Why is my note 2 getting terrible battery life?

[jidery]

My usage hasen't changed from day to day, yet I stopped getting that "amazing" all day battery life from this phone. At the end of the day (11am-10pm) I will usually be at about 30% battery. Not the case so far the last few days.

Typical usage for me:
-1 email account refreshing every 15min
-1 hour of tethering
-About 2 hours of web/chat service

Here is my usage after just 3 hours 10 min... terrible

 

[TheStu]

How old is it? Batteries do lose oomph over time.

Have you installed anything new recently that might be perking up too much in the background?

 

[Apex]

What does Better Battery Stats or Wakelock Detector say?

 

[ChronoReverse]

20% android system likely means there's a rogue app. Go to XDA and download the free version of Better Battery Stats to find it.

 

[jidery]

What does Better Battery Stats or Wakelock Detector say?

I forgot I had this installed.

My phone was at 15% when i got home today (about 6:00) so I had to get a charge before I went out tonight.

 

[Dari]

OP probably increased the brightness so he can actually see the screen during the day. THat's a big no-no when it comes to AMOLED screens, you know that!!! Go back to 1% brightness and all black themes...

 

[jidery]

This is the second highest usage on my battery plus app. Screen is 30% and this is at a ugly 20%.

How old is it? Batteries do lose oomph over time.

Have you installed anything new recently that might be perking up too much in the background?

Its about 8 months old. I don't remember installing anything lately.

OP probably increased the brightness so he can actually see the screen during the day. THat's a big no-no when it comes to AMOLED screens, you know that!!! Go back to 1% brightness and all black themes...

Brightness is usually on auto.

 

[zerocool84]

Your two screen shots show low reception which has a HUGE impact on battery life.

 

[dawheat]

Such a sudden drop in battery life points to a rouge app. I run my Note 2 at 60% brightness on average and don't have an issue with battery life. Is the tethering app lumped under Google System?

I assume you've done a few reboots? Cleared cache and dalvik cache?

 

[shortylickens]

Use auto-screen brightness and power saving mode.

 

[jidery]

Your two screen shots show low reception which has a HUGE impact on battery life.

Interesting! I tend to be in buildings with thick walls or even underground and frequently find myself with 1-3 bars of 4g or LTE. Its still more than usable and very fast, but would I be better off switching to wifi?

Such a sudden drop in battery life points to a rouge app. I run my Note 2 at 60% brightness on average and don't have an issue with battery life. Is the tethering app lumped under Google System?

I assume you've done a few reboots? Cleared cache and dalvik cache?

I use the tmobile tethering app that came with it because I don't see a point in paying for foxfi when the tmobile one works fine.

I haven't clearled my cache or dalvik cache, ill do some reading and try it.

Use auto-screen brightness and power saving mode.

I turned on power saving once I took this screen shot, it still didn't last the day.

 

[shortylickens]

mine is still fine and I got it on Day One from t-mobile.

 

[jidery]

All right, I wiped the cache and uninstalled some apps. Any other advice guys?

guess your battery is getting old. This also happened to me .

mine is still fine and I got it on Day One from t-mobile.

I kind of figure that 8 months is pretty short for my battery to need replacing.

 

[isekii]

get rid of google+ and some other nonsense google apps

 

[TheStu]

When was the last time you did a battery calibration? Let the battery run all the way down to 0% (or until the phone turns itself off), then plug it in, and let it charge back up to 100% before taking it off the charger (you can use the device while it's re-charging, just don't unplug it).

I have seen people recommend doing this twice, but I think that may not be as necessary these days.

 

[corkyg]

Tethering or hotspot duty burns battery at a greater rate than anything else. Also, is Wi-Fi on? That is another power spender.

 

[lopri]

Switching/searching networks consumes batteries at a breakneck speed. Sometimes even under controlled switchings. I think it's something future Android should address at Kernel/OS level. Some sort of smart switching/locking in and out of networks will save lots of battery use.

 

[Chrono]

Root. Download x17 Jedi rom and be amazed at the battery life after that.

 

[jidery]

Tethering or hotspot duty burns battery at a greater rate than anything else. Also, is Wi-Fi on? That is another power spender.

I run tasker which switches my Wifi on and off based on location. So Wifi is only on while I am at home or at certain locations. I actually saw better battery life when I set up tasker a couple months ago so I don't think thats the problem.

Switching/searching networks consumes batteries at a breakneck speed. Sometimes even under controlled switchings. I think it's something future Android should address at Kernel/OS level. Some sort of smart switching/locking in and out of networks will save lots of battery use.

That may be something to look at, tmobile tends to switch between 4g and lte a little more than it should. However, my area hasn't changed since this problem started.

Root. Download x17 Jedi rom and be amazed at the battery life after that.

I try to avoid custom ROM's because I actually like tmobiles wifi calling.

 

[TuxDave]

guess your battery is getting old. This also happened to me .

Not at 8 months old unless the battery is defective.

 

[you2]

Poor reception will kill battery every time. It does on my note 2...

 

[Chocu1a]

Poor reception will kill battery every time. It does on my note 2...

Indeed. At my former job, I would just make it though a 12-14 workday with 12-15% remaining. I had horrible wifi reception & even worse data reception. At my new job I have grat wifi & 4G signals & I end my 12 hour day with 60% with streaming music all day.

 

[dawheat]

Well the OP hasn't changed his work so signal quality is unlikely to have changed. My work is horrible with the phoneswitching between LTE, 4G, and 3G all day. My note 2 handled it fine.

 

[SirCanealot]

When was the last time you did a battery calibration? Let the battery run all the way down to 0% (or until the phone turns itself off), then plug it in, and let it charge back up to 100% before taking it off the charger (you can use the device while it's re-charging, just don't unplug it).

I have seen people recommend doing this twice, but I think that may not be as necessary these days.

You don't need to calibrate batteries on modern smartphones. Note II especially - the of fuel gauge monitor is really solid.

Op, you need to click on the graph and provide a picture of that. Then you can see if your phone is awake when the screen isn't on. Also, I find wake lock detector a lot easier to read than better battery stats

 

[isekii]

Well the OP hasn't changed his work so signal quality is unlikely to have changed. My work is horrible with the phoneswitching between LTE, 4G, and 3G all day. My note 2 handled it fine.

I think it's probably one of the updates. Google+ was a big battery drainer for me.