Having now used the Z5 (Normal Version) for about 2 months, I have noticed one major thing about Stamina function. It is an absolutely amazing feature that does a great job in saving battery life *BUT*, and it is a big but, if you really want to enjoy your phone then this needs to be turned off because it greatly inhibits performance.
Things that I have noticed include:
"OK Google" commands works intermittently
Camera load time is slow
Style Cover widget lags
System updates don't download automatically, also seem struggle in finishing app updates from the store
Maybe it is not an issue if you do not use those features but because I do and it is proving to be a real stumbling block in allowing me to enjoy an otherwise excellent device.
What's your experience with Stamina Mode? Have you got any tips to make it work better or came across any issues yourself?
I don't really use it myself except for at overnight (it's my alarm clock) but you haven't mentioned if you've also enabled "Extended usage" which "Restricts device performance in to increase battery time". Maybe you'll have a better experience with that OFF?
From my understanding, how STAMINA mode works is to pause all apps that it could when the screen is off. So the battery life is extended because less apps are running when you are not using the phone. Hence the phone enters deep sleep and this results in the laggy experience you encountered. When a number of applications return to normal state at the same moment, that would be a time several processes compete for CPU time and that could be one of the reasons that cause the phone to be laggy after waking up from long idle. Battery life and performance is often a trade-off and therefore your experience sounds normal to me.
w11184 said:
Having now used the Z5 (Normal Version) for about 2 months, I have noticed one major thing about Stamina function. It is an absolutely amazing feature that does a great job in saving battery life *BUT*, and it is a big but, if you really want to enjoy your phone then this needs to be turned off because it greatly inhibits performance.
Things that I have noticed include:
"OK Google" commands works intermittently
Camera load time is slow
Style Cover widget lags
System updates don't download automatically, also seem struggle in finishing app updates from the store
Maybe it is not an issue if you do not use those features but because I do and it is proving to be a real stumbling block in allowing me to enjoy an otherwise excellent device.
What's your experience with Stamina Mode? Have you got any tips to make it work better or came across any issues yourself?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you click on the "stamina mode" entry (not the on/off button), you can add apps to a whitelist who will not be affected.
I have no need for stamina mode on my Z5, the battery life is more than enough for me...
On my Z1 i always had stamina mode enabled, otherwise the battery didn't last the day.
Sent from my Sony Xperia Z5
Thanks for all your replies. So I only have the standard stamina mode on and not the extended one and I have also tried adding apps to the whitelist hoping that it will improve performance for those apps but I don't think it has made any difference.
heihei_ivan, that is also my thinking behind why I think the phone is laggy when waking up but I just didn't think it would affect it that much.
I think what I will do now is to turn stamina mode off and see how long it will last. Like Snaqejack, I think it might actually be ok!
I personally don't understand why people buy an octacore high end high powered HD screen smart phone and then go... Right lets activate everything which restricts performance, smartphone usage, syncs and pushes, dims the screen to the minimum etc... Might as well just bought a lower spec model in the first place
I understand using those settings for things like night time, when the battery is low, if you're out for the day and don't need your phone particularly for anything but receiving the odd call or text etc... But for continuous use 24/7 i just don't get why people do it
Sent from my Xperia z5 using Tapatalk
They're just trying to cheat physics - everyone wants a free lunch
I configured Stamina Mode to auto-enable when I reach 15% battery left. That's the best compromise I think.
Ben36 said:
I personally don't understand why people buy an octacore high end high powered HD screen smart phone and then go... Right lets activate everything which restricts performance, smartphone usage, syncs and pushes, dims the screen to the minimum etc... Might as well just bought a lower spec model in the first place
I understand using those settings for things like night time, when the battery is low, if you're out for the day and don't need your phone particularly for anything but receiving the odd call or text etc... But for continuous use 24/7 i just don't get why people do it
Sent from my Xperia z5 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can guarantee you I am not one of those people, however, Stamina mode is one of the phone's main USPs but what I am noticing is that it seems to induce lag when performing a variety of tasks even though the specific option to cap performance in Stamina mode isn't turned on.
You need to put Google Play Services on the white list and Google Framework IIRC. This becouse several apps depend on these services to have internet access like for example Facebook Messenger. Else they wont work properly, you might get logged out or they will restart once you go back.
thanks
Battery life astonishingly high after charging...
The first picture is without stamina mode and second one with stamina mode
Those estimates never accurate, that's only for a phone that's not doing anything on it just sit on your table standby mode, might as well buy a regular flip phone.
Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk
Not used my phone for the whole day...uploading results after using consistently for Web browsing, YouTube etc...
With and without stamina mode
Awesome Man....
I've used Stamina mode for a long time, but I decided recently to turn it off completely, as an experiment, not just on this phone, but on my Z3 too.
I never use the low battery mode because it always turns stuff off when I still want to use it, so no point for me.
I must say that in real time, Stamina mode doesn't make a great deal of difference to me, plus now I get all of my notifications if I leave my mobile internet on. My WiFi is set to turn off when the screen is off. I know it's automatically set to Always on when you first get the phone, and that kills the battery.
I still get at least a full days usage out of whichever phone I use the most that day, and several days from the phone I use the least. I tend to swap using phones from one to the other, and back again.
Stamina mode only works when you're not using your phone, and for me that's not a lot of my day really. I do use them regularly.
I was quite surprised at how long they do last, even without Stamina mode.
