Can't say for sure whether it started with the most recent monthly firmware
upgrade, but my Pixel5a used to give me 3+ days on a charge, now it's dead in
less than 1 day, just a linear decline all day long.

Main culprits seem to be ambient display eating about 30% and wifi eating 20%,
phone idle 12%, plus minor use from other background stuff like android system
etc. 51 minutes of actual phone calls only took 2%, screen 1%

Anyone else?

Andy Burns wrote:

> Can't say for sure whether it started with the most recent monthly firmware
> upgrade, but my Pixel5a used to give me 3+ days on a charge, now it's dead in
> less than 1 day, just a linear decline all day long.
>
> Main culprits seem to be ambient display eating about 30% and wifi eating 20%,
> phone idle 12%, plus minor use from other background stuff like android system
> etc. 51 minutes of actual phone calls only took 2%, screen 1%
>
> Anyone else?

Hi Andy,

Not me, for a few reasons, one being mine is a Samsung, another being that
it was replaced by T-Mobile just about a month ago under warranty (so
the battery is fresh) - but mostly because it's not a pixel like yours.

However, I did run my last battery down to zero many times to see if it
would have an effect on overall battery life and it did seem to do that.

What I should have done then to quantify that rundown over time, and what
you might need now is a good battery analyzer diagnostic reporting utility.

Dunno what that might be, and, probably, you would have wanted to have it
running all along (so as to see the decline over time).

There's got to be a million battery-optimization settings though, such as
"Adaptive battery" (Extend battery life based on your phone usage), etc.
<https://i.postimg.cc/VL6HGPGc/battery01.jpg> Android Battery Settings
<https://i.postimg.cc/Gh5g6gVT/battery02.jpg> Android Battery Utilities

I went looking for free ad free gsf free well-rated utilities that might
give you useful diagnostics, but found mostly basic stuff such as the
following watchdog applications.
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.sf.andbatdog.batterydog>
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.sf.andbatdog.batterydog/>
Which creates "/sdcard/BatteryDog/battery.csv" that I will test for you.

Perhaps similar is BBS (which isn't free on Google Play Store but which is
free on the F-Droid repository) which has these two links for you to try.
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.asksven.betterbatterystats/>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.asksven.betterbatterystats>

Likewise, BatteryBot Pro is free only on F-Droid but not on Google Play Store.
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.darshancomputing.BatteryIndicatorPro/>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.darshancomputing.BatteryIndicatorPro>

I installed all of those to test for you, but I can't say yet what they do.
That basic search also found the following free battery life extender apps.
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobilestudios.cl.batterylife>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.battery.lifespan.extender>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fruit4droid.batterylevelnotifier>

A search for rooted apps implied there's a "batterystats.bin" file which "may"
be something you might want to consider how to reset if that's an issue.
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.perflyst.batterycalibration/>
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/eu.roggstar.luigithehunter.batterycalibrate/>

That pretty much exhausted the basic battery utility searches (note that I
automatically filtered out apps not free and ad free and gsf free), so I
then went to the Internet to see if there's any good diagnostic tools for you.

First hit:
*Profile battery usage with Batterystats and Battery Historian*
<https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/power/setup-battery-historian>
What it's good for:
Showing you where and how processes are drawing current from the battery.
Identifying tasks in your app that could be deferred to improve battery life.

Dunno if any of this is of any use to you, where, as you can imagine, if I
loosen my filters, a billion "battery life saver" apps will show up, e.g.,
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kaspersky.batterysaver>

In summary, (a) I don't have the problem so I can't help you there, but
(b) I did look for utilities to help debug and didn't find all that much,
and (c) there are utilities to extend the life of what battery you have.

But what you really need is (A) a pixel owner with a similar problem, who can
(B) compare his battery stats with yours so you can debug what's happening.

Good luck.
Sorry I can't help much.
I hope someone else can.
--
Posted out of the goodness of my heart to disseminate useful information
which, in this case, is to attempt to help Andy with battery debug tools.

