battery goes from fully charged to "low battery" often before I get home from work. I just put up with it because troubleshooting Android is such a pain even with Better Battery Stats.
But by exceeding my data quota this month I see exactly what the problem is. Android 4.3 disabled data last night because I went over my quota.
It is now 6:02PM and my battery is at 82% when it would usually be at 5% by now. I still used my phone almost exactly the same amount as I have a desktop at work. My battery usually goes down to 5% just doing nothing in my pocket and making a few calls and texts and some music listening.
My poor battery life is due to all the data transfer bull Google is doing in the background every day.
Better battery stats can identify the process like Bam_dmux or fast dormancy, but it doesn't tell you which apps are actually calling the wakelock.
If Android did keep proper track of this I am sure many apps would be deleted (including Google Apps) from phone in a instant.
But it is too much trouble to try to figure out which one it is so we just put up with 6 hour standby battery life when the manufacturer claims 72 hours.
What a mess ..... I am going to have to research "restrict background data" now to waste more of my time.
Looking at Data Usage in setting doesn't help much because it only tells how much not how often
HaHaHaHa: Google Search on = android "restrict background data" gives 192,000 hits
Does anyone know a good site or method to do this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Related
I was pissed off as my phone lost all the juice over the night and didnt have time for filling it in the morning as i have to go to my job. Also i am a privacy freak and from obvious reasons i dont like google apps, same goes for gmail (as i am using exchange server i dont need all the sync stuff there) which was my initial reason for preventing the application to start - i dont use ANYTHING releated to google/market and i dont have any account there, i never used it.
On rooted phone I started to prevent starting everything related to google and DRM, market etc. (autostarts https://market.android.com/details?id=com.elsdoerfer.android.autostarts):
- DRM*
- Factory Test*
- com.google.*
(i think this was all, i'll recheck if there was something else)
And guess what. The battery drain over the night is now around 2% and the phone is quite able to survive 2 days (not completely accurate as i had it connected to computer for 10 minutes in between to pump some files from it), after the second night i still had 12% of battery left.
If someone else is able to repeat that, please report the results and if someone is able to figure out which app exactly is draining the battery even batter.
One thing i dont really understand is what are those apps doing during the night, there is no reason to contact any of google services as i dont have any account entered, so wtf are they doing?!
To ROM cookers, please stop adding google apps by default, make them as package to be installed later if you wish.
I do not have any communication or at least there should be none over 3g (droidwall) and i dont want to kill aplications just to have peacefull sleep. I was searching for final solution and i have found it.
One solution is to switch off wifi and data connection in night and sure you will have better battery drainage.
Not entirely related but just a heads up for people, last night i downloaded that Getjar app and it decimated my battery overnight so i uninstalled it this morning.
I assume most on here know about https://market.android.com/details?id=com.asksven.betterbatterystats&hl=en this is the best app you can get when it comes to preventing battery drain (tells you exactly what is draining your battery)
seems getjar is eating away at the battery, dont understand why it needs to do that !
Go to the task manager and kill all running tasks, then clear ur RAM before going to sleep @ night.
I loose like 1-2%
Send from my Samsung Galaxy S II
I do not have any communication or at least there should be none over 3g (droidwall) and i dont want to kill aplications just to have peacefull sleep. I was searching for final solution and i have found it.
If it is a night issue, try turning the display ON before unplugging the charging cord. I have used this method and the battery stays at 100% all night long.
My Galaxy S3 Battery Life Sucks Please Help! 15% After Only 7 Hours.
I’ve been having this same problem sense I got my phone about 2 months ago but now I’m finally just tired of it! My phone is rooted, using the stock ROM.
What I do to help battery life:
- Every morning I hold the home button and kill multitasking and kill all running aps in the background then I open autokill which automatically kills running apps in the background that are not needed.
- I have power saving enabled
- Easy Battery Saver running
After 7 hours of use I’m already at 15% and through out the day I barley use my phone. Its like this just about everyday. I use my phone about an hour of the entire day of web surfing and Facebook usage etc. The rest of the day I’m only texting and maybe taking 3 or 4 phone calls that last 10 mins. How much battery could that possibly take? A flip phone can do that and last 3 days..
