Battery Life Discussion Thread

[hondabomdc5]

Like most people, I would like to get the most battery out of my phone as possibly. I have owned the S4 for 8 days and for the most part I am happy with it. I do feel like my battery isnt as good as what some others are posting though. The first couple of days i was getting between 14-18 solid hours on battery....that was with most of the air gestures and features enabled. The following is a list of things I have done since about day 3 or 4 of owning it to try and help extend my battery life.

Set screen to auto-brightness
Disabled alot/most bloatwhere apps
Set screen timeout to 30 seconds
Have turned off most of the Air gestures/ smart scroll and all that jazz
Have a black wallpaper to help reduce the screen consumption
Have bluetooth/gps etc off. ONLY things I have set to ON is Mobile data, Synce, Sound, Screen Rotation and Multiwindow
I have set the screen animations and transitions to .5 in the developer options.
Set the haptic buttons on phone to timeout at 1.5 seconds
Under LOCATION SOURCES, the only box I have checked is Wi-Fi & Mobile network location
Last, before locking my phone I always kill all my running apps.


With all this said, my battery has been pretty much the same and hasnt changed. However, today I feel like my battery is all over the place. My phone has been off the charger for 2 hours and it is already down to 93% .I have made a 5 min phone call, checked facebook for 2 mins, on instagram for 1 min and sent 5 texts. I just feel like it should not have drained that much with so little usage. Under the battery settings, Android System has used 46% and screen is at 19%. Why is the system using so much? WhenIi first got the phone a week ago the system was no where near this high....screen was always the most consuming thing and all of a sudden its android system....any ideas?

I have also just downloaded the Snapdragon Battery Guru app and it says it has to run for 4 days until my battery saving starts. I am looking forward to seeing if it actually does work or not.

Im hoping this thread can help others out with their battery life and have a place to post and discuss what you do to get your great battery life. Posting what you have on/off, screenshots and some other settings to save battery would be helpful.

 

[leeshor]

I was going to wait on this but since you started it.

This not only won't work for most people but it may not work for anyone. Everyone uses their
phone differently. This is a relatively extreme test of battery life but similar to results I had with my S3 under most of the same conditions. First let me assure you that I did use the phone and with further adjustments I may have been able to get an additional 20%+ out of the battery.
Over 45 hours at idle, (explained later), the S4 would have use 17%-20% of the battery. My third full charge with the stock setup got me around 12 hours and it went up as I made adjustments. Several charges later I was up to 16 hours. Below you will, see an extreme example of what I managed after all the adjustments I felt I could reasonably make.


I stopped the test because I would have gone into another idle period. Over the 45 + hours, the phone was on the entire time but entire idle only 17 hours over 2 nights. This is when I didn't even tough the phone.

How I started the test.
Full charge and a restart of the phone just before pulling the plug.
Had disabled BlurbCheckout and Google Play movies
Removed all the screen widgets except for the main Google, (the search box), and stock weather widgets *
Set screen timeout to 3 minutes
All location services on
WiFi on 24/7 but blue tooth off
Screen set to around 30% brightness with auto adjust on
Only the Google account being actively synced **
No app process killers used but did restart once or twice.
Battery Guru, Lookout Security and Onavo were the main running apps ***
Battery Guru had gone through its initial evaluation of the system ****
All haptic feedback off.
Screen tap feedback off (sounds)
All "automatic" syncing off with the exception of Firefox.

What I've been doing?
Browsing, with multiple browsers
Phone calls, (all outbound, yet another story)
Testing out and searching for various settings & options, (an endless task)
Installed several apps and tested
Pulled some important files over WiFi from my main system
Used EZPdf to do some reference work on some of this files.
Used Polaris to create some work related notes/docs
Checked mail and responded to a few. Also sent several.
The phone was, (also), on a WiFi connection roughly 80% of the total time, (that's important)
Watched a trailer from the DirecTV app
A few other things I can't remember or don't count for much.

I don't text and didn't play any music or watch any movies other than the trailer during this test nor did I play any games. I use this virtually 100% as a business phone rather than an entertainment device.

Major changes I made that saved the battery, (most extreme)
I told my mail client not to check mail until I opened it and checked it manually
Basically nothing synced, (other than Firefox). until it was actually being used.
That means that over night the phone was truly idle with no other special settings like turning WiFi off or airplane mode.


