How bad is 551 Bluetooth?

I've read some comments about battery rundown on the Moto v551 when
Bluetooth is turned on. How bad is it? Will the battery go longer than
a day?

A major reason for a new phone is Bluetooth so my wife's phone will be
"connected" automatically in the car. If it implies charging every
night, its counterproductive. Clicking buttons on the phone to connect
is also not a good solution since the point is to be foolproof.

Is there another good alternative? - she's partial to flip phones. I'll
also be needing a phone with EDGE capability for myself.

---

› See More: How bad is 551 Bluetooth?

In article <[email protected]>,
Jeff Morris <[email protected]> wrote:

> I've read some comments about battery rundown on the Moto v551 when
> Bluetooth is turned on. How bad is it? Will the battery go longer than
> a day?
>
> A major reason for a new phone is Bluetooth so my wife's phone will be
> "connected" automatically in the car. If it implies charging every
> night, its counterproductive. Clicking buttons on the phone to connect
> is also not a good solution since the point is to be foolproof.
>
> Is there another good alternative? - she's partial to flip phones. I'll
> also be needing a phone with EDGE capability for myself.

Simple solution. Plug it into a car charger when in the car.

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Mon, 29 Nov 2004 08:24:27 -0500,
Jeff Morris <[email protected]> wrote:

>I've read some comments about battery rundown on the Moto v551 when
>Bluetooth is turned on. How bad is it? Will the battery go longer than
>a day?
>
>A major reason for a new phone is Bluetooth so my wife's phone will be
>"connected" automatically in the car. If it implies charging every
>night, its counterproductive. Clicking buttons on the phone to connect
>is also not a good solution since the point is to be foolproof.

Depends on actual usage. My own experience is that substantial
Bluetooth+phone usage means charging at least every couple of days.

>Is there another good alternative? - she's partial to flip phones. I'll
>also be needing a phone with EDGE capability for myself.

Currently available Bluetooth-enabled phones that also support EDGE:

AVAILABLE:
Motorola V551
Nokia 3200
Nokia 5140
Nokia 6230
Nokia 6620
Nokia 6810
Nokia 6820
Nokia 7200

COMING:
Sony Ericsson S710

--
Best regards, HELP FOR CINGULAR GSM & SONY ERICSSON PHONES:
John Navas <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/#Cingular>

The comment I had seen was that being in "search" mode drained the
battery so that even if there is no connection made, or if only a small
amount of time is spent in a Bluetooth car, the drain is significant.
Do you know of a phone that wouldn't have the problem, regardless of the
EDGE connection? (EDGE is really for my phone, and I have less trouble
keeping a phone charged!)



John Navas wrote:
> [POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]
>
> In <[email protected]> on Mon, 29 Nov 2004 08:24:27 -0500,
> Jeff Morris <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>>I've read some comments about battery rundown on the Moto v551 when
>>Bluetooth is turned on. How bad is it? Will the battery go longer than
>>a day?
>>
>>A major reason for a new phone is Bluetooth so my wife's phone will be
>>"connected" automatically in the car. If it implies charging every
>>night, its counterproductive. Clicking buttons on the phone to connect
>>is also not a good solution since the point is to be foolproof.
>
>
> Depends on actual usage. My own experience is that substantial
> Bluetooth+phone usage means charging at least every couple of days.
>
>
>>Is there another good alternative? - she's partial to flip phones. I'll
>>also be needing a phone with EDGE capability for myself.
>
>
> Currently available Bluetooth-enabled phones that also support EDGE:
>
> AVAILABLE:
> Motorola V551
> Nokia 3200
> Nokia 5140
> Nokia 6230
> Nokia 6620
> Nokia 6810
> Nokia 6820
> Nokia 7200
>
> COMING:
> Sony Ericsson S710
>

My Sony Ericsson has much better power management than the V551, but doesn't
have EDGE.

