HTC Hero :: Saving Battery Life
Jul 9, 2010
I don't have the Hero in front of me to experiment as I've given it to the missus.
Basically she lives in a low reception area right on the edge of where 3G signal drops out and her battery is lasting hours instead of days (when I tested it in a good reception area). I figure the battery is getting eaten up having to keep reconnecting to the mobile network.
She uses the Gmail app alot (not the other Mail app where you can specify when to check for mail). She would also no doubt have Facebook, Twitter, Gtalk, Googlemaps' Latitude, MSN Talk all active. I dunno if there's anything else that needs data in the background :P
Anyway, I'm wondering if there is a way to control all of these apps so that they either don't need data as often or super easy ways to turn things off/on. I guess what I mean is that if you have to go and check each of these things manually.
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Nov 7, 2010
Best free ones and best payed one. I'm willing to buy the best one.
I have a x10 mini and bettery!
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May 18, 2010
I found that really saved my battery life was either during off 3G or installing Juicedefender, which helped, but it was still draining a ton.
What I did was I checked when facebook updated my contacts to once a day instead of the default. Which I believe the default setting was Every hour, because honestly I don't need it to check every hour for a profile picture change or a few things that I normally check on my own with the facebook app.
The way you do that is
Menu->Settings->Accounts and Sync->Facebook for HTC Sense->Account Settings->Change it to Once a day.
Also I recently found out that you can use your gmail account to have it check a work e-mail or another e-mail, by using pop e-mail, so I didn't have to leave my phone set to check my work e-mail every 15 minutes and drain battery life that way, and that works really well too so your just using your gmail account for e-mail, plus your gmail account pushes to your phone every time a new e-mail comes, which it can do for a work e-mail or your gmail e-mail.
The way you set that up is,
Login to your gmail->Settings->Accounts and Imports->Under Check mail using POP3->Click add POP3 account->Then start adding your work e-mail in there
You can also select Send mail as and add your work e-mail in there, so you can just use your gmail account to send e-mail, I would prefer to use IMAP, but since I am usually in front of a computer, cleaning up my e-mail isn't too much of a job to do.
But this is a great way to use less data and to save a TON on your battery, by the time I was done with work today, I was at 80% battery, when I am normally around 40% to 50%, and after a few short phone calls and showing my mom about 100+ phones from the 3D photo gallery I am still at around 60% on my battery.
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Aug 18, 2010
I have a friend that sent me this message today, which sounds like a great idea:
I've been messing with setcpu and trying out some underclocking profiles. Underclocking while the screen is off as well as reducing the CPU power has gotten me 75% battery left after 8 hours. This is with constant emails but no wireless, bluetooth, or gps. This is better than I was getting under windows mobile.
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Oct 30, 2010
I think this should be possible, but I'll need a bit of help setting it up as I'm not yet competent with tasker.
During the day I have "data enabled" most of the time because if someone sends me an email I want to be able to reply. However data enabled does cause significant battery drain and my email only gets checked every hour.
Is it possible to create a tasker task that turns on "data enabled" and checks emails once an hour and then turns off "data enabled"?
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Nov 2, 2009
I stumbled upon a new wi-fi setting yesterday that is fairly hidden and not mentioned in the manual at all, so I though I'd share it here.
First, a little background and explanation, then I will share my new findings with you all. It has been confirmed in other threads that the wi-fi radio uses considerably less power than the EV-DO 3G radio in the Hero. When you think about it, it's actually pretty simple because the signal only has to travel 100 or so feet for wi-fi, vs. several miles for the 3G radio. Whenever I'm at home or anywhere else with wi-fi, I always switch the wi-fi radio on, and have found that the battery lasts much longer. Whenever the phone is awake, and you're actively connected to a wi-fi network, it seems to shut the EV-DO radio down completely and rely solely on the wi-fi data for data. This has been confirmed as true, because there are some programs out there (i.e. Sprint TV) where you have to turn wi-fi off, because they will only access with the EV-DO radio. You obviously want to turn the wi-fi off whenever there are no networks around, because it will actively search for networks whenever it is on, and will run the battery down.
So, I noticed every time I would wake my phone up after I hadn't used it for a while, it would be using the EV-DO radio, and would take a few seconds to re-connect to my wi-fi network. I couldn't quite figure out why the phone would revert back to EV-DO when sleeping, then connect back to wi-fi only after waking the phone back up. Yesterday, I stumbled upon a new menu I hadn't seen before where you can change this behavior. Check this out.
