The battery currently only lasts between 6 and 14 hours, depending on what you have enabled. Remember that Purism hasn’t yet enabled suspend-to-RAM, so the phone is constantly running and constantly draining the battery. (See the FAQ answer in the link above.)
If you aren’t able to recharge the battery when the phone is plugged in, then you should contact Purism support. Also keep in mind that battery charging is currently limited to 0.5 amps, so it takes about 4 hours to recharge a battery with 0% charge. This should improve soon.
Unplug the USB cable before initiating power off. There is a quirk that makes it discharge when off if you turn it off with USB connected and unplug later.
That said, the rate of discharge should be low and definitely not enough to discharge the whole battery overnight, so I wonder what happened there.
My question for the OP of this thread is why you place value in the phone based on how long it took to discharge over night. I am considering buying a Tesla (an electric battery powered vehicle). I know that I would not be happy with a Tesla if I routinely leave it unplugged in my garage over night. I have read articles about people with Teslas and how they manage their need for additional charging times when compared to a quick refueling of gasoline of most other vehicles. Tesla owners are usually very happy about the added benefits of that kind of vehicle and they find work-arounds for the drawbacks related to more frequent twenty-minute charging stops every 150 miles or so when on long trips. So even long trips are still convenient for them, despite a few small changes in how they need to plan how they use the vehicle in certain cases. And still, people pay significantly more money for a vehicle that has this significant limitation because they really like other features of that vehicle.
At the end of each day, I plug my Android phone in to charge over night. If I use it before going to bed, I use it while plugged-in. In the morning, I start my day with a freshly charged battery. I plan to do the same with my Librem 5. I could charge my phone battery on the drive in to work. I could plug my phone in and set it down next to my PC while I work throughout the day. As long as the battery doesn’t die when I get up to use the bathroom or while eating lunch, I’ll never run out of battery power. Just to be safe, I’ll probably carry a spare battery for my Librem 5. On the drive home I could plug it in. When I get home at the end of the day, I plug my Android phone in now anyway. So like the Tesla, I’ll be willing to make slight modifications to how I accommodate the needs of the Librem 5. Even on a long day away from the office, It’ll present no real loss, just some required planning, the same as you would plan your refueling of a Tesla. My Motorola Droid of ten tears ago had the same limitations. I kept it plugged in a lot.
So I wouldn’t be quick to compare the Librem 5 to your latest Samsung device and dismiss the Librem 5 because of the need to keep it plugged in more of the time, anymore than I would take a pass on a Tesla for that same reason.
For those here who haven’t yet rode in a Tesla, there’s nothing else like it. The best comparison is to that of some rides at an amusement park, the kind that pick you up so fast you’ve never felt that kind of acceleration anywhere else. And when you hit the pedal, you don’t have to wait for a long series of mechanical things to happen before the increased amount of gasoline ignites to eventually speed up the vehicle. The electrons hit those motor windings and picks you up before that pedal even hits the floor. Until you get used to it, the increased power and faster response time can actually be a safety hazard (according to a friend of mine that has one and gave me a ride in it). Maybe some day we’ll have free phones that provide similar amazing performance features.
I think it is again a usage pattern based on personal preferences (tastes). Eg. I’m used to a habit to charge my phone once a week, I was doing it for several years with my Jolla phone (also a linux phone) and when it reached the planned obsolescence (os updates are still provided but the platform is not optimized anymore for this phone) I was choosing other phones with the same criteria in mind (to last for at least 5 days without re-charge). What that means is till the L5 phone hits that bar I won’t be able to use it as a daily driver. But I know it is possible and it has enough potential to reach that point (solid battery capacity and mainline kernel/stack). So to me it is just a matter of time (and effort).
I hope we are able to decide the charging amps. I prefer .5 amps when charging as it is, from my understanding, better for battery longevity. I charge at night anyway so I don’t care how long it takes to charge.
If your comments are directed at me (i.e. the person who started this topic), you are out of line and obviously did not read through all of the thread. I’m happy that carrying a charger around works for you, but it doesn’t work for me. In fact, I did not know that suspend has not been implemented until I posted this and saw the first response. I did not realize that being an early supporter (which I am, and I also have a Librem 13, FYI) required that I follow all the details of the project. If you’d bothered to read the entire thread before posting a flame response, you would have seen that I have ordered a prepaid SIM card to use with the L5 until the software is mature enough for the L5 to be my only phone.
It’s people like you and responses like this that make forums an inhospitable place. Grow up.
Ha ha. Life in the development fast lane! Some days the magic works, some days it doesn’t.
Purism has chosen a difficult path, and I think they are staying true to their vision, as much as they can. Bumps in the road and dead ends are part of the process of figuring out how to implement the vision.
I need a phone that can go at least 24 hours on a charge, that’s why I “place value” on the fact that after a full charge it sat idle and couldn’t make it to the next morning. That doesn’t fit my use model or my needs. I posted my experience here, and within minutes got a kind response saying that suspend is not implemented, which (as I replied at the time) makes a huge difference.
Then the flames started. You know who you are, and you make posting to this forum an unpleasant experience.
This one I already figured out. No, it is dead being left unplugged overnight and executing sudo poweroff. No LCD, no LED. dead. I assumed it was due to something always being on and power management stilling being in development.
A general thing to try in some cases is to unplug the battery for a few seconds and connect it. Sometimes phones get stuck in some twilight zone that only can be fixed that way. It happened once with my L5 that it wouldn’t start even with a full battery.
You probably want to start using sudo poweroff on modern hardware. It is the same as sudo shutdown -h but will also send an ACPI signal to turn off the power. Generally speaking, these commands ultimately are symlinked to the same halt/poweroff/reboot in systemd.
Is it normal to buy a phone and wait 3 years without reading on the forum how long the battery lasts? without reading the various news related to the improvements made? without reading on the forum about changing the battery? Suddenly, the mobile phone that he has been waiting for for 3 years arrives and you do not turn it on to try it but you just put it on charge all day and leave it on the bedside table at night; then I turn it on in the morning and the first thing I do is write on the forum “not good, not hard”. And if anyone thinks this is strange, ARGHHHH, this forum becomes inhospitable because someone contradicts me.
I too would like the phone to last 24 hours, even if 18 would be enough because I sleep at least 6 hours. I too would like everything to work perfectly already, even what I don’t care about but, just for the fact that this splendid company has made possible a mobile phone with linux and open hardware, I would feel like a xxxx to say in a forum, which is also read by many other people perhaps undecided whether to buy it “not good, not hard”, knowing well (I think) that everything in the linux world is always in constant improvement and without programmed obsolescence. I grow, continuously.
This kills batteries too, because it is more stress for battery to charge in lower and higher stored energy. But it would be cool to have something like a wake up option for charging. You know, you want to wake up at 6 am to go to work, so software could do the math to optimize the charging with optimized amps and the time when Librem 5 begins to charge. So Librem 5 may stay on mid range of stored energy until software tells “now you have to charge to be fully charged at 5:50 am” for example.
This could optimize battery life time better then human are able to do by there own. I also agree your opinion for charging options. After plugging it could appear in the main drop down bar. But I guess, everything to its time. I am happy with the stage the software already has.
Is it normal to manufacture a phone which respects your freedom nowadays and is recommended by the Free Software Foundation? Is it typical for a phone to have 6 innovations in comparison with all previous devices? How many such phones do you know? The path Purism have chosen is the hardest, so – at least to me – this is just fine to have all those problems, I expected them.
Also, it’s not necessary to read all the forums, you can just ask like OP did.