Andy Burnelli wrote:

> Perhaps similar is BBS (which isn't free on Google Play Store but which is
> free on the F-Droid repository) which has these two links for you to try.
> <https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.asksven.betterbatterystats/>
> <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.asksven.betterbatterystats>

Bettery Battery Stats
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.asksven.betterbatterystats/>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.asksven.betterbatterystats>

To save others time, I had to run/modify the following adb commands for BBS...

These did not appear to work with the phone connected on adb over Wi-Fi:
C:\> adb -d shell pm grant com.asksven.betterbatterystats android.permission.BATTERY_STATS
C:\> adb -d shell pm grant com.asksven.betterbatterystats android.permission.DUMP
C:\> adb -d shell pm grant com.asksven.betterbatterystats android.permission.PACKAGE_USAGE_STATS
C:\> adb -d shell settings put global hidden_api_policy 1

These appeared to work with the phone connected on adb over Wi-Fi:
C:\> adb shell pm grant com.asksven.betterbatterystats android.permission.BATTERY_STATS
C:\> adb shell pm grant com.asksven.betterbatterystats android.permission.DUMP
C:\> adb shell pm grant com.asksven.betterbatterystats android.permission.PACKAGE_USAGE_STATS
C:\> adb shell settings put global hidden_api_policy 1

The screenshots show which permissions were granted as a result of adb.
<https://i.postimg.cc/9fqnPJgw/battery03.jpg> BBS run adb set permissions
<https://i.postimg.cc/L5735Xck/battery04.jpg> BBS Permissions from adb
--
Posted out of the goodness of my heart to disseminate useful information
which in this case is to outline the BBS adb setup commands that worked.

Andy Burnelli wrote:

> Bettery Battery Stats
> <https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.asksven.betterbatterystats/>

Forget BBS.

As is often the case, the first app we try in any utility category
may not be the best, where, after a few minutes of trying to get
Better Battery Stats to work, I moved on to the other two apps.
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.sf.andbatdog.batterydog/>
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.darshancomputing.BatteryIndicatorPro/>

Both those other battery statistics apps worked from the start,
unlike Better Battery Stats, so I will delete BBS in favor of them.
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.asksven.betterbatterystats/>

After spending only about 30 seconds with Battery Dog & Battery Indicator
Pro, they're different (with the same data) as the former graphs and the
latter exports as a csv file, so you might want to test both utilities.
<https://i.postimg.cc/Z5dhCkM5/battery05.jpg> B Dog & B Indicator

Hence I'd ditch Better Battery Stats for sure as I couldn't get output.
--
Posted out of the goodness of my heart to disseminate useful information
which, in this case, is to save time for others testing these 3 apps.

On 11/22/22 2:40 PM, Andy Burns wrote:
> Can't say for sure whether it started with the most recent monthly firmware
> upgrade, but my Pixel5a used to give me 3+ days on a charge, now it's dead in
> less than 1 day, just a linear decline all day long.
>
> Main culprits seem to be ambient display eating about 30% and wifi eating 20%,
> phone idle 12%, plus minor use from other background stuff like android system
> etc. 51 minutes of actual phone calls only took 2%, screen 1%
>
> Anyone else?

How old is it?

The battery of My Pixel2 finally gave up the ghost at roughly 5 years.
For a while (months) it just seemed to run down fast, and then finally
it started acting up. Restarted when it tried to write a photograph.
Restarted by itself repeatedly for no reason. Ran down even faster.
New battery was $20, but I have no confidence in my ability to do the
work (yeah, I looked at the youtube video). Local cellguy replaced it
while I watched for $70 and I'm happy.

