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iPhone Air iPhone Air battery life screenshots thread

Happy to see some nice screenshots / SOT / full days of use! Going to hope my specific phone has an issue or something as I'm still having a rough time with the battery. Hope I'm not really raining on the parade of good battery reviews.

2nd full day after clean restore. 8 hours since I took it off charge. Lunch time now and I'm at 81 minutes SOT and battery is down to 46%. Really not doing much of anything on this phone. Planning on swapping it after the weekend.


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profets said:
Happy to see some nice screenshots / SOT / full days of use! Going to hope my specific phone has an issue or something as I'm still having a rough time with the battery. Hope I'm not really raining on the parade of good battery reviews.

2nd full day after clean restore. 8 hours since I took it off charge. Lunch time now and I'm at 81 minutes SOT and battery is down to 46%. Really not doing much of anything on this phone. Planning on swapping it after the weekend.


View attachment 2559305View attachment 2559306
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For what it’s worth, I’d be returning mine if I were getting your battery life too.
 
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profets said:
Happy to see some nice screenshots / SOT / full days of use! Going to hope my specific phone has an issue or something as I'm still having a rough time with the battery. Hope I'm not really raining on the parade of good battery reviews.

2nd full day after clean restore. 8 hours since I took it off charge. Lunch time now and I'm at 81 minutes SOT and battery is down to 46%. Really not doing much of anything on this phone. Planning on swapping it after the weekend.


View attachment 2559305View attachment 2559306
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Definitely something wrong here! I’d be swapping it for another one.
 
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My day today… 5g all morning until around 1pm and then WiFi for the rest of the day. Certainly gave me “all day use”.
 

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My situation with battery drain at night while the Air is unused was much better last night, with me losing about 10% over 10 hours. This is about what I feel I should expect, and much better than the crazy 30-40% drain I was getting.

I can’t say what specifically has changed. I reset the phone and watch, updated to the 26.1 Beta and of course by now most of my apps have updated as well.

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If you own a Tesla and have terrible iPhone battery life, make sure that the phone key isn’t draining your phone battery

This doesn’t show up under the Tesla app usage stats, but it absolutely eats up battery.

Look for an entry with a car key icon next to your Tesla’s name showing as “connected” under Settings > Bluetooth.

The only work around I found is to swipe up and fully quit the Tesla app and make sure it’s not running when I’m home.
 
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Honey_crisp said:
If you own a Tesla and have terrible iPhone battery life, make sure that the phone key isn’t draining your phone battery

This doesn’t show up under the Tesla app usage stats, but it absolutely eats up battery.

Look for an entry with a car key icon next to your Tesla’s name showing as “connected” under Settings > Bluetooth.

The only work around I found is to swipe up and fully quit the Tesla app and make sure it’s not running when I’m home.
Click to expand...
FWIW I have a Tesla and the phone key isn’t draining my battery.

To be clear, I’m not saying it isn’t draining yours or others’, but just that it isn’t draining mine.
 
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FeliApple said:
...My running theory is that the Air can’t cope with increased power consumption as well as other iPhones. ...
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for some reason i think that this may be true.
but, logically, for such a thing to be true, the battery chemical dynamics in the Air, or, the battery management firmware in the Air, would need to be different from the other iPhone 17 devices announced.
since all user adjustable settings that could have an impact on battery life in all these devices are exactly identical.
could the known differences (C1X modem; N1 wi-fi chip) be enough for this difference ? it doesn't seem so.

i think the Air being possibly weaker (not designed for) long term, frequent, full throttle usage might be showing different characteristics than the Pro (the smaller size) or the iPhone 17 base. so i think your theory is interesting.
but no rumors or indications have mentioned any battery's physical/chemical or internal battery management firmware differences to account for this.
there have been some "battery tester influencers" whose data, when compared, do differ dramatically if the test is done entirely on wi-fi or entirely done on a cellular connection.

i think we don't know all there is to know about the battery in the Air, yet.
but apple for sure is getting great actual real-life user data to ensure the iPhone Fold can go all day + then some.
 
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James6s said:
How’s today’s looking. Mix of WiFi and 4/5G.

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Looking decent! I really like that your SOT is consistent. It is like that for me and I think that that is cool, as it allows us to plan. That would go for about 7.5 hours (the 100-99% is longer so the first half lasts longer than the second half).

But just for reference: remember our discussion about heavy use? This is my 16 Plus. Full LTE, practically full camera, outdoor brightness, in one of my heaviest days ever:

IMG_6337.png


Recharged at noon (from 99%!) before knowing I’d have that heavy usage just to try it from 100%.

4.5 hours to 73% for a total upper-range SOT loss of about 35% (about 2.5 hours give or take a few minutes) vs my light usage pattern, as I had theorized.
 
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profets said:
Happy to see some nice screenshots / SOT / full days of use! Going to hope my specific phone has an issue or something as I'm still having a rough time with the battery. Hope I'm not really raining on the parade of good battery reviews.

