Battery life......

arubislander

@mrt10001 It must have something to do either with your usage pattern, the apps you have installed or the tweaks you have made. I regularly get 3 days battery life off my Pixel 3a. Sure that is not as much as I would probably get out of it running stock Android, but it is also not as bad as what you say you get.

MrT10001

I know there are a lot of variables. Generally I have more than one phone of that type and leave it on Android for a while to compare battery life. I will then install UT and add a plethora of apps that I would use, but don't use them when initially testing apart from the tweak tool. I then set the device to one side and see how the drain goes basically on standby. UT is markedly different in battery drain in all devices compared to their Android based counterparts.
As I said I know there are a lot of variables, every battery is slightly different (as I found out in the Nexus 4) due to previous life usage.
I had some back and forth with this helping @Flohack on the Pixel 2 and 3a re battery drain which he is working on, which he believes is something with wifi. (Pixel 2). I know age of the battery is a factor, however on most Nexus 4's, the batteries are in the 2013/2014 date and last quite a while compared to others (but again smaller screen, 3g etc.).
I am very impressed with UT and all the contributors over the years have done a fantastic job.

druk13

@arubislander said in Battery life......:

@mrt10001 It must have something to do either with your usage pattern, the apps you have installed or the tweaks you have made. I regularly get 3 days battery life off my Pixel 3a. Sure that is not as much as I would probably get out of it running stock Android, but it is also not as bad as what you say you get.

You are a lucky man, because my Pixel 3a ist running between 24 an 28 hours

kugiigi

There are also apps that creates background processes that may also contribute to battery drain. An example of this is Dekko.

odo

I use UT for several years, first with a Nexus 5, Nexus 7, OPO, Mi A2 and a Volla. Phones with only 3000 mAh or less battery capacity are no longer on my wish list. Most of the older devices offer not more. The Volla is an advantage in this case. But I realized that the Volla with Sailfish OS runs noticeably longer. I did a test with Wifi turned on over the night with 2 Vollas. The one with UT had about 8% less battery capacity left in the morning. So I am on Sailfish now. But I want a UT phone as a 2nd device because UT has some other advantages for me. I thought of getting a Pixel 3a XL. The larger battery (lager than the 3a) in combination with an OLED display could be perhaps one the same level as the Volla (???). I don't know. I'd like to see the battery performance listed for each phone on the device overview site.

domubpkm

@odo Given its powerful battery, the autonomy of the Volla is not optimized not only in my opinion even if i think things seems to be a little better since some times.
https://github.com/HelloVolla/ubuntu-touch-beta-tests/issues/108

Emphrath

Same here. I had three different phones that ran UT, and all of them ran the battery down like a forest fire. Compared to android. So it is device specific, battery specific, and then it is not that much. There is sth wrong in the way UT manages battery, and arguing otherwise is in bad faith. Rather, we should look into it. For example, I noticed that the halium-dev build had about twice the battery life on bacon that of stable. So it must be related to newer drivers used by halium - because none of these branches ever had hw acceleration on the old thing. But then again the same devices would fare heaps better on android 4, so is it really the issue ? Also, i noticed that all these devices, when used to the very last percent, when they shut down, usually have a good chance of hitting deep discharge - the phone will be dead for a while hanging on its charging cord before the battery icon even appears. Deep discharge, even with used batteries, is a rare thing on android. It is quite prevalent in UT and i wonder if it's not an interesting symptom of how UT handles the battery.

domubpkm

Smartphones under UT for equivalent use heat up much faster than smartphones with android or derivatives. This is an indicator too of poor battery management. The nexus 5 is probably the smartphone under UT that heats up the most and the fastest, which caused me malfunctions and blockages when I used it.

arubislander

@emphrath No one who develops UT is denying that mobile Linux doesn't have as great a battery life on mobile devices as does Android.

Drivers are one part of the equation. Another one is that a lot of the processes that run on mobile Linux are inherited from desktop Linux, which means they are not optimized for low battery consumption. Even on laptops battery performance in Linux can be significantly less than in Windows on the same hardware. Whenever possible improvements are attempted. And progress has been made in the past few years. I think of all mobile Linuxes, UT is in the top two with regards to battery life. As can be seen in the device pages, a device is considered working when the battery lasts at least 24 hours (with use, I assume).

Having said all that, if, after an update, battery performance is seen to have worsened, this is a regression that is probably not caused by what was mentioned above, but by some rogue process, and should be investigated by, or with the help of, the user experiencing the regression.

MrT10001

So some further observations. As most technically minded know, battery drain has many factors which include:
Ambient room temperature - batteries drain quicker in extremes of heat such as a heatwave like some are experiencing now.
Software - we all know that app that leaves things open and communicates with wifi, mobile data etc constantly, draining the battery to do this
Background processes
Screen size, type and backlight.
Other hardware requiring different power usage, including where they are placed on the device
Age - older batteries obviously drain quicker, but certain devices have really good batteries that are still alive 9 years after manufacture and still hold a good charge.