Stamina mode is good for work so you don't get notifications while you're working, just at break times when you check your phone. My kids moan at me for not getting my WhatsApp messages or whatever when I have Stamina mode on too, so there is that :laugh:
MickieH said:
I've used Stamina mode for a long time, but I decided recently to turn it off completely, as an experiment, not just on this phone, but on my Z3 too.
I never use the low battery mode because it always turns stuff off when I still want to use it, so no point for me.
I must say that in real time, Stamina mode doesn't make a great deal of difference to me, plus now I get all of my notifications if I leave my mobile internet on. My WiFi is set to turn off when the screen is off. I know it's automatically set to Always on when you first get the phone, and that kills the battery.
I still get at least a full days usage out of whichever phone I use the most that day, and several days from the phone I use the least. I tend to swap using phones from one to the other, and back again.
Stamina mode only works when you're not using your phone, and for me that's not a lot of my day really. I do use them regularly.
I was quite surprised at how long they do last, even without Stamina mode.
Stamina mode is good for work so you don't get notifications while you're working, just at break times when you check your phone. My kids moan at me for not getting my WhatsApp messages or whatever when I have Stamina mode on too, so there is that :laugh:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, Wifi will not kill the battery, mobile data will. It's always better to keep wifi on and use 2G as that has a much stronger signal and won't impact battery.
Related
I've tried everything now with differing results. Nothing really seems to make that much difference, be it Cm10.1 with Faux or Franco or stock.
What I have noticed though is I don't think the screens as much to blame as a lot of people think
I used it last night at home on wifi, got 1:30 worth of screen use at the cost of 25% of the battery (which i think is more than reasonable )
Whereas on the train yesterday I had music on and browsed the web and lost 40% in an hour. I mean that's horrendous really.
It appears that data over 3g and music (god knows why music is such a drain) are the real culprits here, so i'm praying that the techies at google manage to figure out better battery management.
use betterbatterystats and ensure your phone has no wakelocks and is properly deep sleeping.
also,
1. google maps: disable google latitude (automatic reporting of your location)
2. genie widget (news & weather) change its refresh interval
3. dont use bad apps like facebook which is known to use ur GPS significantly
4. disable google now cards you dont use
Hiya
Thanks for this
to be honest the drain when asleep isnt that bad, 1% every two hours or so .... like i say it's when the phone is in use and receiving data / playing music !!!
The SoC and the Radio are the biggest battery hogs in any modern smartphone.
The display would come in close after them, though.
Get your CPU and network load down, and you'll see a bigger improvement than turning the screen brightness down
gsusx said:
Hiya
Thanks for this
to be honest the drain when asleep isnt that bad, 1% every two hours or so .... like i say it's when the phone is in use and receiving data / playing music !!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's been said because it's known that 3G/HSPA uses power like a mofo so it's "normal" - Using wifi will always have better results because of the faster data the CPU can go to sleep sooner as well.
hi
great thanks for replies
do you reckon it's something they might ever be able to fix though .... seems a shame for such a great phone to hampered with such bad battery issues
Doubt it as it's just the nature of the beast. Look up any device out there and you'll see they get longer battery life when using WIFI vs mobile data.
Horrible battery life.
i consider myself well versed in phones. In the past year i have had a Gnex, HTC One m7, and a moto x. Just got my s5 last week, and im lucky to get 12 hours battery life with 1.5 hours of on screen time. I have all the gestures and 'smart' stuff turned off. i dont get it. I have a handful off aps that i use, and have used on every phone. the only thing i can think of is perhaps its the google now launcher? has anyone else on here gotten HORRIBLE battery life with that installed?
That is bad indeed. Ive been on wifi most of today, different locations, and still have 30% right now with close to 6hrs screen time.
I have the GNL installed and I have amazing battery. I have location on "GPS Only" and photo auto-upload turned off. Everything else is on. What's your signal like? Worst case, try a factory reset. Oh, and turn off Google Now.
Also, why does your phone have 7bars instead of 4 or 5? Is that a sprint thing?
it looks like your system doong a lot of stuff, your screen On time should always be hiher and number 1. have you done anything to your cellphone? apps, xposed modules? custom roms?
Sent from my SM-G900H using Tapatalk
rochford77 said:
Horrible battery life.
i consider myself well versed in phones. In the past year i have had a Gnex, HTC One m7, and a moto x. Just got my s5 last week, and im lucky to get 12 hours battery life with 1.5 hours of on screen time. I have all the gestures and 'smart' stuff turned off. i dont get it. I have a handful off aps that i use, and have used on every phone. the only thing i can think of is perhaps its the google now launcher? has anyone else on here gotten HORRIBLE battery life with that installed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same issue but stock UK. i leave mine plugged in at work as it's so poor.
Ive done factory resets etc and disabled loads of stuff so im crippling my phone and the battery is wank!
waz000000 said:
I have the same issue but stock UK. i leave mine plugged in at work as it's so poor.
Ive done factory resets etc and disabled loads of stuff so im crippling my phone and the battery is wank!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Has to be a faulty battery or phone. Battery life on mine is fantastic.
fenchai said:
it looks like your system doong a lot of stuff, your screen On time should always be hiher and number 1. have you done anything to your cellphone? apps, xposed modules? custom roms?
Sent from my SM-G900H using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not rooted, so nothing with exposed chewing up ram. I have GPS set to "battery saver". My signal at work is kinda 'meh' on LTE but 5 bars on 3g. My 4g speeds are about 15Mbps so it's not like the phone is spinnimg its wheels looking for data. I turned off location sharing from Google. So we will see how today goes.
