Database Users

App Suggestion: Auto Brightness Control Using 3g Camera

Hi folks, today I was lamenting the fact that my Hermes (and many other HTC phones for that matter) has no automatic brightness control. This results in me using it on max brightness all the time, which of course eats through the battery and is mostly unnecessary (except in bright sunlight). Then the thought occurred to me that an app could be written that used the 3g camera in order to detect brightness.
While I have an IT background (including a large amount of programming), I have no experience with Windows mobile, and think this is probably not the place to start doing WM apps. However, I thought that perhaps someone else would think this is a good idea, so thought I would make the suggestion. Reading the camera would of course use some battery, but not nearly so much as running the screen at high brightness to avoid having to adjust it manually all the time...I also read the other day that MS is planning to use the camera for orientation control (instead of an accelerometer) in WM7, so I guess this would indicate that they don't suck batteries that badly...at any rate, you wouldn't need to read it constantly...once every second or two would no doubt be sufficient...
To extend the idea further, you could also use differences in brightness between the main and 3g camera to do things like proximity sensing to switch off the screen when the phone is next to your head or in a pocket automatically.
Any thoughts?

Nice idea, but I think that the amount of battery saved will be much less than the amount consumed be having the camera on all the time plus CPU processing power required for the camera.
Now a dedicated light sensor would of course be a different story.....last time I enjoyed one on a WM device was on the good old Ipaq 3970.....brilliant device at the time (hardware wise, at least)

I did have a think about this, is there a way we can test battery consumption with camera on? Remember that nothing would be drawn to the screen by the app, and you wouldn't actually have to run the camera constantly necessarily, just long enough to get an image (you wouldn't even have to do all the auto adjustment it does when you're trying to take a picture like gaining up the sensor in the dark etc...you'd wanna open it up with constant settings each time). I'm pretty sure that the camera can write directly to memory without accessing the CPU (DMA)...and you wouldn't need to actually process the image at all...

Very off-topic...but are you "est in horto"????

haha took me a minute but LOL been years since I took the course...sadly my idea isn't getting the kinda interest i'd hoped though...maybe one of these days i'll have to learn wm6 development after all :-(

I suspect with anything using the camera will be the power-drain. For it to be responsive enought it will have to have the camera on either constantly or very frequently. The kaiser battery is bad enough as it is.
Yeah, good old caecillius. Shame that vesuvius got him. shed a tear I did. ;D

It needn't constantly test the camera...
I have such an application on my palm OS treo 600.
It's called BrightCam and you can assign a hotkey to run it.
It only runs on command,
checks the ambient light using the camera (regular not 3G in this instance),
adjusts the screen brightness accordingly - et voila...
could be nice to have this functionality in WM too.

would u be kind enough to share it

http://mytreo.net/downloads/brightcam,236.html

RunEveryDay
Maybe it can be done by RunEveryDay.
Not as elegant as the camera solution....but maybe easier to realize.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=2558219#post2558219

[HOW-TO][NEWBIE GUIDE] Optimize & proper set up your Galaxy S6 Edge (stock firmware)

