The Case of the Missing Battery Life (#13)

There are a few important things in life that drive in us, but that does not belittle the many small things that irritate the hell out of us.  As we shift into a connected, device-centric world, battery life has not caught up to our usage, and having to constantly glance up at the 8% in the corner of our smartphones and laptops has became an ever-present source of stress that really shouldn’t have to be there.

My first smartphone is a Samsung Galaxy S3, a popular phone and a capable one.  However…the battery life is horrendous.  While society has reluctantly assented to a world where connected devices need to be charged every day (it won't always be this way), mine couldn’t make through a day to save its life.  Sometimes I’ll watch a Youtube clip and watch 20 or 30% ooze out of my battery, or leave it and return to 2% left with no idea why.  What’s worse, an entire night of charging (which for me is five or six hours) doesn’t get me close to 100%, and I’ve tested at least four charging cables to confirm this is my phone’s problem.

Yet, I won’t resign myself to a frustrating 2^nd year with my first smartphone, and instead have committed to solving The Case of the Missing Battery Life.  Hopefully this will be helpful to other Android users as well.

My first task was to identify the largest source of power, and what I’ve found most people have discovered in their own quest for greater longevity: Wi-Fi, 4G, vibrating, and screen display (especially for big ‘ol Samsung phones).  So now, Wi-Fi automatically turns off when I leave home or school, and 4G I manually turn on and off for when I need it.  My phone never vibrates anymore, brightness level is “squint”, and the phone goes idle pretty quickly.  I’ve been careful to do this as scientifically as possible, watching the effect of one variable at a time, and the screen tactics have been the most successful. But there’s more to be done.

You know how Android can multitask?  Well, that has a cost, and it’s sweet, sweet power.  Not only do I clear the recent apps screen, but use a task manager to force quit the apps that really don’t deserve the CPU (games and seldom-used apps that constantly auto-download updates in the background).  This has gone a long way, and I can now usually survive a whole day.
Android offers many tools to diagnose its dismal battery conservation—I was in for a surprise when I checked the battery usage breakdown screen.  Highest with 22% is Google+?!?  I immediately entered the Google+ app (there’s a first time for everything) and turned off everything I could. 

Working on a project downstairs and outside and happy to be disconnected, I actually didn’t use my phone yesterday.  When I returned I expected my problems to finally be over—I’ve systematically dealt with every pesky obstacle to good battery life.  20% lost idle over 6 hours?  I can deal with that. But strangely, Google Search is now taking 37% when idle (I haven’t searched anything!), and other vague “idle” processes (which I can’t mess with) total 2/3s of my usage.  What gives?

My current hypothesis is that mother Google is checking in constantly with my phone, collecting data on emails and updates, even when I’m not doing anything.  Even when I disable background apps and updates and its minions + and Search, the data-grabbing I’ve blithely ignored has been draining me. 

I know Android exists to collect data, but I wonder if others have noticed Google scroogling with their device experience.