* On the weather widget I told it not to refresh until I opened it.
** I have Box.net, DropBox and PocketCloud Explorer installed but they are not syncing.
*** Onavo monitors my data use and tells me what is using the data not just the totals
**** I did tell Battery Guru, (on a few apps), to only allow apps to access when I opened them.

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[BLeClair12]

Here's something I've noticed - I've been using the Snapdragon Battery Guru, which I thought was great, however, when I downloaded Wakelock Defender, I noticed two very important things...

Nearly all of my unnecessary wakes throughout the day were caused by 1 of 2 apps - Maps (900+ wakes), and Battery Guru (500+ wakes). I only have location services enabled because Battery Guru requires it. Consequently, I'm beginning to wonder if Batter Guru is doing more harm than good.

 

[bkdodger]

Some apps wake locks are not so harmful.. Maps is a drain for sure.. Especially in fringe signal areas.. Also Google Now.. There are settings there most people don't turn off.. Card settings... Sync account settings for Google turn off what you don't use... Wifi set to not sleep.. If good connection it's best to save battery (example my sis place has bad signal I don't know why in her building) I get on wifi and golden..

NotedHD

 

[hondabomdc5]

I was going to wait on this but since you started it.

This not only won't work for most people but it may not work for anyone. Everyone uses their
phone differently. This is a relatively extreme test of battery life but similar to results I had with my S3 under most of the same conditions. First let me assure you that I did use the phone and with further adjustments I may have been able to get an additional 20%+ out of the battery.
Over 45 hours at idle, (explained later), the S4 would have use 17%-20% of the battery. My third full charge with the stock setup got me around 12 hours and it went up as I made adjustments. Several charges later I was up to 16 hours. Below you will, see an extreme example of what I managed after all the adjustments I felt I could reasonably make.


I stopped the test because I would have gone into another idle period. Over the 45 + hours, the phone was on the entire time but entire idle only 17 hours over 2 nights. This is when I didn't even tough the phone.

How I started the test.
Full charge and a restart of the phone just before pulling the plug.
Had disabled BlurbCheckout and Google Play movies
Removed all the screen widgets except for the main Google, (the search box), and stock weather widgets *
Set screen timeout to 3 minutes
All location services on
WiFi on 24/7 but blue tooth off
Screen set to around 30% brightness with auto adjust on
Only the Google account being actively synced **
No app process killers used but did restart once or twice.
Battery Guru, Lookout Security and Onavo were the main running apps ***
Battery Guru had gone through its initial evaluation of the system ****
All haptic feedback off.
Screen tap feedback off (sounds)
All "automatic" syncing off with the exception of Firefox.

What I've been doing?
Browsing, with multiple browsers
Phone calls, (all outbound, yet another story)
Testing out and searching for various settings & options, (an endless task)
Installed several apps and tested
Pulled some important files over WiFi from my main system
Used EZPdf to do some reference work on some of this files.
Used Polaris to create some work related notes/docs
Checked mail and responded to a few. Also sent several.
The phone was, (also), on a WiFi connection roughly 80% of the total time, (that's important)
Watched a trailer from the DirecTV app
A few other things I can't remember or don't count for much.

I don't text and didn't play any music or watch any movies other than the trailer during this test nor did I play any games. I use this virtually 100% as a business phone rather than an entertainment device.

Major changes I made that saved the battery, (most extreme)
I told my mail client not to check mail until I opened it and checked it manually
Basically nothing synced, (other than Firefox). until it was actually being used.
That means that over night the phone was truly idle with no other special settings like turning WiFi off or airplane mode.


* On the weather widget I told it not to refresh until I opened it.
** I have Box.net, DropBox and PocketCloud Explorer installed but they are not syncing.
*** Onavo monitors my data use and tells me what is using the data not just the totals
**** I did tell Battery Guru, (on a few apps), to only allow apps to access when I opened them.

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WOW. I dont even know where to start with this. LOL. Almost 2 days on battery is just unthinkable to me unless i had a 10,000 milli amp battery. LOL.

Why do you have all location services on? I feel like that would be a huge battery drain.
Why do you have the screen time out set to 3 minutes? To me tha would drain battery also.
ALSO, from your screenshots, it appears that all the air and eye features are on as well as gps. I feel like if i were to do that my battery would drain in like 6 hours if I had all those on.

I think the main difference between us it I text, facebook, instagram and every now and then play words with friends. I have a clock widget but it is the One more clock widget app and i have it set to refresh every hour. I also have a music widget and the google search one also. Im just trying to figure out how I can squeeze more battery out of my S4 with the way I use my phone.

