Availability in online mode eats battery
 

Hi,

I was wondering why my n900 drains almost empty in 8-9 hours. Even during night time it consumed almost half of the battery.

My colleagues had about same settings (weather widget, 3G connection on, email checking, RSS, BT) with similar use and their devices lasted well over a day.

The only difference was that I have skype and the availability setting was "online" (green dot in status display). I changed that to offline and now the battery is almost full after night and seems to last very well the rest of the day and even the next night.

Does anyone know what is happening under the hood?. Top does not show any significant change in CPU load, but something must be eating the battery in online mode

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

Are you online via Wifi or 3g?
if on wifi have you got wifi power saving set to max? and your wifi power setting at 10mw vs 100mw?

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

Top doesn't show anything, that is normal. When you set to available, the phone pings every X minutes to send your status to the server. Everytime, this uses a lot of power. Turn off 3G when you don't need it, remove the weather widget and stop Skype always on!

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

answer to the topic: yes it does (obivously).

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

Weather widget is not the trouble, no significant change if it is on or not (4 hour update interval).

I think you are right, phone is pinging the server when availability is online and there is no setting to control the interval.

What you mean by Skype in on?. Isn't that the availability setting?

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

I use pidgin for msn and leave it online all the time via edge, I don't use 3g or wifi. It reduces battery life significantly, was hoping I could get by with a day of regular use, checking some mail/web sites and chattin with friends. I am hoping we see some improved battery life in the next firmware...

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

stop RSS, make email interval 30min and u will get a day or so...

had the same issue fixed now.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

So, the advice is: buy a device for 600Euro, crop all the functionality to make it work like 150Euro phone, and still get up to 48h of battery life on the thickest phone in the market ? lol ?

Another funny thing is like ppl advise to turn 3G off... 4G is comming, 2G will go to history soon, and you tell me to go back to late 80's ? Some netowrks like Three in europe does NOT have 2G at all !

N900 is a "charge me twice a day" internet tablet, live with it or don't buy it and don't give others the false impression that the battery life can be extended, because it can't, unless you turn N900 into what I described above.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

Lol good point. I got the N900 so I can be always online on skype, msn, yahoo, facebook and always be able to browse anywhere. Realise now that I just have to carry a charger or spare battery with me

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

look nokias specs for any 3G phone. talk time and standby time are longer for gsm so its quite obvious that you should use 3g only for surfing and voip.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

You should have got a netbook for half the price or better a cheaper phone like nokia 5800. Smartphone battery life is not up to the task yet.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

its not nokias fault that your expectations were way too high....

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

Before the thread drifts completely off-topic:
I'm persuaded that enabling the online availability uses a disproportionate amount of power. We might consider to file a bug. Anybody interested to connect some network logs and powertop information?

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

at least be happy you can change the battery as well as run skype in the bsckground. I know a lot of people who have spent much more than you and yet lack this 'privilege' :)

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

I'd guess that there is nothing one can do with it. only workaround would be push servers a la iPhone, but the same problem has been forever with symbian phones etc. since 6630 IMs online have meant half the battery life compared to IM offline for me.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

Skype doesn't do that to me. Only the combination of the Twitter and Skype plugins seriously affect battery life for me such that I'd be in danger of the phone lasting less than a day with my normal usage. It will usually run about 30 hours if I don't use it a lot, 16 to 24 if I use it more. Much less if I watch a bunch of videos, obviously.

I'm always logged in to Ovi, Skype, and two SIP accounts.

This is on WiFi and EDGE.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

Any evidence that a 5800 with Skype, AIM, Yahoo, MSN and Facebook constantly on would last better?

My friend actually has a 5800 and uses none of the above, just a lot of texting and calling and its ALWAYS flat when he comes round. I am not aware of ANY device that can do all this and last a whole day.

I have noticed one thing though, my battery drains pretty bad if I leave things open even though they are not doing anything. Makes sense, its full Linux so there is no such thing as "not doing anything". Now I make sure to close applications I am not using, especially the web browser and media player, it seems to improve battery life considerably.

Still, I do not think 8 hours constant use is not unreasonable considering the size of the device. Sure I had hoped I could manage a whole day constantly playing music, texting, always online on IM and occasional web browsing, but I was not remotely surprised to find my aggressive use means I get more like half a day. A netbook/ULVPC with comparable battery life has a battery the physical size of 3-4 N900s, which is possibly 20-30 N900 batteries in size. Its not like it can pluck power out of thin air (although with the amount of RFI these days I'm surprised you can't).

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

Skype and gTalk protocols are pretty wasteful when it comes to communication with their servers, Skype esspecially - pings and status requests are very frequent and have quite large footprint (just two accounts will cost you approx 1MB of data / hr) - so they are constantly utilizing the connection, and that power has to come from somewhere. At least Skype promised to trim their protocol (and not using your connection as a gateway as they actually do from time to time which can eat tens of MB per hour) for mobile usage, since more and more phones are coming with VoIP abilities. As for the gTalk, since it's essentially a Jabber protocol, optimizations can be made but there is no much room for improvement.

Still, there is no pocketable device out there that can keep real, non-relayed connections to various IM and VoIP services (not to mention the integration), longer than the N900. If you are not happy, your expectations are way too larger than the current commercialy available technology can provide.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

That is interesting. I am using Skype and ICQ (1 account each). I now disabled skype to see if ICQ alone does not eat so much battery.

Still there is a screaming need for something similar to the Nokia Energy Profiler on Symbian. With something like that you could get exact numbers and would not need to test for days and still speculate afterwards.

Best regards,
Corwin

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

I had way high expectations by expecting the device to last me through the day?

