Phone battery life – how to extend

[Steve SNS]

So, philosophical debates about carrying an iphone or android or whatever aside…

Anyone have tips/suggestions insights into shutting down rogue apps, preventing hidden data/battery drains, etc, to extend useful battery life?

Last year I found that my 6 oz motorola made it through a week in the high country, though it was off most of the time.  (I turned it on in places where I thought I might be able to grab some emails or wanted to take a photo, but otherwise it was off.  Still had a fair amount of battery after a week.)

This year I am taking a longer trip.  Would like to think that with the same habits the phone will make it, but with a year’s worth of newer apps on top of the standard nonremovable bloatware…I worry.  When I turn it on I envision each app trying to go update itself…

Ideally, I just want my phone to startup and do absolutely nothing other than download my email, allowing me to fire off a few responses to folks who foolishly think I am working.  Then I shut it down and get back to enjoying the backcountry…repeat as necessary.

I would bet I am not the only one wondering, so if there are any more tech-savvy folks out there – I for one am all ears.

Cheers.

 

[Brad Rogers]

If you haven’t read it, this has some tips and tricks

http://www.adventurealan.com/iphone-gps-map-backpacking/

[Andrew Priest]

You should be able to set your apps etc for updating on wireless only which should avoid the concern about them updating. Also set anything that refreshes, e.g., emails to manual so you control what actually gets refreshed when you turn the phone on.

[Tipi Walter]

I never use any kind of cellphone for anything except backpacking trips, otherwise we have the usual home telephone.  So, I use a call and text only phone with no data plan and it’s an old Nokia Tracfone purchased at walmart and uses calling cards so my costs are about $15 per month or less.  It has worked very well for the last 10 years and is still going strong.

I find “sweet spots” in the backcountry where I can make calls and check in with the Significant Udders.  Otherwise it’s always turned off to conserve battery use.  One battery lasts me about 18 days in the summer and about 10 days in the winter so I bought a $6 spare battery at Amazon and these two batts will last me however long I want to stay out.

I use my Nokia as a sort of PLB when I need to bail, but I have to find a sweet spot of course.  All I want is call and text—I see no need or use for smartphones in the backcountry—and they are heavy.  Expensive.  Drain battery life.  Isn’t being on our home computer bad enough, do we need to drag out an internet device into the woods too?

[Idan Y]

Steve,

it depends on your tech skills.

I would use an Android cellphone, rooted, preferably not expensive with quality GPS chip. then download Lux (advanced brightness control) and Greenify to control background apps (it will freeze whatever apps you like – without uninstalling. so the minute you need an app, you just press on it and Greenify will release it for use)

As long as you have root – everything is possible and transparent. it’s not something I’d say about an iPhone – it’s much more complicated over Apple.

of course you need to adapt a conservative battery-behavior of turning on Airplane mode etc when possible.

 

[Steve SNS]

Idan:  Thanks – that’s what I was looking for (I do have android.)  Brad, useful link as well.  Some of those steps I had been taking, and again, felt pretty good about my results but room for improvement.

Tipi – you can leave devices home if you like.  Do you not take a camera?  Phone covers that too.  And for me, checking in and keeping the business running a few times here and there allows me to take a 2-3 week trip instead of one week.  So dragging the internet device along actually lets me enjoy the outdoors more.  Obviously your mileage varies.

Cheers

[MW]

My tips for using Android phone in no particular order:

• Turn off bluetooth and wifi.
• Set screen to lowest brightness that you can still use. Better yet. Don’t use it in the daytime or in the sun. I do most of my phone time at night where the low brightness does not matter. Screen usually counts for the biggest power drain. Use in shade rather than in the sun if using adaptive brightness so that it uses a lower brightness setting.
• Turn gps off. If you need it, turn it on when you need it an then off again. If you are in mobile reception range and have assisted gps, then it will get a lock fast. If not in mobile range, be in a clear spot so that it has the best line of sight to the satellites as it will scan the sky looking for any.  Find the timeouts to the search. After a lock, within a certain time, it will look in the general area to re-lock on the satellites, before attempting to rescan the sky. This is better than full sky rescans. But you might not always be in a good spot for this, and it still may not find the satellite, but every bit helps.
• If you don’t need data – turn if off. You will still get sms and voice messages, but no email.
• Use flight mode for short to medium length “off” periods. It is less battery draining than turning the phone off and on again. Test yourself for the drain per hour or day of flight mode, versus turning off and on again. When you start the phone, give it time for all the scans to finish to get the power drain. I turn off it will will be more than a 36 hours without use- usually its raining a lot and I’m worried about keeping everything dry, so the phone goes in a dry bag wrapped in plastic; so really not going to use it for a while.
• Turn off all effects – anything that moves or makes sound. This includes keyboard feedback effects.
• Set all display to lowest quality.  eg. Colour mode to normal, not vibrant.
• Turn off any wall paper that updates. Use a simple one colour background.
• Don’t watch video anything. If you must, low quality.
• Don’t play music. If you are, then use wired earphones rather than the speaker.
• Set display to shut off quickly, or manually turn it off soon as you are done. Don’t leave it time out on its own. This combines with locking the screen. I set the display to shut off on the minimum setting, but the lock to happen a lot latter, as I always manually lock the screen with the power button. This way, if I ponder too long writing an email or thinking about the map, the screen goes off saving power, but I don’t need to unlock (hassle and more power)  to get back to what I was doing.
• Turn off all apps that want to sync automatically. Sync the app manually if you need to use it. Some have sync on open, others a manual sync button.
• Install an app like cpu spy and check that nothing is keeping the cpu high. In flight mode, it should spend all its time in deep sleep. I found a couple apps kept waking and trying to do something even with the phone in flight mode. This kept the cpu high and drained battery. I removed those apps.
• Set image quality to low in apps if you can. Less to download, less to display and hence less power drain.
• Set portrait mode only – stop screen rotations automatically.

Not guaranteeing that all the options are best, just what I do. Some might be of marginal value – but you decide. Better yet, test it and find out how much difference it makes. Basically, you want to stop anything that uses power and minimise the time using power for anything that needs to run.

If you have an AMOLED type screen – you have more options. Use black for everything on screen that you can. On AMOLED screens “black” is ‘no power used’. So white writing on black background uses less power than black on white.  Grey uses less power than white – as some bits are black.  Not sure how the colours go after that.

Edit: all the above are without root. If you have root access, then you have more options.

Hope this helps.

M

[Bob Moulder]

My Samsung S5 lasts for about 5 days on airplane mode… camera ready for about 14 hrs per day, and then quick check of email and maybe a phone call to my wife if a signal is available. Other than that, I ping her with my SPOT and call it good. Anything involving more than a very rare position check with GPS (using Backcountry Navigator) really eats up the battery. However, a battery change on the S5 is super easy and a spare battery weighs 46.4g (1.64oz), so I’m easily good for a week for a weight of 239.1g (8.43oz), which includes phone, spare battery and Otter case.

[David Thomas]

If you’re happy with your Nokia Trakphone (or as I call, “the dog’s phone”) – great.  Muir, Hillary, and Meisner did a lot more with less than that.

But it dawned on me that while all the smart-phone apps are cool and all, it is bothersome, at times impossible to minimize battery usage on one.

So if you had an old, stupid, cheap, long-battery-life flip phone for texts and voices calls AND an iPod for music and as a camera, you’d cover many of the bases of a smart phone with lower cost per month and better battery life on each device, in part because you’d only fire each one up when you wanted its particular functions.

[Bob Moulder]

Messner?

lol, I know what you meant, Reinhold! ;^)

He’s one of the few old, bold mountaineers remaining. Man, he stuck it waaayyy out there. You’ve probably read The Crystal Palace.

[David Thomas]

And I was referred to Edmund, not Clinton.

[Eric Blumensaadt]

I have a “Pocket Juice” charger that uses a standard USB plug for both charging itself and discharging into your device. This unit can completely chart my iPhone5 twice. And it’s the size of two BIC lighters.

Putting your phone on “airplane mode” will help save the battery when using it just to receive GPS signals.

There are now several companies selling GPS apps for cell phones in Android and Apple formats. X-Hunt is one of these, tailored for hunters to show private property boundaries as well as roads of all types, public and private.

Seems that soon dedicated GPS units will be museum pieces. Jus’ saying’…

[Author]

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