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Is there an application that could turn GPS ON or OFF manually in our HTC Advantage?
cktlcmd said:
Is there an application that could turn GPS ON or OFF manually in our HTC Advantage?
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Usually, this is a function within the GPS application itself. In many of them, there is an option that allows you to decide whether GPS should still continue to run when you switch off the device. In many situation, I find it sensible to leave the GPS running while the device is switched off, so that you still know where you are while switching off the device to conserve power. If this is not what you want, you can always choose to switch the GPS off.
eaglesteve said:
Usually, this is a function within the GPS application itself. In many of them, there is an option that allows you to decide whether GPS should still continue to run when you switch off the device. In many situation, I find it sensible to leave the GPS running while the device is switched off, so that you still know where you are while switching off the device to conserve power. If this is not what you want, you can always choose to switch the GPS off.
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I see your point. I was a little concerned how it will affect battery life if left ON all the time.
cktlcmd said:
I see your point. I was a little concerned how it will affect battery life if left ON all the time.
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Glad that you do.
It is exactly because we try to conserve power that we allow switching off the device while keeping the GPS running. GPS applications, if not closed, are usually useless if the GPS is not running.
Since the GPS is a passive system I mean only "listen" don't emit signal the power used by that chip is a few even if it's connected.
The people argue that the GPS drains the battery but that is only half true. What really drains the battery is not the GPS itself is the program (Tomtom as an example) running in the CPU and the screen being on for long time. As I told you since the GPS chip only "listen" for signal shouldn't consume too much.
This is not the case of GSM, Wifi and Bluetooth and their associated chips. Those three systems emit signal draining the battery.
Best regards,
mahjong
P.S.: Sorry about my english... I hope you understand what I'm saying.
mahjong said:
Since the GPS is a passive system I mean only "listen" don't emit signal the power used by that chip is a few even if it's connected.
The people argue that the GPS drains the battery but that is only half true. What really drains the battery is not the GPS itself is the program (Tomtom as an example) running in the CPU and the screen being on for long time. As I told you since the GPS chip only "listen" for signal shouldn't consume too much.
This is not the case of GSM, Wifi and Bluetooth and their associated chips. Those three systems emit signal draining the battery.
Best regards,
mahjong
P.S.: Sorry about my english... I hope you understand what I'm saying.
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Thanks. It's very clear to me. I find this to be very true. When I use my mobile golf scorer, after four hours of use, it uses less than 10% of the battery although GPS is on throughout. The difference is that I switch on and off the device between use.
But is there a way to switch on GPS and/or to monitor its status? Telenav seems to have troubles finding the GPS at times...
Thanks everyone. This thread actually answered all my questions. This is my first GPS phone, so I'm a newbie with regards to GPS.
Hi All,
I haven't seen this as an issue reported by othyers.
I graduated from an Artemis, which had good battery life.
My Orbit 2 runs down "quickly" (I know this isn't scientific), and the battery cover gets warm when using Tom Tom, for example, and the battery is down to 60% after an hour or so.
I feel it is not normal - any thoughts?
well, though TomTom sucks more energy from the battery, I don't think it's usual that the case gets hot. Mine doesn't. I would check for warrenty.
You could find out if the heat comes from the battery pack or the device itself. Then you might solve the problem using a new battery pack.
If you use TomTom offroad a lot you might me interested in the advanced battery pack with more "mA" which includes a double think battery and a bigger backplate.
SpiggyTopes said:
Hi All,
I haven't seen this as an issue reported by othyers.
I graduated from an Artemis, which had good battery life.
My Orbit 2 runs down "quickly" (I know this isn't scientific), and the battery cover gets warm when using Tom Tom, for example, and the battery is down to 60% after an hour or so.
I feel it is not normal - any thoughts?
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Check that Wifi power save mode is on "best battery".
Battery on my HTC touch cruise drains after a little more than two hours of using GPS.
SpiggyTopes said:
Hi All,
I haven't seen this as an issue reported by othyers.
I graduated from an Artemis, which had good battery life.