I used my iPhone 4S much more during the day then I do the galaxy S3 because the S3 has terrible battery life.
On my iPhone I would have about 22% after everyday of using it for 11 hours down time = sleep and 4 hours of usage = texting, , phone calls, web surfing, games etc.
I don’t play games or watch movies on my S3. Only texting, instagram, facebook, websurfing which is about an hour a day usage. Also a couple minutes of GPS usage on some days.
What can I do to fix this? I don’t want a bigger battery that will make my phone any thicker.
I have pictures below showing usage through out the day and usage under battery.
Please help!
Thanks!
You screen is using most of your battery. Check the brightness levels. Are they on max or close to it? Switch it to auto
Sent by GT-I9300 SuperNexus
omgbuffguy said:
You screen is using most of your battery. Check the brightness levels. Are they on max or close to it? Switch it to auto
Sent by GT-I9300 SuperNexus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My brightness is always set to lowest possible expect while walking from to and from class. Ill post a little more pics maybe these can help figure out the problem problem?
zak9494 said:
My brightness is always set to lowest possible expect while walking from to and from class. Ill post a little more pics maybe these can help figure out the problem problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh thats easy.
You're phone is always "Awake". It doesn't go into Deep sleep like everyone elses. If you take a look at the first picture you linked with the graph, it shows that the phone is always AWAKE.
For comparison, I have attached mine as a reference but something is DEFINITELY keeping your phone awake.
Aegishua said:
Oh thats easy.
You're phone is always "Awake". It doesn't go into Deep sleep like everyone elses. If you take a look at the first picture you linked with the graph, it shows that the phone is always AWAKE.
For comparison, I have attached mine as a reference but something is DEFINITELY keeping your phone awake.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From pics ive posted can you tell which apps are not letting it go into deep sleep?
zak9494 said:
From pics ive posted can you tell which apps are not letting it go into deep sleep?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can't really see anything that stands out per say...
If you see anything on that thread or any apps on your phone that you think could be keeping it awake, just uninstall them. I would suggest trying to remove them a few at a time just to narrow down which ones are keeping the phone awake.
Also, apparently this app helps a lot (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bvalosek.cpuspy) and Better Battery stats should give you a better idea of which apps use the CPU while your phone is trying to sleep.
Oh and remove any task managers you have installed.. Those tend to be the worst offenders.
One last thing, found this on another forum:
- Don't use an automatic task killer--not even the one that comes with the phone. Reboot your phone and look at what's running. If anything that you've installed is running and there's no reason for it, then uninstall it and find an alternative that behaves. Ignore any stock apps that run on boot as I've found them to be more or less benign.
- Weather widgets, live wallpapers, news/social feeds, any app or service that you use that runs--do without it if you can. If you can’t do without it, lengthen it’s refresh time.
- Don't use antivirus
- Set your WIFI sleep policy to never. The default is "turn off when screen turns off". This will cause the wifi to reconnect every time you open the phone. From any Home Screen select Menu/Settings/Wireless & Networks/ and then use the Menu button to see some new options - select Advanced. Then select Wifi Sleep Policy and set it to Never. Home key to return to Home Screen.
- If you have access to wifi, leave it toggled on as it is more efficient than 3G. Wifi consumes less battery power than 3G.
- I leave GPS toggled on too by the way. Apps use it as needed. When I'm done with Maps or an app that uses it, I'm sure to return to the home screen so GPS can stop. Under wireless settings turn on "Google location services" so that an app is able to use network resources to get your location instead of GPS. I have "VZW location services" turned off--don't know why that option is even there. By the way, I increase the speed of voice output > text to speech > speech rate because I like the directions to get spit out faster. That saves a bit of battery. Turning off the display and just listening for directions help. Also, often I just get the directions and then exit back to the home screen: GPS uses so much battery I try to get it over with ASAP.
