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.
Hi,
I'm just letting everyone know that I have just pushed an update to my automation app MacroDroid http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1694335 to add Android Wear support.
You can read about the functionality on my blog post here: http://macro-droid.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/introducing-macrodroid-wear.html
This is a first release, so I strongly welcome all feedback and comments!
Cheers,
Jamie
Very impressive app ?, seriously quality app.
I need more time to test out all the different stuff in your app but so far everything works great whit my lg watch .
This is using 60mb of memory for the macrodroid process alone. Seems very high.
This is on a Moto G. Compared to Tasker which is running at the same time and only uses 12mb.
I have deleted all macrodroid profiles so it shouldn't have had anything running, but the memory use was still high.
Cossack101 said:
This is using 60mb of memory for the macrodroid process alone. Seems very high.
This is on a Moto G. Compared to Tasker which is running at the same time and only uses 12mb.
I have deleted all macrodroid profiles so it shouldn't have had anything running, but the memory use was still high.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're right that does sound very high, I've got a bunch of macros configured and I'm at 19MB. Most likely you've hit a memory leak in the UI and the UI pages are still hanging around in memory. It can be hard to catch all cases as there are many many UI paths, but I'll certainly do some more memory profiling to see if I can spot anything naughty hanging around. If you kill the MacroDroid process and restart does the memory return to something sane for you?
Cheers,
Jamie
I killed the app and wiped the macros. Started again with only 1 simple low battery warning macro. It stayed at 15mb all day.
I just created a new location macro and it jumped to 38mb and stayed there.
I switched macrodroid off and restarted and it is now back to 17mb.
Cossack101 said:
I killed the app and wiped the macros. Started again with only 1 simple low battery warning macro. It stayed at 15mb all day.
I just created a new location macro and it jumped to 38mb and stayed there.
I switched macrodroid off and restarted and it is now back to 17mb.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great thanks for the info. I've just had to move to Google Maps V2 and changed a load of UI, so I'm guessing I've got a little bug in there where I'm not releasing something. Hopefully I can get this squashed for the next update.
Cheers,
Jamie
I am trying to automate the screen intensity.
The worst thing about my Gear Live is battery live, if I am inside love to find a way to always have the screen minimum and the best I could do is have a manual macro to change the screen intensity.
I wonder if I can design a macro that every time the watch gets a notification the screen goes to 5, when it dims it goes back to 1.
Why not set the brightness to low when connected to WiFi and high when disconnected.
It should mean you always have a dim watch when indoors
AstroDigital said:
I am trying to automate the screen intensity.
The worst thing about my Gear Live is battery live, if I am inside love to find a way to always have the screen minimum and the best I could do is have a manual macro to change the screen intensity.
I wonder if I can design a macro that every time the watch gets a notification the screen goes to 5, when it dims it goes back to 1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could do something like on every incoming notification (using the incoming notification trigger), you set the brightness high and have a sleep before next (e.g 30 seconds) and set the brightness low again. Not perfect but might be of some use.
What I really wanted to do was find a way so that I could configure the Always on screen setting via the action, but after digging down into the code I'm pretty certain this would only be possible on a rooted Android Wear device and I don't really want to go adding 'root only' features for Wear just yet. Hopefully Google will open up this API at some point because as you point out battery life is critical on these devices.
Cossack101 said:
Why not set the brightness to low when connected to WiFi and high when disconnected.
It should mean you always have a dim watch when indoors
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not use WiFi on my cell phone, just LTE data at least 95% of the time.
---------- Post added at 05:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:39 PM ----------
UndeadCretin said:
You could do something like on every incoming notification (using the incoming notification trigger), you set the brightness high and have a sleep before next (e.g 30 seconds) and set the brightness low again. Not perfect but might be of some use.
What I really wanted to do was find a way so that I could configure the Always on screen setting via the action, but after digging down into the code I'm pretty certain this would only be possible on a rooted Android Wear device and I don't really want to go adding 'root only' features for Wear just yet. Hopefully Google will open up this API at some point because as you point out battery life is critical on these devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I set the app to listen for notifications it looks like it will disable much more than I would like to be disabled.