My Orbit 2 runs down "quickly" (I know this isn't scientific), and the battery cover gets warm when using Tom Tom, for example, and the battery is down to 60% after an hour or so.
I feel it is not normal - any thoughts?
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Click to collapse
Are you using the official ROM or have you installed a cooked one?
Reason for asking is that I've read other posts where people have had batteries running down quickly after flashing cooked ROM. Way to fix that was to do a hard-reset immedialely after flashing the ROM.
The Polaris will get a bit hot if it's working hard for a long period of time.
Thanks so much for the replies - I feel better about it now!
3g also makes phone hot, if you're not using video calls turn 3g off it saves alot of battery.
You can't reduce the blacklight during using TomTom. So the battery life will be more than 3 hours in TomTom navigation.
If you are using HSDPA al lot..than it gets verry hot to.
And like other also told..wifi use is a big drainer and heater to!
sadax said:
3g also makes phone hot, if you're not using video calls turn 3g off it saves a lot of battery.
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Thanks for that.
I can see how to switch off HSPDA, but not 3g; sometimes the phone goes mad jumping between edge, 3g and HSPDA.
How do I switch of 3g?
In phone settings you can set the radio to GSM only.
Just lanch the phone app and then choose Menu->Options.
You can then access to the Network or radio Tab in order to desactivate 3G.
No matter with this setting if you don't use MMS or Mobile internet.
@lber said:
How do I switch of 3g?
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Settings -> phone -> band -> select your network type -> GSM
Brilliant, many thanks.
I understand the effects of leaving 4G, BT, and even 3G for that matter, ON can consume more battery life. However, what's the consensus on GPS. I have it OFF and turn it ON every time I'm using Google Navigation, etc. However, this is getting quite annoying. Will GPS really turn "off" itself if an application is not using it? I heard that the HTC Sense Weather widget will use the GPS for its refreshing and just that alone will affect battery life.
So what is the final verdict? I feel we've had plenty of time to test our theories by now.
akarol said:
I understand the effects of leaving 4G, BT, and even 3G for that matter, ON can consume more battery life. However, what's the consensus on GPS. I have it OFF and turn it ON every time I'm using Google Navigation, etc. However, this is getting quite annoying. Will GPS really turn "off" itself if an application is not using it? I heard that the HTC Sense Weather widget will use the GPS for its refreshing and just that alone will affect battery life.
So what is the final verdict? I feel we've had plenty of time to test our theories by now.
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It says in Settings > Location > Use GPS Satellites "Uncheck to conserve battery", so I have to believe it will consume more battery when left on.
I leave it on, and get better than a full day of use from phone.
Only time when it flipped out was when I installed Yelp.
I was in my basement, and my battery went from 100% to 15% in 3 hours.
Uninstalled Yelp. Problem gone.
I was definitely under the impression that gps only used battery when it was being utilized. Hmmm I keep mine on all the time, so maybe its time to turn it off and see if there is a difference.
Sent from my EVO from the Apple Store.
GPS ON should only use more battery when an application that needs GPS asks for it. Android is really good about showing you an icon in the taskbar when the GPS chip is actually used.
I definitely leave GPS on since its only really "ON" and being used when the icon appears at the top of the screen. Otherwise its just available for us when its on.
The term used for the button should really be "Available" or "Unavailable" rather than on and off.
If your wondering about battery safe go into settings and undetermined battery it will show ways absorbing the most power. Believe it or not the how doesn't consume that much
sent from the EVO while punching an iPhone user!
really ? ofcourse it does
I doubt it consumes more than a fraction of your battery if left on. For that reason, I can't imagine having to manually turn GPS on and off throughout the day - complete waste of time. Even if it chews 5% of your battery in the course of a day(and I doubt it's that much) it's worth leaving on, unless you truly never use it.
Normally I leave home with a full charge and come back 10 hrs later with about 15% battery remaining. I won’t break down my type of usage but it’s a general mix of voice and data. The phone is in my hand, in use, about 1hr and 30min per day with the screen on about 45min.
