maemo.org - Talk - N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios

maemo.org - Talk (https://talk.maemo.org/index.php)

- Nokia N900 (https://talk.maemo.org/forumdisplay.php?f=44)

- - N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=31020)

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios

Quote:

Originally Posted by chewster (Post 501790)

Noticed some odd behavior yesterday. Battery was being drained really quickly all day. By the time I left work around 6pm, lshal reported the battery at 12%.

I left my cable at home, so couldn't charge it.

Went to see some family (media with FM transmitter on the 40 min drive) and was showing off the phone with the usual bounce, video, FM transmitter, browser, camera, video camera, etc.

Checked battery again (now 7pm ish) and I'm at 7%. Hmm.... That was only a 5% drop with quite a bit of heavy demo usage.

Left the thing in my pocket, and it started beeping at me around 9pm. Didn't check % though.

Got home around 11pm and was at 6% with FM transmitter on the way home. At this point I was already getting suspicious so I was actively trying to drain it. Did some wifi browsing on the couch, but it wouldn't die. So I left it unplugged and it died during the night some time. Charged it for an hour before work in the morning.

It's been on 3G all day, did some software updates and checked some email and I'm still at 77% at 6:30pm.

I'm thinking that in my case, the circuitry in the battery needed to find it's actual low point. If it were really at 12% yesterday after work, it should have died on the trip to my family. And it certainly should have died through the demo. Or using FM transmitter going home.

Hopefully, my good battery life will last more than just today.

I had a Palm 680 TREO and this was a constant problem with it. We had to do a calibration procedure where you plugged in the charger, waited 1 minute, pulled the battery, waited 1 min, pulled the SIM, waited 1 in. Then put the SIM in and the Battery and let charge for 6 hours. This fixed it. The battery life would triple, at least for a while.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios

Quote:

Originally Posted by rmerren (Post 498946)

I have been having a similar situation--battery draining quickly over the course of the day. This morning I removed Firefox and Conversations widget (uninstalled both and rebooted) following some messages here. It didn't make any difference.

So a little update here:

I disabled google talk and skype and then rebooted. The battery drain seemed a little slower than before, but then I got an upgrade notice and realized that I had not uninstalled the Mozilla Runtime from the app manager. I uninstalled it, rebooted, and the battery drain seems to have slowed. I charged overnight, and unplugged the fully charged phone (green light was lit) at about 8:30am. I plugged in while in the car--but for less than 15 minutes total. I only did that because I had already hit the mid-afernoon time when it was previously bottoming out. I didn't get the low battery ding until around midnight--at least a 50% improvement in battery duration.

I am not sure why the mozilla runtime would be responsible for draining the battery. I had not even run firefox in the last few times I rebooted. Clearly it runs some background apps, though I never saw anything jump out at me in the ps output before or after removing this.

I should say that I did not take any other action to increase battery life today. I web surfed, talked, sms'ed, instant messaged, and had an email connection to my exchange server running constantly. I used the phone normally, and in the same manner I used my previous phone (AT&T Tilt).

The battery life I saw today was reasonable for a full day of phone use, and close to what I saw with the Tilt (I could go a good day and a half without recharge on the Tilt, though using an RSS reader cut that dramatically and I didn't have IM client running all day). I am actually hopeful that I will be able to use the phone without having to worry about mid-day recharging or planning around battery life.

Next steps in experimentation:

run a few more days with current configuration to see if results are consistent
reinstate skype and google talk to see if battery life changes
reinstate conversations widget, rss widget, and eventually, firefox to determine if those are actually the culprits.

One more note: there was apparently a service outage here in austin today, though it seems to have been cleared up before I unplugged from the charger.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardiff-blues (Post 499938)

For me personally I don't want to degrade performance of my N900 by tweaking a few things here and switching a few apps off when not in use.

The whole point of this phone is that it can do some cool stuff and that it's like a computer in your pocket. It's no fun having to be so very conservative with use so that the battery gets through the day.

