As impressive as Android Marshmallow is, regarding new and improved features, not everything about it is perfect. In fact, battery drain is a common complaint from Marshmallow users and it happens on both Nexus and non-Nexus devices.
One of the most frequent culprits is the Wi-Fi. For some, battery drain occurs even while Doze is enabled and apps are battery optimized – and that definitely shouldn’t happen. You can easily see if that’s your case by going to Settings -> Battery and see if it’s at the top of the battery chart.
A quick fix that solved the problem for many users is to go to Settings -> Location, then tap on the Options menu (three-dots icon) and select Scanning-> Turn Off WiFi Scanning.
After that, return to the main window of the Settings app and select Backup and Reset -> Network settings reset and tap on the ‘Reset Settings’ option.
If this doesn’t solve the battery drain cause by WiFi there are a few more tweaks you can try.
Open your Settings app again and select Location. Then open the Options menu )three-dots icon) and select Scanning. Here, enable the ‘Device only’ option to disable WiFi and Bluetooth scanning for the location services.
To continue, go to Wi-Fi in your Settings app, open the Options menu and select Advanced. Turn off the ‘Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep’ option.
Another tweak which can make a difference is the ‘Wi-Fi frequency band’ set to 2GHz only, also found in the Advanced Wi-Fi pane.
Should all of these settings fail to improve battery life, you can always try to reset your device and if that doesn’t bring any improvements either, it may be time to revert to Android Lollipop then upgrade to Marshmallow again. This has proven to be a permanent fix more often than not.
Have you been experiencing battery drain on Android 6.0? Was it caused by Wi-Fi or by something else, and did you manage to solve the problem? Let us know in the comments section or drop us a line on Facebook,Twitter or Google+.
