Clip+ FM Battery Life

[vocrobot]

I've had my clip+ for a fortnight and haven't used the FM radio much but during this week I've noticed that battery life on my player is taking a hit when I listen to FM. I started listening to a programme battery was at 100%, when the programme finished 45 minutes later the battery was down to 91%.

I read that when 3.11 was released there were problems with battery drain using FM hence the reason 3.11.2 was released. I am experiencing what seems to be bigger than normal power drain using FM. Usually listening to FM doesn't drain the battery as much as listening to music but this might be the case using Rockbox. Just as a test I have tried a couple of the recent daily builds and the same thing happened. Has anyone else noticed this or am I just imagining it.

[AlexP]

The problem with 3.11 is that the radio wasn't being turned off properly on boot so it was always using power without being used, thus shortening battery life.  It wasn't that the radio itself was taking more power when being used.

If it is doing that, then that would be a different issue.

[vocrobot]

OK. It does seem that radio listening is using more battery than music files. Can you use battery bench while just listening to the radio?

[AlexP]

Sure, just start battery bench then enter the radio.

[vocrobot]

Am running battery bench with the radio playing and after only 40 mins the battery is down to 92%. Could this have anything to do with the signal strength facility (I think that's what causes the clicking noise when the radio screen is on). I'm no expert at all, I'm just trying to work out what could be causing this as I haven't seen any other posts about it.

[saratoga]

Recharge the player and this time let it run to zero.

[vocrobot]

I ran a battery bench and with FM playing the battery died after 7 hours 12 mins from full.

[AlexP]

What do you get playing music?

[vocrobot]

At least 12. I haven't done a battery bench for that as I don't want to do to many battery drains but I've seen the battery go down from 100% to 94% in an hour listening to music from both the internal memory and the card and usually the radio doesn't use as much power as the music on the player.

As a test I'm going to try my wife's player to see if I get the same sort of result just in case it's my player but certainly the battery life playing music is better than FM so I don't think it's the battery. I'll let you know what happens.


EDIT: Have done a test on my wife's Clip+; it had drained almost 10% in just over half an hour on FM radio.

[vocrobot]

If possible could one of the developers have a look at this and see if battery life while playing FM could be improved. I listen to the radio quite a bit and certainly with the two players I have tried the battery is draining much quicker using FM than music files. Thanks guys.