Extreme battery drain from Mobile Network

Oggyo

pit2p Before A 16, everything was fine

Android 16 was included since 2025063000 in GrapheneOS updates, not by the last two 2025091000 and 2025091900.

pit2p

Oggyo Oggyo, I'm talking about battery drain — not dates. I'm a big fan of GOS and a strong supporter, but ever since A16, battery life has clearly gotten worse. Looking through this forum, many users are reporting battery drain related to network. Would you mind sharing your battery stats ?

Oggyo

pit2p I'm talking about battery drain — not dates.

You mentioned "Before A 16", assuming you meant Android 16. And that's why I said it was introduced at the end of June, not at the last 2-3 updates.

I have noticed issues with battery from time to time, and I believe apps update and Play Services updates greatly contribute to it.

pit2p Would you mind sharing your battery stats

I don't think this will be relevant. I rarely use the phone, and my SOT is pretty low because of that. Also, at my sleep time, my phone is in Airplane mode with BT and WiFi off.

Moreover, currently, I'm experiencing this issue - https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/26549-battery-drain-problem-since-update-2025091000/55

GrapheneOS

pit2p You're attributing things to updates which are clearly not tied to updates but rather your apps and configuration. Android 16 was released in June and GrapheneOS shipped it in a production release by the end of the month. It reached the Stable channel in early July. You aren't experiencing regressions caused by Android 16.

pit2p No, there are not many people reporting battery drain related to that. There are a few people reporting it, largely the same few posting multiple times. We've already helped multiple people solve it by changing their OS configuration and app setup.

r4nd0

I notice the same since some weeks. Cannot say since when exactly. Already tried LTE only, reset network settings, VoLTE on/off. Reception is also very good all the time.

Screenshots

Oggyo

r4nd0

Looks like you barely used your phone during that time, according to the screen time.
In this case, it's normal all the time (and percentage of the system) to be related to the Mobile network.

In mine for example, during sleep time (I keep it in Airplane mode) Mobile network is zero, but the Ambient display is 99%, maybe when I checked the time.

whitherunderground

GrapheneOS

FWIW, I can now also report that setting the network to only use LTE (without touching VoLTE or any other settings) results in substantially better battery usage, same as it seemed to be until a few months ago. There's no decline in call, text, or coverage quality that I notice.

I haven't tried my setup with a stock OS, but, assuming that this issue doesn't affect millions of stock users, it sure sounds to me like some networks (including T-Mobile in the US) have done something with their 5G service that hits grapheneos's battery usage particularly hard.

So I'll keep my fingers crossed that somebody in the community finds a fix for the 5G battery problem before the networks EOL their 4G service! Meantime, the LTE workaround seems to do the trick pretty well for me. Thanks to those here who suggested it!

GrapheneOS

whitherunderground GrapheneOS doesn't use any more power for 5G. The stock OS just comes with a feature called adaptive connectivity which turns off 5G most of the time. You'll get better battery life turning it off completely. 5G is getting more efficient and eventually there should be no need for turning it off to save power which is strange and wasn't nearly as much of an issue with 4G or 3G when they were new. 5G isn't at all new at this point but still not in the same efficiency ballpark as 4G. 4G is not becoming end-of-life any time soon, it's probably going to be comparable to how TLSv1.2 is still very widely used many years after TLSv1.3 came out and many people still don't have TLSv1.3 enabled. There's no similar push away from 4G or TLSv1.2 as there was in the past. Most current 5G deployments are Non Standalone (NSA) and require 4G...

waterelefant

GrapheneOS Yes, with 4G I get almost 10 hours of screen-on time in Graphene OS. With a new original battery.
my provider said that nothing has changed in the 5G network. I can't even use USB tethering in the 5G network anymore. the phone shuts down after 10 minutes due to overheating in a cool enviroment.
it used to run all night with 5G USB tethering. i now leave it in 4G.

de0u

waterelefant Does enabling 5G still use lots of power if you go far away from where you have experienced the issue -- say, at least 20 miles away?

waterelefant

de0u same result. i tried the sim in a 4 year old Samsung A52s and got two days of standby time with 5G, snapdragon modems are much more efficient.
then i tried 5G from another provider in the pixel and got almost 3 times the battery life, and it didn’t get hot either. I may switch networks.

Viewpoint0232

waterelefant then i tried 5G from another provider in the pixel and got almost 3 times the battery life, and it didn’t get hot either. I may switch networks.

