Android phone battery drainage problem - any ideas?

[ABB125]

Over the last few days, my phone (Motorola Moto G7) has decided to significantly increase its battery usage, to the extent that full charge to 20% takes around ten hours; previously, this would last at least two days. Does anyone know what the cause might be?
Here's a screenshot of the battery usage graph for today; the percentages add up to less than 20%, yet the battery level is only at 49%. Surely something is amiss here?

Thanks for any help.

 

[PauloDavesi]

Have you tried closing all the apps & then rebooting the phone?
It's possible you have apps &/or processes running in the background.

 

[ABB125]

Have you tried closing all the apps & then rebooting the phone?
It's possible you have apps &/or processes running in the background.

I did try restarting a few days ago, but it didn't help. I've tried again though, maybe it'll work this time.
If there are apps running in the background, why don't they show up on the list on the battery graph?

 

[westcoaster]

Do you have an operating system update pending. My battery is also not fairing to well this week (samsung A10).

11hrs 23 min camera light sensor. 8% battery usage. No idea what that is or why it drains the battery.

 

[ABB125]

Do you have an operating system update pending. My battery is also not fairing to well this week (samsung A10).

Not that I'm aware of. I've just checked and it says up to date.

 

[Bevan Price]

A few possible suggestions.
1. Is the battery old and getting worn out / needs replacement.
2. Have you considered deleting unwanted apps.?
3. Have tried using a utility app. (e.g. ccleaner free) to clean the assorted rubbish that claims (but does not release) memory space almost time the phone is used.

 

[PauloDavesi]

How old is tthe phone? Sometimes batteries do have a rapid loss of performance.
A replacement battery may be needed, but try what Bevan Price suggested first.

 

[Lewlew]

Check your data usage, an app may be using a lot of data in the background. I had it with Facebook a few years ago, some error caused it to eat through my battery and data in a very short time.

Uninstall/disable any apps you don't use as even if you don't open them, they can still be running and using battery in the background.

Also, just swiping away apps from the recents screen won't fully close them. You'll have to go into Settings, Apps, select the app and then Force Quit it. (There may be a shortcut by pressing and holding the app icon on your home screen/app drawer and selecting App info)

 

[ABB125]

A few possible suggestions.
1. Is the battery old and getting worn out / needs replacement.
2. Have you considered deleting unwanted apps.?
3. Have tried using a utility app. (e.g. ccleaner free) to clean the assorted rubbish that claims (but does not release) memory space almost time the phone is used.

Well it's almost two years since I bought the phone, and as most people seem to get a new one after two years perhaps it's a bit of in-built obsolescence? But if that were the case, I'd have expected the process to be gradual rather than sudden like it has been.
There are one or two apps I probably could get rid of, but most see occasional (albeit rare) use.
No, I haven't tried a cleaning app, but will do.

How old is tthe phone? Sometimes batteries do have a rapid loss of performance.
A replacement battery may be needed, but try what Bevan Price suggested first.

As above, nearly two years old.

Check your data usage, an app may be using a lot of data in the background. I had it with Facebook a few years ago, some error caused it to eat through my battery and data in a very short time.

Uninstall/disable any apps you don't use as even if you don't open them, they can still be running and using battery in the background.

Also, just swiping away apps from the recents screen won't fully close them. You'll have to go into Settings, Apps, select the app and then Force Quit it. (There may be a shortcut by pressing and holding the app icon on your home screen/app drawer and selecting App info)

There doesn't appear to be anything that I can see.

***********
There was a noticeable reduction in battery usage after I restarted earlier, but it's since dived down again. Here's a new screenshot:

 

[PauloDavesi]

A replacement battery from a stall at your local market, or a local phone store may be your best option.
A lot cheaper than a new phone anyway.

 

[ABB125]

A replacement battery from a stall at your local market, or a local phone store may be your best option.
A lot cheaper than a new phone anyway.

I'm not sure how easy it is to replace the batteries on modern phones. Anyway, I won't rush to do anything, as short battery life won't cause me any problems at the moment.

 

[gswindale]

Just looking at my phone (also a Moto G7) and I would say it ain't easy to replace the battery - is pretty much a sealed unit apart from the sim-card/sd card slot.

I've also been noticing a reduction in battery life recently (I purchased mine in Sept 19, so coming up to 2 years old). It seems to always have a quite sudden drop-off immediately after removing it from the charger . I could probably turn bluetooth off and maybe data (but I was out and needed it an hour ago).

I will take a look at the apps on my phone as well as my work phone (Moto G6), which has been unplugged for about an hour less and has been used more intensively in the same time period still has 94% battery remaining and reckons it'll last for a further 1 day and 8 hours!