--
Cheers, Bev
"Sure, everyone's in favor of saving Hitler's brain, but when
you put it into the body of a great white shark, suddenly
you're a madman." --Futurama

Den 2022-11-22 skrev Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk>:
> Can't say for sure whether it started with the most recent monthly firmware
> upgrade, but my Pixel5a used to give me 3+ days on a charge, now it's dead in
> less than 1 day, just a linear decline all day long.
>
I have seen battery life go up and down by huge amounts correlated to
SW updates. This is a Samsung phone I use for work.

/Martin

On 22/11/2022 22:40, Andy Burns wrote:
> Can't say for sure whether it started with the most recent monthly firmware
> upgrade, but my Pixel5a used to give me 3+ days on a charge, now it's dead in
> less than 1 day, just a linear decline all day long.
>
> Main culprits seem to be ambient display eating about 30% and wifi eating 20%,
> phone idle 12%, plus minor use from other background stuff like android system
> etc. 51 minutes of actual phone calls only took 2%, screen 1%
>
> Anyone else?

I have my suspicions as well. I don't use my Pixel 6 Pro enough during the day
to be sure, but do I suspect I'm needing to charge it more frequently.

Nothing scientific, just a feeling.
--
Cheers,
David
Web: https://www.satsignal.eu

The Real Bev wrote:

> Andy Burns wrote:
>
>> my Pixel5a used to give me 3+ days on a charge,
>> now it's dead in less than 1 day
>
> How old is it?

8 months, this isn't a battery wearing out issue, it's a sudden change creating
a nosedive slope on the battery graph.

> The battery of My Pixel2 finally gave up the ghost at roughly 5 years.

I've generally got itchy feet long before that length of time, kept my pixel3
for 3.5 years, was starting to notice a decline in battery life by then.

Andy Burnelli wrote:

> However, I did run my last battery down to zero many times to see if it would
> have an effect on overall battery life and it did seem to do that.

Several times in the last week, I've gone to my phone to find it's dead, so it
certainly has been down to 0%, but I see that as a symptom of something (whether
new firmware, an app, or a setting) making it power hungry

> What I should have done then to quantify that rundown over time, and what you
> might need now is a good battery analyzer diagnostic reporting utility.

I have had 'Ampere' app installed for some time (it got pulled across from my
previous phone) it shows approx 150mA during screen-on usage.

> Dunno what that might be, and, probably, you would have wanted to have it
> running all along (so as to see the decline over time).
>
> There's got to be a million battery-optimization settings though, such as
> "Adaptive battery" (Extend battery life based on your phone usage), etc.

Up to this last week, the phone has been *so* good at 70-80 hours per charge,
that I have been running it without any battery saving measures, I left it on
ambient display 24x7 (i.e a black background with white clock) I allow wifi to
stay on in the background, I have one app (k9 mail) where I've overridden power
management so I get push emails as soon as they arrive in my mailbox ... these
are all things I know consume more power, yet the battery has been so good up to
now that I didn't need to worry about power saving settings.

I've turned off ambient, and turned off wifi completely (including the
background location scanning option) just taken it off change will see how it
goes today.

Andy Burnelli wrote:

> Bettery Battery Stats
> <https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.asksven.betterbatterystats/>
> <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.asksven.betterbatterystats>

Thanks, I won't rush to install a new app immediately, I'm sure that me picking
it up and looking at graphs every few minutes won't help battery usage, compared
to normal, but could be useful if problem persists ...

Andy Burns wrote:

> Thanks, I won't rush to install a new app immediately, I'm sure that me picking
> it up and looking at graphs every few minutes won't help battery usage, compared
> to normal, but could be useful if problem persists ...

Understood.

I had been hoping to find something useful, but I only found three things:
1. There are a bunch of mysterious "adaptive" battery settings in Android
2. There were 3 battery "reporting" utilities (with graphs & spreadsheets)
3. There were 3 battery "optimizer" utilities (which I didn't test)

I agree none of those will help you all that much over and above just
looking at the Android settings for which apps are using the most juice.