Is 'GPS only' more battery friendly then 'battery saver' for location?
Attached is my app drawer. Nothing crazy...nothing that should be wake locking the phone....
Edit: I switched photos auto upload to only on WiFi only while charging last night as well. oh, I also charged to 100% last night with phone off using a USB 2.0 cable for a slower charge. If today goes poorly I'm going to try another battery, next step is hard reset with no 3rd party apps, then replace phone :\. I'll keep it updated.
trying a new kernel now to see if it changes anything as a test
Please keep us updated. I'm in the exact same boat as you.
Its "better" but not like it was before the update. Lost 20 % in 5 hours with 50min screen time
Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
much better
So its been much better today. See attached screen shots. Its not perfect but I have a big handful of apps syncing so 20hours on a charge is good for me. I mean, my moto-x got 20hrs, but that was on a highly optimized s4 pro processor only using a 4.7"amoled screen @ 720p. So if this 5"+ 1080p monster can get 20 with everything I throw at it im happy.
I think the biggest thing I did was settings - location - location services - google location reporting - off for this device.
The reason is GNL (GEL) was accessing location like crazy, so that helped.
I also made some other tweaks as stated in above posts, sorry I didnt do it scientifically by only changing one thing each day to pinpoint what it was. I turned off all of sammys 'smart' features and charged it to 100% on a 1A charger with a usb 2.0 cable with the device off. And turned off various other settings. Hope this helps.
The best thing I did for battery life was disable my Samsung account. The difference was incredible.
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
aooga said:
...
Also, why does your phone have 7bars instead of 4 or 5? Is that a sprint thing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its 6, I thought it was a cdma thing...idk all the phones in my store have 6 bars except the n5
iresq said:
The best thing I did for battery life was disable my Samsung account. The difference was incredible.
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Samsung apps like s health still work?
rochford77 said:
Samsung apps like s health still work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes they do. Kill the Samsung account with fire.
Although some things like the default Browser only sync with a Samsung account, not with Google.
ok, I will tell you, battery saver mode is better than gps only mode. usb 2.0 or 3.0 doesnt affect charging speed, its just for data transfer speed.
maybe your google account was syncing or maybe your gallery was syncing.
this kills and uses a lot of data and battery, also facebook... please do a favor and turn every notification off. also, use greenify to cancel all apps syncing. well only the ones that you do not use.
Sent from my SM-G900H using Tapatalk
fenchai said:
ok, I will tell you, battery saver mode is better than gps only mode. usb 2.0 or 3.0 doesnt affect charging speed, its just for data transfer speed.
maybe your google account was syncing or maybe your gallery was syncing.
this kills and uses a lot of data and battery, also facebook... please do a favor and turn every notification off. also, use greenify to cancel all apps syncing. well only the ones that you do not use.
Sent from my SM-G900H using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No it isn't. Unless you use navigation all day, GPS Only mode is by FAR more battery friendly. The battery saving mode turns on Google location tracking and all that stuff...you know, the popup that you agree to each time. GPS only keeps that off which saves your battery a lot more. It's the worst named setting i've ever seen.
aooga said:
No it isn't. Unless you use navigation all day, GPS Only mode is by FAR more battery friendly. The battery saving mode turns on Google location tracking and all that stuff...you know, the popup that you agree to each time. GPS only keeps that off which saves your battery a lot more. It's the worst named setting i've ever seen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can`t use Google maps navigation with power saving mode that`s why I go back to my high accuracy setting however this didn`t change my battery stand by time by much I usually could go around 1 day and 20 hours on 1 charge depending on how much i use my phone with around 2 hours on screen time and some calls for probably 1 hour.
@op what software version you use because in the latest firmware for the G900F there is a battery improvement made so I do suggest to check your phone for software updates.
Other then that the battery life depends on how often you use your phone and for what.
bnight said:
You can`t use Google maps navigation with power saving mode that`s why I go back to my high accuracy setting however this didn`t change my battery stand by time by much I usually could go around 1 day and 20 hours on 1 charge depending on how much i use my phone with around 2 hours on screen time and some calls for probably 1 hour.
@op what software version you use because in the latest firmware for the G900F there is a battery improvement made so I do suggest to check your phone for software updates.
Other then that the battery life depends on how often you use your phone and for what.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im on build 49h. However when i go to checl for a sw update I get this messege about unauthorized software. Im not rooted, no bootloader unlock, nothing. Ive never even plugged this into a desktop. I run gel and have selected ART in dev options as well as increased transitions to .5 and have usb debug enabled. Wtf?
Fixed: ART was the issue. I hate you samsung. Smh.
Edit: art was the issue with the "unknown software" issue, not the battery life/op
Hi Guys,
Firstly, I know there are several threads with different tips and suggestions but most of them didn't work for me.
Recently (since more than a week) , I have noticed strange drain in battery and getting hot pretty quickly. It has kitkat and I didn't get time to use it properly in the beginning. After reading different threads and forums here's what I did:
- Let it drain completely, shut off, took out battery for a couple of hrs and then charged without switching on. x2
- Rebooted after charging
- Uninstalled some apps I thought might be problematic
- Factory Reset (such a pain!)
- When attached to Kies, it prompted for Firmware update N9005XXUENC2 followed by another factory reset and hard reset.
- Cleared cache by going into recovery mode.
- Rebooting after charging
But seems like none of it made much difference, my routine use
- couple of hours on wifi
- no heavy games, only temple run, subway surf etc.
