Anniversary Update Massively improved battery life

[Zhenren Zhou]

I'd say Microsoft is definitely on the right track.. :grin:

How has your battery life fared after the anniversary update?

 

[Chintan Gohel]

This always happens - some get a better experience while others on the forums are crying over fast battery drains

 

[anon(5590893)]

Battery-life is terrible and makes the phone pretty unreliable. I first thought battery-drain was just a problem in the earl days after I had set up the phone. But again and again it heats up and the phone is dead after a couple of hours. The Anniversary Update brought no improvement at all. I don't know if it's bad design of the hardware, the software or certain apps. I am very disappointed. The last quality device i got from Microsoft was a Surface Pro 2. Since then i had a horrible Bluetooth mouse and a sometimes buggy Surface Pro 4. There is a point somewhere when even the biggest fan is tired of all the issues and the promises of future fixes and better times.

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Battery-life is terrible and makes the phone pretty unreliable. I first thought battery-drain was just a problem in the earl days after I had set up the phone. But again and again it heats up and the phone is dead after a couple of hours. The Anniversary Update brought no improvement at all. I don't know if it's bad design of the hardware, the software or certain apps. I am very disappointed. The last quality device i got from Microsoft was a Surface Pro 2. Since then i had a horrible Bluetooth mouse and a sometimes buggy Surface Pro 4. There is a point somewhere when even the biggest fan is tired of all the issues and the promises of future fixes and better times.

so you have a 950 with severe battery issues after the AU? Or have battery issues always been there for you irrespective of which build you have?

 

[grayskale]

For my 950, the earlier public builds in April, May and June weren't too bad - the July and August updates caused some kind of weird drain on idle - whereby it would just lose 3% - 5% every hour without turning on the screen. If i charge it to 100% at midnight - there would only 85% left by 7am.

Anniversary update corrected this for me - such that charging it to 100% at midnight - i now have 97% by 7am - which is great!! I think its the new battery settings which now have 3 levels - never run in the background, manage by windows, always run in the background. All my apps are set to 'managed by windows'.

Also, my 950 has cortana, glance - i have no applications turned off - everything is running per default. Except for mail - which syncs daily.

 

[Ntois]

To reduce battery drain, I suggest you to do the following
1 a hard reset and clean install of apps
2 disable nfc
3 disable automatic back ups
4 disable automatic updates of apps when you are connected to wifi and do them yourself once a day at home.
5 use auto brightness
6 Dissable edge from backgroung apps and any other app you dont want to run in background
7 Do not enable ''Hey Cortana'' option all day, enable that only when you need it, for example when you are driving
8 Do not sync contacts and callendar of multiple emails,I have 4 email accounts and I sync contacts and callendar in only one of them. Also you can dissable in non important emails the automatic sync and set it manuall or every 2 hours
9 Use a dark backgroung in start and lock screen, the more clear black it is the better.
10 Disable vibration of navigation bar touches.
11 Close open tabs that you dont need in edge, close apps you dont use by long pressing the back button.
12 Use tiles for apps you want tiles, the more tiles you have the more battery the phone consumes, if you dont want tiles for money app dont have them, For example I dissabled store tile and cortana tile.
13 Dissable auto restart of wifi
This is what I did in my lumia 950 and the battery life is doubled. The above actions importance is in random order except the hard reset. After the au and with those actions my phone never overheat and my battery life is excelent.
Sorry for any typping mistakes english is not my speaking language

 

[Zhenren Zhou]

This always happens - some get a better experience while others on the forums are crying over fast battery drains

I just wanna see if this is an individual case or an actual improvement that benefits every user.

Battery-life is terrible and makes the phone pretty unreliable. I first thought battery-drain was just a problem in the earl days after I had set up the phone. But again and again it heats up and the phone is dead after a couple of hours. The Anniversary Update brought no improvement at all. I don't know if it's bad design of the hardware, the software or certain apps. I am very disappointed. The last quality device i got from Microsoft was a Surface Pro 2. Since then i had a horrible Bluetooth mouse and a sometimes buggy Surface Pro 4. There is a point somewhere when even the biggest fan is tired of all the issues and the promises of future fixes and better times.

