I run a Fairphone 5, stock Android. I have “eco charge” (charge slowly) enabled and “battery protect” (only charge to 80%). What I experience frequently, yet not reproducibly, is that the phone indicates is was charging, yet appearently is not. For example, this morning:
My phone was at 17% battery.
I plugged it in; it said “battery 17%, charging slowly, full in 2:30 h” (number is a guess).
Roughly 30 minutes later, I rechecked, and it said “battery 15%, charging slowly, full in 2:50 h”
I think the most plausible explanation was that the phone was not charging at all, even though it indicated otherwise. It could also be that plugging in the phone caused processes to use more than the ~5W the charger delivers on eco charge, but I find this unlikely.
Similar situations have happened to me, with different chargers. Rebooting the phone usually fixes it, switching off eco charge probably also (not completely sure tbh). Switching off the phone fixes it. Hence, I rather don’t think it is a hardware-related issue.
If you want statistics on the charging, you could install Accubattery. It will show current watts charging and the statistics for the charging done.
It will be easier to spot if there are external problems, like a bad USB-C port, cable or charger.
It might be one of the things you mention too, but I’d start there. If you have some data to give to FP Support, it will be easier for them to see the reason.
Hi @pbiel, thanks for giving so many details and linking to relevant threads.
I also have a FP5 running Android 15 and I use Eco Charge mode and Battery Protect, but I don’t think I ever experience what you describe. I’ll be paying attention in the next few days to see if I can reproduce this.
Is there a way to test this? For example, using the app mentioned in the thread you linked ( Wattz | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository ) or going to Battery Usage and checking under the View by Apps or View by systems if something has an usually high percentage while charging?
Also, besides different chargers, does this also happen with different cables? If it’s useful to know, I use the charger and cable in the pictures below (USB PD 3.0 AC Power Supply Model A2009-03).
I use the USB-C to USB-C connected to a “30W MAX” input on the charger.
Did you read the first post? Let me quote it for you: “…with different chargers".
I have exactly the same problem. When Eco-Charging is enabled, the charge level either stays the same or the FP5 slowly discharges. Only when I turn off Eco-Charging does it charge (even with a 65W power adapter), but only slowly.
I only use high-quality cables and have tested it with several of them. I’ve also tested several PD-compatible power adapters, and it’s always the same. “Only” three of my four FP5s in the family have this problem; with one of them, charging works perfectly even in Eco-Charge mode.
Yes. I am a lazy person, I always keep my cables plugged into the respective chargers. I have seen this occur (though not every time) with different chargers and cables, older and newer. Also, the fact that (sometimes) re-booting the phone – while plugged in to the same charger with the same cable – “fixes” the issue, makes me believe it is at least also a software issue (which might be triggered by some hardware components combination though).
Thanks for pointing out to Accubattery and Wattz. I now installed the latter one. Let’s see what it reports if/when the problem occurs again. Is there any other debugging/logging tool that could be handy?