Menu->Settings->Wireless Controls->Wi-Fi Settings->Press Menu Again->Advanced->Wi-Fi Sleep Policy
The description for this menu reads "Specify when to switch from Wi-Fi to mobile data."
Within this menu, there are three options.
"When screen turns off."
"Never when plugged in."
"Never."
The default setting is "When screen turns off." So, even with wi-fi enabled, whenever the screen turns off, your phone automatically reverts back to the EV-DO radio. As we all know, your phone is still transmitting data a good portion of the time, even when you're not using it. So, even with wi-fi turned on, the phone is still using the 3G radio to communicate while the screen is off.
I switched this menu setting to "Never" as of last night. This forces the phone to always use wi-fi whenever it is turned on, and you are connected to a network. Since then, whenever I wake up my phone it is still showing the wi-fi icon, and I haven't seen the EV-DO icon at all like I used to see for the first several seconds.
I was at home most of the day today, connected to my wi-fi network. I left the house twice for probably about 2 hours total, and I switched off wi-fi both times I left the house. I used the phone fairly lightly today, since we had a family day, but that still consisted of a good bit of browsing, some email usage, light texting, reading twitter updates every two hours, and half an hour playing a video game. Also, I always leave my GPS switched on as it never activates unless I open a program that requires it, and it always switches back off after I'm done. I took the phone off the charger at 9:30 this morning, and it is now 11:50 pm as I'm typing this. So, we're looking at over 14 hours today. The phone hasn't touched a charger since this morning, and I am sitting at 52% battery life, and I'm about to plug the phone in and go to bed.
I have never seen anywhere near this kind of battery life at the end of the day. I am usually below 15% after this kind of usage. I'm not sure if this was just a freak day, or what, but I really believe changing this one setting had a profound affect (effect?) on my battery life.
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May 3, 2010
When I heard the official 2.1 ROM was being but put, I finally went for it and rooted and upgraded to Villian ROMS 5.4. Its good but as with other 2.1 ROMS the battery life isn't great, even with Juice Defender/Ultimate Juice installed. I've no idea how the ROMS are coded and optimized and put together so i don't know if battery life in the future will be improved? Can someone throw some light on it please? I'm considering downgrading to a 1.5 ROM in the meantime.
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Jul 8, 2010
Just rooted and installed villainrom 12. Love it, but my battery is draining like crazy. From 9:30a to 1:30p and I'm at 50% which is a lot worse than before!
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Jan 22, 2010
So, I rooted and installed fresh 1.1 a few days ago. The question I have is how is everyone getting better battery life, because mine has not changed, even a little? The speed has increased, but it's nothing to write home about. I guess I would like to hear from other fresh users to see what you have done to get more speed and better battery life and your overall experience with fresh so far. Don't get me wrong I love the look and it is faster. I'm just wondering if there is more that I can do to make it better?
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Jun 30, 2010
Anyone tried it yet, any improvement in battery life?
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Mar 1, 2010
A month or so back I started running mine with GPS toggled ON all the time. (For apps to find a lost Hero it seemed the only effective way to find it was if GPS was on). GPS is not powered (or maybe very low powered?) UNLESS the GPS Symbol is showing at top of screen?
I've noticed NO difference in battery life with GPS toggled ON vs OFF over the last month. GPS (when toggled ON) appears to be actually turned on or off by particular Apps that use it.
Anyone? Am I correct?
It seems to be "common knowledge" and I think Android even says to toggle it OFF to save battery life but this seems to be not true?
I DO have an App that does turn GPS on but does NOT turn it off when I exit, which does drain the battery until I manually correct, which could be a problem, but I do see the GPS icon so I know it's on and draining.
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Aug 3, 2010
Is it just me or does the Hero with 2.1 seem to use a lot more battery that when it ran android 1.5?
And are there any tips/apps to help conserve battery power?
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Nov 23, 2009
I woke up this morning at 6am with 100% battery life now it is 11:45 and I am 50% but my awake time is only 17% and I haven't been doing any heavy internet usage today, is this typical or is there an issue with my battery / phone ?