Before the anniversary update, my Lumia 950 would get 19 hours at most of normal usage before it reaches 20%, also, the phone overheated. But after the anniversary update, even in this hot summer, the phone never overheated and battery can easily last a full day with about 35% battery left... I am not sure about your situations, but did you try resetting your phone? I have a Surface 3, but I never suffered the problems you described with your Surface(s).

For my 950, the earlier public builds in April, May and June weren't too bad - the July and August updates caused some kind of weird drain on idle - whereby it would just lose 3% - 5% every hour without turning on the screen. If i charge it to 100% at midnight - there would only 85% left by 7am.

My 950 was able to do 19 hours before reaching 20% but after a few updates, it came down to 17 hours, which was very disappointing, and the phone also overheated regularly.

To reduce battery drain, I suggest you to do the following
.............................................
Sorry for any typping mistakes english is not my speaking language

I have most or all of those enabled but my 950 still lasts a full day with 35% to 40% battery left.

 

[grayskale]

I just wanna see if this is an individual case or an actual improvement that benefits every user.
Before the anniversary update, my Lumia 950 would get 19 hours at most of normal usage before it reaches 20%, also, the phone overheated. But after the anniversary update, even in this hot summer, the phone never overheated and battery can easily last a full day with about 35% battery left... I am not sure about your situations, but did you try resetting your phone? I have a Surface 3, but I never suffered the problems you described with your Surface(s).

My 950 was able to do 19 hours before reaching 20% but after a few updates, it came down to 17 hours, which was very disappointing, and the phone also overheated regularly.

I have most or all of those enabled but my 950 still lasts a full day with 35% to 40% battery left.

I felt something was wrong with the last 2 updates on 10586 before the big AU came - if yours was overheating, mine goes felt warm from time to time on idle - with data plan and WIFI off.

On the old updates - checking the battery use by app - i found 'Screen' to take quite a bit on background - '23%-30%'. Battery life was also poor when i had Microsoft Health installed - have since removed it before AU.

 

[karelj]

I am hoping that ATT releases the Tap to Wake firmware soon because I want to do a hard reset on my 950 without restoring from backup. Like grayskale, my 950 - which is on Insider Preview - loses 3-5% battery life on idle even with 'Battery Saver' switched on. I'm hoping the hard reset/fresh start corrects this.

 

[vezycash]

To reduce battery drain, I suggest you to do the following
1 a hard reset and clean install of apps
2 disable nfc
3 disable automatic back ups
4 disable automatic updates of apps when you are connected to wifi and do them yourself once a day at home.
5 use auto brightness
6 Dissable edge from backgroung apps and any other app you dont want to run in background
7 Do not enable ''Hey Cortana'' option all day, enable that only when you need it, for example when you are driving
8 Do not sync contacts and callendar of multiple emails,I have 4 email accounts and I sync contacts and callendar in only one of them. Also you can dissable in non important emails the automatic sync and set it manuall or every 2 hours
9 Use a dark backgroung in start and lock screen, the more clear black it is the better.
10 Disable vibration of navigation bar touches.
11 Close open tabs that you dont need in edge, close apps you dont use by long pressing the back button.
12 Use tiles for apps you want tiles, the more tiles you have the more battery the phone consumes, if you dont want tiles for money app dont have them, For example I dissabled store tile and cortana tile.
13 Dissable auto restart of wifi
This is what I did in my lumia 950 and the battery life is doubled. The above actions importance is in random order except the hard reset. After the au and with those actions my phone never overheat and my battery life is excelent.
Sorry for any typping mistakes english is not my speaking language

I feel like I shouldn't have to do all these to get a great battery life.

 

[zocster]

I always reset after big jumps in OS. Does not matter what platform I'm on. Happy, always.

Sent from mTalk on Windows Phone 10

 

[Chintan Gohel]

I feel like I shouldn't have to do all these to get a great battery life.

I've done this before and definitely the battery life improves. Does it affect my experience? Personally no

 

[Maurizio Troso]

I feel like I shouldn't have to do all these to get a great battery life.

You got a Lumia. A hand sized notebook. And it works like a notebook.

 

[Andrea988]

To be honest mine spends most of it's time on a wireless charger on my desk and a charging dock overnight. This puts me in a position of never really using it for long enough for the battery to run down.

