[StoneRyno]

I would like to have all those who are experiencing a consistent increased battery drain post 1.1 update to contribute information to help track down causes so that they can be identified and potentially user corrected and if out of user control information passed on in hopes to resolve issues for those who are still seeing as much as 10% per hour or more drain per hour when not doing anything with the pre. I'd like to thank everyone in advance for helping track down stuff.

Observations after 1.1 update: My battery drain went back to about 10% per hour after the update despite nothing changing except for the update. I didn't want to blame it on the update because not everyone is experiencing an increase in drain. However I have observed that one setting is not working as it did before. In screen and lock the setting at the bottom of the page Notifications show when locked: This is set to off as it was before the update however every text, email etc that I receive lights up the screen. Oddly it doesn't show the notification it just lights up the screen. Before with this feature off nothing would light up the screen. Turning this feature off saved me 2% per hour drain for some reason even though I only get maybe one or two notifications an hour. But this leaves me with 3% per hour drain unaccounted for and the reason for this study. It is my hypothesis at this point that there are other settings that are not actually doing what they are set at. I suspected GPS however I'm properly asked about turning both location services and GPS on when launching sprint nav and not turning on the GPS results in it complaining about no signal. But I simply haven't been able to figure anything else out.

Criteria:

#1 The drain rate has to be based on 100% to powering off point. Using only a fraction like 10% or even as much 50% may not be truly effective measures.

#2 Use should be as minimal as possible to gauge idle drain. Obviously we can't control someone sending a text, calling etc. But for this study any use will have to be documented. So say you use one hour talk time we can account for it's drain based on the rated talk time. I'd prefer if there was no music or video use because I only have unofficial rated totals. If this is not an option please don't feel you can't contribute. Just provide details before and after on the drain related to music and video. Track total time for web browsing and texting separate. Any other tasks provide detail of what the task is and how long spent.

#3 Track signal strengths RSSI value (mine ranges from -119 to -98 everywhere I am day to day) RX EC/IO (mine ranges from -18 to -9) and how much roaming if possible (mine almost never is roaming).

My Observations gathered since launch day

Idle battery drain rates: This ranges from 2% per hour to over 10% per hour. I can't say for certain where the most people are in other words what the average is to be expected out of everyone. Obviously though people are expecting to be at or near the 2% end.

Rated talk time: 4 hours, Video independent test 3.5 hours. Streaming music independent test 5 to 6 hours. Other factors like screen on have not been tested. Obviously even if just viewing the screen like reading a ebook will drain the battery faster than idle. Using these kinds of factors a persons idle drain can still be calculated by factoring in the drain from various tasks.

Brief history of my battery drain: First week to two weeks the drain was about 10% per hour possibly more. No optimization of settings or user controllable factors had been performed to improve it during that time. Over the next two weeks at most research and steps had been taken to perform all these factors. They are all found here on the forum so I won't detail them. This brought my drain down to 5% per hour. Not as best as I expected but certainly acceptable for most of the time. Removing email and other synergy connections (already removed IM connections for the 5%) did not improve the drain so 5% per hour idle was the best I could expect out of the pre I have.

[adrenalinestyle]

This is my first post to these forums, because this has been pissing me off to the point where I actually want to get involved with a solution.

Before 1.1: All settings were set as if I had infinite battery life (nice bright screen, phone vibrates AND plays a sound when I get a notification, etc), and I got 24+ hours out of it with moderate usage.

After 1.1: I took the phone off the charger at 5pm today. It is now 8:09pm and my battery is already at 64%. What the ****?! I sent two text messages and made one 5 minute phone call... that's it!


Keep in mind that my "After 1.1" settings are tweaked for battery life improvement and it still doesn't matter! I have GPS settings all off, no notifications at all, screen is at the lowest brightness setting, and I even have a CPU Scaling script installed to keep my processor at 250mhz when it's idle and 500mhz when it's active. None of these things seem to matter, and my battery just keeps on draining at a constant rate.


I've heard someone say on another forum that the battery and the device have to "recalibrate". Meaning after a few full discharges and charges that it should be back to normal and might even be better than before. I'm gonna start discharging and recharging it entirely as of today and see if that helps in the next few days.

