Battery life: Maybe really a hardware issue?

[bcnaz]

When my phone goes into deep sleep without the charger connected, the phone is very cool to the touch and it seems to discharge fairly slowly.

However, when it is plugged into the charger and charged to 95 - 100% even in deep sleep, the modem can be quite warm.

((That is the upper portion of the phone, NOT the battery (lower area).))

I have not kept track of the battery life while the phone is turned off, mine are not turned off for extended periods, just when swapping sd cards on the test phones,
and my main phone I keep on 24-7 anyway.

I just wanted to include my observations to this discussion.

[KNERD]

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.

Okay, it's been about 10 hours. I turned the phone back and and the battery level has not changed.

I guess this confirms the modem is still draining power from the battery even while turned off.

[Zebulon Walton]

Okay, it's been about 10 hours. I turned the phone back and and the battery level has not changed.

I guess this confirms the modem is still draining power from the battery even while turned off.

I thought that was most likely, just wasn't sure if the kill switch would prevent it. I'll keep the battery out when the phone isn't going to be used. Since the back has to be taken off anyway to get to the switches I figure that's best to reduce wear on the switch pack. (I don't know how many on/off cycles those dip switches are rated for.)

[KNERD]

I do wonder if it is a design flaw.

[Zebulon Walton]

I do wonder if it is a design flaw.

Almost has to be. Probably no way to fix it on current Pinephones, maybe a revision is possible sometime in the future if Pine64 is planning to do any more revisions. Most people seem to keep their phones on all the time so a lot of users wouldn't necessarily notice this problem.

[biketool]

I have a 3/32gb board currently and running latest Mobian I can get around 24-48 hours if it is locked.
If I do almost anything with the phone though, say play video on kodi or VLC it will burn off a battery in around an hour or two, probably a little better if reading an ebook or browsing websites.
It might be worth contacting Sailfish to see what they are doing to minimize power burn, they are former members of the Maemo Linux and Nokia phone hardware teams, they are for profit but they might be willing to give general thoughts.

[bcnaz]

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.

Okay, it's been about 10 hours. I turned the phone back and and the battery level has not changed.

I guess this confirms the modem is still draining power from the battery even while turned off.

I have noticed the charger "Cord"  can make a huge difference, 
The original cord seems the most efficient of my several different cords.
  My 6 foot woven cloth cord will not even keep up with the discharge if the phone is just turned on.
   **  The cloth cord does look good, but it is practically worthless.

[NW_Dev]

I created a Python App that pulls values from /sys/class/power_supply/axp20x-battery then logs the voltage and current to a file. During my test the modem, BT, wifi and front facing camera are switched off. CPU is locked to 480mhz per core with Schedutil power plan active. The battery was charged to ~90% before testing started. Logging is done every 30 seconds.


--Short 30min test--
000108 Volts:4030000 Current:560000 <--Screen on with Terminal active
000138 Volts:4028000 Current:528000
000208 Volts:4027000 Current:510000
000238 Volts:4022000 Current:515000
000308 Volts:4018000 Current:523000
000338 Volts:4015000 Current:522000
000408 Volts:4010000 Current:533000
000438 Volts:4035000 Current:373000 <--Screen turns off
000509 Volts:4034000 Current:377000
000539 Volts:4032000 Current:380000
000609 Volts:4032000 Current:375000
000639 Volts:4030000 Current:372000
000709 Volts:4029000 Current:372000
000739 Volts:4028000 Current:370000
000809 Volts:4026000 Current:373000
000839 Volts:4026000 Current:371000
000909 Volts:4023000 Current:371000
000939 Volts:4022000 Current:369000
001009 Volts:4021000 Current:371000
001039 Volts:4019000 Current:373000
001109 Volts:4018000 Current:372000
001139 Volts:4017000 Current:372000
001209 Volts:4016000 Current:367000
001239 Volts:4016000 Current:360000
001310 Volts:4013000 Current:369000
001340 Volts:4011000 Current:366000
001410 Volts:4008000 Current:367000 <--PP enters deep sleep
003424 Volts:3975000 Current:535000 <--After waking
003454 Volts:3955000 Current:610000 <--Start VLC playing video
003524 Volts:3954000 Current:606000
003554 Volts:3950000 Current:593000
003624 Volts:3949000 Current:593000
003654 Volts:3943000 Current:626000
003724 Volts:3943000 Current:601000
003755 Volts:3941000 Current:604000

--Overnight test--
010916 Volts:3870000 Current:550000 <--Screen on with Terminal active
010946 Volts:3898000 Current:384000 <--Lock button used screen off
011016 Volts:3898000 Current:384000
011046 Volts:3898000 Current:385000
011116 Volts:3898000 Current:385000
011146 Volts:3898000 Current:381000
011216 Volts:3897000 Current:378000
011246 Volts:3896000 Current:383000
011317 Volts:3896000 Current:380000
011347 Volts:3895000 Current:379000
011417 Volts:3894000 Current:383000
011447 Volts:3892000 Current:380000
011517 Volts:3892000 Current:378000
011547 Volts:3891000 Current:382000
011617 Volts:3890000 Current:380000
011647 Volts:3890000 Current:378000
011717 Volts:3889000 Current:380000
011747 Volts:3888000 Current:375000
011817 Volts:3888000 Current:373000
011847 Volts:3887000 Current:376000
011917 Volts:3885000 Current:380000 <--PP enters deep sleep
105902 Volts:3825000 Current:510000 <--Wake PP to finish overnight test
105932 Volts:3818000 Current:511000

[Zebulon Walton]

Well it turns out my "test" was invalid. I went to use the phone today and put in what I thought was a fully charged battery and it was completely dead. This is the spare battery purchased on eBay. So I put in the original Pinephone battery and was able to use the phone. It turns out that my spare battery had died an early death - less than a year. (Low quality goods from eBay? Tell me it's not so!) Maybe that's why I never noticed this problem before, the battery had just started dying? So after using the phone the battery was at 94%. That was a few hours ago.

I'll check it again later tonight and see if, allowing for some discharge during boot, it looks like the good battery has lost significant charge while the phone is turned off. In the meantime I'm planning to order yet another spare battery. I really want to have a spare on hand since the phone will not operate from external power alone.

[Zebulon Walton]

After about 8 hours with the phone off, modem switch on, and battery installed I booted it up and the battery is still at 94% capacity, no degradation at all. I'll check it again tomorrow but it sure seems like the problem in my case was caused by a bad battery rather than the phone.