Manage Accessibliity, MacroDroid
-air gesture, air view interaction control, assistant menu, multi window, direct pen input, palm motion, one-handed operation will all be turned off....
I always lost "Jess" my customer voice synthesizer
Some of these I will miss on my Note 3 but I am trying it,
Toggle on Notification
Android Wear set the brightness to 6
Sleep before next action 20 seconds
Android Wear set the brightness to 1
If it works right notifications will crank the display for 20 seconds and then dim the display (may cut it back to 10 or 5 seconds)
You know I like your app, tried the other macro app .... (can not remember its name)
Found it too complicated..... Thanks for the tip.
AstroDigital said:
I do not use WiFi on my cell phone, just LTE data at least 95% of the time.
---------- Post added at 05:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:39 PM ----------
If I set the app to listen for notifications it looks like it will disable much more than I would like to be disabled.
Manage Accessibliity, MacroDroid
-air gesture, air view interaction control, assistant menu, multi window, direct pen input, palm motion, one-handed operation will all be turned off....
I always lost "Jess" my customer voice synthesizer
Some of these I will miss on my Note 3 but I am trying it,
Toggle on Notification
Android Wear set the brightness to 6
Sleep before next action 20 seconds
Android Wear set the brightness to 1
If it works right notifications will crank the display for 20 seconds and then dim the display (may cut it back to 10 or 5 seconds)
You know I like your app, tried the other macro app .... (can not remember its name)
Found it too complicated..... Thanks for the tip.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've no idea why these should be turned off by enabling MacroDroids accessibility options, but I don't have any Samsung devices so I'm afraid I can't really look into it at the moment.
UndeadCretin said:
I've no idea why these should be turned off by enabling MacroDroids accessibility options, but I don't have any Samsung devices so I'm afraid I can't really look into it at the moment.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If the macro works may not care much about the disabled stuff.
May want to put constraint in, 5am do not need the watch display cranked.
I bought a Honor8 a few days ago and while its a great phone, one of the best that was in my hand really, but truly annoys me that the brightess falls randomly.
As i read the threads about this problem it made me sad that as it seems Huawei doesn't really solves the problem, maybe they doesn't care about it, or just cant solve it, who knows...
I tried to search apps for brightness rate fix, or something like that, but didn't find a solution yet.
Maybe someone could write an app for this? Somekind of a background app that you set up a brightness rate and when it falls it automaticly takes it back to the level that fixed?
It would be better than nothing really.
If I understand correctly, you need an app that could adjust brightness based on the available light. And your complain is that stock EMUI doesn't manages it efficiently.
Well no problem, you can use Tasker to achieve this. Even though Tasker is paid, it is well worth the money. If you go with Tasker, reply here and I will send you a profile that could manage your brightness levels more efficiently.
hackslash said:
If I understand correctly, you need an app that could adjust brightness based on the available light. And your complain is that stock EMUI doesn't manages it efficiently.
Well no problem, you can use Tasker to achieve this. Even though Tasker is paid, it is well worth the money. If you go with Tasker, reply here and I will send you a profile that could manage your brightness levels more efficiently.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you send me a profile please?
Matthias
hackslash said:
If I understand correctly, you need an app that could adjust brightness based on the available light. And your complain is that stock EMUI doesn't manages it efficiently.
Well no problem, you can use Tasker to achieve this. Even though Tasker is paid, it is well worth the money. If you go with Tasker, reply here and I will send you a profile that could manage your brightness levels more efficiently.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, my english is not the best.
Not really, it's nothing to do with the available light or tasking. I do NOT use auto brightness, NEVER, so it should be on a fix rate until i manually adjust to another rate.
But when you start Chrome -for example- the system takes the screen's brightness down by ~20%. Sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it do every 3 minutes when you use chrome. You can take it back in the system MANUALLY, but it'll take it down again randomly, nobody knows why.
So the app i would need that for example: i fix the screen brightness rate to 100% in the app.
