FP2 battery saving challenge

[therob]

Hey,
following this topic I would like to start a small challenge about the battery usage for all FP2 users as follows:

1.) Post a screenshot of your Android Battery History page (for example see here)

• preferred: battery only between 80% and 20% (which is recommended for enhanced battery lifetime)

2.) Type some words about your usage during time screenshot covered

• 1 or 2 SIM at 2G or 3G or 2G/3G-mode
• data traffic enabled?
• WLAN, GPS, Bluetooth enabled?
• type of usage per day: ~hours of browsing, playing, music, GPS-navigation …

Let’s start the challange and see what the FP2 can provide for energy-saving-minded users.
But also power-users should post some screenshots, to see some “worst-case” scenarios…

Since FP lacks of some official numbers about battery lifetime, we can provide some here.

If you are interested in some general remarks about FP battery, have a look at this wiki-guide.
If we encounter some specialities for the FP2 we should add a seperate paragraph there.

Cheers, Robert

[paulakreuzer]

Well I didn’t use my FP2 much the last 27hours and went from 85% to 77% and from “approximately 8 days left” to still “approximately 8 days left”.

But since I’m not planning to really not using my phone for so long I’m quitting now.

• screen was at lowest
• battery saver on
• no SIM
• WiFi always enabled and connected (though “only” 10% active as it seems)
• All GAPPS disabled, no permissions that I was asked to give to google given (location services, “improve android”, “crash reports”,… )
• only used the phone to check whether I could reproduce issues described by other people on the forum.

[vivia]

FP2 Battery health and duration?

I just unplugged my phone when it was around 80% and noticed this gem. [image]

I think I win.

[therob]

No sorry, your phone already died yesterday. I would say you lost

[kuleszdl]

@vivia looks like a perfect candidate for opening a bug report.

[d2w]

Well besides what I already said here:

FP2 Battery health and duration?

@Moritz Well what did I do besides very little because I was rather busy at work: -No sync with google, I’m using email from another provider, and check it every 15mins, sometimes I sync Contacts & Calendar with my Desktop-Outlook using “MyPhoneExplorer” -Deactivated: Chrome (using Dolphin), Google App, Google Drive, Hangouts -Location is switched off -Use Llama to toggle the Wlan when I enter/leave home (it works with the GSM-Cells, not GPS needed) -No Messenger or push service in u…

My next advise is: don’t talk with your mom, because it will eat up your battery 
I didn’t make it till 13.1.2016 11:00, just got into the office with 2% left on 12.1. at about 9:00, so it lasted not quite 3 days, but it’s even a bit more than I expected.

[vivia]

@kuleszdl Not yet - IMHO that’s only a cosmetic issue, and the Fairphone team already has a lot of things to do, I’d rather leave that for now

[freibadschwimmer]

I get pretty much through the day with the phone, with - for me - normal smartphone usage.
I use it a lot to read newspaper, check emails, and (surprise surprise) to make phone calls and send text messages. Maybe I should add, that the internal drive is encrypted, which is supposed to eat some extra battery.

I somehow have the feeling that the battery of my FP1U lasted longer than that one of the FP2, though this is just a feeling, I cannot proof it.

Anyhow, the battery lasts me with my normal usage patterns pretty much one day.

Edit: It just came to my mind: While I feel that the FP2 battery doesn’t last very long (unfortunately), the battery on the other hand charges much quicker than from any of my other phones. Usually it takes less than an hour from some 20% to around 70%.

[vivia]

I got a worse bug btw. I enabled “Background sync” under Settings -> Accounts -> three dots, charged my phone, and since this morning it says that the battery will last -2 days !!!

[therob]

FP2 Battery health and duration?

There is a battery saving function: Settings > Battery > three dots symbol in top right corner. PS: Of course this proves nothing, but my widget says I have 8 days left with the battery at 85%…

Do you know what this setting exactly make?

[paulakreuzer]

I don’t know more than what it says:

It:

• reduces performance
• limits vibration
• limits location services
• limits background data

Email, Messaging & other Apps that rely on background data may not sync unless they are opened.

[Vincent]

I guess I’m lucky to have a well-functioning battery. I’m quite satisfied with it. Yesterday at 10:00 (23 1/2 hours ago) I unplugged the phone from charging during the night (which, as I’ve read above, is not to be recommended) at 100%. One full day later, it’s 9:30 now, the battery is at 71% and 2 days left, according to the estimate. 12% of battery usage is gone due to Wifi, so what I did now is turn Wifi as well as mobile connection off to save power. Too bad it can’t be done with one click (flight mode turns off receiving phone calls as well). So when I’m outside and want to use the internet, I’ll turn mobile on, when I’m at home and want to use the internet (but why would I at home? just for updates) I’ll turn Wifi on.

