Hi, I recently bought a refurbished Pixel 7 and immediately flashed GOS onto it. Been unpleasantly surprised by how bad the battery life is. Accubattery says it has 96 % of its original capacity, however it consumes around 60 % from morning till night on a pretty moderate use.
I don‘t have any Play Services installed (don‘t need ‘em), push notifications only on a forked Telegram app and Molly (Signal). Main profile, private space with banking apps, work profile with ~ 5 apps. 5G off. I also use DNSnet in the background to block ads.
Strangest thing is my screen-off drainage. While CPU is awake it consumes 17,2 %. Full battery time estimates are 33h (screen off), 10h (screen on). My friend, who has GOS on Pixel 8 Pro (only around 600 mAh more battery capacity), gets TWICE the time with screen off.
Please, do you have any suggestions about what I could do to make my battery last longer? Is something running in the background that‘s draining the battery?
Thank you.
Bad battery life on Pixel 7 (especially strange is screen off consumption)
May i ask, why do u feel this is a GOS issue?
valaka Don't get me wrong, but to me it sounded like u mainly have the perception batterylife is bad on your pixel 7.
U bought a refurbisched pixel 7, and immediatly flashed GOS on it. Which implies u don't really have a baseline to compare it to. Perhaps it is even better with GOS than stock OS on your pixel?
Excuse me if i come across harsh, but there a 'many' battery posts lately, which are borderdline troll. Atleast u don't try to claim it is certainly related by GOS.
Depending on from what seller u bought the refurbished phone from, it might be that there has been put a cheap battery in aswell.
Comparing battery life with other people is very hard unless your setups and usage patterns are near identical - many factors affect battery life.
Are you primarely connected to WiFi or cellulars during the day?
I've found that websocket connections (signal, molly, telegram fork, ntfy, gotify, etc.) consume significantly more battery while on cellular compared to WiFi. So much so that my phone (P7) will last me approx. 2 days when primarely on WiFi whereas it will last between 1 - 1½ day (closer to 1 than 1½) while on cellular.
Looking into which apps are draining the most battery might help you identify the root cause.
Dumdum Not just that, but it's Telegram and Signal using two different notification systems that have to run in the background. It explains the battery drain.
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r134a I understant and thanks for your thoughts!
However, I did some research on this topic and consulted a knowledgeable friend prior to writing this post.
From what I could have grasped, the battery life on my device is really strange. Many users wrote that they could get 2 whole days without employing some more drastic battery saving strategies (airplane mode, non-stop dark theme etc).
My setup is pretty lightweight, no Play services, Telegram and Signal being only apps that have open connections to their servers. Most of the day, the phone is just in my pocket, connected to WiFi in my house. No heavy use.
Comparing it to my previous device, Poco X3 nfc with LineageOS+microG (3+ years old), the Pixel doesn‘t do well. Old Poco goes 5 whole days when idling, connected to my wifi and a SIM card in (no data though). When comparing consumption caused by a daily use, the Poco is probably a bit better. Assuming the GOS is a more efficient OS than Lineage + Pixel is a much more high-end and newer phone + it has fewer apps on it with more restrictions (many of them don‘t even connect to the internet), It buggs me a lot.
Also compared to my friend‘s Pixel 8 Pro with GOS, but heavier setup (more apps, more profiles, GPS in one profile etc.), my Phone is doing poorly. As I wrote, I get half the screen-off time compared to his.
I know this isn‘t as exact as it would be if I used the same phone with a different OS as a baseline, but I think it still makes a comparison worth a thought.
I bought it from refurbed.com. They have good reviews (https://www.trustpilot.com/review/refurbed.com) and in the FAQ they claim that they use original spare parts. If the manufacturer does not make them available for purchase, they buy something else but with similar quality.
Accubattery says my battery has 97% of original capacity. Don‘t know, how accurate it is...
I wouldn‘t wonder if many other GOS users with Pixel 7 didn‘t say that the battery is quite good. I just want to get as much from my new phone as possible.
matchboxbananasynergy I have considered this, but still, these are just two apps. Do you think that just one more open connection than usual could cause the background drainage?
trilogy6202 Mostly wifi. There isn‘t one app, that would drain significantly more than others. It really depends on what I am using in the certain time of the day, so it varies greatly.
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valaka You mention estimated battery in OP. Whats your actual battery life time. Those estimates ate far from always correct.