- Under Accounts, click on any account listed and turn off sync for any items that you're not interested in syncing. For example, Google Books if you don't use it. Don't use Backup Assistant--I prefer syncing my contacts with Google. You don't need both. Also go into your contacts > menu > display options > backup assistant > UNCHECK. Also do contacts > menu > more > settings > contact storage > and select your Google account and "remember this choice"
Are you on the 3G network a lot or weak signal areas? Is your phone hot around the bottom? If yes to both, most likely it's because of the system attempting to find a better signal. When I was swapping out my SIMs, in various countries, I only have 3G network and my battery fully drains in 7hrs at idle. The only way i can go a whole day is to place my phone into airplane mode or wifi only to conserve the battery.
my battery runs at-most 13 hrs........................
zak9494 said:
My Galaxy S3 Battery Life Sucks Please Help! 15% After Only 7 Hours.
I’ve been having this same problem sense I got my phone about 2 months ago but now I’m finally just tired of it! My phone is rooted, using the stock ROM.
What I do to help battery life:
- Every morning I hold the home button and kill multitasking and kill all running aps in the background then I open autokill which automatically kills running apps in the background that are not needed.
- I have power saving enabled
- Easy Battery Saver running
After 7 hours of use I’m already at 15% and through out the day I barley use my phone. Its like this just about everyday. I use my phone about an hour of the entire day of web surfing and Facebook usage etc. The rest of the day I’m only texting and maybe taking 3 or 4 phone calls that last 10 mins. How much battery could that possibly take? A flip phone can do that and last 3 days..
I used my iPhone 4S much more during the day then I do the galaxy S3 because the S3 has terrible battery life.
On my iPhone I would have about 22% after everyday of using it for 11 hours down time = sleep and 4 hours of usage = texting, , phone calls, web surfing, games etc.
I don’t play games or watch movies on my S3. Only texting, instagram, facebook, websurfing which is about an hour a day usage. Also a couple minutes of GPS usage on some days.
What can I do to fix this? I don’t want a bigger battery that will make my phone any thicker.
I have pictures below showing usage through out the day and usage under battery.
Please help!
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Welcome to smartphones. The calls alone will drain the battery. Seven hours isn't horrible for all that. It isn't a flip phone.
why your phone is always awaking?
mattwarr said:
Welcome to smartphones. The calls alone will drain the battery. Seven hours isn't horrible for all that. It isn't a flip phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
maybe you have to flash a new rom
If you want, you could try to flash a custom ROM. I had the same problem that you have, and I flashed Revolutionary S5, and now my phone lasts minimum two days with the same usage, maybe a bit more.
Too bad Tony Stark hasn't gotten involved
chujung24 said:
maybe you have to flash a new rom
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Titanium Backup will assist a little bit. When you do a backup of an apk it will tell you if the application is running. You can find all kinds of sneaky apps this way. Many of them were ones I didn't use and didn't really want. That will probably yield minimal results, though. Keeping a black background helps on my S3. Colors, widgets, and live backgrounds will drain the battery. Turn off the menu and back key lights. You know the buttons are there. Turn off all haptic feedback and key press sounds. Of course, try to lower the screen brightness. Leaving my data and sync on hasn't caused me any problems, but you will save some battery by turning them off when not in use. I also read a post about hidden menu options that ran even when they weren't meant to. That was an issue that destroyed battery life. Some ROMs also have settings for data connection type. You'll save power by telling your phone to not worry about gaining signals like 4g, 3g, etc. As other people have said, try out some ROMs that make battery life a big priority.
it CAN get better
if you want to have a good battery life, use custom rom and kernel (or a modified stock like omega rom), watch out for wakelocks + apply these settings:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3/general/guide-complete-guide-battery-saving-t2495276
also, interesting info here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3/general/post-battery-stats-t2621654
I love Android.
I think the customization is great, and since v4 it's smoother and feels more responsive.
There are LOTS of apps and it's better than iOS.
But i'm sick of the battery issues.
I've always loved trying new features, ROMs, apps, hacks and whatever.
I now have SGS3 and it's my third android device, and i've installed ROMs dozens of times, even on my friends' devices.
One thing that always kept me alert is the battery life - the maximum I can get from my battery is around 30 hours with my usage - 1/5-2 hours of screen, ~45 minutes talk, lots of standby.
But every now and then, my girlfriend, my dad, my aunt or my friend ask me 'why does my battery drain so fast?'
Sometimes its google maps.
Sometimes its mediaserver/media scanner
Sometimes - and only I can see it cause they are not familiar with tools like BBS, it's gsf (Google Services Framework).
