Monday, October 10, 2011

Android battery guide

What should I do. My phone battery drop very fast. Below are a few things that you can do including galaxy calibrate battery. Hope it works for you.

Note:
All the tips below come from Android users and my own experiences. I will keep updating it once I found new tips...keep visiting :)

1. Upgrade your phone OS to the latest version. It's known that Gingerbread ROM have bugs

You can identify this drain by checking
Setting>About>Battery Use.


If Android OS is above 20%, often between 40 and 60% of the battery consumption while your phone has been idle most of the time, then that's it.

2. WiFi sleep policy
Settings > Wireless and network > WiFi settings > Menu key > Advanced > Wifi sleep policy. Set to Never or Never when plugged in.
Note: 3G used more phone battery than WiFi 


3. Display configuration
Settings > Display > Animations. Set to "NO or SOME animations"

4. Flight mode configuration
Setting > Wireless and network > Flight Mode. Toggle the airplane mode on/off 3 times in a row, that will reduce your Cell Standby battery usage

5. Others basic rules
- Always flash with 100% battery. Else battery calibration is required
- Avoid having too many widgets
- Avoid using live wallpapers
- Avoid using energy saving apps (they actually run non-stop in the background, eating your battery)
- Set your screen time-out to an acceptable low value, like 30 seconds

- Brightness: use a low value (between min and 25%) or tick auto-brightness,

- Use dark/black wallpaper
- Try different modems (as they are responsible for networks and networks use a lot of power)
- Buy a 10% higher capacity battery (1650mAh) made by Samsung for SGS devices
- Calibrate your battery.

  •  Under Power Saving Mode, I've got it turned off. Your mileage may vary and you may get even better results...Havent really explored this yet.
  • Under Battery Usage, click the battery graph just beneath the status bar. You want as much green phone signal as you can (dependent on your location). The Next three bars (Wi-Fi, Awake, Screen-On) should be as black as possible. Awake tells you how much time the CPU is not sleeping, which is wasting power.
  •  Under Accounts and Sync, Background Data ON and Auto-Sync off.
  • Under applications, select Running Services. Shutdown, Disable, Freeze or uninstall as many of these as you can.
  • Under Sound, use as much silence as much as possible, also keep the haptic feedback off or reduced to perceptable levels (it's a motor).
  •  Under Wi-Fi settings, Turn off Network Notifications
  •  Disable all automatic app updates. Example of Evernote

  •  Disable all automatic app updates. Example of Android Market
  • Disable all automatic app updates. Example of Facebook
  • Tips from Samsung Galaxy Note Power Saving
  • Settings > Date and Time. NO automatic again. iPhone iOS 5 have this problem as well...phone keep asking for what's the time for this location??? for what! We are not traveling that fast right... :)


How to Calibrate your Battery (Galaxy calibrate battery)

Sometimes the battery isn't being used to its full extent, or it shows wrong values. This is due to some wrong data stored in a file called batterystats.bin stored in /data/system.

Follow steps below:
1. Charge your battery full 100%
2. Drain your battery to 0% until it shuts down by itself (watching video/playing games)
3. Wait 2 minutes and reboot the phone to ensure the battery is completely flat. It will dies again
4. Remove the battery and wait 2 minutes
5. Replace the battery and plug the charger (DO NOT switch on the phone). Wait until it shows 100%
6. When phone shows 100%, boot in recovery (volume up + home + power)
7. Go to > Advanced > Wipe Battery Stats > Confirm (move up/down using the volume keys)
8. Reboot the phone and unplug the charger when the "battery full notification" comes
9. DONE. Now you phone status and it's actual value is calibrated.

Note: 
-Repeat the same process 2 or 3 time and your battery will be nicely calibrated
-Only wipe battery stats once, run a few cycles of full charge / discharge and after that just use your phone as normal

16 comments:

  1. nice info bro!! ;)

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  2. i will try it later...
    Before i go sleep, my batery stats is 100%, then wake up at 7am, battery stats show 78%.
    All apps & wireless i close it already.
    Is that normal?

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  3. seems like abnormal..mine 4-6% only...

    there might be running services at the background.
    basically,
    -i hv 3 email domain check set hourly.
    -fb installed (setting refresh:never and notification:inactive).
    -no widget..
    -wifi sleep policy Never when plugged in
    -market: no auto app auto update

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  4. ok thanks for your feedback.. this is my first time on smartphone.. heheh..

    Close the wireless during standby mode also cannot help to improve the battery stats yeah?

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  5. Then, i also didn't insert simcard yet..
    thats why i shock when 20% of battery gone while i'm sleeping. huerm. still hard to manage this phone.

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  6. i realized that i'm using juice defender apps while i'm sleeping.

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  7. Most of the developer not advise us to use any task killer or battery watchdog since itself killing the battery.

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  8. Anonymous5:14 PM

    "Settings > Date and Time. NO automatic again. iPhone iOS 5 have this problem as well...phone keep asking for what's the time for this location??? for what! We are not traveling that fast right... :)"


    The main reason is NOT for location purposes. It's to make sure your phone has the correct time, i.e sync with a time server. Since your phone don't have a atomic clock it will start drift. Sure, it will probably drain some battery, but I think the gain is worth it.

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  9. Anonymous12:57 AM

    Wiping battery stats is pointless... the batter stats AUTOMATICALY RESET EVERY TIME YOU CHARGE THE BATTERY TO FULL

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  10. Anonymous7:39 AM

    http://www.xda-developers.com/android/google-engineer-debunks-myth-wiping-battery-stats-does-not-improve-battery-life/

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  11. The fact is Android still hv problem showing accurate battery level... why android do not hv option to show the battery percentage in numbers? iOS hv that option.

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  12. Hi,
    How much battery life do you get after a full recharge after all these steps?

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  13. Most of the time more than 10hours for normal usage (phone call, sms, facebook and browsing). It's good enough for daily usage in the office (no gaming please... hehehe).

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  14. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  15. Anonymous11:58 PM

    Never dicharge your battery to 0%, keep it not less than 10% or better charge it more frequently. All this 0% to 100% is myth.
    http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1168036

    And that's what wiki say:

    Prolonging battery pack life

    - Avoid deep discharge and instead charge more often between uses, the smaller the depth of discharge, the longer the battery will last.
    - Avoid storing the battery in full discharged state. As the battery will self-discharge over time, its voltage will gradually lower, and when it is depleted below the low-voltage threshold (2.4 to 2.9 V/cell, depending on chemistry) it cannot be charged anymore because the protection circuit (a type of electronic fuse) disables it.
    - Lithium-ion batteries should be kept cool; they may be stored in a refrigerator.
    - The rate of degradation of Lithium-ion batteries is strongly temperature-dependent; they degrade much faster if stored or used at higher temperatures.
    - The rate of degradation of Lithium-ion batteries is also related to battery charge level; they degrade much faster when at 100% charge, than at lower charges. Since batteries die if deep discharged (depleted) and since a battery has some self-discharge it is frequently recommended to store batteries at 40% charge level.

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