Regarding 1 vs 2 open websocket connections, it definitely makes a difference (especially on cellular) but it shouldn't be this alone that takes you from two to one day of battery life.
Are you using location services?
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For reference: For me to achieve two days of battery life on a P7 I have to:
1) use wifi 90% of the time
2) Be in areas with good cellular coverage
3) use airplane mode during the night
4) Use dark theme always (I don't use it to save battery but because I prefer it)
5) no location service unless I actually need it
6) bluetooth only on when I actually need it
So as you can tell, it's not something that comes by itself.
valaka However, I did some research on this topic and consulted a knowledgeable friend prior to writing this post.
From what I could have grasped, the battery life on my device is really strange.
I've captured that from your first post, it seemed u had a pretty good understanding on what has effects on battery 'drain' and u already had that figured out, hence why i fell back on your first 3 sentences which mentioned refurbished pixel 7 and immediatly putting GOS on it.
While it could be battery life on general on pixel 7 is 'bad' (i have no idea, never had a 7), the question here more was is it really 'more bad' with your current setup than pixel stock on your device. Which from your initial post seemed u don't really have a baseline to compare to. If it would seem it isn't 'more bad' than on stock os, but still percieved 'more bad' than what would be generally expected from a pixel 7, the 'refurbish' part could have something to do with it, perhaps a 'faulty' battery.
To provide some context, i also use molly and a telegram fork without play services on a p9p, and while it certainly and logically has an effect on battery drian, i percieve it not really that bad, though hard to compare between different devices with different hardware.
It could be an idea, if possible, to disable those 2 apps for 24h and monitor the device and see if it actually has that big of an impact on your device. Perhaps it could be this, perhaps u have a 'bad battery', or perhaps your expectations were slightly out of touch.
trilogy6202 Good to know, thank you.
What bugs me is that a newer flagship device with a much less buggy OS (my GOS P7) has worse battery performance than an older, used, much cheaper Poco with LineageOS and many apps and services running in the background, as I didn‘t need to do any of the things you mentioned to have a decent battery life.
trilogy6202 Hard to tell in a precise measurements, but generally I unplug it between 8-9 am with 80 % (charging limit to prolong battery‘s life). When I go to sleep and plug it in it usually has around 20 %. Again, no heavy use, almost no videos, just occasional browsing, messaging, listening to podcasts through bt headphones.
Yes I let the location services on, but only two or three apps (maps and smart-home app) are using it. Also leaving the BT on the whole day. Last night I turned of mobile data, we‘ll see... But so far the drainage seems to be pretty the same.
r134a It could be an idea, if possible, to disable those 2 apps for 24h and monitor the device and see if it actually has that big of an impact on your device. Perhaps it could be this, perhaps u have a 'bad battery', or perhaps your expectations were slightly out of touch.
Thanks! I shall give it a try.
valaka i could be wrong here, purely mentioning this as i had a samsung note 20 ultra in the past (exynos variant), and battery was utterly trash out of the box. After then researching possible causes, it seemed it was inherent to exynos variant note 20's, compared to qualcom versions. In that specific phone exynos variants efficiency was lacking far behind that of qualcom variants.
Perhaps this fenomen is transferable to this specific example, as i think p7 uses a exynos modem (and exynos based chipset?), while your poco perhaps used a more efficient qualcom chipset & modem?
Your poco also had approx 17% more battery capacity compared to pixel 7, perhaps this combined with a potentional more efficient modem/chipset could explain the difference.
I also think tensor g2 is more performant than the snapdragon in poco 3 nfc. This isn't necessarly true in general as efficiency mostly improves per generation as performance improves, but for example i have a very old laptop with a trash celeron which easily outperforms my newer laptop with much more performant and newer cpu in regards of batterylife.
I think u got the point and there are so many variables to take into account that it's actually practically undoable.
Even between same hardware, it's practically impossible, unless u have an identical setup, both next to eachother constantly having the same wifi/cellular strength and have an identical use.
valaka I have a similar pattern, with the addition that location services are always off, and almost constantly on airplane mode (at work and home), with moderate use. These should decrease battery drain in theory. Though i have tailscale running 24/7 which in theory should increase battery drain. I charge to 80% aswell and when going to sleep i have +-20% left, on a pixel 9 pro, and i percieve this as good.
Though that 'good' is compared to my previous note 20 ultra.