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My 5s battery is HORRENDOUS

K

KAB2010

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 27, 2009
325
14
Louisiana
I have owned the 3Gs, 4, 5, and 5s. This one is by far the worst. I average 4 hours of usage. 4 1/2 on a very good day.

My main apps are Safari, browsing Facebook/Insta, Bleacher Report, and very little texting or calling.

I have my mail set to fetch at a low frequency, turned off every setting that could effect things. Don't even have background app refresh on. I keep my brightness at around 40-50%. No widgets. No bluetooth. I don't play any games or stream much. Only use Maps every now and then. Not jailbroken. Little to no music usage.

The ONLY culprit I can think of is low cell and wifi signal 90% of the time, but would this really cause me to lose HOURS of usage? At a minimum, I should be getting 6 hours of usage with the light tasks I use. Does this really shave off a full 2 hours or more? It floats between 1-2 bars of LTE (same for 4g) and Wifi is anywhere from full bars to cutting in and out throughout the day. Maybe it is a combo of this iOS 8 mess and low signal?

I even put a new battery in recently as that was the cure for my aging 5, but it barely helped at all here. It is beyond frustrating having to charge my phone multiple times a day.
 
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With low or no signal your battery life will be impacted significantly. 5 to 5.5 hours of usage was my average when I had a 5S. Having low signal can decrease that by an hour or so on a full charge to around 4.5 hours. Sounds like that's your culprit.
 
KAB2010 said:
I have owned the 3Gs, 4, 5, and 5s. This one is by far the worst. I average 4 hours of usage. 4 1/2 on a very good day.

My main apps are Safari, browsing Facebook/Insta, Bleacher Report, and very little texting or calling.

I have my mail set to fetch at a low frequency, turned off every setting that could effect things. Don't even have background app refresh on. I keep my brightness at around 40-50%. No widgets. No bluetooth. I don't play any games or stream much. Only use Maps every now and then. Not jailbroken. Little to no music usage.

The ONLY culprit I can think of is low cell and wifi signal 90% of the time, but would this really cause me to lose HOURS of usage? At a minimum, I should be getting 6 hours of usage with the light tasks I use. Does this really shave off a full 2 hours or more? It floats between 1-2 bars of LTE (same for 4g) and Wifi is anywhere from full bars to cutting in and out throughout the day. Maybe it is a combo of this iOS 8 mess and low signal?

I even put a new battery in recently as that was the cure for my aging 5, but it barely helped at all here. It is beyond frustrating having to charge my phone multiple times a day.
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This is mostly why. My 5s battery is the same way with T-Mobile. 2 bar is the best I get usually, and nothing drains your battery more than a low signal.
 
IpadSC400 said:
This is mostly why. My 5s battery is the same way with T-Mobile. 2 bar is the best I get usually, and nothing drains your battery more than a low signal.
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I suffer pretty bad battery life on my iPhone 6 and I hover between 1-2 bars as well, (-115 to -95db in my house with field test mode) nothing ever shows "Low Signal" under battery usage though. LTE pulls around 15mbps download, calls don't drop or anything either.

My battery was draining a percent every 2 minutes and I got to 50% in just over two hours with the phone HOT and I had 4-5 bars (-85 to -60db) the whole time! I was just browsing Safari, brightness was about 75%. Yes, it's a bit high, but it shouldn't be draining that fast should it? It was horrendous. I have like all battery draining settings disabled, and my phone gets warm if my brightness is 30% or higher. I feel the thing getting a little heat to it at 10-20% brightness sometimes. Battery never lasts more than 6 hours. Yes, it's better than the 4-4.5 hours seen here, but I have seen other forums users with iPhone 6 getting 8-11 hours, some even having similar cell signal to me. I don't think cell signal really matters much unless it is at "No Service", barely grabbing onto a sliver of 1x at times. My phone drains about 2% overnight with full WiFi and -110db of LTE (1x is about -110 as well) but I visited somewhere hovering between "No Service" and 1x and it drained 20-30% overnight. Signal is not as much of an issue as everyone blows it up to be, unless there's nothing at all.

Oh, and I have restored my phone like 3 times, there hasn't really been any improvement. Except for on iOS 8.0 where it was literally draining 1-2% A MINUTE at minimum brightness, just texting. Phone was hot to the touch. Restored and it helped, but still struggled to get more than 5 hours on a charge.
 
You didn't mention location services. They can be a real battery hog. For example, it took me a while to realize that the Redbox app was using my location in the background constantly (see iTunes reviews for corroboration). Turning that off improved my battery life.
 
Pharmscott said:
You didn't mention location services. They can be a real battery hog. For example, it took me a while to realize that the Redbox app was using my location in the background constantly (see iTunes reviews for corroboration). Turning that off improved my battery life.
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Oh I have all of those off as well except for apps that require it to work. It is off for any social media app.
 
