iOS 12 Battery Stats - Please help!

[Jamie2039]

Hi - name is Jamie and new to the forums. Been a long time Apple purchaser and currently on a iPhone X.

I’ve been trying to work out the new battery stats on iOS12, in particular the screen on and screen off times - they don’t seem to make any sense!

The screen on seems to work and add up but the screen off time seems to be all over the place and not correspond to what’s actually happening on my phone.

Prime example of this is I left for work this morning just before 6am and started to stream music via BT on my car audio.

I played it for 16 minutes and got to work and turned the engine off which killed the music. At no time during this period did I activate the screen.

I checked the screen on and off activity data between 06:00 and 07:00 before I got out the car and it showed 7mins of music in the background with 5mins of that screen off and 2mins of screen on (I did look at settings which accounts for a minute of screen on), so fairly accurate but still not bang on. The 5am to 6am section looked ok and the times the music played added up between the 5-6am section and the 6-7am section.

The main issue comes when I check the same stats close to 7am (with more use of the phone having the screen on). It now shows that during the time of 6-7am my screen off activity is shown as 2mins and screen on 5mins?!

I can see how the screen on time will have increased as I’ve used the phone but how on earth can the screen off time decrease? If it was 5mins logged 30mins prior how can it now be only 2mins, surely this can never change as screen off activity will always be screen off and logged appropriate?

 

[imagineadam]

It’s all screwed up right now. I don’t think either tracker is tracking things accurately. My screen on time and screen time never match either which makes no sense. My screen off time is always wrong too. I’ve played music or podcasts, locked the phone and started the stopwatch on my Apple Watch and then compare after some time and it’s never right!!

Here’s an example of my screen time and screen on usage being off. Weird how screen time is reporting more screen time than screen on usage for this period of time... how can this be?!?

Oh and sorry I can’t help you. I’m just as confused and frustrated as you are! I’m trying to just never look at the stats anymore and just use my phone!

 

[Jamie2039]

It’s all screwed up right now. I don’t think either tracker is tracking things accurately. My screen on time and screen time never match either which makes no sense. My screen off time is always wrong too. I’ve played music or podcasts, locked the phone and started the stopwatch on my Apple Watch and then compare after some time and it’s never right!!

Here’s an example of my screen time and screen on usage being off. Weird how screen time is reporting more screen time than screen on usage for this period of time... how can this be?!?

Oh and sorry I can’t help you. I’m just as confused and frustrated as you are! I’m trying to just never look at the stats anymore and just use my phone!

Just been digging into the comparison of screen time and the "screen on" within the battery section on my phone

It seems the screen time is far more accurate, if an app is on the screen for 20 seconds for example its recorded exact in screen time but within the "screen on" section within battery its recorded as a minute. it seems the "screen on" is only able to record in full minutes hence over the course of a day the differences are quite vast.

 

[LoveToMacRumors]

Hi - name is Jamie and new to the forums. Been a long time Apple purchaser and currently on a iPhone X.

I’ve been trying to work out the new battery stats on iOS12, in particular the screen on and screen off times - they don’t seem to make any sense!

The screen on seems to work and add up but the screen off time seems to be all over the place and not correspond to what’s actually happening on my phone.

Prime example of this is I left for work this morning just before 6am and started to stream music via BT on my car audio.

I played it for 16 minutes and got to work and turned the engine off which killed the music. At no time during this period did I activate the screen.

I checked the screen on and off activity data between 06:00 and 07:00 before I got out the car and it showed 7mins of music in the background with 5mins of that screen off and 2mins of screen on (I did look at settings which accounts for a minute of screen on), so fairly accurate but still not bang on. The 5am to 6am section looked ok and the times the music played added up between the 5-6am section and the 6-7am section.

The main issue comes when I check the same stats close to 7am (with more use of the phone having the screen on). It now shows that during the time of 6-7am my screen off activity is shown as 2mins and screen on 5mins?!

I can see how the screen on time will have increased as I’ve used the phone but how on earth can the screen off time decrease? If it was 5mins logged 30mins prior how can it now be only 2mins, surely this can never change as screen off activity will always be screen off and logged appropriate?

Those battery stats are misleading in a way. The off screen time doesn't match the min that apps are in "background"

Also the "new" battery stats doesn't show the full screen on time since last charge.

Gotta be honest, I rollbacked to iOS 11 just for this

 

[C DM]

Gotta be honest, I rollbacked to iOS 11 just for this

I've seen a couple of people mention something like this, and purely out of curiosity, it kind of makes me wonder, is it that one of the primary and frequent use cases of devices essentially nothing more than just to look at and keep track of battery statistics that that alone or that primarily warrants something on the level of rolling back a whole OS version?

 

[Jamie2039]

Those battery stats are misleading in a way. The off screen time doesn't match the min that apps are in "background"

Also the "new" battery stats doesn't show the full screen on time since last charge.

Gotta be honest, I rollbacked to iOS 11 just for this

This can be the case though, for example if you have the music app on the screen with the screen active, whatsapp could be in the background downloading info at the same time so wouldn't record any time under "screen off" unless the download continued to process after you turned the screen off.

One rule to follow is that if the off screen time doesn't match the apps listed as in the background then look for the app on that list has spent the maximum time in the background, this time shouldn't be greater than the on screen time. You can tell thi sway apps that have had background activity while the screen is on.

Still doesn't explain my original post though as to how the screen off time has reduced within 30 mins from what it was!

 

[imagineadam]

Just been digging into the comparison of screen time and the "screen on" within the battery section on my phone

It seems the screen time is far more accurate, if an app is on the screen for 20 seconds for example its recorded exact in screen time but within the "screen on" section within battery its recorded as a minute. it seems the "screen on" is only able to record in full minutes hence over the course of a day the differences are quite vast.

Exactly. If you open up say 40 apps quickly right after the current hour passes it will show up 1m for each of the apps so it says you have used the screen on for 40 minutes even though it’s only been like 5 minutes past that hour. It’s goofy. The screen time does seem to be more accurate. They have some adjusting to do. I wish they would put back the usage and standby times back below all the crud they introduced at least.
[doublepost=1537546346][/doublepost]I literally just took a run for about 1 hour and listened to Spotify with my Bluetooth headphones and here’s my stats for that hour...!!!

I do want to add that I have a smart battery case and I have taken the phone out and put it back in between my run. I’m guessing the smart battery case isn’t so smart anymore with iOS 12!

 

[joeblow7777]

I can’t figure this out. I was just about to make a thread but then found this one.

How can I tell how many hours I’ve used my device since its last full charge??

 

[C DM]

I can’t figure this out. I was just about to make a thread but then found this one.

How can I tell how many hours I’ve used my device since its last full charge??

You have to manually add up the usage from individual hours displayed on the graph going back to when the device was charged last.

 

[joeblow7777]

You have to manually add up the usage from individual hours displayed on the graph going back to when the device was charged last.

Yeah, that’s much better than before.

 

[C DM]

Yeah, that’s much better than before.

Totally (once you add it all up)!

 

[geekiemac]

IDK if that's already been said, but Battery records "the last 24 hours" whereas Screen Time records "Today", which means the calendar day, starting at 00:00 and ending at 23:59. Therefore values might not always be the same.
That does not explain, of course, why a specific activity is recorded differently, but it might explain the differences in overall results.