Devices I have that battery life lasts less than a day:

Pixel 3a
Pixel 2
Lenovo M10 X605F
Nexus 7 Flo and Deb
Oneplus 2
Motorola E(2015)

I have others awaiting to test.

Devices where battery lasts over a day:

Asus Zenfone
Nexus 4 (8Gb and 16Gb)
Nexus 5 (16Gb and 32Gb)
Oneplus 1 (16Gb, 64Gb)
Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 (just lasts a day and a half)

I install the following apps:
UT Tweak Tools and use it to reduce the launcher and put battery percentage on the top bar
Pure Maps
UNav
Tagger
VPN editor
TELEports
Dekko2

These are my core apps for which I am most likely to use. I don't always connect Dekko up, unless it is on a core device for me, i.e. it is a potential daily driver. I have replaced batteries on some phones with new (some OEM, but most stamped and bar coded as genuine so not cheap knock offs, been burnt with them).

The ASUS Zenfone so far has been the outstanding performer. One charge will last over 5 days on standby (minimal usage) with getting emails on Dekko2 every day, alarms, messages and Telegram.
The Nexus 4 most with the original battery (2013) is an outstanding performer and will last over 5 days on a single charge and battery drain is minimal. For a phone it works, but as the US is or has dropped 3g, there will be complaints about such a device, use Wifi, there are uses for these old devices.
Oneplus One. I have replaced the batteries on some of these and even some of the old batteries, drain is minimal.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 - my main UT phone. Lasts about a day and a half on full charge with good usage. Some issues with voice on other phone, but it seems OK now.

I have tested the battery drain against Android ( I will be generic as there are so many revisions) and have found that Android seems to have good optimization. I am testing with /e/OS which is Android based, but degoogled (but they want you to sign up to their OS for updates which I find strange for "privacy") which seems to keep the battery optimization that Android has.

Sorry for the long post, but if I can get some of this out, hopefully it may assist someone. UT is an outstanding open source project in my view. It has some issues, but compared to other device operating systems it is up there. I have also been trying PostmarketOS, which is another Linux device OS for those that don't know and is miles behind UT in terms of devices, apps and usability.

druk13

I've no idea why, but since I disabled "Data-Roaming" (Neudeutsch: Daten-Roaming) and enabled wlan the battery life of my Pixel 3a ist much, much longer (last loading before 35 hour and 53% battery) then before.

Running Apps:

RockWork
Dekko 2
TELEports

arubislander

@druk13 said in Battery life......:

since I disabled "Data-Roaming" (Neudeutsch: Daten-Roaming) and enabled wlan the battery life of my Pixel 3a ist much, much longer

Probably regularly pinging the cell towers keeps the device from properly going to sleep.

cj_c

I have recently experienced poor battery life on an intermittent basis, which I have traced to particular web pages. In particular, Quordle seems to use battery sometimes. Closing tabs seems to be a cure. It may be worth a try.

Emphrath

@arubislander interesting ! I thought i heard the pixel was an exception here, that wlan was consuming more battery than lte

arubislander

@emphrath, @druk13 mentioned data roaming in particular, not data in general.

MrT10001

I have just installed UT on a Pocofone F1 and a Lenovo Tab (TB-X605L). Battery life went from 100% to zero over night with nothing running. The devices ran fine under Android with the battery lasting the expected time. Both are on OTA-23 Stable.

Apps installed - Dekko2 (not set up to send receive), Maps, UNAV (not set up), Tweak Tool, VPN editor (not used yet), Tagger, Document Reader.

I will charge them up and discharge and see if it is a calibration issue.

I have found on the Pocofone when it sleeps Wi-Fi is disconnected and won't reconnect.

Emphrath

@mrt10001 i put my pixel on flight mode during the night. Otherwise it won't wake me up in the morning

MrT10001

@emphrath I am testing the battery life through minimal usage, but the devices have to be functioning, like my Android and (bleurgh) iPhone. UT has not been good for battery life in comparison and OTA-23 on some devices seem to exacibate the issue.

PrivacyFan

I do testing a Pixel 3a since about two weeks as my daily driver. I have rarely calls. The battery needs to be loaded after about 12 hours if I have activated 2G/3G/4G. I know this is only an advantage for data and not for the still not working VoLTE. As soon I switch to 2G it runs for more than one day which is much more acceptable. For comparison what settings do you use?

MrT10001

@privacyfan 3g on the 3g devices (Nexus 4) and 4g on the 4g devices. Wlan is always on, mobile data is on, Bluetooth is off, location is on. I am basically running the device as I would use it. The Nexus 4 gets a good battery life. The Redmi Note 7 is also ok with about 2 days between charge and minimal usage. Overall it can be hit and miss with each device. I have a pocofone F1 and the battery life is bad on UT, but fine on Android.