In <[email protected]> on Mon, 29 Nov 2004 11:46:25 -0500,
Jeff Morris <[email protected]> wrote:

>The comment I had seen was that being in "search" mode drained the
>battery so that even if there is no connection made, or if only a small
>amount of time is spent in a Bluetooth car, the drain is significant.
>Do you know of a phone that wouldn't have the problem, regardless of the
>EDGE connection? (EDGE is really for my phone, and I have less trouble
>keeping a phone charged!)
>
>
>
>John Navas wrote:
>> [POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]
>>
>> In <[email protected]> on Mon, 29 Nov 2004 08:24:27 -0500,
>> Jeff Morris <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I've read some comments about battery rundown on the Moto v551 when
>>>Bluetooth is turned on. How bad is it? Will the battery go longer than
>>>a day?
>>>
>>>A major reason for a new phone is Bluetooth so my wife's phone will be
>>>"connected" automatically in the car. If it implies charging every
>>>night, its counterproductive. Clicking buttons on the phone to connect
>>>is also not a good solution since the point is to be foolproof.
>>
>>
>> Depends on actual usage. My own experience is that substantial
>> Bluetooth+phone usage means charging at least every couple of days.
>>
>>
>>>Is there another good alternative? - she's partial to flip phones. I'll
>>>also be needing a phone with EDGE capability for myself.
>>
>>
>> Currently available Bluetooth-enabled phones that also support EDGE:
>>
>> AVAILABLE:
>> Motorola V551
>> Nokia 3200
>> Nokia 5140
>> Nokia 6230
>> Nokia 6620
>> Nokia 6810
>> Nokia 6820
>> Nokia 7200
>>
>> COMING:
>> Sony Ericsson S710
>>

--
Best regards, HELP FOR CINGULAR GSM & SONY ERICSSON PHONES:
John Navas <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/#Cingular>

On 2004-11-29, Jeff Morris <[email protected]> wrote:
> I've read some comments about battery rundown on the Moto v551 when
> Bluetooth is turned on. How bad is it? Will the battery go longer than
> a day?

I talk on a cell phone a lot less than others (less than an hour a day), so
my experience may not be useful to you. I do keep bluetooth always on. In
the week I've owned the phone, I have not yet recharged by headset (Jabra
BT200), although the headset gets turned off when not in use. I've
completely drained the v551 battery several times. The longest I got was 3
days when I didn't talk on it at all. Shortest was less than a day when I
was playing a lot of data connectivity. In normal use, once I get to know
the phone, I'll just charge it every night anyway. Right now, I'm letting
it run down in order to find out what I can do when I'm traveling. I have
probably done at least 15-30 minutes a day of data (mostly via bluetoth).

What I don't understand is why it takes so many hours to recharge the
phone. My old phone (Audiovox 9500/Verizon) would charge in an hour. This
thing seems to take about 6 hours. Is this normal for this phone or is
something wrong with mine?

--
Larry Moss, http://www.airigami.com
PO Box 23523, Rochester, NY 14692, (585) 359-8695
Airigami: The art of folding air in specially prepared latex containers.

In article <[email protected]>,
Larry Moss <[email protected]> wrote:

> On 2004-11-29, Jeff Morris <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I've read some comments about battery rundown on the Moto v551 when
> > Bluetooth is turned on. How bad is it? Will the battery go longer than
> > a day?
>
> I talk on a cell phone a lot less than others (less than an hour a day), so
> my experience may not be useful to you. I do keep bluetooth always on. In
> the week I've owned the phone, I have not yet recharged by headset (Jabra
> BT200), although the headset gets turned off when not in use. I've
> completely drained the v551 battery several times. The longest I got was 3
> days when I didn't talk on it at all. Shortest was less than a day when I
> was playing a lot of data connectivity. In normal use, once I get to know
> the phone, I'll just charge it every night anyway. Right now, I'm letting
> it run down in order to find out what I can do when I'm traveling. I have
> probably done at least 15-30 minutes a day of data (mostly via bluetoth).
>
> What I don't understand is why it takes so many hours to recharge the
> phone. My old phone (Audiovox 9500/Verizon) would charge in an hour. This
> thing seems to take about 6 hours. Is this normal for this phone or is
> something wrong with mine?

Do you charge it while its on (and with Blue Tooth running) in which
case 6 hours might be reasonable, or with it off in which case 1 hour is
reasonable?

