FP2 Battery Problems (drains quickly, CPU gets hot) - See batteryguide for workarounds

Hey @Patrick1, I was referring to the sentence from Theo_retiker, that he disables as many Google apps as possible. :slight_smile:

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Deleting system cache also worked for me! I had 3,6 Gb of cache (!!). Once cleared I got my battery back. Thank you

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I seem to have the same issue, did you fix it?

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Hi Koenone, I have a problem with my digitiser, so I cannot use the at sign or the number one, hence my misspelling of your username. :frowning:
No, I didn’t fix the battery drain issue yet. Only thing is that really helps is to switch off the WiFi during the day. Yesterday, it was only half empty after 9 hours of the day (3pm). Normally this happens after 6 hours. I prefer to have WifiOn when at home/at work, so there should be a fix somewhere.
What amazes me is the amount of time that the phone has poor mobile signal.

Permanently reconnecting to a network whilst having poor reception generally is a battery killer. Try if stepping down to 3g only gives a better battery result?

There is a known wifi issue with Android 6 draining the battery which is known and only can be fixed by Google. But up to now it managed to move on without bothering about fixing it.

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Be aware that the FP2 has a terrible battery life - mine will be drained completely by 11am with moderate-to-heavy use. But then, with a processor that runs at up to 80 degrees+ Celcius, what can one expect?

You’ll also see in these pages numerous stories of the FP2’s terrible build quality; really, what is sold is not what the English call “of merchantable quality”. Mine came fresh out of the box with a camera that didn’t work, and after being told by FP to buy a screw driver to fix it, which I did, it is now touch and go, sometimes I get it to work by taking the back cover off and pressing down on it a bit.

Like everyone here make your choice to try to make the world a better place; however, be aware that you’re not going to get anything like Apple quality, and if there were another ethical phone on the market, you’d chose the other one.

Edit: this post & the above were moved from another topic, in which a prospective user asked about Ethernet, hence my remarks about deterring buyers.

Hi andrew7, it’s sad to hear you are having problems but that doesn’t mean that everybody’s FP2 is so bad and if you deter buyers in this way it’s not helpful at all. (Also, please check for rogue apps using a lot of CPU. My CPU doesn’t get to 80°. There are a number of topics about it and the culprit is usually an app from Facebook, Google or Microsoft not an ethernet connection, so please do not spam this thread with your CPU usage problems.)

Mine has a 2.5 yr old battery and still lasts for almost a whole day, and needed only one bottom module to be swapped in those 2.5 years, so @RBARK, I hope this does not deter you from buying the phone.

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Your troubles with your FP2 are sad to read of, but individual not general as I have one of the first phones and do not have any troubles with it. Also my battery lasts far longer than only until 11am.

Of course not - who ever stated this, where did you get this from?

If someone is out for a product from Apple (please don’t bother me with their quality) he/she must purchase an item showing a bitten apple on it. So don’t reach out for anything called Samsung, HTC, LG, Sony, CAT, Hitachi, Xiaomi, Wiko, Huawei, BlackBerry, Jolla, Nokia, Gigaset, Kyocera, Shift, Librem as they are all not offering Apple quality.

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I have had these same issues consistently since purchasing my initial FP2. Three handsets in I decided to just deal with it; keep a power pack to hand, close apps when not using them, keep location/wifi/data off. But things only got worse. A few weeks ago my phone was constantly hot and the battery drained in a few hours.

So that’s when I came here looking for help, only to find the same advice someone from FP had already offered (which had not worked) in the battery wiki. However, I noticed the threads on alternative OS’s and out of desperation, I gave one a go. Since installing LineageOS, my handset is no longer hot and if I keep closing apps when not using them and keep the location/wifi/data off, the battery lasts for 2.5 days!

One interesting thing I have noticed is that before installing the modem files, using wifi/data did not drain the battery as much as it does now.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Hi guys,
Thanks for all the really useful tips. My phone has started getting really hot and the battery drains before the day is over. At the same time i’m getting lots of ads popping up.
So I’ve disabled or deleted several apps - although I don’t have many on the phone.
When I deleted the Facebook app it immediately seemed to start losing heat, so I’m leaving it to see what happens.

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The only experience here i can offer is that since some time the modem firmware has a bug with the proximity sensor. When you use it to activate the device (eg using the app waveup), it drains terribly

Just to make it clear to people visiting this thread: I charge my FP2 in the morning to 92% max to reduce battery stress and I normally finish the day with around 40% of battery left, meaning that I typically use only 50% of battery capacity during a long day of work, and keep in mind that I use public transportation for 3 hours, meaning that I use the phone intensively while on the go. The FP2 is to me by far the best smartphone I’ve ever had, and one of the main reasons why it performs so well is because it allows me to have almost no dependency on GAFAs’ abusive apps and services.

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This can only be explained either by (a) FP’s inconsistent build quality and you got lucky, or (b) you use your FP2 in a different way to most users. Like so many other posters to these forums, my FP2 battery life has been appallingly bad.

Since the day my FP2 came out of the box (when it had just the pre-loaded apps) and again still after a full factory reset, my FP2 runs as hot as oven - up to 85 degrees Celsius - and the battery drains ridiculously fast.

My FP2 is currently showing that of the 47% battery drain since last charge, 3% is due to Google Play and a total of 4 other apps each used 1%. “Phone idle” and “Mobile standby” used 4% each (8% total, so together the equivalent of 8 apps). So … app usage does not appear to be the issue.