But I was dismayed that I couldn't help you at all, as what you need is a
debugger that quickly points to the errant cause of what's taking juice.

I'll keep lurking to see if I can learn from the other respondents & you
because what you need, I think, is a before-and-after snapshot of whatever
setting, app or radio it is that is tanking your battery so suddenly.

On 11/22/2022 5:40 PM, Andy Burns wrote:
> Can't say for sure whether it started with the most recent monthly firmware
> upgrade, but my Pixel5a used to give me 3+ days on a charge, now it's dead
> in less than 1 day, just a linear decline all day long.
>
> Main culprits seem to be ambient display eating about 30% and wifi eating
> 20%, phone idle 12%, plus minor use from other background stuff like
> android system etc.  51 minutes of actual phone calls only took 2%, screen 1%
>
> Anyone else?

No, not me. I recently upgraded from a Pixel 6 Pro to a Pixel 7 Pro, both
always updated to the most recent firmware/software. I'm finding that my
battery life is, if anything, better with the newer and supposedly power
hungry phone. Admittedly getting through two days of continuous normal use
would be difficult with either one but there has been no recent precipitous
change in battery life.

The worst I experienced with the 6 Pro was right before I upgraded was
while trekking in Anglesey, Wales in October and I was using an inordinate
amount of roaming data and GPS during those days. I actually got the 6 Pro
to trip into "extreme" battery saving mode for the first time while lost
out by the sea cliffs while trying to find a safe way into Treaddur Bay.

On 11/23/2022 8:17 AM, Bodger wrote:

<snip>

> The worst I experienced with the 6 Pro was right before I upgraded was
> while trekking in Anglesey, Wales in October and I was using an
> inordinate amount of roaming data and GPS during those days. I actually
> got the 6 Pro to trip into "extreme" battery saving mode for the first
> time while lost out by the sea cliffs while trying to find a safe way
> into Treaddur Bay.

It's not just the Pixel phones that can't go a whole day while using a
lot of GPS data. iPhones have the same issue. I was doing a lot of
all-day GPS while walking and could only go about four hours before the
charge level fell to below 20%, so I began carrying along a battery pack.

Andy Burnelli wrote:

> But I was dismayed that I couldn't help you at all, as what you need is a
> debugger that quickly points to the errant cause of what's taking juice.

Hi Andy,

Regarding the "battery historian" app suggested by developer.android.com
<https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/power/battery-historian>
<https://github.com/google/battery-historian>
Battery Historian allows developers to analyze Android battery consumers.

To try to help you out, I decided to see how useful this battery usage
debugger is, which I tested with my Android phone hooked up over Wi-Fi today.
*Profile battery usage with Batterystats and Battery Historian*
<https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/power/setup-battery-historian>
Shows where and how processes are drawing current from the battery.
Identify tasks in your app that could be deferred to improve battery life.

While adb is a well written program, I've always felt Docker is a piece of shit
(for a variety of reasons all related to abysmal coding-management decisions).
However, to run a test for you, I tried to install Docker on my old BIOS desktop
so that I could run the suggested battery profiler utility for Android apps.

C:\> adb shell dumpsys batterystats > 20221123batterystats.txt
<https://i.postimg.cc/T2WCz3nM/battery06.jpg> adb dumpsys batterystats
C:\> adb shell dumpsys batterystats --enable full-wake-history > 20221123batterystats+wake.txt

That works fine, but it's the next step that I failed on (see below).

C:\> docker -- run -p <port>:9999 gcr.io/android-battery-historian/stable:3.0 --port 9999

It should have been that simple.
Sigh.

