[Q] Standalone talk times? - Samsung Gear S

Just curious what kind of talk times people are getting when using the gear as a standalone device? I find when using it with a bluetooth it will drain the battery in as little as an hour when fully charged. I have even experienced the watch going dead when using the phone for an extended time while pulled in...just wondering what times other users were getting?

I don't know what settings you are using. But I have achieved much long times. I havent done several tests to see how long, I don't talk long on the phone. But I once got over 2.5 hours using my Gear Circle headset on a phone call. It was a very important call where my cell had died and I switched to my Gear S for the rest of the call. On top of that, I was at about 60 percent battery when I started the call. I keep my GPS turned off till I need it, motions turned off, screen time out at a minute, and don't use WiFi.

Very interesting, and a little worrying. I'm curious if the paired device and circle would make that much of a difference? Much like yourself, I turn off wifi, motion...pretty much everything unless I need it. I also use a plantronics headset during phone calls. Does anyone out there know if different BT devices pull on the battery differently or if that even matters?

It depends a lot if you are on 3G or GSM network. According to manual on 3G is up to 2h (in best network performance/signal) compare to 5h on GSM...
I haven't used it that much yet but I noticed that when I'm connected to 3G and talking through my Gear S it's... HEATING up :silly: a little...
Also I noticed that antenna must be pretty weak. When I'm calling from basement at my work from Note3 connected to GSM everything is perfectly fine (nearly all signal bars) but when I want to do the same on Gear S, calls are dropping or I need to stand pointing to the ceiling what is craaazy

Related

Battery life varies depending on location?

Running AOSP ish rom and applied the latest GPS fix (can't remember exactly which one).
So I have been running this rom for a long time, like since it was released. The only issue was the gps was still crappy. I did the hardware fix but that didn't help. About 2 months ago I saw a new fix which involved changing the info in the gps settings page. Anyway, gps is fast to lock (like 5 seconds) and is accurate now.
Around the same time I did the gps fix, I noticed I started having worse battery life. I hardly use my phone during the day and some days don't make a call or use gps, internet (other auto email notifications) etc but I notice my battery is down to 10-20% at the end of the day, approx 10 hours after taking it off charge. This is while at work with no wifi connected and no way the gps could get a lock.
Now if I am off, going from place to place in my car (connected to my bluetooth head unit) and when at home the phone sitting on a table, connected to wifi and with a reasonable ability to get a gps lock, my battery is still 80-90% charged at the end of the day.
What could be causing this? I have thought that when at work I have a worse signal and that the momentary loss of signal and the searching for a signal may cause this. How about the fact that it isn't connected to wifi but there are a couple available?
Thanks for any info.

[Q] Cell Standby while having no reception

I work in an office which is a level below ground in central Sydney so most of my work day I am out of reception.
Now I do venture into reception areas so every now and then so don't want to turn aeroplane mode on and off all the time.... So please don't suggest this.
With my previous phone (i8000) I didn't have such a drain on battery when out of reception all day from what I remember. I used to get really long standby times but I didn't use the screen anywhere near as much.
Now I know the phone will use more power in low reception areas because it needs to turn the sensitivity up to get clear signal. But the i9100 seems to drain much more than all my other phones I have used.
I am on stock I3 firmware with CT Root kernel. I have a high level of 44% Cell Standby with only being on for 6 hours (and out of reception for 3 of them) even though I have used the screen for 1 hour and that only shows 37% of usage. I don't remember it being this bad on H3 but to be honest I didn't really check for comparison of usage.
Is this normal? My old O2 phone on win mo used to go into a state of sleep for searching for reception when at work because it used to take a few minutes sometimes, after I got into reception zone, to realise I had reception. The i9100 seems to get it straight away which makes me think is it polling all the time I am at work and draining the battery more because it tries so hard?
Hope I made this clear.
So it appears like from research this high drain is fairly common on android devices when in no reception areas. I could understand why it would happen in low reception areas where the phone uses more power to pick up a weak signal. But why would the phone continually do this in a NO recpetion area. I thought samsung would have made the phone relaise it has no reception and only try every 5 minutes or so...
I never noticed this on my i8000 or any of my win mo phones before it. I assume they realsied there was no reception and stopped polling at full strength the whole time I was at work. This would have been indicated by the slight delay of leaving my bilding before getting messages sometimes where now its instant. But without the battery usage stats I can't compare.
I have tried to find an app that automatically puts the phone into aeroplane mode when NO signal for 30 minutes or something. And keep s turning aeroplane off every 5 or 10 minutes or so. But I have yet to find anything.
I realise there are programs that will use GPS and do it automatically but this is not ideal. I only want it to happen when I have no reception.
Any ideas of ways to fix this without me manually putting my phone into aeroplane mode when I'm in my office and remembering to take it back out when I know I should have reception? I don't want to use location based because this doesn't work when I go up one level.
Just bumping my ancient thread.
After an app that will recognised NO reception for long periods and automatically put flights mode on. Then turn flight mode off briefly every 5 minutes or so to check if reception is back.
In my office I have no reception but if I go up two levels I do. So time based automation does not suit nor does location based unless it knows what level I am on.
See above for the long story
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

