Battery life issues?

[rich67]

I've had mine for about 5 days, and noticed the battery life was a tad bit better than my Droid X. I realized recently that my Wifi was on all the time (since I liked the phone to hook right up to my network when I got home), and that the battery was getting eaten up pretty quick. I'd leave for work (8.5 hour day) with a 100% charge, and come home with a 45-50% charge with moderate use (one or two phone calls, texting about 20 times, Facebook checks and some browsing). I noticed even sitting around in standby, the battery would drop about 1% every 30 minutes or so. I turned wi fi off, and noticed that there was no noticeable drain after well over an hour in standby. So I'd have to say that wi fi is a major culprit. It does a connection search routinely, and this eats up the battery. Even on a wifi network, I think it eats the battery even if you aren't surfing.
I have all my location settings ON, and here are my Cloud settings, which I think has a lot to do with the battery life. I'm gonna run it through a full work day tomorrow with these settings, and let you guys know how it fairs.

 

[gitit20]

Mine is a lot better after the 5.0.1 update but its a good idea to back up and then update then restore then re sync it

 

[rich67]

Here's how I am fairing so far today. Not too shabby, but this is some pretty light use. It's doing better than my Android, and I am pushing Gmail right now. Light browsing, email checking and response, notifications for Facebook, checking out Twitter, and texting.

 

[aNz]

Some reports saying that the 5.1 updates hasn't actually fixed the battery problem...

Anyone here using 5.1 ? Whats your experience like? Any improvements with battery life?

 

[rich67]

Is that 5.0.1? Or 5.1? Sorry, I'm new to the Iphone. Mine shows 5.0.1.

 

[vishhh]

even after 5.0.1 battery life still remains an issue ... wait n watch !

 

[ralphtrent]

over 20% drop over nite

Hi,
First post in this forum, new iPhone user. Got the 4s on 10.14 from verizon.

I charged my phone last night before i went to bed and it was at 97%. I had my alarm set for 7:15am. I woke up and it was at 75%. What the heck? I looked at my usage and the Usage and Standby where nearly identical. 7 hours, 29 Usage, 7 hours, 40 minutes standby. how is that possible when I was sleeping? Does having an alarm constantly tick away battery life? I pulled up all the apps I had "open" and killed them all. Since then, the Usage and Standby time have seperated a bit but still bothered that it happened?

Is there any log I can look at to see what was happening during those 7 hours. I looked at the messages log for 12/5 and 12/6 but nothing stood out.

Thanks,
RlaphTrent

 

[rich67]

I wonder is usage refers to the phone polling to get emails or notifications. Mine sure as heck doesn't do that when idle. There may be some setting that you have on that should be shut off- I'd review this thread: http://forums.tipb.com/iphone-4s-forum/205622-iphone-battery-management.html
I don't go totally crazy with the settings- I never go into airplane mode, but I always turn off wi fi away from home and make sure the apps are closed down.

 

[ralphtrent]

Wifi was off as the baby monitor gets in the way and Fetch New Data is off and set to manually. Brightnet was at 70% roughly, but the screen was off. Location was on, but limited by apps. I am thinking that some background app was running. Not sure why, but i keep going back to thinking its Camera+, but I have not proof, just one of those apps i use alot.

 

[hunoosh]

I'm slowing down :-/ phone isn't "new" anymore.

 

[minister]

Over the past few nights, I've been rather upset over my 4s. What i usually do is charge my phone up while we're watching tv at night, and then when I go to bed, I take my iPhone with me and watch a video on hulu+ or netflix while falling asleep. Typically, when I"m done watching said shows, the battery will be at 93-95% after one sitcom of 23 minutes or so.

Since Monday of this week, when I wake up in the morning, my battery has shot down to 65-70%. Thats after sitting idle all night, from 95% down to 65%.

Last night, I even made sure that when I set my phone down, I closed all applications. The only thing I didn't do was unplug my headphones.

About a week ago, I had finally downloaded the first Infinity Blade game, and noticed it was sucking me dry as well, but that's to be expected. I finally, last night before bed, deleted the game from my phone, thinking it may have a snag in it. That's the only thing I've downloaded recently.

But to no avail, this morning, after closing all apps, and deleting the Infinity Blade app, I woke up with a dismal 70% left. I had a 3gs for 2 years, and even the last day I used it I would wake up with 95%.

My wife also has said hers has been getting abysmal battery life.

Any ideas? I've got most of the things turned off that we're supposed to turn off to make for better battery life, but it still is just awful!. I woke up at 7:30, its now 11:30, and I haven't used my phone at all except to check email, and its at 49%, down from 65% in a short 4 hour span, and that's from not using it at all!!!!