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Aug 26, 2010
I haven't been changing Roms around like I used to before so I was wondering if you all can give your opinion on which rom you think has the best battery life.
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Oct 21, 2009
My battery life was horrible when I first switched from my rotten apple to my little green android.I did a little exploring and found some nice applications to extend battery life.The Tools: WiFi OnOff, GPSOnOff. BluetoothOnOff & Taskpanel
We all know that GPS, BT, and Wifi will drain a phone no matter what brand. Toggle WiFi , GPS. and Bluetooth with the respective applications (free) when they are not in use. We also heard claims from apple about Iphone not multi tasking natively to save battery life. I am not sure why but a lot of apps load at startup like AK Notepad, PEEP and other seemingly load for no reason.
Enter Taskpanel you can choose the apps you want to ignore at startup. For example ignore IM if you use Meebo, ignore mail if you use GMail. Let's say you tweet occasionally you can also auto kill applications after an allotted time. I can run peep and set auto shutdown after 5 min. Between TaskPanel and the toggle apps my battery life has been extended.You can also keep auto dim enabled (use the volume button to wake the screen up). Little tweaks like this pay off.
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Mar 31, 2010
Everything is turned off that is suppose to drain the battery. I only have one widget the htc one that originally came with the phone it has a huge clock and a weather update if u don't know what widget this is. But that's it I know the Internet, upstream etc drain battery life but when I'm not doing these things the battery feels short my screen timeout is for 1 minute. I just feel my battery life Drains to fast and I don't know why.
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Feb 12, 2010
I know there are thousands of posts on this forum discussing how to improve the overall battery life of the Hero. Most people advise others to root the phone or buy a larger battery. However, most people forget that there's a lot you can do without taking such drastic measures. I've found that simple lifestyle changes here and there can turn into huge power savers for your Hero. So here's my quick guide on how to maintain a battery charge.
NOTE: Take all of these tips with a grain of salt. None are guaranteed to drastically boost battery life individually, but the gains will be noticeable the more steps you utilize.
1. Use the Best App for the Job. The stock apps that come with your Hero may do the job, but many have bugs and issues that place a severe strain on your battery. See this post to find a comprehensive list of alternative apps (as well as some must-have advice) that may help to improve the overall efficiency of your phone..................
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Dec 24, 2009
How much life on your hero do you get on average out of a full charge? Please do not reply as this is intended to be a poll only.
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Dec 3, 2009
First, I've got to give credit to the other post for figuring out the main reason for the short battery life I was getting. If you're already getting good battery life - ignore this post.It only took me two months to figure it out (I had this phone since the pre-release Friday from Best Buy), but the main culprit was the HTC clock with weather widget (or the TWC app). By process of elimination I tried literally everything but ultimately figured out that it was either the default HTC clock widget w/ weather or the "The Weather Channel" widget, or both. I got rid of both and my battery life has improved dramatically.I used to unhook my phone charger at 6:30 a.m. and my battery would be less than 15% by 5 p.m. with moderate use (few texts, few calls of 5 minutes each, and three emails pulling every 15 minutes). I tried lengthening the time interval to an hour for email pulling, changed the "default" mail account to my yahoo account from my activesync exchange account, unchecked "always on mobile", "background data" sync for google, no gps, no wifi, etc. but still couldn't last a 15 hour day without the battery dying. I did the SMS fix, got the MR update and still got crappy battery life despite never exceeding 18% awake time.Finally, last night I got rid of the HTC default widget clock w/ weather as well as the weather channel widget and today I went through 15 hours with heavy usage (more calls, longer calls, more text messages, and more emails than normal) and still at 30%.While this isn't earth shattering, it is a significant improvement than before. Hope this helps somebody.
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Nov 29, 2009
My Christmas gift this year... the HTC Hero. Quite happy so far. However because neither my hubby (he has a Palm Pre) and I have ever had an android before, I have a few questions that he can't seem to answer. So please excuse the simiplicity of my questions
1)) What is the best way to maintain good battery life? Is there a specific % I should never let the batter fall below?
2)) Besides from being able to pull ringtones from my MP3 files on my PC, are there any good websites that offer free ringtones for android devices?
3)) My Hero came packed with a whole bunch of apps that I will never use. Like NFL Mobile, Nascar, Amazon and YouTube apps. Is it okay to delete these from my phone entirely? Will doing so free up memory for bigger and/or better apps?
