Unwanted phone battery behavior

daan_deurloo

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Had some weird issue today while using Google Maps on my phone to navigate.

I had 15% left on the battery and thought, i'm gonna make it, as the distance was not to far away.

Like 10 min later it was on 5% and in less then 10 minutes it was dead, down to 0% and shut itself down.

Is this a normal behavior for a dying lithium ion battery in a phone ? I personally don't think so.
Phone is two years old and charged everyday, and sometimes twice a day during heavy use.

Charge cycles ? Might be way over 1000~1100.

Also done a measurement at how much mah it could take in using a meter between the usb port of the charger and cable. Only took like 1852mah, which is way less then the orginal capacity.


Now the problem is, is it totally worth getting a new battery installed ? Have a Galaxy S6 and it has a glued glass backcover and fake batteries are over the world.


I can get one for €29,95 and replace it myself. Fake or not a fake battery ? Don't want it exploding.
 

terjee

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It's normal, even for a fresh battery. Sadly, 15% is the new empty.

Ignore this behavior when making a decision, but if you're dissatisfied with battery runtime, do replace it, and do so with an original battery, preferably at an authorized place. I'm not too worried about your skills, but these days I'd worry about liability if your neighbors house burns down.

Expected life of a LiIon is 80% after 2-300 cycles, and about 600 cycles useful life.

2 years is about what you'd expect. Many (including myself) go beyond that, and just add power banks, car chargers and so on.
 

daan_deurloo

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I must tell: Charged the phone while it was turned off. I have read that this ( might ? ) calibrate something.
I think this is not true, but we will see.

I'm known to the 300-500 cycle life, so yeah. I will keep an eye on it, and will do another charge capacity test in a month or so ( about 30~40 cycles later ).
 

terjee

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These days, batteries are "smart". There could be an app that gives you access to various internals, such as what the battery things about it's own capacity relative to a new one, exact number of charges and so on.
Aorry I didn't think if it before, you reminded me when you mentioned calibration.
 

ChrisGarrett

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I must tell: Charged the phone while it was turned off. I have read that this ( might ? ) calibrate something.
I think this is not true, but we will see.

I'm known to the 300-500 cycle life, so yeah. I will keep an eye on it, and will do another charge capacity test in a month or so ( about 30~40 cycles later ).

You obviously have an older battery, so keeping that in mind, most of these newer smart phones are running dozens and dozens of apps in the back round, chewing up processor cycles and draining batteries faster that people realize.

Check your phone and delete, or shut down, apps that you don't want running during the course of a day.

Chris
 

terjee

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You obviously have an older battery, so keeping that in mind, most of these newer smart phones are running dozens and dozens of apps in the back round, chewing up processor cycles and draining batteries faster that people realize.

Check your phone and delete, or shut down, apps that you don't want running during the course of a day.

This is a bit of a myth. iPhones are great at suspending or "freezing" background apps, and I don't think android is much worse. For specific background workers (music, track-loggers) it's true, but for most generic apps, it's actually counter-productive to shut them down.
 

ChrisGarrett

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This is a bit of a myth. iPhones are great at suspending or "freezing" background apps, and I don't think android is much worse. For specific background workers (music, track-loggers) it's true, but for most generic apps, it's actually counter-productive to shut them down.

I don't think it's as benign as you make it out to be, but I have a flip phone, so what do I know?

https://www.techlicious.com/tip/whats-draining-your-iphone-battery/

I'm sure you're well versed in that stuff, but for the noobs who might not be, there's a good read.

Chris
 

terjee

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I don't think it's as benign as you make it out to be, but I have a flip phone, so what do I know?

https://www.techlicious.com/tip/whats-draining-your-iphone-battery/

I'm sure you're well versed in that stuff, but for the noobs who might not be, there's a good read.

Wow, cool! That's the most technically accurate and thorough writeup I've seen of this type!

For anyone reading along but not clicking the link; it also says not to shut down apps, but to disable background updates. That can be useful if you need all the battery you can get. I was thinking of the force quitting of apps themselves.
 

Kurt_Woloch

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I wouldn't be surprised to find this happening on a laptop with a slowly dying battery which is also "smart".

What happens is that the battery tries to keep track on how much power it has received and given, but the measurements are not terribly accurate.

Especially if you're not normally running your battery all the way down, it may think it still has got a higher capacity than it actually has. This especially happens if it isn't charged to 100% either (probably out of good reasons). The battery only may have some values which, if the voltage falls below them, tells it that its remaining capacity now must be below a certain value. For instance, a battery might think it has reached 5% at a level of 3.5 V or lower, or it has reached 20% at a level of 3.6 V or lower. If your battery has done that, it might have thought it still has 10% left when it reached 3.5 V, but then it decided differently and the display jumped down to 3.5 V.

