Fairphone

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Battery problems (wrong charging status / battery might be dying)

Help FP1
#138

Hi, I was wondering whether others also face the following problem. My battery runs out extremely quick (although I put the screen brightness the lowest, or turn off wi-ifi and 3F), it takes approximately half a day before my battery is dead after being fully charged.

Also, the charging goes much slower than in the beginning. Turned off, it takes up to 2,5 hours; turned on, it takes 3 up to 4 hours.

Besides this, I noticed that since some weeks the ‘charging percentage’ does not seem to be correct. I.e., sometimes the lamp turns green while the charging percentage shows 82%.

I got my phone in September 2014. Two months ago I ordered a new battery & charger (perhaps the problem was linked to my old charger which I re-used), but the problem quickly began to appear again. I always try to make sure I only charge when the battery is completely dead and I always try to charge up to 100%.

Is anyone else facing this problem? (Does this problem fall under garanty?)

Thanks for the answer.

Cheers

#139

Hi @Joni: I moved your post here, as this thread already deals with the problems you describe. Please read this post and tell us, if it helps. :sunny:

#140

So far this helping idea did not work for me. I have serious charging problems. I hope it will be fixed by the new update next week.

#141

@Joni and @Freddy_de_Vries, did you check if your battery is bloated ? :warning:

#142

The battery is OK. Not bloated.

1 Like
#143

Ok that’s good. :smile:
Could you tell us a bit more about your charging problems?
Also look here for a little collection of battery related problems, solutions and workarounds.

#144

Same problems as the others… Some months ago i could use the phone for several days. Now i have to charge it every day. And when it gets to 15 % the battery load drops superfast. There might be a charger problem as well but anyway, the battery loading takes several hours… Actually one of my chargers cannot be the Problem, as my friend also uses it and does not have any problems.

#145

I will take a look on the forum if there might be help.

#146

Dear Stefan,

Thank you for moving the post and getting back to me with an answer. I tried the solution mentioned, but unfortunately it didn’t work. (I let the battery die, charged the phone, put the battery in after that). Unfortunately it took exactly 2.5 hours to charge fully with the phone turned off. Besides, from the appearance of 94% on, the light turned green, which I guess is not correct. I can try to do it again the next couple of days but I’m not sure if I will be able to do this - reserving 2,5 hours with an off-turned phone and letting the battery die is not very practical when not being at home.

I also checked whether the battery might be bloated, but I see no signs of this.

If anyone has other possible solutions or suggestions, these are welcome! Though I don’t adopt high standards for a smartphone - if the internet and mobile connection works, that’s fine for me - I experience this battery thing as a very naughty problem as it disturbs normal use of the phone to a great extent.

Cheers

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#147

Update on my case: I didn’t have any luck with FP support. They asked me to do a number of tests (including the “kicking” the battery as described above), but none of them solved the problem.

I sent them notes and screenshots of the results, which I don’t think they’ve fully read, since I concluded my email saying that I feft this was not normal battery degradation and I got a very short response saying “It’s normal for batteries to degrade over time, but if you feel your battery is not degrading normally please let us know and we’ll replace it”.

When I repeated that the battery was behaving abnormally and described some more tests I had done, they suggested it might be my SIM-card that’s causing the problem. I highly doubt this, but I’ve ordered a new SIM-card just to be sure. However, in the meantime they’ve closed the support ticket before the new SIM even arrived, because I didn’t respond fast enough.

I must say I’m dissapointed with this level of support. To anyone else for who the solutions posted here do not work: if you value your time (and still want to support FP), I would suggest to just order a new battery from the shop. For myself, between the hardware issues and the inability to install custom operating systems, I’m on the lookout for a new smartphone. It’s a shame, since I had really hoped this one would last longer than two years.

#148

After doing the spin test, I found out that I had a bloated battery. Reported it before the weekend and got a new one on warranty after the weekend.

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Fairphone gets very Hot and Battery drains quickly
#149

I tried this reset on my FP1 (in use since jan. 2014). I’ll share my experiences because they were surprising and maybe helpful for support or battery software. Two days ago in the evening my battery warning at 15% popped up. Until now start loading it asap, this time I decided not to, following this post. Yesterday early morning the indicator was at 1% so I expected it to die in short. It didn’t. In fact, the phone worked until this morning, another 26 hours, all the time indicating 1%! Then of course I started recharging it again following this post, phone off. Sometimes I looked to see how far and how quick it was loading. At 46% I decided to turn the phone on again. After the start the indicator directly showed 82%…!
Until now the drainage pace of the battery looks normal to rather quick, but it’ll take some days to find out exactly. By the way: nothing visibly wrong with the battery.

So there is (was in my case?) obviously something wrong with the software registering the battery load.

I am wondering now: knowing about some physical characteristics of rechargeable batteries that recharging it halfway is bad for the lifetime: supposing the 15% warning has nothing to do with reality I probably recharged too soon for an unknown period of time and an unknown number of times. Could this have hurt the battery lifetime? And could this be (one of) the cause(s) of the problems with other batteries?

#150

This topic might be interesting for you:

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#151

I never experienced the “cardinal symptoms” of a battery firmware that has to be reset but I do sometimes register a slight discrepancy in the battery status displayed by my phone when turned off compared to when turned on.

This has been discussed on the forum before. Nobody could say with absolute certainty but the consensus was that “halfway recharges” are not a bad thing. (Actually (maybe) it’s even best to keep the battery status above 60%)

#152

Update: after resetting like above and fully charging my battery lasted for 4 days (my normal habits of use) which is like before. But now, one of the 15% bugs is here: from 15% it takes about 30 sec’s to zero. Experienced it twice now, so it probably going to last. Will try another reset.
By the way: there’s still something funny in the software: charging with phone off I checked: 24%. Enough to restart: then the battery shows 64% immediately. Turned off again and check: 64%.

#153

Check if your battery is swelling! :warning: E.g. do the spin test.

My Fairphone FP1 showed the same symptomps. I sent them a video of my battery spinning and got a new battery on warranty in under a week.

#154

I have the same issues. Either the battery goes like this; down to 1% very quick and stays there for a long time and then dies:

Or it goes like this:

From 100% to 1% in 42 minutes. Tried the starter thing twice without results but will try it again. No bulging what I can see. This problem has been for a week or so, worked fine before that. I have the first edition on the phone. Would be nice with a solution…

#155

Only since updating from 1.8 to 1.85 I also have a similar problem: down to 15% a bit faster then it was before, and then from 15% to 0% (= autoshutdown) within 2 minutes.
Until the 1.85 update no issues at all, and from the day after the update I was treated with this…

My battery is not bloated, and it’s a FP from the first batch.

#156

Sometimes batteries that start bloating are not visually bloated yet so you’ll need to do the spin test to be sure.

If you can’t spin the battery I’d try the “kickstart” again. Watch a video at full brightness in the evening until the phone dies, plug-in the phone without the battery, after some time put it in and leave it charging over night.
If the problems still exist make some screenshots to document them and contact support. Maybe they’ll give you a new battery even without a positive spin-test.
To make sure it’s not something else you could borrow someone else’s battery to see if the problems
persist.

1 Like
FP2 Battery health and duration?
FP2 Battery Problems (drains quickly, CPU gets hot) - See batteryguide for workarounds
#157

Dear Paul, thank you for your answer. I already did the kickstartt several times, but unfortunately this does not solve the problem.

I’ll try the spin test ASAP.

Regarding the screen shots, of what exactly do I need to make screen shots?

Best