Related
Sometimes you are away from a charger and want to conserve what you have left, or are trying to run a resource heavy app without glitches (satnav) or trying to get a big update/download faster.
I thought we could post tips that either help with speed of the device or with saving battery - particularly if you know of apps or settings that slow the running down or eat battery.
I know these are quite obvious but I'll list some anyway to get us started
Turn these off for extra speed and batt :
Wireless General
GPS (you can leave location by network on for most stuff like weather apps)
Wifi - turning it off while you're out and about saves lots o batt. I also keep network notification off completely unless I'm in a new location looking for a wifi fix.
Bluetooth - set for off and undiscoverable
Mobile network - Set it to 2G for a big boost in battery life (and I've found, if the 3G is rubbish - I know, obvious, but I recently spent 20 mins moaning of no signal at all to send a tx at a gig, then realised I could flick to 2G and was away!!)
Data Sync
Google - You can turn of Auto sync and just sync manually when you choose
Background Data - Turning this off gives a huge battery boost, but gmail won't arrive in real time, so if you're expecting important mail don't turn it off.
On the sync option, if you know contacts and calendar are not changing that often you can uncheck these and sync manually every now and then
Apps that use Data Sync
Weather - check how often the app refreshes and set it to a longer time - some weather apps are by default set to refresh every 30 mins and this might not be needed most of the time.
Twitter and Facebook widgets and apps - again check the refresh periods, also notifications will Use batt more than no notifications.
Same probably applies for Exchange Sync but I don't use it.
Sound/Display - these things will save batt when you need it.
I think having Ring AND vibe will be more batt intensive, so maybe knock off the vibrate when you want to save battery
Keep Brightness low and lower screen timeout.
Turn off Auto rotation and animations and Notification Flash
Turning keypad tones off etc will save a bit too. It all adds up.
Turning Off TouchFLO
When running CoPilot, it helps to turn off wifi and some have reported that if you can toggle the Sense UI to the ordinary Android 3 screen home this helps too (Tho I've personally not had problems) To turn off Sense UI or Touchflo 7Screen home, you need to first go to settings-applications-manage applications and look for TouchFLO then clear defaults. After this, when you go to home, you'll be offered a choice of home or TouchFlo. To toggle back to Touchflo, press the home button again. To return it to default, just check the Use by default for this action, and then make your choice.
Post anything you've found to help or hinder speed, or to drain or boost battery life
Ta Dayzee xx
Is there a widget to switch from 3G to 2G?
no, that is not a setting that can be done on a widget. all the ones that are around and claim to do it just jump you straight into mobile settings so you can toggle it yourself in two clicks instead of four....
But there is the Mobile Network one - HTC built in - when that is turned off, you can still get calls, and send txts. I use this toggle to do that - also can you not set a shortcut to do 3g to 2g only using bettercut? I'm sure you can, because you have that option in settings and bettercut can make a shortcut to any settings toggle.
Dayzee
Edit - Bettercut doesn't work with Hero Well, certainly not for creating and adding a shortcut to a system setting - will let the devs know...
Is it my imagination or does having the people widget on a home screen makes the device a little sluggish?
Is anyone else using touchdown? Not sure if that is slowing my device down and using battery a lot too?
Toggle Settings is a good app for controlling Daisys suggestions above, taskiller or Advanced Task Manager are essential for closing unwanted apps.
Couple of notes about apps that close stuff down like Taskiller and Task Manager - they can slow your fone down immediately after an end all, as the apps that need to run like TouchFlo have to restart - which they do, all by themselves - but it makes the fone prone to laggyness and force closing if you try to open stuff straight after.
If you get one that allows exclusions (I know advanced Task Manager does but dunno on others) then exclude TouchFLO and you'll get less proba after close all.
Also there were reports that one of the Taskiller apps messed with the long press home functions. Not sure on this tho...
Dayzee said:
If you get one that allows exclusions (I know advanced Task Manager does but dunno on others) then exclude TouchFLO and you'll get less proba after close all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With Taskkiller you also have the option to exclude programs. It also has a widget you can tap to close all (except the ignored programs) The free version only allows two apps to be ignored. Exclude TouchFlo is a good suggestion.
