How I solved my battery drain on my lumia 1020

[Julian_C]

Hey guys,

Yes you read right! I've waited a few weeks to be secure but now I get decent battery lifes on my 1020 (if you search a little bit, you can find out I had serious battery drain problems too!!) So I hope I can help you with this :smile: also remember it needs a few days to get the maximum out of it, it won't work immediately, so please don't comment negative things immediately, thx.

My current settings:
-my phone Signal is good most times (max. speed is set to 3G)-when its possible use wifi
-bluetooth only when I need it (no big deal with the action center), NFC off, location on
-DISABLED onedrive picture auto upload!
-brightness auto, glance to peek and double tap to wake up off
-disabled a few background tasks but not all (like whatsapp, fb, wheater flow, 6tag, wpcentral, mytube, battery, etc is on)
-also I don't know if it matters, but I replaced my sim-card (I read that in very rare cases it caused a battery drain -->google) just FYI

But to the main part:
First of all I had draining issues, battery indicator percentage issues etc ( I also sent it to nokia care, but they only replaced my battery, nothing else but this is not important, because it doesn't matter). The Main problem of (my) lumia 1020 was the battery calibration by the OS itself!! Don't trust the battery percentage indicator, it's wrong! Your battery is ok but the wrong percentage causes that the OS thinks, it's empty, even when it's NOT. You don't believe me? Connect it to Nokia Care Suite, set your device to TEST mode and make a "charging test", when you read your battery state, you will see a different percentage (than the one on your phones screen). So what can you do?
-Charge your Phone to 100% with flight mode. leave it on 100% for another hour before unplugging it.
-Now use your phone as usual and decharge it to 0%
-When the phone shut down by itself, it's actually not empty! When you try to turn it on again you will se the big blinking battery on the screen. Wait ~10-15 mins then it will turn on again (once my phone turned of with 0% and I got only the blinking battery, after 10 min I could turn it on, I had 13% left and could use it for another 6 hours! - This was what I meant with wrong calibration)
-Repeat this until your phone is dead (it doesn't vibrate anymore when trying to turn it on), now when you charge it, the windows button led will blink for a few minutes
-Charge the phone again to 100% without an interruption and leave it again an addtional hour
-Repeat all the steps mentioned here at least 5-6 times (charging-decharging until dead-charging- ...) therefore I said it wont work immediately. Patience please!!

Only by this way you can tell your OS/Firmware/Phone what 100% are and 0%. The high drain comes from that your phone is e.g. thinkig that at 40%it's empty and it turns off which is not true, but it shows you it went from 100 to 0.

But remember, also when I updatet it to 8.1 I had a few charges with a terrible life again but now after a week it got normal again. Sometimes the OS needs some time for hisself

I hope I could help you and share this please if it worked for you! I put a lot of effort in finding this solution

Now with moderate/high use I get a round 5% per hour, so I can easily last a day. Using the phone not much I also managed a few times to get it last over 2 days and a few hours!! Which was unimaginable a month ago!!

Greeting Julian :smile:

 

[xconomicron]

I always recalibrate my phone's battery every 3-4 months or so...especially after flashing a rom or installing an os update.

 

[migueli2]

Seems a bit complex so I'll have to wait for some day that I'll stay home. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Yomal-U]

Forgive me should this sound amateurish, but could you walk me through the process of performing the "charging test" test with the Nokia Care Suit? I have downloaded, installed, and connected the phone and it has been detected by the software.

 

[thelostsoul]

Nice post Julian_C. You put it into very understandable terms. For a more technical explanation, here's a heavily modified post I made a while back:

Pay no attention to the specific numbers in this post, they are very specific per device and battery. I do not know the exact specification of the 1020 and made them up off the top of my head.

Some Points to Observe:

1. Your device reads a voltage from the battery.
2. The battery was built to output between 0 and 4.2V.
3. Ideally, this means that 0% = 0V and 100% = 4.2V. When it is charged, it will output 4.2V, and that value will decrease the more it is used.
4. Realistically, your phone was designed to run at 3.7V. It will still function with variations though.
5. The circuit board on your phone will not function at all below 2V.
6. The battery itself will be damaged if it is below 1V.
7. The battery knows that last point. If it is below 1.8V, it will tell the phone it has 0V and will shut off to protect itself.
8. Your phone has a safety circuit that knows the last 3 points. In order to protect itself and the battery, it will shut off entirely at 2.5V
9. Your operating system doesn't really know the exact points for those events. It just has a general idea. So it will shutdown with that low battery alert around 3.2V and will not boot up.
10. Your operating system also doesn't know what voltage is 100%, and your battery was not built exactly the same as the ideal battery, plus your battery may be a few months old!
11. That last point means: When you first got it, 4.18V was actually 100%. But now that it's been used a lot, 4.01V is now 100%. The last time your phone was fully charged, it reached 100% at 4.11V.
12. The next time you charge your phone, the battery will stop accepting charge at 4.01V and your phone will say "Oh, 100% is now 4.01V."
13. BUT! As batteries discharge, they don't follow a linear path. It's a curve that accelerates downward as the battery discharges. So now, it's going to discharge faster! Also, you haven't let it die in a long time.
14. That last point means your operating system has very little idea of when your battery will actually be dead, and it has to guess how fast it will discharge!

