Any tips for making the Gemini battery last as long as possible?

[FredL]

I'd like to take my Gemini on some trips where I'll be away from charging points for long periods (e.g. multi-day hiking and cycling trips). I'll be carrying an external battery to charge the device, but I'd like to reduce the power consumption as much as possible. Here are the things I'm planning to do:

• Switch to airplane mode - no bluetooth, wifi or cellular
• Keep the screen brightness down
• Switch on android's "Battery Saver" mode
• Close any open apps which are not required

Are there any other ways to keep the battery usage as low as possible?

[depscribe]

I'd like to take my Gemini on some trips where I'll be away from charging points for long periods (e.g. multi-day hiking and cycling trips). I'll be carrying an external battery to charge the device, but I'd like to reduce the power consumption as much as possible. Here are the things I'm planning to do:

• Switch to airplane mode - no bluetooth, wifi or cellular
• Keep the screen brightness down
• Switch on android's "Battery Saver" mode
• Close any open apps which are not required

Are there any other ways to keep the battery usage as low as possible?

I can't speak for the Android side, though I imaginr there are or would be utilities for this, but Linux tends to offer suspend/hibernate. This would be an efficient alternative to airplane mode.

[Rahab D]

When I go to cycling trips, I use GPS with Oruxmaps and I want not have problems of battery. I attack on the back of bicycle a solar panel (exactly that one: https://www.amazon.it/PB-P4-Caricatore-pann...s=aukey+solare). Under full sun it is able to charge the battery of my Blackberry Passport (3.450 mah) on about 4 hours and half. So with 21W (I got 21 'cause it must be portable) you can full charge a Gemini on 5,5 h ...  
But I know it: I make tourism ... If you make race bicycle it's not confortable!  

[vader]

According to my battery monitor, I have 3 days of battery. It only gets minor use in the morning (check the news, email) and then is normal standby. I disable GPS unless I need it, but other than that I have WiFi, bluetooth, 4G all enabled. If you don't use your phone, it has a long standby time. My usage picks up during the day, so I need to recharge in the evening. I still only get to about 40% with heavy use in the evening - it is still a new toy and gets a lot of attention when I get home. If you use it, the battery will run down (I hear a chorus of DUH!). If you are trying to maximise standby time, turn off Bluetooth, GPS and internet (wifi and 4g), and switch to 2G/3G connection (depending on what is available where you are). Stop any running apps. This will mean you can still make/receive phone calls and still have multiday battery.

I am guessing you still want your phone functional, otherwise you would just turn it off - many months per battery then  Things that use a lot of power are:

GPS
Radio Transmitter (eg. internet, making calls)
Screen
Heavy CPU/GPU use - eg. games
Bluetooth uses a bit - if you don't need it turn it off
Band switching in a poor signal area (eg from 4G to 3G and back). That is why selecting 2G or 3G only helps. It doesn't switch.
Turning your phone off overnight also saves a bit - the alarm will turn it back on.

I have eked out 5 days doing this with a BB passport whilst camping. Hope this helps

[FredL]

According to my battery monitor, I have 3 days of battery. It only gets minor use in the morning (check the news, email) and then is normal standby. I disable GPS unless I need it, but other than that I have WiFi, bluetooth, 4G all enabled. If you don't use your phone, it has a long standby time. My usage picks up during the day, so I need to recharge in the evening. I still only get to about 40% with heavy use in the evening - it is still a new toy and gets a lot of attention when I get home. If you use it, the battery will run down (I hear a chorus of DUH!). If you are trying to maximise standby time, turn off Bluetooth, GPS and internet (wifi and 4g), and switch to 2G/3G connection (depending on what is available where you are). Stop any running apps. This will mean you can still make/receive phone calls and still have multiday battery.

I am guessing you still want your phone functional, otherwise you would just turn it off - many months per battery then  Things that use a lot of power are:

GPS
Radio Transmitter (eg. internet, making calls)
Screen
Heavy CPU/GPU use - eg. games
Bluetooth uses a bit - if you don't need it turn it off
Band switching in a poor signal area (eg from 4G to 3G and back). That is why selecting 2G or 3G only helps. It doesn't switch.
Turning your phone off overnight also saves a bit - the alarm will turn it back on.

I have eked out 5 days doing this with a BB passport whilst camping. Hope this helps

Thanks for your thoughts so far. I'll be taking my Gemini into the wild over the summer, and will report back how well it performs. It used to be an interesting use-case for Psions - people would take them into remote locations due to the need for AA batteries only.

[jutleys]

I would normally disable apps that i don’t use normally google stuff by going into settings/apps/then disable this helps a lot to get better battery life.

[rogalian]

Root it.

Uninstall all Google related stuff, reducing your background services running tenfold.

Watch your battery life skyrocket.

[Ifanafi]

To Root or Not To Root; That is my question.

Reading much online about pros and cons of rooting an android phone.

See tools like KingRoot and a variety of apks that will do the job.