Today I ended my day using the phone about 1 extra hour (incl. 30 min Bluetooth phone call) and had 48% battery remaining. On a normal day I would have never even had gotten to the 30min phone call before it was dead.
So, if you do the math, the battery life today was roughly double of what it has been for the past 2 weeks.
I made one small change ... I turned off the GPS. Yes, I know, the GPS is only supposed to be running if a program that requires it is also running. I think that is false. In settings, locations the only feature I’ve ever had turned on was the GPS. I started thinking yesterday how amazingly, unbelievably really, quick that Google Maps set my exact location. I have 2 HTC phones with built in GPS and have had 2 Garmin GPS units, using an external GPS antenna, of which not one of those would acquire a satellite lock in less than 30 seconds, usually 45 to 60.
Now, flame me if you like but I’m convinced, after today, that the GPS is always acquiring satellites even when the icon isn’t present.
I downloaded GPS Test from the market, closed ALL programs with ATK, ran GPS Test and as soon as the screen appeared, 2 seconds, 4 satellites were already locked. It can’t be that good.
Try it ... won’t cost you anything.
BTW, it would be nice to get some feedback from someone that gives it a try. I’d like to know if this truly worked or it was just a fantastic coincidence.
Thanks
Nope, I agree completely. I've kept GPS off unless I absolutely need it and my battery life is great.
zephyrix said:
Nope, I agree completely. I've kept GPS off unless I absolutely need it and my battery life is great.
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Glas to hear someone echo the thought. I may actually start to enjoy this X10 afterall
With GPS off, WIFI off and BT on about 2h/day i get 2 days juice
Problem is, i'm in wifi range 24h/day and i don't have a data plan so, wifi is on most of the time => about 12h juice.
GPS and WIFI are draining battery pretty fast.
Made a huge improvement for me too well done for spotting this
Sent from my X10i using XDA App
do you mean specifically turning gps off under settings, location? or all location services including location by network?
I am using the R2BA020 firmware.
I make approx 2hr voice call per day.
I left the wifi ON, but remove the wifi detection notification
I left the GPS ON, it should be only be activated via GPS apps.
I turn OFF the BT when I am not in the car.
So far, after weeks, on the average, I still get 2 days of juice at least.
oops! miss out the text...
I do only about 20-30 text per day.
And do quite a fair bit of FB and Twit daily...
cricka15 said:
do you mean specifically turning gps off under settings, location? or all location services including location by network?
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Yup, Settings > Location > GPS Sat ot just do it from the screen Widget, same thing.
wolf0491 said:
I leave all gps things checked and get over 30 hours if use... are you using the .20 firmware? I am a heavy user also. Lots of downloading and screen use because I text all day.
Sent from my X10i using XDA App
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Wow, you're much better off than I am
I use 023, rooted.
gnayres said:
I am using the R2BA020 firmware.
I make approx 2hr voice call per day.
I left the wifi ON, but remove the wifi detection notification
I left the GPS ON, it should be only be activated via GPS apps.
I turn OFF the BT when I am not in the car.
So far, after weeks, on the average, I still get 2 days of juice at least.
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I'm using 023 and wouldn't get half of that time without turning off the GPS.
I'm not sure if my GPS isn't sleeping the way it should or not but unless I turn it off it always seems to be active.
It's not a big problem for me since GPS isn't a feature that I need too often and it's pretty easy to activate from the widget if I do want to use it.
Strange as it may be this is the change that made the single biggest difference for my battery life.
Last night I installed (reinstalled) SetCPU and set up some profiles I read about that look like they make sense. One of the profiles that caps the processor at 338mhz when the screen is off but runs it full tilt when the screen is on seems to be pretty logical. My previous complaint about SetCPU was when I had it set to near 600mhz the screen performance seemed really slow. Now it only caps the processor when the screen is off so if checking email in the background takes an extra microsecond but helps battery life I'll be happy
tuxStyle said:
With GPS off, WIFI off and BT on about 2h/day i get 2 days juice
Problem is, i'm in wifi range 24h/day and i don't have a data plan so, wifi is on most of the time => about 12h juice.
GPS and WIFI are draining battery pretty fast.
