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iPhone SE (2016) battery life weirdness with iOS 14.4

G

ghanwani

macrumors 601
Original poster
Dec 8, 2008
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2016 iPhone SE running iOS 14.4.

Noticing some weird battery behavior.

Today, while on a Signal call on speakerphone, I saw the battery drop from 21% to 16% in 1 minute (captured on a 1 minute video).

In general, I've been seeing really erratic battery behavior where it can drop from 10% to 0% in a couple of min. Actually it accelerates as it gets closer to zero sometimes skipping numbers altogether.

The battery was replaced some time last year and says max capacity is 86% and battery is peak performance capability. It was replaced last year.

Any idea what is going on? Is this expected with iOS 14.4?

I spend most of my time at home so the phone is usually plugged in. But of late, it just seems to drop precipitously. 1/2 hour of use could easily zap 35% of the battery charge.

Would replacing the battery help?
 
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camilasaunder89 said:
Close your background apps as they might be consuming your battery and lower your brightness for efficiently using your iPhone even after update.
Click to expand...
I don't have very many apps on my phone. I just checked and had a total of 16 open apps, most of them Apple apps (clock, mail, safari, photos, camera, stocks, maps, weather, messages, phone, rsa token generator, stepz, signal, yelp, dropbox, protonmail). I don't think any of these would be doing much in the background.
 
ghanwani said:
iPhone SE running iOS 14.4.

Noticing some weird battery behavior.

Today, while on a Signal call on speakerphone, I saw the battery drop from 21% to 16% in 1 minute (captured on a 1 minute video).

In general, I've been seeing really erratic battery behavior where it can drop from 10% to 0% in a couple of min. Actually it accelerates as it gets closer to zero sometimes skipping numbers altogether.

The battery was replaced some time last year and says max capacity is 86% and battery is peak performance capability. It was replaced last year.

Any idea what is going on? Is this expected with iOS 14.4?

I spend most of my time at home so the phone is usually plugged in. But of late, it just seems to drop precipitously. 1/2 hour of use could easily zap 35% of the battery charge.

Would replacing the battery help?
Click to expand...

In my very limited experience this behaviour is observed when the battery is about to fail.
 
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Wando64 said:
In my very limited experience this behaviour is observed when the battery is about to fail.
Click to expand...
Is there some way to test this? What happens when it fails? Would it mean that I can't use the phone without it being plugged in?
 
ghanwani said:
Is there some way to test this? What happens when it fails? Would it mean that I can't use the phone without it being plugged in?
Click to expand...
Better off taking the phone to apple so they can run a full diagnosis report on your phone, does sound like the battery is on its last legs.
ghanwani said:
I spend most of my time at home so the phone is usually plugged in
Click to expand...
This could also be the cause to why your battery is playing up, it’s not good to leave the phone constantly on charge.
 
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ghanwani said:
Is there some way to test this? What happens when it fails? Would it mean that I can't use the phone without it being plugged in?
Click to expand...

When it happened to me, apart from battery life being terrible, it progressed to the phone switching off suddenly even though the battery was still displaying some charge. Sometimes up to 30% charge.
 
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I've got this issue on a iPhone 6S to the point I was considering upgrading to the iPhone SE.

The iPhone 6S is on a 2nd battery, which replaced the original (currently 85% health) and it is not performing very well anymore, but it's not that old either, though it did suffer the "peak performance capability" issue about 6 months after installation, but it had be relatively ok since then - at this point I might replace the battery myself to save money, as it has a fairly new screen, so still has life yet, but if the iPhone SE has similar issues, I mean, I'm on 14.3 and I think 14.x has been a lot harder on the battery, I am starting to wonder if iOS is nudging it gently into the scrap heap.

I had resisted updating for a long long time, was on 13.2 but fo dev reason it was no longer sustainable.

The iPhone Se has approx 100ma higher rating than the iPhone 6s battery, so they are highly comparable to my mind.

I've also seen those manic drops to 1% and shutdown, plug it back in and it's at 29% or something weird like that. Performance schizophrenia, is s arising that battery has had it's day.

I too leave it for period in a charging cradle, why is it so bas to leave it plugged in past charging point? I woudl have assumed there is decent management of the battery by the chips and iOS to mitigate any issues??

Now we have a second iPhone 6S in the house and it perfumes a bit better but battery draining was noted on some occasions. I'll check it out, it's kind of neat to have two models more or less the same, also identical in replacement parts too, battery and screen. So I might run a side by side test to see what is going on.
 
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ghanwani said:
Would replacing the battery help?
Click to expand...

Oh to answer this, I believe replacing the battery would help, that is what I did when the factory installed battery started to do similar things in my iPhone 6S, it will maybe buy you approx 2+ more years of reliable use - it was a no brainer at the time as it was relatively inexpensive with Apple replacement offer.

Yea and also I do think when it hits 85% performance, that's really max charge (so you loose probably a couple fo hours standby/use time), that's when you start to see these problems, my original battery hit a similar number when it started to become unreliable.