And yet I wonder still about rooting my Gemini to free it from Verizon and Samsung's crapware.

I welcome seasoned advise and recommendations for proceeding or not.

Thank you in advance for your generous help.

Ifanafi

[tuk0z]

@vader thx for sharing these nice tips

Root it.

Uninstall all Google related stuff, reducing your background services running tenfold.

Watch your battery life skyrocket.

What do you mean by "syrocket"? I did that on my older 1.350 mAh Samsung and can't get more than SIX days On without charging

[skmakine]

There is also the DuraSpeed option, available in Settings, which will restrict background apps. That sounds like it would help battery life.

[skmakine]

PS: besides airplane mode, you can also set the Wifi connection to turn off when the device goes into sleep mode. Maybe a softer approach than complete radio silence, and one that works automatically.

[Ifanafi]

Besides adopting some batter-saver tweaks suggested herein by others, my Gem's battery life improved a bit for the better after I -

 - Uninstalled or disabled various factory installed Android / Google AND Planet apps like all foreign keyboard types, I don't / won't use.

 - Tapped OFF apps with default "location" permission ON (and which are not needed operationally).

 - Location (via notification bar icon) is OFF when I am home (and when out and do not need "location" help).

 - Reviewed and BLOCKED various apps "Notification" permissions (ON by default) and which are unnecessary.

 - Tapped OFF HDMI, ClearMotion and set MiraVision to default settings.

 - Review and either restrict or disable some apps default, yet unnecessary, use of cellular "background data" especially when home tethered to WiFi.

 - Because the Gem's screen is the device's biggest battery sucker, set screen's timeout to 1-2 minutes of inactivity.
   That way, the device can be left open when the screen is asleep... making for easy access.

Cheers.

[gidds]

To Root or Not To Root; That is my question.

Depends what you want to do with your Gemini, really, what you know, and how much effort you want to put into it.

Pros:

• It gives you full control over your Gemini: the ability to read and write any file, and access any device.  This includes things like deleting apps, letting other apps access more files, ad-blocking, taking full backups, and much more.

Cons:

• Rooting is an awkward procedure (especially if you have a Mac), and you can easily wipe all your existing apps/files/data if you're not careful.  (It doesn't seem possible to permanently brick a Gemini, but a couple of people have got it into situations that needed a serious amount of research to fully recover from.)
• Over-The-Air firmware updates may no longer work.  (They haven't so far, though I hear they should do so once the latest firmware is installed.)
• Root access is powerful and lets you do more damage to your Gemini if you don't know what you're doing.
• Root access may allow malware to do more damage (or so I hear, though I don't know how accurate that is).

For me, the risks and hassles were worth it.  I'm very familiar with the command line &c, and the inability to do things such as fix file timestamps, write to the SD card, and edit /etc/hosts, was starting to seriously limit me.  I've seen no ill effects so far.  But it did take hours to work out how to flash my Gemini (and I've just spend a good while reflashing it with the latest firmware).

Rooting is probably less necessary on the Gemini than most other Android devices, because it's so open to start with: you don't need to root it to install other OSs or customise things, and it's not loaded down with stuff from a carrier.  (Or so I understand; the Gemini is the only Android device I've used…)

[Ifanafi]

Thank you for that informative reply.

Because, as you state correctly, the Gemini is less bloated than brand name cell phones swollen with their specious stuff, I shall wait to catch the Sailfish release later this year; and not *root my Gem.

Rooting my Gem would most probably fubar it.

Adios!

To Root or Not To Root; That is my question.

Depends what you want to do with your Gemini, really, what you know, and how much effort you want to put into it.

Pros:

• It gives you full control over your Gemini: the ability to read and write any file, and access any device.  This includes things like deleting apps, letting other apps access more files, ad-blocking, taking full backups, and much more.

Cons:

• Rooting is an awkward procedure (especially if you have a Mac), and you can easily wipe all your existing apps/files/data if you're not careful.  (It doesn't seem possible to permanently brick a Gemini, but a couple of people have got it into situations that needed a serious amount of research to fully recover from.)
• Over-The-Air firmware updates may no longer work.  (They haven't so far, though I hear they should do so once the latest firmware is installed.)
• Root access is powerful and lets you do more damage to your Gemini if you don't know what you're doing.
• Root access may allow malware to do more damage (or so I hear, though I don't know how accurate that is).

For me, the risks and hassles were worth it.  I'm very familiar with the command line &c, and the inability to do things such as fix file timestamps, write to the SD card, and edit /etc/hosts, was starting to seriously limit me.  I've seen no ill effects so far.  But it did take hours to work out how to flash my Gemini (and I've just spend a good while reflashing it with the latest firmware).

Rooting is probably less necessary on the Gemini than most other Android devices, because it's so open to start with: you don't need to root it to install other OSs or customise things, and it's not loaded down with stuff from a carrier.  (Or so I understand; the Gemini is the only Android device I've used…)