iPod touch Battery Life issues on iPod Touch 5th Gen

WuLabswuTecH · Sep 9, 2014

So within the past month or two, I feel like my iPod Touch (5th gen) is getting very crappy battery life. So the last few days I kept a close eye on it (I charge it overnight every night). It seems like after a couple of hours of normal use (some messaging, email, weather checking, maybe surfing the web a bit between classes) it give me a warning that I'm at a low battery life. With the exception of one day, it never went completely dry even if I got the warning before noon (I usually get up between 6 and 8 every day and go to bed around 11).

Today, I got up at 6 and got my low battery warning at around noon with light use. And then with heavy use and a bright screen setting (I was outside a lot today) it still some times shows a black battery icon and then alternates between black and red. I get a popup of low battery dropping under 20% every time it does that. For example, right now, I am in the black. In a few minutes it'll drop under 20% and I'll get a red battery icon. If I put it in standby for a few minutes, it'll come back up to a black (>20%).

So I'm guessing it's a calibration issue, but I cannot find in the user guide how to calibrate the battery (I'm sure I am missing something obvious or not searching the right term). But assuming that's the issue, can I just run it all the way down, then charge it all the way up to 100% and turn it back on? I'm assuming the iPod needs to be powered down during the calibration "wind up" charge? Anything else I need to do?

And if this isn't the issue, anyone got any ideas on what might be the issue?

Thanks!
-Wu

Outrun1986 · Sep 9, 2014

This is exactly what I have been experiencing for a few months with mine. Running it down then charging it up doesn't fix the problem at least for me. I get 2 hrs and 45 min roughly before it hits red, and indicates the device needs a charge. So that is 2 hrs and 45 min until I have to plug it in. It also bounces back and forth all the time, sometimes when you hit the sleep/wake to turn off the screen it will bounce from red to approx. 75%. Of course it drains quickly again once you start doing something.

irag12 · Sep 13, 2014

That's a lot of info. Thumbs up to the person who researched this.

Solver · Sep 15, 2014

I never had great battery life on my iPod Touch 5 (test unit). After installing iOS 8 beta 1 things really became intermittently flaky. The battery level would sometimes suddenly jump up or down 20%. I was lucky to get a single days of battery use.
Now I have great battery life. Not fully sure what got it this way. It started sometime after iOS 8 beta 4, many restarts, weeks of self calibration, manually preventing most apps from discovering current location, a full audit of which apps get background time, making sure blue tooth was off most of the time, and fully charging the device after the battery level was under 20%. Using iOS 8 GM, my full “Battery Usage” after a full charge on a two plus year old device is now 4 days “Standby” and 12 hours “Usage.” iOS 7 had given me about half of that. I consider my average usage fairly lite. Mostly just using music, podcasts, audiobooks, twitter, short game or two, E-mail, Todo list, weather, news apps, quick interneting and Hangouts (for internet phone.)

The battery usage meter in iOS 8 really helped me figure out which apps drained my battery the most. It used to be Facebook that was by the biggest culprit. Now, it is the home and lock screen (which it should be.)

WuLabswuTecH · Sep 15, 2014

Solver said:
I never had great battery life on my iPod Touch 5 (test unit). After installing iOS 8 beta 1 things really became intermittently flaky. The battery level would sometimes suddenly jump up or down 20%. I was lucky to get a single days of battery use.
Now I have great battery life. Not fully sure what got it this way. It started sometime after iOS 8 beta 4, many restarts, weeks of self calibration, manually preventing most apps from discovering current location, a full audit of which apps get background time, making sure blue tooth was off most of the time, and fully charging the device after the battery level was under 20%. Using iOS 8 GM, my full Battery Usage after a full charge on a two plus year old device is now 4 days Standby and 12 hours Usage. iOS 7 had given me about half of that. I consider my average usage fairly lite. Mostly just using music, podcasts, audiobooks, twitter, short game or two, E-mail, Todo list, weather, news apps, quick interneting and Hangouts (for internet phone.)

The battery usage meter in iOS 8 really helped me figure out which apps drained my battery the most. It used to be Facebook that was by the biggest culprit. Now, it is the home and lock screen (which it should be.)

@Solver, what were you using to track background time? And what were you using to see "battery usage"? And which apps are draining the most battery? Is there an app for that? (Bonus points if it's a free app!)

I (almost) fully drained my battery 2 days in a row. It was hard to do because everytime it drained and shut itself off, I would hit the power button and it would turn on again with more than 20%. Then I'd play a video and a minute or so into it it'd shut down again. Eventually, It would boot up at under 20% and finally, on the second day, it got down to the point that it displayed the "plug in" screen.

My issue was never battery life, but the indicator. Unless I try to run it out, even on heavy use days I can usually get through most of the day without needing to recharge. Now the indicator is a little bit better, it runs down a bit more consistently, but it still gets to 20% and then jumps back up to like 50 or so based on the graphic now and then.