Larry Moss wrote:
> On 2004-11-29, Jeff Morris <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>I've read some comments about battery rundown on the Moto v551 when
>>Bluetooth is turned on. How bad is it? Will the battery go longer than
>>a day?
>
>
> I talk on a cell phone a lot less than others (less than an hour a day), so
> my experience may not be useful to you. I do keep bluetooth always on. In
> the week I've owned the phone, I have not yet recharged by headset (Jabra
> BT200), although the headset gets turned off when not in use. I've
> completely drained the v551 battery several times. The longest I got was 3
> days when I didn't talk on it at all. Shortest was less than a day when I
> was playing a lot of data connectivity. In normal use, once I get to know
> the phone, I'll just charge it every night anyway. Right now, I'm letting
> it run down in order to find out what I can do when I'm traveling. I have
> probably done at least 15-30 minutes a day of data (mostly via bluetoth).
>
> What I don't understand is why it takes so many hours to recharge the
> phone. My old phone (Audiovox 9500/Verizon) would charge in an hour. This
> thing seems to take about 6 hours. Is this normal for this phone or is
> something wrong with mine?
>


Thanks for the info. Actually, 60 minutes a day is a lot for some
people - My wife and I average about that a month if we're not on a
trip. That's one reason I want to switch over to Cingular from ATT - we
want to build up rollover minutes for the summer sailing season.

The issue here is not talk minutes, its idiot proofing it so that a
phone left in a purse and tossed in the back seat has a chance of
receiving a phone call even if it didn't get charged the night before.
Bluetooth seems like a step in the right direction, but not if it will
kill the battery in less than a day.

For my phone, the battery use is less critical since I'm far more likely
to watch the charge state and plug it as needed. However, I'll be using
EDGE a lot more.

So, when will we have phones with lifetime batteries?

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Mon, 29 Nov 2004 15:58:54 -0500,
Jeff Morris <[email protected]> wrote:

>So, when will we have phones with lifetime batteries?

Probably not in our lifetime. ;-)

--
Best regards, HELP FOR CINGULAR GSM & SONY ERICSSON PHONES:
John Navas <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/#Cingular>

On 2004-11-29, Jack Zwick <[email protected]> wrote:
> Do you charge it while its on (and with Blue Tooth running) in which
> case 6 hours might be reasonable, or with it off in which case 1 hour is
> reasonable?

With the 9500 I never turned it off, so I'd charge it while it was one.
With the v551, I've been turning it off. It took about 4 hours to charge
this afternoon with it off.

--
Larry Moss, http://www.airigami.com
PO Box 23523, Rochester, NY 14692, (585) 359-8695
Airigami: The art of folding air in specially prepared latex containers.

Jeff Morris wrote
> So, when will we have phones with lifetime batteries?
>

Jeff, hmmm, I think you have been watching far to much Star Trek were
energy cost see to be free. (driven by anti matter)
But until we have portable antimatter pods

If you want more talk time, you have to carry around more stored energy.
Stored energy equates to weight you have to carry.

There are numerous way to carry around more energy.
1)More batteries.
2)a portable sealed lead acid battery.
3)a small portable generator with gasoline.

So the more energy you want to haul arround, the more weight you have to
be willing to carry.

Just look at the space shuttle and you can see how big and heavy energy
portable energy storage can get.

I am a ham radio operator, and I operate for the red cross during
emergencies here. I take 200 lbs of batteries to my shelter work. (
about 500 amp hours)

So if you want a life time of talk time, be prepared to carry around a
lot of weight.

For the future,

Researchers are working on very small fuel cells and micro turbines, but
these really seem to be playing out well. Micro fuel cells and turbine
will be very effecient, and HOT.

But until then, unless you want really big and heavy batteries, what you
get is what you get.

Chip

"Ralph Blach" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
| Jeff Morris wrote
| > So, when will we have phones with lifetime batteries?
| >
|
| Jeff, hmmm, I think you have been watching far to much Star Trek were
| energy cost see to be free. (driven by anti matter)
| But until we have portable antimatter pods
|
| If you want more talk time, you have to carry around more stored energy.
| Stored energy equates to weight you have to carry.
|
| There are numerous way to carry around more energy.
| 1)More batteries.
| 2)a portable sealed lead acid battery.
| 3)a small portable generator with gasoline.
|
| So the more energy you want to haul arround, the more weight you have to
| be willing to carry.
|
| Just look at the space shuttle and you can see how big and heavy energy
| portable energy storage can get.
|
| I am a ham radio operator, and I operate for the red cross during
| emergencies here. I take 200 lbs of batteries to my shelter work. (
| about 500 amp hours)
|
| So if you want a life time of talk time, be prepared to carry around a
| lot of weight.
|
| For the future,
|
| Researchers are working on very small fuel cells and micro turbines, but
| these really seem to be playing out well. Micro fuel cells and turbine
| will be very effecient, and HOT.
|
| But until then, unless you want really big and heavy batteries, what you
| get is what you get.
|
| Chip