To summarize:

• While you're charging your phone, it may say 99% for a longer time that other numbers. Why is that? Because it was expecting to reach 100% at 4.0V but instead it kept accepting charge. When it stops accepting charge, that's when its full!
• Your phone seems to hold charge at 90% for years, but then plummets after! Why is that? Well, most phones don't take into account that a battery's voltage will go down faster the weaker the charge they hold (example). In my opinion, Windows Phone tries to take this into account. That means 80% should last about as long as 50% and about as long as 20%. But it won't be perfect, and it will make it seem like it's draining faster than older phones that don't take this into account!
• Your phone doesn't know what 0% is! It will try to guess each time you drain your phone, but the more you drain your phone, the more you damage its capacity.

My recommendations:

• Prioritize keeping your phone's battery between 70% and 80%, and keep it's temperature cool (not really discussed above). This will maximize its life and minimize wear. Unfortunately, it may mean your battery gauge is not calibrated. But who cares? It's just a number that will never be 100% accurate! Let it keep guessing, and work with what you have. If you do this, you'll keep a roughly 5-15% deviation. No big deal to me.
• Don't leave the battery at 100% for too long, but don't worry about charging it to 100%! It's way better than leaving it at 0%.
• Don't let your battery reach 0% often. If you really want to calibrate the meter here and there, or if you can't get to a charger, a few times is not going to have much of a long-term effect. But doing it on a regular, and frequent, basis will cause long-term damage.
• I didn't get into it, but extreme temperature damage the battery. Prioritize keeping it slightly below room temperature for ideal conditions. That may mean stopping your games/gps/other power intensive apps that overheat the battery.
• Along those lines, rapid charging and rapid discharging damages the battery long-term. So if you use your device as a hard-core gaming device, you will have poor battery life, and it will only help degrade the battery. If you charge your phone with a 4A charger, you will similarly damage the battery long-term (will not be noticeable for a while though!)

I'll re-read this later, my brains a little scattered and this took longer to type than I anticipated, but I hope it helps someone. Thanks again for starting this thread Julian_C!

Also, disclaimer: The above is based on my knowledge and experimentation. I am a recent graduate of Electrical Engineering, and am far from an expert. Please feel free to correct me where I am wrong! I make no claim of accuracy in my statements.

 

[bemiquel]

Omg this gave me hope? I'm going to try, will let you know if it worked!
Is there any risk on emtpying the battery that much?

 

[Dreamspell]

The battery reading is indeed wonky. I was at 90% on my Icon, soft rest, then it was at 100%. 10 minutes later with no use, 98%.

 

[Cryio]

I was pretty upset by my battery when I got my Lumia 820 in September with GDR1. After I installed Amber the battery became great. So I never had personal problems with the battery after that. I am one of those people that are not bothered by L820's battery life. I'm quite satisfied by it. I will certainly give this a go. At least once. But only after the Cyan update.

 

[bemiquel]

It is curious, I had never done a calibration before, and when I just emptied my 1020, it just won't vibrate or show the battery blinking anymore when I push the power button, meaning it's 100% emtpy, right? And still my battery lasts 4-5 hours of use or 19-20 hours in standby

 

[thelostsoul]

[...] 19-20 hours in standby [...]

If that is your problem, you likely have one or all of the following:

1. App(s) running in the background (most likely GPS or data intensive apps) - check battery saver/background task settings and check individual settings of apps that use GPS
2. Settings that cause heavy data usage (WiFi or Cellular) - Check your account settings and individual app settings
3. Always in poor reception areas - this applies to Cellular, WiFi, and Bluetooth - if the signal is week, it's using more power to transmit to the tower/device/receiver - not much you can do about this but disable the radios that are in poor reception areas
4. Bad battery (less likely unless you've had the device about/over 1 year, have kept it in extreme temperatures, and have left it 100% empty for a long time, then 100%, then empty, etc... - contact the manufacturer / store of purchase if it's <1 year. Otherwise, look online for a battery and try to replace it yourself if you really have exhausted all other options.

