Battery Saver Apps and Tips

[mik2010]

Android phones seem to suffer from one common problem Battery Drain. If you are using an app or have a tip to save battery consumption please post it here. Lets get everyones thoughts into one thread.

Some people that have just recently upgraded to ICS are experiencing short battery life. I myself being one.

My first tip is after installing new firmware is to recalibrate the battery by running the battery flat then recharging it fully without usage. Best do it through the night.

I have installed the following Apps

Juicedefender Ultimate

AutomateIt Pro

These have assisted in saving battery. I will post some rules that I have set up in Automateit later.

Please post your battery saving apps and tips.

[mik2010]

Hi everyone

Massive improvement in battery life currently at 53% after 1 day 0hrs 9mins 9sec. I achieved this by installing AutomateIt and setting up rules for the following:-

Disable Wifi when battery below 10%

Wifi off when leaving home location.

Screen Off disable Wifi and 3g

Screen brightness low

Face down activates airplane mode ( great for when I am in meetings and sleeping during the night.)

Face up deactives airplane mode.

I also did the following procedure which I found on another forum. Here it is do not ask me why or what it does but my battery life has improved

1. Charge battery to 100%
2. When at 100% unplug charger
3. Pull battery for 90 seconds.
4. Reinsert battery and run phone as normal.

I have switched off my voice activation and logged out of Latitude as these apparently use alot of Battery.

I have certainly seen an improvement if you check my battery stats from yesterday page 7 you will see a change. I did try Tasker but it did not work and was complicated. AutomateIt is certainly worth a try and is easier to setup. I have also installed a black wallpaper and lock screen to reduce the battery drain on display.

Good luck everyone.

[RichH]

Don't consider battery drain as a problem! It's more of a feature. Consider what the phone is capable of then compare it to how long your laptop battery lasts
Is it so bad to have to charge your phone every night anyway? As long as you can last a full day I don't see a problem.....?
Having said that there are things you can do as standard.....

I'll state the obvious ones first...

1 - enable system power save
2 - use dark wallpapers (definitely not live ones)
3 - look in running apps list and disable any that are running that you don't need.
4 - check sub settings in auto sync - Google for example will try and sync about 10 different things. If you don't use all of Google's facilities, turn them off.
5 - disable mobile data manually when connected via wifi.
5 - one cause of excessive drain can be "wakelocks", the native battery use monitor doesn't help to identify these but "better battery stats" of play will identify these for you and you can take the appropriate action.
6 - There is an official Samsung extended 2000mah battery that comes with a new back cover (only slightly thicker than standard battery) for less than £20 so heavy phone users may benefit from this.

I'll add others as I think of them. No reason why you can't get 48 hours out of a single charge without crippling the phone functionality. Remember some power saving apps just do that, so if they are set to sync every hour you will only get mms, email etc every hour, not in real time (if this is important to you I suggest you don't use battery apps).

[hazi1964]

RichH, nothing wrong with charging every night but it is a real pain if you have to charge before evening. I actually use my phone and get no more than 15 hours with no battery saver. I don't mind if my mms, emails etc only sync every hour or longer even, I don't need them to be instant and if it's going to improve my battery life, that's fine by me. I do not want to buy an extended battery, I have covers for my phone that would not fit if I used a thicker battery, plus, I don't really have much money and I have a spare battery for if I really need it.

Yes, some battery savers do use as much as they save and make no difference or even make it worse but if there is an app (which there is) that can really make a difference, then what a fantastic idea. I am using tasker and although complex, it has made quite a difference to mine.

I use my phone for everything as I have no landline, I tether with it which uses roughly 10% an hour. If I didn't have tasker, this would mean my battery would need charging by around 4pm. With tasker, I am able to get through the whole day on one charge. If I didn't tether, it would be more but nothing I can do about that and as long as it lasts me from unplugging in the morning to plugging in when I go to bed, that's fine. If it would do that without the need for a battery saver app, I wouldn't be using said battery saver app.

I have frozen various apps etc anyway and everyone has their own preferences as to how they get the most out of it. My preference is to use an app that I can schedule to connect when I choose and not when it wants.

Alison

[RichH]

Totally agree that having to charge during the day would be a PITA. Everyone has there own requirements which I fully respect. I just wanted to point out how they work as there are new users to Android which may have different expectations.... Not so for the likes of yourself who are more familiar with their operation. If they work for you then by all means use them, nothing wrong with that at all. I may even look at Tasker myself just to see how it improves my battery life as I have tried JD and Green battery manager and found no benefits at all with them.....

[Mike01Hu]

Good stuff! My contribution is to drop any apps that continually refresh adverts and go for the pro versions that don't have them. If you use UMA, then that will keep the WiFi active, which is one of the penalties I suffer for living in a poor service area. Any animations are battery hogs but that's the fun of the phone, you make your choices and live with the consequences.

Currently, I am new to the S2, so have to build some experience but my old phone (HTC Desire) still holds up for 24+hours on its original battery.

[lucianus_luciferus]

I have switched off my voice activation and logged out of Latitude as these apparently use alot of Battery.

how do u switch off voice activation and where is latitude and what does it do?

[greenman]

If you have Latitude it is in the apps, and part of Google maps.
'Latitude allows you to find friends and family on a map and share where you are with people you choose'

Voice activation is something you have to choose so if not chosen it should be off.

[mik2010]

how do u switch off voice activation and where is latitude and what does it do?

To switch off voice activation go into your apps and select Voice Command

Then hit the menu button and you will be presented with 3 options select settings

This will take you into another menu scroll down until you see Voice Talk Setting under the heading of Voice Talk

Select Voice Talk Settings and this will take you into another menu

Here you will see Wake Up Command this is normally ticked uncheck this and you will save battery.

What you have done is switched off the voice prompt wake up command.

Hope this has answered your question.

[Jejoma]

I don't know how to cross-link but there is another very useful thread re battery saving in the stickies under Help and Solutions started by soraxd. Quoting from the original post:

How to increase battery life on the Galaxy S II
well every phone needs one right? and i just noticed a few things that this phone has that the s1 didnt, soooo
in Voice Talk, turn off 'Wake up command', when voice talk is running, your microphone will be constantly on listening for you to call "Hey Galaxy!" (wake up command)
double press home>menu>settings>voice talk settings>wake up command
turning vibration off, believe it or not, vibration uses more energy than max volume
limiting how much processor is used, an app like SetCPU can limit how much processor is used, and in what way, setting your processor to Conservative will increase battery life.
turning off bluetooth and wifi when youre not using it will save unnecessary searches for signal
turn off automatic background syncing
make sure you fully close out an app, either by hitting back till it closes, or menu>close
poor or no signal will decrease battery life, as your phone will constantly be stressing to find a good signal
if you really wanna go crazy use a solid black wallpaper, it wont use any LEDs at all
dont use live wallpapers
single best thing you can do for your battery: turn brightness to 0, this is the difference between 6 hours of use, and 2, the s2 has an amazing powerful screen, and it will drain the battery if its maxed. download 'Brightness Level' an easy widget from the market used to quickly adjust brightness between when you want to show off, and when you want to be practical
widgets that get constant feeds from the internet will use a lot of battery, weather widgets, or news feeds, ect
remove unneeded or unused apps, you can remove system apps once youre rooted with an app like titanium backup, for a list of safe to remove system apps check here

The Safe to Remove list from Briggs could do with some updating. I've started to experiment with it but does anyone have any advice / warnings on it.