Lumia 950 Battery Problems and Overheating
Lumia 950
For the record, I’m not one of those “other-device” fanboys pretending to “review” a Windows 10 Phone while subtly bashing it; I’ve been a faithful WP user since November 2012. I’m also not a developer or even overly tech-savvy when it comes to smartphones… Just a user who prefers Windows Phone over the others.
So rather than posting a full review of the phone itself, which has many qualities I have quite enjoyed over the past month, I wanted to focus on a single problematic area: the battery.
Although spec comparisons point to what should be a sufficient battery, I’ve found that my Lumia 950 lasts single-digit hours from full to less than 20% – even if I am not actively using it. Additionally, the battery runs so hot that it becomes uncomfortable to keep in my pocket.
I’ve seen a few users report the same thing, but this does not appear to be widespread, so clearly there is some setting or app which is doing most of the damage.
When I check battery usage, it shows “Messaging + Skype” as the biggest drain. I’m not sure why Skype and Messaging are combined into one item (I use messaging, not Skype), but I’m hesitant to turn off background usage for that setting. For virtually every other app, however, I have turned off background usage – yet the problem persists.
Since it doesn’t appear to be an app which is causing the problem, I’ve turned my attention to finding a setting, or perhaps a small group of settings, which will hopefully alleviate this problem. I’ve combed through forums, and what I have tried so far has not yet worked.
Here is what I’ve tried so far that has not worked:
- Turned off Hello
- Turned off glance screen
- Turned of NFC (this was the culprit of battery drain with my Lumia 920)
- Turned off Hey Cortana
- Made sure I’m using WiFi
- Set screen brightness to 1%
- Increased Battery Saver to 50%
- Moved all apps from the SD card to the phone
Below are other possible solutions I’ve read in forums, but haven’t tried yet:
- Reinstall the OS with Windows Device Recovery Tool
- Increase sync time for Outlook
- Turn off location settings
- Delete unused AT&T apps
When I attempt to update the phone, it says that an update is available, but always shows “Downloading Updates 0%.” I’ve tried restarting and verifying that I’m connected to WiFi, yet it does not download the update.
Update
Today (12/22/15) I tried doing a factory reset at the suggestion of a fellow Disqus commenter. It is a bit early to tell if that fixed the problem, but the battery does not appear to be heating up since I did a factory reset and installed the latest update.
I’m wondering if the “Downloading updates 0%” problem was leading the phone to continually trying to download an update, which could have been draining the battery. Further, after doing a factory reset, the update was able to install without a hitch.
I’ll keep you posted.
Have you had battery issues with your Lumia 950? Let me know what you’ve tried – and what fixed the problem for you.
yeah…. I have the 950 which at the moment runs 10586.29. I am not on the insiders program and I know there is a much higher build there. For the first couple of weeks I had really no problem of over heating or battery drain at all. Then all of a sudden my phone is like a hot brick. Even more confusing, there are some days when the unit does not run hot and the battery lasts all day. I have turned most apps allowed to work in the background off and also notice that messaging email and calendar are high users but we need these to run don’t we?!….I am just hoping that an update will fix this as otherwise the phone operates quite well………….
I have updated my lumia 950 with the lastest official update of 10586.107, still my phone is super hot with few minutes of web browsing and the battery drains quickly. I have tried reset the phone option but didn’t help. Shall I do a hard factory reset to solve the heating and battery drain problem?
Please suggest
What I did is to remove all the apps from Start Screen. I only kept the very important apps I use all the time like Telephone, email, sms, WhatsApp, edge. The rest I removed. I also turned off all live tiles. It does get hot when I use Facebook and twitter and when I browse the internet. Once I close the apps it cools down. I also have a problem when I am connected to continuum in the office. So I use the speaker phone to make calls because the screen gets hot when it’s connected. Once I remove it give it 5 minutes and it cools down. I’m on fastring and to be honest, performance is better and the heat issue is better. I hope they can come up with an update that fixes the heat issue. Otherwise I love the device. It’s very cool and very handy.