The battery/heat issue is clearly software related

[socialcarpet]

Just an FYI.

I had NO problems with battery life or heat.

The other night I installed a bunch of apps. Suddenly the next day my phone is getting warm in my pocket and the battery is draining like mad. Literally, like down to 70% in 1 hour without doing ANYTHING on the phone.

Started uninstalling apps. (I wish I had kept a list of what i had on there, sorry. If there is a way I can see apps I had installed in the past, let me know what it is and I will post a list of the probably offenders here)

I can tell you one was comprehensive health app that tracked weight, exercise, diet etc. The others were task minder, to do list apps, some games and the battery monitor app.

Anyway, one or more of the health apps or to do list/task apps was clearly running buck wild in a background process, one that could not be disabled.

I kept the games, none of them were causing the problem.

It's crystal clear to me that this is the issue, because I NEVER had the problem before and as soon as I uninstalled those apps and rebooted the phone, the temperature went back to normal and my battery life became awesome again.

If your phone is running hot and/or your battery life is crap, uninstall all your third party apps in groups of 2 or 3 and reboot each time and test battery and temps. I would be very surprised if this does not solve your problem.

 

[rockstarzzz]

Go to mywindowsphone.com and it will show you a list of most recently installed apps. You will know eventually what apps they were because you will recognise them

 

[deuxani]

I found on my 920 that Gmaps was the one causing this problem. I've installed and uninstalled it on three occassions and in all three cases I could literally see percentages of the battery go down every 5 minutes, even with the background task blocked. After uninstalling and rebooting the drain would always stop. So yes, this could definitely be fixed with a software update on Microsofts part, as an app shouldn't be able to get "stuck" like that.

 

[DaveGx]

I hate the battery on this phone and the software handling it. Battery life blows and also isn't sense right by the phone. My phone shut off a bit ago when it hit 0%. I turned it right back on, still shows 0% yet I've been using it for over a half hour now.

I also hate that when using a GPS navigation app, charging doesn't keep up with phone battery usage.

 

[socialcarpet2]

Ah OK... here we go guys:

It was DEFINITELY one or more of the following apps which cause my phone to get warm and battery life to plummet:

PRIME SUSPECTS:
Livescape?
Wallpapers
Battery Level for WP8

WANTED FOR QUESTIONING:
Fantasia Painter
Men's Health
Gym Assistant
Gym PocketGuide
Simple Do
Fhotoroom

 

[STEVENK3102]

The same exact problem has happened to me in the few days. I downloaded the following apps Battery Info, Box, AES Note, Free Ring tones and a few other ringtone apps. I just uninstalled all of them for now so im not sure which one is the problem. I will keep you posted, the phone is not hot for now, so lets see what happens.

 

[rockstarzzz]

Only common app I have to yours is Fhotoroom and my phone doesn't get hot. So maybe rule out Fhotoroom?

 

[slashd0t]

It's amazing how many battery apps cause battery problems.. I never install them for this reason..

 

[Gken]

It is funny how everyone complains about having background apps and when you give it to them they complain about battery issues. Sigh. First world problems I guess.

 

[boatsnbeaches]

I think it's all coincidence in regards to specific apps. I thought it was this app or that service as well until I did a hard reset, didn't install anything and thought that fixed problem. After about 4 days all was good until I came back from lunch one day and found my phone VERY warm while just sitting idle on the desk. I hadn't made a call or used the phone for hours andthe heat/drain issue hit again.

Agree it's probably software, but I think it's something with the OS, not necessarily an installed 3rd party app. Anything I've done that 'seems' to have fixed it has proven me wrong after a few days. I just hope MS and Nokia can get a fix asap. Kinda sucks not being able to trust your phone will be available when needed since this random bug can suck your battery dry in 3 hours with no warning.

 

[perspicuity]

Yeah, I'm constantly charging this phone. Tried literally everything short of a reset to get the battery life up to par. It's really annoying to have a brand new smartphone and to be forced to deactivate all the services that make it such. I don't want to go back to an iPhone. Ugh. But this battery life is so unacceptable I may just do it. I'll get so much **** from my friends though. I've been talking about getting my awesome banana phone for ages.

 

[DaveGx]

It is funny how everyone complains about having background apps and when you give it to them they complain about battery issues. Sigh. First world problems I guess.

Its amazing how some of us have turned off all background tasks, location, ect and this phones battery life still sucks. Using a particular app will really heat up this phone more than it should.

Not all people who have battery or heat problems are even blaming background tasks.

 

[Jake52]

It's really annoying to have a brand new smartphone and to be forced to deactivate all the services that make it such. I don't want to go back to an iPhone.

