does leaving the gps on actually kill battery life more? I was under the impression that even if you leave gps on, its only used when an application uses and when it is finished, it turns off by itself. please correct me if i'm wrong.
kwazytazz said:
does leaving the gps on actually kill battery life more? I was under the impression that even if you leave gps on, its only used when an application uses and when it is finished, it turns off by itself. please correct me if i'm wrong.
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I leave GPS, Bluetooth and wifi on all the time and only loose about 1% battery per hour in standby.
I too would like to know this, it makes sense to me in theory.
Im going to say it doesn't kill battery unless you use it. Based on test ive done myself using "wireless networks" for location actually drains battery faster than just using gps. GPS only activates when its needed and turns off after a few secs; mobile networks is ALWAYS updating your location thus killing the battery faster. Ive done this test for years on many android devices and it was same results. Like i said, i may be crazy but thats my theory on it....
http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/1046/20110911195533.jpg
The GPS receiver remains in "standby" if you turn it on but aren't actively using an app that requires it. Assuming you are using an application that requires the GPS receiver to be on, most likely the screen is going to be on as well. Even in this "on" configuration, the display is going to be the battery drainer, not the GPS receiver. Standby just means that the last position fix is retained for faster sat lock the next time around. GPS standby is identical to GPS off in power requirement.
I never did understand why people disable GPS, Bluetooth, etc. You might get an extra 12 minutes out of a single charge by doing so. I'd rather have instant access to location-based search, Bluetooth headset use, and everything else that makes a smartphone, well, "smart."
kennypowders said:
Im going to say it doesn't kill battery unless you use it. Based on test ive done myself using "wireless networks" for location actually drains battery faster than just using gps. GPS only activates when its needed and turns off after a few secs; mobile networks is ALWAYS updating your location thus killing the battery faster. Ive done this test for years on many android devices and it was same results. Like i said, i may be crazy but thats my theory on it....
http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/1046/20110911195533.jpg
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i think you may be right, as if you just leave wireless/mobile networks on and not gps, when you use your google maps you dont get the gps icon on the top so you dont know when its actually on or off. whereas if you have only the GPS checked you will see it on when its being used and off when its not.
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I always wondered if the GPS ON consumes battery, i am not talking about when it actually searches for satellites and tracks your position, i mean when it's in idle mode.. doing nothing.
I've tested having the GPS disabled for a day and there was no diference in battery use that I could see.
GPS ON only means that app with GPS permissions will be able to use GPS. Setting itself doesn't do anything to GPS.
It only drains battery if app starts using GPS and in that case it's probably what you want.
Screatch said:
I always wondered if the GPS ON consumes battery, i am not talking about when it actually searches for satellites and tracks your position, i mean when it's in idle mode.. doing nothing.
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What the others said. I have mine on permenantly and I don't notice any extra drain. I keep it on for where's my droid - despite the fact it doesn't work indoors - where i'm sure it'll be 99% of the time.
I have a Holux GPSlim 236 bluetooth GPS receiver that I want to use with my GS2 when I go mountain biking instead of the internal GPS as that would drain the battery too quickly.
I've successfully paired the receiver with the GS2 but none of the apps (Tracker, GPS Test, Maps, etc) actually "see" the external gps receiver and just display no lock and don't show any satellites. Switching on the internal gps receiver makes everything work as expected.
Is there anything special I need to do with the external receiver and pairing it to the GS2? Is there a setting buried in Android somewhere that directs all GPS apps to use an external receiver? On the old WM6 platform you could choose different com ports for the receiver but I see no options in android for that.
Never mind. It appears you need an app (yet again!) to do this. I installed blue4droid and it works now. Why isn't this functionality part of the core Android OS?
sunseaker said:
Never mind. It appears you need an app (yet again!) to do this. I installed blue4droid and it works now. Why isn't this functionality part of the core Android OS?
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Very few people ask for this feature (first time I've seen a request). Your need is very specific, are you sure you will save much battery with a BT-link constantly running?
Older platforms like Symbian S60 and WMP6 supports this quite obviously since this was the only way to get GPS on many older smartphones, but on Android almost all phones have GPS from the beginning.