 

[DannyMichel]

Wow, so I've had this phone since it came out. Never had battery issues. My battery issues started around the time I had to go into DFU and restore my phone from a backup. Around the same time, I started downloading a lot of apps. I never really had that many apps before about a week ago.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[rstark18]

@ministerman are you running notifications for apps? I don't know if imagining or not but Facebook notifications seem to drain my battery more than usual. I've had it on and off it it seems better with it off.

 

[rich67]

How is the reception in your home? Poor? Excellent? Here's my conclusion on this battery life issue:
I personally find that the phone sucks battery if it is in an area with a very weak 3G signal, and it constantly flips between 3G and extended network. I was in a class all last week, and the classroom was pretty bad for reception- my battery would drain just sitting on my desk. But, once I am at home, it did awesome-with small, expected battery drain as it sat idle. If I leave my phone unplugged all night, from 11pm to 7am, I will only go from 100% to about 86%. And that's with Facebook notifications, Gmail push (exchange) all on, and wi fi off.
Try this out: turn wi fi on and stay connected solely to that all night. Compare the battery drain between that and leaving it on 3G all night. If you notice a significant difference, I am willing to bet that your location has a lousy 3G signal, and the phone is periodically searching for signal which eats the battery. Your battery drain is definitely pretty significant. But I honestly think this has a lot to do with reception more so than it has to do with notifications, apps and the like. Also, the display is a HUGE factor in battery life. If you have it jacked way up to 100, your battery isn't going to last too long. I have mine set for automatic, so when I do access my phone, the impact is minimal. But all this talk about putting the phone into airplane mode and shutting off notifications negates the need for a smart phone, eh? Then I might as well just wait til I get home to check my stuff....no thanks.

 

[rstark18]

@rich67 I hate to tell you this but your battery drain is bad also. As an example. On my iP4 on iOS 4 I could leave my phone unplugged all night and it would only drain a few (5 at most) percent.

I do agree that weak 3G is killer on a battery, but your talking to people (me) that have been living in the same house and using iPhones for years. It is definitely an issue with ios 5. My wife gets SIGNIFICANTLY better battery life than me because she doesn't have any 3rd party notifications.
Here is a test for you. Tonight before going to bed turn OFF notifications completely. I bet tomorrow morning you battery will be close to 100%.

 

[rich67]

Heck, it's still better than my Droid ever was, but I'll give it a shot..

 

[Philbaines]

After having terrible battery life..5hours and it would be dead.

I did a restore and this is my result!

Chuffed!

 

[minister]

@ministerman are you running notifications for apps? I don't know if imagining or not but Facebook notifications seem to drain my battery more than usual. I've had it on and off it it seems better with it off.

The only notifications I have on are weather, phone, messages, reminders and calendar.

 

[minister]

How is the reception in your home? Poor? Excellent? Here's my conclusion on this battery life issue:
I personally find that the phone sucks battery if it is in an area with a very weak 3G signal, and it constantly flips between 3G and extended network. I was in a class all last week, and the classroom was pretty bad for reception- my battery would drain just sitting on my desk. But, once I am at home, it did awesome-with small, expected battery drain as it sat idle. If I leave my phone unplugged all night, from 11pm to 7am, I will only go from 100% to about 86%. And that's with Facebook notifications, Gmail push (exchange) all on, and wi fi off.
Try this out: turn wi fi on and stay connected solely to that all night. Compare the battery drain between that and leaving it on 3G all night. If you notice a significant difference, I am willing to bet that your location has a lousy 3G signal, and the phone is periodically searching for signal which eats the battery. Your battery drain is definitely pretty significant. But I honestly think this has a lot to do with reception more so than it has to do with notifications, apps and the like. Also, the display is a HUGE factor in battery life. If you have it jacked way up to 100, your battery isn't going to last too long. I have mine set for automatic, so when I do access my phone, the impact is minimal. But all this talk about putting the phone into airplane mode and shutting off notifications negates the need for a smart phone, eh? Then I might as well just wait til I get home to check my stuff....no thanks.

I leave my phone on wi-fi all the time. I have excellent coverage in my home and office. My office is across the street, so I'm never without a wi-fi signal. So when you say you're willing to bet I have lousy 3g coverage, you'd be wrong. I also have my display on auto brightness, so you'd be wrong on that.

Its got to be a software issue.

 

[mwrice79]

I have the battery issue as well. It seems I'm using the phone even less for fear of draining it before the day is out. I will say that over time the battery seems to be better. I can go 2 days with mild use, mostly audio play without charging. However if I use it for Internet, calls, or god forbid games or video I'm lucky to get 4 hours on a full charge. The new update doesn't seem to have fixed anything.