[diablodvs7]

i put my PB into standby yesterday at 16:00 with 96% battery, turned it back on this morn at 12:00 with 69% battery - wi-fi and bluetooth were turned off. Is this drain rate correct? It seems poor.

EDIT topic should be '..in standby', sorry.

[iloveyouchauncey]

That is really poor, I'm going to try this out today while lm at school for 8 hours and see how much battery life I have when I get home today.

[TinRobot]

Set your multitasking options to "paused" and be sure to shut down all apps before putting the PB into standby. This seems to give me the best battery life. Battery was at 69% when i crashed 8 hrs. ago. Now at 67% 7 hrs. later.

[diablodvs7]

Set your multitasking options to "paused" and be sure to shut down all apps before putting the PB into standby. This seems to give me the best battery life. Battery was at 69% when i crashed 8 hrs. ago. Now at 67% 7 hrs. later.

TY. I've changed from showcase to paused. I'll report back tomorrow.

[Angus_CB]

...
Battery was at 69% when i crashed 8 hrs. ago. Now at 67% 7 hrs. later.

How is it possible that you crashed 8 hours ago but only 7 hours later you are posting on the forum. Some sort of space-time continuum or are you posting in your sleep?

Mine has been sitting for about 10 hours with WiFi on. It has dropped about 5%.

[peter9477]

i put my PB into standby yesterday at 16:00 with 96% battery, turned it back on this morn at 12:00 with 69% battery - wi-fi and bluetooth were turned off. Is this drain rate correct? It seems poor.

Did you leave a game running? Some of the games (and possibly a few other apps, but not many) do not properly go inactive in standby and will continue draining power.

How long is the duration you're describing? 16:00 to 12:00 is a bit of a confusing time... I could interpret that as 8 hours, or 20 hours.

If it was only 8 hours, it means roughly 0.60W on average during that time, which implies an app was still sucking power.

By the way, the Showcase vs Paused vs Default setting has no effect in Standby. Standby is equivalent to using Paused and minimizing all apps, so that setting applies only when the PlayBook is on anyway.

[diablodvs7]

To be clear, I am in the UK, England, and I put it into standy at 1600 GMT yesterday, then turned it back on at 1200 midday GMT today - 20 hours, with no apps or games running and no wi-fi or bluetooth on.

So I lost 1.35% of power per hour, which I think is very bad.

I was lead to believe that using the power off button is effectively the same as putting it into standy and loses the same amount of power, except that it takes a lot longer come come back on using the power button. Is that correct?

[peter9477]

Okay, with 20 hours, your average consumption was 243mW during that time. (Typical energy capacity is 18Wh, 18Wh times 0.0135 is 0.243Wh, which is 243mW for one hour.)

That's not one of the games, but it's abnormal, especially if you have the radios off. If you restart the tablet, this issue will probably go away for now. (Unless you're running 2.0 and have used the android player in which case I make no guarantees.)

Chances are you were hit by the known GPS bug (apparently fixed in 2.0) which can result in the GPS service continuing to run after you've exited all apps, consuming pretty much exactly that much power even in standby.

As for the power button: a quick press puts it in standby, identical to using the battery icon and the Standby button. If you press it for about 4s continuously, it will do a full shutdown. That means truly off, using zero power. And yes, it would then take well over a minute to restart, as opposed to the fraction of a second it takes to wake up when it's in standby.

[FF22]

Peter: Is there anyway to tell if the gps is running? I gather there is not task manager type of tool, even for debugging, to show what's going on behind the scene other than some of the results Battery Guru can capture.

I've got a few apps that use or rather can use a gps including What'sUp, free Compass, Poynt, Bing, Maps-on-device (France) and some others. I guess, even the Browsers use the gps or can. Most are not used or even fired up after a reset but ..... My Standby losses overnight is what I think is fairly miserable. I know you have also mentioned potential wifi polling COULD (not necessarily) be something, too. Only thing running overnight in standby was Guru (wifi/bt both ON). Red text - 10pm and 7am.

[peter9477]

Peter: Is there anyway to tell if the gps is running?

Unfortunately, no, other than that the particular issue I mentioned has as a symptom the fact that no GPS apps will get readings after that occurs. Run the simple Compass app for example, in a place where you know it would give you readings, and you won't see any. Restart, and then it will work. Aside from that, the state of the GPS service is invisible to us on non-rooted PlayBooks.

