Pixel 8 pro battery life and thermometer

MarsTrue

I got a new Pixel 8 Pro and flashed Graphene on it. Battery life is not very good and it runs hot. I already set low resolution and refresh rate, 4g preferred network, disabled WiFi calling, scanning and volte.
Any other tips to improve it?
Also I downloaded the google thermometer app from Aurora store and I doesn't work.

Eirikr70

Have you been on Parameters/Battery/Usage ? You might the which apps drain your battery and decide how to improve it. There is no reason why it should be short.

MarsTrue

Eirikr70 2 hours of tiktok drained about 25% of the battery. in the systems tab mobile network and CPU where the main culprits. came from a 4a5g that after 3.5 years of daily charge - discharge cycles has about the same battery life as this new 8 pro

[deleted]

I think that's a fair number?

MarsTrue

[deleted] it translates to about 7.5 hours of SOT. definitely below average for a smartphone in 2024, and a flagship at that. what would that SOT look in a few years as this is marketed as having a long support period? the reviews mentioned that battery was meh but I figured it would get better after the google bloat is removed.

Any way to completely disable 5g, as it's mentioned as one of the drain causes? i tried 4g only mode and the internet stopped working.

Kippy

Pixels aren't famous for their battery life, good opensource software rarely results in good energy efficiency, because the jack of all trades doesn't have the economies of scale, the secret little proprietary features that only top-tier (closed source) OEM partners get to know about, etc. So enevitably the hardware supports several lower power-states than what it is ever actually put into by the kernel because it's never sure if it's safe or not. The only real solution is to really take control as the owner of the phone by manually closing apps that could prevent a deeper sleep state, and most importantly manually setting the screen brightness (very important! huge power draw!) and refresh rate manually as you "use" the screen.

4G preffered is not the right call, I see why you do it because it's a lower frequency, but it's also a higher wattage for longer distances with less efficiency per MB transferred per Watt. It's "idle" cost is lower than 5G, but by far the best thing to do is enable wifi-calling (2.4Ghz has far lower max wattage and network-idle-chatter) and then turn the cellular modem off entirely. The cellular modem is an entirely seperate computer, running it's own linux-like OS. The wifi chip is just a PCIe device. You should also turn the bluetooth off if it's not actively paired but duh.

If you do all that, the "phone" has great battery life - it can idle for well over a day on a small battery, which is incredible for a multi-core computer running a full opensource UNIX-compliant OS the entire time. Even with all the virtualisation, RAM shuffling, and encryption/decryption going on for the extra safety that Graphene provides over vanilla Android. I mean, you could solder on a bigger battery if you really want. Good luck doing that on an iPhone.

But ultimately it is the double-edged sword of the opensource nature of the phone OS that the cellular modem isn't completely integrated into the phone OS like say a Nokia (where they make their own OS). These 3rd party cellular chips use a lot of power and prevent the phone OS from being as energy efficient as they might. But, you have the option of shutting them down entirely.

MarsTrue

Kippy thank you for your elaborate response. where I live there is no 5g coverage yet so I have no use for it. I mostly communicate through messages so calling it's also pretty rare. I currently carry a second work phone that I use only for calls and I tried using it as a hotspot with the pixel in WiFi only mode. you are right the problem is the modem. the plan was to transfer my work sim to e-sim and use it as a dual sim but that would mean even more power draw. I guess this is the situation for now

de0u

Kippy 4G preffered is not the right call, I see why you do it because it's a lower frequency, but it's also a higher wattage for longer distances with less efficiency per MB transferred per Watt.

Somebody with great 5G coverage may well benefit from using it, and over time that may happen more. Some people have rock-solid LTE mixed with spotty 5G (probably lots of people). Some of those people may benefit a lot by telling the phone to "settle" for rock-solid LTE instead of flipping back and forth.

Kippy

de0u yeah, that would be really interesting to study. Come to think of it, I can't actually think of a way to just log how much power the modem is using, along with some general status info like packets/sec or connection_status. Something like repeated frequency/basestation-hopping, or maybe even simpler like poor signal when you sit in a certain chair, could result in the modem having to turn the gain up to 11 without you ever knowing. An app that charts the RMS power per minute, with some visual indication of what the modem status was, could diagnose a lot of modem related issues... but again it's important to focus on the sources of power drain. Is it the screen? Gotta turn the brightness down, can't fix that. Is it the modem doing LTE? Can't fix that but swap to wifi/bluetooth. Is it the modem having to be asked nicely to enter a lower power-state, and because it's a Samsung Exynos it's deliberately engineered to drain more power in non-Samsung phones? Can't fix that, unless maybe you work for Samsung ¯_(ツ)_/¯

But it's never "the phone", so to speak. The battery capacities are written on the side, and the CPUs dynamically use power since 2017, so it's never the CPU (unless its forced to keep running fast because it can't enter a lower power state because the modem is doing things). They're not like engines, where if they're bigger or whatever they're less fuel efficient. The voltages and amps these things get is all in software.

de0u

Kippy The battery capacities are written on the side, and the CPUs dynamically use power since 2017, so it's never the CPU (unless its forced to keep running fast because it can't enter a lower power state because the modem is doing things).

I hear rumors that these days some people play games on phones, and that some of games involve a fair amount of GPU and CPU usage even if they are barely using the network.

SuperNoodle

That's a good result for an 8 Pro. I get around 7h SOT on average, mixed use in various conditions. Was getting 1h more SOT on a S23 Ultra used in a similar way. I'd say it's a decent number for a modern smartphone.