Unrooted SGS2 report from new user

Just an update.
So I got the SGS2 last nite, about 5pm.
From 5pm to 8pm, I did send 3 short gmails and 2 sms.
Also tap on myATT to check the data usage once.
Receiving one phone call.
From 8pm to 12pm: plugging to charge, fully 100%. Unplug and power OFF @ midnite.
9am in the morning, making a 25' phone call.
10am, check myATT again and it showed I have consumed 11.01MB
Really???? From 5pm yesterday to 10am today with few emails/sms/checking myATT once and it already 11.01 MB???? Heck. Grrrr!!!
After 11:30am, turn ON bluetooth and paired with headset, made another 2' phone call via bluetooth, then turn bluetooth OFF, also turn GPS OFF.
Note: Wifi has never been turned ON.
Since then til now, 4:22pm EST, no call, no browsing, but receiving a lot of gmails (via ATT network since wifi is off), phone showed 6h53m battery life left.
With those activity listed above, I think the battery is weak.
We can indeed turn off both wifi and mobile network and still able to make/receive calls or send/receive sms. This will help save a bit of battery. That's good.
RE: Battery Issues
votinh said:
Just an update.
So I got the SGS2 last nite, about 5pm.
From 5pm to 8pm, I did send 3 short gmails and 2 sms.
Also tap on myATT to check the data usage once.
Receiving one phone call.
From 8pm to 12pm: plugging to charge, fully 100%. Unplug and power OFF @ midnite.
9am in the morning, making a 25' phone call.
10am, check myATT again and it showed I have consumed 11.01MB
Really???? From 5pm yesterday to 10am today with few emails/sms/checking myATT once and it already 11.01 MB???? Heck. Grrrr!!!
After 11:30am, turn ON bluetooth and paired with headset, made another 2' phone call via bluetooth, then turn bluetooth OFF, also turn GPS OFF.
Note: Wifi has never been turned ON.
Since then til now, 4:22pm EST, no call, no browsing, but receiving a lot of gmails (via ATT network since wifi is off), phone showed 6h53m battery life left.
With those activity listed above, I think the battery is weak.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You say you got the phone 5pm last night.
Your phone's battery needs to be cycled for 2-3 days before you can even get close to an accurate summary of battery usage.
Charge the phone until the battery is full, let it discharge with normal usage
3-4 times and after that you will be able to tell how good or how bad your
battery drainage might be on your phone.
Also it's a lot more accurate to test battery drainage if you conduct the
tests BEFORE you install any apps. Just use the phone STOCK for 3-4 days.
He also didn't say how much he was polling for email. Display settings?
And, as the poster above, you need to cycle the battery several times properly.
Nah, no need to cycle battery on most Samsungs, we don't have fuel gauges that need calibration.
A device needs to sit on the shelf for a VERY long time to develop a passivation layer.
Probably just typical "new user playing too much" or "user installed a crappy app like Skype almost immediately".
Although the high data usage is interesting - either Market updates of a new phone (possibly even downloading an OTA update), or you're on UCKH7 and the AP Mobile widget is acting up already.
My highest usage all last year was 400 MB in a month, and that involved quite a bit of tethering my Galaxy Tab 10.1.
Eh, I have an unlimited plan but 400mb isn't all that much. I have no idea how you did any sort of tethering without passing the 1gb mark. I don't stream very often, but will use Pandora or the AT&T Uverse app for college football occasionally. I average about 1gb or so, and have gone up to 4 (although that's far from normal for me).
I work for AT&T and the average user seems to consume about 500 MB in data a month, so if you're on the 200mb plan, you better have WIFI at home / work / school or wherever you spend most of your time.
votinh said:
Just an update.
So I got the SGS2 last nite, about 5pm.
From 5pm to 8pm, I did send 3 short gmails and 2 sms.
Also tap on myATT to check the data usage once.
Receiving one phone call.
From 8pm to 12pm: plugging to charge, fully 100%. Unplug and power OFF @ midnite.
9am in the morning, making a 25' phone call.
10am, check myATT again and it showed I have consumed 11.01MB
Really???? From 5pm yesterday to 10am today with few emails/sms/checking myATT once and it already 11.01 MB???? Heck. Grrrr!!!
After 11:30am, turn ON bluetooth and paired with headset, made another 2' phone call via bluetooth, then turn bluetooth OFF, also turn GPS OFF.
Note: Wifi has never been turned ON.
Since then til now, 4:22pm EST, no call, no browsing, but receiving a lot of gmails (via ATT network since wifi is off), phone showed 6h53m battery life left.
With those activity listed above, I think the battery is weak.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whoops wrong button, anyways, yes there is a bunch of crapware installed on our phones, check out the list of known battery drainers and see if you use any of those. myATT takes a while to update, and its much easier to just type #3282* (data) on your dialer and hit call. Also, wifi would be preferred, as typically it uses less battery (at least thats what I see, especially with any kind of data). Disable automatic updates of alot of things such as apps, weather, stocks and whatnot (removing widgets also helsp), and first time, especially if you linked your facebook, its gonna download and sync all of your contacts and their profile images. 200mb is very restraining if thats what you have...
akira02rex said:
He also didn't say how much he was polling for email. Display settings?
And, as the poster above, you need to cycle the battery several times properly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all, I am a totally newbie to smartphone, prior to 5pm on that day, I was still using the antiqued flip phone . However, I am familiar with Android OS a bit since dealing with the B&N NC. I tend to rip the NC apart w/o worrying anything, worst case, restore it confidently; SGS2 is on the other hand, it is a must have device, and I admit that I'm somehow afraid that I will mess it up. That's why still keeping it stock for now. But I eye to use UnNamed ROM along with Entropy512 DD kernel, it is on my list.
Secondly, to answer akira, I have no idea how much I was polling for email, as I said, I left H+ on all the time, so I got every single gmail that sent to me.
Display settings? you meant brightness? or display the Phone Status?
@penguin,
Yes, it's just like new lappy, tons of pre-installed crapware. I was thinking either I manually uninstall them or wait until out of warranty and put the UnNamed or any great custom ROM on it.
You know what, anytime I check myATT on the SGS2, it consumes data, so I found a cheating, sneaky way that checking it using wifi (not using ATT network) or using my NC . The reason I am so focus on it 'cuz I only have 200MB plan, if I use much more than that I will switch plan later, but for now, 200MB plan and using wifi.
You do know you can return to 100% complete stock right? As long as you read and follow directions, there's a miniscule chance of hurting this device, it's very resilient.
smknutson said:
You do know you can return to 100% complete stock right? As long as you read and follow directions, there's a miniscule chance of hurting this device, it's very resilient.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your note, m8.
And honestly no.
Like I said, I just own a smartphone for 2 days, so admittedly I never set a foot (or should I say a finger ) on this forum until now. I am still on the reading/learning curves. Many devices have their different capability, for instance the B&N NC is virtually unbrickable so we (NC users) do have a lot of fun whacking it. If hitting problem, XDA is here for help .
SGS2 is a phone, if we're not confident and if we mess something up, we freak out or panic. hehehehe, at least that's on my mind
The reason I said "no" above because I read some posts and they said only 95% back to original, not 100%. Is it still true?
Anyway, big thank for your confirm.
Alright, so I went online and checked out the data usage.
At around 4:57pm, Internet/Media Net from phone took up 11345KB in one shot.
Don't know what that was
Maybe activating process? Getting H+ to work? Initial setup? Whatever, that's what it was.
The other Internet/Media Net from phone @9:03am and 5:14pm, don't remember what I did? Maybe 1 gmail and 1 sms? Either way, 1 of them took roughly 2MB. Woww.
Adding image
You should really get 2gb on your first month to see how much data you use and not risk paying overages, after that you can decide what to do with how you want to use your phone.
I'm not worry, m8, I'm more like an old fashion guy who not using phone internet much. I am pretty much working and/or wifi accessing all the time
Just try to see how much MB I do use a month since with wifi, I never ever pay attention.
Just another update.
A few days ago, phone was at 33% battery life around 11pm, left H+ on overnite with screen turned off, in the next morning @ 8am, checked, phone was still at 33%.
Last nite, phone was at 87% at 11pm, left wifi on (no H+) overnite with screen turned off, this morning @ 8am, it only has 81% left . Recheck at 9:30am, it's 79%.
I thought wifi consumes less power than 3G, left alone 4G/H+, hmmmm
H+ is only active when transferring data. It's basically using multiple connections of 3g to get faster overall connection, so it was in 3g all night. Also you should try with the battery fully charged and check to make sure your phone was not awake. I know that I drop 1 or 2% overnight with either wifi or cell data.
Thanks, m8
Good to know.
At first, I always think 3G consume more power than wifi. Then reading posts, seems to be 8 out of 10 people claim wifi consume less 'cuz shorter Tx (like wifi at home) distance, final answer from them is "testing yourself" so I did and it got me a surprise that in my case, wifi seems to use more.
Learning every day.
Well every person is different. I live in an area with low signal, so it usually takes a couple of tries to actually get the data, and I have multiple apps checking every 15-30 minutes (but phone still stays in deep sleep). The thing with android is that everyone is different and has different apps that affect battery life.
Update:
Last nite, 01/05, phone was at 87% at 11pm, left wifi on (no H+) overnite with screen turned off, this morning @ 8am, it only has 81% left . Recheck at 9:30am, it's 79%.
Beside 20' talk via bluetooth (after than turn off bluetooth) no other activity in the morning until noon.
Turn on wifi, keep it on until 6:30pm. Did download and install a few apps w/i 15' max, battery at 62%.
At 6:30pm, turn off wifi, turn on H+, turn on gps, turn on bluetooth.
Another 25' talk via bluetooth while driving along with Maps GPS on.
Arrive home, phone has 45% left.
Wowww
With very limited usage, the phone lasts only about a day
Woman, battery drained too fast, grrrrr.
With my normal usage, it probably last 4 hours.
I don't know it is what it is or I actually has a defect battery pack?