My Standby losses overnight is what I think is fairly miserable. I know you have also mentioned potential wifi polling COULD (not necessarily) be something, too. Only thing running overnight in standby was Guru (wifi/bt both ON). Red text - 10pm and 7am.

Yep, what you see is clearly not that unusual, but I do still consider it a defect of some kind. I'm expecting either that we'll see it suddenly clear up with 2.0, or that we'll finally be in a position (with a supposedly solid 2.0) to do some serious investigation of the problem, by finding some technically inclined people (or those capable of pretending to be ;-) ) who suffer from it and are able and willing to do some extensive troubleshooting to track down the source of the issue.

My gut tells me it's not the PlayBook itself, but rather the local environment, be it the WiFi router, other devices present, other WiFi networks in the area, or similar things. I might well be wrong, and it may turn out that some PlayBooks simply suffer from this higher consumption inherently, RIM denies it's a problem covered by warranty, and you're stuck with it. I hope not.

I forget... were you one of the people who see this higher standby consumption immediately after power-up even if you disabled WiFi and Bluetooth prior to shutting it down? Or does yours consistently go to more like 0.050W if you disable the radios?

[FF22]

I was going to append a piece of the spreadsheet. The values remain consistent till I turned it on and placed it back on the rapid charger.

I am going to set an alarm for this evening. And turn off bt/wifi and take it out of the otterbox case. Who knows maybe there is some connection - I have the otterbox screen protector and ANOTHER under that - maybe too much contact on the touchscreen. I have an older linksys router. I use mac addressing. ON THE PB, I have established a static address (my router does not have the ability to do it on the router). Being a former scientist (well, diagnostic bacteriologist) I should be willing to do testing but then I'm so busy doing nothing in particular!!!!

[diablodvs7]

Okay, with 20 hours, your average consumption was 243mW during that time. (Typical energy capacity is 18Wh, 18Wh times 0.0135 is 0.243Wh, which is 243mW for one hour.)

That's not one of the games, but it's abnormal, especially if you have the radios off. If you restart the tablet, this issue will probably go away for now. (Unless you're running 2.0 and have used the android player in which case I make no guarantees.)

Chances are you were hit by the known GPS bug (apparently fixed in 2.0) which can result in the GPS service continuing to run after you've exited all apps, consuming pretty much exactly that much power even in standby.

As for the power button: a quick press puts it in standby, identical to using the battery icon and the Standby button. If you press it for about 4s continuously, it will do a full shutdown. That means truly off, using zero power. And yes, it would then take well over a minute to restart, as opposed to the fraction of a second it takes to wake up when it's in standby.

Between 13:40 and 16:10 today - 4hrs 30, PB went from 50% to 44% in standby. That's 1.3% per hour so at least it's being consistent. I've just rebooted it and I'm going to see what the drain is over night. Thanks for the advice

[LuayS]

I've complained about this since day one, better battery support during standby is necessary. I don't like how an ipad can be in stand by for a month with little to no battery drain.

[iloveyouchauncey]

ok guys! so I just got back from school, I started at 8am and finished at 4pm. My battery level was at 100% this morning and by the time I checked at 4pm it dropped too 98% with no apps running and also PB was in standby mode. I'm going to also do some other test with wifi on and apps running in the background and see what the battery level is at when its in standby mode.

[FF22]

I'd but happy with a 2% loss over 8 hours.

[peter9477]

I've complained about this since day one, better battery support during standby is necessary. I don't like how an ipad can be in stand by for a month with little to no battery drain.

For one thing, an iPad probably doesn't really do anything while it's in standby. I'm guessing that aside from supporting alarms efficiently (i.e. uses negligible power but can still wake itself up when an alarm goes off) it doesn't really operate. Or, if it can do things like background data transfers periodically (e.g. check email once every 10 minutes), I'd be surprised if it really had 30-day standby time while doing so.

The PlayBook on the other hand can be contacted over WiFi from your PC at any time while you're in standby. This lets you just dump files into it or retrieve them, wherever it is, without having to dig it out of your bag and wake it up. If you like that feature then (and I sure do) there's at least one justification for a difference in standby life.

My PlayBooks (all 8 that I've dealt with) have all had 12-15 day standby time... none have experienced this issue with ~250mW power consumption in standby, resulting in 1-2% per hour or whatever it is. That's one strong reason for thinking this is either a flaw with some units, or something to do with the environment.

Does anyone with this problem have access to a second PlayBook? Borrow a friend's or invite them over for a while, to leave their PB in standby at your place, next to your own?