This seems like good example to me where a dedicated app is better than making the standard Android OS more complicated.
Please remember that more or less every app in the market fulfills purpose for a certain number of people, that doesn't mean that all these apps should be included in the OS...
I hear what you're saying but I'd be surprised if BT used as much battery as the GPS. I took the GS2 out for a test yesterday on a short 1.5 hour mountain bike ride with the internal GPS on and it drained 50% of my battery. A lot of my rides are usually a lot longer in the 4-5 hour range so the battery will never last.
I assume BT will use a lot less power but I have yet to test it which I'll be doing in the next few days.
As for it not being a common feature request, I guess that you are right when taking into account all the Android devices around but it's actually quite commonly asked for in the cycling and running world where you want to track your path and other parameters during your training. the phone batteries just cannot cope with powering the internal GPS for more than a few hours.
I don't mind using some apps to enhance the OS but I just feel with Android it seems expected that you need to bolt apps on to achieve what normally is basic functionality. Also a lot of the apps require permissions to parts of the phone that have nothing to do with the functions the app is providing. I'll concede that perhaps in this case an app would is suitable than having the functionality in the core OS.
sunseaker said:
I hear what you're saying but I'd be surprised if BT used as much battery as the GPS. I took the GS2 out for a test yesterday on a short 1.5 hour mountain bike ride with the internal GPS on and it drained 50% of my battery. A lot of my rides are usually a lot longer in the 4-5 hour range so the battery will never last.
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50% in 1.5h sounds a lot.
I don't think this is because of the GPS, what app do you use to log the position? Does it keep the display on all the time?
I haven't checked battery when I've been logging that careful because it hasn't been a problem, but I can see that I have a 3.5 hours log in my track-list and I remember that I checked the map a lot as well during that hike. I'm pretty sure I wasn't close to draining the battery.
Modern GPS-chip doesn't use that much battery, people are overexaggerating the drain from GPS-chip, probaly because of problems with older chip designs. But a lot of software that uses GPS, e g car navigation system are often huge battery hogs though.
I've read that this is the chip inside SGS2:
http://www.csr.com/products/25/sirfstariv-gsd4t
It seems to use 8mW with 1hz update. So the battery in SGS2 can run only the GPS chip for (4V*1650mAh)/8 = 825hours...
So I believe the battery problem you have is caused by something else, so adding an external GPS might not solve anything at all.
Hmm, that throws a different light on it. I'm using Run.GPS for my tracks. I'll have to monitor this more closely and try a different app for comparison. What did you use for tracking your hike?
The app isn't keeping the screen on and I physically turn it off with the power button anyway. The app is also set not to illuminate the screen back light although I don't think it makes any difference with the AMOLED screen.
I'll try a comparison with the external GPS and see how much difference there is to try establish if the app is at fault. I expect tracking using the external GPS to use significantly less battery so if battery drain is still high then it points most likely to being the app at fault - we'll see.
Is there any app that can list the various apps / processes that are running and show how much cpu is being used? I want to see how much cpu power the tracking software is consuming.
sunseaker said:
Hmm, that throws a different light on it. I'm using Run.GPS for my tracks. I'll have to monitor this more closely and try a different app for comparison. What did you use for tracking your hike?
The app isn't keeping the screen on and I physically turn it off with the power button anyway. The app is also set not to illuminate the screen back light although I don't think it makes any difference with the AMOLED screen.
I'll try a comparison with the external GPS and see how much difference there is to try establish if the app is at fault. I expect tracking using the external GPS to use significantly less battery so if battery drain is still high then it points most likely to being the app at fault - we'll see.
Is there any app that can list the various apps / processes that are running and show how much cpu is being used? I want to see how much cpu power the tracking software is consuming.
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I'm using my "tracks", it is an pretty good (but simple) app, but it does not do any GPS filtering, så especially data like max speed tend to be incorrect.
There are definately app's to check processes, but I don't know which is the best, I believe System Tuner Pro is good:
https://market.android.com/details?id=ccc71.pmw.pro&feature=search_result
I tried Tracker but preferred a more cycling specific app.
