Battery life with WP 8.1

[mukati]

I had absolute horrible battery life in beginning. I didn’t want to hard reset, but ultimately opted for it. I can confirm my batter is normal now, infact might bit better. Cortana is on. Only thing that I suspect that is a battery hog is:

- Wi-Fi Sense
- I disabled news 'Interest' for cortana. I'm not sure why or how, but I definitely felt a difference after this.

I've even used geofencing couple of times, like reminders or turning Wi-Fi on at favorite places and it had no impact on battery at all.

 

[cckgz4]

I assumed its from me using my phone more with this new software

 

[Lobbie1978]

My Lumia 920 battery life has been dramatically decreased by almost 50%. Before with 8.0 I could do almost 2 days with one charge. It is now empty before the end of the day

 

[SSK the Gr8]

The best solution is to wait patiently for a new firmware.

Yeah. Same here. We need Lumia Cyan for Nokias and the respective 8.1 firmwares for all phones.

 

[oryan_dunn]

It doesn't matter what I do, I get about 6hrs of battery life on my 620, wether I'm heavily using it or it's sitting in my pocket in sleep mode.

WiFi on/off, Cortana on/off, backgound apps enabled/disabled, email sync push/2hr, location services on/off, etc. Before the update (for me was 8.0.3/Amber, aio still hasn't released black), if the phone were in my pocket not being used, I'd easily get 30-36hrs.

 

[Zapella Tiago]

I think its normal, the current Firmware from Nokia its not appropriate for WP8.1 (The OS Update was HUGE), thats why carriers receive the OS before anyone. To make things right on their device.

 

[migueli2]

Image not uploading for some how

Sent from my Lumia 925 using Tapatalk

 

[migueli2]

Ok this is scary! Out of nowhere my battery life is like this so it must be an update because I haven't installed new apps. It was between 5 and 6%.

 

[SwimSwim]

I'm suspecting Battery Saver is a culprit. I've been desperate for battery, so I've been turning on Battery Saver to get by. But recently, I tried turning off battery saver, and I've noticed my battery life actually going /up/.

Possible explanation: It's trying hard to conserve battery by turning things off (such as radios), so when you pick it up, it needs energy to turn said radios back on. So maybe Battery Saver has better standby times, but if you're life me: you're constantly picking up your device, using it for aprox. 5minutes, then setting it back down, pick it back up after 3-7minutes, repeat.

Not conclusive yet, but a very promising lead and explanation.

 

[cbreze]

I'm wondering how many did a hard reset back to stock to try and get better battery and were successful at achieving that. Ive read it both ways. Seems to work for a few but mostly not. I found that certain applications seem more power hungry than others. Allot of stuff I don't need so why have it running? Ive saved lots of power that way. Now, having said this I can add that since I use my icon the same everyday why yesterday did I end the day with 30% when previously it would usually need a charging boost around 6pm? It seemingly is baffling at times. Ive decided not to sweat the small stuff and I think I've got it tweaked about as good as it gets. Battery life is always the hot topic with these devices, just enjoy and Its easy enough to set it down on the charger for a few minutes occasionally, right?

 

[Notorious MIKE]

Definitely more battery drain going on. Got a weird bug earlier for the first time, tried to open camera, phone blackscreened then turned off and showed an empty battery symbol. I was out and tried to turn it back on about an hour later, didn't seem to be turning on so I put it back in my pocket then it started ringing about 10 minutes later. Phone feels slower too, could be as its almost full.

 

[ronclone]

It doesn't matter what I do, I get about 6hrs of battery life on my 620, wether I'm heavily using it or it's sitting in my pocket in sleep mode.

WiFi on/off, Cortana on/off, backgound apps enabled/disabled, email sync push/2hr, location services on/off, etc. Before the update (for me was 8.0.3/Amber, aio still hasn't released black), if the phone were in my pocket not being used, I'd easily get 30-36hrs.

Exactly what is happening to me... maybe the problem is going from amber drivers to 8.1 (i did have gdr3 though) i want to go back to 8. I will miss tons of stuff but currently my phone is almost useless!

 

[underrtow]

I am fighting with battery drain since I installed 8.1 preview. What I've done:

- De-sync Facebook account from my live account
- Battery saver off
- Location off
- Cortana off (obviously)
- Very limited number of apps running in the background
- 2x hard reset, 1x soft

Still, during the night I was experiencing 16% (cortana off) - 20% (cortana on) battery drain.

My phone is connected to Wifi during the night, but I never bothered to switch data transfer off, last night I did it and what do you know - my battery drain was 3% throughout 8 hours.

I am not saying it's a solution, maybe it was a coincidence, but perhaps it's good to try it out.

 

[mtalinm]

what is it with measuring nighttime battery drain? do people really not plug in their phones at night??

 

[SSK the Gr8]

what is it with measuring nighttime battery drain? do people really not plug in their phones at night??

Most of us don't

 

[mikeycl]

what is it with measuring nighttime battery drain? do people really not plug in their phones at night??

Gotta say my phone is plugged in when i go to bed at night and then unplugged when i wake up. i went all day yesterday without plugging my phone in and had 40% left when i plugged it in for the night.

i don't personally understand why some people don't plug them in overnight, or why others wait till the battery is practically dead before charging the handset. Anyone care to explain their logic or reasoning about this?

 

[gapost]

Yeah, I don't get not plugging in at night.

Anyhow, I'm shocked at how many apps are allowed to run in the background automatically. The average, un-informed user would be shocked to look at Battery Saver, Usage, and see all the apps allowed to run in the background. And then when you click on Show all apps at the bottom, there are even more. This is the first place to start saving some battery life.

 

[underrtow]

You have a notification. When you setup your wp phone, after 5th app with background process you get a message with link to a battery saver.

Anyway, for me measuring the battery during the night is most efficent way, during the day usage might be so various that its impossible to spot the difference.

 

[mikeycl]

Yeah, I don't get not plugging in at night.

Anyhow, I'm shocked at how many apps are allowed to run in the background automatically. The average, un-informed user would be shocked to look at Battery Saver, Usage, and see all the apps allowed to run in the background. And then when you click on Show all apps at the bottom, there are even more. This is the first place to start saving some battery life.

tbh i tend not to fiddle with the settings. i use my phone normally and let the phone learn how i use apps etc. it can sometimes be more battery efficient then. granted when i had WP8 on my lumia i could go a whole weekend without needing to charge. this would drop if i was out and about etc but when i stayed in one location for any period of time then the battery life was good.

now with 8.1 the life seems to be reduced but it has gotten better since last week as it learns. hopefully it should improve without me needing to alter anything as time goes on

 

[rc2080]

Keeping the phone unplugged at night allows you to test if the phone is actually consuming an abnormal amount of battery power while not being used or whether it`s just because you`ve been fiddling with your phone more. I`ve also found on my Rogers L1020 that my battery drain is greatly reduced (back to WP8.0-levels) if my data is off and wifi is on. Having both data and wifi off reduces that drain even further. Having location services on or off does not seem to make much of a difference.

I`m planning on testing whether there is less of a drain on 3G versus LTE overnight. I wouldn`t be surprised if the issue has to do with the LTE antenna and that the people who aren`t having battery issues aren`t on LTE. I'll post back here tomorrow with my results.