[jameskk1]

I have experienced a significant increase in my battery since 1.1. Most notably in the standby times. I haven't really measured it until today.. I woke up at 3:00am this morning because my dog was barking and woke me up. I couldn't go to sleep with the Pre on the touchstone because it was so bright so I took it off (assumed battery was at 100%). I woke up at 9:00am (6hrs. later) and I noticed the battery was at 94%. so it dropped 6% in 6 hours. and this is with 3 bars of service and about 2 emails came in during that time. Before 1.1 I was dropping about 6% per hour just in standby! Needless to say, I am happy!

[groovy]

This is my first post to these forums, because this has been pissing me off to the point where I actually want to get involved with a solution.

Before 1.1: All settings were set as if I had infinite battery life (nice bright screen, phone vibrates AND plays a sound when I get a notification, etc), and I got 24+ hours out of it with moderate usage.

After 1.1: I took the phone off the charger at 5pm today. It is now 8:09pm and my battery is already at 64%. What the ****?! I sent two text messages and made one 5 minute phone call... that's it!


Keep in mind that my "After 1.1" settings are tweaked for battery life improvement and it still doesn't matter! I have GPS settings all off, no notifications at all, screen is at the lowest brightness setting, and I even have a CPU Scaling script installed to keep my processor at 250mhz when it's idle and 500mhz when it's active. None of these things seem to matter, and my battery just keeps on draining at a constant rate.


I've heard someone say on another forum that the battery and the device have to "recalibrate". Meaning after a few full discharges and charges that it should be back to normal and might even be better than before. I'm gonna start discharging and recharging it entirely as of today and see if that helps in the next few days.

It's quite possible that some of the homebrews or tweaking you've done might actually be contributing to the problem. If your battery life was that much better pre-1.1, I would suggest going completely vanilla for a while and see how that works (if you haven't already tried).

[jcasharper]

I've been using the Palm Pre in a vanilla state since the day they were first released -- I've noticed a huge change in battery discharge rate since 1.1. In fact I'm glad you've posted -- I thought I was losing my mind. I even turned off the gps and bluetooth and it is draining faster than it did pre 1.1 with BOTH turned on.

[number1pete]

maybe they made a change to the cellular algorithm and now your phones are using more cellular power. That would make since because that one guy enabled cpu scaling and saw no improvement.

[walhalla]

Since the update to 1.1 I have seen a increase in battery drain. I take it off the TS around 7am. It is now 9:45pm est and the battery is at 31%. Previously, it would be in the high 50's or maybe low 60's. My pre is not rooted, nothing different has been done to it. I am not using it any more or less than before 1.1. Something is definately causing it to drain the battery.

[adrenalinestyle]

It's quite possible that some of the homebrews or tweaking you've done might actually be contributing to the problem. If your battery life was that much better pre-1.1, I would suggest going completely vanilla for a while and see how that works (if you haven't already tried).

I have my pre rooted, have clipcarl's CPU Scaling script installed (and without errors might I add ), and MyTether also installed. If my draining/recharging thing doesn't work, then I'll probably try uninstalling everything or just flashing it.

Also, I got my Pre on the first day that it came out. I know some people are on their second Pre (either from water damage or from bricking it) and have reported that they can do different things with different results than their first Pre (ex: overclocking works better).

Does anyone with a first day Pre not have battery draining issues?

[sccrkeepr]

since 1.1, i have experienced a drain of about 4% per hour with nothing but light phone/text usage. If i have my bluetooth on, i experince drainage at 7 - 9% per hour and if i use the internet or do more than light text/phone - it has been around 10 - 12%. It's gotten to the point, where im completely pissed off. I'm worried about not having phone usage by about 2 or 3 in the afternoon and that is not good.

[StoneRyno]

This is my first post to these forums, because this has been pissing me off to the point where I actually want to get involved with a solution.

Before 1.1: All settings were set as if I had infinite battery life (nice bright screen, phone vibrates AND plays a sound when I get a notification, etc), and I got 24+ hours out of it with moderate usage.

Aside from screen brightness setting did you leave everything in location service, bluetooth, wifi, and IM connections off when not in use? How many email accounts are sent to your phone and what are the sync options for each? What accounts are you connected to for contacts and calendar)? Do you have tweed and/or spaz set to periodically check and notify of updates? And was show notifications when locked set to off?