Thanks I'll look at that System Tuner app.
I have searched the market and google, but I can't find anything that will work with my specific scenarios. I want a rules based app, if it exists, to activate gps when certain programs are launched, like Navi, or maps, etc. Then, the biggest reason I want it, is because I would like it to deactivate on close. I have a real bad problem of remembering to kill it when I am finished using it, so I end up killing the battery prematurely because of my own stupidity. I've tried my phone my rules, and two or three others, but I couldn't figure out how to set it up to do what I wanted. Maybe I'm just an idiot. who knows. Thanks for any advice.
1454 said:
I have searched the market and google, but I can't find anything that will work with my specific scenarios. I want a rules based app, if it exists, to activate gps when certain programs are launched, like Navi, or maps, etc. Then, the biggest reason I want it, is because I would like it to deactivate on close. I have a real bad problem of remembering to kill it when I am finished using it, so I end up killing the battery prematurely because of my own stupidity. I've tried my phone my rules, and two or three others, but I couldn't figure out how to set it up to do what I wanted. Maybe I'm just an idiot. who knows. Thanks for any advice.
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Cyanogen has profiles like that, but I don't think it extends to GPS.
I've pretty much always run sense ROMs and I ALWAYS leave my GPS checked on. It only uses it when I'm using an app that needs it. I'm not sure where the idea came from that if GPS is left on it will use it all the time, but I've never seen evidence that is how it behaves. Unless AOSP is weird and does try to lock all the time or something....
I use Easy Profiles and like it a lot. It takes a little work to understand but is very useful and really helps me save my battery.
As the previous poster says, most apps turn off GPS when they are deactivated.
loonatik78 said:
I've pretty much always run sense ROMs and I ALWAYS leave my GPS checked on. It only uses it when I'm using an app that needs it. I'm not sure where the idea came from that if GPS is left on it will use it all the time, but I've never seen evidence that is how it behaves. Unless AOSP is weird and does try to lock all the time or something....
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+1
Stock rom and I leave my GPS on 100% of the time.
I get from 12 hours to well over 24 hours of battery depending on how I use the phone. The GPS power turns off if no software is hitting it for a location.
Turning off the GPS (or WiFi for that matter) has never changed my battery life.
Maybe I'm mistaken then. It just seemed like my battery died off quicker after using Navi. But I didn't actually do anything to verify this. I will also try easy profile as one poster suggested.
1454 said:
Maybe I'm mistaken then. It just seemed like my battery died off quicker after using Navi. But I didn't actually do anything to verify this. I will also try easy profile as one poster suggested.
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I'd suggest before adding another app that will CERTAINLY eat more battery, to take look at what apps ore services are eating power, and exactly how they're doing that. Even the basic battery stats displayed in stock Android will give you a rough idea. Something like JuicePlotter will highlight what and when certain basic functions eat power. If you're GPS is running, it will stick out as a different color blur coming off the power plot line.
I'm a strong proponent of power management through strategy, not brute force of apps managing it. Kinda like a bank with a good security system... it makes more sense to design the building well, rather than hire guards/apps to do the job at a higher cost in dollars/watthours.
I use Battery widget to monitor my juice usage, but it just "seemed" like my battery usage was worse with GPS on. But I don't use my phone in the same way any two days in a row, so it was probably just in my imagination.
1454 said:
I use Battery widget to monitor my juice usage, but it just "seemed" like my battery usage was worse with GPS on. But I don't use my phone in the same way any two days in a row, so it was probably just in my imagination.
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If GPS is constantly on being used to update traffic, geotag photos, or track you on GPS, you're going to usually notice sharp drops in battery life. I use the battery widget too, but JuicePlotter can better illustrate where the power is going.
I'm a little surprised noone suggested Tasker, Locale, or SettingProfiles since they will all do exactly what the OP wanted and more. Tasker isn't as user-friendly as the others but seems to provide more functionality. I currently have it set just as the OP wanted. Turns gps on when Maps, Nav, etc open then turn it back off on close. Probably unnecessary but doesn't cause any problems for me so it's fine.
thanks A0. I will definitely check that out, as I think it will work for the other things I wanted to try too.