Then when the system takes it off the brightness to ~80% -> the app detects it, and automatically takes it back to the rate i fixed in the app before. And should do it in the background without a question or anything.
I've noticed that no matter what setting I have it on, my tablet (M5 8.4) automatically lowers the screen brightness in Chrome and YouTube, but more noticeably in Chrome.
Any way to disable this?
Have you checked the setting menus?
Using Firefox might be a solution.
Also, Youtube in FF has background playback as long as you are using a desktop user agent.
thref23 said:
Have you checked the setting menus?
Using Firefox might be a solution.
Also, Youtube in FF has background playback as long as you are using a desktop user agent.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've checked every possible setting, and read online everywhere, but to no avail. It also dims in Firefox. It dims as soon as you go into the app. After an online search, I found many Huawei owners with EMUI 8.0 having this issue. There is one solution, but it requires root and I don't want to root my device after having it for a few hours.
Funny. Would love a solution as well as this is rather annoying
Do you guys have auto brightness turned on or off?
I never really experienced this issue, but I did observe strange brightness behavior before I began to keep auto brightness permanently enabled.
Doing a quick search, I saw one person say to turn auto brightness on, I saw one person say to make sure animations aren't disabled in dev options, some say unclick 'increase readability in sunlight' in dev options. I personally wonder if the stock launcher (which I don't use) maybe is set to override the brightness level.
thref23 said:
Do you guys have auto brightness turned on or off?
I never really experienced this issue, but I did observe strange brightness behavior before I began to keep auto brightness permanently enabled.
Doing a quick search, I saw one person say to turn auto brightness on, I saw one person say to make sure animations aren't disabled in dev options, some say unclick 'increase readability in sunlight' in dev options. I personally wonder if the stock launcher (which I don't use) maybe is set to override the brightness level.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I somehow doubt that. I am using Nova Pro and am experiencing some weird behavior when attached to the Keyboard ... (the dimming function mentioned here is, what I believe, the erroneous function, as it works quite nice when not attached to the keyboard ...
All "your" suggestions do not work - I find this "function" somewhat annoying, even without the keyboard-thing ...
There is one solution, but it requires root and I don't want to root my device after having it for a few hours.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
may I get a link for the root-solution? I'd like to have a look at it ...
SO I forgot to mention: M5 Pro!
kev1807 said:
I somehow doubt that. I am using Nova Pro and am experiencing some weird behavior when attached to the Keyboard ... (the dimming function mentioned here is, what I believe, the erroneous function, as it works quite nice when not attached to the keyboard ...
All "your" suggestions do not work - I find this "function" somewhat annoying, even without the keyboard-thing ...
may I get a link for the root-solution? I'd like to have a look at it ...
SO I forgot to mention: M5 Pro!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I went through with it and rooted it. I tried the fix, and... it worked! After you're rooted, simply freeze the system process (I used Titanium Backup) called PowerGenius, reboot and no more forced-auto brightness dimming.
xKevin said:
Well, I went through with it and rooted it. I tried the fix, and... it worked! After you're rooted, simply freeze the system process (I used Titanium Backup) called PowerGenius, reboot and no more forced-auto brightness dimming.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hmhm. I was quite sure it was a System process - since the "bug" (dunno whether you read the thread on keyboard and brightness ...) appears with the system-icon when in Desktop-Mode ...
Great. there is a fix for this. now I need a non-root fix ... :-/
Yes, try the app ilux. Let that control brightness.
Steffe89 said:
Yes, try the app ilux. Let that control brightness.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have a link to this app? I can't seem to find anything relevant when searching for ilux.
Just disable "power genius" this has worked for me. without root. No More auto dimming.
Disabling Power Genius will also get rid of issues involving bluetooth music playback, and will prevent apps like Google Maps from getting killed off semi-aggressively in the background (i.e. so when you map out driving directions you won't have to reenter the address as you get close to your destination).
Quick note: you have to reboot after disabling Power Genius. Merely disabling it won't immediately change anything.