It's an extremely difficult metric to define because it depends on so many issues. Screen brightness is a big one, as is how strong your wireless and cell signals are because it defines how hard your phone has to work to hold a signal. Obviously no two people are going to be exactly the same distance from their relevant antenna. NFC should have a very tiny effect on battery life, just leave it on unless you never use it.

 

[Maurizio Troso]

To be honest mine spends most of it's time on a wireless charger on my desk and a charging dock overnight. This puts me in a position of never really using it for long enough for the battery to run down.

It's an extremely difficult metric to define because it depends on so many issues. Screen brightness is a big one, as is how strong your wireless and cell signals are because it defines how hard your phone has to work to hold a signal. Obviously no two people are going to be exactly the same distance from their relevant antenna. NFC should have a very tiny effect on battery life, just leave it on unless you never use it.

I reveal you one thing: last week, someone blamed lumia for not hooking any wifi signal...
AFter a little investigation, I said him "Are your sure your back cover is fullfitted? There's a big antenna inside plastics"
Natually, I was blamed.
Then he said the cover wasn't clipped well on phone.... after that, wifi was at top again >.<

 

[Bobvfr]

I found a way to improve the battery life of my 950XL, not happy about it but if it works......................

I used to use full web pages, the site I go on most is Windows Central and you could almost see the battery leaking out it's life. So I switched to mobile versions, and I am afraid I now use the WC app on the phone. Instead of getting home with 50% I now have somewhere nearer 70%

Sorry to say that this site is by far and away the worst resource hog I have ever come across, slow as hell on PC's and tablets like the SP3, thankfully now cured by Adblock and a resource and battery hog on my phone.

I do hope extensions come to Edge on the phone.

 

[anthonyng]

I struggled with threshold on my 950xl for a long time, didn't understand how people could be happy.

Bought my wife a 950 and she's not a hard phone user at all. Just games while riding on transit. She complained about battery and when she complains it means something.

Rs1 insider a short while back helped battery so much. My wife stopped complaining immediately. With my usage, I noticed some builds were poorer than others in terms of battery but right now with 14393.103... Quite happy otherwise

 

[Zhenren Zhou]

I am hoping that ATT releases the Tap to Wake firmware soon because I want to do a hard reset on my 950 without restoring from backup.

hell yeah! someone called AT&T and tell them that we need that firmware..

I've done this before and definitely the battery life improves. Does it affect my experience? Personally no

I actually need NFC for tap-to-pay (after the AU of course). I am actually thinking about ditching my wallet..

To be honest mine spends most of it's time on a wireless charger on my desk and a charging dock overnight. This puts me in a position of never really using it for long enough for the battery to run down.

Doesn't your phone get overheated when it spends its time on that wireless charger?

Sorry to say that this site is by far and away the worst resource hog I have ever come across, slow as hell on PC's and tablets like the SP3, thankfully now cured by Adblock and a resource and battery hog on my phone.

Almost all the big tech news sites are battery/memory hog these days, just saw a gallery on cnet today and AdB blocked over 300 ads.. I am hoping to see extensions on phones too.

Rs1 insider a short while back helped battery so much. My wife stopped complaining immediately. With my usage, I noticed some builds were poorer than others in terms of battery but right now with 14393.103... Quite happy otherwise

To me, this feels like something MS done right in a long time.

 

[anthonyng]

Doesn't your phone get overheated when it spends its time on that wireless charger?

My phone (950xl) is usually on a wireless charger on my desk or overnight on my bedstand. It gets warm during charge but when charge is finished, it's cool.

 

[Travis Flenker]

I've had some pretty horrendous battery life since the update. I was on the fast ring until the AU came out, and hadn't done a hard reset for a few months. Doing that now/no longer getting insider updates.

Hopefully this helps. I was recently travelling and was shocked to see how bad the battery life truly was when I wasn't able to have it plugged in 12+ hours a day.

Discharge rate when not in use was 5%+ per hour. When in airplane mode and playing very non-graphic intense games (e.g. solitaire), I was discharging at 40%+ per hour. I went from a full charge to under 20% in a 2 hour flight, and even took a couple of 10 minute breaks.

I used all of the tricks to extend battery life (brightness down, background stuff disabled, etc.). Couldn't believe how quickly it drained

I'll post my results post reset in a couple days.