When is asus fixing battery problems on android devices?

[rogern]

To use wifi is like charging the phone twise a day, i think this is more a huge issue then not allowing third party firmware.

 

[pete y testing]

To use wifi is like charging the phone twise a day, i think this is more a huge issue then not allowing third party firmware.

i use my sony m4 all day on wifi and its lasts for 2 days , so ether your battery has memory effect or something else is wrong , what asus rtouter are you using

 

[joegreat]

When is asus fixing battery problems on android devices?

When YOU update your router to the latest firmware from the Asus homepage!
This kind of issue was solved already some time ago...

Of course it would be also good to complain to your android device vendor to get a fix on their side as well!

 

[Bamsefar]

Hmm I have a Sony Z3 back home, been connected to Wifi all the time (and mobile provider, yes SIM is inserted and it is active ALL the time), and it's been up for 7 days and is at 50% - something tells me it is not the router - it's something else wrong....

 

[rogern]

When YOU update your router to the latest firmware from the Asus homepage!
This kind of issue was solved already some time ago...

Of course it would be also good to complain to your android device vendor to get a fix on their side as well!

Check this out before you post a reply as i do not find newer firmware

 

[L&LD]

After flashing the latest firmware, did you do a full reset to factory defaults and then manually and minimally configure the router to secure it and connect to your ISP (with new ssid's too)?

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/no...l-and-manual-configuration.27115/#post-205573

 

[microchip]

While on latest .59 of XVortex on my R7000, I've also experienced a huge battery drain on my Galaxy J5 so there IS something going on. Nothing has changed on my side except the upgrade to .59. Since I got fed up with it, I loaded Tomato and did a record. 7 days on single charge with moderate usage!

/me is happy camper

 

[RMerlin]

I have no problem getting over 4 days of stand-by time while at home with my Nexus 5X and an RT-AC88U. No idea exactly how long the uptime might last, as I tend to charge my phone whenever it gets below 50%.

 

[microchip]

On here, the wifi seems to constantly wake up the Android OS process which was responsible for the drain. I played a day of two with the wifi settings, including resetting them to defaults, but couldn't make it stop. I only have one phone here so can't test with anything else...

What I did noticed while on XVortex wifi log page is that the phone was constantly switching between powersave mode and normal mode, like every few seconds. Never seen that before

 

[System Error Message]

under wifi - advanced, tweak the DTIM and interval settings to give you a value of 2000 from their multiples. You can go even further but the default timeout is 3s so 2s is sufficient to save battery and still allow apps to stay connected to the internet. If you dont care about apps timing out you can put it to the maximum value to save battery.

The problem with android is that google services run all the time and use wifi, aside from that many android devices are filled with bloatware that run all the time and always use internet especially on wifi. Removing them and using something like greenify also helps. I would remove all social apps from the phone, it really helps, or at least use them with greenify and check them manually. Dont let social media control you.

 

[sfx2000]

under wifi - advanced, tweak the DTIM and interval settings to give you a value of 2000 from their multiples. You can go even further but the default timeout is 3s so 2s is sufficient to save battery and still allow apps to stay connected to the internet. If you dont care about apps timing out you can put it to the maximum value to save battery.

Putting on my IEEE hat...

DTIM=3, Beacon Interval=100 is good enough for most folks, esp in an area where they are many other networks seen.

Run the beacon interval too long and the device will get lost, and go into searching/reassociate, and this eats up even more battery...

 

[pete y testing]

Check this out before you post a reply as i do not find newer firmware

yes and i have all the asus rt-ac range and have no issues as started

check your logs and see if that phone is continously connecting and disconnecting as this maybe the issue esp if its sleeping often

 

[System Error Message]

Putting on my IEEE hat...

DTIM=3, Beacon Interval=100 is good enough for most folks, esp in an area where they are many other networks seen.

Run the beacon interval too long and the device will get lost, and go into searching/reassociate, and this eats up even more battery...

Actually not a problem as long as your beacon x DTIM is below 3000. As i said the default timeout is 3 seconds, what this mean even for LAN is that you could unplug a cable from your switch, plug it back in all within 3 seconds and it will look like a hiccup but nothing will get disconnected.

Trying to set your DTIM and beacon for super performance actually makes it more demanding for wifi adapters which is why phones have slower response times by default unless you turn off the power savings to get your phone to have the same latency as any other wifi device. Setting a higher time also helps in a crowded wifi environment.

@sfx2000 the values you state are the default ones for ASUS, its a performance setting but not the max performance. If you increase the DTIM to 10, beacon interval to 200 you will get a good balance for better battery life. Low DTIM makes connecting faster. Low beacon interval makes detecting the AP faster which is unnecessary if your devices are already set to use your AP and are already connected. The client will never change how long it will scan for APs.

A device sleeping is irrelevant for phones because phones will stay connected even when they're locked as they arent truely asleep.

Another problem with non google android phones is that they do not have power savings in relation to their boasted hardware. Many hardware manufacturers boast their power saving capabilities but the problem is with android, implementing them into android isnt easy as android isnt your typical everyday desktop linux.

 

[Nullity]

Actually not a problem as long as your beacon x DTIM is below 3000. As i said the default timeout is 3 seconds, what this mean even for LAN is that you could unplug a cable from your switch, plug it back in all within 3 seconds and it will look like a hiccup but nothing will get disconnected.

Trying to set your DTIM and beacon for super performance actually makes it more demanding for wifi adapters which is why phones have slower response times by default unless you turn off the power savings to get your phone to have the same latency as any other wifi device. Setting a higher time also helps in a crowded wifi environment.