After 1.1: I took the phone off the charger at 5pm today. It is now 8:09pm and my battery is already at 64%. What the ****?! I sent two text messages and made one 5 minute phone call... that's it!

Unfortunately the battery indicator isn't linear in that a partial drain isn't very helpful. To provide as an example monitoring today within the 1st two hours I had went from 100% to 70% then over the next 9 hours went from 70% to 37%. Typically at this point the battery run down to auto power off in about an hour to two hours. This is why I want from 100% to auto power off tests. So today's test from 100% to power off is looking to be 8% per hour, will post results when it auto powers off. Only a slight improvement and not quite sure what changed. It auto powered down the other day but didn't seem to have an effect but perhaps it was delayed effect.

Keep in mind that my "After 1.1" settings are tweaked for battery life improvement and it still doesn't matter! I have GPS settings all off, no notifications at all, screen is at the lowest brightness setting, and I even have a CPU Scaling script installed to keep my processor at 250mhz when it's idle and 500mhz when it's active. None of these things seem to matter, and my battery just keeps on draining at a constant rate.

Would you be willing to remove the CPU modification to do further tests for me? And the questions asked above about before 1.1 I would like to know which of those things are set different after 1.1.

I've heard someone say on another forum that the battery and the device have to "recalibrate". Meaning after a few full discharges and charges that it should be back to normal and might even be better than before. I'm gonna start discharging and recharging it entirely as of today and see if that helps in the next few days.

[/quote]

This study would give you a good excuse for doing this. I too will be letting the battery drain until auto power off a few times. I did this just over a month ago when I was doing all I could to improve battery drain. Perhaps this is something that has to be regularly done?

It's quite possible that some of the homebrews or tweaking you've done might actually be contributing to the problem. If your battery life was that much better pre-1.1, I would suggest going completely vanilla for a while and see how that works (if you haven't already tried).

It is certainly worth investigating this for those who have. I didn't do any modifications or install homebrew apps myself until after I noticed I was getting 10% drain per hour compared to the 5% from before. At this point I am not going to modify anything until after I figure out how to restore my battery drain back to 5% or better. And I hope through this process it will help others as well.

I've been using the Palm Pre in a vanilla state since the day they were first released -- I've noticed a huge change in battery discharge rate since 1.1. In fact I'm glad you've posted -- I thought I was losing my mind. I even turned off the gps and bluetooth and it is draining faster than it did pre 1.1 with BOTH turned on.

I would like you to answer the same settings questions I asked adrenalinestyle if you would. Also if you have details on the drain rate from 100% to auto power off that was typical prior to 1.1 and what it is now would be great. If you haven't ever let it go that far what is the lowest you let it drain to and typically how many hours to that point? Plus then you can let it go to auto power off to provide data for this thread and perhaps it may even help improve your situation.

maybe they made a change to the cellular algorithm and now your phones are using more cellular power. That would make since because that one guy enabled cpu scaling and saw no improvement.

A good hypothesis and the more variables we eliminate the closer we will get to figuring out the cause(s).

[erider81]

im losing about 10% per hour as well. previously i was losing maybe 2 to 3%. I've even turned things off that i had going before the update to see if that made a difference but no luck at all. the only thing i did add was my exchange account. but even with that set to check once every 24 hours it made no difference. i deleted any homebrews i've installed since the update as well.

*added to answer some of StoneRyno's questions:
Never had IM setup. No location/gps services turned on and no twitter crap setup. i have 1 hotmail 1 gmail (cal too) 2 pop and 1 exchange account setup. the only one added after 1.1 was the exchange. hotmail and gmail are set to check never (but it still does) 1 pop is set to 1 hour and the other is set to 12 hours just like the exchange account is. although exchange still seems to check more often then 12 hours. this is a bug that my instinct had as well that was never addressed by sprint. the calendars i use are gmail and exhange.
screen brightness used to be at 50% but after 1.1 i lowered it to one tiny click from the lowest setting hoping to resolved some battery life. screen time off was always set to 1 minute. i did have the timer hack enabled that let me keep it on longer but i only used that if i was using putty. i did notice that hack was visible the first time i went to that screen after 1.1 but it has since vanished and i only have the max time of 1 minute showing now.
wifi is on all the time, i have ev signal at home and work. bluetooth is only turned on when im in the car and only if i know im going to be using it.
hope this answers all your questions. im currently trying to run the battery out fully and charge since i've heard a few people say they did that and got better life.

