GPS on only for certain apps? - Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

is there a way to have the gps turned off, but for certain apps, it will turn on automatically? im on litening rom 1.5 but havent found a way to figure this out ..

That could be done by an app like Tasker. You would have to buy it though.
Edit: Just checked.Tasker can't do it. It gives some note stating on stock gingerbread the GPS can't be changed without user intervention.

ha. that sucks balls. but thanks anyways, now i can stop searching for it..

I have GPS turned on all the time, with no noticable loss in battery life. The battery is only depleted when an application uses the GPS (such as google maps or Navigation) It may occasionaly be used to get a fix for weather updates but that will only be for a few seconds every few hours.

Related

Using CM7-based ROM? Disable Google Location Services

This has been driving me nuts for weeks, so I figured I'd share the info.
Recent releases of Google Maps has been causing intermittent problems for lots of people recently, and seems to especially affect users of CyanogenMod 7. What I kept wondering was why several instances of Google Maps would show up in Advanced Task Manager. But what really confused me, was why my battery stats showed Google Maps drawing almost as much battery usage as my WiFi, which is basically on all day.
It's not exact, but with nothing else going on, WiFi seems to drain about 2% per hour. So basically Google Maps was doubling my non-screen related battery drain for no reason. The part that made this hard to track down is that it went away after a reboot, and only seemed to start lagging after the phone had been on for a few hours during the day, where it would start lagging like it was continuously starting and stopping a CPU-hungry process in the background.
Based on an offhand comment someone said in the GSB thread, I went into Menu -> Settings -> Location & security, and unchecked 'Use wireless networks'. I saw that the Google Maps battery drain was still going, so I rebooted. I mean... it's CM7, so you can put a satellite toggle in the notification area if you need location data. No need to keep it on all the time, right?
So far this reboot has been up for 40-hours, and I'm at 83% after being unplugged for 7 hours with mixed usage. Google Maps isn't even in my list of apps that have used battery power. I'm not going to declare this "problem solved!" but it might work out for you if you've been having similar problems.
I'm using gsb 3.6 and haven't had any of the problems with navigation that other people have had. I keep location turned off and set it like that whenever I install a new rom. You may be on to something.
Sent from my GSB v3.6 using XDA App
trifthen said:
Based on an offhand comment someone said in the GSB thread, I went into Menu -> Settings -> Location & security, and unchecked 'Use wireless networks'. I saw that the Google Maps battery drain was still going, so I rebooted. I mean... it's CM7, so you can put a satellite toggle in the notification area if you need location data. No need to keep it on all the time, right?
So far this reboot has been up for 40-hours, and I'm at 83% after being unplugged for 7 hours with mixed usage. Google Maps isn't even in my list of apps that have used battery power. I'm not going to declare this "problem solved!" but it might work out for you if you've been having similar problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried this a few days ago. I have seen an increase in battery performance. Thanks trifthen!
Thanks this helped a lot

[Q] How much battery does idle gps drain?