Up until now I thought a reboot would bring the "wonderful" feature back ...
How comes that you mention a reboot is needed?
How do you disable it? I can only do a force stop
I'm not sure how to disable it without root (I imagine adb might work). With root, most use Titanium Backup to freeze it. I'm using Service Disabler to disable the associated services instead. Service Disabler is awesome if you are rooted, underrated app and great for EMUI because, for example, you can disable individual parts of the Tablet Manager app without breaking the features you want.
You might not need to reboot. When I initially froze it using Xposed Edge Pro, but didn't reboot, it didn't change anything for me. Could have been due to Xposed Edge Pro.
https://www.xda-developers.com/uninstall-carrier-oem-bloatware-without-root-access/
scott.eden said:
Just disable "power genius" this has worked for me. without root. No More auto dimming.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Was there any negative outcome from disabling power genius?
krisu253 said:
Was there any negative outcome from disabling power genius?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
None for me.
thref23 said:
Disabling Power Genius will also get rid of issues involving bluetooth music playback, and will prevent apps like Google Maps from getting killed off semi-aggressively in the background (i.e. so when you map out driving directions you won't have to reenter the address as you get close to your destination).
Quick note: you have to reboot after disabling Power Genius. Merely disabling it won't immediately change anything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cannot find Power Genius?
I can confirm following the above article will allow you to remove the power genius package from the Mediapad M5 8.4 on EUMI 9.1 without root.
Thank you sooooo much... You can't believe how annoying this was. No need to even reboot either and it doesn't return if you do.
Now I just need a way to too keep the custom 740DPI after reboot and this tablet will be perfect
Xiaomi Mi 9
Battery life saving tips
- Discussion -
Presenting a few tips based off personal experience that can help squeeze out those extra few minutes/hours of battery life from our device.
Please note:
This is not a science and what works for some may not work for others. There are many factors involved in having good battery life and one person’s 1 SOT (screen on time) may mean completely different usage to another’s. For example, 1 hour of internet browsing will of course be less battery-intensive than 1 hour of processor-hungry gaming. So bear this in mind…
I am running the weekly Xiaomi.EU rom (9.4.11 at the time of posting) and so some of these settings/features may not be available on other versions of MIUI.
Some of the below will require. Some users prefer not (or can’t for whichever reason) to root and so you’ll just have to skip those if so.
Lastly, this thread is intended on being a work in progress and I welcome comments/suggestions/additions on the content. These are the settings that I adhere to which I believe, as well as most users, which are useful to aid battery life. Some tips may help out significantly, some may just offer a slight increase. Some may not even help at all and may just be placebo!
If something doesn’t work for you or you greatly disagree, let’s discuss it…
Network settings + roaming
There are various settings which are known to help out with the notorious Cell Standby drain etc. such as:
Preferred network type (found either by Settings – SIM cards & mobile networks – Sim Card Settings - Preferred network type OR by dialling *#*#4636#*#* via your phone app). Users in the EU find that setting the network type to GSM/WCDMA/LTE or WCDMA/LTE (on both sims) can help stop the device look for network frequencies that it’ll never find, such as the TD-SCDMA etc. You can Google what frequencies your network provider uses which can help you decide.
VoLTE (Settings – SIM cards & mobile networks) – there may be some debate over this one, but it can be said by having VoLTE enabled, whilst calls will be clearer, it will use 4G which is that bit more power hungry. Therefore some testing may be preferred if you’re a frequent caller. I personally have this on without and haven’t tested it fully, but I’m also not a huge caller.
Make calls using WLAN (Settings – SIM cards & mobile networks) – by using WiFi for calls this should be more battery efficient than using mobile network data.
Data roaming (Settings – SIM cards & mobile networks) – I tend to keep Overseas data roaming off when I’m in my home country with the thought that it prevents the device from looking for networks it won’t find. As for National roaming, I have this kept off too normally as I don’t travel around much generally, so again to prevent it searching for alternative networks when it already has a strong signal.
