Battery life: Maybe really a hardware issue?

[KNERD]

I do have the Manjaro edition, which I have not been happy with at all, so I have been using other distros. It seems as soon as I log into the Manjaro edition, the modem will be shut down.

I have not booted Manjaro in several months, and decided to boot it up yesterday and did some updates. After the updates, and reboots, back to the charger it went.

Later in the night, I needed to go out and about for about half an hour and decided to take booted Manjaro with me  to test it more. After about 20 minutes of messing with it, and modem continues to get shut down after login, I shut the phone down for the night.

Today, this morning, I slipped in the SD card with my usual distro I use with the phone. It powered on for a few seconds then shut down. The battery is drained

I don't think this should be happening as if I do the same with other cell phones, I can leave them powered off for a week, or so and the battery level is about the same as when I shut it down.

With the complaints about battery life, and this experience, I wonder if the hardware is really to blame.

Any thoughts on this?

[lsitongia]

The Pinephone battery has identical capacity to the battery in my Motorola G7 Play, which will go days without a charge under conditions of similar use to what I've done when I've had my Pinephone (convergence edition) running. I think it's pretty clear that the issue is software. I have a friend who used to work as a software engineer for a major phone manufacturer. Their specialty was power management, especially CPU and graphics-related OS software. He didn't talk about specifics but described the general challenges and their freaking detailed precision attention to everything that could increase battery life. It sounded like a freaking nightmare of demands of the hardware and software. It sounded like a very, very difficult task that got a lot of engineering effort on it.

[KNERD]

The Pinephone battery has identical capacity to the battery in my Motorola G7 Play, which will go days without a charge under conditions of similar use to what I've done when I've had my Pinephone (convergence edition) running. I think it's pretty clear that the issue is software. I have a friend who used to work as a software engineer for a major phone manufacturer. Their specialty was power management, especially CPU and graphics-related OS software. He didn't talk about specifics but described the general challenges and their freaking detailed precision attention to everything that could increase battery life. It sounded like a freaking nightmare of demands of the hardware and software. It sounded like a very, very difficult task that got a lot of engineering effort on it.

Well, if I turn off the phone, and battery is still drained, then it does not sound like a software  issue to me since no software is running

[Zebulon Walton]

Well, if I turn off the phone, and battery is still drained, then it does not sound like a software  issue to me since no software is running

(I tried replying here and it seemed to go into the bit bucket, trying again...)

There's definitely something draining it. I had a near fully-charged battery in my Pinephone but have not used it in about a week or so. I decided to check for updates, so switched the modem off and plugged in a charger. After the phone booted up the wifi was also inactive. Checking power status the battery was down to 0%!

So, I put in my spare, fully charged battery and the wifi came back. (Updates are now installing.) As you say, it's not software because the OS isn't even running, but something is draining the battery when the phone is off. It appears that those of us who only use their phones occasionally need to leave the battery out until actually using it. Kind of a PITA. I'm surprised I haven't noticed this before but this is probably the longest that I had not even hooked a charger up to the phone.

[KNERD]

I am glad I am not the only one seeing this activity. I guess one way to find out is to turn off all the switches to see what happens. If the battery is still good the next morning, then one of them is the culprit. Could then each night turn each one on to check if the battery is drained.

Who then would we bring up the flaw too?

[Zebulon Walton]

I think the modem is connected directly to the battery so that may be the prime suspect.

[KNERD]

I think the modem is connected directly to the battery so that may be the prime suspect.

I have switched off the modem (switch 1) and have powered it down.  I will know in a few hours.

[Zebulon Walton]

I have switched off the modem (switch 1) and have powered it down.  I will know in a few hours.

I think the dip switch doesn't actually disconnect the modem from the battery, it just deactivates the radio. It may still be pulling a trickle of current. Let us know the results of your test.

[KNERD]

I have switched off the modem (switch 1) and have powered it down.  I will know in a few hours.

I think the dip switch doesn't actually disconnect the modem from the battery, it just deactivates the radio. It may still be pulling a trickle of current. Let us know the results of your test.

My understanding is the modem is connected via USB instead of the traditional means of the method cell phone modems have been connected. I understand that was a security decision. Not sure if the power would be cut off either via USB.

Will certainly let know in a few hours.

[Zebulon Walton]

Yes, the modem is on a USB connection but I think for power it's connected direct to the battery and the dip switch actually pulls a signal down on one of the modem's pins to deactivate it. (This is half-remembered from reading about the hardware some time ago.) For now I'll just leave the battery out of the phone when not in use though as I said it's a bit of a PITA.