Horrible Battery Life

[Sky]

Hi,

I got an iPhone ten days ago. The battery life was normal for the first 3 days or so. Then one day, I went to work with 3/4 full battery, put the iPhone to sleep while at work, and when I brought it back to life, I had the low battery life icon...

Wifi was disabled, and I had not used it ONCE at work. What gives??

Today, the same thing happened only I went to work with a FULL charge, and 4 hours into my shift, the battery wad dead.

Any suggestions?

 

[Big-TDI-Guy]

See if your mail is trying to refresh on a given interval - depending on how frequent it is, if you have poor signal - it could be pulling your battery down trying. (increase the interval time)

You disabled WIFI - that will help. Also turn off your bluetooth if it's not being used.

Perhaps your iphone just needs to be "rebooted". I've had my iphone tear through battery life, and I did a hard reset. (hold the on/off button and home button at the same time for 6 seconds) You won't lose data, it just restarts the unit.

Even my Treo would tear through battery life, once I reset it, things went back to normal.

 

[biblicalfury]

I'm having the same issues.

I went to the Apple store last week and they swapped iPhone for me after my original (probably 3 month old) phone was draining battery power like crazy. That's even after restores and resets frequently and a restore in the Apple store.

So the new one now is starting to do the same damn thing. The battery died last night after very little use. This morning, I pulled it off the charger and set it on my desk for two hours or so. I go to make a phone call and it's just above 50%. No wifi or bluetooth. 3 minutes of usage. I love the iPhone, but this is just awful.

Here's hoping the reset helps.

By the way, I have my email set to update manually, but a yahoo account updates on it's own. I don't get much of anything important with that account - is it worth deleting from the phone to see if that helps at all?

 

[Sky]

Hi,

I had also disabled my mail account as well as bluetooth. Now, I am not getting much reception inside the office...maybe 1 bar, sometimes none at all.

I do have text messages coming in throughout the day, that I can't read until I turn it back on from sleep mode.

Could those waiting SMS and no signal have an effect on battery life?

My job also involves communicating with other co-workers by radio. Could radio magnetic interference cause battery malfunction? I usually have my iPhone placed in a carrying case on my belt.

Thanks again!

 

[Big-TDI-Guy]

The low signal will have an impact on your battery life - but I doubt enough to kill it so quickly.

Other radios / EMI should not be causing your battery to malfunction.

 

[calvy]

The low signal will have an impact on your battery life - but I doubt enough to kill it so quickly.

Other radios / EMI should not be causing your battery to malfunction.

I disagree. I work in a data center which gets no cell reception what so ever, for whatever reasons, and an 8 hour day in the office can easily kill my battery and leave me in the red for the drive home. I usually turn it off when I go to the office now. Luckily, I work from home a ton.

 

[Big-TDI-Guy]

An 8 hour shift I can see killing the battery with low signal (though that is still very low). I was referring to about 4 hours - if it kills the battery within 4 hours - something is definitely wrong.

Also - I work in an EMI shielded cleanroom - where you get zero signal - and I have no problem going a whole day with my cellular radio on. Still typically have at least 70% battery left at the end of a 9 hour shift - using itunes for a bulk of the day.

Perhaps when there is no signal at all - the radio goes into "sleep mode" (I've had CDMA based phones do this in the past, I can't see GSM being any different). Maybe you're on the half-way point of no signal / sleep mode, so it keeps trying to ping the towers.

 

[isleofjib]

By the way, I have my email set to update manually, but a yahoo account updates on it's own. I don't get much of anything important with that account - is it worth deleting from the phone to see if that helps at all?

sounds like you have your yahoo account set to "push" your emails. in your phone, go into your yahoo account settings->advanced, and turn off push. that should fix the yahoo thing.

to the OP, try doing a complete reset/restore (from itunes) if you haven't already. this may fix that problem.

 

[Sky]

Thank you all for your inputs. I have done a reset as was suggested, and recharged the battery. I'll be heading out to work soon, and I'll report back if the battery discharges completely again.

To entertain my curiosity, how does having no signal actually consume more power and leads to a faster discharge?

Also, could the magnet of the carrying case have any effect at all?

Thanks!

 

[isleofjib]

my understanding is that when there is poor/no signal, the phone has to constantly search for the network. that searching takes more power staying connected to the network, thus draining the battery faster.

 

[Big-TDI-Guy]

When the signal is low - the phone uses more power attempting to transmit to the cell tower. If you were right next to a tower, it scales back on the transmitter to conserve energy. Being on the cusp of no signal could be just enough to force continuous pinging - draining it.

Magnet should have no real effect, unless it was large enough to obscure the plastic antenna on the back. (physically blocking it) Otherwise, no.

 

[johnharbo]

Improving battery life

I had the same problem. One day my phone totally discharged in 5 hours when I never even used the phone. The keys are turning wifi off and turning off the frequent automatic email retrievals. With those changes, I can now make it through the day.

 

[mrJnC]

FWIW, it took about 3 charge cycles before the battery seemed to stabilize in my iPhone. Each time the battery life improved somewhat.

Be sure to use the mains charger instead of usb from a computer, it's quicker and provides more current. Also note that if a computer is sleeping, often it will cease providing power on the USB bus.

Keep in mind that edge data requires more power than wifi... if you're in a spot of bad reception and the iPhone is set to fetch email frequently, it can drain a battery quickly.

 

[Vegantnt]

fimware?

I didn't notice that anyone said what firmware they were using.

1.1.1 had a serious problem with power consumption.

in the top right corner you would notice the blue arrow indicating music was playing... even though there wasn't.

it was basically playing a soundless mp3

ringtones and system sounds would come out the speaker as usual but that file would play in the background.

it brought the standby time to only a few hours

i'm using 1.1.2 now and have yet to have a problem

 

[Sky]

Here is an update. The battery has been holding charge remarkably well since its last full charge on Sunday 11/11.

Now, Sunday happened to be the day where I did a reset, and also upgraded the firmware to 1.1.2.

I'll keep monitoring the battery life and I'll report right back here.