4)) Are there any types files or apps that I should not put on my phone?
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Nov 11, 2009
I love my new phone, but I HATE the battery life. I didn't even use it last night and it was fully charged when I put it down around 7 PM. I wake up this morning to a very low battery. Is the battery life on the Motorola better?
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Oct 13, 2009
Now that the Hero has been out there for more than a few days, how about a daily rundown of battery life. Day 1: Fully charged to 100% at 10PM. Left on overnight and the next morning was at 78%. Used moderately just trying to figure stuff out and adding a few apps and had 23% by 3:30PM. Day 2 : Fully charged to 100% at 9PM. Turned off. Woke up to 100% at 4:45AM. Used sparingly (3-4 quick 2 min calls, a couple texts, and jumped on web 1-2 times for less than 2 mins ea) and by 4PM had 28%.
Day 3: Charged to 100% at 8PM. Turned off at 10PM with 99% showing. Woke up at 4:45AM with 99% and made a couple quick calls, sent 2 texts before 11AM and was at 78%. Then added 40 contacts to phone and by 2PM it dropped to 38%. By 4:30PM it was on life support at 11%. Day 4: Charged to 100% at 10PM and left on overnight. Started day at 7:45AM with 89%. Used moderately for similar tasks above and now at 3:15PM its at 65%. So there you go. I'm not really happy with the battery life, but this is my first true "smartphone" so it might just be the norm. Seems a bit much to be struggling to keep above 30-40% battery life after only being on for 12 hours.
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Dec 18, 2009
I'm going to be taking a flight home for Xmas and I'm going to be watching a movie which I have loaded onto the device. I can't afford, though, to have the ph9ne going out of battery... so my question is will I be able to watch, say... an hour, maybe more of video and still be able to use it for a few calls after?
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Nov 11, 2009
I love my new phone, but I HATE the battery life. I didn't even use it last night and it was fully charged when I put it down around 7 PM. I wake up this morning to a very low battery. Is the battery life on the Motorola better?
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Mar 5, 2010
I can see my green battery icon at the top next to the time, but I'm reading folks who are saying they have a certain % of battery life left....are you estimating, or is there somewhere I can see this? Or is it an app? Or are you all rooted?
signed,
confessed newbie overwhelmed by possibilities trying to configure it all out.
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Nov 22, 2009
IMAP is supposed to be more efficient (and thus may save battery life), but either way on the Hero you must tell the phone to check for mail at a specified time interval (for example every 5 min.) Thus it seems that in this particular implementation neither POP or IMAP would be more efficient than the other. Anyone tested this in terms of battery usage on the Hero?
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Sep 20, 2010
My battery life is...well you read the title. I went from 100% to 78% in less than 30 minutes this morning. I'm on CM6, Collins battery tweak with the min, max configs at his suggestions. I checked my running apps, installed ATK to see if there was an misbehaving apps, nothing. I have to read up on how to use spear parts but under "battery history" most of the bars are in blue except the programs under "since last unplugged" & "since boot" (I just did both) so I guess that's good. My battery was excellent with the 9/11 nightly (my 1st flash) so I'm thinking of flashing back but nobody else has mentioned having this problem since flashing 9/18 so I'm thinking I did something wrong but can't pinpoint it. Yes I wiped before I flashed, reconfiged Collins. Everything is basically the same from the 9/11 flash to the 9/18 flash, meaning I didn't add any apps. Also my benchmark went from 4.8 to 1.45 (phone is still very fast though???) Any suggestions?
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Mar 29, 2010
So I recently went back to my hero from my tour and the battery is just horrible. I'm getting on average 5-6 hours max as oppossed to the 8-10 I would before. Where do I start looking for leaks or figuring out what's going on.
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Oct 4, 2009
Wondering if there will be (and if so then when) an extended life battery and rear door either OEM or after market seems like although it would add bulk I wouldnt mind the extra juice.
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Jun 29, 2010
I realize how much faster the hero can be when its wimpy processor is overclocked. I would imagine that ocerclocking would be bad for it though, to push the CPU faster than its made to be, but most people don't mind it. I'm wondering, realistically, if it is hard on the CPU to be overclocked and also how it affects battery life. Keep in mind, I'm talking about overclocking the ROMs made to be like zen, aloysius, purehero, busted, etc.
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