Battery life thread: discussion, support and tips

[apink]

This is an invitation to discuss the status and development of ppp battery life using various software configurations.  Please feel free to let us know the following;

    -the os you are using,

    -your battery life performance:

        -idle performance,

        -active use performance,

    -any tweaks or settings that helped with your system.

---

I am currently using postmarketos edge and getting around 4 hours battery life while suspended and around 1 hour while doing light browsing, depending on screen brightness.

[dukla2000]

This is an invitation to discuss the status and development of ppp battery life using various software configurations.  Please feel free to let us know the following;

    -the os you are using,

    -your battery life performance:

        -idle performance,

        -active use performance

    -any tweaks or settings that helped with your system

---

I use Arch/sxmo mainly, also Arch/phosh (See setup details here.)
In suspend mode get way more than 24 hours - would need to check Megi's pages but think he calculated 36 or so theoretically. I much prefer sxmo in general, but specifically to suspend you KNOW it is suspended when the LED stops flashing!
Active use (browsing, email, telegram, some mpv) maybe 3-4 hours

Note the default cpu governor in Danct12 Arch images is conservative: I change my default to schedutil as don't see the point of permanently doping my cpu. In theory bad for battery but what I get is still fine.
Hoping that I can improve my active use life if I can get Megi's DRAM scaling working.

[apink]

I use Arch/sxmo mainly, also Arch/phosh (See setup details here.)
In suspend mode get way more than 24 hours - would need to check Megi's pages but think he calculated 36 or so theoretically. I much prefer sxmo in general, but specifically to suspend you KNOW it is suspended when the LED stops flashing!
Active use (browsing, email, telegram, some mpv) maybe 3-4 hours

Note the default cpu governor in Danct12 Arch images is conservative: I change my default to schedutil as don't see the point of permanently doping my cpu. In theory bad for battery but what I get is still fine.
Hoping that I can improve my active use life if I can get Megi's DRAM scaling working.

I just put arch/phosh on the microsd card and am getting a long life (24 hours or more) in suspend mode.  However the ppp is not picking up phone calls.  Is this the same experience you are having, dukla200?  Or do you get 24 hours battery life with phone capabilities while on suspend?

[alaraajavamma]

I just put arch/phosh on the microsd card and am getting a long life (24 hours or more) in suspend mode.  However the ppp is not picking up phone calls.  Is this the same experience you are having, dukla200?  Or do you get 24 hours battery life with phone capabilities while on suspend?

For me it has been impossible to get calls trough with stock modem firmware while suspended - usb connection resets every time and it happens with all distros.
With Biktorgjs firmware and recommended settings it works at least in Arch Phosh and Pmos phosh.
https://github.com/the-modem-distro/pinephone_modem_sdk

[tookmeayear]

I just put arch/phosh on the microsd card and am getting a long life (24 hours or more) in suspend mode.  However the ppp is not picking up phone calls.  Is this the same experience you are having, dukla200?  Or do you get 24 hours battery life with phone capabilities while on suspend?

For me it has been impossible to get calls trough with stock modem firmware while suspended - usb connection resets every time and it happens with all distros.
With Biktorgjs firmware and recommended settings it works at least in Arch Phosh and Pmos phosh.
https://github.com/the-modem-distro/pinephone_modem_sdk

how many hours do you get whilst receiving calls?

[alaraajavamma]

how many hours do you get whilst receiving calls?

If you mean that the phone just sits suspended and only modem is alive waiting for calls or sms it will be something between 36-48 hours.
It depends how good network is and is the phone still or moving (like in car or sitting in the office desk).

[tookmeayear]

how many hours do you get whilst receiving calls?

If you mean that the phone just sits suspended and only modem is alive waiting for calls or sms it will be something between 36-48 hours.
It depends how good network is and is the phone still or moving (like in car or sitting in the office desk).

Thank you, this makes it usable for me then. I will try again.

[Rednoise]

i canmake calls and recieve them, but no sound at either end, trying to fix that prpb and i think itll be ok. I can text, sms and send images via the chat but only after setting the right apn for my carrier which is att. both spn settimgs are set to NXTGENPHONE litterally.

[teekay]

This is an invitation to discuss the status and development of ppp battery life using various software configurations.  Please feel free to let us know the following;

    -the os you are using,

    -your battery life performance:

        -idle performance,

        -active use performance,

    -any tweaks or settings that helped with your system.

---

I am currently using postmarketos edge and getting around 4 hours battery life while suspended and around 1 hour while doing light browsing, depending on screen brightness.

I made a jig so that I can measure current draw at the battery while using the phone, here are the results:

- PostmarketOS phosh 24.12:
  - Screen on, brightness 50%, airplane mode: ~800mA while interacting, ~550mA idle
  - Screen off: 360mA
  - Suspend: 300mA (with suspend enabled in the power menu)
  - Balance/Performance power profiles did not seem to make any noticeable difference to current draw

- Mobian weekly build (20250119): I didn't measure the current through the jig for this, but it seems similar to pmOS except for suspend (if you enable suspend in the menu) which drops the idle current very low for long standby times! Will hopefully measure this at some point.

So as far I can tell, don't expect more than about 4.5 hours of screen-on time (this chip is power hungry!) and pmOS doesn't suspend properly so the battery will die in about 10 hours or less even with the screen off. Mobian gives long standby times.

As I mentioned in another thread, there are issues with the battery "fuel gauge" where after about 30 mins from fully charged of heavy use (e.g. youtube playback) it says there's only 5% battery left, but if you take out the battery and check voltage, it's still at about 50% capacity, and if you wait (between 10 min and 50 mins) and put the battery back in, the phone will then say there's 50% capacity. The battery voltage, although it fluctuates a lot based on load, is a better indicator of capacity (when not charging, 4.0v is about 100% and 3.1v is about 0%).

[dukla2000]

...
pmOS doesn't suspend properly so the battery will die in about 10 hours or less even with the screen off. Mobian gives long standby times.
....

Yup - I have also noticed pmOS drains my PPP much faster than anything else. Just discovered it appears to be running the cores at full speed the whole time even when idle!

Code:

# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu5/cpufreq/scaling_governor
ondemand
# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu5/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq
1500000
# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq
1008000