Ce said:
With Taskkiller you also have the option to exclude programs. It also has a widget you can tap to close all (except the ignored programs) The free version only allows two apps to be ignored. Exclude TouchFlo is a good suggestion.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try TaskPanel, it's free and doesn't seem to have any restrictions in its exclude list. You can also add a memory threshold when TaskPanel should automatically kill applications (configured through a separate list). And finally, it registers itself as an ongoing task and starts up automatically.
TaskPanel ist great... Thanks for that Tip. Have it running in the Background and now it Kills processes that are not in my Exclude List everytime the RAM goes below 50Meg.
My Hero is now (almost) Lag-Free.
Full charge at 7am and at 5pm, battery still at 94%.
How?
Turn off background data.
jhericurls said:
Full charge at 7am and at 5pm, battery still at 94%.
How?
Turn off background data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Background data? As in what? Mobile network?
jhericurls said:
Full charge at 7am and at 5pm, battery still at 94%.
How?
Turn off background data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Surely that disables all the sync services etc which is really what the phone is all about!
Also the Market won't work unless background data is enabled... It will save battery but a said, many services won't work unless you update manually.
I switched this off when in France so I didn't eat up my roaming data bundle.
The Jones said:
Is it my imagination or does having the people widget on a home screen makes the device a little sluggish?
Is anyone else using touchdown? Not sure if that is slowing my device down and using battery a lot too?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ive also noticed this also with the people widget after i removed it as well as the Clock # 8 it severely reduced the lagginess of my Hero
Hi Dayzee & co.,
If you're looking for a good way to save battery power without having to turn wifi on and off manually, check out "Y5 battery saver"
Y5 - Battery Saver is an AndroidTM application which saves your battery by turning the Wifi off in locations where you have never been connected before. The application turns Wifi back on when you are back to known location. It will remember the locations automatically. All you have to do is turn the Wifi on and connect to the known Wifi network for the first time
Really cool, and works like a charm. Ok, you need to have your GPS turned on, but at least that one is useful everywhere you are (except inside buildings, fair enough)... whereas wifi isn't. Furthermore, wifi uses up more battery than GPS.
Concerning Advanced Task Killer (awesome!), you might want to check out this thread if you're sick of having to restart your phone each time you have to sync. In a few words: always put HTC sync in the Ignore list of the program. Unchecking it won't do.
Cheers!
Stop using Peep (set it all to manual update), remove the widget and start using Twidroid.
As well as a huge reduction in battery draw, you'll find your Hero is far more responsive than is ever was before.
The last few days my Hero has not been sluggish and the battery life has increased dramatically. Set to 30 mins update just like Peep was.
Here's my tip, that works really well, for me. I've tried a myriad of task managers, but finally settled for TaskPanel. It doesn't really matter what you use, I suppose, but I found it to be one of the clearest. Furthermore, advanced task killer's and taskillers "kill all" commands seemed to randomly kill the TouchFlo process as well, even though it was "ignored"...
I've come to the conclusion that cpu load rarely is a problem on this phone (in terms of finding a reason to possible lag), unless you are watching videos (which you probably won't, since it appears to be impossible to encode videos so they don't at least slow down a bit every five seconds) or listening to music.
Instead it's the amount of memory you have free for apps to use. I have no idea why, since I also live by the credo "memory free is memory wasted", so ideally my phone would have 5 megs of ram free and everything would work great. Now for some reason, my Hero desktop starts to lag substantially (as well as other gui-elements, such as long scrolling lists) whenever my memory goes below 40 megs.
I always hated the "favourite people" widget by Htc, so I closed it day one. Maybe that's why my htc experience has been pretty positive. I also closed the desktop widgets for SMS-messages and Mail, since they can't show MMS:es or HTML-mail and since they are both ridiculously slow at flicking from one message to the next. I also threw away the novelty clocks by Htc, since they animate too often and that slows down the interface while they are moving. Instead I opted for the iPhone-like clock "digital clock widget". Just don't force kill it, since it will stop updating and you will be stuck with a beautiful clock that shows the right time once every day.
So basically, my formula for a fluid hero experience is:
* Check your free memory with TaskPanel every now and then. If it goes below 50, prepare for slowdown. If it goes below 40, go on a killingspree.