2nd full day after clean restore. 8 hours since I took it off charge. Lunch time now and I'm at 81 minutes SOT and battery is down to 46%. Really not doing much of anything on this phone. Planning on swapping it after the weekend.


View attachment 2559305View attachment 2559306
Click to expand...
Yeah, swap that. That is complete garbage. And the Air has more battery life than that, now confirmed with this thread.
 
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arc of the universe said:
for some reason i think that this may be true.
but, logically, for such a thing to be true, the battery chemical dynamics in the Air, or, the battery management firmware in the Air, would need to be different from the other iPhone 17 devices announced.
since all user adjustable settings that could have an impact on battery life n all these devices are exactly identical.
could the known differences (C1X modem; N1 wi-fi chip) be enough for this difference ? it doesn't seem so.

an athlete trained for the 4000 meter steeple chase and an athlete trained for a 100 meter race conserves or uses energy differently.
i think the Air being possibly weaker (not designed for) long term, frequent, full throttle usage might be showing different characteristics than the Pro (the smaller size) or the iPhone 17 base. so i think your theory is interesting.
but no rumors or indications have mentioned any battery's physical/chemical or internal battery management firmware differences to account for this.
there have been some "battery tester influencers" whose data, when compared, do differ dramatically if the test is done entirely on wi-fi or entirely done on a cellular connection.

i think we don't know all there is to know about the battery in the Air, yet.
but apple for sure is getting great actual real-life user data to ensure the iPhone Fold can go all day + then some.
Click to expand...
Honestly I think the reason is simpler: it has iPhone Xʀ-like battery life with heavy usage with an iPhone Xʀ-like battery size.

Processor differences in efficiency are swallowed by the heaviness of iOS 26 vs iOS 12.

Historically, iPhone battery life increases are explained by battery size.
 
surferfb said:
FWIW I have a Tesla and the phone key isn’t draining my battery.

To be clear, I’m not saying it isn’t draining yours or others’, but just that it isn’t draining mine.
Click to expand...

It’s an issue when the car is parked in close enough proximity where the bluetooth stays constantly connected for long periods of time. You can check this in the bluetooth settings.

You are correct in that it doesn’t affect everyone, because if you park the car where you are out of bluetooth range then it’s not an issue. I have friends and family who own Teslas who live and work in places where the car is parked far enough away for it to not matter.

Both posters who posted screenshots of terrible battery life had the Tesla app on their list, and I wanted to share my personal experience in case it helps.

This isn’t unique to the Air or this generation of phones, but it has meaningfully impacted battery life on my phones and I exchanged several phones before realizing what was causing the issue.
 
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@profets - if you’re willing to try deleting your phone key and Tesla app for a day and see if it makes a difference then it might be worth trying before going through the hassle of exchanging the phone.
 
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Honey_crisp said:
It’s an issue when the car is parked in close enough proximity where the bluetooth stays constantly connected for long periods of time. You can check this in the bluetooth settings.

You are correct in that it doesn’t affect everyone, because if you park the car where you are out of bluetooth range then it’s not an issue. I have friends and family who own Teslas who live and work in places where the car is parked far enough away for it to not matter.

Both posters who posted screenshots of terrible battery life had the Tesla app on their list, and I wanted to share my personal experience in case it helps.

This isn’t unique to the Air or this generation of phones, but it has meaningfully impacted battery life on my phones and I exchanged several phones before realizing what was causing the issue.
Click to expand...
My phone is always showing the Key icon connected to my Tesla in the BT list. I don't see it doing any battery drain. I leave my phone overnight in the kitchen which is very close to the garage and I only get 3-6% drain overnight. I wonder if your Tesla is not sleeping properly then maybe that could create drain? I monitor mine via TeslaFi and it sleeps properly all night long. I have Sentry disabled at home location as it is in the garage. Maybe with Sentry enabled it stays awake and the key connection may drain the phone? Just speculating...haven't tested that.
 
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arbitrage said:
My phone is always showing the Key icon connected to my Tesla in the BT list. I don't see it doing any battery drain. I leave my phone overnight in the kitchen which is very close to the garage and I only get 3-6% drain overnight. I wonder if your Tesla is not sleeping properly then maybe that could create drain? I monitor mine via TeslaFi and it sleeps properly all night long. I have Sentry disabled at home location as it is in the garage. Maybe with Sentry enabled it stays awake and the key connection may drain the phone? Just speculating...haven't tested that.
Click to expand...

Do you have a Pro Max by chance? When I had the 14 and 15 pro maxes it was not as much of an issue with the big battery but it made a huge difference on my pro and base model regular phones.

I do have sentry disabled and when I open the app it says the car has been asleep for 8 hours. Is there anything else I should check on the Tesla side of things? It is definitely annoying to have to kill the app every time.

Edit: there is always the possibility that it only really drains significantly when the phone and car are in a “goldilocks” distance where the BT is weak but not far enough to fully disconnect.


Going back to the thread topic, I have the Air and noticed this same issue with my Air battery life. Making sure my phone key stays disconnected has significantly improved battery life - from 3hr SOT to 7hr SOT on wifi, at home, ceteris paribus.
 
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