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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.
Hi all just wandering if anyone has good suggestion for saving battery. Maybe an app that saves battery or recommend something else. Im constantly charging my phone 3 times a day and my battery goes quick. Im using task killer and killing unwanted apps that are running. I have lowered the screen brightness as well. But my battery still runs out quickly.
Thank you
Sent from my U20i using XDA App
I have also tried cpu tuner and battery saving apps but they seem to make my phone run slow and sometimes freeze.
Sent from my U20i using XDA App
you might be running quite a lot of widgets. or animated wallpapers. taskkillers sometimes aggravate the problem, since the apps they kill, will auto start.
try some system monitoring apps. these will tell you what apps are actually USING CPU cycles. they are the ones that kills your battery quick. then you have the option to uninstall the cpu-hoggers.
if all else fails, try a different battery, or have your phone checked
Background Data is battery killer
Also double check to see if background data is being used. Settings ---> Accounts and Sync. If background data is on, many apps will continue to open themselves and refresh their data before your task killer kills them.
ctalcant said:
Also double check to see if background data is being used. Settings ---> Accounts and Sync. If background data is on, many apps will continue to open themselves and refresh their data before your task killer kills them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this the reason why everytime I open advance task killer, a lot of apps show up even if I didn't use them? like yahoo messenger, music, mail,.. I think almost all of my apps show up and I only have like 20+MB of free space even if I kill apps every 30 minutes?
elena17484 said:
Hi all just wandering if anyone has good suggestion for saving battery. Maybe an app that saves battery or recommend something else. Im constantly charging my phone 3 times a day and my battery goes quick. Im using task killer and killing unwanted apps that are running. I have lowered the screen brightness as well. But my battery still runs out quickly.
Thank you
Sent from my U20i using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My suggestion is to stop using autokill apps (if you're on eclair). Just kill apps manually when you feel like your phone is slowing down. What launcher are you using? Zeam is lightweight and fast. Also, keep the number of homescreen and widgets to a minimum, only the ones that you need. I also think auto rotation of the screen consumes a lot of power (I may be wrong). Is you phone new? It takes a few discharge/charge cycle before the battery achieves its full potential. Turn off WCMDA when you're not using it (use only GSM). Turn off WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS when not in use.
These are the things that I'm doing and my battery lasts 2 days with heavy texting (when I say heavy, it's 100+ text messages sent a day plus 200+ text messages received), music (1-2 hours when travelling), 1-2 hours talk time per day and a few games. I also use navigation and facebook from time to time. I use Zeam and I have 4 homescreens and 4 widgets open (APNdroid, Clock wdgt, Power Control, XPERIA Flashlight)
pabling19 said:
My suggestion is to stop using autokill apps (if you're on eclair). Just kill apps manually when you feel like your phone is slowing down. What launcher are you using? Zeam is lightweight and fast. Also, keep the number of homescreen and widgets to a minimum, only the ones that you need. I also think auto rotation of the screen consumes a lot of power (I may be wrong). Is you phone new? It takes a few discharge/charge cycle before the battery achieves its full potential. Turn off WCMDA when you're not using it (use only GSM). Turn off WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS when not in use.
These are the things that I'm doing and my battery lasts 2 days with heavy texting (when I say heavy, it's 100+ text messages sent a day plus 200+ text messages received), music (1-2 hours when travelling), 1-2 hours talk time per day and a few games. I also use navigation and facebook from time to time. I use Zeam and I have 4 homescreens and 4 widgets open (APNdroid, Clock wdgt, Power Control, XPERIA Flashlight)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do this and in addion add some system apps that keep reopening to the task killers ignore list. Like for me for some reason the settings app opens 2 mins after i kill it, wasting battery. So i set it to ignore
I found that lowering CPU Frequency on Standby helps the battery. I squeeze about half a day equaling a day and 1/2 out of phone. To achieve this I use Overclock Widget(it's the only one I tried) and it does the job. Search the market for a CPU tuner that has Standby and Screen On settings. Hope u get results.
my phone lasts for two days now, and used to last only for ten hours. There are two important things to save battery: use 2g and kee gps turned off! I used to let it enabled thinking that if there were no difference if there were no apps using it. Stupid idea...
i'm using JuiceDefender beta
jetpileder said:
i'm using JuiceDefender beta
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried it before. Actually I have the donate version, but don't use it anymore. Just use 2g and see what happens.
Green Power
try Green Power Free or Premium
Ok so I did the battery boost thing on one of the threads, which says that you only lose 0-1 % per 9 hours on CM 6.1.3 by wolfbreak
When I did that true to its claims it gave me that long battery life but now I see that my battery is draining quickly again
did this happen to anyone else before?
Yourmama said:
Ok so I did the battery boost thing on one of the threads, which says that you only lose 0-1 % per 9 hours on CM 6.1.3 by wolfbreak
When I did that true to its claims it gave me that long battery life but now I see that my battery is draining quickly again
did this happen to anyone else before?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this may not work on others. its just posted to share. its not 100% that ur battery will improve. re-flash the rom n dun try the thing again...or u can try again...if u wan.
Have you installed something after those ''tweaks'' that stays open in the background?
Just some games but no major programs
probably the autokiller settings are too aggressive, and because your apps (widgets maybe?) are being killed and trying to reopen constantly this is actually in effect draining your battery
Yourmama said:
Just some games but no major programs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some games caused for me battery drain. So try looking with some kind of app (don't know name anymore) which one uses the most battery when on background.
fiscidtox said:
probably the autokiller settings are too aggressive, and because your apps (widgets maybe?) are being killed and trying to reopen constantly this is actually in effect draining your battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apps won't reopen if you do nothing and closed them. So it will not cause battery drain. (And if they open without using them it maybe because it sheduled or you pressed a app that made it open)
PlayGunsta said:
Apps won't reopen if you do nothing and closed them. So it will not cause battery drain. (And if they open without using them it maybe because it sheduled or you pressed a app that made it open)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes they will.....