[HOW-TO][NEWBIE GUIDE] Optimize & proper set up your Galaxy S6 Edge (stock firmware)
As I've read across this forum and on several specific threads related to usage, battery life and so on, as well as discussing with some of my friends having a S6 or S6 Edge, I realized that most of the people don't really know how to properly set up their phones or how to use them efficiently.
OK, I get it, this is a fancy phone, not every owner is a developer or tech guy so it might be that many choose it based on the looks and don't really know how to optimize it...then they start complaining about different things like lag or battery drain not knowing that most of the problems are caused by miss-usage or improper setup. Of course there are bugs too, nothing is perfect. Of course there are many firmwares available and some are market or carrier dependent so some features or settings might be missing from some of them or even work differently.
What I will try here is to provide some guidelines and tips for setting up various things on the phone in order to maximize it's battery life and for a better usage. I will also make some recommendations based on my experience, tests and usage that might not apply to everyone. Use common sense and logic to apply similar settings in your particular case. Don't come screaming that you made that or that and now something is not working.
And YES, I know there are similar guides like this posted over the Internet and I'll probably make similar recommendations here too but I couldn't find such a guide here on XDA that is particular to this phone (if there is a better one than you might as well ignore mine).
All these things I'll describe below are applicable to any STOCK, NON-ROOTED 5.1.1 firmware and won't break warranty or your phone.
Now that was a long (and maybe unneeded introduction) but I thought to write this for everyone...let's start.
Model No.: SM-G925F
Android: 5.1.1 r2 (LMY47X)
Baseband: G925FXXU2QOI7
Kernel: 3.10.61-5672012
Build date: Fri Sept 4 2015
Carrier: Orange RO
DISPLAY
First I would like to say some words about the display. We have a great display, high resolution and it is most likely the biggest battery drain factor. There are two major things about it that you should keep in mind and will help you to get a better battery:
1. It's AMOLED...that means that the black pixels on it will consume no power because are not lit. Studies showed that even if not completely black, AMOLED displays use less energy if the displayed picture is darker compared to a lighter one.
2. The brightness level. Most people use it on "auto" or high level settings and this will be a major drain factor.
You can drastically lower the battery drain caused by your screen by selecting as much as possible dark (black) backgrounds and/or themes. There are some nice ones available in the Theme Store (my favorite is the Dalkomm Coffee Theme), that make most screens and menus dark/black. Also choosing a dark wallpaper for lockscreen/homescreens will help.
Don't use screen brightness at maximum...never. You don't need that in 99% of the cases. Also you won't probably need the automatic setting either since most of the people are spending most of the time indoors (either at work or home). A low manual setting will be fine most of the time, I have it set up at about 20% and only need a brighter one when going out. At that time I just tap on "auto" and it'll increase based on ambient light level. So you don't even need to tweak it alot every time. Find a low manual setting that's fine for your eyes and just tap on "auto" when you go out in sunlight.
CONNECTIVITY
Another battery drain factor is your multiple connection/radios features. In most cases you use just several: Mobile Data, WiFi, GPS/location and BT (when applicable). That means you should turn off all the others you don't use...NFC or BT (when not connected to a headset or car-kit or not listening to music). I don't listen to music and don't have a BT headset so I mostly not using BT (just when I'm in my car) and almost never use NFC so I have both disabled and I enable them only when needed via the Quick Settings.
WiFi
WiFi should also be properly setup otherwise it'll have impact on battery. It was incorrectly assumed or considered that keeping WiFi on all the time will drain battery faster. That was proven in different tests that's not true and in fact keeping WiFi on all the time won't make a big difference and in some cases was even better than to turn it off/on. I think is something similar with the car engines that suck more fuel when started that when running at idle. The major power drain is not when WiFi is running while is not connected to any network, but when the WiFi radio is powered up. When is on and not connected, it's going into a lower power state so the battery consumption is negligible.
I had a case with one of my friends that had WiFi setup to turn off when display was off...wrong choice, he got about 30% battery drain overnight because instead of having it connected to his home WiFi, the phone was using his 4G/LTE connection to make all the background sync/updates. That was eating his battery and also his data plan. After setting WiFi to "always" his overnight drain lowered to as little as 2-3%.
In some regions/carriers there are 2 other settings that were proven to help battery life: WiFi calling and VoLTE. I don't have either of them but based on different articles and what people say, they surely help with that so don't forget to turn them off if you don't use these features.
You might also want to try turning off "Always allows scanning" and "Smart network switch". I have the second turned off but I keep on the first one. Basically the first option tell the Location service to use WiFi for locating the device even if WiFi is switched off (by the on/off switch) so that means the radio is active. Second option should make you switch faster from WiFi to mobile data in case the WiFi signal is not strong enough or fluctuating. In my country there are plenty of WiFi hot-spots and they have mostly good connections so I don't use this feature.