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I can't really comment on WiFi usage since I only use it once in a while to run SwiFTP but GPS radios are a big battery drain, have been on every GPS device I've ever owned.
Today with the GPS off and SetCPU setup better (from last night) I plan on giving the X10 some heavy use today and see how it does.
jomil said:
Made a huge improvement for me too well done for spotting this
Sent from my X10i using XDA App
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If the life of only one person is improved then my job is done
Glad it helped you.
just for your information. if you use the widget for wifi,silent,gps,BT which was included by SE you will notice that this widget has bugs. for example it shows that gps is off while it is on in the settings. same with wifi.
dont use this widget. take a widget for example from curvefish. these work properly.
I'll check out that widget problem, thanks.
Sent from my X10a using XDA
App
Hi, I've got an unrooted R2BA020.. I've done a test this morning. I use wifi all the time at home and today have used the stock widget and quick profiles to enable wifi, bluetooth, GPS, and 3g. They've all been on for 6 hours, have actively used wifi for about an hour or so.
I'm now down to 90%, from 100%.. 10% in 6 hours.. More than happy with that.
Sent from my x10 using XDA and swype.
Saturday when I have time I'll do the test with everything on and see how long it takes to drop 10%
Sent from my X10a using XDA App
I assume when you used the wifi for an hour the screen was always on?
Sent from my X10a using XDA App
Yep - It was..
im_iceman said:
Yep - It was..
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I'll try it this weekend.
Well, I finished a 10 hour day with moderate usage, maybe 1.5hrs of screen time, 45 min phone calls, 3G data, no WiFi and the GPS turned off all day with 48% remaining.
That, for me, is a big improvement.
Since it's still not as much as I would like (I find myself holding back from using the device more) I've ordered a 2600 mAh Cameron Sino battery from eBay. I know, the battery is made in HK but what the hell ... the phone is made in China
I've read mixed reviews on the CS battery but most lean towards good.
I simply switched off location services and my battery life has gone up by ~50%.
I was really surprised that the location services took this much energy. I usually have Wifi off except when at home (if that's important) I haven't really missed the lack of location services - I just remember to re-enable it before running "Places" or similar
I'll try it, thanks.
I'm overseas on holiday and have had no data for 2 days (no wifi no mobile data). The battery hardly drained (%30). I was playing games and texting so I am now convinced that it is data and voice calls that drain battery.
gf_gollum said:
I simply switched off location services and my battery life has gone up by ~50%.
I was really surprised that the location services took this much energy. I usually have Wifi off except when at home (if that's important) I haven't really missed the lack of location services - I just remember to re-enable it before running "Places" or similar
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How you switched off location services ?
I want to know how you turn off that as well thanks!
I'm guessing menu>settings>location and security> switch off wifi location and GPS location
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA Premium App
robotnoize said:
I'm guessing menu>settings>location and security> switch off wifi location and GPS location
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Yes - that's all I've done.
Yes, all options is turn off.
My battery:
1d 1h 56min on battery
and now battery level is 38%.
Is the result same with you?
I'm getting ~10% drop over 10 hours when the phone is idle overnight. Obviously battery usage increases with calls etc. to 26% over 10 hours with some light calls and 3G based app updates. (no Wifi)
Increase battery life 10000% by turning phone off and removing battery
Number picked at random, YMMV.
DirkGently1 said:
Increase battery life 10000% by turning phone off and removing battery
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I've tried this. Phone doesn't work
I turn on "Use only 2G networks" (in Settings --> Wireless & networks --> Mobile networks) and the battery life is incredibly increased ^^.
In addition, I also turn off the "Data enabled", whenever I need to access the 3G networks, I just turn them on again.
OferR said:
I've tried this. Phone doesn't work
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I'll give you £20 for it
Seriously though, rather than trying to eke out every last milliamp of power from their batteries, i wish people would just buy a spare one and use that instead.
DirkGently1 said:
Increase battery life 10000% by turning phone off and removing battery
Number picked at random, YMMV.
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I've tried that but my phone is bricked now. Doesn't boot anymore. xD
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA Premium App