- no streaming
- no lengthy calls, not a lot of messaging
- 1, 2 hrs of music
- Syncing off, gps off, blue tooth off, Wifi mostly off, power saving on, brightness on auto, no 3g/4g data, almost no photos and video capturing, sensors, motions off except smart stay
I don't want to root the phone because of my busy schedule, with some difficulty I was able install WLD on it which resets after Rebooting. Point is, I am not a heavy user and this being a "beast" isn't quite unleashing the beasty-battery-life. I do get more than a day but that is when it's in deep sleep for 20hrs or more. I took some screenshots after reseting, updating firmware. It's past 3 battery cycles now, I will attach the latest one's to not clutter it up. I like this phone, but this battery is just not good enough. So, please helpful answers that don't require rooting.
Thank you for reading and Good day!
Is the battery drain consistant or does it happen at certain times (at home, at work, etc.)? If you are in an area where the signal changes frequently that will drain the battery because the radio is using power to maintain a connection. With wifi scanning for google services even when turned off setting make sure it is off if you dont need it. How do you charge the phone? If possible always use the charger that came with the phone, charging from a usb port from a computer is not as strong and can affect the memory of the battery and do not wait till almost dead to charge. It works best to recharge when between 35% and 45%. Look at your background services and see if anything out of the ordinary is running. And it could be possible the battery is defective and you might want to have it tested. I use my Note3 lightly and get 24 to 25 hours over two to three days (turning off at bedtime). This may not help any but this is what I have learned from others with similar situations. Good luck!
MPDnnrd said:
Is the battery drain consistant or does it happen at certain times (at home, at work, etc.)? If you are in an area where the signal changes frequently that will drain the battery because the radio is using power to maintain a connection. With wifi scanning for google services even when turned off setting make sure it is off if you dont need it. How do you charge the phone? If possible always use the charger that came with the phone, charging from a usb port from a computer is not as strong and can affect the memory of the battery and do not wait till almost dead to charge. It works best to recharge when between 35% and 45%. Look at your background services and see if anything out of the ordinary is running. And it could be possible the battery is defective and you might want to have it tested. I use my Note3 lightly and get 24 to 25 hours over two to three days (turning off at bedtime). This may not help any but this is what I have learned from others with similar situations. Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey MPDnnrd,
Thank you for your response.
It is sort of consistent, did you see the screen is just at 18% and the Android system at 30%? I think this is where the core problem lies - just don't know what and how to fix it.
- Signal Strength: Pretty good, hasn't been a problem
- I normally keep the wifi-scanning off and Now I turned off the location services to see the impact but then I think what's the point of premium device if you have to switch off everything.
- I prefer to use the factory-charger over usb-charging and I read it on several threads to let it completely die and then recharge, guess that didn't help.
- Background services - I don't think so, I kill all the apps as soon as I stop using them, use Greenify to hibernate other, switched off all auto-updates and notifications. Even on Playstore, I switched off the auto-updates and notifications.
- Defective Battery: Now this one, I haven't tested yet not sure how to - the phone's just 2 months old so shouldn't it be good enough?
I know they are not very helpful, but still thank you very much. :good:
uqureshi said:
Hey MPDnnrd,
Thank you for your response.
It is sort of consistent, did you see the screen is just at 18% and the Android system at 30%? I think this is where the core problem lies - just don't know what and how to fix it.
- Signal Strength: Pretty good, hasn't been a problem
- I normally keep the wifi-scanning off and Now I turned off the location services to see the impact but then I think what's the point of premium device if you have to switch off everything.
- I prefer to use the factory-charger over usb-charging and I read it on several threads to let it completely die and then recharge, guess that didn't help.
- Background services - I don't think so, I kill all the apps as soon as I stop using them, use Greenify to hibernate other, switched off all auto-updates and notifications. Even on Playstore, I switched off the auto-updates and notifications.
- Defective Battery: Now this one, I haven't tested yet not sure how to - the phone's just 2 months old so shouldn't it be good enough?
I know they are not very helpful, but still thank you very much. :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sorry to have to say this but I think you got a pretty normal battery drain by looking on your screens. You played almost one hour subway surf(which drains the battery pretty quick) and I guess the other hours where internet (also known to drain battery) or calls/messages. On a not rooted device with stock kernel that seems like normal battery usage to me!!!
However if you like to check these maybe u get a couple of percentages(not that much though I guess):
-Power saving mode in notification drawer makes your cpu clock go down (not sure u got it on not rooted device sry)
-check turn of pen detection in s pen settings
-put the brightness on auto or put it down manually
-if you can change the theme color in apps do so(make it black)
-check the svoice settings so it doesn't listen to your voice
-if you don't care how your phone looks buy a zerolemon battery(I think it makes your phone too big but that's preference)
-don't use a bright background keep it dark colors and no live wallpaper as well
Maybe that helps a little.
I don't see any drain either. Almost 6 hours screen on during 24 hours is excellent, additional 1.5 hour awake time for other services. Excellent battery life.
Settings - General - Applications - disable unnecessary apps
In Google Settings, opt-out interest-based ads and disable location access.
Thank you for your reponses guys - thing is it actually had much better battery life. What I don't understand is the fact that Screen % used to be on top and android os and system was below it but now it has been on top.
I have tweaked quite a few things already that 4aces suggested and the S-voice thing seems new, I'll look at it. Today it didn't even last a full day whereas I know people who even after heavy usage get easily more than a day - mine one, I don't use it this much. The Zerolemon thing is beast but then the phone is a freakin block lol so heavy and big, good travel etc. where you can't charge your phone and has a rugged case.