I don't know about you, but I usually have a lot of patience for software
shenanigans, but I had forgotten how crappy Docker really was in terms
of Draconian (I'd say idiotic) assumptions of how people install software.
a. The installer doesn't even ask where to go
b. Then it requires a login account to a mothership
c. In addition to default spyware options (easily turned off though)
[_]Send usage statistics
[_]Automatically check for update
d. Not to mention it's dog ass slow & requires multiple reboots

For my older BIOS, it required WSL 2 checked and MS Hyper-V enabled.
PS> dism.exe /Online /Enable-Feature:Microsoft-Hyper-V /All

I'm sorry, but I couldn't put up with it, and yes, I've installed it
in the past (years ago, when I first heard about it), and it hasn't
gotten any better since in terms of horrendous inattention to privacy
and absolutely atrocious management decisions for the installer itself.

In summary, if you can put up with the absurd decisions the Docker
program managers implemented, then you can get pretty detailed
Android application usage statistics from this tool, apparently.

Me? I'll look for an alternative whose program managers have some
experience with writing tools that don't have the Docker decisions.

Sorry I couldn't help further - but I think you know enough to
proceed if you think this solution will be useful to you.

sms wrote:

>> The worst I experienced with the 6 Pro was right before I upgraded was
>> while trekking in Anglesey, Wales in October and I was using an
>> inordinate amount of roaming data and GPS during those days. I actually
>> got the 6 Pro to trip into "extreme" battery saving mode for the first
>> time while lost out by the sea cliffs while trying to find a safe way
>> into Treaddur Bay.
>
> It's not just the Pixel phones that can't go a whole day while using a
> lot of GPS data. iPhones have the same issue. I was doing a lot of
> all-day GPS while walking and could only go about four hours before the
> charge level fell to below 20%, so I began carrying along a battery pack.

I don't think it's the GPS...

While the GPS radios do use an appreciable amount of power, and while there
has never been an iPhone yet with a modern-sized battery (which is at least
about 4.5AH or greater nowadays), I think Andy's problem is that his loss of
battery power was *unexpectedly sudden*.

Wham!

One day the phone was working fine on the battery for days.
The next day, the phone runs out of juice like it's falling off a cliff.

Something changed.
Something _drastic_ changed.

But what?

Given Andy's acumen (he probably knows more about Android than the rest of
us combined, including me for sure), in response to those who say it's the
radio, I doubt it's something as simple (or as obvious) as the GPS radio.

*It's likely something far more pernicious than that.*

As for my part, I _tried_ to find Android utilities that would help debug,
and I tested some of them, but I'm not happy with their results to date.

However...

What might work... just maybe... is an Android developers' tool expressly
designed to _locate_ sources of battery drain leaks... as described here:
<https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/power/setup-battery-historian>
<https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/power/battery-historian>
<https://github.com/google/battery-historian>

The suggestion requires only two free tools, adb & cocker, on the desktop.

adb:
<https://www.xda-developers.com/install-adb-windows-macos-linux/>
<https://dl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools_r31.0.3-windows.zip>
Name: platform-tools_r31.0.3-windows.zip
Size: 11912013 bytes (11 MiB)
SHA256: 0F4B8FDD26AF2C3733539D6EEBB3C2ED499EA1D4BB1F4E0ECC2D6016961A6E24

Docker:
<https://docs.docker.com/desktop/install/windows-install/>
<https://desktop.docker.com/win/main/amd64/Docker%20Desktop%20Installer.exe>
Name: Docker Desktop Installer.exe
Size: 591753040 bytes (564 MiB)
SHA256: 1E6D8FADFF3393110029EEDA2E40344E6A99A90EC69DAB0B92327E79AFEF30C6

The results, supposedly, are something like these screenshots portray:
<https://developer.android.com/static/topic/performance/images/batteryhistorian_chart_2x.png>
<https://developer.android.com/static/topic/performance/images/generic-timeline.png>
<https://developer.android.com/static/topic/performance/images/s-generic-closeup.png>

I tried to run it for Andy over my Wi-Fi between Windows & Android today.
C:\> adb shell dumpsys batterystats > 20221123batterystats.txt
<https://i.postimg.cc/T2WCz3nM/battery06.jpg> adb dumpsys batterystats
C:\> adb shell dumpsys batterystats --enable full-wake-history > 20221123batterystats+wake.txt

That works fine, but it's the next step that I failed on (see below).
C:\> docker -- run -p <port>:9999 gcr.io/android-battery-historian/stable:3.0 --port 9999

Here's what I'm asking of those of you who are technically astute.