* Register TaskPanel as an "ongoing service", so it shows up in your notification drawer. Now, if you can see your notification drawer (which you can't in the browser), then instead of clicking home to close stuff, open TaskPanel (or whatever) and kill the app you are about to stop using.
* With multitasking comes responsibility. Odds are, if you ever owned an iPhone, this is something you were *****in and moanin about. "Gimme multitasking, gimme!". Well now you've got it and so, learn to use it. Everything that is slow, badly programmed or a resource hog has gotta go, unless you really really need it. Beautiful clock animating slowly? Too bad! Ditch it.
Somebody said Android wold be very good at managing resources by itself and that sounds reasonable. However, I read numerous comments about people finding this to not be the case. Maybe in version 2.0. But for now I'm stuck killing of processes myself. It works for me and makes my UI snappy. And I can keep 3-5 apps running at the same time (that are my own choices, not mandatory apps that come with the UI) without problem. I regularly have babbler, androidirc, taskpanel, market, ebuddy, redditisfun running at the same time without problem. Just kill off apps you are not going to use for a long time.
Ok, sorry to be rambling, but this is my take on the situation. It might get resolved with the Hero update or with the 2.0 version of Android. Don't know, but until then, we need some tools and wild speculation won't solve anything. If you made it through the whole message, I would appreciate your comments - especially any positive experiences you have from "letting Android do its own cleaning". It sounds a little fishy that it would be bad a first, but after about a week, things will get really snappy? What if I boot my phone? Will I have to wait a week again for things to become fast?
-JJ
Speed and battery boosting Tips
Dayzee said:
Sometimes you are away from a charger and want to conserve what you have left, or are trying to run a resource heavy app without glitches (satnav) or trying to get a big update/download faster.
I thought we could post tips that either help with speed of the device or with saving battery - particularly if you know of apps or settings that slow the running down or eat battery.
I know these are quite obvious but I'll list some anyway to get us started
Turn these off for extra speed and batt :
Wireless General
GPS (you can leave location by network on for most stuff like weather apps)
Wifi - turning it off while you're out and about saves lots o batt. I also keep network notification off completely unless I'm in a new location looking for a wifi fix.
Bluetooth - set for off and undiscoverable
Mobile network - Set it to 2G for a big boost in battery life (and I've found, if the 3G is rubbish - I know, obvious, but I recently spent 20 mins moaning of no signal at all to send a tx at a gig, then realised I could flick to 2G and was away!!)
Data Sync
Google - You can turn of Auto sync and just sync manually when you choose
Background Data - Turning this off gives a huge battery boost, but gmail won't arrive in real time, so if you're expecting important mail don't turn it off.
On the sync option, if you know contacts and calendar are not changing that often you can uncheck these and sync manually every now and then
Apps that use Data Sync
Weather - check how often the app refreshes and set it to a longer time - some weather apps are by default set to refresh every 30 mins and this might not be needed most of the time.
Twitter and Facebook widgets and apps - again check the refresh periods, also notifications will Use batt more than no notifications.
Same probably applies for Exchange Sync but I don't use it.
Sound/Display - these things will save batt when you need it.
I think having Ring AND vibe will be more batt intensive, so maybe knock off the vibrate when you want to save battery
Keep Brightness low and lower screen timeout.
Turn off Auto rotation and animations and Notification Flash
Turning keypad tones off etc will save a bit too. It all adds up.
Turning Off TouchFLO
When running CoPilot, it helps to turn off wifi and some have reported that if you can toggle the Sense UI to the ordinary Android 3 screen home this helps too (Tho I've personally not had problems) To turn off Sense UI or Touchflo 7Screen home, you need to first go to settings-applications-manage applications and look for TouchFLO then clear defaults. After this, when you go to home, you'll be offered a choice of home or TouchFlo. To toggle back to Touchflo, press the home button again. To return it to default, just check the Use by default for this action, and then make your choice.
Post anything you've found to help or hinder speed, or to drain or boost battery life
Ta Dayzee xx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
turning off allmost every things,then what reson to have a smart phone and spend 600$ for the device better, turn off your hero and keep in the pocket and turn it back on to use...keep in pocket with power off till next use.this is not the sulution .turning off everythings ........rether go with motorola razer v3.