But there's a change that I saw today, Android System is now below the screen so I am not sure what made it do that but may the next time I charge it gets better and so on. I'll keep you guys posted after charging it today, I'll monitor what I do.
Blondasisko - I wouldn't really call it excellent, but it's sort of getting better than it was in the first 2 cycles. But how do I reduce additional awake time for other services? Moreover, you might've noticed I got till 1% to get this much time like really stretched it to get there.
Someguyfromhell - Already done, locations were off starting today.
Can anyone else comment on their daily routine of usage and the battery drainage ratio?
If I get 12 hours and 4hrs screen time I'm happy. I don't even play any games. Have a lot of accounts syncing lot of Internet and a bit on the calls, gps. I get on average 14 -16 hours
I have brightness on high. If you put it on auto it makes a big difference.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
alom5 said:
If I get 12 hours and 4hrs screen time I'm happy. I don't even play any games. Have a lot of accounts syncing lot of Internet and a bit on the calls, gps. I get on average 14 -16 hours
I have brightness on high. If you put it on auto it makes a big difference.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess I should feel lucky, I have ZERO syncing, auto brightness, no live wallpapers or gimmicky stuff on, no gps, hardly 10mins or so on phone calls and prolly 30-60mins on messaging a day.
@all others - and the Android System is back on top - what could be the possible reasons for it?
I think its because of such minimal use that the system goes on top. The system still had to operate so when you have hardly used the phone then the system will go on top. Though with that usage you've stated you should get nearer 2 days really
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
alom5 said:
I think its because of such minimal use that the system goes on top. The system still had to operate so when you have hardly used the phone then the system will go on top. Though with that usage you've stated you should get nearer 2 days really
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're right probably, this is what I'd like to know as to what is running in the background that drains more battery? Exactly, at-least 1.5 days is what I should get with this usage. May be I should buy a new battery and see how it works.
Hi all,
Having just bought a Yotaphone 2, latest model 801 processor and with Lollipop installed, I was impressed with it... lovely screen, sharp response, great display on the back ....until I realised that battery life on the EPD or indeed doing nothing was (and is) terrible.
This somewhat negates the point of having the EPD. Because whether you use the EPD or not, as others have found, the processor seems to be spending 100% of the time doing something like trying to connect to Google headquarters to report my unethical swearwords as I look at the battery level heading south.
To try and make sure the phone was using the least power, I went through all the running apps and services and terminated as many as I could, turned off things like Yotafit tracking, turned off the service that sends all your contact details to the Kremlin, and so on... then, I turned on the Yotaenergy mode and despite that, we are at less than 24 hours with virtually no phone usage at all. Fully 50% of all the energy according to the battery stats is being used by Android System and Android OS processes when the system is in standby. And the historic battery screenshot shows that the processor is active 100% of the time., even though the phone has not been touched. (sorry, not attached, I'll post at some point, but its not very interesting)
So, does anyone have any clues about how this can be fixed? I have seen screenshots where people have shown that their processors are not active the whole time, and I imagine they have Lollipop? I have heard Lollipop has got some kind of bug which means that data connections are live the whole time, not sure if this is related.
(This might explain the sudden appearance of half price devices on eBay around six months after launch in the UK.)
Many thanks in advance!
YotaDevices has acknowledged the problems on Lollipop battery life, which is the reason they won't be shipping devices coming to USA preinstalled with Lollipop, but with KitKat. Now that I've played around with the EPD and created some widgets/applications for it, I can spot many places where things can go wrong in maintaining battery life and still keep things working.
Personally I've been lucky with the battery life on all versions of Android. When I updated to the last version of Lollipop (firmware 1.44), the phone did show poor battery life for hours after the installation was finished, before calming down to the promised 5 days stand by. Are you on the very last firmware? (Settings - about phone - build number)
As a last resort if your device won't settle down, I guess you could roll back to Kitkat, which had a very good battery life for pretty much everyone. You can install it with Yota's flasher tool: ftp://fw.ydevices.com/YotaPhone2/YotaPhoneFlasher/yotaphone2_flasher.exe
Just carefully select your own region and then the last version of KitKat (4.4.3) they offer. As you are rolling back from one major version to another, I would suggest flashing pretty much everything. You will lose your data.
Yota has said that they are working on bringing Lollipop 5.1 or 5.2 to Yotaphone 2. Let's hope that that works better.
Thanks that was very useful. The question is, will Yota do another build ... or build another device? I'm hoping the Y2 has a bit of life left in it yet and they do launch in the US - it can only help the development community!
I reset back to factory/Lollipop last night as it was eating battery so fast I could not believe it, and I am on the latest build 1.44EU (and was before). Since then.. it doesn't seem to be misbehaving so much, but it does seem to insist that the WIFI is on (when it is switched 'off' in the settings) by 'on' I mean the battery usage recorder... I wil take your advice and 'take it slow' for now, but may flash back to Kitkat if necessary. It is a bit tedious having to reinstall all your apps by hand but this seems to be the only way to ensure it is relatively clean.
The screengrabs below show the phone doing nothing at all in Yotaenergy mode - per first post.
ridgemagnet said:
Thanks that was very useful. The question is, will Yota do another build ... or build another device? I'm hoping the Y2 has a bit of life left in it yet and they do launch in the US - it can only help the development community!