How about a big baseball cap covered with solar cells <wink>

Hierophant wrote:
> "Ralph Blach" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> | Jeff Morris wrote
> | > So, when will we have phones with lifetime batteries?
> | >
> |
> | Jeff, hmmm, I think you have been watching far to much Star Trek were
> | energy cost see to be free. (driven by anti matter)
> | But until we have portable antimatter pods
> |
> | If you want more talk time, you have to carry around more stored energy.
> | Stored energy equates to weight you have to carry.
> |
> | There are numerous way to carry around more energy.
> | 1)More batteries.
> | 2)a portable sealed lead acid battery.
> | 3)a small portable generator with gasoline.
> |
> | So the more energy you want to haul arround, the more weight you have to
> | be willing to carry.
> |
> | Just look at the space shuttle and you can see how big and heavy energy
> | portable energy storage can get.
> |
> | I am a ham radio operator, and I operate for the red cross during
> | emergencies here. I take 200 lbs of batteries to my shelter work. (
> | about 500 amp hours)
> |
> | So if you want a life time of talk time, be prepared to carry around a
> | lot of weight.
> |
> | For the future,
> |
> | Researchers are working on very small fuel cells and micro turbines, but
> | these really seem to be playing out well. Micro fuel cells and turbine
> | will be very effecient, and HOT.
> |
> | But until then, unless you want really big and heavy batteries, what you
> | get is what you get.
> |
> | Chip
>
> How about a big baseball cap covered with solar cells <wink>
>
>
yea, I forgot about that one, but only on sunny days and NOT at NIGHT!
<wink wink>
But seriously, a solar Cell based charger is one thing on my list to
purchase. However, the Solar Cells are Very expensive and that has
stopped me. In my job as an emergency comunicator, I can tell you, when
the power and phone lines, and that includes cell phones , go out, the
red cross does not want to hear, I am out of power.

Chip

Jeff Morris wrote:


> So, when will we have phones with lifetime batteries?
>


Probably when they're small enough to be surgically implanted when the
new client is still in the delivery room. It'll absord it's energy from
the bloodstream like anything else under the skin, visual controls and
display imbedded in a iris implant, audio via bone-conduction implants
(left /right for stereo), and all other personalisations will be via an
inductive programming unit. A future world model will replace the
programming unit with another implant in the frontal lobe to offer true
stand-alone functionality and improved high-speed BT performance. I
understand they're still working through a bug or two, such as the wet
diaper issue (seems to attenuate the BT interface) and another bug
related to incessant crying (causes random system reset events when the
pain threshold is exceeded), but normal growth patterns of the host is
expected to eventually overcome both minor problems without further
development.

--
jer email reply - I am not a 'ten'

Ralph Blach wrote:
> Jeff Morris wrote
>
>> So, when will we have phones with lifetime batteries?
>>
>
> Jeff, hmmm, I think you have been watching far to much Star Trek were
> energy cost see to be free. (driven by anti matter)
> But until we have portable antimatter pods

Au contraire ... as a sailor I'm used to running "off the grid" for
months at a time, so I understand the cost of power.

Lets see: a 500 milliamp-hour cell at 3.5 volts. Twice a week, so
that's 50 Amp-hours a year, or .175 kWatt-hours. About 40 years use
would cost a dollar from my power company.

If I had to generate that with my small diesel engine and alternator it
would take about 5 hours runtime, so the cost would be more like
$10-$20, for fuel and wear. (A proper genset would be cheaper.) And
then there's solar and wind power - free (for 10 to 20 years) after the
initial investment.

The point, of course, is that the energy is cheap - its carrying it
around that gets problematical. A year's cell use probably only uses
the energy equivalent teaspoon of fuel (I'm too lazy to compute it) - we
just need to figure out how to convert tiny amounts of fuel into power
without the fuss of burning it.

One of my frustrations is that every appliance is different. We are
seeing some convergence - many gadgets power off USB, for instance. But
it seems like every battery is different. Why not power all cell phones
(and PDA's and cameras and GPS's and MP3 players ...) off AA or AAA
cells? High quality AA's have 2000 milliamp-hours, and can be recharged
in 15 minutes. Why not have a phone that runs a few days off a AA, and
have a reload system that only takes a few seconds?

BTW, your battery bank for your ham setup is about the same as what I
have on my boat. However, its major client is a fridge with a large
freezer - the cell (and other small gadget) usage is lost in the noise.


While it will be a long time before I get a lifetime battery for my
boat, I expect we'll see much higher capacity small battery systems, and
more convenient charging systems in the next decade.