The point is, when you have an Android device, you need to check the battery stats every now and then to make sure nothing is unusually heavy on the battery.
I am currently experimenting with ParanoidAndroid and AOKP, which are faster and more responsive than omega/stock.
Yesterday i went to sleep (6 hours) with 25% battery (after it lasted 15 hours) and I turned off the data connection and the wireless connection.
I woke up after 6 hours (lucky..) and I saw my phone if off. after I connected it to the charger and turned it on I saw mediaserver decided to wake up in the middle of the night, after It almost did nothing during the day, and worked for 5.5 hours until the battery died!
Today I unplugged my phone and in 1 hour of standby 10% of the battery were gone, I checked what happened using BBS and saw gsf again (that GTALK_SYNC whatever wakelock) was draining battery, after I thought I fixed it yesterday when I disabled app data and browser sync in the google account sync options). I rebooted and now it seems ok again, the phone is back to ~70-80-% sleep.
I want to emphasize that I don't like all the stupid battery tips that tell me to castrate my phone:
turn off wifi when it's not needed, turn down the brightness, lower the screen timeout, disable sync (wtf? but its a smart phone, I WANT push notifications!) and that sort of things.
I KNOW I can get >24hours of battery without disabling the basic features of my phone.
And the draining battery processes that I mentioned earlier can suddenly appear even in a stock ROM, so I don't think it's PA or AOKP's fault.
What I want is that google will finally build a supervisor entity that will check what causes an unusual battery drain, check if it makes sense, and disable that cause!
It's absurd that google maps application comes with default 'enable location reporting' that constantly drains your battery and for what?? google maps doesn't run in the foreground, why the hell will I want that background location reporting draining my battery? and if so, why do you put this option enabled BY DEFAULT? The average user doesn't know this sort of stuff, and get only 10 hours of battery out of a device that should ideally provide ~30 hours!!!
Just wanted to let it out of my system...
And to get useful battery tips if any...
After having run 'Better Battery Stats' for several days and after several recharges, these were the following apps causing battery drain. This includes partial wakeups, Alarms, network use and processes.
The top apps for biggest battery loss were:
Whatsapp
Beautiful Widgets
Firefox
Swiftkey Keyboard
Gmail
Life 360
Other apps causing slight to moderate battery drain:
Google Play Store/Services
Album
Battery Doctor
Devices
DS Battery Saver
Handset SMS
Power Amp
Surf Easy
Talkray
Despite force closing the apps, they keep re-opening even though the internet is not running and the phone is supposed to be asleep...
Greenify is even running 24/7 but doesn't seem to help with the above apps. Hibernating all the above apps seem to make little to no difference and high battery usage is still an issue...
On screen time is just 2 hours 36 minutes and battery is at 23% and draining very fast with no use at all.
Any other way to stop the above apps from draining so much battery?
I've tried many different roms, kernals and apps but battery drain is an issue regardless...
Just come back from lunch. Battery is now 17%
Why has it dropped from 23% to 17% over a 2 hour period? The phone has not even been touched since I left it in the office...
Is it possible I have a defective battery or would it be due to bad apps?
kanej2006 said:
Just come back from lunch. Battery is now 17%
Why has it dropped from 23% to 17% over a 2 hour period? The phone has not even been touched since I left it in the office...
Is it possible I have a defective battery or would it be due to bad apps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi.
I'm using Stock ROM (4.4.4). I have more than a hundred of apps installed and my battery time is more than 5 hours with heavy use (screen on). I can't even imagine how many days the battery could work with the screen off.
Is the weak battery mode activated? Is Stamina on? Have you checked your battery details on the config panel? And what about the internet use? Is auto-synch off or at least are you scheduling when the apps can download background data? What about the system statistics about background data?
Are the GPS and bluetooth off when you're not using them? Please also remember wifi use way less battery than other mobile connections; that battery goes away faster with more brightness on the screen; and that you can get some more minutes if you let the auto-rotate off.
Have you checked if some app is preventing the "deep sleep" state?
If I was on your shoes, I'd uninstall all the 3rd-party battery utilities (even Greenify!) and I'd restart my Z Ultra.
^ Thanks for the reply Andre Verissimo. I too have 4.4.4 stock rom and only around 25 apps installed...