Separately, I wanted to take a photo today. Couldn’t do it. The camera which was working a few days ago wouldn’t work. It didn’t work fresh out of the box when new and now only works intermittently after FP told me to buy a screwdriver and try and fix it - which I did. Like another poster I suspect the heat plays a factor in making the camera connect.

I was responding to a post from someone saying they were considering swapping from Apple to FP2. As I said in my post, like everyone here we make our choice to try to make the world a better place, but when the poster I was responding to makes their own decision, they should be aware that they’re not going to get Apple quality.

Sorry to say - I accidently fell into a coca cola vessel almost drowning - just for the record - now I must say this is fake news :grin:

…back to something completely different -

Aha, so this clearly looks like I obviously have missed the essential part of the information which again gets me into pure rage :rage:

Trying to my fullest ability staying calm I’ll take this as an explanation to an almost obvious misunderstanding here. :thought_balloon:

Oh, that’s tough - shall I choose a) or rather b)…I can’t decide…what will I get - I have to…BA
Well the truth lays somewhere in the middle. Quality is not so consistent from one batch to the next. Compared to many other big players FP is a very small company with limited (financial) options. It cannot run long and expensive tests on each unit to assure there is no chance of an issue. They don’t sell on such a wide range but surely are doing their best to deliver the highest possible quality they can. On the other side - big players such as Samsung, Sony etc. have the possibility to run long tests but simply save money were ever they can. So even there no one is secure of sometimes even major faults.

But as long as the phone is within warranty make use of it and claim for what was promised.

FP2 is not as rock stable as users coming from other brands are used of. Specifically if it’s about water and being dropped. At some point FP2 will get damaged. At least it can be repaired more easily (by oneself) and not entirely have to be replaced as conventional phones. Due to the design some treatment may cause more trouble than with other phones as not every component inside is soldered but connected with contacting pins. Mechanical stress or moist is not so good for the phone. But generally a proper treatment considering it as a >500€ device should help to take care of it keeping it operational for some time. It’s not fully made of glass either.

Many other issues like bad battery performance, heat, laggin etc. mostly can be solved it just needs time and the right approach.
For this there are plenty of help topics and wikis available which are quite useful. Many users here could solve their troubles in the past sometimes almost giving up on the phone.
And the risk of causing troubles by simply installing whatever app someone wants to have should not be underestimated. Looking through this forum there were several topics where users ran into massive troubles which were causes by an installed app which they never expected would be the culprit ->facebook app. Actually many users does not seem to have an idea how much bad programmed troublesome software is available out there.

I think after all it’s the impatience and cluelessness until finding the cause that gets users upset and frustrated. Not all problems being encountered are hardware errors. And for further tests there are many fairphoneangels around for initial tests to see if or if not the entire phone has to be returned.

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AlbertJP - you think it is not helpful and/or spam to tell the truth to potential buyers? This is a big issue for many, many FP2 users - just look at all the posts on the subject, including not least in this 462 post thread under the title “FP2 Battery Problems (drains quickly, CPU gets hot)”.

Moreover, it is reasonable to expect that, as a class, future FP2 buyers will be less ethically-minded than existing owners. (Future buyers have not already searched for an ethical phone, or already been motivated to buy when hearing/seeing the message, etc.). So, over time, FP’s customers can be expected to become less and less forgiving of FP’s faults. Not discussing these faults openly now may help - somewhat unethically(!) - to sell some phones in the short-run, but in the longer term it will surely kill the FP project.

Btw, I do not use Facebook and have only a few apps installed other than the factory-installed apps. Of course it could be just one app that accounts for battery drain, but no apps - factory installed or downloaded - stand out as big battery users. Looking at my FP2 now, the only exception perhaps is Google Play services at 6% of battery drain, against “phone idle” and “mobile standby” each at 8.5% of drain. (A total of 4 other apps use 2% each, so 8% total.)

This actually is one of the worst as it almost permanently calls home at any time. Look at this log of my firewall:


It keeps on calling home nearly every minute. And usually it is blocked. Just imagine how it would go beserk if not being blocked spending data volume, using and keeping active any available data connection draining your battery.
Once in a while I unblock it if going to the store. Then it keeps on transmitting whatever data until I leave again and block it.
Although it does not look like it is a resource hungry monster. I can only give you advice to also get a firewall to have more control over such apps. This will have an overall positive effect. Or switch over to another OS.

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If you’re the kind of consumer who thinks that giving a company total control over your personal data and paying abusive amounts of money for a white apple drawing is OK, then you’re evidently coming to the wrong forum.

In the default battery settings many things go unseen - get an app to monitor your CPU, as described in this forum post: Fed up with Fairphone battery problems - #8 by fishmi

And @Patrick1 is probably right that it’s the Play Store in your case. What might help is deleting the data of the Play Store or Google Play Services app to ‘reset’ it.

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Yep.

I am not yet quite sure how the mechanism works in the background. There is the file indexing service (Media storage) with its sub-services starting as soon as the data structure on any available media has been altered. It can be partially controlled by placing those .nomedia files in folders which should not be scanned.
Usually after every reboot the service starts to scan and also after having un-/installed apps or transferred files, taken new pictures etc. Sometime it can take long time until this service finishes its job.
Then again there is permanent traffic going on with all Google apps and services. Also the play store keeps a precise list of all installed apps and even removed apps. Many third party apps also keep on transmitting data to somewhere.

These background actions actually have a noticeable impact on network traffic and battery life. If not monitoring them most users cannot believe how much is going on with the phone although the screen may be locked pretending the phone is asleep.

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