'keep wifi on when screen times out'?

what are others thoughts on some of the pros and cons of this update? i'm thinking it will actually save battery to have wifi 'always on' in standby mode rather than repeatedly switching between a on/off state which uses more energy.
It will definitely eat more battery if it's always on under the lockscreen...
Also there is an option to deactivate notifications when new wifi hotspots are around.. if you are about battery life you should deactivate this..
Ikkari said:
It will definitely eat more battery if it's always on under the lockscreen...
Also there is an option to deactivate notifications when new wifi hotspots are around.. if you are about battery life you should deactivate this..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I keep my Wifi always on because it consumes the least battery (vs 3G, LTE, etc).
If I don't play games on my Lumia 920 the battery can last 3 days.
This update is freezing my phone Dunno why but I have tested it. I occasionally get a freeze now and then, but when the keep wifi is on, it is like every couple of hrs... Will test it more though.
Ikkari said:
It will definitely eat more battery if it's always on under the lockscreen...
Also there is an option to deactivate notifications when new wifi hotspots are around.. if you are about battery life you should deactivate this..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong unless your phone is using 5-year old wifi chip.
Correct me if I am wrong, but is the wifi on this phone an on demand type system? From what I see on mine, the wifi unless being used for an actual update or downloading other content goes to sleep when the lock screen is on. It then wakes up if there is an update pushed to it or if something else needs it or of course if you unlock the phone. At least that is the way it appears that mine works.
Also your radio service are going to use much more power than the wifi will as they are higher power transmitters and receivers. There is a reason wifi only works within a few hundred feet and radio works for several miles that is due to the power difference. Of course with more power you get more battery consumption.
In the case of conserving the battery you are better off to use wifi when possible, leave it on and let the phone control it.
In my experience keeping Wifi on permanently lead to a remarkable decrease in battery life. That will depend on where you are though. If I have it sitting at home where it has Wifi connectivity it's likely that I would see better battery life because all actual transfers will happen via Wifi. At work though it can't connect to the Wifi network (private phone, work network) and so I have 3G running anyway while the phone keeps looking for Wifi networks to connect to.
The problem boils down to the fact that while you can switch off Wifi completely because everything can still work using 3G you can't switch off the phone part completely because only data is done over Wifi but you still need the mobile connection to receive calls/SMS.
I would suggest to anyone to simply try out what works better for them. For me it worked best to let Wifi deactivate automatically as it had been the default in WP since WP7 came out.
foxbat121 said:
Wrong unless your phone is using 5-year old wifi chip.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe Wifi is using less power when you are downloading something and need a lot of data... But when your phone is idle... Constant on Wifi is using far more battery power than 3G that checks for email or weather every 1-2 hours...
Simple enough...if you are consistently in an area with a WiFi signal, leave WiFi "always on"...it will consume less battery. If you're in an area without WiFi signal then turn it off, as searching for a signal will help run your battery down.
Sent from my LG-E970 using Tapatalk 2
Ikkari said:
Maybe Wifi is using less power when you are downloading something and need a lot of data... But when your phone is idle... Constant on Wifi is using far more battery power than 3G that checks for email or weather every 1-2 hours...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Again, simply not true unless you are using a 5-year old phone. Even if you are in an area that has no wifi connection, the extra drain caused by searching for Wi-Fi networks is minimum in a modern OS and modern chipset. I have left all my android phones (the ones that offer Wi-Fi always on feature for a few years now) wifi on all the time. Never have felt much difference vs if I turn wifi off. It annoys me that WP didn't offer this capability for so long.
