Apologies if this belongs in Themes & Apps, but I thought it seems more like programming at the OS level than a new app.
I had an idea while driving home after a long day in a location that had low 3G signal, and my phone was dead:
Latedroid's Juicedefender helps save battery by turning off the APN every x minutes, and we know that using 3G/EDGE data eats up a lot of battery, especially when in a low signal area (takes more power to transmit).
How feasible would it be to create an app/build in code in Android for the functionality to turn off/disable the APN when the signal level is below a certain threshold?
Of course, you would need to build in some sort of manual override for times you really want to use data even if you are in low signal area. Perhaps if the device is NOT in sleep, do not disable the APN regardless of signal strength. But if the device is sleeping, disable APN if signal is lower than x dB.
What do you all think? Problems I already foresee is that switching APN on and off would have a delay upon first wakeup, or possibly interrupt data transfers in progress when device goes to sleep.
Thanks,
--Hans
Very interesting
Actually, this sounds like a very good idea. Now, just need to find a dev capable of producing such results. Maybe contact the developer of Juice Defender/Plotter and see if it is feasible. I like where this could go though. Battery is the ONE complaint I have about my otherwise sexy and powerful device!
Great idea.
I have thought about this as well.
this would be too difficult to implement i would think. even in strong signal areas, the reception bounces all over the place sometimes. the phone would constantly be bugging itself out i would think as the signal dips below, then goes right above, the threshold level.
RogerPodacter said:
this would be too difficult to implement i would think. even in strong signal areas, the reception bounces all over the place sometimes. the phone would constantly be bugging itself out i would think as the signal dips below, then goes right above, the threshold level.
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Click to collapse
Nah, I don't think so. With some clever programming and it watching maybe an average signal level over some period of time, I think it could do pretty well. The idea is to avoid HUGE battery drains over a moderate amount of time.
For example, if i'm at work in my office building, i get 0-1 bars of signal strength for 8 hours. It would be great if it detected after, say...10 minutes that my signal strength was in the crapper, and turned off the APN (or at least, account syncing) so I won't leave work 8 hours later with 5% battery life. But, if I wake my phone up, it will automatically turn the APN on so I can use data as I see fit.
But let's say I go out for lunch. The phone would either detect that I'm changing position/location via cell towers, or it would just regularly poll signal level and when it found that my signal level had increased by some delta amount over say...5 minutes, it would turn the APN back on.
I find that most of my frustration with this phone is with battery drain, and most of the drain comes from sitting in low signal areas for extended periods of time. If this could be accomplished (with configurable thresholds and stuff about time to average the signal over, etc) I think it would be an excellent addition to the customization-ability of android!
Good thoughts.
THATTON said:
Actually, this sounds like a very good idea. Now, just need to find a dev capable of producing such results. Maybe contact the developer of Juice Defender/Plotter and see if it is feasible. I like where this could go though. Battery is the ONE complaint I have about my otherwise sexy and powerful device!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But yeah, this may requires a good dev.
Thanks for launching the discussion!
dyndragon said:
Nah, I don't think so. With some clever programming and it watching maybe an average signal level over some period of time, I think it could do pretty well. The idea is to avoid HUGE battery drains over a moderate amount of time.
For example, if i'm at work in my office building, i get 0-1 bars of signal strength for 8 hours. It would be great if it detected after, say...10 minutes that my signal strength was in the crapper, and turned off the APN (or at least, account syncing) so I won't leave work 8 hours later with 5% battery life. But, if I wake my phone up, it will automatically turn the APN on so I can use data as I see fit.
But let's say I go out for lunch. The phone would either detect that I'm changing position/location via cell towers, or it would just regularly poll signal level and when it found that my signal level had increased by some delta amount over say...5 minutes, it would turn the APN back on.
I find that most of my frustration with this phone is with battery drain, and most of the drain comes from sitting in low signal areas for extended periods of time. If this could be accomplished (with configurable thresholds and stuff about time to average the signal over, etc) I think it would be an excellent addition to the customization-ability of android!
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Click to collapse
good points. you're probably right. i also sit at work all day at my desk, and i only get 1 bar of 3g signal. stupid building blocks reception.
Posted this in the Google Dev Group from Latedroid... Dont think he will work on it in the near future though, as a new JD version will come to the market very soon
Very nice idea actually. After some beta versions, could be really really useful.
The paid version of Juicedefender has an option that can disable the APN whenever the screen is off. I don't use it because it interferes with Pandora.