I'm wondering if this is something the GrapheneOS devs could fix or a hardware problem

ZenoZenith

Sacrosanct I think I have the same problem. I made a post on the forum with an image I shared at that time, which also showed that cellular data seemed to be responsible (https://ibb.co/Gz4JJbw). Since then, I have tried switching from 5G to 4G, but I haven't noticed any significant change. The only solution I've found so far is to keep my phone in airplane mode when I'm not using it (which is a bit annoying if someone wants to call me).

Here is the post: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/26549-battery-drain-problem-since-update-2025091000/56

ryrona

Viewpoint0232 I'm wondering if this is something the GrapheneOS devs could fix or a hardware problem

I don't think the GrapheneOS developers are able to reproduce this problem with any carrier they have, the problem seem to be only for some carriers and only some geographical locations. So best hope is this issue also happens to someone with technical expertise and suitable equipment to analyze cellular activity to see if it is the phone or cellular tower that is acting in an incorrect way, and if the phone, whether it is the baseband firmware or the operating system. Even if I experienced some unusual drainage and now keep my phone on airplane mode most of the time, I lack the expertise needed to analyze this, so that rules me out.

I believe for most it will simply be easier to try switching carrier.

n3t_admin

Viewpoint0232 as @ryrona pointed out - this is a carrier config issue. Mobile networks are very complex and the slightest configuration error can have devastating consequences for battery life. And diagnosing these issues is pretty hard and cumbersome in many cases. Especially if the carrier doesn't play along.

Viewpoint0232

ryrona I believe for most it will simply be easier to try switching carrier.

Sure but for that you'd need to have a list of known good and bad carriers...
And it would then also be interesting to know whether the same problem persists on stock Android with a Pixel phone.

comm-charting

Piggybacking on this thread instead of opening a new one.

I experience the same on a Pixel 9 Pro. It is draining itself constantly even during the night, without many apps running in the background. I've been using the same carrier and eSIM with my previous Pixel 7 on stock OS. That phone had a better battery life with the same-ish setup, apps and usage patterns even with its 2.5 years old battery.
Sadly I did not use the 9 with the stock OS to be able to compare.
It's quite frustrating that even with my pretty light usage I can barely get through a day sometimes.

As seen in other threads it might have to do something with the carrier. I am located in Germany, using a Deutsche Telekom eSIM. While I have a 2nd SIM, I tried turning that off, which only provided a small improvement.
Comparatively, my Pixel Tablet (without mobile data/SIM) has a superb battery life with GOS and I'm very happy with it.

Setup-wise I am sticking to 4G although I have really good reception in my area.
I've experimented with:

4G/5G switching - minimal improvement
turning secondary SIM off - minimal improvement
disabling "Mobile data always active" in the developer options - no noticeable impact
disabling VoltE - minimal improvement

When going hard on the phone, making lots of pictures, navigating, keeping the screen on is actually not draining as dramatically as I would've thought. We compared our drain with one of my friends using the Pro 9 XL, and he gets a significantly better battery life while on the stock OS.

My setup includes a Shelter provided Work Profile and a Private Space.
However I also turned these off completely to test things and these didn't prove to be the culprit(s).
I also played around with the background apps, but I couldn't identify a major battery hog, it is pretty spread out.

Does anyone else have any tips what else can I try?

Viewpoint0232

When I'm out and about (mobile Internet) my phone is always a bit warm in my pocket. Even when doing absolutely nothing. When I'm connected to a Wifi network, it's fine. There's definitely something wrong that can't be fixed by toggling some setting, it's just unclear if it's (a) a carrier problem, (b) a hardware problem with the modem, (c) a AOSP/GrapheneOS-specific problem (so not appearing in Pixel OS).

bobyop111

Hi,
I am having similar issues on Pixel 9a. I am using a Bouygues Telecom (French) sim card in the UK with really good signal. Without a sim card the phone has excellent battery life. When the sim card is in and I use navigation for instance, it is an average of 10-15%/hour drain according to batteryguru. I tried setting the configuration optimally (restricting background data for most apps, enabling data saver, disabling 5G etc) but I see barely any improvement. Would really appreciate if people had advice on how to mitigate it as it is quite difficult to use this on a daily basis.

de0u

bobyop111 When the sim card is in and I use navigation for instance, it is an average of 10-15%/hour drain according to batteryguru.

Navigation by itself can be a big drain on the battery. What is the drain rate without navigation?

bobyop111

de0u Navigation is probably the worst but any kind of internet activity like social media, streaming music or videos will have a similar impact on battery. When I'm on airplane mode and not really using the phone the drain is approx 2%/hour.

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