Can you run the Android Developers' Battery Historian, for Andy,
and then can you tell us how well it seems to help analyze leaks?

Since it bothers me greatly I can't help Andy out further, I posted
this request just now hoping someone else can report back their data.
*Do you have adb & docker running on your desktop?*
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android/c/G3vAxhd7s6M>

On 11/23/2022 12:28 PM, sms wrote:
> On 11/23/2022 8:17 AM, Bodger wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> The worst I experienced with the 6 Pro was right before I upgraded was
>> while trekking in Anglesey, Wales in October and I was using an
>> inordinate amount of roaming data and GPS during those days. I actually
>> got the 6 Pro to trip into "extreme" battery saving mode for the first
>> time while lost out by the sea cliffs while trying to find a safe way
>> into Treaddur Bay.
>
> It's not just the Pixel phones that can't go a whole day while using a lot
> of GPS data. iPhones have the same issue. I was doing a lot of all-day GPS
> while walking and could only go about four hours before the charge level
> fell to below 20%, so I began carrying along a battery pack.

Yeah, I had my trusty 20,000 mAh battery in the bottom of the backpack
underneath drone and controller and photo gear (clever forethought!) and
was about to dig it out when I saw, in the dimming light, some houses that
just had to be on the road to town so I said "screw the official path
route". Since I had managed to get out of the boggy areas that had worried
me I just pressed on. I really need to get a backpack that has a more
easily accessible pocket for items like the battery pack before next Spring
when I hope for a long walk in Northern Ireland. I learn from experience
(eventually).

Andy Burnelli wrote:

> Regarding the "battery historian" app suggested by developer.android.com
> <https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/power/battery-historian>
> <https://github.com/google/battery-historian>
> Battery Historian allows developers to analyze Android battery consumers.
>
> To try to help you out, I decided to see how useful this battery usage debugger
> is, which I tested with my Android phone hooked up over Wi-Fi today.
> *Profile battery usage with Batterystats and Battery Historian*
> <https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/power/setup-battery-historian>
> Shows where and how processes are drawing current from the battery.
> Identify tasks in your app that could be deferred to improve battery life.

battery use has certainly been better today, phone has been off charge 12 hours
and 88% remaining which it predicts as 34 hours remaining, at the rate it was
being used yesterday it would be below 50% by this time.

Have turned wifi back on, and will see what that does to the battery

I haven't actually missed the ambient display so far ... as soon as I lift or
rattle the phone, the display wakes up anyway.

I think a lot of the battery usage is guesstimated by the O/S anyway, to
apportion energy used to different apps.

sms wrote:

> It's not just the Pixel phones that can't go a whole day while using a lot of
> GPS data. iPhones have the same issue. I was doing a lot of all-day GPS while
> walking and could only go about four hours before the charge level fell to below
> 20%, so I began carrying along a battery pack.

GPS usage is a big power hog, if I'm in the car, I'm usually plugged in for
android auto, so the phone is on charge anyway, but I wouldn't want to rely on a
phone as GPS if I was walking in the countryside.

Andy Burnelli wrote:

> I doubt it's something as simple (or as obvious) as the GPS radio.
>
>   *It's likely something far more pernicious than that.*

I tried to think of any other changes I'd made in recent days, I did apply to
the beta programme of Google Home app, and noticed it was a bit miffed that I'd
only given it location access "while running the app" not all the while in the
background. Before, it was happy without always-on location access.

But I've not been anywhere today or the past several days, so location has been
off anyway, so probably not that.