[adrenalinestyle]

To StoneRyno:


1) Yes, all of those features are off. I almost never use them. I have 4 e-mail accounts. They used to be synced every 15 minutes, but I recently put them to "As items arrive" as I heard that this option may actually save power. Neither of them made a difference in power rate for me. I have a facebook account synced to my phone as well as 3 gmail accounts. Perhaps there are some settings here that I can mess with. I don't use tweed or spaz or even have them installed.

2) I never considered that the battery indicator may be out of whack, so I'll try and monitor this carefully and see.

3) Already removed the CPU modification because it has issues with text messages for me. Luckily, it doesn't cause any permanent changes and is very easy to reverse.

4) I found some people in treocentral who mentioned that they had similar issues and that all it took to fix their phone post 1.1 update was to let the battery drain completely a few times and then charge completely. Does anyone know the mechanics of this stuff well enough to give an explanation as to how that makes any sense? How could a new WebOS update require the battery to be "recalibrated" for optimum efficiency? I'm gonna try it anyway, but it would be cool to actually understand how this works.

[carlos83]

I thought I was the only one! My battery power was great until the update. I could make it through the day without a charge with pretty heavy usage plus some roaming. But now I have to charge it at least twice a day.

[subliminalfringe]

I pretty much go from charging station to charging station throughout the day. Granted the reception sucks at my work, but here's a typical day for me:

Plugged in all night so it's at 100%. I drive to work with the pre on a touchstone still charging. Start work at 7:30. I CAN NOT get through a day at work without it powering down by 5:00 - 6:00. So today I plugged in to a USB for an hour to top it off around 3:00. On the touchstone while driving around after work (30 minute drive). Right now the phone is sitting on the desk in front of me and is very warm. Has 5 bars and EVO connection. Has gone from 58% to 35% in the last 90 minutes without use. No calls, no texts, only calendar and email cards are up.

I have WiFi on, BT off, GPS on, Push Gmail, screen as dim as it will go

BTW - no calls at work, maybe 15 texts during the workday. Can't do internet because of the bad reception.

WTF??

[AMR-1]

After the update - we noticed that the network setting in the phone app reset back to defaults... Before the update our battery life was much improved by setting the network to "Sprint Only"...after the update we didn't notice that the setting was reset back to "Automatic" but we did notice that our battery life sucked again. Setting it back to "Sprint Only" gave us back our not great but acceptable battery life.

[StoneRyno]

To StoneRyno:

2) I never considered that the battery indicator may be out of whack, so I'll try and monitor this carefully and see.

Yes please do track it from 100% to auto power off or if this is not possible at least until it hits about 10% maybe 15%. But is it also important to track any tasks like those I specified in the OP since they are things that have know drain rates.

How could a new WebOS update require the battery to be "recalibrated" for optimum efficiency? I'm gonna try it anyway, but it would be cool to actually understand how this works.

This is something I'm hoping to find out. It may very well effect some people. It may also simply be that over time regardless of updates that the meter may need recalibration. But this is just a hypothesis unless this is indeed documented.

I thought I was the only one! My battery power was great until the update. I could make it through the day without a charge with pretty heavy usage plus some roaming. But now I have to charge it at least twice a day.

Please if you could what is your screen brightness setting? Is everything in location service, bluetooth, wifi, and IM connections off when not in use? How many email accounts are sent to your phone and what are the sync options for each? What accounts are you connected to for contacts and calendar? Do you have tweed and/or spaz set to periodically check and notify of updates? And was show notifications when locked set to off? Do you have any modifications for example CPU scaling (basically anything that required accessing linux root)? And if you wouldn't mind helping can you follow the guidelines in the OP and track battery drain for cycles from 100% to power off? Be sure to track any use if you can't go with near no use for the duration of the drain so that it can be accounted for in the idle drain rates.

im losing about 10% per hour as well. previously i was losing maybe 2 to 3%. I've even turned things off that i had going before the update to see if that made a difference but no luck at all. the only thing i did add was my exchange account. but even with that set to check once every 24 hours it made no difference. i deleted any homebrews i've installed since the update as well.