I still don't see the point of using task managers and killing tasks. I just let the OS manage everything for me.
My Hero run very well indeed since I worked out that Peep was a real battery and resource hog.
I've just been for a 4 mile walk and used My Tracks to track the walk, Twidroid, Browser hot linked from tweets in Twidroid, answered a phone call and responded to a number of texts.
Looked at My Tracks a number of times to see what it was doing and to look at the satellite map. I like to point out things on the phone screen to the kids that they can see in real life - geeky but they think its cool.
Kept checking on how fast we were walking etc...
So screen was active quite a bit.
All over the space of 1hr 15mins with the GPS running all the time.
Hero never lagged once, battery used was around 10% (at a guess, maybe 12%).
Overall very impressed.
Anyone tried this app yet? It seems to be able to do... um... everything?! Ha! I am interested to see what custom profiles and tasks people have set up in theirs!
http://lifehacker.com/5599116/how-to-turn-your-android-phone-into-a-fully+automated-superphone
http://lifehacker.com/5601133/push-...d-to-awesome-heights-with-these-tasker-setups
You can download a 14-day trial from the developers website:
http://tasker.dinglisch.net/download.html
(it is £3.99 in the market for the full version)
Wow, I would have normally glazed right over this. For some reason I read the articles and this is pretty cool. I started thinking of a bunch of uses for it. I bought it outright. Thanks for the post, moonrock!
Welcome!
I noticed in the wiki or forum (somewhere!) that they were able to set up a profile that remapped the camera button -- I am wondering if this can be used to remap the power button while the camera app is open, maybe?
So I haven't had much time to play with Tasker, but the two scripts I have currently running:
* Silence from 11pm > 8am, simple, but it replaced the other 'profiles' type apps
* Disable screen rotation when in the Kindle app, for whatever reason this isn't an option in the Kindle app itself.
I have it set to turn on my Bluetooth when plugged in and off when unplugged works great!
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Fantastic! I need to set up a (again, simple!) task that will turn on bluetooth in the times that I am always in my car (commute to work and home, same time every day) which won't be difficult.
I have Locale already, but this may replace it (gotta love paying for apps to find out another one does 10000x more things! oops!) I've had Locale since first getting my G1 though, so it's gotten plenty of use.
So glad you posted about this app... its amazing..
18. 4009
Sent from my Samsung vibrant.
I have a couple tasks set up. First, I have gps automatically turn on and off when entering and exiting google maps. I also have one that lets me pick input style when I go into or leave remotedroid (swype's backspace doesn't work in it). And I have a couple apps that like to hang around after I close them, so I set them to be killed upon closing.
All in all it's a great app, well worth the $6.
Sent from my Vibrant using XDA app
Also worth noting is that it is £3.49 from the developer directly (paypal, via his website) and a larger % goes direct to him that way.
I have it setup for text to speech on SMS messages when my phone connects to my cars bluetooth.
I am trying to find a way to let my replay to said SMS with the voice to text feature or just ignore it. Anyone have any idea how to accomplish that?
Also think it would be cool to have it change my wallpaper based on the weather conditions in my area, but Im not sure how to go about doing that either.
ritalin said:
Also think it would be cool to have it change my wallpaper based on the weather conditions in my area, but Im not sure how to go about doing that either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Beautiful Widgets (paid app, couple bucks) and the (free) Beautiful Live Wallpaper. Uses the weather widget to make the wallpaper match the weather
Tasks that I've set up so far:
Silent / dim screen / timeout / alarm volume 7 while I am asleep (timed task)
Vibrate / auto brightness / timeout (slightly longer) while at work (timed task)
Bluetooth on while in my car (timed task -- specificlly during the hours of my work commute)
Load Vlingo when Bluetooth connects, Kill Vlingo when BT disconnects
GPS on when Maps, Navigation and Foursquare are opened
Display timeout (1hr) and brightness (max) when USB plugged in (for when i am in my car, typically listening to music and/or have vlingo up on the screen, annoying (and worthless) for the display to timeout if vlingo is supposed to be a one-touch process!)
Anyway of exporting a profile then importing it so some of the more advanced useres can create some and we can tweak them ?