I reset back to factory/Lollipop last night as it was eating battery so fast I could not believe it, and I am on the latest build 1.44EU (and was before). Since then.. it doesn't seem to be misbehaving so much, but it does seem to insist that the WIFI is on (when it is switched 'off' in the settings) by 'on' I mean the battery usage recorder... I wil take your advice and 'take it slow' for now, but may flash back to Kitkat if necessary. It is a bit tedious having to reinstall all your apps by hand but this seems to be the only way to ensure it is relatively clean.
The screengrabs below show the phone doing nothing at all in Yotaenergy mode - per first post.
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Click to collapse
I am quite confident that they will release updated Lollipop sooner or later. They don't have the resources to piss off all their customers just yet.
Your Wifi still does some scans on its own for Google's location service, even if it's not enabled. You can disable this feature in the advanced wifi settings. But that is not the cause of your battery problem. Basically your device is awake all the time, meaning something is holding a wake lock. And by something I mean one of Yota's EPD compoments, which are counted as part of "Android OS" and "Android System" - your biggest battery hogs. It could be one of the EPD widgets that is misbehaving, or it could be some specific combination of them, or just something out of your control.
You could try removing ALL the widgets from the rear screen from Yotahub, then restart the device, and then let it run for an hour with the screen off. Then check the detailed battery log if the device went to sleep or if it was awake. If it went to sleep, you can try adding widgets back one at a time, and then check again if the device sleeps. Basically all the widgets which update periodically hold a wake lock momentarily (time, battery, calendar, weather etc). Of course if the problem lies on Yota's EPD framework, then this wont help at all.
Jeopardy said:
I am quite confident that they will release updated Lollipop sooner or later. They don't have the resources to piss off all their customers just yet.
Your Wifi still does some scans on its own for Google's location service, even if it's not enabled. You can disable this feature in the advanced wifi settings. But that is not the cause of your battery problem. Basically your device is awake all the time, meaning something is holding a wake lock. And by something I mean one of Yota's EPD compoments, which are counted as part of "Android OS" and "Android System" - your biggest battery hogs. It could be one of the EPD widgets that is misbehaving, or it could be some specific combination of them, or just something out of your control.
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Agreed, I suspect the YotaFit app going bonkers despite my efforts to kill it.... or the Yotagram service, the thing is, looking at the Yota specific apps, you don't really need them, as you can flip the screen with the Yotamirror, and then use any Android app. Sure it would be nice to have notifications on the EPD, but my main focus for this phone is use in bright daylight, and long battery life, not to actually look at the thing 24x7 so I can respond to emails every 30 seconds.
At this point though I'm just trying to determine how bad the underlying hardware is. The GPS on this phone seems to a bit flaky, as does the basic reception of mobile signal. (And I'm not using a metal bumper.) So, I'm happy to flash back to KitKat 4.4.3 to try and give it the best chance..
So, any clues/links about the Yota flash tool? I've put the phone into USB debug mode, installed the flash tool on my windows 7 desktop, and installed ADB/Fastboot as well, but at this point I'm having a bit of an android driver problem, and ADB can't see the phone so that probably explains why the Flashtool says 'waiting for device' when I fire it up. I will go digging to fix that, but I assume that the Flashtool will do all the stuff like putting the phone into bootloader mode, unlock etc...
ridgemagnet said:
Agreed, I suspect the YotaFit app going bonkers despite my efforts to kill it.... or the Yotagram service, the thing is, looking at the Yota specific apps, you don't really need them, as you can flip the screen with the Yotamirror, and then use any Android app. Sure it would be nice to have notifications on the EPD, but my main focus for this phone is use in bright daylight, and long battery life, not to actually look at the thing 24x7 so I can respond to emails every 30 seconds.
At this point though I'm just trying to determine how bad the underlying hardware is. The GPS on this phone seems to a bit flaky, as does the basic reception of mobile signal. (And I'm not using a metal bumper.) So, I'm happy to flash back to KitKat 4.4.3 to try and give it the best chance..
So, any clues/links about the Yota flash tool? I've put the phone into USB debug mode, installed the flash tool on my windows 7 desktop, and installed ADB/Fastboot as well, but at this point I'm having a bit of an android driver problem, and ADB can't see the phone so that probably explains why the Flashtool says 'waiting for device' when I fire it up. I will go digging to fix that, but I assume that the Flashtool will do all the stuff like putting the phone into bootloader mode, unlock etc...
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The widgets I'm running at the moment without any problems are Time, Mini Calendar, weather, battery, and communications (the small widget which shows phone calls, notifications and sms). And of course my own widget.
The best way to make sure there are no useless services running is to root the device and uninstall them completely, but that's another story.
For the flashtool to detect the device, you need to boot it into download mode manually. The easiest way is to turn off your device and plug the usb in while holding volume down -button. The screen will show "download" or something in very small white text. After that the flashtool should find the device. You probably don't have to flash the user partition (it asks for it separately), i.e. the simulated sdcard section which holds all your photos, documents and music.
Edit. And when you have kitkat installed, the first thing you might want to do is to disable automatic system updates. Otherwise it will nag you about the Lollipop update all the time.
I've been facing similar issues and am considering a downgrade when I have the time. I'm really disappointed in yota and won't be buying their next device.
