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Voice call on Signal chugs battery life on ROG Phone 5

thejus44
Star III
Please tell us some basic information before asking for help:
Model Name: ROG Phone 5 8GB/128GB
Firmware Version: 18.0840.2104.49
Rooted or not: Yes
Frequency of Occurrence: Happened once so far
APP Name & APP Version (If your issue relates to the app): Signal ver 5.13.8
In addition to information above, please also provide as much details as you can, e.g., using scenario, what troubleshooting you've already done, screenshot, etc.
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@Anders_ASUS @Titan_ASUS @Laura_ASUS @Kris_ASUS
Hello! I've been using my Asus ROG phone 5 for about a week now. Much like many people I have felt my battery life was not up to the mark. However, I flashed the latest firmware and wiped my phone clean, after which battery life improved substantially. However, I was on a voice call on Signal with 2 other people (voice-only, no video at any point in time. The call lasted for approximately 3 hours, and I was in an area with perfectly fine signal (all full bars). If it helps, I am using Airtel's 4g LTE connection. The screen was also mostly turned off during this time. I was using a pair of earphones (OnePlus buds Z) but I don't think that's the issue because it was only in use for the first half hour, after which I turned bluetooth off on my phone. I also use it to listen to music regularly, and I've never had a battery drain of such magnitude. It might yet be a Signal problem, but I have faced some situations which lead me to believe that it is a phone problem.
Here is my battery backup on another day, on heavy use-case. I've been away from home, and because a lot of my work takes place on the phone I've had to use it quite heavily. No problems here.


image.png

Here is how much battery Signal took up. Here you can see that it took up a whopping 32% of a 6000 mah battery in over 3 hours. Note the timestamp.
screenshot-20210620-234922414.jpg

Here you can see when the call started. The call lasted for about 180 minutes, give or take 10 minutes.

screenshot-20210620-234935866.jpg

Here we can see that the battery chart is more or less normal, approximately up until the point where I used Signal, and then it goes on a steep decline.
screenshot-20210620-235149599.jpg

Not sure if it helps, but here is the memory usage for Signal.
screenshot-20210621-000059008.jpg


Okay, so I believe that it is not a Signal problem as me and the other 2 people I was on a call with, are all running the same build of Signal, however they have different phones. More importantly, however, I have noticed battery draining extremely rapidly when I am running multiple operations on the Play Store. I shrugged it off at the time believing that I was being nit-picky, but I think that this phone's software is unoptimized when it comes to the inbuilt radios, i.e battery drains quickly when lots of data transfer is going on via the mobile network. I am not sure if this problem will persist even on a Wi-fi network, I have not checked yet.
I would like to know if this is a recognized problem and will there be a software update to fix this? I have seen other posts complaining about battery life, I believe that this may be related. Any response would be appreciated, thank you!

4 REPLIES 4

ARP_ASUS
Community Legend II
Hi thejus44,
I would need a bit more clarity on few things,
The first screenshot you shared shows 13 hours of SOT (Screen on time)
The Signal App there uses 8% of Battery
Can you share a screenshot where you use the phone just like you do on a normal day to day, share a screenshot when battery reaches 10%. I need to check the SOT
I am not denying the other screenshot and Signal App used for Call.

thejus44
Star III
@ARP_ASUS
Hi! The first screenshot is the one where I used my phone on a normal day. Sorry for any ambiguity. I attached it for reference to show that on a normal day I get that much battery life. Nevertheless I attached another screenshot in this post that will once again show how much battery life I get on average (when I don't call people on Signal). If you need any more info I would be happy to provide it.

ARP_ASUS
Community Legend II
Hi thejus44,
As per the screenshot the SOT is 12 hours + not sure what's the issue here.

thejus44
Star III
@ARP_ASUS
Hi,
That screenshot that shows 12hr SOT was taken when I did not use signal.