KAB2010 said:
Oh I have all of those off as well except for apps that require it to work. It is off for any social media app.
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Oh I thought he was onto something. This may sound a bit more simple, but try turning brightness down to 20 or so percent at all times. I remember on my mini 2 I got from about 7 hours of usage to 9-10 hours by turning the brightness from 75% to 25%.
 
KAB2010 said:
I tried, but surprisingly 4g service is just as bad here. It is strange because one mile down the road signal is strong for both. Just a small dead zone in a metro area.
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I used to live so far out I was lucky to get 1 bar but asked ATT to send me a MicroCell. It plugs into the Internet and gave me full bars anywhere on my property. I got MUCH better battery usage after that.
 
Newtons Apple said:
I used to live so far out I was lucky to get 1 bar but asked ATT to send me a MicroCell. It plugs into the Internet and gave me full bars anywhere on my property. I got MUCH better battery usage after that.
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Yup it's very handy. Problem for me is at my workplace I get two bars 3G indoors in spite of the fact I get 3 bars 4G outside. In our old office (we have just moved to a new one) I had 5 bar 4G and the battery was top. Not sure what can be done for my workplace though. :confused:
 
I get 1-2 bars at my apartment and my phone is never "burning hot" and I can get tons of battery life (I did with my 4s and my 5 and now my 6+). If the phone is burning hot that seems to indicate to me that the CPU is being pegged at 100%. What's using your battery? Settings --> General --> Battery Usage.

Upload a screenshot of that after the 4 hours of burning hot usage.

My wife had a 5s in the same location --- of all the iPhones the 5s seems the worst but she barely got through a day (Facebook'ed a lot). Got her an Anker lipstick charger - seemed to help. http://www.amazon.com/3200mAh-Lipst...qid=1423924428&sr=8-2&keywords=anker+lipstick
 
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I have to agree. I have a 5S (aside from my 6+). When I listen to music for 3 hours, it goes from 100% to 92% (all apps closed aside from MUSIC, DATA off too). On my 4S, I could go from 100% to 98% with the exact same settings. And I've had the 4S longer.
 
decafjava said:
Yup it's very handy. Problem for me is at my workplace I get two bars 3G indoors in spite of the fact I get 3 bars 4G outside. In our old office (we have just moved to a new one) I had 5 bar 4G and the battery was top. Not sure what can be done for my workplace though. :confused:
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Depending on the number of people working there I have heard a carrier "fix" dead or low signal areas hen a lot of people are involved.

Good luck.
 
It's definitely your reception. I never get below 4 bars on my phone and normally on 5, and my battery life is excellent
 
Applefan4 said:
It's definitely your reception. I never get below 4 bars on my phone and normally on 5, and my battery life is excellent
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My iPhone 5 gave me great battery life out of the box with iOS6. I regularly got over 8.5 hours of usage time and this was despite poor reception at home & work. After installing iOS7 it was never the same and I lost 2-3 hours of usage time. Clean installs, restores and subsequent iOS updates failed to cure the problem. My battery and phone checked out fine with the Apple genius.

Fast forward to my iPhone 6+ and even though I still have two dots of signal strength at home & work, and the *exact* same usage pattern, I now get over 10 hours of usage time. So to me, signal strength has never made a huge difference. I'm sure a poor signal can drain the battery, but not by the hours that some state here.
 
sunking101 said:
My iPhone 5 gave me great battery life out of the box with iOS6. I regularly got over 8.5 hours of usage time and this was despite poor reception at home & work. After installing iOS7 it was never the same and I lost 2-3 hours of usage time. Clean installs, restores and subsequent iOS updates failed to cure the problem. My battery and phone checked out fine with the Apple genius.

Fast forward to my iPhone 6+ and even though I still have two dots of signal strength at home & work, and the *exact* same usage pattern, I now get over 10 hours of usage time. So to me, signal strength has never made a huge difference. I'm sure a poor signal can drain the battery, but not by the hours that some state here.
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completely agree. my 5 on iOS 6 gave me around 8-9 hours of usage time a day. Ever since I got the 5S on iOS 7 and now iOS 8, maybe 5 hours. Ive had three different 5S now and its still 5 hours. 2 dots of signal at my home.

I miss iOS 6.
 
KAB2010 said:
Do they charge extra for this?
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Unless you threaten to leave to another carrier and have proof showing almost no reception where you live --- they require payment for these Fem-to-cells. They can help a lot but they're really range limited.
 
Newtons Apple said:
I got mine for free but I have been told they can also charge for it. Much depends on ATT.

As far as range, it covered the entire house which was about 3500sf plus most of the property. It made the difference for sure.
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Same here: AT&T gave me one for free. It covers our large house too. Give them a call and ask for one, couldn't hurt.
 
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