Band 2, Health App and Battery Drain

Praxius

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Well I have had my Band 2 for about three weeks now. Since owning it, my Band 2 won't even last 24 hours on a single charge.

The only things I do are check notifications, record my sleep and take the dog for a walk 1-2 times a day. I can only imagine how quickly it would die if I did actual workouts.

Regardless, this is far from the advertised 48 hours of battery life.

For the record, I have brightness set to low, vibration set to low and I don't have too many other apps/tiles on the Band that I don't use. The Band also takes far longer to recharge than advertised as well. Like 2 or more hours.

To say the least, I am regretting getting this device since it last far less than my 950XL which does a heck of a lot more work during the day.

I spent the last few days looking online to see what is causing the problem and a lot of things I have come across seems to be related to the last update to the MS Health app. Many have complained that they have been having similar issues as I since the last update to the app. Apparently, it seems as though there is a lot more communication between the Band and the App compared to before and this, it is heavily impacting the battery on the Band 2.

One suggested solution was to turn off Bluetooth or put Airplane Mode on, but then the Band gets no notifications from the phone, you can't control your music on your phone and this, shuts off a good chunk of the features I liked about the Band.

Another suggestion was to turn off the Health Apps' Background Tasks and you would see a huge improvement to the battery's life. Well I tried that and it ends up being the same as the above where apparently all notifications and everything relating to your phone goes straight through the Health App. Turning off Background Tasks means nothing is sent to your Band unless you have the app open..... Again, this defeats the purpose of me having the Band and limits a good chunk of the features I was interested in. What's the point of having the Band if I have to turn everything off and only have my steps, sleep and calories recorded to merely be uploaded to my phone when I manually do it later on?

I might as well have bought the cheapest FitBit if that's all I wanted.

I have also heard about a lot of people getting replacement after replacement for their Bands where support thinks its a hardware issue, but their replacement devices end up lasting just as long.

Oh and yes, I did un-sync, re-sync, reset, deleted the Health App, reinstalled the Health App, powered off and powered on the Band with zero improvement.

It's odd that reviewers I came across stated when they got their Bands that they'd get 48 or more hours before needing to recharge. On reviewer was on their third day without a recharge.... Yet most of the battery drain complaints I have come across start roughly around the last update / firmware. A few people have said it was night and day..... Before the update they got 48 or slightly less hours and then the next day they'd struggle to get through most of a day.

In addition, I checked my battery usage on my 950XL last night. Edge took the most battery, but oddly the Health App was in second place for battery usage. Considering I only go into the app twice a day for about 1-2 mins each time, that's a red flag right there.

The problem is that I cant find any information about if or when Microsoft is going to look into fixing this as it clearly doesn't sound like a hardware issue.

I feel like contacting support, but it sounds like they would merely send me a replacement. If the above connection is true and the Health App, then getting me a replacement seems like a waste of everybody's time.

If there isn't a fix for this soon, I will have to go another step forward and discuss options for a refund if possible. Considering I have had this for almost three weeks now and I have little faith a replacement would fix this issue, I see no alternative. Having to recharge this device in less than 24 hours for the little work I ask it to do, I feel like I have wasted my money..... And this is the first time I've ever felt that way towards a MS Device.

I do like the device, but I feel that due to how many times they claim this can be recharged and how often I am charging it now, I'm worried it's lifespan will be severely compromised.

Of course any solutions or ideas are greatly appreciated, otherwise I feel in the next day or two I will see about returning this.
 

poit57

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I'm just curious if there is any correlation between Band's battery life and the Windows 10 version running on the phone. I've been noticing worse battery life on my Band 2 the past couple months compared to the first 6 months I owned it. I didn't think about it until now, but that is pretty close to the time frame that I enrolled my Lumia 640 XL in Insider to install the Restone builds.

I just got a new Lumia 950 and did not enroll it in Insider. I haven't really tested the limits of my Band's battery life because I've gotten in the habit of charging the Band in my car on the way home from work, but it does seem like the battery has had a fuller charge when I plug it in after work than it has over the past couple months.

I never noticed the Health app using too much of my phone's battery, so I would have never even thought of the phone negatively impacting the Band's battery life, whether it could be the app itself or the phone OS.
 

Praxius

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I have heard others speak of a connection with the insider builds...... Though rolling back my 950XL at this stage seems pointless as the big update is coming out to everyone else soon anyways, so id be right back here again soon enough. I'm speaking of the Anniversary update.... Not sure if its the same as the Threshold 2, but this has been happening to others prior to the anniversary update being available and I am not sure if its been happening to others not on the insider.
 

poit57

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I don't really know if the phone OS is the reason for the difference in battery life that I've noticed, but the timing definitely lines up with when I switched back to a phone running the official 10586.x builds.

For the past couple of months, the Band would be around 45% battery or lower at the end of my 9 hour work shift when I would charge it in the car on my way home. Wearing it straight through without charging, I would get about 14 hours before the "battery critically low" notification.

I've noticed that the battery seems to have more charge since switching phones this week, so I checked when I plugged it in after work yesterday. I took it off the charger in my car at 8:00 AM with 95% battery. After my 9 hour shift, it still had 72% battery. This weekend, I will see how long it takes the battery to drain to a "critically low" level.

If connecting to a phone with the Redstone/Anniversary Update is somehow causing quicker battery drain, hopefully they will get this issue resolved soon. I've noticed the last few updates to PC that haven't been released on mobile yet have mentioned improvements to Bluetooth, so maybe some of those changes could help with this issue.
 