It also has a 1x1 widget for manually enabling/disabling the APN.
connery916 said:
The paid version of Juicedefender has an option that can disable the APN whenever the screen is off. I don't use it because it interferes with Pandora.
It also has a 1x1 widget for manually enabling/disabling the APN.
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That's an entirely different thing, entirely.
I miss those movies.
I did have another idea, and its to remap the brightless on the N1. Most of us probably use 100% brightness, but I have a funny idea that somewhere between 85-90% brightness there is a sweetspot which pretty much looks identical, but uses a reasonable amount less power. Unfortunately without a multimeter, I am unable to test
dogiedogie said:
I did have another idea, and its to remap the brightless on the N1. Most of us probably use 100% brightness, but I have a funny idea that somewhere between 85-90% brightness there is a sweetspot which pretty much looks identical, but uses a reasonable amount less power. Unfortunately without a multimeter, I am unable to test
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Click to collapse
100% brightness? You're crazy. Must of us have it cranked way down.
dogiedogie said:
I did have another idea, and its to remap the brightless on the N1. Most of us probably use 100% brightness, but I have a funny idea that somewhere between 85-90% brightness there is a sweetspot which pretty much looks identical, but uses a reasonable amount less power. Unfortunately without a multimeter, I am unable to test
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find that if we can conserve power while in low signal areas, that is a much greater gain than even dimming the display...anyway, totally off topic!
Send some requests to Mark at latedroid if you want them to consider it! I think Juicedefender is closest to this feature set, really.
dyndragon said:
I find that if we can conserve power while in low signal areas, that is a much greater gain than even dimming the display...anyway, totally off topic!
Send some requests to Mark at latedroid if you want them to consider it! I think Juicedefender is closest to this feature set, really.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But wouldnt doing that just leave us with NO signal? We all know about the N1's 3g 'problems' to begin with.
Hook PhoneStateIntentReceiver with notifySignalStrength and pull phoneStateReceiver.getSignalStrength();
The development ain't hard to do. The rules are.
Aka on what threshold do you disable, do you enable once every X minutes anyway etc. Do you force keeping one state for X minutes to avoid enable/disable spam.
nurre said:
Hook PhoneStateIntentReceiver with notifySignalStrength and pull phoneStateReceiver.getSignalStrength();
The development ain't hard to do. The rules are.
Aka on what threshold do you disable, do you enable once every X minutes anyway etc. Do you force keeping one state for X minutes to avoid enable/disable spam.
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Click to collapse
Well being a developer on other platforms and having watched a lot of sessions from Google I/O 2010, I have a feeling that calling these APIs too frequent might actually drain more battery than this would conserve, but without a test I might be wrong, just sharing what I feel here, no flames, thank you
tazzix said:
Well being a developer on other platforms and having watched a lot of sessions from Google I/O 2010, I have a feeling that calling these APIs too frequent might actually drain more battery than this would conserve, but without a test I might be wrong, just sharing what I feel here, no flames, thank you
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Click to collapse
Another problem you'll face is even if you balance it perfectly for you, so your saving power, chances are at least half the users will see a DECREASE in battery because of the signal conditions they have in their area.
dyndragon said:
I find that if we can conserve power while in low signal areas, that is a much greater gain than even dimming the display...anyway, totally off topic!
Send some requests to Mark at latedroid if you want them to consider it! I think Juicedefender is closest to this feature set, really.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In my battery stats, display is always number one offender.
Automatic brightness is probably the way to go
So I'm constantly walking into areas where I have no signal at my school. The result is an increased drain in my battery in these low signal areas.
This is a problem that I have noticed on all roms. Radios also seem to have little effect besides changing some current draw bound (ie -4 to -9).
I use radio 2.14.50.04.
when I have signal (guesstimates)
In standby idling between -2 to -6 ma
30% Brightness Screen idling, -100 to -150ma
however when I have no signal current draw increases to -80ma and higher and doesn't go down until I'm in an area with signal.
This would result in a standby time of only ~15 hours.
When compared to my standby time of -2 to -6.... at the least would provide a standby time of 205 hours.
Are other people getting the similar results under the same conditions?
I use tBattery to log my data.
Oh and I'm currently using Energy Sencity Rom with Cookie 2.0 Final (november 19) if anyone is interested.
My soft reset button is red
I have a TMOUS branded HD2
It just seems unreasonable that my phone should continue polling for signal for 2 hours and drain 20% of its battery during class...
