"Battery Usage" weirdness

[Guest thenext1]

Hi all...

I'm a new Acer Liquid user, but a longtime lurker of this forum and previous WInMo user.

I love the phone, but I think my battery doesn't last as long as it should, based on what I've read and seen on reviews.

Even a day of mild usage, or something more (10min calls, some texts, 30min wifi browsing, data off) sqqueezes the battery completely.

Weird thing is that the battery seems to discharge at the same rate throughout it's charge, even when I am not using the phone.

So out of any clue, I went check the Battery Usage screen in the settings: (Sorry for the translations, I am italian..)

1) Android System: 60%

2) Phone standby: 13%

3) Phone off: 11%

4) Media: 7%

5) Phone: 6%

6) Screen: 3%

7) WiFi: 2%

This makes sense, except for the first position which is obviously wrong. The phone was in standby much of the time and the OS should not really account for 60+ percent of battery usage. ("60+" 'coz the first time I checked this screen, days ago, it was showing 78%!)

I compared my list to the same list found on a friend's HTC Tattoo, with the battery at a similar level:

1) Phone standby: 34%

2) Phone off: 20%

3) Screen: 20%

4) WiFi: 12%

5) Phone calls: 5%

6) Browser: 4%

7) Android System: 3%

8) Phone: 2%

Do you think this is normal? I think it's not. Maybe the Liquid also suffers from the same problem which affected early the HTC Hero (CDMA version) on its first firmware version?

Maybe this is a bug of my firmware version? (which is v1.002.03)

How long does your battery last? Can you check your Battery Usage list?

thanks...

[Guest pete.major]

1) Android System: 60%

2) Phone standby: 13%

3) Phone off: 11%

4) Media: 7%

5) Phone: 6%

6) Screen: 3%

7) WiFi: 2%

Mine charge lasts for 16 hrs and I've got some widgets installed, stay connected to google talk etc.

Here's my stats for today so-far:

Android System: 50%

Cell standby: 18%

WiFi: 13%

Display: 13%

Phone idle: 6%

Edited December 26, 2009 by pete.major

[Guest B1ny]

Had the same problem, about the same power drop if the phone was in use or not. And the android system was at the top. Now after removing most of the widgets the android system is at the bottom and my battery seems to last twice as long with around 24 hours instead of 12. And it use a lot less power when its not in active use.

[Guest thenext1]

Had the same problem, about the same power drop if the phone was in use or not. And the android system was at the top. Now after removing most of the widgets the android system is at the bottom and my battery seems to last twice as long with around 24 hours instead of 12. And it use a lot less power when its not in active use.

Well I only have some icons and the Acer Power Management (the white bar with the comm switchers) on 1 page.... the 2 other pages are empty...

[Guest pete.major]

Don't know if it really makes a difference, but I use a task killer to kill a bunch of crap after each reboot...

Nemo player service

Some acer apps like sync... (I don't use the built-in facebook sync, its pants)

[Guest zeus_hunt]

Screen on Acer Liquid 3% and on HTC Tatoo 20% is quite strange. I would have expected them to be reversed.

[Guest qthaothao]

I've got exactly same problem! I thought it's because of the dxtop I installed. Does it use more battery if I have two desktops running?

[Guest WVGA]

Hi All,

I haven't posted for a while cause I was focusing on french forums about liquid.

I there found some solutions.

Power management seems to be Acer's Fault.

We (with french co-participants) identified, as source of poor battery life, in order of importance of impact :

1. proximity sensor (has to do with the red light flashing all the time at the top right corner of the device) --> desactivate it.

2. acer widgets (each time you slide on left or right panel to display acer web or multimedia widget, android needs to preview the files by launching both chrome lite & nemo player. those two apps keep running in background all the time, using ram, hence power consuming)

3. light sensor (best way to save power is to set lightness to 30-40% (very comfy, not disturbing even when sunlight is strong) and to desable light adaptation))

4. reboot device after full charge (I don't really know why but it re-adjusts power consuption a lot)

5. perform a taskiller at first start after every reboot (hence you kill every usesell autorun process as Acer Sync, Roadsync etc)

With those three steps, my Liquid with

HSDPA network all the time,

30 to 50 minutes call a day,

30 to 100 sms a day

Autosync activated (gmail push, calendars & contacts sync)

1 android mail pull account (every 15 minutes, 40 emails a day)

uses less than 2% an hour.

I guess now we can say it has decent battery life.

Let's of course do our best to have Acer note those pain points.

Also, I'd like to respond to thenext1,

Dear friend, know that battery stats you are comparing between your Liquid and Tatoo are relative not to battery level at time of comparison but to phone usage.