Praxius

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I sure hope so. Even if someone at MS at least said they we're looking into it would give me hope. All I have seen were people talking about only getting replacements due to this issue which doesn't solve the problem. Seems like an expensive thing for MS to do if all they need to do is find the bug and squish it in an update.
 

Nathan ebersole

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I've had the same experience. When I first got the Band 2 it lasted nearly 2 days. Now I'm lucky to get 12 hours out of it. My wife got her Band 2 at the same time I did and she has the same phone (Lumia Icon) but she is still on Windows 8.1 Mobile and her Band 2 still lasts nearly 2 days. I just had my band replaced. I charged the new one, connected it to my phone and put it on. All day (about 7 hours) it didn't notify me of emails or text at all (so it wasn't connecting to my phone properly) and by the end of the day it was still at 75%+ then I noticed it finally made a proper connection with my phone (late last night) and I had a flood of email and message notifications on my band.
The next morning, about 9 hours later, my band was dead and needed a charge.

My Phone has Windows 10 mobile. I think I'm on the slow ring for the insider app. :/ It's definitely an issue with 10 mobile.
 

Praxius

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Well that's poopy. I can't really roll back my 950XL to 8.1, and the screen on my 930 crapped out shortly after giving it to my mother in-law (got crushed in her purse. My son has my old 925, I won't ask my wife for her 640XL as its on W10 too.... Her old 1320 is unreliable, the mother in-law's 640 is of course hers, which leave me with my Lumia 800, but that's stuck on 7.8..... So really, I'm still only stuck with my 950XL.

Oh wait I think I still have the mom in-laws 625 with the cracked screen and there is still a 630 kicking around somewhere.

Naw, too much effort... Nevermind.
 

poit57

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I can't really roll back my 950XL to 8.1
You don't need to go that far back. My new Lumia 950 is currently on 10586.545. I have been getting about 14 hours of battery with no exercise or sleep tracking when paired with my Lumia 640 XL on the Redstone builds.

After getting my new Lumia 950 this week and not enrolling it in the Insider program, I went 24 hours from Saturday to Sunday, including a 30 minute GPS run and sleep tracking, and still had 34% battery left when I finally plugged it in to recharge.
 

anon(5841099)

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Yeah, it's definitely an issue on the Redstone builds. I had my Band connected to an iPhone 6s and got an easy two days battery life. Connected it to a Lumia 1520 running the latest fast ring build (393.5 at that point), and it drained 25% in 6 hours. Now connected to a Lumia 650 running the latest release build (10586.545) and battery life is fine again.
 

Praxius

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Well I returned my Band 2 for a refund while I was still in the 30 day grace period for a refund. With the excessive battery drain, the lack of information from MS regarding any sort of fix and everything I have been seeing about tearing straps and such.... Plus how little use I am getting out of it, I figured I would get my $288 back while I still could.

I'm sure the battery issue would be resolved someday but there were too many factors in my decision to return it than keep it.

Where I seen shots of torn straps from others I could see a distortion on my strap in the same area. It could have been nothing but scuffing from my jacket or something but I didn't want to take the chance.

After so many MS products I have bought over the years, this was the first product ever that I had so little confidence in.

But I did learn something.... Wearables like this are not for me.
 
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Mattman86

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I reverted back to build 10586.545 on my 950 yesterday. Went to sleep with my Band 2 at 29% battery life and woke up with it at 21%.
 

Mattman86

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It looks like my band is now using about 2%-3% per hour with the following setup:

Lumia 950 - Build 10586.545
Band 2 - 2.0.4829.0 26R
Microsoft Health - 2.3.20711.0

Bluetooth - On
Watch Mode - Rotate
GPS - On
All-Day Heart Rate - On
Activity Reminder - On(2 Hours)
UV Monitor - On
 

poit57

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The official Anniversary Update is here with build 14393.67. This same build was released for the fast ring Insiders on August 9, the day after I switched phones and stopped using Insider builds.

I'm just curious if any Insiders have noticed if the battery drain issues have continued with this Windows 10 build. This build described the following improvements concerning Bluetooth.

  • Addressed issue that causes significantly reduced battery life on Windows Phone when using Bluetooth with “Hey Cortana” feature enabled.
  • Addressed issue that may cause Windows 10 Mobile devices to hang after turning Bluetooth on and off very quickly.

Is there any chance that the issue causing battery drain on the phone regarding Hey Cortana on Bluetooth devices could be similar to the cause of battery drain on the Band? Or does it sound like this is still an issue that Microsoft needs to address separately?
 

anon(5841099)

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Updated my Lumia 650 to the release of 14393.67. Live tile unfortunately still broken in this build. Will update later about battery life.

Edit: So, exact same issues as in the Insider rings. I had hoped the public release came with an update of MS Health or something, but no joy. Going from 10586.545 breaks the live tile, Cortana won't work from the Band anymore and battery life is halved. It drained 40% in less than 10 hours without any activities.
 
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Mattman86

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Here's my report for today:

With the setup I mentioned and turning off Watch Mode, I've use 23% of battery in 14 hours... roughly 1.6% per hour.
 

Sheamartin

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Phone did update to 14393.82 and now my Band went dead and won't charge. Wasn't sure if there was a connection? Or if my battery just died coincidentally that same day. Anyone else have Band issues with the latest update?
 

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