I do in fact leave my bluetooth on all day so I wonder if the drain from that is messing with the calculation by changing the rate of discharge. I have a couple of bluetooth devices connected to it as well as my car so perhaps it's anticipating a high drain (when I get in my car for the morning and it's connected there, plus my fitbit) and that's why it's running lower sooner than it should be during the day? Just a theory.

Solver · Sep 15, 2014

@WuLabswuTecH, I originally had a similar experience. Wait a couple of days for iOS 8. Battery usage monitoring is in there under Settings/General/Usage/Battery Usage.
After updating, it took my iPod Touch 5 days for battery usage to work correctly though.

Lollypopperprob · Dec 8, 2014

Help Me!

I own a Ipod touch 5th gen, color is blue and white. I have owned it about 2 years, and recently i've had problems. 1) My Ipod dosn't give me a pop-up to tell me i've got 20% battery left. It does show one for 10%, but it reads '20% battery left'. 2)My battery is draining really quickly when I have lowest brightness possible, am on areoplane mode most of the time and have bluetooth turned off. Also, it takes about 15 hours to get it to full charge. Is this normal? Could it be to do with the charger port?

Aspasia · Dec 8, 2014

Lollypopperprob said:
I own a Ipod touch 5th gen, color is blue and white. I have owned it about 2 years, and recently i've had problems. 1) My Ipod dosn't give me a pop-up to tell me i've got 20% battery left. It does show one for 10%, but it reads '20% battery left'. 2)My battery is draining really quickly when I have lowest brightness possible, am on areoplane mode most of the time and have bluetooth turned off. Also, it takes about 15 hours to get it to full charge. Is this normal? Could it be to do with the charger port?

Shut down all apps you aren't using and do a hard reset of the Touch (holding down the home button and off/on button until the screen goes black and the Apple logo appears). Then do an overnight charge.

Had similar problems recently and that's what brought my battery life back to normal. Hope it works as well for you.

BTW, my iPod Touch 5 has never given me a percentage of battery left. The icon is present, but I don't get a notice till it turns red with a warning that only 10% is left.

Quaranz · Dec 8, 2014

My iPod touch 5's battery life has always been mediocre. But i rarely use it, with its purpose now only for music since the latest OS's have crippled it, its not useful for anything else than that or playback videos. The standby is great, its been days it hasn't been charged and its still kicking in green. Something that always bugs me is it always charges to fast and says 100% rather quickly and sooner or later its suddenly halfway gone with moments ago it said it was 100%? Completely bonkers. Now my iPod touch 3g lasted days with solid use, i couldnt kill that thing in a day unless i heavily gamed on it

mangomind · Dec 8, 2014

Quaranz said:
My iPod touch 5's battery life has always been mediocre. But i rarely use it, with its purpose now only for music since the latest OS's have crippled it, its not useful for anything else than that or playback videos. The standby is great, its been days it hasn't been charged and its still kicking in green. Something that always bugs me is it always charges to fast and says 100% rather quickly and sooner or later its suddenly halfway gone with moments ago it said it was 100%? Completely bonkers. Now my iPod touch 3g lasted days with solid use, i couldnt kill that thing in a day unless i heavily gamed on it

lol... its not always been mediocre. i used an iPod touch 5th gen on iOS 6, and it easily got 8-11 hours of screen time per charge.

saudor · Dec 13, 2014

Mine is pretty much like that. On ios 7.1.2. It was the same on my iPod 3rd 32gb as well. If I play heavy games, the percentage drops 20% or something and goes back up if the load goes down. Keeping the Wi-Fi turned off makes the battery last much longer (7 days)

Im guessing the iPod battery lacks the sophisticated battery sensor in iPhones and iPad so it's probably horribly guestimating it.

As for the percentage bar on iPod 5, it shows up if you restore an iPhone backup or an old ios4 backup or something

Outrun1986 · Dec 13, 2014

I am convinced the iPod touch uses an entirely different charging algorithm than an iPhone. Unless the next touch is exactly the same as an iPhone without the cellular parts I will not be buying another due to this. My touch has been sold on eBay and I am bidding good riddance to it.

My touch would jump from full charge to 20% red with a 2 min use of one all. Using the same exact app in the same way on the iPhone 5c only makes it lose 1-3% of battery. It is unacceptable that the touch does this. The touch also reports a full charge when it's not actually charged, sometimes reports a full charge at 60-70%. You can only see this when it's charging via iTunes. I cannot live with a device that is reporting a low battery every single time I use an app and that does not report a full charge. Also the battery warning keeps coming up which is super annoying, something like 10 times. When the battery meter turns red it's time to charge so I was plugging in my touch every 2hours at most and sometimes in as little as 20 min. I tried recalibration at least 20 or more times and it did not help at all.

The touch is simply a faulty device, or is guaranteed to go faulty after a certain period of time. I will not be recommending this device to anyone due to faults that make it completely unusable if you are trying to do anything with it. The touch is also glued together so the battery is very difficult to replace. I recommend a used iphone instead without service. I would rather have a used iPhone that works properly and has scratches on the back than a touch that constantly drains and drains battery. The battery in an iPhone can be changed easily too by a local shop if it's out of warranty.

