High battery drainage Xperia 10 III

Bug Reports
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#260

It hasn’t - as long as it works normally. But from time to time it gets kind of ‘stuck’ and in such state it consumes CPU time.

Normally, it uses around 1 second of CPU time when it gets touched and attempts to recognize the fingerprint, and after that it doesn’t use any CPU time until it is touched again. One can check it in e.g. Crest: open details of the /vendor/bin/hw/android.hardware.biometrics.fingerprint@2.1-service.sony process, check the CPU time consumed so far, then turn off the display and wake it up by touching the fingerprint sensor. Then re-open the page with details of that process - the CPU time will increase by 1 second.

In such case, even after several days the CPU time consumed by that process is just seconds - simply 1 second per each fingerprint recognition.

But quite often it gets ‘stuck’ - it doesn’t deactivate itself and continues using CPU time. In such state it not only eats power but it also stops reacting to touches.

See the screenshot below (from Crest) - it is after the sensor got stuck and ate over 40 minutes of CPU time. Normally, for that process to use 40 minutes of CPU time it would take 1 second * 60 * 40 = 2400 fingerprint scans, i.e. weeks of uptime. But when it gets stuck, it eats this much CPU time within minutes.

Resetting the sailfish-fpd service doesn’t seem to have any impact on this /vendor/bin/hw/android.hardware.biometrics.fingerprint@2.1-service.sony process.

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2 Likes
#261

I’ve AIDA64, but I’m uncertain what I can see from that. Yesterday I disabled the new battery function that stops charging at 90%, and suddenly the the phone charged from 76% to 96% in just a half an hour while connected to my laptop (I was sharing the internet over USB), and this morning it was down on 85%, having used “only” 11% during night. I need a couple of more days to say for sure, but maybe the new save-battery-function is not 100% yet?

#262

BatteryBuddy shows my X10iii SFOS using 300-400mA running 3.5G mode from home.
My Android X10iii is showing currents in 300-800mA range, using BatteryNotifier.

So, if anything SFOS seems to be better. However the Android might be using 4G, and cell signal is hugely variable where I live, and the battery apps show wildly fluctuating currents.

I would be astonished by 31hrs talk time, unless you were hanging in a climbing harness off the antenna tower itself.
Which I expect is exactly how the manufacturers specify it. Perhaps in Tokyo?

2 Likes
#263

I didn’t write anything about manufacturer’s specs. In fact, I don’t even know how Sony rated the 10 III talk time. I was referring to 3rd party tests/reviews. For example, GSM Arena gives it 3G talk time of over 31,5 hours. They say that they “measure how long it takes to deplete the battery by making voice calls. Bearing in mind that most screens automatically turn off during a call, we’ve made sure our set up accounts for this. We close all applications which may further strain the battery, too.”. So they simply make a call via 3G network and see how long it’ll last before the battery gets empty. I don’t know how close to the 3G tower they conduct their tests, but unless one proves that their figures are false I don’t have much reasons not to trust them, especially that I’ve seen other reviews giving the 10 III similar talk times.

Anyway, as a former user of the Blackberry Passport which was consuming 2-3% of charge overnight (rather than 10 III’s 8-10%) and 3-4% of charge per an hour of voice call (rather than 10 III’s 8-10%), and that in the same location, i.e. same distance from mobile towers and same signal strength, I simply cannot consider 10 III’s thrice higher power consumption as tolerable. Or actually even more, considering that that the BB Passport had a 3450 mAh battery, so its 1% actually equals 0,75% of the 10 III’s 4500 mAh battery, meaning that it was actually consuming 4x less under the same conditions. That with a SoC from early 2010’s in 28 nm technology and a huge LED screen.

#264

It’s only been a day, but after having disabled the new feature for better battery health (stop charging at 90%) I notice two things: charging is back to normal speed again (both with charger and when connected to laptop sharing internet access via USB), and the battery drainage is (back to) more normal. I left home for work at noon today with a fully 100% charged battery, and seven hours later it’s showing 95%, which is on a par with what I’m used to.

I think there’s something to the saying “If it’s not broken, don’t f*cking touch it”, so I’m not that inclined to enable the better battery health-feature again to see if I can reproduce this behaviour. I just want a phone with a battery that doesn’t drain like water runs through my fingers, which I seem to have now again. I’ll wait a couple of updates before I try the better battery health-function again :slight_smile: I rather charge my battery to 100% (as I’ve always done with every phone I’ve had so far anyway) and have a longer battery life, than having to charge 2–3 times more often than usual.

Sony Xperia 10 III with stock SFOS 4.5.0.18 (no Android-support, Jolla Store-apps only).

1 Like
#265

It would be interesting to build Sonys AOSP, flash it and measure the battery drain. First with Android 11 and then with the latest 13 version.

If i find time, i’ll give this a try.

2 Likes
Standby Battery high drain on Xperia 10 III
#266

And GPS acquire time

#267

My 10 III’s cycle count is now at 107. Bought on July 13, so it’s only 8 months old. This gives 1 cycle every ~ 2.3 days.

/sys/class/power_supply/battery/cycle_count

What’s yours?

1 Like
#268

Hiw should we check this? Open in nano, or something like that?

#269

…or in file browser.

#270

Charging isn’t linear, and also discharging. So it takes longer to charge from 90 to 100% than 80 to 90%, did you take that into account?

#271

I bought my 10 III and installed SFOS on the 22nd June and I’m now at cycle 30, which means one cycle per 8.9 days. I’ve been using Battery Buddy since September (thresholds being 25% and 85%). Can this be right? The difference compared to your device seems huge.

#272

31 cycles. I bought mine late November 2021, but it was not until… about a year ago I installed SFOS and actually started using it. But I reflashed sometime this autumn, the last of September, I think.

#273

I can’t account for anything else than my impression that the phone charges faster now without the battery ageing protection enabled, I’m afraid :slight_smile: And my impression is also that the battery drainage is less. It might have been the battery ageing protection-feature in itself that caused my problems (slow/er charging, fast/er drainage). But it might also just have triggered or de-triggered something else. I don’t know, I’m just happy to be back on a normal drainage (as it was before the latest update), and I’ll wait a while before I try the battery ageing protection-feature again.

#274

Now mine says 15 cycles from May 2022, and i have keeping the charge between 20-80% most of the time, so i guess the counter doesn’t really work, if you don’t charge it full enough.

#275

That’s amazing. It would mean that you fully recharge it once every 20 days…

Almost the same, once every 16 days…

Did you guys ever reflash SFOS on your phones? If so, it would probably mean that this counter is volatile and starts from scratch upon every reflash…

#276

It does. Mine says 6 cycles, because I reflashed sfos a week or so, after 4.5 was released.

#277

So, sadly, it’s worth anything only on phones which were flashed with SFOS right after purchase (as brand new, unused units) and then never reflashed…

In all other cases it’s useful only to calculate average battery life (from full to empty), and only if we know the exact date of reflash (number of days since counter reset).

#278

Only by accident. Luckily i found Battery Buddy, so i can keep it within the recommended range.

#279

Sorry, I didn’t express it clear enough. What it actually means is that if your cycle_count was really only “15” since May 2022 (i.e. 300 days), it would mean that it takes your phone 20 days to discharge from full to empty. Which obviously can’t be true, so it must mean that you reflashed your phone (which reset that counter) not so long ago, like one month ago or so. Was that the case?