I have found this thread useful, you may too.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/general/guide-extreme-battery-life-t3095884
thanks gents, oddly, the advice to let the phone 'calm down' seems to be working. I decided not to revert to KitKat (yet), as every day I use the phone the battery life seems to improve. Yesterday it was down to 40%, today 60% after about a days use. I'm thinking a week of running in will give it time to stabilize. I would love to root the phone but I want to use the Good app, and that doesn't run on rooted phones... (shame but I guess that's the flipside of working for a big corporate for you!)
ridgemagnet said:
thanks gents, oddly, the advice to let the phone 'calm down' seems to be working. I decided not to revert to KitKat (yet), as every day I use the phone the battery life seems to improve. Yesterday it was down to 40%, today 60% after about a days use. I'm thinking a week of running in will give it time to stabilize. I would love to root the phone but I want to use the Good app, and that doesn't run on rooted phones... (shame but I guess that's the flipside of working for a big corporate for you!)
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Try putting the battery widget on your epd. If it shows 5 days remaining when you are above 85% and you don't use the phone, then the device works as advertised.
That Good app sounds like a real killjoy. There seems to exist some Xposed modules to disable the root check, but they seemed to be rather finicky to setup and very easy to mess up.
I was suffering from terrible battery life after the lollipop upgrade and the EPD battery widget was never showing much above 1d anymore. After much research and tinkering, it has now improved and I am seeing greater than 3d again. I think the culprits were maybe google fit tracking which I have now turned off and I also de-installed and re-installed the google play services updates which is a tip I saw in an android forum. I also over the last two days have received several yota widget updates which may have also helped. At least for now I am seeing a comfortable day's use again!
I experienced poor battery life out of blue again. I went through all the settings, cleared dalvik-cache and cache partition, tried disabling everything, but nothing helped. It only showed <1 day battery life at 100%.
But then I went to mess around in the developer settings, and when I set the animation scales from 1x to 0.25x and enabled "Force GPU rendering", the battery life returned instantly to 5 days.
Just thought I'd add this to the list of things to test out if someone's experiencing poor battery life. The forced GPU rendering might have some unexpected effects on some software rendering based games.
dont know if this will help but just seen some of the new features of android m "marshmallow" one of which is doze and there is a separate app available on play store for this. i have installed and it has helped battery life !!!
I was going through terrible battery life after Lollipop as well. Suffered, tinkered, tried various things. Eventually I just said screw it, backed everything up and factory reset it from recovery. Since then it seems like it's almost back to it's old self. Obviously having root and using some kernel control apps, greenify and some other things helps it but It will happily do at least a couple of days with little-normal usage. Still don't think it's as good as KitKat but it's not too far off. The EPD really does help spread battery out too.
I did the same thing but a 3 weeks on, the battery is as shocking as ever.
Today, on battery since 0730, now @ 1115 51% and 3hrs left!??
No obvious apps causing battery drain, just google services!
Rarelyamson said:
I did the same thing but a 3 weeks on, the battery is as shocking as ever.
Today, on battery since 0730, now @ 1115 51% and 3hrs left!??
No obvious apps causing battery drain, just google services!
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I have had the phone nearly a week, and these are similar figures I experience. What's the point of the epd if my battery dies by lunch!
Sent from my YD201 using Tapatalk
I think it is something with Android 5.0 that is causing the drain issues. I can go anywhere from half a day to a week with good batteyr life and then it will randomly start draining again. Some background activity seems to hold a permanent wakelock and will not let go of it. I am unable to pinpoint what app is creating the wakelock with better battery stats or wakelock detector since there isn't access to kernel wakelocks in either of the apps for our phone. A restart always fixes things though, so I have a tasker script now that lets me know when idle battery drain exceeds a threshold for too long so I know to do a restart, it's not elegant, but my battery life is exponentially better and gives me enough battery life to make it through the day without a recharge and leave the eink screen on all night as a tv remote.
I got a new phone
sportsfan986 said:
I think it is something with Android 5.0 that is causing the drain issues. I can go anywhere from half a day to a week with good batteyr life and then it will randomly start draining again. Some background activity seems to hold a permanent wakelock and will not let go of it. I am unable to pinpoint what app is creating the wakelock with better battery stats or wakelock detector since there isn't access to kernel wakelocks in either of the apps for our phone. A restart always fixes things though, so I have a tasker script now that lets me know when idle battery drain exceeds a threshold for too long so I know to do a restart, it's not elegant, but my battery life is exponentially better and gives me enough battery life to make it through the day without a recharge and leave the eink screen on all night as a tv remote.
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In the end, I got a new phone after my Yotaphone decided to brick itself. Its a Zopo Speed 7, Octacore, dual SIM, nice screen, and does 4G very well in my part of the world. It is also around $200 at time of writing. Its a Chinese phone typical of the genre, Zopo seem to be moderately responsive to bugs compared with Yota... This Zopa phone is running 5.1 Android and I can tell you that Lollipop is not the problem...
That's after charging the phone and leaving it overnight, with the battery saver mode on... not too shabby. Of course it won't actually last 28 days, but this phone is nothing special and it is capable of running without all those services running that the Yota has.
The Yota spent its entire time when I had it trying to contact Moscow with that dodgy 'dictionary app'. What (honestly) is the point of the e-ink display if it doesn't save power...
If you are experiencing "always awake" and wifi always on despite your settings saying otherwise it may be worth going into your advanced wifi settings and changing "wifi frequency band" from "auto" to "2.4 GHz only. I remember reading this tip somewhere else for an Android 5.0 phone that was having battery issues similar to this. I made this change about 24 hours ago and have noticed a dramatic difference in battery drain when the screen is off. When I look at my battery stats I am no longer seeing a solid bar for both wifi and awake. Worth trying.
