Ebikemotion App, Mobile Phone Battery drain

[angeldust]

First post on forum. I couldn't find an existing thread directly on this. Thanks in advance for any advice.

I got a Ribble Endurance SLe Pro road bike at the beginning on the year, and despite terrible service from Ribble, they eventually got their act together, and I really quite like the bike. It uses the Ebikemotion X35 system.

I use an old Garmin 820 for navigation and activity tracking, but have also been using the Ebikemotion App on my mobile phone with a bar attachment in parallel. It is useful as it shows the exact % of bike battery (and additional battery when being used) remaining as well as current power setting (the 'traffic light' system on the top tube also shows this, but not in a much detail i.e only 4 levels 100-75, 75-50, 50-25, and 25-0%), amount of power being used, and current speed (easier to glance at that the small Garmin screen which is also not always on (power saving mode)). I don't use any other functions on the app, although I do 'start activity' when I go for a ride which looks like it tracks distance and speed*. I don't use the navigation function on the app. The mobile screen stays on throughout when using the app, and I haven't found a practical way of changing this.

The problem is that using the app is draining the mobile battery very quickly. A 2 hour ride yesterday (38 miles) decreased the mobile battery from 93% to 2%! I am also using bluetooth headphones via my phone. I've started to carry a small power bank for emergencies, but haven't got a suitable bag on the front of the bike to keep it plugged in during the ride yet without training cables further than I would like. My question is has anyone else had this issue, and found a way to use less mobile battery? Perhaps an obvious setting I have not thought of? Phone is a fairly old (3-4 years I think) Samsung S8 plus (which I believe has a 3500mAh capacity), and I haven't really noticed a significant general decrease in battery life compared to when it was new, despite the age of the phone.

*Typing this, I realise I have yet to try *not* using the 'start activity' function, which might be contributing to the problem.

 

[Stu14]

I had exactly the same experience. I made the mistake of downloading a local map (free) onto the app and my battery died within 50 minutes of the ride. I wrote to Mahle (who now handle queries about the app) to complain, and they tell me there will be a new version of the app ”before New Year” which will hopefully solve this problem.

 

[Solom01]

Interesting. I have an Orbea Gain so it's not quite the same, but it is the ebikemotion system and when using the app it doesn't cause any huge amount of drain on either of my phones (an Apple SE 2020 and a Samsung Note 20 Ultra 5G). I always use it in the start activity mode, since I basically use it to know exact battery use and remaining charge. While using it I am also using a Garmin 130 and running the Samsung Health app on my smartwatch, so there is a lot of draw on the phone's battery and it probably using about 12% of the phone's battery charge an hour. I rarely use the navigation part of the ebikemotion app, but the few times I've used it I don't notice any huge additional draw on the phone battery.

 

[angeldust]

Always interesting to get replies months after a question was posted, but thanks! Only way I have solved this in the meantime is to put a small power bank in a bar mounted bag and keep in connected to the phone while riding. I've just got a new phone (Samsung S21) so will try that as well and see if I get the same level of power drain.