stock rom
If i leave gps on.... and all the apps i have that may use gps (travel, voucher etc) do not run in the back ground,
except google maps.... will this really drain random battery throughout the day.
The reason I ask this is when using google maps...i see the gps symbol on the top of my phone, but once i back out of it...the symbol disappears, and when i go back into it to resume what i was doing the symbol turns back on and the gps has to find my location all over again.
Hence I come to the conclusion that the gps is not 'always on' when you don't need or (given you don't have any dodgy apps)
Then I could turn off googles location sharing thing, because if I am correct you need that on if you want to use location services without gps?
SGS2 uses sirfstar IV
http://www.sys-con.com/node/1822443
http://www.csr.com/products/25/sirfstariv-gsd4t
This is a modern GPS chip, it don't think it uses much battery. I've always GPS on and I've no battery issues. And I agree that it seems that the chip is set to some kind of standby when not in use so turning off the GPS in the settings (or notfication pull down) seems more like a privacy thing than power related.
Thanks for confirming. Will now try leaving gps on and location services off and see what happens. sometimes gps on its own takes a few extra seconds to locate you...might be annoying with certain apps
If you refuse location sharing you will not be able to use WIFI positioning service, but can still use cell tower positioning if your GPS is off. Personally I never use WPS since WIFI use a whole lot of power so I always keep it off. There are situations where it's useful (i.e. inside downtown can't get a GPS signal), so you can decide if you want it or not.
I usually keep my GPS off too, since when I open maps I just want to look at map, I don't need to know my exact location (and use the extra power).
My Galaxy S2 GPS sucks the battery life when I keep it on. My partner keeps his Galaxy S2 GPS on and the icon only comes on when something like Maps loads but immediatly goes away when you you exit Maps. Mine seems to stay on all the time and I can't see any obvious process running all of the time (except Maps). I monitor the battery usage with a tool and GPS is certainly running my battery down far quicker than if I turn it off.
Anyone else experiencing the same?
marklyn said:
My partner keeps his Galaxy S2 GPS on and the icon only comes on when something like Maps loads but immediatly goes away when you you exit Maps. Mine seems to stay on all the time and I can't see any obvious process running all of the time
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the GPS setting turned on all the time, but my GPS only really turns on when I open an app that uses GPS, like Maps or Facebook. Just like your partner.
I actually want to keep it on all the time... like yours
Can you send me your /etc/gps.conf and /etc/sirfgps.conf ?
I'm not sure if that's what control this behaviour.
Noed said:
I have the GPS setting turned on all the time, but my GPS only really turns on when I open an app that uses GPS, like Maps or Facebook. Just like your partner.
I actually want to keep it on all the time... like yours
Can you send me your /etc/gps.conf and /etc/sirfgps.conf ?
I'm not sure if that's what control this behaviour.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I only had the gps.conf, not the sirfgps.conf file. Attached here.
I have to turn on GPS only when I need it for something and turn it off, otherwise it clearly drains my battery, in pretty quick fashion.
I had to rename it gps.txt to upload it.
Keeping GPS on is not draining your battery, because its realy turning on, only on application requests. Battery drain may come from some buggy app, which not close it GPS connection. You can easily see this by your GPS indicator. No indicator - no app using GPS atm - no battery drain, flashing indicator - GPS trying to lock ur position, indicator on - GPS is used and got lock on sattelites.
incident404 said:
its realy turning on, only on application requests
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there a way to keep GPS always on, independent of an application request?
I want to control it on/off manually
I leave GPS on all the time. Only works when apps request / need it. No battery life issues for me.
Sent from my GT-I9100

Slow gps app.

hy!
Sometimes the google gps software is really struggle to find gps signal. it takes ages and if its working then its slowly calculates routes. I'm using the default software, and i have aga rom 2.1 installed. Even vhen i turn the phone to the side to get full screen its like the cpu is overloaded.
I have just tested it, searched for a location then it starts to calculate the route. After 10 minutes i was shut it off, 8% battery gone.

[Q] Forcing GPS on/off for root user??? (normal on/off doesn't work)

Hi guys! This is my first post here. Also i'm not native english speaker
Ok, right now i own a Galaxy Player YP-G1, rooted it with SuperOneClick like a week ago looking for a way to make battery last for longer time. Actually i've got good results after installing SetCPU and doing some reseach about how to config it.
However i still have a problem related to the GPS radio. It keeps turning on even if i disable it in the status bar and in the device's configuration menu. I've realized this GPS thing drains battery toooooo much and haven't found a way to force it to stay off. Always turns on by itself whatever i do.
Tried to disable autorun on all apps that used GPS localization with Gemini App Manager, still turns on...
I'd like to know if there's a rooted way to keep tgis guy off. Yesterday it turned on in the morning and even having used the music player for less than an hour the battery died extremely fast! and another days that it has stayed off battery has lasted until late night. It has to the the GPS.
Please guys help me, i've had univ courses of java and matlab so i have some idea of what i do when programing, so if it's necesary to write some lines i think i could handle it, maybe. Even better, if there's an app out there that fixes me this issue it would be even better.
Thanks !!!!
Up?
As per my knowledge, battery doesnt drain if you turn on gps and leave it like that forever. Battery drains are observed only when any app like google maps or apps like facebook use gps to set location. It might be your misconception about battery drain while gps turned on.
I would like to give an advice to use pdroid for custom roms. Pdroid is an app that enables you to change permissions of installed app so that you can disable any app to access gps location. This saves hell of battery.
Sent from Hell!!
Well I found an app that so far has kept GPS off since i installed it: GPS Toggle Widget (root)
(can't post the link for being noob )
I'll be updating if it really works in a few days
BTW thanks .xxx. !!!