Is this iPhone SE 2020 or the original SE?
 
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Since 14.4 is new, and you weren't experiencing it before, then you can rule out a faulty battery or anything in that department. Ive heard of a battery acting strange after an update for a day or so. If it doesn't correct itself after a reboot then for sure something got messed up software wise.
 
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I have an SE, also with a battery capacity of 86%. I'm also seeing all sorts of strange battery behavior. Dropping 10% in a few minutes, but other times lasting for hours and only dropping 10%.
 
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Frijid said:
Since 14.4 is new, and you weren't experiencing it before, then you can rule out a faulty battery or anything in that department. Ive heard of a battery acting strange after an update for a day or so. If it doesn't correct itself after a reboot then for sure something got messed up software wise.
Click to expand...
I've read that many times here and the reason being is after any update, iOS is reindexing so it uses up more power for a period after, usually fine next day is how it's often reported.

I tend to leave it plugged in as much to power for this reason when updating, during and after.
 
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Wando64 said:
When it happened to me, apart from battery life being terrible, it progressed to the phone switching off suddenly even though the battery was still displaying some charge. Sometimes up to 30% charge.
Click to expand...
Mine does things like drop from 10 to 8 to 0 and then off.
 
2016.... if it is still on the original battery, amazing but yep a new battery or new phone is required, whichever fits your budget and needs.

Reviewing the iP SE 2020, the camera is pretty excellent upgrade. It's worth it for that IMHO considering it is not too highly priced.
 
Wando64 said:
A healthy battery would work normally all the way to 1%
Click to expand...
I also wonder about the quality of the replacement batteries, especially on old phones, after market, how long does Apple maintain the stock and is it always to original spec.

I mention this the 2nd battery also suffered performance issues but after only a few months, not after a 3+ years of use - the iPhone6S suffered for this battery problem and thus the Apple replacement pricing extension, being low at the time, it still work ok but it not at peak performance.
 
Omega Mac said:
I also wonder about the quality of the replacement batteries, especially on old phones, after market, how long does Apple maintain the stock and is it always to original spec.

I mention this the 2nd battery also suffered performance issues but after only a few months, not after a 3+ years of use - the iPhone6S suffered for this battery problem and thus the Apple replacement pricing extension, being low at the time, it still work ok but it not at peak performance.
Click to expand...
I had an original SE, and after a few years it was dying at 10-15%. I got it replaced, and the new battery was not better. The original battery didn't die at 15%, but it didn't last like the original used to.

This was on an iPhone that I had skipped multiple major iOS updates for, so I can assuredly rule out the OS using more power.
 
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thejadedmonkey said:
I had an original SE, and after a few years it was dying at 10-15%. I got it replaced, and the new battery was not better. The original battery didn't die at 15%, but it didn't last like the original used to.

This was on an iPhone that I had skipped multiple major iOS updates for, so I can assuredly rule out the OS using more power.
Click to expand...
Hmmm... very interesting. Thanks for that insight. Make you wonder about the QC of replacement batteries. I mean a new battery could delay a potential upgrade by years.
 
I wonder if it's because the replacement batteries are old, especially for non-current (best selling) models.
 
ghanwani said:
In general, I've been seeing really erratic battery behavior where it can drop from 10% to 0% in a couple of min. Actually it accelerates as it gets closer to zero sometimes skipping numbers altogether.

The battery was replaced some time last year and says max capacity is 86% and battery is peak performance capability.
Click to expand...
OK... so I'm not the only one. I HAVE SEEN this extremely odd battery behavior on my iPhone SE (2016). Bought it new in 2017. After two years of use, I started noticing my battery life becoming quite poor. I couldn't really make it through a day, but Battery Health still reported high 80% health (88% maybe?). So I bought a Xr in 2019 I've been using that, and my SE occasionally for fun.

Battery life on my SE has become atrocious. It still has the factory original battery. I've swapped in my SIM card to use it as my main phone from time to time to see if I can get the iPhone to cop to it's very poor health. No, the Battery Health % has barely moved. In a typical day's usage, I have to charge the SE twice if not three times (By comparison, with the same usage patterns, my Xr will easily last a day and a half. Heavy usage, I'll need to charge once per day). And as ghanwani noted, my battery % will make dramatic percentage leaps downward within the span of a few minutes...

Out of curiosity, I wanted to test how much energy the phone would take in while charging. So, I let the battery run out until the phone turned off. Let the phone & battery rest for 10 minutes. Plugged in the phone to a USB battery pack with an in-line USB power meter in-between. Turned on airplane mode and let it charge until the USB battery pack automatically shut off power at full.

Design capacity for the batt is 1624 mAh. How much energy did the phone accept?....

20210312_012919478_iOS.jpg
That's right! 915 mAh only. So, that's 56% of its design capacity.

And what does iPhone Battery Health report?

20210312_012957000_iOS.png

Somebody is lying....
 
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