[III 4U2NV III]

I've recently noticed this too w/my PB. For example, there were a couple times I knew I had somewhere around 45%+ and came back later that night and my PB was completely dead. I do often have the browser open and Today's Alarm running.

[FF22]

Well, my Alarm went off and after a bit of a struggle (no kidding), I got the Otterbox off. (aside: boy it really is slim and those controls atop it hard to use - the otterbox raised those buttons quite nicely). I plan on turning wifi/bt off overnight - might as well, right now.

Report back in the morning.

82% at 10:20pm

[diablodvs7]

ok guys! so I just got back from school, I started at 8am and finished at 4pm. My battery level was at 100% this morning and by the time I checked at 4pm it dropped too 98% with no apps running and also PB was in standby mode. I'm going to also do some other test with wifi on and apps running in the background and see what the battery level is at when its in standby mode.

I'd be quite happy with that - 2% loss over 8 hours.

I've taken advice to restart the Playbook then see what happens, but it has had no positive effect. My Playbook went from 32% at 23:00 GMT last night to 21% at 09:00 GMT today, so 11% loss over 10 hours. 1.1% per hour.

I'm phoning the warranty today to see what they say. My Playbook is one of the units that has the 'bulge' on the back - it isn't very big but it does rock slightly on a flat surface, so I wonder if that has anything to do with it? battery overheating or something. I'll let you know what i hear.

[FF22]

Wow!

Okay, I now will have to narrow the reasons for my result. I did two things, well, three. I removed the Otterbox (probably not the issue) and also entered Airplane Mode, turning off both wifi and Bluetooth (bt). I lost 2% over night, going from 82% reported above to 80%. So, while it could be the otterbox, I suspect something about my wifi and/or bt is implicated in "eating" power overnight while the pb is in standby. Tonight I leave on wifi but turn off bt and I like it outside of the otterbox so today I will leave it that way for another day and night.

Now maybe someone can possibly suggest if it is wifi, what about my router (older linksys) or settings would be the cause? I do use wifi sharing but I'm not doing anything active with the pb during my sleep (I hope!) Or bt?

edited to add: by the way, having the pb inside the otterbox, my barely noticeable bulge is still barely noticeable. That is the otterbox did not cause any additional heat/bulge problems that I can detect.

[Chaddface]

That's a nice flatline on your graph. I get little spikes even in airplane mode. I will try with wifi transfer off to see if I can even out the spikes.
I normally have about a 8-9% loss overnight with the connections on and in standby. I agree it could be better.
I will also test against my wife's PB to see if they get the same results.

[KC1988]

My pb also drains quite rapidly. Usually, it will drain about 20-25% overnight (about 8-10 hours) in standby with no apps running. Just called RIM support. Was told that battery will drain about that much in standby and told to turn off the playbook if not in use for more than 1-2 hours. I've gotten no more than 3 hours using the playbook on a full charge (with wifi).

Does this sound right? Do most people turn off their playbook?

One of the best features of the playbook and other tablets is the instant on, and I'm disappointed if this is the standard battery drain.

[TinRobot]

How is it possible that you crashed 8 hours ago but only 7 hours later you are posting on the forum. Some sort of space-time continuum or are you posting in your sleep?

Mine has been sitting for about 10 hours with WiFi on. It has dropped about 5%.

Lol. Here we have proof of my need to be on Crackberry first thing in the AM. It was 7 hours. I was still half asleep, my only excuse.

[FF22]

My pb also drains quite rapidly. Usually, it will drain about 20-25% overnight (about 8-10 hours) in standby with no apps running. Just called RIM support. Was told that battery will drain about that much in standby and told to turn off the playbook if not in use for more than 1-2 hours. I've gotten no more than 3 hours using the playbook on a full charge (with wifi).

Does this sound right? Do most people turn off their playbook?

One of the best features of the playbook and other tablets is the instant on, and I'm disappointed if this is the standard battery drain.

I think battery life would depend greatly on what you run during those 3 hours. Some games 'eat' the battery. I have not flown in a while where I would watch a few hours of video on the battery and browse while waiting for the flight. Oh, I do not turn my pb off. I've only turned it off when I went on a two week vacation without it (camping with little access to power or wifi) and over Labor Day Weekend (again, day hiking) and did not want it left in an empty car.

[diablodvs7]

FYI I used flight mode when in standby between 15:00 and 19:00 today and it only reduced by 1%. It's a pain in the rear, but it will do. Cheers all.