@sfx2000 the values you state are the default ones for ASUS, its a performance setting but not the max performance. If you increase the DTIM to 10, beacon interval to 200 you will get a good balance for better battery life. Low DTIM makes connecting faster. Low beacon interval makes detecting the AP faster which is unnecessary if your devices are already set to use your AP and are already connected. The client will never change how long it will scan for APs.

A device sleeping is irrelevant for phones because phones will stay connected even when they're locked as they arent truely asleep.

Another problem with non google android phones is that they do not have power savings in relation to their boasted hardware. Many hardware manufacturers boast their power saving capabilities but the problem is with android, implementing them into android isnt easy as android isnt your typical everyday desktop linux.

Is your whole post just your own logical theory or do you have some real-world tests or some reputable sources to cite?

 

[pete y testing]

A device sleeping is irrelevant for phones because phones will stay connected even when they're locked as they arent truely asleep.

unless you have some power saving feature that does disable wifi when asleep

but if the phone is constantly re associating in the logs this can obviously cause an issue

 

[sfx2000]

Actually not a problem as long as your beacon x DTIM is below 3000. As i said the default timeout is 3 seconds, what this mean even for LAN is that you could unplug a cable from your switch, plug it back in all within 3 seconds and it will look like a hiccup but nothing will get disconnected.

Trying to set your DTIM and beacon for super performance actually makes it more demanding for wifi adapters which is why phones have slower response times by default unless you turn off the power savings to get your phone to have the same latency as any other wifi device. Setting a higher time also helps in a crowded wifi environment.

@sfx2000 the values you state are the default ones for ASUS, its a performance setting but not the max performance. If you increase the DTIM to 10, beacon interval to 200 you will get a good balance for better battery life. Low DTIM makes connecting faster. Low beacon interval makes detecting the AP faster which is unnecessary if your devices are already set to use your AP and are already connected. The client will never change how long it will scan for APs.

A device sleeping is irrelevant for phones because phones will stay connected even when they're locked as they arent truely asleep.

Another problem with non google android phones is that they do not have power savings in relation to their boasted hardware. Many hardware manufacturers boast their power saving capabilities but the problem is with android, implementing them into android isnt easy as android isnt your typical everyday desktop linux.

I respectfully disagree... the defaults are more than good enough. And it's not a "performance" setting, it's actually much more than that. Settings the values as you suggest affect all clients on the network, not just handsets. And it will effect the network in a very negative way.

Beacon Interval in most networks is fine at 100, and DTIM=3 is actually a Max value, it will spiral down to 1 depending on traffic to the STA's, and if the network is lightly loaded...

You may want to go back and review IEEE 802.11-2012.

OP didn't say what Router he has, but there's long standing issues with the Quantenna firmware in the 87U that directly impact wireless standby time.

 

[System Error Message]

I am speaking from experience in that wifi did drain my battery a lot with asus wifi routers but after modifying some of the values it got better.
Heres what my AC88U professional setting page looks like. I've been using this setting for months with the AC3200 as well and it does improve battery life.

The problem with IEEE standards is that not everything follows it. Sometimes you have to tweak settings out of the ordinary for things to work.

 

[sfx2000]

I am speaking from experience in that wifi did drain my battery a lot with asus wifi routers but after modifying some of the values it got better.
Heres what my AC88U professional setting page looks like. I've been using this setting for months with the AC3200 as well and it does improve battery life.

The problem with IEEE standards is that not everything follows it. Sometimes you have to tweak settings out of the ordinary for things to work.

Usually what I've found is that some Router/AP's generally won't let the devices sleep - actually not the AP, but the SW stack in the router itself.

Quick Tip - Disabling IGMP - IGMP is important, because it turns Multicast traffic into Unicast traffic - and the tribal knowledge here, most "tips" suggesting disabling IGMP. Recommendation here is not to do that.

If you recall, I am a Principal Systems Design Engineer with over 20 years in the Wireless Industry, with extensive experience in IETF and IEEE802 working groups.

We take those things into consideration when spec'ing out defaults - they're not just arbitrary.



BTW - you screenshot doesn't show up.

 

[sfx2000]

@System Error Message - you do realize what happens when one sets DTIM=10 and Beacon Interval to 2000?

One, this is a global setting for the entire BSS, not just the affected handset - and also, this negatively impacts the wireless chipset, as it now has to build very large buffers, much larger than DTIM=3, Beacon 100, as all pending packets need to be held until they're delivered.

This can run the wifi chipset out of memory internally, and this is a risk. It also greatly adds to overall latency of the BSS, as combination of DTIM/Beacon determines when devices should expect data.

Tried to let one back out of a statement, but I would be irresponsible not to point this out.

Personal opinion is that that screen should just go away - or be hidden really deep and one would have to go to a specify URL that isn't in the other WebGUI pages - it's nice that it's there, but like I said earlier, Asus has done a decent job with the default settings.

Most performance and stability issues with AsusWRT are a result of folks messing with items that they may not understand on that screen.

 

[System Error Message]

not sure why imgur isnt working.
Some devices dont exactly play well with each other. before i changed the settings i did check what every option was and how it affects things so its not like i dont know what i was doing. Setting the DTIM and beacon to a value that was much higher than i mentioned meant it took longer to connect to it and if your phone goes into sleep mode it will get disconnected. Its not unreasonable to increase the values a little bit if it does help battery life.

Aside from the AP not letting the phone sleep the phone's firmware also needs to be set to sleep or how often to wake up to check for updates.

If you think about the default setting, thats every 300ms of waking up the phone, with my setting its every 2s. I have before on older APs used the lowest settings for DTIM and beacon (the defaults were higher) and while the AP performed really well it can cause some wifi chipsets to lock up. Buffering is much easier than processing more packets faster for the wifi chipset but only up to a point, this may not work for every network.