Power Hero 1.17 & the fast drain option (Glen Phenomenon)

[DanIsHere]

Hi Dan,

While I cannot attest to the Glenn Effect on the 680, I can state that all models of Treo, including the Centro have had issues with rapid loss of battery power.  While I believe the Glenn Effect is probably caused by something unique, I would ask that you not ignore the rest of us, who don't have a 680.  It would be nice to have an application that can not only detect rapid battery loss, but also identify the cause, and possibly quarantine the app (if caused by an app) that causes it, until attention can be given to it.  I love Power Hero, but I don't believe that it goes far enough in its uses, at least not in this regard.  Thanks.

Stu

Hi Stu,

I won't ignore non-680 users. Logging the drain rate for all devices in v1.18 is a first step. For now I'm focusing on the Glen issue because there is no work-around. In the future I want to provide numbers for how long your device is awake and asleep per hour/day/etc. Being awake is the biggest power drain and going to sleep is the biggest power saver. I'd like to watch for situations when the device doesn't go into "Sleep" mode and optionally alert the user. Identifying problem apps...my first thought is that is a huge task but I'll kick it around in my head.

Thanks for the feedback,
Dan

[ChasTreo]

In my expirience the biggest drain outside of "actual user input use" (ie on the phone or using the PDA functios) is if the Palm goes into REM Sleep mode, but then does not drop into full Sleep mode.

If this is widespread, then this is the major problem that most users are having. The PH log is the way to find out.

I wonder if a little simple Free app that just logs the sleep state (not power use etc) might be useful to the Treo comunity. It would give back some useful information, and would be a very good advert for PH & Hobbyist in general     

[Treo Musketeers]

Hi Dan,

I have a couple thoughts. I know you're concentrating on the Glen Phenomenon here, so I won't post further in this thread, but since you were nice enough to respond to my original post, I thought I would share them.  First, up until this week, I had only had a couple very brief periods of time when the battery had faster drain then normal.  No big deal.  

This week, however, I was experiencing major power loss at the rate of over 25% an hour.  Honestly, had I not stuck to trying to figure out what was wrong, I would've probably just exchanged my phone.  Fortunately, I had a new tool, as I am participating in the Beta test for SafeGuard.  SafeGuard is able to tell you which software applications are running in the background (or as you explain, potentially keeping the Treo awake).  I went through each app that was running in the background and tried to see if it was acting unusual in any way.  It turned out that it was something very simple.  I hadn't thought of Chatteremail being a possible culprit as it is normally very stable.  What the problem was however, was that my employer requires a password change every 90 days, and I had changed the password on my PC at work, but hadn't thought to change it on my Treo.  Consequently, Chatter was trying every 30 seconds to sign in and not having any success.  The result was the hot battery that others talk about.  

I explain all that, because I see some real possibilities here.  If you can determine what apps are running in the background, then it would seem (now mind you, I'm not a programmer), that you could then somehow measure the rate of power usage of each app or alternatively, how often the app is doing something in the background that would infer a more rapid use of power.  And if you could measure that, then some warning alarms, notifications, etc. can be sent via an app like PowerHero to warn the owner of the problem.  

Anyway, I woke up in the middle of the night and had these thoughts and decided to post.  Not sure if they are helpful or not.

Stu

[rigo]

Hi Stu,

I won't ignore non-680 users. Logging the drain rate for all devices in v1.18 is a first step. For now I'm focusing on the Glen issue because there is no work-around. In the future I want to provide numbers for how long your device is awake and asleep per hour/day/etc. Being awake is the biggest power drain and going to sleep is the biggest power saver. I'd like to watch for situations when the device doesn't go into "Sleep" mode and optionally alert the user. Identifying problem apps...my first thought is that is a huge task but I'll kick it around in my head.

Thanks for the feedback,
Dan

I'm a little confused- as I look at the log what should the phone be at when it is off, Sleep or REM Sleep?  Also, when we look at the log and see some unusual high drain when the phone is off would you like us to post what the log says or email you a copy to help with your testing?

[ChasTreo]

I'm a little confused- as I look at the log what should the phone be at when it is off, Sleep or REM Sleep? 

Talking about the phone being off can be a bit confusing, as some may think you mean actually turning off the Phone/Radio etc so that your PDA/Treo can not receive a call.

So lets put it this way:
When you Palm PDA screen goes off, either because you press the Off button or it Auto Off's, the PH log will say "REM Sleep". A few seconds later it should then say "Sleep". When you turn turn the screen/PDA back on it should then say "Wake".

If the screen goes off because an app has put it into background mode, such as Pocket Tunes playing with the screen off, then the log will record "REM Sleep", but it will not go into "Sleep".

In "REM Sleep" the battery drain can be quite high, whereas in true "Sleep" mode the drain should be at it's lowest.

Hope that helps 

[rigo]

Talking about the phone being off can be a bit confusing, as some may think you mean actually turning off the Phone/Radio etc so that your PDA/Treo can not receive a call.

So lets put it this way:
When you Palm PDA screen goes off, either because you press the Off button or it Auto Off's, the PH log will say "REM Sleep". A few seconds later it should then say "Sleep". When you turn turn the screen/PDA back on it should then say "Wake".