On 11/23/2022 11:31 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
> sms wrote:
>
>> It's not just the Pixel phones that can't go a whole day while using a
>> lot of GPS data. iPhones have the same issue. I was doing a lot of
>> all-day GPS while walking and could only go about four hours before
>> the charge level fell to below 20%, so I began carrying along a
>> battery pack.
>
> GPS usage is a big power hog, if I'm in the car, I'm usually plugged in
> for android auto, so the phone is on charge anyway, but I wouldn't want
> to rely on a phone as GPS if I was walking in the countryside.

I use Alltrails for hikes and sometimes the trails are not well-marked
so keeping the app open, with GPS on, is necessary. If I were doing a
multi-day trip, with no access to mains power, I might get one of those
solar chargers that attaches to a backpack. You can only get about 7-10W
from those, but that could be sufficient.

I just did a long road trip with the GPS on all the time, and it was
being supplied via a MagSafe adapter providing 7.5W of power (actually
it was drawing 7.5W, the power to the iPhone was likely about 6W). It
was slowly charging the phone while the GPS was on, took six hours to go
from 80% to 100% with Waze going the whole time.

For road trips it's often not so much as knowing the route, but the
functionality of Waze in terms of traffic congestion, road hazards, and
police presence. But driving in the L.A. area, I can't imagine being a
non-resident trying to navigate the freeway system with paper maps,
though of course people, including me, used to do just that.

On 11/23/2022 8:17 AM, Bodger wrote:

<snip>

> No, not me. I recently upgraded from a Pixel 6 Pro to a Pixel 7 Pro,
> both always updated to the most recent firmware/software. I'm finding
> that my battery life is, if anything, better with the newer and
> supposedly power hungry phone. Admittedly getting through two days of
> continuous normal use would be difficult with either one but there has
> been no recent precipitous change in battery life.

<snip>

I just ordered a Pixel 7 Pro. I was going to wait for the iPhone 15 but
the deal on the Pixel 7 Pro was too good to pass up. They have $150 off
the regular price plus very large trade-in values for iPhones, $410 for
my old iPhone Xr (which is way more than I paid for it 15 months ago)
plus a $100 Google Store credit if you get a referral code from a Pixel
owner (they also get $100 store credit). Not sure what I need from the
Google store though. I'm currently using an iPhone 11 that was $150 from
my carrier, it'll be unlocked in another 20 days and I'm sure I can sell
it for at least $150.

The big attraction to me of the Pixel 7 Pro is the camera, which is much
better than what's on the current iPhone Pro Max. The telephoto
capabilities are much better on the Pixel 7 Pro, with its 5x optical
zoom (technically not a true optical zoom, but that's the case on all
current phones other than the Sony Xperia 1 IV).

My dream phone would be the Sony Xperia 1 IV but I'm not spending nearly
$1400 on a phone.

I'll miss iMessage on the iPhone, but that's about it.

BTW, if you're a Pixel owner that gets a referral code from Google, if
you post it on the Google Pixel Reddit group
<https://www.reddit.com/r/pixel_phones/comments/yvghp6/enough_with_the_referral_links_everywhere_please/>
it'll be used by someone and you both get the $100 credit. Once the
single-use code is used Google will send you another one in a few days
(ten codes per owner).

sms wrote:

> I use Alltrails for hikes and sometimes the trails are not well-marked
> so keeping the app open, with GPS on, is necessary. If I were doing a
> multi-day trip, with no access to mains power, I might get one of those
> solar chargers that attaches to a backpack. You can only get about 7-10W
> from those, but that could be sufficient.

Nothing wrong with solar chargers, other than it being one more thing to
carry, but what I do on my backcountry hikes is ensure _all_ the radios are
off.

I never researched it, but it's my assumption that all that "seeking" that
radios do (e.g., bluetooth, cellular, wi-fi, NFC, etc.) costs energy.

Me? All my radios are off unless I'm actively using them.

