Solution for better battery life

[Guest jlgmax]

I use 122MHz for sleep mode.

From a shell (ADB or terminal) use the command:

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/stats/time_in_state

This will result in something like this:

122880 257399

245760 2339758

320000 48251

480000 71486

528000 1009029

This will show how much time is spent in each frequency, I guess it's in microseconds. I am a bit baffled by

the amount of frequencies. And I would have thought that only 2 frequencies would be used, not all. The Pulse

does not use the 122880 by default, normally the time spent at that frequency should be 0.

So roughly my phone is 70% spent in sleep mode and 30% in normal operating mode. Default the Pulse appears

to run in 245/528 mode. So in order to gain battery life one could go for 122/528 mode without loosing too much

performance, but personally I think it feels at bit sluggish like it is a bit slow in gearing up the frequency.

If you're willing to give up speed for battery life you could go with 122/480.

I'm still not convinced that the SetCPU app is helping out with my battery life issues. Im still unable to get 24 hours out of the device without charging it. I have however had a thought - I'm using one of those turbo SIM jobbies off ebay - is it possible that using one of these somehow saps the battery ?! Are you using one of those turbo SIMs too by any chance le_lutin ?

[Guest le_lutin]

I'm still not convinced that the SetCPU app is helping out with my battery life issues. Im still unable to get 24 hours out of the device without charging it. I have however had a thought - I'm using one of those turbo SIM jobbies off ebay - is it possible that using one of these somehow saps the battery ?! Are you using one of those turbo SIMs too by any chance le_lutin ?

I'm not actually, I unlocked mine using the unlocking service stickied in this forum. I don't think the turbo sim is the problem.

[Guest jlgmax]

I'm not actually, I unlocked mine using the unlocking service stickied in this forum. I don't think the turbo sim is the problem.

Ah well thats kind of good news then I suppose !

It seems very strange that some people (like us) have GPS/wifi/bluetooth etc disabled and yet still get crappy battery life, whilst others can last over 24hrs with some / all of these data connections active.

Could it just be a faulty batch of batteries perhaps ?!

[Guest le_lutin]

Ah well thats kind of good news then I suppose !

It seems very strange that some people (like us) have GPS/wifi/bluetooth etc disabled and yet still get crappy battery life, whilst others can last over 24hrs with some / all of these data connections active.

Could it just be a faulty batch of batteries perhaps ?!

I know! I keep thinking that my phone MUST be doing something while i'm not looking. I don't sync google mail/calendar AT ALL, I don't have wifi or gps or bluetooth on, i'm more or less just using it as a freaking phone! (well, some texts, too).

For me it's this phone's achilles heel, but it really shouldn't be, it has a 1500mah battery, which is as good as any other out there.

[Guest Dr Who]

I know! I keep thinking that my phone MUST be doing something while i'm not looking. I don't sync google mail/calendar AT ALL, I don't have wifi or gps or bluetooth on, i'm more or less just using it as a freaking phone! (well, some texts, too).

For me it's this phone's achilles heel, but it really shouldn't be, it has a 1500mah battery, which is as good as any other out there.

At the moment I feel that the battery life on mine is pretty good using MCR T-Mob 1.6 with GPS on (but no location apps running), wifi and BT off and calendar, contacts and email syncing and I am getting between 1 and 2 bars 3G signal. However saw an interesting phenomenon, after heavy Market use, installing apps, configuring, 20 minutes calls, some beebplayer, etc the battery drained from full charge to 40% in a few hours. However, after putting the phone down for 30 minutes this went up to 50%. Dunno whether this was because the handset temperature dropped (was warm after use) or because the load on the battery changed. Figure I will get at least 24 hours permanently on with normal use without having to change CPU speeds.

EDIT - After installing some new apps battery life went from 29% to phone off overnight - not so good. Will see how I get on today. Is there anyway of viewing applications and proceses by resources, i.e. processor usage, a la Task Manager in Windows, to get an idea of what is using processing power when idle?

Edited December 30, 2009 by Dr Who

[Guest le_lutin]

Right, last night when I went to bed the battery was at 37%, woke up 9 hours later and the phone was dead.

I didn't have wifi on, no gps, no bluetooth, no auto-sync, not even background data. The only application I had running was setcpu. 

I'm very disappointed at the moment. 

Setcpu is clearly doing nothing for it and if anything seems to be wasting battery rather than conserving it. 

I have a 16gb class 2 micro sd card in my phone - I wonder would some process be trying to index in the background and wasting the battery?

I have advanced task killer installed, but surely it can't be reporting all the processes that are running on the phone. Something must be running to kill my battery. 

Anyone have any ideas what i (and Dr Who!) should do?

[Guest david_dawkins]

Right, last night when I went to bed the battery was at 37%, woke up 9 hours later and the phone was dead.

I didn't have wifi on, no gps, no bluetooth, no auto-sync, not even background data. The only application I had running was setcpu. 

I'm very disappointed at the moment. 

Setcpu is clearly doing nothing for it and if anything seems to be wasting battery rather than conserving it. 

I have a 16gb class 2 micro sd card in my phone - I wonder would some process be trying to index in the background and wasting the battery?

I have advanced task killer installed, but surely it can't be reporting all the processes that are running on the phone. Something must be running to kill my battery. 

Anyone have any ideas what i (and Dr Who!) should do?

You've given me an idea for an app that logs every process that is started and/or shutdown. I wonder if we have cron running in Android, and whether you have stuff being started on a schedule. I'm looking for an app to write...

[Guest Dr Who]

I have installed Netmeter which shows ALL processes running on the device (you could also install Task Manager by houmiak) and their CPU usage. It updates every 30 seconds. So far, starting the Netmeter application on a newly restarted phone the only applications I have seen 'spiking' have been Servo Search and the recently installed Battery Widget. Since I can't imagine using Servo Search I might consider uninstalling it, and from back in my WinMo days I remember some battery monitors could kill battery life by constantly polling the battery condition so I might consider removing that too. I will keep an eye on this if the battery life proves a problem to me but so far I am quite impressed with the battery life, at least in use if not in standby.

However, today I have turned on wifi (connected) and bluetooth (unconnected) and have GPS on (no GPS apps open) and I am going to see what the battery life is like Currently from about an 80% charge the battery is holding up really well.

I have noticed however, that the battery charges very quickly initially and then much more slowly. No idea if this is what happens for all batteries but I wondered if the battery life is not actually linear but exponential - in other words the battery lasts much longer from 100-50% than 50-0% - just a thought.

[Guest le_lutin]

I have installed Netmeter which shows ALL processes running on the device (you could also install Task Manager by houmiak) and their CPU usage. It updates every 30 seconds. So far, starting the Netmeter application on a newly restarted phone the only applications I have seen 'spiking' have been Servo Search and the recently installed Battery Widget. Since I can't imagine using Servo Search I might consider uninstalling it, and from back in my WinMo days I remember some battery monitors could kill battery life by constantly polling the battery condition so I might consider removing that too. I will keep an eye on this if the battery life proves a problem to me but so far I am quite impressed with the battery life, at least in use if not in standby.

However, today I have turned on wifi (connected) and bluetooth (unconnected) and have GPS on (no GPS apps open) and I am going to see what the battery life is like Currently from about an 80% charge the battery is holding up really well.

I have noticed however, that the battery charges very quickly initially and then much more slowly. No idea if this is what happens for all batteries but I wondered if the battery life is not actually linear but exponential - in other words the battery lasts much longer from 100-50% than 50-0% - just a thought.

Thanks for the heads up on netmeter - great application, though not quite compatible with the Pulse (bits of the screen are cut off), but it is certainly usable.

One thing I did notice is that an app I installed last week called beautiful widgets was running even though I didn't have any widgets on my homescreen. I uninstalled the application completely from my device so the process is no longer running. Remains to be seen whether it has any effect on my battery life. 

BTW, is system_server a normal android process? It's seems to be always high on the CPU utilisation.

[Guest le_lutin]

Thanks for the heads up on netmeter - great application, though not quite compatible with the Pulse (bits of the screen are cut off), but it is certainly usable.

One thing I did notice is that an app I installed last week called beautiful widgets was running even though I didn't have any widgets on my homescreen. I uninstalled the application completely from my device so the process is no longer running. Remains to be seen whether it has any effect on my battery life. 

BTW, is system_server a normal android process? It's seems to be always high on the CPU utilisation.

Just a small update on this just in case anyone is interested 

I charged my phone this morning for the first time in over 3 days (about 74 hours). 

I had been previously quite disappointed with the phone's battery life and even thought that there might be something wrong with my battery as it wasn't even lasting 24 hours when I was just trying to use it as a normal phone (ie no GPS or internet).

Well, I changed my firmware to the vanilla ROM, set the phone to use 2g networks only and used the phone as a normal phone. My usage: 

 - About 30 text messages written per day, about 30 received. 

 - About 15 shortish phone calls per day

 - VERY light surfing on the 2g network. 

 - No auto sync, GPS or WIFI 

And that's about it! Overall I'm fairly pleased with 74 hours. The thing that I didn't like about it before I changed to the vanilla ROM (and i'm not suggesting that the vanilla rom makes your battery last longer, because there are other variables in play here (eg no 3g)), was that when the phone was on standby it would lose about 20-30% while I was sleeping (I didn't have WIFI, auto sync or anything on). 

In the test above, the phone lost virtually no battery overnight (about 1% or so). 

Anyway, just charging my battery back to full now. I will turn 3g on this time and see how the battery life compares.

By the way, does anyone know if the phone charges more quickly from a power outlet (as opposed to a USB socket)?

Edited January 8, 2010 by le_lutin

[Guest niko1986]

A new version of SetCPU has been released and it supports the Pulse properly now.

I think it does help having SetCPU running, as a sleep profile has my phone draining much less then turned right down.

I wish you could schedule when the phone syncs with gmail and contact etc. Gmail seems to instantly react to new mail, this means i must be checking very regularly for new messages. I've switched most apps to manual sync and noticed a big improvement in battery life.

One program that sucks alot of power for some odd reason is Lock 2.0.

[Guest giryan]

A new version of SetCPU has been released and it supports the Pulse properly now.

I think it does help having SetCPU running, as a sleep profile has my phone draining much less then turned right down.

I wish you could schedule when the phone syncs with gmail and contact etc. Gmail seems to instantly react to new mail, this means i must be checking very regularly for new messages. I've switched most apps to manual sync and noticed a big improvement in battery life.

One program that sucks alot of power for some odd reason is Lock 2.0.

Locale( http://www.twofortyfouram.com/ ) lets you do all of that, however I have heard a couple of people blaming it for poor battery performance, although the dev said it ought not to. :)

[Guest Vibein]

Not used SetCPU but this is my experience on the Pulse - 2g battery lasts few days, when on 3g battery drained in 24 hours or less on a stock pulse no mods or custom anything.

Same issues as Hermes, not sure how the iphone or other new devices like Nexus 1, droid, etc fair in terms of battery performance on 3g.

Think this is the issue with many handsets, who knows what will happen on 4g mobiles? Call, "Hello", beeb beeb beeb=phone off :-O

[Guest HunteronX]

Also, one thing that consumes a lot of power on my Pulse, is using a task killer to auto-kill tasks after a certain amount of time, or when the phone goes into sleep mode - apparently android doesn't need one all - have a look at this:

"http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-general-discussions/1480-please-read-do-not-worry-about-apps-running-background.html"

It should speed up the phone as well... :)

[Guest le_lutin]

Locale( http://www.twofortyfouram.com/ ) lets you do all of that, however I have heard a couple of people blaming it for poor battery performance, although the dev said it ought not to. :)

I did actually try locale (when I was on the T-Mobile ROM) as I wanted to schedule syncing of calendar and mail (eg. sync every 4 hours or so), just like niko1986. However, locale can only turn on and off auto sync, which in my experience does NOT force an immediate sync and therefore doesn't do the job required. I will more than likely try this out again on the Vanilla ROM but what we really need is an application that can schedule and emulate the "Sync Now" option in the menu.

I also tried SetCPU, and found it to be ok, though again I was on the old T-Mobile ROM. I didn't really see much of a difference in battery life, though again, I will revist the app.

I would love to get an applicaton which would turn off 3g on schedule (eg from midnight to 8 in the morning).

[Guest niko1986]

I would love to get an applicaton which would turn off 3g on schedule (eg from midnight to 8 in the morning).

Im going to look into android scripting environment. Not sure if it works on the pulse but if it does should be able to make a script to automate alot of stuff.

[Guest le_lutin]

Im going to look into android scripting environment. Not sure if it works on the pulse but if it does should be able to make a script to automate alot of stuff.

I have seen a widget button which lets you toggle 2g/3g, BUT pressing the button is only a direct link to the settings page. I *think* that I remember that the developer said that direct toggling was not possible.

[Guest niko1986]

I have seen a widget button which lets you toggle 2g/3g, BUT pressing the button is only a direct link to the settings page. I *think* that I remember that the developer said that direct toggling was not possible.

yeah those work but automated in the background between set times may be possible with a script.

[Guest le_lutin]

yeah those work but automated in the background between set times may be possible with a script.

That's what i'm saying though - the developer said that it wasn't accessible through the sdk.

[Guest niko1986]

That's what i'm saying though - the developer said that it wasn't accessible through the sdk.

Ahh i see sorry.

[Guest Jan M]

the developer said that it wasn't accessible through the sdk.

the same probably goes for GPS (at least not without restarting bluetooth as well)

[Guest le_lutin]

the same probably goes for GPS (at least not without restarting bluetooth as well)

I'm not so sure about that as I have seen widgets which can toggle GPS on and off.

[Guest niko1986]

I'm not so sure about that as I have seen widgets which can toggle GPS on and off.

Quick Settings can do that, it can also go from 2/3g in one click, forgot about this app earlier. Saves using tonnes of widgets, all settings in one quick and easy place.