Just to detail for tracking purposes could you do a quick run down of answers to the above questions I asked carlos83 to answer. I know in a nut shell you answered some of them in the quote. Also would you be willing to track the battery drain as outlined in the OP?

Plugged in all night so it's at 100%. I drive to work with the pre on a touchstone still charging. Start work at 7:30. I CAN NOT get through a day at work without it powering down by 5:00 - 6:00. So today I plugged in to a USB for an hour to top it off around 3:00. On the touchstone while driving around after work (30 minute drive). Right now the phone is sitting on the desk in front of me and is very warm. Has 5 bars and EVO connection. Has gone from 58% to 35% in the last 90 minutes without use. No calls, no texts, only calendar and email cards are up.

Could you make note of the signal values RSSI and RX EC/IO. They are seen in the ##DEBUG# window by dialing that in the phone app. About 5 minutes should be good enough to get a range of lowest to highest values and an idea of where is is closest to most of the time. Heat definately will cause the battery to drain faster especially if that heat is related to something that is constantly using the CPU either by something you are doing or a glitch of some sort. Is it normal that it gets hot or stays more than slightly warm?

After the update - we noticed that the network setting in the phone app reset back to defaults... Before the update our battery life was much improved by setting the network to "Sprint Only"...after the update we didn't notice that the setting was reset back to "Automatic" but we did notice that our battery life sucked again. Setting it back to "Sprint Only" gave us back our not great but acceptable battery life.

Do you do sprint only because they tend to default to roam most or all the time or in automatic it is most or all the time on sprints network but as an experiment for better battery you changed to sprint only to discover that it improved things? Once you change this setting back to sprint only did your battery drain go back to normal?

[bgriffin1497]

Post 1.1 on vanilla phone - Started playing poker at 6:30 PM with 97% and I got home at 10:30 PM with 54% charge. 10.75% per hour. NOW consider this, both GPS and Location are on, BT off, WiFi off, screen brightness is medium, sent/received 6-10 texts, 2 email accounts set to push and received about 10 emails with replies to them, 2 short phone calls (2-3 min), browsing pre-central forum for 5-10 minutes, using google maps for about 5 mins and to top it off........STREAMING PANDORA over EVDO the ENTIRE TIME. I know this doesnt fit the 'required' test as posted here, but I cant complain about the 11% per hour at all.

Initially, I was having the horrible drain after the 1.1 update. I did two full charge cycles as other posts have suggested and have been just fine with battery performance since.

And to add in 4 hours today with multiple calls, emails, texts, short GPS trip, using flixter to get tickets to a movie......about 5% per hour average loss.

[ronlongo]

I have my pre rooted, have clipcarl's CPU Scaling script installed (and without errors might I add ), and MyTether also installed. If my draining/recharging thing doesn't work, then I'll probably try uninstalling everything or just flashing it.

Also, I got my Pre on the first day that it came out. I know some people are on their second Pre (either from water damage or from bricking it) and have reported that they can do different things with different results than their first Pre (ex: overclocking works better).

Does anyone with a first day Pre not have battery draining issues?

I have a launch day Pre. None of the problems others are reporting. Either the problems are overblown or I got lucky. Anyway I have no battery drain issues. When I get to work at about 8am I turn start running Music and put on headphones. The Pre stays on my desk for the rest of the day playing music until I go home (8 hours). Right now the battery is at 30% (after about 7 hours, 15 minutes). I send & receive about 20 to 30 text messages a day and 1 to 2 phone calls (about 5 minutes each). When I leave today it will be around 27%. I'll plug into my car charger for the 45 minute drive home and it will be 100% by the time I'm home.

Obviously this is not superb battery performance compared to a dedicated mp3 player but it sounds like I have better performance than many.

My phone settings are quite conservative. WiFi and Bluetooth radios are off. My screen brightness is all the way down. My phone's ringer is turned off and music volume is set to four bars. My email checks once an hour (only one email account setup). I'm typically on Roaming at work with 4 to 5 bars (Terrible Sprint coverage around here). In addition to the Music player I typically have at least Tasks, Messaging and Phone apps running.