System settings
Here we have several system settings/features that may be used on a day-to-day basis but may not be needed to be enabled at all times. Generally speaking, having something turned on all the time yields benefits for convenience but at the cost of battery life, as seen below.
Wifi / Bluetooth – both of these can be regarded as similar, in the sense that by having it enabled all the time it can connect automatically without your input. For example, if I leave my WiFi on when I leave my home it’ll automatically reconnect when I come back. Great! However, throughout the entire day if it doesn’t find a known network it will constantly be looking for one, draining battery. Not so great. Therefore if the convenience of not having to turn your WiFi on/off is your preference, then leave it enabled. Though if you know you’re not going to be connected to a network, then some manual control may be preferred. The same rules apply for Bluetooth devices.
WiFi & Bluetooth Scanning (Settings – Additional Settings – Privacy – Location – Scanning) – this can be a big drain I have found and is usually activated when you have High Accuracy location mode activated. Again, it comes with its benefits of providing higher accuracy, but with some battery cost. By disabling both WLAN and Bluetooth scanning, extra battery life can be saved. There are some apps I’ve found that force you to enabled High Accuracy mode, so just remember to switch off these scanning settings once again if so.
GPS & location accuracy (Settings – Additional Settings – Privacy – Location – Location mode) – I personally don’t mind just using Device only and keeping this on all the time. As whilst like with Bluetooth as mentioned above, if I know I’m not connect to my Bluetooth speaker for example, I at least like to open Google Maps and it find me straight away rather than toggling GPS on etc. Personal preference of course, as with all of these…
NFC (Settings – More) – as with WiFi and Bluetooth settings, if you’re not using it and don’t mind the manual toggling on/off as needed, then disable and do just that.
Hotspot (Settings – Portable Hotspot) – as above really, as this could be a big drainer if left on. Luckily there is a setting (Turn off hotspot automatically) which can help with this.
Display
A massively subjective aspect of using your device and only you know what you’d rather have and what you;d rather be looking at. Just as we know, a higher brightness level will result in high battery drain and the screen can be the biggest drainer of the all, so choose wisely if you’re trying to conserve some juice.
Screen brightness (Settings – Display – Brightness level) – I personally have it set to manually controlled, as I find the auto-brightness not to be very smooth, at around 20-30% indoors and perhaps up to 100% outdoors. I believe that manually controlling brightness preserves battery as it of course doesn’t use the ambient sensor and brightness remains the same, rather than jumping up and down reacting to light levels.
Ambient display (Settings – Display – Ambient display) – functionality of having the ‘always on display’, but at the cost of some battery life. There is the scheduling that you can use to help with this, but personal preference whether you want this on or not. I personally don’t, though at times I’m tempted to given the notification light, for me, isn’t that practical.
Contrast and colours (Settings – Display –Contrast & colours) – it can be said that Standard will be the most battery friendly, Increased Contrast drawing that bit more power due to the increase in contrast and Automatic Contrast using the most given it will use the sensor to optimise contrast based off available light. I personally have it on Increased contrast and I’m happy enough.
Double tap/raise to wake (Settings – Display – System) – with both of these sensors will be used for the convenience of tapping your screen and raising your phone in order to wake the device. This may be handy, but be mindful that such convenience will come at the cost of the sensors running using up some battery.
Themes
Another subjective aspect of your device is you can make it look. The suggestion here is for black themes to be applied where possible as on our screens black images use less power, as noted by Google. Though indeed black theming isn't for everyone so this suggestion, as with all of them, is purely up to you.
Night mode (Settings - Additional settings - Developer options - Night Mode) - enable night mode (Always on) to turn on MIUI system-wide black/dark theme, such as the dialer etc. *If you don't know how to activate Developer options, see here
Substratum and Swift Black - I highly recommend using this theme with the help of Substratum, though indeed only available to rooted users. Be sure to follow all the required steps to get Substratum working, such as installing the Magisk module etc.
Battery & Performance
Here are the various system battery settings which aim to preserve battery. Some perhaps more useful than others!