Usage yesterday:

• Wifi at home/3G when outside was active.
• I played some pink noise to improve the sound (inspelen/einspielen of the audio),
• listened to mp3’s for half an hour or so
• I checked my email twice while I was outside.
• that’s all as far as I can remember.

*edit: would love to show a screenshot of 71% after 24 hours and 2 days to go, but how do I make a screenshot?

[Vincent]

Just found out how to make a screenshot:

Continuing the discussion from How to make a screenshot with FP2:

@Kephson

Hi, hold the volume down and the power button -> done

Here it is:

[3on]

Wow, I am impressed. But then you didn’t use your screen nearly at all? It seems that the screen is consuming a lot of battery, even when put on lowest… I got a thought about if this could be due to the flickering? And that the screen when put on lowest may drain more battery than if put on, let say half, when the flickering is gone? Just a thought…

[Vincent]

@3on

Wow, I am impressed. But then you didn’t use your screen nearly at all? It seems that the screen is consuming a lot of battery, even when put on lowest

I guess for some 15-20 minutes yesterday. That’s more than what the average usage of mine will be I guess. I use my mobile phone number to be reachable in case of emergency, call in emergencies and call people who only have a mobile number. I will use the Fairphone just as I did my mp3-player to listen to music on the road (when walking or in public transport, listening to music is too dangerous on a bike). Now that I have a smarthphone, I can look up information like the bus travel times when I’m walking or consult an offline map (Maps.me), search for information and I can now make use of the QR codes in museums that give extra information on the exhibits. I don’t see any other use for it. 15-20 minutes a day is more than the average that will be I guess, once I don’t spend time trying things out.

I don’t usually check for email on my phone, I do that at ease behind my desktop. And for my ease of mind, I don’t use any social media (well, then call YouTube a social medium in panel tests, but I only use that account to bookmark favourite video’s). So I don’t know why people spend so many time looking at their phones, but I can’t imagine myself doing it much.

*edit: 530 euro is a lot of money for so little use, I realize. It’s spend by me mostly to make a statement we as a consumer are willing to buy fair and sustainable electronics, if only they will be produced. My main dream is when in the future I can buy a motherboard, graphics card, SDD’s etc. for my desktop that are mined and produced sustainably and fairly (screen active for my desktop is nearly 50 times the time my phone’s screen is active I guess, some 10 hours a day).

update: 4% of the battery got used the last 8 hours. Wifi and mobile connection off, 2 short phone calls, no other usage (3% power got added by plugging in my phone to upload the screenshot, bringing it back to 67% ()):

(*): which of course begs the question: how do I avoid cheating? As soon as I connect my phone to my desktop to upload a screenshot image, the battery gets a boost, bam, rising from 64 to 67% full. Sorry (If you look closely at the image, you can spot the 2 tiny bumps at the time I uploaded an image to create a post in this topic )

[therob]

how do I avoid cheating?

Don’t worry…since I guess there is no jackpot for a price, it doesn’t matter.
I think I will have a quite similar average usage than you and like that it is obviously possible to rech at least some days with moderate usage, as I am are used to with the FP1 (4-5 days).
So lets see, I just starting in the next days with it.
@vincent, I would like to follow your battery usage progress, please upload some more screenshots in the next days…if you want. It is a nice comparison witht the “heavy load users” “complaining” about 8h usage

[Vincent]

I would like to follow your battery usage progress, please upload some more screenshots in the next days…

I will. See you later.

[LaurieJ]

I’ve been travelling and so my new phone has had fairly heavy use. The battery has lasted reasonably well, surviving whole days of trains/meetings/navigating in unfamiliar places, although I have to manually do things I would have had automatic tools for on FP1. For instance, JuiceDefender did a great job on FP1 of extending battery life whilst still pulling down email etc every 5-15 minutes, so I’d still get alerts for twitter DMs and other things I needed. In FP2, juice defender no longer works (AOSP fail) and so i’ve tried the built in android battery saver, which seems pretty good at saving power but means I have to keep unlocking and using the phone to check things. (or I turn off battery saver and make sure I manually turn off wifi/data/bt whenever possible, which is more effort than i’d like!).