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Samsung Gear S2 fast battery drain January 2017

(Topic created: 01-20-2017 03:12 PM)
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userZ38hlUFMlP
Asteroid
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Gear and Gear Fit

My Gear S2 (non phone version) has been running with no battery issues where it would last up to 36 hours. Bluetooth active, Sleep as Android etc. I started to get a cache full on my S7 in late January 2017 so I told it to clear cash and it seemed to start the problem. I did have music on my watch and had about 1 gb of memory left.

 

The battery started to last maybe 5 to 6 hours. I did a full reset/rebuild on the watch and went to base settings but it only added a couple of hours.  

 

Based on use and past performance I have to believe that it was a recent update to either the watch or phone.  

 

Please advise as to issue cause and how to restore the watch to it's former battery capacity.

 

Gear 2 

model SM-R732

Tinzen 2.3.2.1

SoftwareR732XXU2EPK5

Knox 2.0.0

Knox Tinzenwearable 1.0.0

Tima 3.0.0

 

Galaxy S7  edge

Gear App

Device SM-G935P

Device Name: Gear S2 8CD3

Samsung gear app  - 2.2 16101261

Gear S Plugin - 2.2.03. 16111661

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userDPCz4n98dy
Constellation
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Gear and Gear Fit

Thanks a lot, after some time that was the only soultion !!!

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userf8l9ha70P1
Asteroid
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Gear and Gear Fit

Thank you so much for your fix.  This did work for me on my S2 Classic.  

 

Reset everything last night, made sure the watch was charged and now 12 hours later it is at 88%.  I thought I would never be able to use it for more than the trip to the grocery store.  

 

Thank you!!

Rk

userz9lfwushIs
Constellation
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Gear and Gear Fit

This send to have worked for me 😁


@useraut7MjFxoe wrote:

Hi guys and girls. I may have a solution!

 

Thanks for all the post in here I have read most of them and tried most of the things suggested, unfortunately without any luck..

I have an S2 classic with the same problems, battery drainage in a matter of hours.. main consumer "Contacts" at up to 70% of usage For instance, good example this morning ; Fully charged in the morning when i left for work at 6AM and down 30% around 9AM

 

Today however I tried something else, I turned off "Sync wifi profiles" in the Gear app on my Galaxy S8, it's located under the "Gear-connections" tab in the Gear app settings. 

And I'm very happy to report that it seems to have done the trick, the battery was at 30% and it actually bounced back to 32% with half an hour (and up to 34% after one hour), despite me checking every other minute to see the results (which will inevitably putt more strain on the battery)

All other functions are activated, so S-health, watch face, step counter and so on are all running.

I have now checked the status for over an hour and it's still on 34%, "Contacts" app is still showing a huge consumption but after the first hour it's gone down from 70% to 61% and I guess (fingers crossed) it will continue to fall to an acceptable level of battery usage.

 

So I'd like share my "solution" with you all, and hopefully it will work for everybody and it's not just a fluke on my Gear S2

If this has been suggested by others in the past please accept my apologies for missing this when I read thorough the discussion.

 

TJ


 

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S M
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Gear and Gear Fit

No new apps! Nothing changed on my part except fast battery drain

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TKnowledge89
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Gear and Gear Fit

Same issue.  I've had the watch 7 months now.  I had the problem of battery drain about 4 weeks ago.  Called samsung, did the reset, got rid of some watch faces.  The battery drain stopped.  4 weeks later with no changes to my watch, I'm back to battery drain in 3 hours.  If this is not resolved, I'm going to Apple.  As much as I love my galaxy phone and this watch, I will Leave.  Im in sales and I need a product that works when I need it.  My watch uses the minimums.  No pictures, no music, no email, and data transfers from on 14 apps.  Battery life shouldn't be a probably for the money I paid for the watch.  I'm frustrated 

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userXNbS9NbR0A
Constellation
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Gear and Gear Fit

Same problem. I have Gear S2 Classic for almoust 2 years. Normaly the battery lasts for 4+ days. Yesterday out of nowhere the battery drained from 100% to 0% in 5 hours. No updates to apps or firmware. No changes in usage.

 

I tried to turn it off and recharge from 0% to 100% while it is off. After turning it back on the battery drained from 100% to 90% in 30 mins.

 

Gear App showed that the battery was drained mostly by "faces". I removed all faces except for the one face that I use, including standard template faces and faced that I downloaded from the market. It looks like it helped and the problem has gone for now. I didn't do factory reset just removed all the faces that I don't use.

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Sidsden
Constellation
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Gear and Gear Fit

I think I may have found a solution to this. Bear with me, this post is going to be a little long, as you need to understand the background as well. If you are just interested in the answer, go to the penultimate paragraph.

 

I bought my Gear S2 Classic off of Amazon US in June 2016. For more than the past 1 year, I have been using it daily as more than just a watch with my Galaxy S7 Edge. I use it to read and dismiss notifications, to track my steps and workouts and my sleep as well. I rarely use it for navigation. Every now and then, over the past year, I have encountered minor issues with it. For example, unexpected battery drains have occurred before, but that has always fixed itself after a restart of the device. Every so often I also saw the battery % going up instead of down after I took it off the charging cradle. However, in spite of all these imperfections, my watch never really bothered me. 

