One battery issue solved (for me anyway)

[DBOP]

I have been struggling with many of the same battery issues that have been posted here, through Amber and now Black. In the last couple of days, though, I have significantly improved my battery life by explicitly shutting down the cellular data connection when wifi is connected. Everything I have read says that the device will use wifi whenever it is connected, but it is clear to me that there are some apps or tiles that persist in using the cellular connection even though wifi is connected. This was verified through the battery performance app that showed I was continuing to use cellular data even when I was at home or work with a wifi connection.

I have now shut off cellular data when in those locations, and I am seeing significantly improved battery performance. It's worked for me - hope it works for some of you.

 

[Boris Lozac]

That sounds like an issue with your wifi router/network.. and that it might be losing connection.

 

[DBOP]

That's what I thought at first, but it is happening regardless of which wifi I've connected to. Are you sure that you're not pulling any cellular data when connected to wifi?

 

[Boris Lozac]

I'm not, never tested that.. but it's too bothersome to always turn it off and on. Anyways more people are saying that actually wifi uses more battery then mobile network, which i don't really believe but there you go. Battery is not the issue when you're doing something, it has an issue when it drains without you doing anything, luckily it haven't really happened for almost 2 months now.

 

[alfonz]

IAnyways more people are saying that actually wifi uses more battery then mobile network, which i don't really believe but there you go.

This statement is more or less true and false at the same time. Staying connected to wifi without any data being transferred will use less battery power because its not constantly roaming to find best signal (roaming for strongest cellular signal uses a lot of battery power, unless you have full signal strength). However, since data stream is much greater and faster than your cellular connection, the cpu has to work harder to process that information coming into the phone which would use more battery as one would think.

For this reason you can't say one or the other is right and wrong. Battery consumption has many factors to consider when trying to average out battery life on a phone. It irks me everytime a client comes to my office and expect me to tell them what battery life on each phone is and which is best one for that. There is simple no real answer to that question.

 

[sdreamer]

There's a DataSense feature that made it through for our phones that will tell the phone to stop background data unless on WiFi, and I find this saves good battery while leaving data to make it more convent to use. Go to Cellular in Settings and just check off "Always restrict background data." The downside is your live tiles will stop updating when you're away from wifi, but if you're like me you have WiFi almost all the time, so it isn't a big issue. This will allow you to mms still without having to constantly go back and forth turning on and off the data and you can use apps without having to turn on data all the time. Came with the black update.