Now different batteries, even for the same device, have different logic for that. For instance, the battery I'm using in my Lenovo laptop deducts something from its estimated capacity from time to time in order to account for degradation, but the amount it deducts is only an average because degradation is actually dependent on several factors... how close to 100% it is being charged, how close to 0% it is being discharged, at what capacity level it is being stored and at what temperature it is being charged, discharged and stored. And degradation happens over time as well as by the cycles the battery goes through. So the average amount it deducts is only a gross estimate which is far from accurate. Anyway, the first battery I got with the laptop didn't do this, it only corrected its capacity on calibration, and then only if it was obvious that the estimated capacity was very wrong. A cheap replacement battery I got for it also doesn't do this deduction and even seems to have problems determining its actual capacity on calibrating. In addition to that, it seems to have the signal voltages set too high for the voltages it actually produces (probably because of using different cells with lower voltages than the chip was actually programmed for, or maybe as a safety measure?), so you might find it going from 100% to 50% at the normal speed, but then picking up on losing percents and reaching 0% at the time it actually should be at 40% (in fact it jumps down to 40% at reaching 10.8 Volts). On charging, it charges up to 59% and then jumps to 100%. However, if you look at the voltage curve, you find that the remaining 40% would actually have been available, only the battery insists it's already empty, and Windows 7 believes it and shuts down.

Those are the different behaviors I encountered. Your phone battery may do any of this or something completely different... however, in general with an aging battery it's normal for me to have it jump down somewhat at the end of a discharge.
 

Yamabushi

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I must tell: Charged the phone while it was turned off. I have read that this ( might ? ) calibrate something.
I think this is not true, but we will see.

I'm known to the 300-500 cycle life, so yeah. I will keep an eye on it, and will do another charge capacity test in a month or so ( about 30~40 cycles later ).
After replacing the battery in my Galaxy S5, I had some funny battery meter readings. I found and used these instructions, and calibration appears to have been restored.

How to calibrate an Android device battery without root access:
1. Discharge your phone fully until it turns itself off.
2. Turn it on again and let it turn itself off.
3. Plug your phone into a charger and, without turning it on, let it charge until the on-screen or LED indicator says 100 percent.
4. Unplug your charger.
5. Turn your phone on. It's likely that the battery indicator won't say 100 percent, so plug the charger back in (leave your phone on) and continue charging until it says 100 percent on-screen as well.
6. Unplug your phone and restart it. If it doesn't say 100 percent plug the charger back in until it says 100 percent on screen.
7. Repeat this cycle until it says 100 percent (or as close as you think it's going to get) when you start it up without being plugged in.
8. Now, let your battery discharge all the way down to 0 percent and let your phone turn off again.
9. Fully charge the battery one more time without interruption and you should have reset the Android system's battery percentage.
 

Timothybil

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I have noticed on my tablet that as the remaining battery level goes down, it drains faster. Since I am sure that there is a regulator in there somewhere, that only makes sense. The various electronics in the tablet/phone are wanting a certain amount of power. If the voltage in the cell is dropping, then current consumed has to increase to maintain the same level of power. It's an increasingly steep curve downward curve. That's one of the reasons I try to keep my tablet above 30%.
 

TinderBox (UK)

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I have had my tablet nearly 3 years, and i have only charged it to 100% about 7 times when i calibrate the battery, I normally only charge it to 80% and do not discharge below 20% before i charge it again, I only do this with device with sealed in battery`s i do the same with my HTC M7 One, that`s a few years old now.

I use GSam Battery Monitor Pro, you can set alarms for high/low battery level, also for battery fail, battery temperature, battery voltage, I have been using this app for years and it works well.

It would be nice if phones/tablets had battery save like a lot of notebooks notebooks to stop charging when it reaches 80% , I read that Sony might be going to add a battery save to there phones but whether they did i do not know.

Samsung with the Note 7 battery explosions, sent a firmware upgrade to stop the battery charging at 70-80% i cannot remember so that hardware is capable of doing this.

John.
 

StarHalo

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- Your phone battery is technically always "dying", as it will lose capacity as it ages. It's first evident when the phone starts dying short of the 0% mark, which it will die earlier from over time (without calibration.)

- If your phone supports charging at over 1 amp, faster charging wears the battery faster.

- There should be some form of "Low Power" mode in your settings which will prevent background apps from idling, this can make a profound difference in battery use, especially in Android phones which are infamous for background process battery drain. Be sure your apps are set to only update on permission, update installations are very taxing on the phone as a whole and should only be done while plugged in and over a wi-fi connection.