 

The problem started last Friday, 9/8/2017. Another typical day, I woke up at 6.30 AM with around 60-65% battery left, went for my morning run and then got busy with my daily chores. Suddenly, at around 11.30-12, I noticed that the battery % was down in the 20s. It was unusual to see such rapid battery drain but like I told, this had happened before and always got fixed with a restart, so I went ahead, switched off my Gear and put it to charge. After it fully charged up, I turned it on and started using it again, however, this time the battery started draining literally in front of my eyes at around 1% every 2 minutes and within 10-20 minutes it was in the 80s. I tried to get in touch with Samsung, I called them, I tweeted them, I got them on chat. They got me to factory reset my device, by the time I was done, in close to 3-4 hours the battery was below 10%, so I put it to charge. Surprisingly, after the reset, the battery was working fine again. That night I went to bed around midnight with 85% charge and the 15% drain was over a period of 4-5 hours, so I was satisfied. I woke up around 4 AM and checked my watch, and there it was again.. at 3%. So, an 82% drain in 4 hours, again unusual. I spent the Saturday closely monitoring my watch and found it to erratically drain the battery at random periods, however, if I would put it on airplane mode, it would stop the drain (naturally). During all this time, whenever there was a rapid drain, the culprit was always the contacts app. Normally, the apps draining most battery from the watch are notifications and watch faces but contacts app started draining battery abnormally, with sometimes draining more than 60%.

 

Then on Sunday, I decided to visit a Samsung service center (since I am in India now and there are dedicated Samsung service centers here, just like Apple stores in the US). They told me that my battery was bad and replaced it. It cost me a total of INR 1500 (~US$ 23.5). Interestingly, while at the service center, I met a fellow with a Gear S3, who said he was facing the same issue with his watch, which started after a recent software update. For the rest of the Sunday, my watch behaved normally with it draining from 50% to 10% between 3 PM and 11 PM, which I would consider normal. However, in between there were phases when I saw the battery drain more than 2% in less than 15 minutes or so, to fix it, I would put the watch on airplane mode for a while and it did. I wanted my software to be updated as well, so that the 'real' problem could be fixed, but the service center told me that since my model (SM-R732) wasn't technically sold in India, they would have to get numerous approvals which would take more than a week for the update, for now, I have decided to hold on to it and only get the software update if there is a problem again.

 

On Monday, I woke up with 100% charge after the overnight charge and continued with my day with normal drain, but suddenly in the evening, the drain quickened, again with stats like 2% in 10 minutes or so, I put the watch in airplane mode again, and took it off of it in a couple of minutes, then went for a walk. That is when it struck me!

 

Over the past 3 days (since the factory reset), all the times when I saw rapid drains, my S7 Edge was plugged in. Remember the night when I went to bed with 85% and woke up with 3%? My phone was plugged in. The drain didn't happen on the next night since the watch was on airplane mode and it didn't happen on Sunday night since it was charging in its cradle. For all the instances in between, with rapid drains, my phone was always charging, and the main culprit in all these cases was the contacts app whose drain would increase rapidly. Then I realized, that I have tasker (an automation app) set up on my phone, which is set to turn on the system sync periodically every hour for 2 minutes and turn it off, and it turns it on indefinitely when I plug my phone in and am connected to a wifi, until it is plugged in.

 

So, I did the obvious, changed the Tasker profile to turn on Sync indefinitely only between 12 and 6 AM (when I have started keeping my Gear either in the cradle, or with airplane mode on), and voila! No more random battery drains!

 

So, the moral of the story: If you are facing a problem similar to mine, try turning the 'Android System Sync' off. Personally, I always like to keep it off since it is a huge source of battery drain even on my phone. If that doesn't help, maybe it's time to get your battery replaced. I would be glad if other people tried this out and let me know, so I will know that my solution really works. 

 

I have attached pictures of the battery drain, one from Friday (9/8) and one from Tuesday (9/12). You can see on Friday, I am down to 36% after less than 2 hours. But on Tuesday, I am on 22% after more than 34 hours (for 6 of those hours, the phone was in airplane mode when it drained 5% in total). On Friday, you can also see the contacts app draining 60%, which is obviously abnormal.

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usergIBhvSrdSZ
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Gear and Gear Fit

Is the task manager on your phone or on the gear s2?

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userYClFGcXJAu
Constellation
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Gear and Gear Fit

Excellent post, thank you! This solution (though in far less detail) was also mentioned elsewhere, referring only to the Contacts sync. Really appreciate your clarification on it..

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userwklcjGO2OD
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Gear and Gear Fit

I have the "overheating will shut down" message as soon as i turn it on and it shows a clock. The very next screen says its shutting down.  I sent it back after calling Samsung and the returned it to me with my customized wrist band gone and said there was nothing wrong. The day I got it back I recharged it and used it 3 days when it kept shutting down again. I called and sent it back again and they said it had gotten water damage...I never even showered with it...Samsung is useless. As soon as I can get rid of its products I'll be happy. And I have only used for 6 years now is Samsung 😭😭😭Love my S8+ and wanted to get the new note... does anyone have any ideas or solutions?

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