Adaptive Battery (Settings – Battery & Performance – Use Adaptive Battery) – this claims to limit battery for apps that you don’t use often, which I have enabled, though as will be seen below some further manual control can be done.
Battery saver / background app restrictions (Settings – Battery & Performance – App Battery Saver – Choose apps) – here you can select per-app a choice of 4 background restriction settings. It’s time consuming, but it’s worth going through each app (note: use the 3 dots in the top right corner to Show system apps) and choose the restriction settings, if any, to be applied. Generally speaking, if you want notifications to come through from it (like WhatsApp) or you don’t want it being shut down in the background (like Spotify) then choose No restrictions. If you’re not so bothered about it and want the system to lay down the law on battery saving, choose Restrict background activity. There are settings in-between, like Battery Saver and Restrict background apps, but I’ll leave you to play around with those ones.
Battery Optimization (Settings – Battery & Performance) - this has several options to save battery ranging from adjusting screen brightness, turning on Battery Saver, turning off GPS etc. This can be used however I prefer to manually configure the settings, so this will be up to you…
Scenes (Settings – Battery & Performance) – here is a ‘smart scene’ called sleep mode which apparently will detect when you’re sleeping and close down apps, restrict NFC etc. I personally have this disabled as again I manually adjust such settings
Auto-start (Settings – Manage apps - *select app* - Autostart) – another useful option is to go through each app you have and disable the autostart, which could provide additional battery savings preventing apps from starting up in the background
Debloating / removing system apps
Lots of system resources can be freed up which can result in added performance and battery life. See the extremely helpful thread by @SirTAVARES who created the Debloat Applications (No-Root) thread.
I personally have used the above guide to remove a lot of pre-included apps, even on the somewhat pre-debloated Xiaomi.eu rom. Without root you can use ADB to remove apps and they won't reappear when you update your rom. They will appear back if you perform a factory reset, as they are not fully uninstalled.
Furthermore, with root you can remove the app from not only the user area but system area too. Check out the thread for more info on this.
Lastly, apps like System App Remover Pro can fully uninstall system apps, with the option to use the Recycle Bin option should you wish to restore
Battery draining apps and alternatives
It can be said that some apps are notorious for being big battery drainers, such as the official Facebook app. I’m not a huge user of some of the other apps, like Snapchat, Twitter etc. and to be honest I generally favour webpage versions of some things for example I don’t have the Amazon shopping app, I just use the web page version, saved as a bookmark on my home screen. The general tip here is if you are going to use an app, be sure to go through its settings and adjust notification settings/frequency. For example, I do have the Sky News app however set it to not notify me of news, the same for Yahoo weather. So tweak accordingly. If you have some good alternative app suggestions then I’ll be happy to include some here, but for now I’ll just start with…
Facebook – I use Folio for Facebook & Messenger which is a nice lightweight 'Facebook wrapper' in that it uses the Facebook webpage as the basis for the app. It also has a functional messenger included so no need for a separate app.
Battery monitoring apps - apps like GSam Battery Monitor and BetterBatteryStats can be useful in detecting the high draining apps, so could be worth using one of those in an effort to identify them.
Magisk modules
There are many Magisk modules out there which aim to solve battery. I only use one, which I’ll list below, however please feel free to make suggestions for inclusion in this section. I know that there are some like Greenify, Amplify (when using Xposed) etc. that could squeeze even more juice out of the device!
Universal GMS Doze - helps put Google Play Services to sleep to save some battery. I use this with no issues/impact on Gmail, Play Store etc.
Other system settings
Sync (Settings – Sync) – as with per app settings for notifications/sync frequency etc. settings, it’s worth checking here to see what apps are auto-syncing data. You can turn them all off (I believe) via the Auto-sync data toggle, or check them out individually via this menu setting. *Note: I have removed Mi Cloud etc. and so I don’t have any of that running in the background, but that’s up to you.
Vibration (Settings – Sound & Vibration) – now this is likely a very small potential for some battery savings but still worth noting. You can adjust the Vibrate on tap option ranging from Off/Light/Medium/Strong, which I’m sure someone who has it set to Strong will be using that tiny bit more power than someone who has it set to Off. Your call….