E.G. if both phones are at 77% of battery left and you phones for 50 minutes with the Liquid, and used wifi with Tatoo for 30 minutes, you'll probably see :

On liquid :

- wifi : 0%

- calls : 55% (or something high)

On tatoo :

- wifi : 70% (or something high)

- calls : 1% (or something low)

To compare, you need to have exactly the same usage with both phones !

[Guest three_pineapples]

I have Android system at 5% after 3 hours. On wifi always. Use a task killer to get rid of rubbish. Have gmail, locale, keep wifi active, maps, handcent sms runnning in background (not killed). gmail push (emails, calendar, contacts) enabled. GPS enabled (latitude running).

Didn't use it much in those 3 hours, browsed the market for maybe 30 mins.

The thing that i seem to have different from others is that my proximity sensor does not flash all the time and works perfectly, and that i kill excess processes (set to kill every 30 mins). So maybe this is the cause of the big drain. That said, i still only get 16 hours out of the battery with minimal usage. Might try disabling proximity sensor/light sensor and see how it goes :) (just removed widgets)

Edited December 27, 2009 by three_pineapples

[Guest thenext1]

Screen on Acer Liquid 3% and on HTC Tatoo 20% is quite strange. I would have expected them to be reversed.

Seem like the high "Android System" usage is dwarfing all other items.

[Guest thenext1]

Also, I'd like to respond to thenext1,

Dear friend, know that battery stats you are comparing between your Liquid and Tatoo are relative not to battery level at time of comparison but to phone usage.

E.G. if both phones are at 77% of battery left and you phones for 50 minutes with the Liquid, and used wifi with Tatoo for 30 minutes, you'll probably see :

On liquid :

- wifi : 0%

- calls : 55% (or something high)

On tatoo :

- wifi : 70% (or something high)

- calls : 1% (or something low)

To compare, you need to have exactly the same usage with both phones !

Both phones were used with a similar pattern, but while Tattoo statistics actually made sense, Liquid statistics instead were all messed up.

I used eBuddy that afternoon on my Liquid for a while (30min-1hr) with WiFi on, and still Wifi was only 2% in my statistics, and Screen 3%.

Both phones were left in standby most of the time, but there's a striking difference in percent values of Android Status and Phone idle+standby, between the Liquid and the Tattoo.

Thanks for the advices anyway... p.s.: what's your firmware version? Mine is stock 1.002.03. And how can we get in touch with Acer?

EDIT: I just checked the proximity sensor and it blinks continuously only when calling, and makes a blink when I wake the phone. It is not blinking continuously.

bye bye

Edited December 27, 2009 by thenext1

[Guest thenext1]

Lol, I actually forgot to write 2 more thigns I had to say:

1) This night the phone burned at least 25% of battery charge for no reason, with WiFi, 3G data and screen turned off, and the phone obviously idling. This happened after having used it in the evening for internet browsing and youtube (CPU- and Wifi-intensive tasks) for a few time, during which the phone used less than 20% charge.

2) The battery takes a LOT of time to recharge, even with the wall adapter. I'm talking about 5 hours to fully recharge. Is this normal?

[Guest baley]

I am currently abroad (so on roaming) so I deactivated ALL data services no 3G networks live synch etc and even with minimal usage, I get the exactly same life time I was getting before when I was using it normally (1 day flat) :)

I also have the same issue with Android System consuming a great deal of battery.

I should get rid of the Acer Junk when I have free time to see if that helps hopefully Acer will release a better ROM (currently on 1.002.05-EMEA)

[Guest three_pineapples]

I can't stress how important it is to get a task killer. There is so much crap running in the background. On start up, my task killer (Advanced Task killer, costs $1) ends 20 programs!!!

If you are not getting at least 16 hours out of your battery (wifi+gps on) you probably need to do this!

[Guest chingy1788]

I rooted my phone last night and removed many preinstalled acer apps

When I woke up 2 hours ago I put the phone on 2G mode, turned off wifi, bluetooth etc, killed all tasks

Then the battery life stayed at 100% for 2 hours

Then I used the market for 5 minutes and it dropped to 98%

I also have set cpu profiles running

when on standby - 245/245

Edited December 27, 2009 by chingy1788

[Guest thenext1]

I rooted my phone last night and removed many preinstalled acer apps

When I woke up 2 hours ago I put the phone on 2G mode, turned off wifi, bluetooth etc, killed all tasks

Then the battery life stayed at 100% for 2 hours

Then I used the market for 5 minutes and it dropped to 98%

I also have set cpu profiles running

when on standby - 245/245

So this sounds like good news...