[StoneRyno]

Post 1.1 on vanilla phone - Started playing poker at 6:30 PM with 97% and I got home at 10:30 PM with 54% charge. 10.75% per hour. NOW consider this, both GPS and Location are on, BT off, WiFi off, screen brightness is medium, sent/received 6-10 texts, 2 email accounts set to push and received about 10 emails with replies to them, 2 short phone calls (2-3 min), browsing pre-central forum for 5-10 minutes, using google maps for about 5 mins and to top it off........STREAMING PANDORA over EVDO the ENTIRE TIME. I know this doesnt fit the 'required' test as posted here, but I cant complain about the 11% per hour at all.

Initially, I was having the horrible drain after the 1.1 update. I did two full charge cycles as other posts have suggested and have been just fine with battery performance since.

And to add in 4 hours today with multiple calls, emails, texts, short GPS trip, using flixter to get tickets to a movie......about 5% per hour average loss.

See the thing is you are getting 10.75% per hour drain as a result of doing all that stuff what we are talking about is 10% p[er hour drain with the pre just sitting idle doing nothing with it at all the entire time. If doing all the stuff you mention it would drain like as much as 20% per hour. I'd be willing to bet if you just let yours sit idle and do nothing with it the entire time from 100% to auto power off it would only drain about 2% per hour.

I have a launch day Pre. None of the problems others are reporting. Either the problems are overblown or I got lucky. Anyway I have no battery drain issues. When I get to work at about 8am I turn start running Music and put on headphones. The Pre stays on my desk for the rest of the day playing music until I go home (8 hours). Right now the battery is at 30% (after about 7 hours, 15 minutes). I send & receive about 20 to 30 text messages a day and 1 to 2 phone calls (about 5 minutes each). When I leave today it will be around 27%. I'll plug into my car charger for the 45 minute drive home and it will be 100% by the time I'm home.

Obviously this is not superb battery performance compared to a dedicated mp3 player but it sounds like I have better performance than many.

My phone settings are quite conservative. WiFi and Bluetooth radios are off. My screen brightness is all the way down. My phone's ringer is turned off and music volume is set to four bars. My email checks once an hour (only one email account setup). I'm typically on Roaming at work with 4 to 5 bars (Terrible Sprint coverage around here). In addition to the Music player I typically have at least Tasks, Messaging and Phone apps running.

Yours and bgriffin1497 experiences is what the handful of us that complain wish we got. As I pointed out the best I was able to achieve is 5% per hour drain idle which changed to 10% per hour idle post 1.1. When I play music (pandora) I get about 5 hours. I can't complain too much in that regard cause that is more than I would listen in one session. But the mere fact that others get 8 hours of pandora indicates that something isn't right with mine since it is draining faster doing the same thing. Signal strength doesn't appear to effect how long cause I get 5 hours no matter if the signal is 1 bar or 4 bars most of the time it is playing. In fact it only improves my idle drain by about 1% [er hour if I have a consistent 4 bar or better most of the time. However I'd have to be outdoors and away from any buildings that would cause the signal to be lower to get that. 3 bars or less doesn't seem to make any difference in my case. But like I said I'd be happy if I could just get back to the 5% I was at before.

I have now let the battery go to auto power off from 100% 3 days in a row. Tomorrow I will be testing it to see if the 5% per hour (or better would be great) has restore as a result of the cycles. If it has not I'll have to continue to try and figure out why not. As for everyone else having problems I want to figure it out as bad as they want it figured out so whatever I can do to help everyone I want to do. Even if I return to a 5% or better I will likely buy one of the huge capacity extended batteries if they are made touchstone compatible just so I can go all out with music, video, and settings and not have to worry about not making it to the end of the day. It kind of bothers me right now that I have to practically not use the pre just to get reasonable battery drain. A day of heavy use and I have to charge it at least once having have it auto power off with no access to be able to charge it.

[theChrisLake]

I haven't noticed any difference in battery life since about the 3rd update. I use my phone somewhat heavily during the course of the day and it doesn't seem to be an issue.