Permissions (Settings - Permissions - Permissions) - it's worth going through here to monitor per-app what permissions are being used. Some apps may not like being prevented using certain things and it may break some functionality, but it's an extra method in reducing potential usage, such as hardware usage, for an extra saving. For example, an app may try and use GPS each and every time you open it or even try running it in the background. If you're willing to, preventing it from doing so may help save some battery.
Authorization & revocation (Settings - Additional settings - Authorization & revocation) - here you can revoke some access from apps. I have stuff like Security, Downloads, Battery and performance and Settings listed here, all of which I've revoked with no noticeable negative consequences.
Fingerprint icon (Settings - Lock screen & password - Manage fingerprints) - another very small tweak for a potential very small saving. The setting is Show fingerprint icon when the screen is off (which is present on Xiaomi.eu 9.4.11) and by disabling will prevent the icon showing. As the icon is displayed by the screen, by turning it off it'll naturally save the power it takes to light the screen up, which as you may have noticed, it lights up with the tiniest movement of the device! I keep it on as I like it and battery doesn't seem to be greatly impacted - but this thread is about squeezing as much juice as possible, right?!
Recents and 'Clear all' - not a system setting but a little thing to do, is to open up the Recents menu and use the 'X' button to close all running apps, or swipe individual to close certain ones from running in the background. Now, it is the case the apps stored in the RAM aren't necessarily using battery, but this is still useful to stop apps that are running and active. Definitely a debatable one, as the argument against doing this is that it then uses battery to reopen the app, so perhaps just test it out and see for yourself.
Last but not least....
Now this last little tip of mine is certainly one that can be debated, but I do it nonetheless...
Remember, none of this is advice as such, it's just what I do to keep myself sane in knowing/believing (philosophical debate here?!) that I've done all I can to maximise battery life.
What I like to do is when installing a rom have the phone charged to 100% before doing so. This originates from the days of believing that batteries need to be calibrated. There is definitely lots of research that states it may not be needed and a simple Google search can reveal research into this, but it's something I like to do anyway.
So essentially my method regarding this, needed or not, is:
Charge phone to 100%
Update rom
Use phone until it switches off at 0%
Charge phone fully to 100% without interruption
I'm not stating this is needed, it's just what I do. Take it or leave it! I'm aware that there is science behind not allowing phone batteries to die at 0% in order to prolong the life of it, but again, it's just what I do and it works for me.
Your call!
That is it for now. As mentioned I highly welcome your comments and suggestions for adding to this thread so please do let me know if any questions etc.I'm purposefully not showing my SOT/battery stats as they won't be useful to anyone - the above tips are here for that!
Nice thread.. we need something like this. Thanks
marko94 said:
Nice thread.. we need something like this. Thanks
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Thanks, let's make it the best it can be
Great post. I haven't used substratum since my latest phone HTC one m8.. How did u installed it? With magisk?
Thanks for this extensive write up....
sakaki14567 said:
Great post. I haven't used substratum since my latest phone HTC one m8.. How did u installed it? With magisk?
Click to expand...
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Yeah, substratum via play store and there's a magisk module too. Follow its guidance and let us know if any questions
Many thx for all this advice ?
Thank you. I would like to see more ideas and for this thread to get pinned and updated for more tips
hardtheory said:
Many thx for all this advice ?
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Ahmad Shawawreh said:
Thank you. I would like to see more ideas and for this thread to get pinned and updated for more tips
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Enjoy guys.
Let me know if you feel any difference and if any questions/additions
cd993 said:
Yeah, substratum via play store and there's a magisk module too. Follow its guidance and let us know if any questions
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Compiled everything, except the overlay of android system (it remains blue accent for some reason) phone overlay and system ui.
Thank you for your advice
With all you have done for your setting, Could you share us the battery performance please?