GPS
Well here the opinions are split but I am currently having it ON all the time and Location Service is set to "high accuracy". I personally haven't noticed such a major difference with or without it so I preferred to let it on as it is used by many apps or services. You can try to set Location to "wifi and cell only" but don't think that will bring you a major benefit.
RUNNING APPS/PROCESSES
Well this is an important one. I've initially started to turn off/disable/uninstall everything I don't need or use. This can be done mostly from the Settings - Applications - Application Manager or if you want to go further, you can install Package Disabler Pro from PlayStore, about which I'll detail later.
Now why we should do that? There are lots of apps, processes and background services running on our devices that take care about all the things we do on the device. The problem is that ALL are using resources: processor time, memory, space and so on. In the end these are translated for a user in LAG or battery drain. Of course we cannot kill everything and I learned long time ago that installing Task or memory managers on Android it's the worst thing you can do. Android it's smart enough to take care better about it's resources and processes (at least to a certain point) and keep killing a certain process won't give you more battery life but will eat more of it in the end,
What I wanted to say is you shouldn't start disabling, killing or blocking everything cause you might end up with an unstable or not properly working phone (case in which only a factory reset might help). First of all look at the ALL tab in Application Manager and try to identify what you don't need or use. For example I'm certainly not using some things like: music, books, news feeds, Samsung's keyboard (I use SwiftKey), the TouchWiz launcher (I use Nova), health services or whatever, S-Voice, S-Health, S-Finder, I don't have any smartwatches so I don't use any Gear processes, fancy device wake-up functions (like wave gestures) or animated wallpapers either.
So after all considerations above, you decided that you can safely disable some apps/processes. All good but you'll quickly learn that some of them cannot be disabled via Application Manager (the "disable" button is grayed out). Now what? Well here comes handy that Package Disabler Pro that I've told you about in the beginning. That app is able to disable ANY apps/processes on your phone, including those that are protected and cannot be disabled via the normal way (and yes it can do that without being rooted). The downside of it is that you must be careful what you choose to disable not to have something that is needed for the normal functionality or the apps you're currently using. The app has also a backup/restore function (via an xml file) for saving the list with apps you have disabled and easily import them back after a factory reset for ex. I've added to this thread my list of disabled apps as it is exported by the application (just unzip and copy the file on the root of your internal memory and it can then be imported in the Package Disabler app)
Another important thing is WHAT apps you're using. I know that socializing and social networking are some of today's most trendy things but keep in mind that some of the apps used for that are not so well made. An example could be the Facebook app/messenger which are reported to drain alot of battery. RSS feeds, news feeds, multiple weather apps or widgets, all contribute to battery drain and lag. Don't install several apps/widgets for the same purpose (like several calendar apps or weather apps). Each will take resources and won't have an added value. Want to use another weather app/widget than the one coming with the phone? Fine, install it...but don't forget to uninstall/disable the built in one or others that do the same thing. Same goes for keyboard for ex; I use SwiftKey for years and got used with it. For me it's better than any keyboard that Samsung might put on the device, therefore I've disabled the standard Samsung keyboard. I also don't like TouchWiz launcher and use Nova that offers me much more flexibility so...I've disabled both the "easy" and "regular" TouchWiz launchers. I went to the point that I've even disabled the different embedded font types, you have 5 of them and I doubt someone uses more than one at a time.
So as you all can see it's not only a matter of setup but also a matter of usage. When you have a device you have to use it properly otherwise it'll not perform as you expect. Imagine a car that has a manufacturer fuel consumption value of 5.5 liters/100 Km....that's under certain conditions not on ANY type of driving. Fly with 200+ km/hr on a highway and I'll guarantee you won't have 5.5 liters/100 km consumption. That doesn't mean the manufacturer has lied or mislead you. Same goes with a phone, if you don't know how to use it and optimize it, you'll have a bad experience.
I work in the IT industry for years and I mostly laugh when I hear someone advising somebody to reinstall the operating system to solve a problem. Same goes for "factory reset" for a phone. Yes, this method works some times but that won't solve the root cause of an issues if you're using it the same way. After several days it'll perform as bad as before and you'll just say that "factory reset" did nothing. Of course it didn't...YOU have to do something different, not the phone.
Now I apologize for the long post and I do hope that at least some will learn to better manage their devices and to understand what they're doing not just running certain commands or procedures blind. Both S6 and S6e are great devices but we should learn how to properly use them in order to benefit the most from them...otherwise we just come here asking for help or mumbling about what crap devices they are.