Edit: Having hard time getting them to do what i want .
Probably, but I am not entirely sure how... lol
My initial use:
As previously mentioned on this board the bluetooth streaming volume is not the loudest, so I always end up turning up the volume for bluetooth. Then when I plugin my headphones I destroy my eardrums.
So I setup a task that when I connect to my bluetooth car stereo, it automatically sets the volume to max and turns off wifi for good measure.
I have another task that when I plugin headphones, it sets the volume to 60% and opens the doubletwist music player.
Finally I setup the standard battery task so that when my battery gets to 20% it turns of all the GPS, wifi, and bluetooth radios, as well as dimming my screen.
Shane_pcs said:
My initial use:
As previously mentioned on this board the bluetooth streaming volume is not the loudest, so I always end up turning up the volume for bluetooth. Then when I plugin my headphones I destroy my eardrums.
So I setup a task that when I connect to my bluetooth car stereo, it automatically sets the volume to max and turns off wifi for good measure.
I have another task that when I plugin headphones, it sets the volume to 60% and opens the doubletwist music player.
Finally I setup the standard battery task so that when my battery gets to 20% it turns of all the GPS, wifi, and bluetooth radios, as well as dimming my screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, I keep meaning to setup the low battery task as well!
I have two keyboards i really like in 2 different orientations.
Droid X keyboard:
its sweet autocorrections and large real estate makes it ideal for two thumb typing in landscape
swype:
slower than droid X keyboard in landscape, but in portrait, this is possibly the fastest/most accurate keyboard around.
I tried to set it up so that i could change my keyboards depending on the orientation, but i could not figure it out
im also for an app that turns your screen off with a timer (in the background). and have that work when you turn your screen downward./
any with either of these would be greatly appreciated.
Anyone know how to make it so that the Incall volume goes up to max on the connect of the phone call? I cant seem to find it in the settings meeting seems to only answer on 3/4 volume. Thought Tasker might be able to .
This app is awesome. I only got a few tasks setup but one nice one is turning the screen timeout to 23hr when I open the web browser and back to 30 secs when I exit.
talltexan said:
Anyway of exporting a profile then importing it so some of the more advanced useres can create some and we can tweak them ?
Edit: Having hard time getting them to do what i want .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To export a profile tap the context (left) icon <profile<export. To import just open the file with Tasker as the chosen program I think. lots of premade tasks on the Tasker wiki. (it won't let me post a link)
I saw a review of the lovely Nokia N9, and I noticed that whenever it is put in sleep mode, it does not shut off the screen entirely - instead, it shows a clock that moves around the screen to prevent burn-in. I rather like this idea, and it apparently draws very little juice from the AMOLED screen (which is what my Captivate has).
I spent some time looking for an Android app that accomplishes something like this, but I didn't find anything like it. If there is such an app, could someone point me towards it? If not, is this even possible?
Alright, since this thread doesn't seem to be generating much interest, allow me to bump it with some ideas that might help spark your imagination.
- Replaces sleep mode completely, and might even replace lockscreens
- Displays notification alerts
- Can be toggled on/off by, say, holding down the volume rocker for a few seconds
- Uses the proximity sensor to disable itself when facing down or when placed in one's pocket
- Can be configured to only display under certain conditions (e.g. at night time when plugged in, so as to function as a bedside clock)
- Can cook bacon and eggs
Something like this probably doesn't exist, but would anyone else be interested in something like this if it doesn't use too much battery? If so, I might put up a bounty for whomever brings this to fruition. Would a developer be able to tell me if this is possible? I realize it would probably require root access, but that's fine with me.
Hello.
So I've been tampering with the android SDK and made an app for practice. However, while trying to stick to my basic level goals, it seemed like I was going against the grain of how stuff seemed to work. I'm gonna read up on theory now, but it'd be a real help if you could tell me if there were any glaring dumb/broken/bad things there.
Anyway, the general idea was to have a reverse-stopwatch that I could populate with types of laps with custom durations. So I'd have, for example, WALK 10sec, RUN 30sec JOG 15sec *10 times. I wanted the app to vibrate every time one of these laps ended (no matter what, even in screen lock) but I also wanted those laps and their duration-countdowns to be dynamically shown in a ListView inside the main Activity.