Stamina mode (power saving mode) is on 24/7 and brightness is set to around 50%.
I never use GPS/Satellite, bluetooth or data/mobile connection...
Auto sync and backround data are disabled...
I did track apps causing high usage. They were whatsApp, Firefox, Google Play, Battery Doctor & DS Battery Saver.
I'll try uninstalling several apps and see if it helps...
Seems I finally solved the battery leak issue.
I prevented bad apps from auto starting as well as to close once the phone has been put to sleep.
In other words, the battery will only be drained when in use. However, the phone appears to be in deep sleep since I manually set 'Battery Doctor' to kill/close apps when not in use as well as stop them from auto starting...
Only the battery draining apps have been selected to do so...
My phone has been on for 24 hours hours and my battery is still 85%
I will monitor battery usage over the next couple of days and report back with any update.
Regarding Beautiful Widgets: Are you talking about the free version or the paid one?
I am on the paid one (Pro) and it shows up as 0.3% on GSAM Battery Monitor. If you have experienced drain on that version, I will look for a different clock widget then (i.e. that it actually drains noticeably but in such a way that it doesn't show up as such).
I have the impression that the free version of Beautiful Widgets could be a drainer since it seems to be very happy to push a lot of ads and stuff.
Will try Battery Doctor and compare with Greenify.
Edit: I think Greenify is working properly on my device, i.e. it hibernates the apps properly.
your network signal greatly affects your battery and that will not show up on your battery usage stats
E90 Commie said:
Regarding Beautiful Widgets: Are you talking about the free version or the paid one?
I am on the paid one (Pro) and it shows up as 0.3% on GSAM Battery Monitor. If you have experienced drain on that version, I will look for a different clock widget then (i.e. that it actually drains noticeably but in such a way that it doesn't show up as such).
Will try Battery Doctor and compare with Greenify.
Edit: I think Greenify is working properly on my device, i.e. it hibernates the apps properly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm on the paid version of Beautiful Widgets. The app has only affected my Processes. Usage is 9% . However, there are no alarms or wakeups from the app since I disabled them both using per app hacking...
I will search for an alternative to Greenify to hibernate apps. Only 3-4 apps are opening despite force closing and even preventing startup, alarms and wakeups...
Regardless of what I do, the following apps continue to run and launch even when not opened:
Photo Analyzer software
Mirror Link System
Devices
WhatsApp
Xperia extension for throw
Sweep Panorama
Creative effects
Camera
Albums
Screen Mirroring
How can I prevent the above apps from automatically launching and running? I blocked all listed programs from launching using both Battery Doctor & per app hacking yet they still re-open and run...
ShadowVlican said:
your network signal greatly affects your battery and that will not show up on your battery usage stats
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very true. Where I work, reception is VERY poor since I'm in a large factory high up...
I just got this phone about a week ago and right away I noticed that battery life was very low. I tried doing some charge cycles and I even got a brand new Anker battery but nothing changed. I looked at the battery usage and the graph is just steadily dropping with very minimal screen usage. I have turned off background syncing on everything and I disabled notifications on most of my apps (all but Facebook and Instagram) and still the battery goes dead in under one day of standby. Looking at battery usage I noticed that Android OS,Android system, and Google play services are pretty high on the percentage (I do have auto updates disabled though). I know the battery shouldn't be dropping from one day of standby. I've also checked some other posts where people say to turn off auto brightness and notifications and I've tried all of that to no avail. Also on the battery graph the scene time is of most of the time, but the puzzling part is that the awake time is only dotted a few times, no large bars that might be huge background processes. And speaking of background processes, most of my running apps say they've been on since the time my phone had turned on (not sure why). Please help me out on how I can fix this, I can post screen shots if needed
Wipe it and flash latest firmware with Odin, disable all the bloat.
boomboomer said:
Wipe it and flash latest firmware with Odin, disable all the bloat.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! I'm trying that right now, I'll tell you if it worked
It did not work Could this be a faulty device? Here is a screenshot of one hour of usage after factory reseting. As you can see on the running apps (my phone was on for about 8 mins in the picture) there are a few processes that stay running from startup and never stop.
p.s. I also went disabled all running apps that were possible and that didn't look important (clock widgets, SNS, Stock Daemon, etc.)