I really don’t understand this. There should be no stress on the system except for some intermittent texts… which I would think should barely be a blip on the radar for battery usage. Is this normal for these phones?
What model and how old? I mean batteries go bad. They can eventually fail to hold a charge. If it’s a new phone that shouldn’t happen.
What kind of signal are you getting?
One of the most common causes of phones draining faster than normal, is when they have very weak cell signals, as the phone apparently wastes a lot of power trying to re-establish a signal.
Bluetooth and wifi will suck battery up.
Three days seems normalish. My ten day average battery usage is about 75% screen on, 25% screen off, and I get a day out of a charge, so that suggests maybe four days at most if I never touched it.
What amazing phone do you have that lasts more than 1 day? Do you mean while turned off right? That’s the only time it will be doing nothing.
Apps and the phone itself constantly report back to the Internet and data transmission towers.
Heh, ya, I think Rei might be right… I didn’t even notice that the time period we’re talking about is 3 days. I’ve never had my phone last 3 days without charging (although I also use my phone heavily).
A phone that’s got data sync turned off, is in a high-signal area, doesn’t have any extra radios (e.g., bluetooth, NFC, wifi) turned on, and doesn’t have any rogue apps running in the background that prevent it from getting into deep sleep could maybe last a week of total non-use. The CPUs only spin down so low on these things.
But yeah, the “constant checking” element of a modern cellphone really can’t be understated. On my phone right now, I’m personally aware of Hangouts, Messenger, FB, Twitter, Meetup, Gmail, Calendar, Discord, Slack, Youtube, Reddit Sync, Dropbox, MightyText, Fitbit, Instagram, and some various TMobile data harvesters constantly checking in throughout the day for little updates and shit, nevermind push updates for a ton of other apps.
Each of those involves coming out of deep sleep, spinning up CPU cores, dialing in the LTE or wifi radio. . . it adds up.
@jpinard If you want, you could post a screenshot of your battery usage by app in Settings > Battery and we could see if anything looks weird.
I have an iPhone 8 and the reception here is ~50%. Sounds like this is normal then? I just thought with it being asleep (not off) it wouldn’t be doing much work. But I guess with background tasks it does.
If I turn off Bluetooth will it lose all my previous bluetooth settings?
Nope, turning off Bluetooth just switches off the Bluetooth radio. When you turn it back on it will still remember all the devices you had it synced to before, and anything that it would automatically connect with it will reconnect with in the same way (like if you switch on a bluetooth speaker or if it syncs with your car stereo or whatever).
Although this part is slightly crazy: to switch Bluetooth off and have it stay off until you decide you want it back on, you have to go into the settings screen for Bluetooth and toggle it there.
If you turn it “off” from the control center, it only stays off until the following day and then it reactivates (same goes for wifi).
That is a huge battery killer. Your phone is always looking for a better signal and it drains the battery. My 4 year old iPad I use intermittently will last a week just sitting there.
You can also go to battery in settings and see exactly what apps are killing your battery.
Finally, if you have the Facebook app installed, delete it.
Note to self: Finally a valid reason to switch to Apple; apparently the battery can last 3 whole days if you don’t use the phone! Amazing.
If my phone is turned off and/or in airplane mode it may possibly keep its charge for 1 full day.
I have left my 8+ in my bag for 3 days before. Typically it is about 40% if left unattended. You don’t say what you have for a phone, but I assume it’s not a Plus.
If this is a problem that can’t be solved by making sure the phone is plugged in when you’re not using it, I have had really good luck with the Mophie battery cases.
I was given a Blackberry for work way long ago. Turns out I lived right on the edge of the signal for the system (whatever it was). Friday night I’d go home and by Saturday morning it would be dead from constantly getting and losing the signal and then trying its’ darndest to re-establish communications. So yeah, I agree!
Until a new model comes out, then the battery goes into self destruct mode.
Put it in airplane mode when you aren’t using it.