In order to do that, I populated an Object that extended Application with my dataset, plugged it into an Adapter to update the ListView with, then when I had a populated list, I'd invoke an IntentService which would make a deep copy of the data and do countdowns inside logic loops. That IntentService also periodically sent messages to a BroadcastReceiver, who would update durations and remove expired laps on the Original List (linked to the Adapter) and handle vibrations. The intentService could be aborted prematurely , I haven't been able to think of a way to pause it.
Well, it works if you don't ever let it re-orient screens and while phonecalls don't break it, some of the listview data appearance was corrupt after one (the timers were fine tho which is weird).
OK so I got my Z4 tablet three days ago. Fantastic construction, fantastic specs on paper.
I had a Z tablet up until last weekend that I sold for a good price and got this as a much needed replacement.
Both are LTE versions.
Anyway, here are some things I've noticed and I would like to have your comments on.
1) The "antitheft" system for the first two days seemed to be a PITA. As my device is set for three users (me, my wife, my son), it kept popping for the others that it locked and needed MY credentials to unlock. I did unlock it at least five times for each, which means I can't really be... far from the device and let them use it. That I use two step authentication, makes things even harder. Once my "authenticator" phone was out of power and I had to wait several minutes to unlock the tablet. Yesterday I updated to latest firmware and I haven't noticed the issue since. But it's just one day, it may come back. Once (before updating firmware) I tried to disable My Xperia (although I love the find my device feature) so they could work, but it kept me "waiting". In the end I pressed back and it didn't get disabled. Any similar experiences with the theft protection?
2) Backlight (set in auto) seems to be too dark some times. I clicked on the intensity bar, set it brighter while STILL in auto (like it is now set to have a brighter "base value"?). Does this sound normal?
3) This is not a Z4 issue, I also had this in Z. It's probably a lollipop thing or I don't understand something properly. Clicking the volume buttons I can set it to "no" sound from home screen. Or so I think. Because even if I set it to "off", apps STILL have sound and I have to RE-adjust the volume to off from within the app (without the "priority buttons" under the volume bar)... Am I the only one to find this stupid?
4) Anybody notices some lag or ESPECIALLY stuck web browser, when other profiles (users) have run apps? If I reset the device and not visit the other profiles, the device is more snappy. If some other user goes in, even quiting every app they run, the device seems to get slower when back in "owner" user. Still fast but not as "snappy". Anybody noticed the same?
5) Any idea when we get Android M? Will we get 5.1 before that? I mean official firmware. Anybody?
6) Is there a way to go to test menu? The tablet Z method doesn't seem to work.
7) Serious. No restricted profiles. Why? Sony support replied that lollipop has this disabled only on 3G/LTE devices (that makes no sense), yet my Z was also LTE and both are on lollipop 5.0.2 and it DID have restricted profiles. What's up with that?
Thank you for your time people, have fun.
...wow
2) Yes.. brightness is usually set a little low at first for battery purposes.
3) There are different volumes for different things. Using the volume rocker on the home screen and putting it all the way down will only adjust ringer/notification volume. In-app sounds will use the media volume which you will need to adjust while media sounds are playing or you can adjust it in your sound settings. Not stupid imo, just gives more flexibility.
5) It'll come when it comes.. nobody knows except google and sony. I'd like to hope we'd get 5.1 before 6.
(pending something on the other questions above)
2) So the set value, when brightness is in "auto" is like a base value?
3) Well I find it stupid. Why: Because when I am in home screen I used to be able to manage the universal audio settings of the device. Turning device to mute, would turn it to mute. As simple as that. Also clicking a simple icon next to volume bar, you could separately adjust notification and ringer and stuff like that. Now? You THINK you set your device to mute, but you have only set the notifications. You sleep in a silent house (next to the wife or something), start a game, it YELLS with the last volume settings, ignoring that you set the device to mute in home screen and you have to "run" and re-adjust the volume to zero, usually with some delay (in the meantime waking everybody) since the device won't let you adjust anything while loading the game. No, I call this stupid.
5) Well if it won't delay 6, I don't mind for 5.1. But I want 6 the soonest possible.