- Don't forget the possibility of a battery case, a ~$30 case which features its own battery to recharge your phone as needed; you can easily get ~250% total runtime versus the phone alone (enough to fully recharge the phone and then partially recharge it again.) If you're a bag/backpack carrier, an over the counter box of pills-sized battery pack can provide 4+ full charges, also for ~$30.
 

daan_deurloo

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After replacing the battery in my Galaxy S5, I had some funny battery meter readings. I found and used these instructions, and calibration appears to have been restored.

How to calibrate an Android device battery without root access:
1. Discharge your phone fully until it turns itself off.
2. Turn it on again and let it turn itself off.
3. Plug your phone into a charger and, without turning it on, let it charge until the on-screen or LED indicator says 100 percent.
4. Unplug your charger.
5. Turn your phone on. It's likely that the battery indicator won't say 100 percent, so plug the charger back in (leave your phone on) and continue charging until it says 100 percent on-screen as well.
6. Unplug your phone and restart it. If it doesn't say 100 percent plug the charger back in until it says 100 percent on screen.
7. Repeat this cycle until it says 100 percent (or as close as you think it's going to get) when you start it up without being plugged in.
8. Now, let your battery discharge all the way down to 0 percent and let your phone turn off again.
9. Fully charge the battery one more time without interruption and you should have reset the Android system's battery percentage.


Update regarding the battery itself:

New one is at the store, but waiting for the gasket for the back cover, since you need to use a heat gun to take it off.

I have charged the phone all the way to 100% being turned off, but that didn't really do anything to the battery life itself.

Same thing happened again today, playing Candy Crush with 15% left and suddenly it was 5% in 2 min. I can live with it, but it's always when you don't want to.

Battery is Genuine samsung, ordered from Samsung the store said. I don't want fake lipo's inside, especially being a phone and it can go boom.

Fast charging is turned off and one thing that i have noticed: It went from like 5% to 60% within 30 min on normal charge mode. Using a Galaxy Note 2 charger ( at work ).

Also have a Chinese Windows 10 tablet, and i do always charge it when it's around 15~30% left remaining. I have heard stories when you let it die, it might not turn on again.
 

TinderBox (UK)

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Well people run these battery calibrating apps that delete the calibration data so the phone/tablet is forced to create a new one, But i read that a Google engineer said it was a waste of time as the battery was calibrated every time it was charged to 100%

As Silverfox says, Battery`s don't die people kill them, well it is true you can baby a battery and it can last 5+ years, or you could be a gamer or other high drain app and it die in 6 months.

I bought a spare battery for my tablet over a year ago, and the one in my tablet just will not die.

John.
 

Timothybil

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I have had my Nexus 7 for at least two years and it is still going strong. It yells at me if it gets below 30%, so most times I charge it before then. I have charged it from almost any level, depending on what I plan to do with it in the next several hours. Reading ebooks obviously lasts the longest, but playing Freecell or Othello doesn't drain it very fast either, since the image is static for the most part. I can usually get a couple hours of video out of a full charge, and that is with the sound turned all the way up. So far I haven't really noticed any change in behavior over the years, so I have my fingers crossed.
 

daan_deurloo

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New cell has been installed yesterday during my work.

What can i say about a new lithium ion cell ? It lasts way longer and takes longer to charge, about 3~4 hours with the new battery in place. It was like 1.5~2 hours with the old battery.

I went ahead and took a chance, took it to work with about 57% charge in it and i had to charge it at about 15:30, which is very very good.
The old battery went from 100 to about 2% in the same time ( 06:45~16:00 ).

It was very pricey, compared to a 18650 cell :). Paid 70 eur for battery incl installation, No fake ones coming in my phone.

Currently doing a break in for the cell, which is don't charge it overnight and let it discharge all the way down to 5~10% and charge it fully again.
 

terjee

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Congrats. :)

€70 sounds almost reasonable enough by the way. Wouldn't be bad if it's €30 for the battery and €40 for the installation, given the amount of labour, and deposition (right term?) for risk (in case they mess up the occasional phone).

I'm still not pleased that things moved away from user replaceable batteries, but that's a different discussion. ;-)
 

daan_deurloo

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Congrats. :)

€70 sounds almost reasonable enough by the way. Wouldn't be bad if it's €30 for the battery and €40 for the installation, given the amount of labour, and deposition (right term?) for risk (in case they mess up the occasional phone).

I'm still not pleased that things moved away from user replaceable batteries, but that's a different discussion. ;-)

Battery still going strong without charging it during work, it will be empty, usually empty around 9pm, so lasts 14 hours on a charge.

All tho i've just seen it jumping from 9 to 3% straight away. Should calibrate it i guess.
Will put a meter across the cable to measure the mah's that puts it in ( 5V, so not really a perfect measurement. )

All tho, my 1 year old 10ah powerbank gets 10240mah in.


Recently got a new 20ah one with 18650 cells from LG ( atleast description says so ).
 
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