foxbat121 said:
Again, simply not true unless you are using a 5-year old phone. Even if you are in an area that has no wifi connection, the extra drain caused by searching for Wi-Fi networks is minimum in a modern OS and modern chipset. I have left all my android phones (the ones that offer Wi-Fi always on feature for a few years now) wifi on all the time. Never have felt much difference vs if I turn wifi off. It annoys me that WP didn't offer this capability for so long.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tested a lot of phones Android and WP, my experience is that wifi always on is a battery killer... And I'm talking about state of the art hardware... It's just my 2 cent's but i keep it off...
When I don't charge overnight and wifi is always on my battery drops about 40%
with only 3G on about 8-10%
Foxbat: you can leave it any way you want to do it. I'm not saying Microsoft should remove the feature. But in my experience keeping Wifi on kills the battery faster. I tested it for my use case with always on and with Auto and in the end: Auto it was for me.
The best advice you can give to people is: try it out yourself and you will see what works best for you.
A picture or two says it all. See the attached files for my two testing: one with wifi always on for 24-hour and one with Wi-Fi in auto mode for 24-hour:
The right picture shows 0.0%/hour under current discharge rate... pretty impressive
Ikkari said:
The right picture shows 0.0%/hour under current discharge rate... pretty impressive
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The keyword is 'Current' -- means at that moment. You can derive the same thing from the left in various sections. The key here is that I don't see any discernible difference. Certainly not a battery killer in any sense as you claimed.
If you look at the first 12-hour period of both chart (when the phone is mostly sleep and not used), the result is almost identical. FYI, there are three push emails connected all the time: Hotmail, GMail and Corporate Exchange Email.
Yes the keyword 'Current' -- means at that moment... so your phone is not discharging although your screen is on... Very accurate app...
Ikkari said:
Yes the keyword 'Current' -- means at that moment... so your phone is not discharging although your screen is on... Very accurate app...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, what you saying is that if you have the screen on, you will see your battery percentage drop immediately? You should return your phone if that is the case.
Battery app get its information from the phone OS reporting. If the OS reported the same battery percentage over a short period of time, the discharge rate won't be anything other than zero. That's limitation of the platform, not app.
Instead of criticize the app which is not the point of the post, why don't you post your findings where leave Wi-Fi always on kills your battery?
it' % per hour... and your phone is using currently using 0,0% per hour so if you leave it like that it will run for ever... so where is the mistake?
Ikkari said:
it' % per hour... and your phone is using currently using 0,0% per hour so if you leave it like that it will run for ever... so where is the mistake?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
% per hour is a unit of measurement. It doesn't mean you have to take one hour to measure it in order to claim its rate. That will be average rate on that hour, not current rate which is meant to see what your current usage pattern is. It can't be used to predict your battery life. If you notice that when you take your phone off the charger, it will stay on 100% for quite some time before it starts to drop. Does that mean your phone battery can last forever? Think about it before post these ridiculous statements.
Foxbat - you are trying to tell us how our devices should behave while we are telling you how they actually behave in the real world out there. You can repeat your 5 years story as often as you want to but it clearly doesn't live up to the factual reality we experience every day and I guess after trying it out with different ROMs on the 920 and leaving all other settings the same I know the effect it had pretty well.
Nice to know though that you are having a different experience with different devices.