Anyway i looked at the task list in ASTRO task manager, and there's two processes always "touching" the cpu with 1-5% usage. One is "sensorserver_ya" and the other is one of the app_process hosts...usually the one with the lower pid.

Just a clue...

[Guest pete.major]

2) The battery takes a LOT of time to recharge, even with the wall adapter. I'm talking about 5 hours to fully recharge. Is this normal?

This is the one point I really notice moving from an iPhone to the Liquid... the Liquid charges VERY slowly... both on USB or AC

[Guest thenext1]

Last night I rebooted the phone, turned on flight mode and term'ed all processes with ATK. Starting battery level: 88%; battery level this morning: 87%.

Android System down in the standings, under Phone standby and Phone off, but not quite as low as in the Tattoo.

Turned off flight mode and kept the phone bloat-free with ATK, and now Android System is gaining percents back (but much less than before).

1) This night I'll try enabling flight mode but leaving all processes open and will see how much the battery level decreases.

2) Can acer bloatware (sync, roadsync, urfooz, sniplets) be removed cleanly?

This is the one point I really notice moving from an iPhone to the Liquid... the Liquid charges VERY slowly... both on USB or AC

I hope these are all points that will be sorted out on upcoming (?) firmware releases.

[Guest IronFly]

1. proximity sensor (has to do with the red light flashing all the time at the top right corner of the device) --> desactivate it.

2. acer widgets (each time you slide on left or right panel to display acer web or multimedia widget, android needs to preview the files by launching both chrome lite & nemo player. those two apps keep running in background all the time, using ram, hence power consuming)

3. light sensor (best way to save power is to set lightness to 30-40% (very comfy, not disturbing even when sunlight is strong) and to desable light adaptation))

4. reboot device after full charge (I don't really know why but it re-adjusts power consuption a lot)

5. perform a taskiller at first start after every reboot (hence you kill every usesell autorun process as Acer Sync, Roadsync etc)

1. i don't think that's so power consuming

2. this is true

3. i agree

4. or charge with phone completly shut down, this is a classic "reset" on android devices for the battery, since it will re-read battery value.

5. good advice

[Guest thenext1]

So I made some tests these days and the outcome is: I Don't Know :)

The only thing I am sure about is that, if Android System is low in the battery usage stats, the phone will not "self-discharge".

But I haven't found a definite cause for the high Android System battery usage.

I tend to think it's problem related to the background processes running on the liquid by default, or only one of them, or a radio-related problem.

[Guest B1ny]

I have noticed the same, and it seem to either be at the top or at the bottom of the usage statistics, never in the middle.

The only thing I am sure about is that, if Android System is low in the battery usage stats, the phone will not "self-discharge".

But I haven't found a definite cause for the high Android System battery usage.

I tend to think it's problem related to the background processes running on the liquid by default, or only one of them, or a radio-related problem.

[Guest three_pineapples]

Anyone have a battery charge/level widget?

I found that this was causing a significant drain.

I now, end all tasks on startup. Have wifi (not using wififixer yet) + GPS on. Proximity and light sensor off. Acer power widget displayed (no others).

Locale, handcentsms and my task killer are excluded from auto ending.

lost 12% in just over 10 hours! (overnight).

I'm not sure what background process it is using the battery up, but it is definitely one of them as i noticed when this thread had started that android system didn't show up in my usage statistics leading me to think i'd been auto ending that task anyway.

[Guest Paul]

Anyone using the test2ru ROM? I've found that has better battery life... and there's a ROM coming that has MUCH MUCH MUCH better battery life... I hope it leaks soon (I have a copy but i'm not allowed to share).

With this 'much better ROM' my phone lost 3% overnight in one test!

P

[Guest liquid_it]

(I have a copy but i'm not allowed to share)

You cruel man.. :) ;) B)

test2ru rom is way better than stock 1.002.05, I still have more than 30% of battery after 15 hours, but I've noticed home screen scrolling looks not as smooth as previous firmware: not bad at all, but 002.05 was a bit smoother..

Edited December 29, 2009 by liquid_it

[Guest thenext1]

@paul: what's the version number?

You cruel man.. :) ;) B)

test2ru rom is way better than stock 1.002.05, I still have more than 30% of battery after 15 hours, but I've noticed home screen scrolling looks not as smooth as previous firmware: not bad at all, but 002.05 was a bit smoother..

1.002.03 is not that smooth either... the UI is snappy, but the transitions are not smooth, i.e. when you press the menu button the menu comes up fast, but the animation is not as smooth as in the Hero, or is completely missing (frame skip? some sort of bug?)