Related
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.
Click to expand...
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!
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
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
Click to expand...
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
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
I did not see anything in search for this here on the X2 forums so thought I would make a post...
My battery life seems horrid. I loose about 1% battery life for every minute the phone is in use. I have take some steps to improve this but wonder what more I can do. What I have done so far is this:
Disabled Auto-Brightness and set it to the lowest option.
Installed Screen Filter which let's you use an even lower brightness.
Deleted the in-pocket app, not sure if it even worked but better to be safe.
Disabled Wi-Fi since I don't really use it.
Disabled all location options unless needed.
Only have Google Accounts syncing.
Do not use a task manager.
Have Max Battery Saver enabled.
Have data turn off when screen is off.
Screen time-out is on lowest option.
11 hours on battery puts me at 22%, 47% of that time phone was idle. Screen was on for 2 hours and used 32% of the battery. Time without signal is at 0%.
Any further suggestions?
One of two things... Either your battery is shot and you need a new one or its lieing to you, get the batstat widget from the market, see what your actual voltage is, ive been ignoring the % on mine for a long time, unplugged it about 15 minutes ago and im "down" to "88%", but my batstat tells me how it really is at 4.165
from my X2 roaming the north
At what voltage or whatever will it turn off and not allow you to turn the phone back on? Last time I was down really low it showed like 3200.
All I know is two things that have drained my battery faster than normal. Location services and email automatically checking for new emails. I messed with those and get better battery life now.
3200 is dead, dont unplug it untill you show 4.2 ignore the 100% saying fully charged untill it gets to that 4.2
from my X2 roaming the north
Kind of sad that 3200 is dead... seems like so much more juice to go.
Ive had good luck with disabling network provided time under settings, date and time. My roommate has also had luck with it on his Bionic. My phone has had a lower cell standby percentage since.
Sent from my Eclipsed and ICS themed X2.
LordRalh3 said:
One of two things... Either your battery is shot and you need a new one or its lieing to you, get the batstat widget from the market, see what your actual voltage is, ive been ignoring the % on mine for a long time, unplugged it about 15 minutes ago and im "down" to "88%", but my batstat tells me how it really is at 4.165
from my X2 roaming the north
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
I agree with that!
---------- Post added at 06:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:36 PM ----------
zakth said:
I did not see anything in search for this here on the X2 forums so thought I would make a post...
My battery life seems horrid. I loose about 1% battery life for every minute the phone is in use. I have take some steps to improve this but wonder what more I can do. What I have done so far is this:
Disabled Auto-Brightness and set it to the lowest option.
Installed Screen Filter which let's you use an even lower brightness.
Deleted the in-pocket app, not sure if it even worked but better to be safe.
Disabled Wi-Fi since I don't really use it.
Disabled all location options unless needed.
Only have Google Accounts syncing.
Do not use a task manager.
Have Max Battery Saver enabled.
Have data turn off when screen is off.
Screen time-out is on lowest option.
11 hours on battery puts me at 22%, 47% of that time phone was idle. Screen was on for 2 hours and used 32% of the battery. Time without signal is at 0%.
Any further suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I Have a few questions:
Are you running Stock? If not what Rom are you running?
How old is the battery / phone?
4.2 volts is fully charged as mentioned earlier. Are you looking only at the %?
Have you every tried Juice Defender Unlimate?
Android.Ninja
I get around 11 hours of moderate/constant use.. But I feel as though I should get more. The Juice Defender Ultimate app works really good, but I'm flashing too constantly to keep up with it(when I did use it back in 2.3.3 I was averaging 15-20 hours on one cycle.
The main point to be made is to make sure your voltage is correct and ReCalibrate as needed.
One big thing that does help is to toggle off your auto-syncing(especially google). And if you feel the need to check your emails just go within the app and refresh. Also, in the motorola task manager(most of the ROMs have this), add apps to the list to auto close when the screen is off. This will turn off apps("completely") after 2 mins of screen off. Make sure you only kill the ones you don't want to run while screen is off(you may want to keep blue tooth and other similar SYSTEM apps running while screen off).
Juice Defender as stated works well, but I suggest you read a tutorial or guide because some of the options can "hurt" the features you want to use(ie. Wifi). I'm pretty sure there are Profile settings for when you are home/work/on the road, You can set it for different settings(IE. A charger should be at your house so you may want to allow WIFI/AUTOSYNC/etc to run free as opposed to at work, You may want syncing and data to toggle and only work every 30 mins or 1hr.) This does a VERY good job with battery life but as stated READ A GUIDE unless your willing to test for hours, plus you can get tips on better settings.
Your NOT going to get 3 days of battery life unless you turn off ALLLLLLLLL syncing options and just allow the Radio Antenna to run free with no 3g or 1x or wifi or gps.... but I hope the tips I gave help XD
EDIT:
Also, Everywhere I have read 3g and WiFi consume more battery than 1x.... I HAVE TO DISAGREE 1000%! If you live in an area that has MULTIPLE cellular companies(a city for instance) Only allow connection to your HOME network! In the Network Settings you can set this to Automatic or Home. Choose HOME! And test to see where you drop connection and such. But if you live in an open area, you should have NO problems. This will also help out TREMENDOUSLY on your battery life because you won't exchange across 6 or more nodes every 15-20 minutes while driving or even in an office complex or wherever(I'm an EMT so I'm on the road). But if you live in an area where cellular reception THROUGH VERIZON is bad(more Local Towers than Verizon Towers) then I suggest you keep the auto on, unless you can stay within your Verizon towers. <<<<<Hope that makes since.