Battery Drain Solution!

For those that have had issues with battery drain like I did, I may have finally found the solution.
After much research and reading many threads I found that the culprit was google play services. Specifically it was Google (I believe on Now) always trying to figure out location.
It always does a quick wifi check to try and figure out what's what. However due to a bug that has been in the coding since launch of KitKat (hurry up and fix it google) it fails and will just continue to try and try and try.
Solutions I found were to turn off location access on phone or edit Google Play Services Permission, specifically disable stay awake permission.
Turning off location, google now access to location, or both resulted in temporary fixes and I believe google still tried to figure it's location via wifi despite being told not to.
Long story short...if having just wifi location doesn't work.. and having location off doesn't work...
Then why not switch mode to high accuracy in which GPS is left on!
Google uses GPS for location, it works in one try, everyone is happy!
Long story short, if you have KitKat and are experiencing high battery drain with you phone constantly awake when off.
Switch your location settings to High Accuracy. Phone is smart enough to not use GPS when not needed.
It worked for me and it might work for you too!:good:
(Hopefully this fixes it for good)
Kolma said:
For those that have had issues with battery drain like I did, I may have finally found the solution.
After much research and reading many threads I found that the culprit was google play services. Specifically it was Google (I believe on Now) always trying to figure out location.
It always does a quick wifi check to try and figure out what's what. However due to a bug that has been in the coding since launch of KitKat (hurry up and fix it google) it fails and will just continue to try and try and try.
Solutions I found were to turn off location access on phone or edit Google Play Services Permission, specifically disable stay awake permission.
Turning off location, google now access to location, or both resulted in temporary fixes and I believe google still tried to figure it's location via wifi despite being told not to.
Long story short...if having just wifi location doesn't work.. and having location off doesn't work...
Then why not switch mode to high accuracy in which GPS is left on!
Google uses GPS for location, it works in one try, everyone is happy!
Long story short, if you have KitKat and are experiencing high battery drain with you phone constantly awake when off.
Switch your location settings to High Accuracy. Phone is smart enough to not use GPS when not needed.
It worked for me and it might work for you too!:good:
(Hopefully this fixes it for good)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
its working bro......cheers......:good: great ........
So usually I just keep GPS off to save battery. What your saying is to keep GPS on with high accuracy may actually improve battery life over keeping GPS off altogether?
Sent from my Virgin Mobile CDMA HTC Desire 601 zara_cl
what about device sensor's setting?
hi all
is there anyone here already try AppOpsXposed? http://forum.xda-developers.com/xposed/modules/xposed-appopsxposed-appops-4-3-t2564865
it's work at My desire 601 kitkat 4.4.2 without root
this apps can disable hidden system location and other thing but not sure work or not but so far my battery getting better now...
I have the same problem but the solution doesn't work.
I think you fixed the problem by charged the phone and not with switch gps (see your graph).
My solution now is only reboot.
hansvongrobel said:
I have the same problem but the solution doesn't work.
I think you fixed the problem by charged the phone and not with switch gps (see your graph).
My solution now is only reboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have GPS switched on. it just doesn't keep it running google play services will turn it on as needed instead of trying to get location from wifi and locking up even when told not to.
Different people have had luck with different solutions and this was mine.
Here are my results from today, the first small block of awake is from me Listening to music for about an hour on 4G.
Not sure what the second block is, might have been apps that updated or the bug returning for a couple minutes. (battery was at 45% at time of pic)
Thanks for this! I'm going to have my wife give it a try!

Categories

Resources