> I just did a long road trip with the GPS on all the time, and it was
> being supplied via a MagSafe adapter providing 7.5W of power (actually
> it was drawing 7.5W, the power to the iPhone was likely about 6W). It
> was slowly charging the phone while the GPS was on, took six hours to go
> from 80% to 100% with Waze going the whole time.

The only problem I have with Waze is the mothership login requirement.

For privacy reasons, I either use Google Maps sans login, or, once I have a
destination coordinates, an offline map which doesn't require Internet use.

I have unlimited data with T-Mobile so I learned that technique in the days
when I didn't - but it's also a privacy based method to turn the net off.

By turning the net off, I presume three benefits are instantly gained:
1. Your cellular data radios use less power (I presume... do they?)
2. Your location privacy is greatly enhanced
4. Your data use is curtailed (which matters in some plans)

> For road trips it's often not so much as knowing the route, but the
> functionality of Waze in terms of traffic congestion, road hazards, and
> police presence. But driving in the L.A. area, I can't imagine being a
> non-resident trying to navigate the freeway system with paper maps,
> though of course people, including me, used to do just that.

We all used paper maps in the past, which is why cellphones made travel
safer, not only for navigation but for lessening the impact of injuries.

Those who blindly believe cellphone use increases accident rates (or
injuries) have _never_ even once looked at the reliably compiled data.

Anyway, to learn whether online navigation uses more power I opened this:
*Does backcountry navigation with the cellular data radio turned off use LESS battery power?*
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android/c/jcpHoGKq-Ao>

I suspect people who navigation off grid have most of their radios
still turned on, which, I suspect, is a major cause of battery drain.

But let's see what comes of that quest for more objective data.

Andy Burns wrote:

> battery use has certainly been better today, phone has been off charge 12 hours
> and 88% remaining which it predicts as 34 hours remaining, at the rate it was
> being used yesterday it would be below 50% by this time.
>
> Have turned wifi back on

Wifi didn't seem too power-hungry yesterday, it spent 3 hours of driving
(specifically didn't plug it into charger as I usually would in-car) and the
rest of the day on a customer site where 3G/4G signal is pretty ropey, but wifi
coverage is quite good.

It made it to 50 hours thus morning, with 8% remaining predicted as an
additional 10 hours, at which point I put it back on charge.

At the moment I'm blaming Ambient Display for suddenly becoming a battery hog,
but having turned that off for two days, it feels like an unnecessary feature,
providing I have "tap to wake" and "lift to wake" enabled.

Andy Burns wrote:

> Can't say for sure whether it started with the most recent monthly firmware
> upgrade, but my Pixel5a used to give me 3+ days on a charge, now it's dead in
> less than 1 day

The December firmware update has reversed the problem, also improved the battery
history display (before it wouldn't show more than 24 hours history, now it
breaks down several days into 2 hour slots)

<http://andyburns.uk/misc/better-battery.png>

14 hours heavier than normal usage on tuesday
24 hours normal usage on wednesday
12 hours (mainly overnight idle) usage today

and still 33% battery left, estimating 16 hours until flat.

On 15/12/2022 11:59, Andy Burns wrote:
> Andy Burns wrote:
>
>> Can't say for sure whether it started with the most recent monthly firmware
>> upgrade, but my Pixel5a used to give me 3+ days on a charge, now it's dead in
>> less than 1 day
> The December firmware update has reversed the problem, also improved the battery
> history display (before it wouldn't show more than 24 hours history, now it
> breaks down several days into 2 hour slots)
>
> <http://andyburns.uk/misc/better-battery.png>
>
> 14 hours heavier than normal usage on tuesday
> 24 hours normal usage on wednesday
> 12 hours (mainly overnight idle) usage today
>
> and still 33% battery left, estimating 16 hours until flat.

I had that impression too. I noted references to "Battery" in the release
notes, but nothing suggestion "after last month's cock-up" (or words to that
effect!

--
David
Web: https://www.satsignal.eu