Battery Life

[sirmaru]

My Kindle Fire's battery lasts 7 days. I alternate reading on it with my Kindle 3rd Generation Keyboard whose battery lasts 30 days.

Most of my use for the Kindle Fire is as a battery operated portable radio using the app, Tune In, and a Sony speaker. Its the best battery operated portable radio I've ever owned.

I also use it to play my MP3 songs from time to time.

I use Alutrek WiFi radios as permanent radios around the house and the Kindle Fire as my portable radio.

I leave WiFi on all the time on both since I am constantly syncing between them.

Shutting down for the night closes all apps including WiFi. That way I am not bothered going separately to the WiFi icon. I leave the Fire in Sleep Mode during the day.

Does anyone have any recommendations for Android Battery Apps specifically constructed for the Kindle Fire? Others have telephone timers built in for battery use which are not applicable to the Fire.

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Let's see I have Installed at the moment besides pre installed apps.

• Mantano
• ColorDict
• GoodReads

• TuneIn Pro
• YouTube
• Doggcatcher

• Quick Office Pro
• ES File Explorer
• File Expert
• WiFi Explorer Pro
• Dropbox

• WiFi Switch
• Lock Screen
• Screen Filter
• History Eraser Pro

• Enhanced Email
• Calengoo
• gReader
• Channel Caster
• Opera Mobile

• Angry Birds
• Angry Birds Seasons
• Angry Birds Rio
• Gem Miner
• Drag Racing
• Airport Mania 2 HD
• Bejewel 2

Thanks Blossom. Love the Wifi switch.

Carol

[sparklemotion]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Most of you seem to be getting longer battery life compared to me. I'd say I get 5 hours tops a day, there has been times that it has even seemed less. I mainly use mine for reading and surfing the web, but sometimes I also play games on it.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by sparklemotion

Thanks for the replies everyone. Most of you seem to be getting longer battery life compared to me. I'd say I get 5 hours tops a day, there has been times that it has even seemed less. I mainly use mine for reading and surfing the web, but sometimes I also play games on it.

You need to check the apps you have installed. It sounds to me that one of them is the problem. This can happen. When I first got my phone I had a similar issue it turn out to be an app. One day when I removed a couple apps the next few days I realized the charge on my phone was lasting twice as long. It wasn't even an app I was using but it was buggy enough to drain the battery with it just installed.

[sparklemotion]

Hmm.. I don't have very many really. Here's what I have:

Adobe Reader
Angry Birds
Angry Birds Seasons
Angry Birds Rio
Bubble Burster
Doodle Jumo
Fruit Ninja Free
Jewels
Ebay
Jelly Defense
Paper Toss
Tapatalk
Random Mahjong
The Weather Channel

And then the ones that came loaded. The only thing I can figure is the couple of times I watched youtube videos it really sapped the battery. I'll see how it goes this week. Today it seemed to last longer.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by sparklemotion

Hmm.. I don't have very many really. Here's what I have:

Adobe Reader
Angry Birds
Angry Birds Seasons
Angry Birds Rio
Bubble Burster
Doodle Jumo
Fruit Ninja Free
Jewels
Ebay
Jelly Defense
Paper Toss
Tapatalk
Random Mahjong
The Weather Channel

And then the ones that came loaded. The only thing I can figure is the couple of times I watched youtube videos it really sapped the battery. I'll see how it goes this week. Today it seemed to last longer.

It's probably one of the games you have installed. I can vouch for Angry Birds being okay but it could be any of the other ones of course if all you do is game the battery wont last long at all. Gaming sucks down a battery faster then anything. There is no fixed for that other then to play with it plugged in.

[frankz]

An interesting, not-too-technical read on best use practices for Lithium-Ion batteries with links to more detailed information:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=669497

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by frankz

An interesting, not-too-technical read on best use practices for Lithium-Ion batteries with links to more detailed information:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=669497

From your link:

"LIBs have short lives (in comparison to NiCa batteries, etc). You should expect to buy a new battery in 2-3 years after being manufactured. It is caused by internal oxidation and there's nothing you can do to stop or prevent that.

Same goes to WiFi connection - although it's on, if there is no data flowing through it, it uses almost no energy"

Thus, in 3 years at the most we will be buying the Kindle Fire of that year. Also, leaving WiFi on all the time uses almost zero energy if we are not receiving or sending data.

That link also recommends a full TWELVE HOUR charge when first receiving one's LIB (Fire). Maybe those, who are getting low battery times until depeletion, should try an overnight charge to perk up their meters.

[frankz]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

That link also recommends a full TWELVE HOUR charge when first receiving one's LIB (Fire). Maybe those, who are getting low battery times until depeletion, should try an overnight charge to perk up their meters.

I don't know about that. Unlike most of my devices, I've noticed the Fire gets pretty hot if you leave it plugged in after it's fully charged. Most cut off charging when completely full, but I don't think the fire does.

The main takeaway is to do a full cycle charge every once in a while. Don't just take it down to 70% and bump it back to 100% all the time.

Also, the apparent quick draining may be a misreading of the battery status by the Fire's innards rather than actual short battery life.

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Thus, in 3 years at the most we will be buying the Kindle Fire of that year.

Not necessarily. You apparently don't have to even be all that technically adept to tear it apart and put it back together again. Basically, you need to be able to follow directions.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11...fire_teardown/

From that link.