For what it's worth, I have had fairly light use today, some checking of emails and facebook, 40 mins or so of music via bluetooth (with screen off). Total screen on time of 35 mins. The phone has been off charge since 06:30 this morning. It is now 17:00 and is showing battery of 71% with an estimated 2d and 8h left. Better battery stats show deep sleep of 71% whereas previously it had shown awake at 100%. Far better than I had before.
stapo101 said:
If you are experiencing "always awake" and wifi always on despite your settings saying otherwise it may be worth going into your advanced wifi settings and changing "wifi frequency band" from "auto" to "2.4 GHz only. I remember reading this tip somewhere else for an Android 5.0 phone that was having battery issues similar to this. I made this change about 24 hours ago and have noticed a dramatic difference in battery drain when the screen is off. When I look at my battery stats I am no longer seeing a solid bar for both wifi and awake. Worth trying.
For what it's worth, I have had fairly light use today, some checking of emails and facebook, 40 mins or so of music via bluetooth (with screen off). Total screen on time of 35 mins. The phone has been off charge since 06:30 this morning. It is now 17:00 and is showing battery of 71% with an estimated 2d and 8h left. Better battery stats show deep sleep of 71% whereas previously it had shown awake at 100%. Far better than I had before.
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Have you tried using the setting so Wifi is only on while screen is on? (Unless on charge...)
I think I found the issue, at least with my phone.
I was syncing with exchange, and there is a nasty bug with android 5.0 and exchange sync. The sync is taking forever and doesn´t sync everything. Calendar and contacts missing.
Then I removed the ActiveSync connection on my phone and set up the app Nine to sync instead.
After that I got much better battery. This may help for others as well. The phone is just hammering the exchange server all the time and this takes up a lot of power.
I don't really know what's going on. My unrooted g6 running the latest security patch is getting 2,5 hours of SOT. Also, the stock camera appears to has taken up 13% today. Does anyone know what's going on?
Go to storage and clear cache files then restart, it looks like your camera app is stuck.
Mines been normal since the update so you've probably got some corrupt data in a cache.
Worst case would be a factory reset.
Try clearing the cache in your phone.. Go to settings>storage>free up spaces
1. Turn off wifi, Bluetooth, location, sync.
2. Reception looks very poor - phone will likely use more power to broadcast.
3. Use auto brightness.
4. Disable unused pre installed apps.
E.g. Never use the Calculator? Disable.
5. Any use of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger will kill battery life - tons of articles written about this.
6. Square button, clear all. Do this often to kill apps in the background.
Blind as bat
Why ppl don't accept that this phone have poor battery life? Instead starts given advice, here is some, How to get more screen time - Turn off everything wifi Bluetooth gps, throw away your sim card, uninstall every app, you are not supposed to use them, brightness to zero, if possible turn it off.
Voila! amazing battery life.
Don't believe in fake news that 1+6 means 7 hrs of screen time
jky44 said:
Why ppl don't accept that this phone have poor battery life? Instead starts given advice, here is some, How to get more screen time - Turn off everything wifi Bluetooth gps, throw away your sim card, uninstall every app, you are not supposed to use them, brightness to zero, if possible turn it off.
Voila! amazing battery life.
Don't believe in fake news that 1+6 means 7 hrs of screen time
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Click to collapse
your brain has 0 battery for sure to make this kind of comment...really!
my G6 gives me 5 to 6 hours of screen on time with 50% brightness all time, wifi always on and 1 to 2 hours on data network enabled when outside.
i can get over 7 and half hours if i am at home with 35% brightness (i dont need more inside home)...
you just need to do the right things, i have like 45/50 apps installed and since last update (H870 v20g) battery life are being better than ever.
of course if you talking me: oh, i have the brightness everytime at 100%, i have data, wifi, gps and bluetooth, i have messenger and facebook and instagram all over running in background - i need to tell you something: you dont need a phone, you need a notebook/laptop. PERIOD!
phone users are limited by origin, and if you know what?! buy an iphone and then say me something about battery life. oh well...you may treath your phone like a strange animal or what to dont have a good battery life, you may be wild. xD
sun_is_shinning said:
your brain has 0 battery for sure to make this kind of comment...really!
my G6 gives me 5 to 6 hours of screen on time with 50% brightness all time, wifi always on and 1 to 2 hours on data network enabled when outside.
i can get over 7 and half hours if i am at home with 35% brightness (i dont need more inside home)...
you just need to do the right things, i have like 45/50 apps installed and since last update (H870 v20g) battery life are being better than ever.
of course if you talking me: oh, i have the brightness everytime at 100%, i have data, wifi, gps and bluetooth, i have messenger and facebook and instagram all over running in background - i need to tell you something: you dont need a phone, you need a notebook/laptop. PERIOD!
phone users are limited by origin, and if you know what?! buy an iphone and then say me something about battery life. oh well...you may treath your phone like a strange animal or what to dont have a good battery life, you may be wild. xD
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Thank you! You proved my point.
And FYI genius, my daily usage are music while commuting (phone music, no streaming), outlook for ofc use, and twitter only. Completely debloated, no LG bloatware. May be you should have looked up before bashing here that good percentage of LG devices suffer from poor battery life, because different manufacturing in diff countries with different firmwares.
And guess what i am coming from an iphone and very satisfied with this phone, but again i am not blind and accepted the fact that not everything is perfect.
Above all that I love that you making personal comments here. :good: