Maximize battery life !! How ?

[Guest JThumar]

Hi All,

Can some seasoned users put more light on battery life improvement for the skate ?

It seems irrespective of the ROM you use, battery life depends on few tweaks/add ons which people use.

[Guest jeannot18]

Hi All,

Can some seasoned users put more light on battery life improvement for the skate ?

It seems irrespective of the ROM you use, battery life depends on few tweaks/add ons which people use.

I am no expert but I have installed Juice Defender on my daughter's phone (OMC) and it has improved the battery life considerably. This is good if you don't need constant data update by the way.

JC

[Guest whippet]

Data use is probably one of the key areas. My wife's MC uses AutomateIt to automate the Wifi and Data connection, so it has a rule to turn Wifi/Data on when the screen turns on and off again when the screen turns off. In addition there's a rule that starts the data connection once an hour for 15 mins to collect email etc and then shuts it back off again. Data is disabled overnight.

I've started using Tasker for the same thing as it's a little more flexible (but then also not free like AutomateIT).

Both of these allow you to do other stuff (ie: I turn on Bluetooth at 7:30 and off at 9:00 and again at 16:30-18:00 which is when Im generally driving, my wife has a rule to change to silent on the days she works and back to normal when she usually finishes work).

Screen is a big drainer, keeping the brightness low helps.....

Dependent on use I can usually get at least 2 days, sometimes up to 4 and my wife the same. That's with some calls, sms, checking emails etc. It depends on how much you use it as to what to expect. If you can use airplane mode overnight thats a big saver.

But these are just my experiences,

[Guest danz0l]

Data use is probably one of the key areas. My wife's MC uses AutomateIt to automate the Wifi and Data connection, so it has a rule to turn Wifi/Data on when the screen turns on and off again when the screen turns off. In addition there's a rule that starts the data connection once an hour for 15 mins to collect email etc and then shuts it back off again. Data is disabled overnight.

Hi, just a quick question. How does your wife have automateit check emails once an hour then shutting data back off again ?> Cant see this rule anywhere.

And you think its safe for airplane mode throughout the night to turn of wifi, data and sms ? Would the alarm still work then ?

Thanks again

P.S. Would your wife be willing to share her profiles as it seems a good ground to start of with. Sorry a little new to automateIT

Edited January 24, 2012 by danz0l

[Guest whippet]

Hi, just a quick question. How does your wife have automateit check emails once an hour then shutting data back off again ?> Cant see this rule anywhere.

And you think its safe for airplane mode throughout the night to turn of wifi, data and sms ? Would the alarm still work then ?

Thanks again

P.S. Would your wife be willing to share her profiles as it seems a good ground to start of with. Sorry a little new to automateIT

Hi,

Automate it has a rule that you can setup on a time basis, unfortunately there isn't a rule that says 'every hour do this' you have to create a rule for each hour. From memory I setup a rule to run on the hour that enables data and then a rule that turns it off after 15 mins. We use K9 Mail and that's set to poll every 15 mins (it doesn't do anything if there is no data connection). I haven't tried with other email apps, but I guess they poll on a similar basis.

As far as I know the alarm will still work, but be aware that airplane mode shuts off all the radios I believe so if you need the phone to receive calls in the night it's not for you. Shutting off Wifi and 3G overnight will likely be sufficient. I use Atomic as my ROM and the battery drain is really good.

I've attached the ruleset I used to use before I switched to Tasker, which has the following rules :

• Screen on - enable wifi and data
• Screen off - disable wifi and data 5 mins after screen turns off
• Hourly rule from 07:00-22:00 to turn on data on the hour
• Hourly rule from 07:10-22:10 to turn off data
• Couple of rules to enable and disable bluetooth in the morning and evening

You need to unzip the file and place it in your SD Cards \Automateit\Backups directory (make sure you put the .AIR file in there and not the ZIP file). Go into AutomateIT and select menu, more, restore and the file should appear and will ask which rules you want to restore. That should be it.

2012-01-24-21.42.27.zipWhippet

[Guest ciappy]

I use toggle 2g\3g http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=739530 and keep data on all th time. but when screen is off it only uses 2g and saves a lot of power.

Hi,

Automate it has a rule that you can setup on a time basis, unfortunately there isn't a rule that says 'every hour do this' you have to create a rule for each hour. From memory I setup a rule to run on the hour that enables data and then a rule that turns it off after 15 mins. We use K9 Mail and that's set to poll every 15 mins (it doesn't do anything if there is no data connection). I haven't tried with other email apps, but I guess they poll on a similar basis.

As far as I know the alarm will still work, but be aware that airplane mode shuts off all the radios I believe so if you need the phone to receive calls in the night it's not for you. Shutting off Wifi and 3G overnight will likely be sufficient. I use Atomic as my ROM and the battery drain is really good.

I've attached the ruleset I used to use before I switched to Tasker, which has the following rules :

• Screen on - enable wifi and data
• Screen off - disable wifi and data 5 mins after screen turns off
• Hourly rule from 07:00-22:00 to turn on data on the hour
• Hourly rule from 07:10-22:10 to turn off data
• Couple of rules to enable and disable bluetooth in the morning and evening

You need to unzip the file and place it in your SD Cards \Automateit\Backups directory (make sure you put the .AIR file in there and not the ZIP file). Go into AutomateIT and select menu, more, restore and the file should appear and will ask which rules you want to restore. That should be it.

2012-01-24-21.42.27.zipWhippet

[Guest danz0l]

Hi,

Automate it has a rule that you can setup on a time basis, unfortunately there isn't a rule that says 'every hour do this' you have to create a rule for each hour. From memory I setup a rule to run on the hour that enables data and then a rule that turns it off after 15 mins. We use K9 Mail and that's set to poll every 15 mins (it doesn't do anything if there is no data connection). I haven't tried with other email apps, but I guess they poll on a similar basis.

As far as I know the alarm will still work, but be aware that airplane mode shuts off all the radios I believe so if you need the phone to receive calls in the night it's not for you. Shutting off Wifi and 3G overnight will likely be sufficient. I use Atomic as my ROM and the battery drain is really good.

I've attached the ruleset I used to use before I switched to Tasker, which has the following rules :

• Screen on - enable wifi and data
• Screen off - disable wifi and data 5 mins after screen turns off
• Hourly rule from 07:00-22:00 to turn on data on the hour
• Hourly rule from 07:10-22:10 to turn off data
• Couple of rules to enable and disable bluetooth in the morning and evening

You need to unzip the file and place it in your SD Cards \Automateit\Backups directory (make sure you put the .AIR file in there and not the ZIP file). Go into AutomateIT and select menu, more, restore and the file should appear and will ask which rules you want to restore. That should be it.

2012-01-24-21.42.27.zipWhippet

Thanks mate, thats brilliant. I think i have most of it as it should be now :)

[Guest Fossil52]

Thanks mate, thats brilliant. I think i have most of it as it should be now :)

I have Atomic 3E on my OMC, and the battery life is a bit variable, and it had got much worse recently.

Over last night it chomped its way through the 30% of battery life which was left - it was flat this morning and wouldn't run until charged up a bit, despite wireless and GPS being off in an attempt to reduce power consumption.

Having looked at the "what's been using the battery" page the top useage (40 odd percent) was "MAPS".

Stuff I've been reading in other places suggest that the guts of an Android decide what apps to use, even if you shut them down they restart, and some of the native apps can be called by other apps if the programmer is cunning enough.

As far as I can tell "MAPS" was being called by having google mobile as the home page of the web browser, and it couldn't determine my location (surprise surpise with GPS and WIFI off).

I've changed my browser home page for a different flavour of google which isn't fussed about where I am....

Next overnight use:

15 hours, 10% battery use.

Comprising 50% Mobile standby, 50%Phone idle.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Fossil52

[Guest Nozz]

I'm still running Atomic v2.5 and haven't yet bothered upgrading given battery drain seems similar in later versions of the ROM. I'm currently using Juice Defender and with data enabled (GSM/WCDMA auto) plus wifi and GPS off, I lose about 3% of battery life overnight. I suspect if I switched Juice Defender off and changed to GSM only or used Toggle 2G/3G, that it would be about the same. Switched the phone on this morning and spent about 30 minutes surfing the internet and reading a handful of gmails which had downloaded overnight. The battery drained about 20% as a result.

So this is where it happens for me. When I look in "Applications Settings" at "Running Services", there's only Media, Google Services and Android Keyboard running. Plus "Settings" of course, given that's what I'm looking at. And also Juice Defender. Also in "Settings", "Battery Use" indicates that usage is roughly split between mobile standby and phone idle (40% odd each), with a small percentage for display after my internet use.

So that's where I'm at and think I need to find a way of prolonging battery life during internet surfing. Anybody got any ideas or is this just normal for a smartphone?

[Guest C3C0]

Display itself is taking the most energy when turned on. Nothing to do about it just to keep the brightness as low as possible. It's a big screen. Battery saving apps can help but they make sense only in stand-by mode. Because when the screen is on it drains battery fast - no matter what battery saving app you use.

[Guest Nozz]

Thanks C3C0. That makes a lot of sense. I think I'll experiment with even lower brightness and ensure Juice Defender is switched off when the screen is on. And then try a GSM only setting with Juice Defender disabled completely.

[Guest tillaz]

3g/2g radio is the main drainer of the battery... if you were to have it in airplain mode for a day you would see it lasts ages...

but being a phone its rather useless in airplane mode lol

Edited February 2, 2012 by tillaz

[Guest C3C0]

Bringing this topic alive. Just came accross very useful information that is also related to battery life and I think is worth to share with the community.

Explaining the difference between Mobile Data Always-On turned ON and OFF

http://androidforums.com/3816899-post20.html