Also, I'd recommend removing one app at a time and see if it improves battery. I would say 99% of the time, it's one of the first 3. I would start by getting rid of apps you don't use and not letting anything run in the background. If it still doesn't improve, continue removing apps one at a time and see if it does. If it does not, work on items 2 and 3.
2 and 3 work hand-in-hand sortof - and work with item 1 a bit too - figure out what is using data. It could be your email accounts, could be social network accounts, but could also be an app. Once you find that, start disabling syncing in those apps. Make sure it is not updating. If the app doesn't have a setting for it, you may need to remove the app. All while doing this, watch your cellular and wifi reception. You may need to disable one if it is in low signal. In fact, if you can't get 90% reception (4 bars cellular, etc), you're device has to work harder to communicate.

All of this can be frustrating and can take a while, but it's worth it.

Also, since you say 4-5 hours of "use" - that could be normal, if you're gaming, using GPS, or streaming media. Any one of those, your device will be expected to last about 2-4 hours continuously. If you play a 3D online game for 15 minutes, that could cut 10% of your battery. But if "use" for you means sending and receiving texts every now and then (maybe a total of 100 in a day) and nothing else, then you do have a problem.

With such little information about your specific use-case and what apps you have, there's not much to say. But to answer your question about the battery being "empty" - if the device will not show any blinking light and has no response from pressing the power button, then you've most likely reached point 7. in my post above : "The battery knows that last point. If it is below 1.8V, it will tell the phone it has 0V and will shut off to protect itself." - Charge your phone immediately. You are causing long-term damage to the battery. It's sort of like if a person hasn't eaten in a really long time and the body puts itself to sleep to stop using any energy. The body is still deteriorating and need nutrients immediately before it suffers irreparable damage. Sorry for the morbid analogy, but I believe it is pretty accurate.

 

[TruPlaya187]

Thanks for this thread and tips!

I will try it as soon as I have a chance.

 

[bemiquel]

Well, those steps are not working for me. When I get to 0% and the phone shuts down, there's no response when I push the power button, so it means it is actually empty. The strange thing is that when I connect it to the charger, the Windows button starts lighting but just for some seconds, after that, the battery icon appears in the screen for some other seconds, and in less than 1 minute the phone is already turned on. I thought when a battery is empty, it would take a while to charge to a minimum level in which the phone is allowed to turn on, am I right?

My phone is less than 2 months old, so I guess I must go to Nokia Care to ask for a battery replacement. I suggest everyone NOT to buy a 1020 through Amazon, at least the white model, I already had to replace the whole phone once.

Thanks

 

[Julian_C]

@thelostsoul what you say is exxactly right. This was the Thing I meant ( I already saw your post sometime). My post above is therefore about the calibration and with my steps mentioned you can help your phone to estimate as best as possible the battery charging state. In fact my lumia 1020 never had high draining problems, only a false calibrated battery indicator which lead the phone in the wrong direction Saying that I could solve my problem by getting the most of my battery with the charging-decharging-charging (and so on). Saying again the battery itself is OK. Just try this and then continue to maintain your phone as thelostsoul mentioned in his reccomendations to improve your battery life. But at least every few 2-3 month I highly reccomend to re-do this calibration. Otherwise the phone will continue guessing the charging state and it becomes wrong again. My battery percentage now is ok. (and I had a lot of problems by jumping percentages)

I hope it will help all of you with problems

 

[Arnar Kristjansson]

My battery indicator is never right and haven't been since 8.1 . Like Julian said the battery is "ok" . May I ask what is the diffrence between charging it with "air mode on" with or without? does it really matter? I haven't tried it with the air mode on ...

 

[chmun77]

Wow... What wild guessing work Windows Phone has about its battery life. Is it fixed in WP8.1? I read that all the discharging to 0% is really bad for the batteries. Not sure if this is a good idea to repeat the same discharging process over and over again.

 

[chezm]

My 1020 always dies 2-5% left,never have I seen 1% or less...this also applies to my old 920.

 

[anon(8555314)]

I'm doing this now on my lumia 1020 and it seems to help a lot after three emptying cycles. Today I will drain it again for the fourth time, but I'm going to have a hard time draining it to zero today unless really do some heavy video watching or something way out of the ordinary.

Question, my surface pro 2 also has a lithium ion battery, so would the same trick would work there as well?

 

[Julian_C]

Hey, I am happy to hear that it helped you improving your 1020s battery

I don't think so it would help on your Surface 2 (I too have one), because the problem is the calculation in the 1020 which estimated wrong percentages. Therefore the discharging-charging-discharging helped the phone to recalibrate (the battery was always OK!, only the wrong indicator made your phone shut down because it thought it was empty)

 

[Rj Eki]

Using Whatsapp Drains my Lumia 1020 Battery like Ferrari.. Send 10 msgs and lose 6% of battery..

Any Solutions for this ??

 

[Julian_C]

wait for a whatsapp update