Perhaps someone has a reg tweak for this?
post tBattery logs if you can and state conditions for changes in current draw.
edit:
perhaps its not clear what my question is from this post...
Is there a fix to substantially decrease battery drain when the HD2 has no signal (airplane mode doesn't count )
iPhone seems to have got it down....
bump
Are other people experiencing this issue?
Same happens here with TMobile US HD2. I disabled Sense and that helps with battery life, but I'm curious to find a solution. Tried wmlonglife and band switch, but wasn't happy with either.
tried that as well
I have also tried WMLonglife and CMBandSwitch as well, didn't really solve my issue...
wmlonglife helped a little, but it was still kinda unpredictable, sometimes it would work.... it doesn't actually solve the problem of signal searching....
also, I think this happens 90% of the time, not *all* the time... sometimes, after being in an area with low signal, my tbattery may show a reading of -7....
I'm not sure if the registry has a way to fix this....could be radio related.
bump
i think it is okay to bump this....
I get the most battery drain in a building when I have no signal.
Other than that, outside or in my house the power consumption is very good (2-7ma)
*i get 80-130ma consumption in buildings...
I wish there was a way to decrease the increased power the antenna was using as well as increase the length of the interval the hd2 uses to search for signal....
that way, the power consumption would be close to the same in buildings with low signal as compared to areas with excellent signal....
really would like to get this resolved without having to swap out batteries.... Only problem left for me. Many other phones when they don't have signal don't seem to be affected greatly with this *cough cough* iphone....
ive noticed this too. when there is no signal the battery drains much faster, also happens if its continually switching between a good 2g and poor 3g signal.
i often just disable the phone until move back to a good area
would be great to have a fix... even it just gives up trying to get a signal after a period of time
I am considering switching from the charge to the tbolt. is the 4G radio the main drain on the battery? 4G is not available where I live, so I am wondering if I could get away with the stock battery until it is available in my area. Could I get battery life at least comparable to the DX until it is?
Unless I'm on business, I'm presently in an 3G-exclusive area, and with CM7 my battery drain is 50% cell standby. That said, on BAMF 1.6.3 (Froyo) I didn't experience this much cell standby drain. To be sure, 4G does draw a fair amount of current, especially if the signal is weak.
Not that I can tell. From everything I'm seeing its the half acre of glass on the front of the thing that sucks the battery dry. 4G signal strength shouldn't have any effect at all on the battery because it doesn't use code division multiple access technology which requires the signals from all devices on that tower to have signal strength reaching the tower to be equal. Instead, it requires an advance be built into the signal transmission so that the phone addresses the tower within its time slot. This has no effect on battery drain at all. What will still drain the battery in 4G areas is the connection needed for voice and text, which still uses cdma, if my understanding is correct.
nerozehl said:
Unless I'm on business, I'm presently in an 3G-exclusive area, and with CM7 my battery drain is 50% cell standby. That said, on BAMF 1.6.3 (Froyo) I didn't experience this much cell standby drain. To be sure, 4G does draw a fair amount of current, especially if the signal is weak.
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Click to collapse
I completely agree. If your 4g signal is somewhat weak, your battery will drain fairly quick. You might also notice your battery getting up to 103 degrees Fahrenheit because it keeps trying to get that weak 4g signal.
You could always change it to CDMA prl. That will save your battery and prevent it from drawing current to get a weak 4g signal.
Hi all!
When I'm at home, I get about 3 bars of 3G signal. I have had this phone for about 3 days and the battery life is really bad, using basic apps drains my battery really fast. Should I change the network to 2G? Does the poor 3G signal affect the battery life significantly?
Much appreciated!
If 2G is enough for you, change it. It uses less battery even with good 3G signal...
And yes, a poor signal always uses much more battery life than good signal, no matter GSM/2G/3G/4G...
Yes, I have noticed that in areas where signal is poor (1-2 bars), battery drains significantly faster. It's quite irritating since this issue is non-existent on iPhones. I wonder if a software update can fix this.
Sharpshooterrr said:
Yes, I have noticed that in areas where signal is poor (1-2 bars), battery drains significantly faster. It's quite irritating since this issue is non-existent on iPhones. I wonder if a software update can fix this.
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Click to collapse
It's the technique of every phone, even on iPhones... the amount sure can vary, but it's not inexistent...
I have about 1-2 bars at home and over night it takes about 2-3% of charge, very similar like iPhone I had before...
it does on mine. at work i get full signal and though i use it a fair bit, it doesnt seem to use too much battery but at home where i get terrible battery life it seems to use more battery