The folks at iFixit – as their name might indicate – are not only purveyors of DIY (and FIY) parts and tools, they're also strong advocates of gadget design that allows for easy repair. And they've found a friend in the Fire – it's easy to open and easy to reassemble.

As they told us in an email: "Two years down the line – when the battery decides to go kaput – it will be significantly easier to replace the battery in the Kindle Fire than its Apple competitor."

I think, when it's dead and there's nothing to do BUT change the battery ourselves, most of us will find ourselves to be braver than we think.

[sparklemotion]

Originally Posted by Blossom

It's probably one of the games you have installed. I can vouch for Angry Birds being okay but it could be any of the other ones of course if all you do is game the battery wont last long at all. Gaming sucks down a battery faster then anything. There is no fixed for that other then to play with it plugged in.

Thanks for your reply, Blossom. I installed Badass Battery Monitor (no idea if it's any good or not) and it lists doodle Jump as taking a fair amount of the battery. It was the only game listed besides Bejeweled, but that was only taking a tiny amount. My battery life has seemed better in the past couple of days though.

I never charged my battery for 12 hours either when I first got it. It states at the link frankz posted that's a good idea. (Thanks for that link, Frank) Maybe that would help. The most I have done is overnight, maybe 8-9 hours or so.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by sparklemotion

Thanks for your reply, Blossom. I installed Badass Battery Monitor (no idea if it's any good or not) and it lists doodle Jump as taking a fair amount of the battery. It was the only game listed besides Bejeweled, but that was only taking a tiny amount. My battery life has seemed better in the past couple of days though.

I never charged my battery for 12 hours either when I first got it. It states at the link frankz posted that's a good idea. (Thanks for that link, Frank) Maybe that would help. The most I have done is overnight, maybe 8-9 hours or so.

I installed Vevo yesterday to test it out for someone and only ran it for about 3 minutes and closed it. I notice later that night my battery was down by 25% at just being idle It's the only thing that has changed. So there another battery hog even when not in use. I uninstalled it then restarted the Fire and it's back to behaving. *phew*

[sirmaru]

Since installing Badass Battery Monitor, I'm getting a result that the Kindle System uses 47% of my battery consumption while the screen uses 24.42% and WiFi uses 22.46%. Its worth it to me to leave WiFi on since I sync a lot between my Fire and 3rd Gen Kbd.

My eReading (Amazon Kindle) only uses 0.18% while the Launcher and Kernel use 1.37% each. Badass Battery Manager uses 1.32% and the AppStore uses 1.26%. All other Apps uses less than 1%.

Thus, most of the battery usage is done by Kindle services just opening the Kindle Fire. The Kindle System, Screen, Launcher, Kernel and AppStore combined use 75.42% of my battery consumption. If I add in WiFi, I'm up to 97.88%.

Reading eBooks and playing chess on the Kindle Fire use negligible amounts of juice.

Kindle services excluding the Screen but including WiFi are active in sleep mode. Shutting down at night ends all processes for that period.

Badass Battery Monitor will need several charge cycles to produce an average battery life which will still be influenced by the initial short battery cycle after installation to the first charge.

At the present time my current battery usage is 6% with 94% remaining and reflects 52 minutes of use with a projected life to the next charge of 11 hours.

That is way OVER the original estimates of just 7 hours of battery usage between recharges. However, the Kindle Fire gives a low battery usage signal at 15%.

That means I probably have a full 12 hours of usage available but will have to recharge after every 10 hours of use to comply with the battery usage signal.

Active games probably shorten that life. Chess, however, is NOT an active game and uses negligible juice.

I recommend that everyone install Badass Battery Monitor now at version 1.7 and report back here their own battery usage statistics. If games cause unusual drains, this Monitor will detect them and their usage.

[sparklemotion]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I installed Vevo yesterday to test it out for someone and only ran it for about 3 minutes and closed it. I notice later that night my battery was down by 25% at just being idle It's the only thing that has changed. So there another battery hog even when not in use. I uninstalled it then restarted the Fire and it's back to behaving. *phew*

Yikes. Glad it's back to normal!

With badass battery monitor it says 2 apps are using most of my battery. (Kindle System and Amazon Kindle)

I noticed that when I shut down my kindle the game apps that were running before are now gone so maybe I didn't shut them down properly and they were running the background. I'm thinking that is what happened because since then my battery life has been much better.

[sparklemotion]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Since installing Badass Battery Monitor, I'm getting a result that the Kindle System uses 47% of my battery consumption while the screen uses 24.42% and WiFi uses 22.46%. Its worth it to me to leave WiFi on since I sync a lot between my Fire and 3rd Gen Kbd.

The Amazon kindle services are what is using most of mine too. Here's mine currently: (wifi is off)

96.46 % of battery consumed by:

Kindle System - 48.20%
Amazon Kindle - 47.59%
Kernel - 0.29%
Launcher - 0.17%
Badass Battery Monitor - 0.09%
Appstore - 0.03%
Amazon Device Client Platform - 0.02%
App Manager - 0.01%
Tapatalk - 0.01%
Pulse - 0.01%

My screen is taking 3.16% (I keep brightness down almost halfway most of the time)

[ratkity]

Going to install the BBattery Monitor and check what vevo is doing while idling. Very curious after what Blossom experienced!

Will report back in a few days once I get a decent average. Thanks for everyone else's data!

Hugs,
Ratkity