Dismissing things like sync and widget updates, etc., which option do you think ultimately saves more battery life? On the one hand you have wifi constantly locked on even if the phone is in deep sleep for hours. On the other hand, if you find that you use the phone quite a bit in spurts, wouldn't it seem that the wifi constantly turning on and connecting, then turning off during sleep, would actually use more power than just being constantly connected?
It might be a bad analogy but I liken it to when you turn a car off and then on as it uses more fuel compared to just letting it idle for a few minutes instead. Would this be the same with power consumption on our phone?
I've seen many articles that indicate Wi-Fi is much better on battery life then using 3g. So I've been running my like that for awhile. Not sure about the results though. Wi-Fi is now my second biggest battery drain, behind Display.
Mine is set to stay ON always. I get better battery life when using wifi.Some say the opposite, try both ways and see which works best for you.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using XDA App
I have the policy set to sleep when off. Even when I do use my phone regularly, I find that at times its going to help you save more battery life without having wifi constantly scanning for access points.
Red5 said:
I have the policy set to sleep when off. Even when I do use my phone regularly, I find that at times its going to help you save more battery life without having wifi constantly scanning for access points.
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Just up the scan interval.
Standby drain of our wifi chip is VERY low, less than 1/10 that of the original GalaxyS series if power_profile.xml is correct - and it's FAR more power efficient to transfer data over wifi than cell radio on our phones for a variety of reasons.
what are others thoughts on some of the pros and cons of this update? i'm thinking it will actually save battery to have wifi 'always on' in standby mode rather than repeatedly switching between a on/off state which uses more energy.
It will definitely eat more battery if it's always on under the lockscreen...
Also there is an option to deactivate notifications when new wifi hotspots are around.. if you are about battery life you should deactivate this..
Ikkari said:
It will definitely eat more battery if it's always on under the lockscreen...
Also there is an option to deactivate notifications when new wifi hotspots are around.. if you are about battery life you should deactivate this..
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I keep my Wifi always on because it consumes the least battery (vs 3G, LTE, etc).
If I don't play games on my Lumia 920 the battery can last 3 days.
This update is freezing my phone Dunno why but I have tested it. I occasionally get a freeze now and then, but when the keep wifi is on, it is like every couple of hrs... Will test it more though.
Ikkari said:
It will definitely eat more battery if it's always on under the lockscreen...
Also there is an option to deactivate notifications when new wifi hotspots are around.. if you are about battery life you should deactivate this..
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Wrong unless your phone is using 5-year old wifi chip.
Correct me if I am wrong, but is the wifi on this phone an on demand type system? From what I see on mine, the wifi unless being used for an actual update or downloading other content goes to sleep when the lock screen is on. It then wakes up if there is an update pushed to it or if something else needs it or of course if you unlock the phone. At least that is the way it appears that mine works.
Also your radio service are going to use much more power than the wifi will as they are higher power transmitters and receivers. There is a reason wifi only works within a few hundred feet and radio works for several miles that is due to the power difference. Of course with more power you get more battery consumption.
In the case of conserving the battery you are better off to use wifi when possible, leave it on and let the phone control it.
In my experience keeping Wifi on permanently lead to a remarkable decrease in battery life. That will depend on where you are though. If I have it sitting at home where it has Wifi connectivity it's likely that I would see better battery life because all actual transfers will happen via Wifi. At work though it can't connect to the Wifi network (private phone, work network) and so I have 3G running anyway while the phone keeps looking for Wifi networks to connect to.
The problem boils down to the fact that while you can switch off Wifi completely because everything can still work using 3G you can't switch off the phone part completely because only data is done over Wifi but you still need the mobile connection to receive calls/SMS.
I would suggest to anyone to simply try out what works better for them. For me it worked best to let Wifi deactivate automatically as it had been the default in WP since WP7 came out.
foxbat121 said:
Wrong unless your phone is using 5-year old wifi chip.
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Maybe Wifi is using less power when you are downloading something and need a lot of data... But when your phone is idle... Constant on Wifi is using far more battery power than 3G that checks for email or weather every 1-2 hours...
