[Nexus 5 General] JamieFL:
I have been reading the many battery threads where people are posting screenshots and either complaining or raving about their particular Nexus 5’s battery performance. I am shocked that some people are turning off their Wifi, Mobile Data, GPS, Google Now, Sync, and every other feature that makes these phones so useful and still suffering with poor battery performance.

In this thread, instead of complaining or bragging about your battery performance, I thought that this could be used as a place where you all can post how you use your device and what you are doing to save juice and how it works. I’ll go first.

I have had 3 different Nexus 5’s. The first had the speaker/microphone problem and was RMAed. The second was doing great until it overheated and the LEDs at the bottom of the screen exploded. It was RMAed. My current one seems to have a weaker vibrator motor, but I’m going to live with it.

I use my phone instead of my laptop. It seems the only time I use my laptop these days it to flash my phone. I browse the web (Chrome), watch YouTube (YouTube App), read my email (Gmail), shop Amazon (Amazon App), manage my schedule (Calendar App, Pure Calendar Widget), get my news (Flipboard), participate in groups (Google Plus), Chromecast (Netflix, YouTube), participate in these forums (XDA Premium App), and various others. I don’t really play games and don’t tax the CPU to hard.

To save juice, I…

use LUX to manage my screen brightness and usually can function with the screen below 0% unless I’m outside.

use Tasker to turn on/off my wifi, data, gps, sync, and perform a few other tasks, kind-of-like juice defender, but a lot more reliable.

use Better Battery Stats to keep an eye on my apps and de-install apps with bad behavior. I plan on installing Greenify, but have not gotten around to it.

I usually get 12 to 14 hours with 3-4 hours screen time before I plug my phone in at night and have 25%-50% battery left. And, I don't feel I'm depriving myself of any performance.

Some things I have read…

With these new batteries, you never want to let them fully discharge. In fact, keeping them charged is very important, so having a charger at work, or in your car is a good practice.

When your phone gets hot, give it a rest. A hot phone is not working efficiently, and you can damage the battery permanently if it overheats.

It takes a few days for your phone to reach its best performance. When you first get it, it is working in the background to index files and such, which is keeping the phone from reaching deep sleep and is using juice.

After an update, if your phone just doesn’t seem right, it might not be. Do a factory reset and try again. If something didn’t update correctly, there is no telling what could be affected…even your battery performance.

If you have ideas on how to increase battery performance, or discovered apps or settings that drain your battery, please post them here.

Added From Comments Below...

Make sure your apps are configured properly. For example, make sure apps such as Google + are configured to only backup while charging.

In Settings / Locations, set mode to 'Battery Saving' . It passively detects your location which uses no battery. It has been reported that turning off 'location reporting' has no negative effect on Now and Maps. This is a big juice saver.

Kill apps when done using them. Some apps, if left open, will continue draining your juice.

Turn off 'Scanning Always Available' in Wifi /Advanced Settings.

Things I Have Been Experimenting With...

Greenify is a great app for battery optimization. I have apps on my phone that I don't use often, but seem to keep the phone awake. Greenify them and put the app to bed until you need it.

I've been experimenting with Kernels. After much experimentation, I used Franco Kernel on my GN, so I tried his out and have noticed a battery savings on my screen off time. This is a recommendation for rooted phones because the Franco Updater app on the Play Store does all the heavy lifting.

If you find this information helpful, please hit the 'thanks' button.

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