I bought this phone to use it and whilst I am 'not over the moon' with the battery performance I don't want to carry it around with almost everything switched off. I want to be able to browse the web whenever I want and to play some games when I'm stuck in a queue and listen to music or watch a film or read a book without having to worry.

THE SOLUTION TO POOR BATTERY PERFORMANCE:

Well for me it was to buy 3 spare batteries and a desktop charger. The batteries costs me about a fiver and seem to be great value and it means now that when I go long haul in a few weeks, that I'll be able to read, listen to music and watch films on my N900 without worrying about the battery.

Your solution says, you got 3 spare batteries at a cost about a fiver...?? Sorry, but may I know the cost in numbers? Like $20 or so...

Thanks,
~nV!

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios

Yes sorry! A fiver is slang for £5 in UK terms. You can pick up one battery for that if you have a look around. By the way, I have 5 batteries now.

I don't fret about using my N900 to the max now.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios

Quote:

Originally Posted by luqman (Post 497657)

...[B][I]BATTERY DOESNOT RUN OUT BECAUSE 3G OR 2G IS TURNED ON, BUT BECAUSE PROGRAMS LIKE SKYPE AND GTALK USE IT CONTINOUSLY TO SEND OUT KEEPALIVE MESSAGES...

I never thought "3G", by itself, drained the battery...since switching to the 900, my Motorola Q on AT&T 3G, with a Seidio extended battery, lasts 6-8 days between charges as it forwards calls to my 900.

After having the 900 for going on 2 months now, for whatever reason, last week, I'm getting 12-14hrs before I drop (2) battery levels (~25%?). This on:

- T-Mo 3G (which seems to be lasting longer than on AT&T 2G)
- WiFi "enabled" all day (work from home) and (3) POP3 accounts polling in 1 hour intervals
- OM Weather polling every hour

I also noticed higher drain when logged in to SIP/Skype clients. I still don't believe it will get more than 6hrs of constant "use", but its good to know that I don't have to charge it if I leave the house in the middle of the day.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardiff-blues (Post 507608)

Yes sorry! A fiver is slang for £5 in UK terms. You can pick up one battery for that if you have a look around. By the way, I have 5 batteries now.

I don't fret about using my N900 to the max now.

Me, too. What now worries me is that the battery door will wear out to the extent that it will start falling off the N900. I wonder if that will happen and if so how long it will take?

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios

Quote:

Originally Posted by geneven (Post 507641)

Me, too. What now worries me is that the battery door will wear out to the extent that it will start falling off the N900. I wonder if that will happen and if so how long it will take?

Just be careful with it and treat it like a delicate piece of equipment when taking it off and it should outlast your mobile contract.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios

I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but I'm going on a roadtrip and want to stream music through my phone, but as I drive I'll also have GPS / Google Maps going. I noticed today driving (1.5 hrs) that even though I had my phone plugged in to the official Nokia car adapter my battery still drained. On a 5+ hour road trip, will my phone be depleted at the end? Will the car charger give enough juice to keep the phone going with all that stuff on? BTW, I use TuneWiki, which is great... cuz I get to stream Shoutcast. I also have a BT headset, but its rather inconsistent as to whether or not it will connect so I think I'll opt for the wired headset if I get a call.

I'm also logged into Skype, but that is not required for the road trip so presumably I can turn that off...

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios

Quote:

Originally Posted by geohsia (Post 507930)

You sure it was charging?

How many ma. does the charger supply?

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios

Quote:

Originally Posted by les_garten (Post 507941)

You sure it was charging?

How many ma. does the charger supply?

http://www.nokiausa.com/find-product...accessory-dc-6

I know it was charging because it said so plus the screen was on all the time. I have the screen set to be on when charging. In the car I don't want to dork with turning the screen on and off while driving.

Standard DC-6. Don't know if this is correct but:

* Input: DC 12/24V
* Output: 5.0V/550mA

I found this after doing some quick searches. Significantly lower than the 1200 mA of the wall charger if true.