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

If I run IM app (Numbuzz, Slick and etc) on N95 or 5800XM, the battery will be gone in hours.
I don't think it's a bug in specific to N900, it's just how it is if running IM on any device, probably the protocol was designed for always connected desktop, can also be protocol specific. I don't think it's Nokia or the firmware to be blamed.

There might be some tricks can be applied to use power more efficiently, which would be up to the developer who made the software.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

second this.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

what?

yes, n900 lasts easily a day if you optimize your power consumption that means only some hours online time per day, not 24/7.

e: bit like new diesels go 1000km with one tankful. but not if you newer turn off the engine after you first time start it.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

I think it's worth a bug, BUT I am not certain it's just the availability setting that has an impact on the battery. I think "location" is also having an effect, and more than I would expect. Sketching the scenarios:

• No availability. No network updates, so should be longest battery life.
• Availability set, but "My Location" set to "Do not Show". Only state changes are starting/stopping phone calls, so should only require keep-alives and very infrequent updates.
• Availabililty set, "My Location" set to "City level". Since this level of location should be findable by tower triangulation (the "a" of a-gps), this should be nearly the same energy as the point above + "has location changed" computing + a weekly fetch of the a-gps cell tower to location mapping tables.
• Availability on, "My Location" set to "District level". I would think cell triangulation would be detailed enough, so as point above + additional updates due bouncing locations due to changing tower attachments.
• Available on, "My Location" set to "Street level". This would require GPS satellite fix, and thus it would consume a lot of power.

Those scenarios are leaving aside movement and inconsistent 3G signal strength.

I say above that the My Location setting seems to be having more effect than I expect because even when I am set to "City Level" on location it appears to be powering up the GPS hardware. I am just judging this by the GPS icon -- does anyone have a way of checking directly if the GPS hardware is powered?

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

What are your settings for "My Location" in the Availability tab?

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

Doesn't make sense to me. The whole point of the N900 to me is to be always online. That is always reachable by IM and if I need to surf the net and not near a PC I can do so from my N900. If I have to decide when to be recheable and guess when my friends would be reachable then not sure why the device would be referred to as always online. More like don't stay always online.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

After a bit more experimentation, it appears that the GPS is fired up even if "My Location" is set to "City Level". If this is indeed the case, a large of the diminished battery life can be explained by this.

Could those noticing battery drain due to availablilty try setting their "My Location" to "Do Not Share" and see if that helps? I'll be testing this with sharting my availability only to Skype...

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

If you run IM app Fring on the Nokia E71, the battery can still last for 1-2 days. It can be done, I don't know if its extra optimization within Fring or special optimizations in the E71. The battery issue is not the larger screen of the n900 or CPU load as you can run comparison tests without screen at idle to prove it

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

I don't think My Location matters, at least in my case as I always have that "Do Not Show"

If I don't run any IM, the battery can survive a day even with Nokia Messaging getting push email on 3G or Wifi.
If I run any IM, haven't tested inidvidually which IM is the biggest drainer, the battery will be down to half day.
From the author of MSN Haze and MSN Pecan, the implementation of the IM plug-in does make difference in battery usage.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

I think the E71/E72 are known for long lasting battery, they have bigger battery than n900, how long did you get if you don't run IM?

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

If there is a netbook can be always online for a day without a charge, I will dump my N900.
Before I bought N900, with my research done, I've already known it consumes battery like other high-end smartphones, not signficant worse but definitely not better.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

Without IM, you can probably get about 4-5 days out of it. The battery is only 10% bigger than the n900. The E series engineers should spend a few months helping optimizing battery on Maemo.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

But even if you don't use internet connection at all, Nokia will last up to 2 days (that is my experience). Look how bad it is comparing with other phones... is linux eating really that much more battery than Symbian ? If the answer is 'yes' then pray for software udpates. If 'not' then N900 hardware is a piece of junk.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

Yes, but if Nokia is going to release a smartphone that is significantly thicker and heavier than the competition (e.g Driod), it should at least have better battery life..

If they had used the space taken up by the stylus, they could have made the battery about 8-10% bigger

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

So, I think it's about the same siutation.
With IM running on E71, you got only half of time than normal.
In N900, I also got half of the time if running iM.
The E series is business-oriented, so it's not surprised to me they optimize it for battery.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

Battery drain and 'My Location':
I never set 'My Location' to anything else than 'do not show'. So no GPS receiver in the matrix for me :)

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

All this could be easily debugged with powertop. If someone would have made dead simple battery discharge program that logs power,dmesg etc couple of times in minute to file wich can be send to webpage which draws lines for consumption and battery level and shows what was happening then from logs. Also some icon to system area which changes from green->yellow->red by current discharge level.

It just makes me wonder why these have not been yet fully implemented because they would be really really good debuggin tools for average users. And because of that developers would get huge amount information about what program sucks *** and what kicks it.

There is some little bits in wiki saying that people testing extras should look how much program uses battery but i cannot find dead simple guide how to setup system and how to analyze logs.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

It's not as easy as that. Powertop only indicates which apps are causing the most wakeups, which is not necessarily indicative of CPU usage (or power usage). And dmesg will give very little information about what's going on with the system, unless it's raising errors or activating/deactivating some of the hardware (not all of it logs).

There's been scripts posted to some of the battery threads to monitor (and graph) battery usage over time, but unless an app is causing major changes in battery usage then you're unlikely to pick anything up.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

I just noticed same thing about powertop and tried to search that thread what you are talking about and right now my "**** this" meter hits quite high. I cant find it event with google.

.edit
But in the end there should be some sort of easy debug program that shows you if phone is intensively discharging battery.

Re: Availability in online mode eats battery
 

I really liked that about the DROID / Android. It gives you information on the usage of your power out of the box. Tells you (in percent) how much power your screen or programs use.
OK, Something more detailed would be even better (Nokia Energy Profiler, anybody?), but if there is an API, anything should be possible.