Tharitsaivet said:
Thank you for your advice
With all you have done for your setting, Could you share us the battery performance please?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As it as been say, the performance would be pretty different from different user (wifi, Bluetooth usage, nfc, ect) . I can give you an example, I done almost all optimization that has been given in the thread. I have Bluetooth activated all the time cause of my amazfit cor.
If I'm at home an only use wifi and if I often use my phone with 25 % brightness I can have 10 hours sot. But in real life use, with bad mobile network, usage of mobile data, phone call, screen at 100 % on outdoor use, I can only have 4h30 of sot.
Dépend of the usage and what you done with the phone. Personally, if I have a smartphone, it's to use use it. If you desactivaye all network, keep battery saver, keep your screen at 20 %, buy a Nokia 3310 ?
hardtheory said:
As it as been say, the performance would be pretty different from different user (wifi, Bluetooth usage, nfc, ect) . I can give you an example, I done almost all optimization that has been given in the thread. I have Bluetooth activated all the time cause of my amazfit cor.
If I'm at home an only use wifi and if I often use my phone with 25 % brightness I can have 10 hours sot. But in real life use, with bad mobile network, usage of mobile data, phone call, screen at 100 % on outdoor use, I can only have 4h30 of sot.
Dépend of the usage and what you done with the phone. Personally, if I have a smartphone, it's to use use it. If you desactivaye all network, keep battery saver, keep your screen at 20 %, buy a Nokia 3310
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From what you said, it's seem to be good for standby draining. As I normally use the phone when I have the break from 9am to 6pm only 2 hrs screen on, My current phone battery are lower than 40% in the evening.
Tharitsaivet said:
Thank you for your advice
With all you have done for your setting, Could you share us the battery performance please?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hardtheory said:
As it as been say, the performance would be pretty different from different user (wifi, Bluetooth usage, nfc, ect) . I can give you an example, I done almost all optimization that has been given in the thread. I have Bluetooth activated all the time cause of my amazfit cor.
If I'm at home an only use wifi and if I often use my phone with 25 % brightness I can have 10 hours sot. But in real life use, with bad mobile network, usage of mobile data, phone call, screen at 100 % on outdoor use, I can only have 4h30 of sot.
Dépend of the usage and what you done with the phone. Personally, if I have a smartphone, it's to use use it. If you desactivaye all network, keep battery saver, keep your screen at 20 %, buy a Nokia 3310 ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tharitsaivet said:
From what you said, it's seem to be good for standby draining. As I normally use the phone when I have the break from 9am to 6pm only 2 hrs screen on, My current phone battery are lower than 40% in the evening.
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Click to collapse
OK guys here is some stats for you, see attached. Been off charge 21 hours with almost 5 hours SOT down to around 40%.
Going strong!
Hi, also running xiaomi.eu but can't find the screen of your last screenshoot. Mine under battery and performance looks completely difderent
Sent from my OnePlus 5T using XDA Labs
tbv2005 said:
Hi, also running xiaomi.eu but can't find the screen of your last screenshoot. Mine under battery and performance looks completely difderent
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I use Nova launcher which has that additional battery info screen
cd993 said:
I use Nova launcher which has that additional battery info screen
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I'm using Nova too, but I've never seen that screen before. Where can I find it / activate it?
janvandusschoten said:
I'm using Nova too, but I've never seen that screen before. Where can I find it / activate it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can add it to the home screen as a shortcut:
Long press empty space on home screen - add widget - shortcut activities (drag that to home screen) - Settings - Battery and Performance (PowerUsageSummary)
Then you'll have a shortcut to this battery info screen
10hrs39mins, best yet! On WiFi all day just light chrome/xda/reddit etc.
This is on latest RevolutionOS rom
Has somebody noticed that email apps (like bluemail, gmail...) make the phone never sleep totally ?
I often have 15 hours "held awake" in my gsam battery stats! [emoji33].
If I kill the email apps then my phone sleeps MUCH, better.
I tried several mail apps..same result.
Is it because of Android 9 or Xiaomi?
On my other devices (Android 7 and 8) I don't have this problem with the same apps...
Envoyé de mon MI 9 en utilisant Tapatalk