Say if you have a calendar widget or beautiful widgets, etc...
Or apps that are set to be persistent
With aggressive autokiller settings, these maybe being closed and constantly reopening
It was on disabled
fiscidtox said:
yes they will.....
Say if you have a calendar widget or beautiful widgets, etc...
Or apps that are set to be persistent
With aggressive autokiller settings, these maybe being closed and constantly reopening
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In theory yes. But in most cases the oom value of most commonly used widgets and their neccessary services are not raised or remain at around 0. AutoKiller is actually very intuitive with what apps priorities are raised it doesnt just kill everything indisciminately like most autokill task managers. I have used high values (150,200,250) for AutoKiller for more than 4 months and I have never had it kill any services or apps for widgets or even anything I want running in the background like Lookout, JuiceDefender, EasyFilter or DSP Manager. I also have numerous widgets and have never had problems with any of them being killed. I also get pretty awesome battery life. Chances are the problem is with some apps running unchecked in the background and not that apps you want in the background are getting killed.
Remember that everyone has different apps and everyone uses their phone differently so something that works for some people might not work as well for you. There are a lot of different things you can do to improve your battery life but if you try to set a target amount of battery drain (like the 0% in 9 hours) you can only be disappointed. Just use what you think helps you get the best performance for you and be happy for anything that seems to improve.
Sent From My *Super Fly X10*
If I (or anyone for that matter!) help you, dont be afraid to press THANKS!
Do you guys use task manager? Why or why not?
Sometimes yes...not sure if you really need to with this phone. Just a little OCD on my end
Only when some app is making problems, otherwise no
I often run a kill once at bootup, and then after that only if an app seems to be holding wakelocks or eating excessive CPU.
There is no longer any valid reason for using a task manager for memory management purposes, only for killing wakelock/CPU hogs.
I use Autostart to kill a few things that like to start up on boot, then ATK just for killing wakelock/cpu apps as well.
Mainly FB/Engadget like to stay running when I exit them and cause my battery to get eaten away.
I usually push the "clear memory" button.
I do along with Advanced Task Killer. It kind of nice to know less things is running in the background eatting battery...
ahh, thanks for the reply. cause i was wondering if i should have it as a widget (to clear memory faster) or not (save battery).
I use it when apps are misbehaving or my phone is warm. Mostly its the engadget app.. It runs cpu at like 70% when in background for some stupid reason.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda premium
pham818 said:
ahh, thanks for the reply. cause i was wondering if i should have it as a widget (to clear memory faster) or not (save battery).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's up to you if you want to put it as a wigget for easy access. I myself don't, because I hate clutter screen. It only take me 5 seconds to navigate to it.
All the time. just to make sure nothing drains my battery and nothing (especially Browser) is not continuously access internet when I outside WiFi.
Rarely. like others I use one to check and kill misbehaving apps.
I freeze or uninstall most unused apps and disable startup on some.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using XDA App
I use the default one in go launcher.
pham818 said:
Do you guys use task manager? Why or why not?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really. I use watchdog task manager to keep an eye on things (with a fairly low threshold - 30%), and it does a really good job. I also use Autostarts to stop a few things from starting up at all.
Gents....
In the quest for battery life and RAM enhancements, and the fact that many applications use wake locks to keep themselves active in the RAM.....is there an easy method to identify which apps contain wake locks ?
I can see active apps easy enough, but does that state simply mean a wake lock is present ??
A little info from a dev or two would be much appreciated.......g
Bump....
gregsarg said:
Gents....
In the quest for battery life and RAM enhancements, and the fact that many applications use wake locks to keep themselves active in the RAM.....is there an easy method to identify which apps contain wake locks ?
I can see active apps easy enough, but does that state simply mean a wake lock is present ??
A little info from a dev or two would be much appreciated.......g
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure there's an extra easy way... Nonetheless, check out BetterBatteryStats, if you haven't done so already? It does detect Kernel as well as partial Wakelocks. Here's a link that should help: http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/Wakelocks
Also, if I remember correctly, you can open your favorite terminal emulator and type:
Su
dumpsys power
Your TE should display any at this point, and if your TE has a zero in the last two lines, there shouldn't be anything you need to worry about.
As far as RAM goes, Android has managed it well since Froyo 2.2, so its not really a concern that's worth your time. Nevertheless, I still find myself manually shutting down apps that I don't want held in RAM with SystemPanel or Taskiller anyway, d'oh! It's a bad habit - OCD problem for me, lol.., due to many years with Windows Mobile. Bottom-line is that Android will end idle app - process tasks as needed without our help, lol... and I'm sure you know that too.
In regard to battery life, here with Saurom 7.1, the display, mobile data, cell use, and cell standby, as well as an add-on ProximityScreenOff Pro app, consume the vast majority of the battery juice. That said, if I set wifi to sleep when the display is off and shut down mobile data, the battery life and deep sleep % increases dramatically.
Hope this helps a little...
Best to all,
R
Wakelock detector app
gregsarg said:
Gents....
In the quest for battery life and RAM enhancements, and the fact that many applications use wake locks to keep themselves active in the RAM.....is there an easy method to identify which apps contain wake locks ?
I can see active apps easy enough, but does that state simply mean a wake lock is present ??
A little info from a dev or two would be much appreciated.......g
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can check "Wakelock Detector" app which is available in Google Play
It has a simple UI which shows detail list of acquired wakelocks per each application
and as you mentioned, it shows active running apps on the top, which might have wakelock present at the moment.