 

[bkdodger]

You hit it spot on.. Facebook.. Instagram... Drain drain.. My GF was complaining the other day (iPhone she won't leave it.. Hehe) my battery is crap.. Yada Yada.. I was hanging with her for lunch.. Every second screen pop up.. Message FB.. Text... Instagram.. Vibrate and sound.. Screen on and off.. I'm like hmm I can't imagine why? Maybe you should get a Note 2....lmao....

NotedHD

 

[hondabomdc5]

You hit it spot on.. Facebook.. Instagram... Drain drain.. My GF was complaining the other day (iPhone she won't leave it.. Hehe) my battery is crap.. Yada Yada.. I was hanging with her for lunch.. Every second screen pop up.. Message FB.. Text... Instagram.. Vibrate and sound.. Screen on and off.. I'm like hmm I can't imagine why? Maybe you should get a Note 2....lmao....

NotedHD

Well I know the Facebook and Instagram are going to drain the battery. HOWEVER, when I am on them, it is only for a few short minutes and then I close out and kill the app. I scroll though my news feed on both apps like once every 4 hours or so. I would be a little bit more understanding if I was on facebook app for like an hour straight but Im not.

 

[bkdodger]

Well I know the Facebook and Instagram are going to drain the battery. HOWEVER, when I am on them, it is only for a few short minutes and then I close out and kill the app. I scroll though my news feed on both apps like once every 4 hours or so. I would be a little bit more understanding if I was on facebook app for like an hour straight but Im not.

You are doing it right.. The way you use it won't drain like the scenario I mentioned.. I also like to keep screen brightness to manual.. Lowest at where you are with phone.. I notice even with N2 (Samsung in general) auto is not right IMO..

NotedHD

 

[DevonM]

Speaking of auto-brightness I seem to recall something being mentioned somewhere about being able to control the scale of the auto-brightness. Like set a curve or just a range that it would adjust within, or something. I don't know if this was just a speculated feature or what, but I thought it was interesting.
I always just do manual and keep it as low as I can reasonably enjoy, but it would be cool to check something like that out.

 

[leeshor]

Why do you have all location services on? I feel like that would be a huge battery drain.
Why do you have the screen time out set to 3 minutes? To me tha would drain battery also.
ALSO, from your screenshots, it appears that all the air and eye features are on as well as gps. I feel like if i were to do that my battery would drain in like 6 hours if I had all those on.

Location services for several reasons not the least of which is RedLaser and local search.

I know I could extend the battery by reducing the timeout but I prefer not continuing to wake it up. Much of the time, if I'm done I just tap the power button to put it back to sleep. Old habits die hard. I've been doing the same with my tablet.

Yes, I could have done other things to get even more time from the battery but keep in mind I still had 36% remaining and I pretty much have what I need. Turning off GPS, which does use a lot of battery when there is no signal, would have been a biggie.

I could have gone well beyond 2 days but I would have asked myself what was the point if I had crippled the phone.

 

[bkdodger]

I'm not sure with stock... It's possible... Gotta dig for info... Rooted phone.. Custom Roms like CM10.1 have setting to adjust level at each scale..

NotedHD

 

[jseah]

FWIW, one thing I have always noticed with any Android phones is that for the first few weeks after you get it, for some strange reason the Android system uses up a huge percentage of the battery. When I got my Note 2 back in November the first few weeks Android system used around 40% of battery while the screen used upwards of 50% or more. As of today, without really any change in how I use my phone, screen is at 19% and Android system is a 9%.

 

[smd6169]

I am running the S4 on sprints. What stock apps are safe to disable?

 

[y0yoyo]

I had the same concerns as the origional poster as my battery was great the first few days then started to get weaker...but after doing certain things like only using auto brightness when im outside or know im going to be somewhere that has low lighting like my home...I figured out auto brightness was a drain while in the office because the bright lighting always made the phone think I was outside so the brightness level was always high...also I turned off stuff I wasnt using like multi window and only using air gestures for lock screen preview and browsing pictures...ive been consistently getting around 16 hours with at least 35% with moderate usage...nothing is synced either and all push data to apps is turned off...I couldnt be happier coming from a bionic...to say im happy with this phone/battery is an underststement...lastly deleting apps u dont use that were pre installed helps also...u cant permanently delete but u can disable them and they go back to factory install. ..u can always reinstall if u want to use the app again...I know basic knowledge of cell phones so I hope this helps!

 

[y0yoyo]

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Here is today for example