Nightarchaon · Dec 15, 2014

that would be 30% old battery because they lose maximum charge over time and 70% apple "proprietary enforced obsolescent systems" killing the device to make you buy a new one, thus protecting you from yourself and the obvious dangers to your personal status for owning an out of date device.

Jsameds · Dec 15, 2014

Same here OP. I'm convinced it's iOS 8 that's done it.

Mine now goes from 100% when taken off charge at 5pm to 70% when I get home at 5:30 - and all I've done is listen to music!

Battery on the iPod touch used to be pretty poor anyway, now it's basically unusable.

Gonna sell up and buy another 2nd hand one on iOS 7.

Lollypopperprob · Jan 4, 2015

Aspasia said:
Shut down all apps you aren't using and do a hard reset of the Touch (holding down the home button and off/on button until the screen goes black and the Apple logo appears). Then do an overnight charge.

Had similar problems recently and that's what brought my battery life back to normal. Hope it works as well for you.

BTW, my iPod Touch 5 has never given me a percentage of battery left. The icon is present, but I don't get a notice till it turns red with a warning that only 10% is left.

My apps are always shut down, but I will try doing a hard reset. Thanks.

mangomind · Jan 4, 2015

Jsameds said:
Same here OP. I'm convinced it's iOS 8 that's done it.

Mine now goes from 100% when taken off charge at 5pm to 70% when I get home at 5:30 - and all I've done is listen to music!

Battery on the iPod touch used to be pretty poor anyway, now it's basically unusable.

Gonna sell up and buy another 2nd hand one on iOS 7.

Whatever you might think, iOS 8 software is not the cause. Compared to 7, 8 barely decreases battery life, it is less than a 10% decrease on any device.

Jsameds · Jan 5, 2015

mangomind said:
Whatever you might think, iOS 8 software is not the cause. Compared to 7, 8 barely decreases battery life, it is less than a 10% decrease on any device.

What's the cause then?

I can literally take it off charge at 100%, do absolutely nothing and then 10 minutes later it's on 80%. I'm on latest iOS, not jailbroken. Hmm I just don't know. Maybe the battery is just shot to hell, but it worked fine on iOS 7. So weird.

mangomind · Jan 5, 2015

Jsameds said:
What's the cause then?

I can literally take it off charge at 100%, do absolutely nothing and then 10 minutes later it's on 80%. I'm on latest iOS, not jailbroken. Hmm I just don't know. Maybe the battery is just shot to hell, but it worked fine on iOS 7. So weird.

It's most likely software corruption from the updating process.

To fix it, go to http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203977 and follow the last steps for backing up and restoring your iPod touch in iTunes.

This process is fairly simple, and plus it removes the "Other" storage space that builds up over time.

Jsameds · Feb 5, 2015

mangomind said:
It's most likely software corruption from the updating process.

To fix it, go to http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203977 and follow the last steps for backing up and restoring your iPod touch in iTunes.

This process is fairly simple, and plus it removes the "Other" storage space that builds up over time.

Thanks - I've only just seen this but I'd already resolved the issue.

I just did a complete restore on the iPod but didn't restore from my iCloud backup. I then logged into iCloud on the iPod and all my pictures downloaded, along with some other stuff such as Safari bookmarks etc.

I had to reinstall all my apps and music manually but now the battery is working flawlessly, and it also feels a lot faster and smoother - like a brand new device, so it was definitely worth the effort

Also I had to use iBackupBot to put the battery percentage back on without a jailbreak.

serenity_Røse · Nov 28, 2017

WuLabswuTecH said:
So within the past month or two, I feel like my iPod Touch (5th gen) is getting very crappy battery life. So the last few days I kept a close eye on it (I charge it overnight every night). It seems like after a couple of hours of normal use (some messaging, email, weather checking, maybe surfing the web a bit between classes) it give me a warning that I'm at a low battery life. With the exception of one day, it never went completely dry even if I got the warning before noon (I usually get up between 6 and 8 every day and go to bed around 11).

Today, I got up at 6 and got my low battery warning at around noon with light use. And then with heavy use and a bright screen setting (I was outside a lot today) it still some times shows a black battery icon and then alternates between black and red. I get a popup of low battery dropping under 20% every time it does that. For example, right now, I am in the black. In a few minutes it'll drop under 20% and I'll get a red battery icon. If I put it in standby for a few minutes, it'll come back up to a black (>20%).

So I'm guessing it's a calibration issue, but I cannot find in the user guide how to calibrate the battery (I'm sure I am missing something obvious or not searching the right term). But assuming that's the issue, can I just run it all the way down, then charge it all the way up to 100% and turn it back on? I'm assuming the iPod needs to be powered down during the calibration "wind up" charge? Anything else I need to do?

And if this isn't the issue, anyone got any ideas on what might be the issue?

Thanks!
-Wu

iPod touch Battery Life issues on iPod Touch 5th Gen

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