If the screen goes off because an app has put it into background mode, such as Pocket Tunes playing with the screen off, then the log will record "REM Sleep", but it will not go into "Sleep".

In "REM Sleep" the battery drain can be quite high, whereas in true "Sleep" mode the drain should be at it's lowest.

Hope that helps 

Yeah I meant screen off.  I actually never turn the phone off, just silence the ringer.  Thanks, that'll help me out when looking  through the log.

[DanIsHere]

I wonder if a little simple Free app that just logs the sleep state (not power use etc) might be useful to the Treo comunity. It would give back some useful information, and would be a very good advert for PH & Hobbyist in general     

Not a bad idea. I'll add it to my suggestion list.

Dan

[rudychow]

Hi Dan, great work so far.

I was wondering if the display could be tweaked so that we can get both battery estimates + charge/discharge rate on the main screen as well as the datebk6 plugin?

[DanIsHere]

...
It turned out that it was something very simple.  I hadn't thought of Chatteremail being a possible culprit as it is normally very stable.  What the problem was however, was that my employer requires a password change every 90 days, and I had changed the password on my PC at work, but hadn't thought to change it on my Treo.  Consequently, Chatter was trying every 30 seconds to sign in and not having any success.  The result was the hot battery that others talk about.
... 

Hi Stu,

Thanks for the explanation. That little nugget of debugging info about Chatter might save someone a lot of time. As far as I know the most I can do about apps running while sleeping is to report how often an app processes an alarm which may have helped in your case. I don't know every part of the Palm OS so I'll keep my eyes open for something that provides this kind of info. Yeah, time awake, time asleep, and # of alarms processed and by which app when asleep. That would be helpful.

Dan

[DanIsHere]

Also, when we look at the log and see some unusual high drain when the phone is off would you like us to post what the log says or email you a copy to help with your testing?

I'm always happy to look at your log. Right now I'm trying to learn more about the Glen Phenomenon on the 680. It sounds like you know to look for the "Sleep" entries now, so that's what I would look for in your log. Then I'd look at your "Drain" entries while in sleep mode to see if they are in line with averages (in general less than 10 mA).

Dan

[DanIsHere]

Hi Dan, great work so far.

I was wondering if the display could be tweaked so that we can get both battery estimates + charge/discharge rate on the main screen as well as the datebk6 plugin?

Thanks! How about an option to rotate through 2 or more of the available data points?

Dan

[rudychow]

Thanks! How about an option to rotate through 2 or more of the available data points?

Dan

Yeah, a view which rotates the info would be sleek!

[DIG]

Hi, I just found this thread - very interesting. I am the guy who first named 'the glen phenomenon or TGP' over at treocentral. I named it after Glen, a very observant poster who reported the observations in a thread that I had set up to learn about things that caused excessive battery drain. I went on to write the thread that you have cited at the beginning of this post to alert people to TGP, but very few folks seem to be aware of it affecting their 680s, even tho I suspect it is the main culprit behind high standby drain rates for many users (it certainly is for me). I was very enthused to learn that Powerhero had a feature that may overcome TGP. I have tried it for about 3 days now. My observations are: My normal standby drain rate is about 3-5mA. When TGP strikes, it jumps up to about 30-50mA (and this seems to vary). So, the only safe way to guard against TGP is to set the phone on off cycle on powerhero at 30mA. Problem is, when the signal gets low (eg. sometimes when I am on the train to work, in a tunnel etc), the power drain seems to climb that high anyway, presumably due to the low/lost signal. This makes my 680 start cycling on and off even tho it isnt suffering from TGP. I think an improvement to this setting would be to choose the amount of time the drain rate is sampled for. 5 and maybe 10 minutes would be good options. Other than that, I really like the powerhero software. Cheers, DIG.

[DanIsHere]

Well hello Dig! In Power Hero 1.18 I temporarily took out the fast drain option because of the very thing you are running into (i.e. the option isn't smart enough yet). I bought a 680 so I could reproduce this problem myself but I'm having no luck. I was just about to ask for help before I saw your well-timed post.

Could you do me 2 favors? First, install PH 1.18 and after you've seen TGP a couple times send me the log (instructions in the link in my signature)?

Second, give me some tips on how to reproduce TGP? I've followed the steps in your posts over at Treocentral but no success. I started with a clean 680 w/firmware 1.09 which I'm going to update to 2.11 tonight.

Thanks and welcome to the forum!

Dan

[DIG]

Hi Dan
I can help with the second part right now, and will try version 1.18 a bit later when I get a chance. Basically, I just call my 680, answer it, then hang up from the other phone and let my 680 go back to sleep without pressing any buttons. This seems to induce TGP at least 50% of the time. If it doesnt work, this may mean that this problem was somehow fixed on later models of the 680. The easiest way I have found to check for TGP was TREOBATTERY.prc software, because the standby drain rate was obviously much higher. Not sure if it still happens with 2.11 firmware - I dont have that yet, but one other poster said it still happens.
More soon
Cheers
DIG