I am really starting to loose my patience with the prime, I have had it for a week now and its just been a very a difficult ride so far. Coming from the original iPad, I never had any problem with it. For some reason, I lost 20% of my battery just surfing the web last night, now I did not view any videos, I was just reading several online newpapers. 20% in an hour !!! what the hell is going on here.
Can sombody recommend me a decent battery monitoring app pleaase? otherwise, this thing is going back and then I will have to beg Apple to take me back.
How many things do you have syncing? Cutting down on that saved me a lot of drain. Also the app you use depends on what you're looking for.
Where's my Droid power seems quite useless on the prime
Better battery stats is good for finding apps with wakelocks
Current widget is good for tracking the current your tablet was using but I'm not sure if it works on he prime
Good luck!
Sent from my Inspire 4G using xda premium
lucky6877 said:
I am really starting to loose my patience with the prime, I have had it for a week now and its just been a very a difficult ride so far. Coming from the original iPad, I never had any problem with it. For some reason, I lost 20% of my battery just surfing the web last night, now I did not view any videos, I was just reading several online newpapers. 20% in an hour !!! what the hell is going on here.
Can sombody recommend me a decent battery monitoring app pleaase? otherwise, this thing is going back and then I will have to beg Apple to take me back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What brightness was your screen set to? Did you have SuperIPS turned on? 20% seems excessive but having the brightness cranked up can noticeably impact battery life, and using SuperIPS nearly triples the drain.
FWIW I keep my screen brightness to about 30% most of the time and I surf the web for about an hour or two a day and I have been getting 3-4 days of battery life or more. I leave the tablet turned on all the time as well, and last night after 3 days I plugged it in because the battery had finally reached 50%.
lucky6877 said:
I am really starting to loose my patience with the prime, I have had it for a week now and its just been a very a difficult ride so far. Coming from the original iPad, I never had any problem with it. For some reason, I lost 20% of my battery just surfing the web last night, now I did not view any videos, I was just reading several online newpapers. 20% in an hour !!! what the hell is going on here.
Can sombody recommend me a decent battery monitoring app pleaase? otherwise, this thing is going back and then I will have to beg Apple to take me back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My Battery Drain Analyzer is good if you want to see an ongoing indication of how much battery is being drained per hour. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.WazaBe.android.BatteryDrain&feature=search_result
However, in order to characterize your battery use as good or bad, we'd need to know the brightness you were at (as others have mentioned), whether you're running Flash on the sites you were visiting, what performance mode you have the Prime running in, etc. Too many variables.
I'll add that it's difficult to compare an iOS device and an Android device in terms of battery use, because the Android device is likely doing much more in the background. There's a tradeoff between functionality and battery life (and between functionality and simplicity, etc.), and of course in such an equation Apple ALWAYS opts for reduced functionality. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's definitely Apple's approach and has to be factored into any comparison.
I do burn about 15%/hour when browsing, on 30% brightness or so and in Balanced performance mode. I've found the Prime to be excellent in battery use everywhere BUT browsing--video about 10%/hour, email/ebook reading/etc. bout 7.5%/hour, etc.
Thank you all for your comments. My brightness level is set to 20% and gps, bluetooth all set to off. I am now using auto airplane mode app and it has significantly improved the battery life. I am also now using a fantastic app called android assistant and i spotted services that were running like google+ and google voice search which were consuming a significant portion from my battery.
Links for apps i mentioned:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.advancedprocessmanager&hl=en
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...vbS5ibG9nc3BvdC5kb25rdW4zLmF1dG9haXJwbGFuZSJd
I clicked the thanks button for every response.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
The best battery monitoring tool I've found is Battery Monitor Widgit.
And I would highly recommend Tasker over any app that is dedicated to turning a single function on or off. If, that is, you are willing to learn to set it up. You can do things like have it set screen brightness to max when you start YouTube and set it back down to your preferred setting when you exit YouTube, turn WiFi or GPS on or off based on certain criteria, etc, etc, etc.
A simple free alternative to Tasker that I use is AutomateIt. The most rules are set on my phone to turn antennas on/off and manipulate volumes while I'm at work, driving, or at the gym. If you're looking to do more complex thing, Tasker is probably the better alternative.
Col.Kernel said:
The best battery monitoring tool I've found is Battery Monitor Widgit.
And I would highly recommend Tasker over any app that is dedicated to turning a single function on or off. If, that is, you are willing to learn to set it up. You can do things like have it set screen brightness to max when you start YouTube and set it back down to your preferred setting when you exit YouTube, turn WiFi or GPS on or off based on certain criteria, etc, etc, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 for tasker, make life very easy once you set it up....
Col.Kernel said:
The best battery monitoring tool I've found is Battery Monitor Widgit.
And I would highly recommend Tasker over any app that is dedicated to turning a single function on or off. If, that is, you are willing to learn to set it up. You can do things like have it set screen brightness to max when you start YouTube and set it back down to your preferred setting when you exit YouTube, turn WiFi or GPS on or off based on certain criteria, etc, etc, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip about Android Assistant. It seems very useful!
However I would get rid of Auto Airplane mode, you don't need it.
Instead go into "Settings > Wifi > Advanced (top right menu)" and change the "Keep WiFi on when asleep" setting to "only when plugged-in (recommended)" or "never."
What this does is that any time the screen is off, but you are not currently downloading a file or app, the WiFi will be suspended until you turn the screen back on.
You can turn GPS off from the settings if you never plan on using it, and it doesn't make sense having an extra app running in the background that just duplicates functionality already found in the OS.