Simple enough...if you are consistently in an area with a WiFi signal, leave WiFi "always on"...it will consume less battery. If you're in an area without WiFi signal then turn it off, as searching for a signal will help run your battery down.
Sent from my LG-E970 using Tapatalk 2
Ikkari said:
Maybe Wifi is using less power when you are downloading something and need a lot of data... But when your phone is idle... Constant on Wifi is using far more battery power than 3G that checks for email or weather every 1-2 hours...
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Again, simply not true unless you are using a 5-year old phone. Even if you are in an area that has no wifi connection, the extra drain caused by searching for Wi-Fi networks is minimum in a modern OS and modern chipset. I have left all my android phones (the ones that offer Wi-Fi always on feature for a few years now) wifi on all the time. Never have felt much difference vs if I turn wifi off. It annoys me that WP didn't offer this capability for so long.
foxbat121 said:
Again, simply not true unless you are using a 5-year old phone. Even if you are in an area that has no wifi connection, the extra drain caused by searching for Wi-Fi networks is minimum in a modern OS and modern chipset. I have left all my android phones (the ones that offer Wi-Fi always on feature for a few years now) wifi on all the time. Never have felt much difference vs if I turn wifi off. It annoys me that WP didn't offer this capability for so long.
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I tested a lot of phones Android and WP, my experience is that wifi always on is a battery killer... And I'm talking about state of the art hardware... It's just my 2 cent's but i keep it off...
When I don't charge overnight and wifi is always on my battery drops about 40%
with only 3G on about 8-10%
Foxbat: you can leave it any way you want to do it. I'm not saying Microsoft should remove the feature. But in my experience keeping Wifi on kills the battery faster. I tested it for my use case with always on and with Auto and in the end: Auto it was for me.
The best advice you can give to people is: try it out yourself and you will see what works best for you.
A picture or two says it all. See the attached files for my two testing: one with wifi always on for 24-hour and one with Wi-Fi in auto mode for 24-hour:
The right picture shows 0.0%/hour under current discharge rate... pretty impressive
Ikkari said:
The right picture shows 0.0%/hour under current discharge rate... pretty impressive
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The keyword is 'Current' -- means at that moment. You can derive the same thing from the left in various sections. The key here is that I don't see any discernible difference. Certainly not a battery killer in any sense as you claimed.
If you look at the first 12-hour period of both chart (when the phone is mostly sleep and not used), the result is almost identical. FYI, there are three push emails connected all the time: Hotmail, GMail and Corporate Exchange Email.
Yes the keyword 'Current' -- means at that moment... so your phone is not discharging although your screen is on... Very accurate app...
Ikkari said:
Yes the keyword 'Current' -- means at that moment... so your phone is not discharging although your screen is on... Very accurate app...
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So, what you saying is that if you have the screen on, you will see your battery percentage drop immediately? You should return your phone if that is the case.
Battery app get its information from the phone OS reporting. If the OS reported the same battery percentage over a short period of time, the discharge rate won't be anything other than zero. That's limitation of the platform, not app.
Instead of criticize the app which is not the point of the post, why don't you post your findings where leave Wi-Fi always on kills your battery?
it' % per hour... and your phone is using currently using 0,0% per hour so if you leave it like that it will run for ever... so where is the mistake?
Ikkari said:
it' % per hour... and your phone is using currently using 0,0% per hour so if you leave it like that it will run for ever... so where is the mistake?
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% per hour is a unit of measurement. It doesn't mean you have to take one hour to measure it in order to claim its rate. That will be average rate on that hour, not current rate which is meant to see what your current usage pattern is. It can't be used to predict your battery life. If you notice that when you take your phone off the charger, it will stay on 100% for quite some time before it starts to drop. Does that mean your phone battery can last forever? Think about it before post these ridiculous statements.
Foxbat - you are trying to tell us how our devices should behave while we are telling you how they actually behave in the real world out there. You can repeat your 5 years story as often as you want to but it clearly doesn't live up to the factual reality we experience every day and I guess after trying it out with different ROMs on the 920 and leaving all other settings the same I know the effect it had pretty well.
Nice to know though that you are having a different experience with different devices.