BT, WIFI or mobile data. What use most battery.

Hi
I have a twin-sim and dont really need BT or WIFI connection.
But what use the most power? Bluetooth, wifi or mobile data?
Good question. I would think cellular or WiFi if you can adjust the max data rate.
Mobile data
Wifi
Bt
In that order
3kgt said:
Mobile data
Wifi
Bt
In that order
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So basically BT saves the battery most.
But, if you leave phone on desk all day and do many trips around the building the phone and watch connects and disconnects several times a day.
Dont you think that would use large amounts of battery, both on phone and watch?
I have the same problem. I'm wandering around a lot but my phone stays in one place. I'm getting out of the Bluetooth range which triggers Cellular Auto On. Than, switches on data connection, than sending data to Samsung account to tell that I'm out of the range just to divert all notifications/calls. Sometimes before all that process is done I'm coming back
At this stage I can only guess that it's draining battery a lot.
In theory, power consumption should be cellular > wifi > BT. I've been doing some experimenting to see how battery life is affected when the Gear S is constantly connecting and reconnecting to BT and connecting to wifi. I've set cellular to off for this first experiment since there is a delay before the Gear S tries to connect to cellular after it loses BT or wifi.
Bt, by the end of the night, my watch is around 50%. Wifi by the end of the night from all day use (considering it will be on 3g between times) leaves my watch at around 15-20% by the end of the night.
I have wifi permanently off ( as suggested by another poster wrt to solving some pairing / call forwarding / notifications issues)
I get the BT switching on off all day long going in and out of range but my battery life is still good 54% after 12 hours. I didn't make any calls today but did receive lots of notifications ( mainly BT but also when out of range)
Ive not noticed much of a delay transitioning over - maybe 30 secs before the pedometer kicks in
I leave wifi off also and just leave it on auto. At the end of the night when I go to bed it's always between 30 and 45%

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