phone battery dying?

[ChrisGreaves]

Not necessarily so. On Thursday's trip to St John's and back, my LGK30 Android dropped to a mere 20% in eight hours after being fully charged overnight.
And being on extreme battery-saver.

I had hardly used the thing all day, a quick glance at the time as we approached St John's, then a quick phone call to my appointment and a later quick phone call to my lift home.
Most days I'll be listening to podcasts for two hours or more; but on Thursday, nothing.
I charged it when I got home, and Friday, and Saturday, the beast died fastr'n'wink.

A sure sign that the battery is not holding its charge, I thought.

Then (the good news) I noticed this morning that I had set the display timeout to be "never", whereas it is usually set at "one minute"

I now suppose that whereas in the past the one-minute timeout saved power, now when I put the phone on a table or in my bag, it was NOT turning off.
I was effectively actively draining the battery as fast as possible.

I mention this in case, like me, you panic when a big event is coming up and it takes two weeks to ship a new phone out here.
Cheers, Chris

[HansV]

Thanks for the heads-up

[ChrisGreaves]

Thanks for the heads-up

I think we can tag this with "Human Error" rather than "hardware failure".
Cheers, Chris

[StuartR]

Also you use a lot of battery if you travel somewhere with poor, or no, cell tower coverage. The phone switches the transmitter to maximum power trying to connect to a tower.

[ChrisGreaves]

Also you use a lot of battery if you travel somewhere with poor, or no, cell tower coverage. The phone switches the transmitter to maximum power trying to connect to a tower.

Ah-HAH!
Thanks, Stuart!
Between Bonavista and Clarenville (90 minutes travel), even, possibly along the Trans-Canada Highway to St John's (another 120 minutes) there are blank spots.
Next time I will turn the darn thing OFF until we get to St John's.
But then, if this was happening to me, wouldn't it happen to most all other cell-phone users who drive the highway on a regular basis?

I now have two reasons why the battery might have flattened.

Tomorrow I shall re-institute my regular use, and keep a close eye on the battery.

Last August I drove to Clarenville (1h25m) and then on to Bunyan's Cove (a further 33 minutes). There was no signal between Port Blandord and Bunyan's Cover - about 15 minutes of driving.

Thanks again, Chris (and, I suspect, BobH)

[HansV]

Why is there a random island east of Clarenville? Does it change shape?

[BobH]

Nah! Couldna been me. :halo:

I haven't been outta Texas, never mind Cananada!

[ChrisGreaves]

Why is there a random island east of Clarenville? Does it change shape?

(attached) My initial reaction was Ivanhoe idea, then I thought that a Google search might turn up something.
A quick glance at the map shows that the only settlements are coastal, a characteristic feature on islands surrounding Newfoundland, and Newfoundland itself in the early days. Here "Fish" means "Cod"; everything else is "bait"
Cheers, Chris

[HansV]

So, there are also: Random Heights, Random Sound (beep) and Random Bar...

[John Gray]

Sad that there is no Deep Bark[Barque]...

[ChrisGreaves]

So, there are also: Random Heights, Random Sound (beep) and Random Bar...

Certainly!

[ChrisGreaves]

Sad that there is no Deep Bark[Barque]...

If there IS a random Bark, then there could be a Random Bight!
Yours etc.
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Eight full days have passed with me using the phone as I normally do: charging it up first thing in the morning, listening to podcasts during the day, a game of chess at night, and the charge is at 100% with no sign of collapsing.

The collapse a week ago was so dramatic (fast and down to 5% or so), that while I accept Stuart's idea of pinging draining power from the battery, i think it much more likely that my setting the screen timeout to be infinite was a much more likely cause of the flat battery

The next time that i set timeout to be infinite (during a file-transfer session via WiFi) I should set the alarm for one or two hours ahead, reminding me to reset the timeout to one minute.
Cheers, Chris

[StuartR]

...while I accept Stuart's idea of pinging draining power from the battery, i think it much more likely that my setting the screen timeout to be infinite, that was a much more likely cause of the flat battery...

I agree

[PaulB]

The next time that i set timeout to be infinite (during a file-transfer session via WiFi) ...

Chris, could you elaborate on why you set your screen timeout to never while doing a file transfer.

[ChrisGreaves]

Chris, could you elaborate on why you set your screen timeout to never while doing a file transfer.

Yes!

I was doing something that took longer than a minutes.
I think it was a file transfer using "File Manager +" on my Android LGK30 smart phone.
It might have been a download using TubeMate on my Android LGK30 smart phone.

Whatever large file it was (or large collection of files), the transfer/download had failed partway through, and I thought that perhaps the 1-minute or 5-minutes screen timeout was affecting the operation.

So I set the screen timeout to be infinite ("never") and re-ran the operation, which completed successfully.
Of course, being satisfied I forgot about the screen-saver, and a day or two later set off on the pilgrimage to St John's.
I phoned the dentist when i was just 15 minutes away, and then had no use for my phone - after all I am in the dentist; then wandered around the mall until lunchtime, ate lunch and waited for my lift home at 1530.

It was around that time that my lift phoned me, and as I took the call I noticed that the battery icon looked depleted. Since my lift had phoned me to say that they were waiting outside, I just filed away that the battery was flat, "on a day when my phone use was well below normal", which left me with a feeling of unease, that my smartphone battery was practically dead. And the eclipse less than ten days away, and Dear God, what was I going to do ...

On top of that my gum/jaw was bleeding and I was in mild pain, all rolled up in a ball of doubt and a strong desire to be back home again.

In short, it was a period of high stress for someone who hates leaving his house-lot, let alone being 3.5 hours drive away!
Cheers, Chris

[hlewton]

I'm late to this thread but I just wanted to add, I had a similar problem with my iPhone using battery power a lot quicker than I believed it should. I have always had my "Screen and Brightness" or "Auto Lock" set at 30 seconds before it turned the screen to black to save power. The screen would come back to life by lifting the phone or touching the screen, which I believe is the most common way to wake any iPhone up. I keep my phone in my shirt pocket and one day I noticed the screen was still active in my pocket when it should have been sleeping. Apparently it was touching my chest enough to cause it to stay active. Maybe it occasionally would bounce enough to activate it during my normal daily activities or maybe the shirt would tighten against my body when I tucked it in.

I found a setting on my phone that shuts off the "raise to wake" or touch feature and uses a side button to wake the phone up and it also can put it to sleep. Now, before I place the phone in my pocket, I put it to sleep. Now my battery lasts for around 3 days instead of 1. I don't use my phone enough to have to charge it on a daily basis, which I had to do until I found the problem I just described.

[ChrisGreaves]

... I keep my phone in my shirt pocket and one day I noticed the screen was still active in my pocket when it should have been sleeping. ...

I think that this used to be called "butt-dialing" from the practice of putting cell phones in a back pocket. I do it far too regularly when I have slipped the LGK30-Android phone into the front (hands) pocket on my "hoodie"; at lunchtime I find that I have dozens of images of the inside of the pocket. Same thing: slight pressure has turned ON the screen, and further repeated pressures (I am shoveling soil onto a propped rack at about six shovelfuls per minute) has done the rest. I haven't run Burst Mode.
Yet.

Cheers, Chris

[hlewton]

You should make a montage. Who knows, it mat be a hit as modern art.