I absolutely agree, no sense in having all these features if we have to disable them. I also came from the iPhone, I had an iPhone 4, and I never really had to worry about phantom battery drain from installing apps. I love my 920 but this is really annoying.

For what it's worth, I did a factory reset the other day and I think it helped my battery. The only major thing I didn't put back on the phone is my Gmail account, maybe the push email was sucking the battery down too much? I've used the phone today for a few hours, listened to streaming music using the Xbox music app, sent a few texts, and after being off the charger for 12 hours it says I have 66% remaining and 21 hours of battery life left.

 

[UnfixedPyle]

Has anyone tried uninstalling Nokia Drive+ Beta? I know you can block the background task for it, I was just thinking that if the Skype Preview could cause as many problems as it has, then who knows about Nokia Drive

 

[Jake52]

Its amazing how some of us have turned off all background tasks, location, ect and this phones battery life still sucks. Using a particular app will really heat up this phone more than it should.

Are other people also having this issue? I've never owned a phone that heats up so much running fairly simple apps. I was playing Wordament for maybe 10 minutes the other night and the back of the phone, right above the camera, got noticeably hot. Are other people running this app with no heat problems?

 

[perspicuity]

I've used the phone today for a few hours, listened to streaming music using the Xbox music app, sent a few texts, and after being off the charger for 12 hours it says I have 66% remaining and 21 hours of battery life left.

That's pretty impressive compared to mine. I'll probably reset it then. I've had a Windows Phone before and setting the push for once every hour has never had a negative impact on battery life. If this is OS related, then I hope they announce an update soon. Really don't want to go back to an iPhone. I hate how everyone has the same device. It's like being in a movie with a stingy prop department.

 

[DaveGx]

Has anyone tried uninstalling Nokia Drive+ Beta? I know you can block the background task for it, I was just thinking that if the Skype Preview could cause as many problems as it has, then who knows about Nokia Drive

Done. Ive long ago disabled all background tasks. I disable Location and Wifi when I dont need it. Fact is, this battery sucks. It sure wouldve been nice since its recommened to turn off Location/Wifi/celluar/brightness, that MS would allow us to also have an Tile that turns off/on these features by a single tap. I mean if we really have to worry about battery life all the time, which many of us do, we should have that ability.

If I use my phone even moderately it blows. If I use Location On and a Navigation app, its absolutely horrible. If I use Xbox Smartglass, forget about it.

And I can understand some apps using more battery than others, but some are just ridiculous. The phone will get hotter than it ever should when using navigation or Xbox Smartglass. Almost unsafely hot.

 

[bigkevbosky]

SOME of the heat problems have to do with the battery bug, but a lot also have to do with this being an LTE phone.

For a lot of folks, this is their first LTE phone, so they're shocked it gets so hot. I've owned 4 different LTE phones and they all experience excessive heat, be it Android or WP 7.5. In fact, a couple of the phones I had (Pantech Burst, Titan II) were so hot I was forced to buy cases because they became uncomfortable to hold after a few minutes.

So don't be surprised if Nokia sends out a software update that fixes a lot of these battery issues but does nothing about the heat.

 

[DaveGx]

That's pretty impressive compared to mine. I'll probably reset it then. I've had a Windows Phone before and setting the push for once every hour has never had a negative impact on battery life. If this is OS related, then I hope they announce an update soon. Really don't want to go back to an iPhone. I hate how everyone has the same device. It's like being in a movie with a stingy prop department.

Yeah, id say that's impressive. Even more impressive how some people say they have seen anything more than 12 hours remaining on their phone. Not once since I owned this thing, even at 100% power, with everything disabled, have I ever seen anything more than 12 hours remaining. I dont get it. There has to be a bad batch of batteries out there for there to be such a huge difference between users.

 

[perspicuity]

SOME of the heat problems have to do with the battery bug, but a lot also have to do with this being an LTE phone.

For a lot of folks, this is their first LTE phone, so they're shocked it gets so hot. I've owned 4 different LTE phones and they all experience excessive heat, be it Android or WP 7.5. In fact, a couple of the phones I had (Pantech Burst, Titan II) were so hot I was forced to buy cases because they became uncomfortable to hold after a few minutes.

So don't be surprised if Nokia sends out a software update that fixes a lot of these battery issues but does nothing about the heat.

Maybe, but I live in an area only with HSPA+, but on Saturday I spent the entire day in Boston and the battery life was just as bad and maybe slightly worse. No real change from the heat though. I find if I turn the screen brightness to high and turn off auto brightness the phone will heat dramatically no matter what I am doing.