WP8.1 and Here Drive battery drain

[RevoMikey101]

I guess I feel aggrieved by the app situation too. I get sick of seeing a decent app advertised only to find its available on google play and ios store. I donk know if its down to Microsoft or developers not wanting to go on WP but either way it sucks for consumers.

 

[beachedwhale42]

Yeah, but I've started to see more apps for WP as of recent, whether they be first party or good third party. It depends on your usage, but I know I'm able to do everything on my 920 that I want (except Google Hangouts, but I only have a few friends that use it.....it's not as much of a deal-breaker as the nice camera and offline GPS were). Plus, I really do love the hardware.

In other news, I finally broke down/got off my lazy **** and ordered a PortaPow cable. I also looked at the MediaBridge one, but the PortaPow looked like a higher quality cable. It should be here Monday, and I'll be sure to post back with (hopefully confirming) results. For science. Really just so some random person searching the internet for this can see a whole thread of "yup, PortaPow solved it".

Edit: Wow...it edited b u t t. Incredible.

 

[hairychad]

Ironically PortaPow sell the cable as Android cables
I linked the thread and they know the issue so maybe they'll update their information... Hehe

 

[trostuff]

I am still on Windows Phone 8.0. The Here Drive + battery drain has always been an issue. Even with WiFi, Bluetooth, and all background apps turned off, AND a 2.1 amp car charger, you WILL drain the battery faster than it can charge. I was actually hoping with fingers crossed that 8.1 would magically fix this, but it looks like 'No.' It's quite embarrassing that my Lumia 920 lasts only over an hour from fully charged to completely flat WHILE IT IS ON CHARGE in the car. It's quite a problem especially now while we are on road trips, and we are forced to use (gulp) my wife's iPhone for GPS. More embarrassing, we can use her iPhone TomTom, Bluetooth hands free, while on charge and it stays at 100% the whole time! I'll be interested to know if there's an alternative GPS for the Lumia that DOESN'T drain the battery so quickly...

 

[aikidaves]

Um, I'm surprised at how many of you have this problem. My 920 is fine running Here Drive + while being charged by my $10 Wal-Mart double USB plug. Keeps my phone charged at 100% AND charges my wife's iPhone 5 at the same time. I did have to do some tweaking to fix the battery drain problems with DP 8.1 a while back; maybe that's the difference? Here's my list of things to to try; note that when I was tweaking I only got to Step 4 (which didn't actually make any difference, all the improvements were in steps 1 to 3).

My list of steps to correct battery problems:

1. Reboot.
2. If not better, soft reset, maybe a few times.
3. If not better, go into Battery Saver, Usage, and see if it's one or a few apps. Uninstall/reinstall may fix. Also, check what you're allowing to run in background, check your settings and turn off background things you don't need, uninstall apps you don't use, etc.
4. If not better, hard reset with restore.
5. If not better, hard reset with setup from scratch.
6. If not better, Nokia Recovery Tool to go back to 8.0 and start over.
7. If not better, might be a hardware issue.

 

[hairychad]

I found a difference actually in my dual socket so PortaPow is only one option if you need it....
My dual socket is 2A and a 2A Apple port... The Apple has data hence the issue and I never tried the normal cable before ordering PortaPow.
My standard Nokia cable maintains charges my phone while bluetoothing music and satnavving on the 2A socket (non Apple).
This is a cigarette adapter.
1020, 8.1.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

8.1 update 1 will give us the option...

Not on mine. Perhaps because my 810 will never get past Amber?

 

[Paul Verizzo]

The cable is worth it. I am sick of crap updates with WP though. I have 4 months left of this crap os and i am leaving WP behind for ever. I resented having to wait for basic things like separate volume controls, rotation lock and the USB condom. The WP os shouldn't have been released without this basic stuff. ms are just sh1t.

But it's here now. So what about last month? I hated so much about my 810 when I got it a year ago. With the improvements, mostly 8.1, I love it. MS does seem to be working hard at making the OS better, about as fast as they can. Weighing out the phones, the ecosystems, the costs, etc. WP gets my vote.

Don't forget, every phone make/model and OS has its problems. Some may matter to you, some may not.

 

[hairychad]

Not on mine. Perhaps because my 810 will never get past Amber?

Yeah this never arrived.... Odd...
If you use the recovery tool to get to a different version/region wouldn't you get black then cyan (eventually)? - distracting this thread

Strange that the condom feature didn't arrive though... Update 2 I guess!

 

[sdreamer]

Just had a trip the other day. Still had massive power drain. One thing to note, the drain was apparent after about an hour. At this point the phone was almost way too hot to touch. Obviously most gadgets these days have fail safes that stop charging when it gets too hot to protect the battery. It was so hot my touch screen was acting up (I couldn't touch it in some cases or it would register a bazillion phantom touches). I've had this problem on the 920 since I've gotten it. I did have a previous 920 that didn't seem to have it. In fact I was able to use it on battery alone and it only drained like 40% after a 2 hour drive. I think I had my data off at that time though. Might be interesting to see how it goes totally offline.

 

[AG VK]

I will point out that this is not a WP issue. I have a Nexus 5 as my daily driver and this phone charges much slower with the LG data cable it came with compared to a charge-only cable I got with my TYTL power pack.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

I have had several Garmin handheld GPS units starting maybe 15 years ago. Small B&W screen, a whopping 1.44mb - yes, mb - of memory to download a few maps into. Via some Garmin SW I could do turn to turn and real time on a big color display...........on my laptop on the passenger seat! Now all this and so much more in the palm of my hand. My point: a set of 4 AA's will run the thing, screen on, for about 35 hours!

So, why can't our cell phones do that? I have NO idea, and I've been "into" electronics all of my long life. My Android also heated up and gobbled up battery life.

I took a 35 minute walk the other day using Hike and Bike, a real nice app. My Battery Sense app shows that I was sucking 33% per hour! This is compared to about 3% when on standby, Wifi, Cortana, 4G, Glance always on.

Tis a mystery.

 

[beachedwhale42]

I promised I'd post back after I got the cable. It didn't arrive until yesterday, and in testing today on my (previously mentioned Griffin) charger, I was finally able to successfully charge my 920 while navigating. Looks like most phones need more than 500mA (I saw lots of Galaxy S 3/4 complaints online), but my old GNex was fine, so I didn't notice this until I got my 920. Yay PortaPow cable.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

So I got a new 925 - see another post - and I plugged the USB/micro plug into a front USB port on my PC. Started charging, no surprise. After awhile, I noticed it wasn't. The phone charges fine from either the micro USB data type connection or the wall charger.

Apparently is was some kind of safety built into the circuit, it works fine again today.

Here's something indicating this thread is on the right track. My Battery Sense app shows that when last plugged in, it was the wall charger, it started at 48%, was at 100% in 59 minutes! This is a 2000mah battery, ergo, charged 1000mah (1 amp/hour) in one hour. The wall charger is rated at 5V, 1.3A out. Since charging involves losses, i.e., you waste some electricity due to inefficiencies, I'd say this all makes sense.

I remain skeptical that a micro USB is good for having 2 amps pushed through it, but I guess Nokia is certainly OK with 1.3.