Anyone else seeing large battery drain on iphone?

Fattybolatty · Nov 21, 2016

Ulfertg said:
I had a battery drain issue with the DJI Go app and an iPhone 6 as well.
The phone got very hot and the battery went from full to shut-down in less than 30 minutes.
I did a restore of the iPhone and the issue was gone.
Restoring an iPhone is very easy, maybe it's worth a try?

Which drone were you flying when you had the issue?

Ulfertg · Nov 21, 2016

I experienced this issue with the mavic but also with osmo mobile.

Fattybolatty · Nov 21, 2016

Updated phone to iOS 10.1.1 this morning then fully charged.
Went for a 14 min flight with mavic ,brightness at approx 50% as usual and it used approx 10% of phone battery. A little better than yesterday.

schpenxel · Nov 22, 2016

Same issue here. It's absolutely smoking my iPhone 6S Plus battery. A 15 minute flight will easily bring the iPhone battery down 30% or more. I've had it go from 50% to cutting off from a dead battery in a single Mavic Pro battery before.

Is this normal? My battery otherwise lasts a full day (which is basically what it lasted when new--I'm on it constantly so I've never gotten the 2-3 day life some here have mentioned). Background app refresh is off, screen brightness around 75%

The weird thing is I can watch movies on this thing for a few hours on one charge, even with the brightness all the way up, so I don't really think the brightness is the issue

If I had 2 or 3 Mavic batteries they would easily outlast my phone battery..

erkme73 · Nov 23, 2016

Same on my Note 4 with Android 6.0. I also notice that the phone is sluggish when switching tasks (not flying) while DJI is open and connected. The video caching that happens on the phone is probably very demanding. My Note 4 gets smoking hot (not Note 7 hot, but probably close).

Marco Cantieni · Nov 23, 2016

I had the same issues with the Osmo Mobile. After some research I found out that a full discharge and an uninterrupted charge to 100% resets the iPhone battery calculation

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

toegema · Nov 23, 2016

This is exactly why I asked if the iPhone could be charged during operation somehow.
I use a power bank when I fly my P3Standard because the lightning connector is otherwise unused when flying it.

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

John Locke · Nov 23, 2016

Make sure hardware decoding is enabled in the general settings of the GO app. That's the icon with the three dots ...

Sent from my iPad using MavicPilots

schpenxel · Nov 23, 2016

It is enabled on mine, still sucks the battery dry

schpenxel · Nov 23, 2016

Really wish there was a way to at least charge the phone while flying...

SteveCA · Nov 23, 2016

My iphone 6 went from 100% to 19% in two flights. Switched ipad mini 2 which used 35% in three full flights

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

schpenxel · Nov 23, 2016

That's about how mine has been. I did do some searching and found my battery capacity is only about 60% of what it was when new (nearly 500 cycles), so I may replace the battery at some point, but I still think it's using an excessive amount of battery life during flight...

schpenxel · Nov 25, 2016

So, today I believe I had some success in improving battery life quite a bit. I'll experiment some more tomorrow--only having one Mavic battery makes it difficult to test stuff.

First flight--typical settings. GPS on on phone, wifi/bluetooth on, video caching on. 20 minutes of flying. Used up over 60% of the phone battery in 20 minutes.. crazy.

Second flight--Turned phone to airplane mode, disabled GPS on my phone, turned video caching off. Used about 15% during a 20 minute flight.

Going to give it another go tomorrow but the difference was huge enough that I think I'm on to something

erkme73 · Nov 25, 2016

schpenxel said:
So, today I believe I had some success in improving battery life quite a bit. I'll experiment some more tomorrow--only having one Mavic battery makes it difficult to test stuff.

First flight--typical settings. GPS on on phone, wifi/bluetooth on, video caching on. 20 minutes of flying. Used up over 60% of the phone battery in 20 minutes.. crazy.

Second flight--Turned phone to airplane mode, disabled GPS on my phone, turned video caching off. Used about 15% during a 20 minute flight.

Going to give it another go tomorrow but the difference was huge enough that I think I'm on to something

My money is on the video caching. If you turn that off, and leave everything else on, I bet that'll be the culprit.

schpenxel · Nov 25, 2016

I'm going to try to figure out which thing did it tomorrow.. very well could be that though

I'm just happy that I might be able to make my battery last a reasonable amount of time..

chippie · Nov 27, 2016

erkme73 said:
My money is on the video caching. If you turn that off, and leave everything else on, I bet that'll be the culprit.

I did some battery tests and actually found it made no difference at all if caching was disabled. This was both on iOS and droid (6s, S6 and S7). Saving the feed had no impact at all on the battery compared to not doing so. Others may find different so look forward to hearing about your findings.

KeithM · Nov 27, 2016

Apple has recalled the iPhone 6S for battery failure. They won't release the serial numbers of affected phones, but if you:
A. Have had a battery issue, and;
B. Your phone is in the serial number list, you'll get a new battery for free.
The battery issue may be affecting other models of the phone, but they haven't released that information yet.

Had my phone shut down completely mid flight. They sent a new phone to me via overnight which did not have any battery issues and much less discharge per flight than the old one.

Here's the link:
iPhone 6s Program for Unexpected Shutdown Issues - Apple Support

chippie · Nov 27, 2016

Mine is being replaced on Tuesday with regards to this issue. Hopefully it will help even though I was getting 7/8 days in standby (not used, just sitting on the side and a DFU build) but then I believe this issue was not apparent until you stressed the battery... Fingers crossed!

Techcop50 · Nov 27, 2016

FWIW, I bought a brand new Note 4 from Amazon 2 weeks ago. It charged up as expected and worked great all day, hardly any drain at all. Then I tried to use it with my P3P. Seconds into the flight, it went from over 80% to 0%, shut off mid flight. I rebooted the phone and got a low battery screen. Over several days, it worked fine as a phone, usage seemed normal. But when the load of DJI Go hit it, it went dead in seconds, every time. Even heated up a bit. I thought sure it was the phone, right? Worked fine until I tried to run Go. It would go all day on and only drop to 75% battery.
As a last resort before returning the phone, I bought a new battery locally. Instant fix! Now I can run through all 4 P3 batteries with about 10% drop in my Note Battery, at 100% brightness.
In my opinion, anyone with a 2 year old battery is on borrowed time at best. It's a relatively cheap fix, why not eliminate that from the equation?

schpenxel · Nov 27, 2016

I haven't taken the time to figure out which thing was causing the battery drain yet--I do think the video caching was part of it. I've read several people saying disabling location services on the phone for some reason makes a huge difference. I'll figure it out sooner or later.

Is the recall only for 6s's or 6s plus's also? I have the plus version

I found a program the other day that will connect to your phone and tell you how many battery cycles it's been through and it's capacity today vs new. Mine was at nearly 400 cycles and at 58% of it's original capacity... bout time for a new battery (or phone!) I'd say. That's what I'm telling myself anyways.