 

[ABB125]

I've also been noticing a reduction in battery life recently (I purchased mine in Sept 19, so coming up to 2 years old). It seems to always have a quite sudden drop-off immediately after removing it from the charger . I could probably turn bluetooth off and maybe data (but I was out and needed it an hour ago).

I think I've noticed that "post-charge drop" before, but it's not present on the current graph. Probably because it hasn't levelled off after a while!

 

[D365]

A replacement battery from a stall at your local market, or a local phone store may be your best option.
A lot cheaper than a new phone anyway.

No-brand replacement parts can cause more problems than they fix.

 

[JamesT]

Before going out to get the battery replaced, trying installing something like AccuBattery to see what it thinks the current capacity is compared to the rated design capacity of the battery.

If the capacity hasn’t dropped too much, then it’s more likely to be something running that’s draining it faster than before.

 

[ABB125]

Before going out to get the battery replaced, trying installing something like AccuBattery to see what it thinks the current capacity is compared to the rated design capacity of the battery.

If the capacity hasn’t dropped too much, then it’s more likely to be something running that’s draining it faster than before.

I'll try that, thanks.

Yesterday seemed to last a lot longer, just over 24 hours. Maybe whatever was causing the drainage has stopped?

 

[londiscape]

I had a similar problem a couple of years ago with intermittent battery drainage, and the phone running noticeably hot while draining. Turned out to be a bug in Google Chrome for Android, when browsing certain sites with audio/video advert content (newspaper sites were the worst) the media plugins would fail to terminate properly and keep hammering the CPU even after the offending site was closed.

Changed to Firefox (with an ad blocker) and it stopped happening. Haven't used Chrome on Android since then so no idea if updates have solved the problem (although a quick google still brings up a lot of results for "chrome android battery drain").

 

[david1212]

Before going out to get the battery replaced, trying installing something like AccuBattery to see what it thinks the current capacity is compared to the rated design capacity of the battery.

If the capacity hasn’t dropped too much, then it’s more likely to be something running that’s draining it faster than before.

Directly OT but thanks for suggesting this app and that there are others that can report the actual battery capacity.

 

[D365]

For those who use iPhone and have access to a Mac, coconutBattery is a great option to check both.

 

[ABB125]

Using data from the AccuBattery app, it appears that the problem I had was the phone not entering "deep sleep" mode (a problem which I also had on my pervious phone, a Moto G2). I'm not sure why it didn't want to go to sleep, but over the last two days or so battery life has been back to normal, with a deep sleep time percentage of around 85%. Hopefully it'll stay this way!

For anyone interested, AccuBattery suggests that my battery has a capacity of around 2530 mAh, compared to the design capacity of 3000 mAh. Which, after two years of mostly 20%->100% charging, isn't too bad in my opinion (about 84% of design capacity).

 

[telstarbox]

We have found at home that Pixels, although more expensive, have significantly better battery life than Motos so worth considering if you might be upgrading. The OS is almost identical too. Argos (and others) sell them SIM free.

 

[ABB125]

We have found at home that Pixels, although more expensive, have significantly better battery life than Motos so worth considering if you might be upgrading. The OS is almost identical too. Argos (and others) sell them SIM free.

Generally, I've never had any issues with battery life, on the rare occasions where I've been using my phone virtually continuously (generally on the occasions when I'm on a rover ticket!), it's normally lasted long enough.

Since my last post a few days ago, battery life has somewhat diminished again, for some unknown reason.

 

[SteveP29]

You've probably already explored this, and gong on post #20, you do seem to have sorted the problem somewhat, but do you have your wifi on (on the phone) but not connected to any wifi?

As in low mobile signal areas when your phone is always checking for signal, your phone will will be constantly scanning for wireless networks to connect to

 

[lkpridgeon]

You could try recalibrating your battery as it might not be charging fully despite reporting as such?

Also do you leave the device on charge overnight/all day? ie: leaving it on charge when it's already fully charged, this can shorten the lifespan and cause the calibration to go out.

 

[ABB125]

You've probably already explored this, and gong on post #20, you do seem to have sorted the problem somewhat, but do you have your wifi on (on the phone) but not connected to any wifi?

As in low mobile signal areas when your phone is always checking for signal, your phone will will be constantly scanning for wireless networks to connect to

Generally, it seems to be connected to wifi.

You could try recalibrating your battery as it might not be charging fully despite reporting as such?

How do I do that?

Also do you leave the device on charge overnight/all day? ie: leaving it on charge when it's already fully charged, this can shorten the lifespan and cause the calibration to go out.

As a rule I avoid leaving devices charging longer than necessary, so I don't think that's the problem.