Thank you, I will check to see if I get an improvement on the standby battery drain.

Your part about not setting the screen to Auto is flawed. You mention that we are mostly indoors, and you don't need a brighter screen for that. Auto mode also knows that and sets the brightness lower. It already does automatically what you do manually.

Tnx. And yes....keeping screen at 20% brightness and just switching to auto when in outdoors works great for the battery life.

ArmedandDangerous said:
Your part about not setting the screen to Auto is flawed. You mention that we are mostly indoors, and you don't need a brighter screen for that. Auto mode also knows that and sets the brightness lower. It already does automatically what you do manually.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not quite, I've tested it. If you're on "auto" and use a lower setting on the slidebar, in a dark room the screen is too dark, you'll have to turn off "auto" and the manual brighteness set on the same level will be much higher than on auto.
Now if you have such good eyes and you're able to use "auto" in all cases with the slider at 20% that's good for you...unfortunately I am not so that's why I use it as I've described. The point is that "auto" mode consumes MORE battery regardless of how it's set, than a lower 'manual' mode. So I preffer to have it like this than to use auto all the time.

Thanks for the awesome guide. I'll start disabling some useless processes and see how my battery life is working. Anyway without much editing the battery of S6Edge is pretty good. I can use it a whole day and still 19% remaining. As a comparison I wasn't able to do it with my S3 having to recharge it 2 or even 3 times at day.
Again, thanks for the guide!
Enviado desde mi SGS6e mediante Tapatalk

How stable/reliable is the S5 running CM12.1/13?

Hi all,
Currently looking for an upgrade from my Moto G and have a specific list of requirements (long-ish battery life, cheap-ish, ideally fast charging, ideally ANT+, ideally waterproof, accurate GPS for tracking runs) which the S5 seems to meet well. Only thing I dont think I could live with is TouchWiz (and the assosciated lag I would expect it would bring with it).
My question: how is CM running on these devices with regards stability and force closes etc. Can live with a small dip in camera quality and having never had a fingerprint scanner I wont miss it but really need a rock solid, stable device. Is there a better alternative out there (am also closely considering the Zuk - but not waterproof and possibly patchy GPS - and the Moto X Play - slightly more expensive and reports of lag)?

I'm currently running CM13 on my KLTE, and it honestly seems fine.
Battery life is just under 4hrs SOT.
It charges pretty fast IMO (About an hour and a little bit with a constant 1800mA @ 4.5V)
Though was I've read in a quick Google search is that CM doesn't support ANT+ ever since the s4 branch.
Never had issues when the phone's been blessed with water, Its a pretty tight seal all around.
GPS is accurate. I usually get a fix within the first ten seconds. Mind you I use GPS Status to download AGPS info to help.
I rarely get force closes but there are the occasional soft reboots with the phone, which seems to put it in a boot-loop when it does. But that could be my configuration of Xposed and other modifications that do that.

i dont like the in-use battery life at all, deep sleep life is insanely improved on CM13 i assume due to doze, you can buy third party extra large batteries that are also a replacement for the back cover
cm-12.1-20151226-NIGHTLY-klte = quite stable, think i had only a couple minor bugs, no crashes, my baseband is a little old, i tried some gps app from fdroid during a walk & it was as if the calibration kept changing... i passed the same spot more than once, it would be too far north one time then too far southeast another time & so on, but maybe it was storing literal data points (some other apps, especially map apps i would assume they might auto align themselves to roads), crashed the camera when using opencamera too fast or switching between it & stock camera, opencamera couldnt do 60 or 120fps videos even though the option was set
cm-13.0-20160116-NIGHTLY-klte = turning flashlight off kills camera (& the flashlight tile) until reboot, i was going through menus fast or something, the status bar crashed & then soft reboot was frozen on the loading face icon, i was hoping snapdragoncamera was enabled cuz i see it in changelogs, but i still see stock camera unfortunately...
charging is quite fast, from 0 to ~80% at least (this is normal for about every device anyway)
i havent tried any other versions yet, i dont have gapps, only been web browsing in lightning browser (from fdroid), trying kernel adiutor, notepad, little bit of camera, i dont have a SIM card yet, hope it works fine...
i believe i saw a modified TW rom that keeps the TW framework, but visually tries to be AOSP, the purpose of course is to be able to use the samsung camera & some of the other proprietary apps/features

My build is a KLTEusc smg900r4, with cm13, on first boot I had issues with the access points to the mobile network, but after I input one access point it found the rest on its own, only other issue is when sending long text messages it doesn't go through from some reason, overall very proud of it, much better than touchwiz

Does the fingerprint scanner work well?

Hi,
I'm about to buy this device but i saw lots of complain about the fingerprint scanner slowness and etc. What is the current state of it ? is it usable in daily?
Thx for any help

Mine is really, really fast.

really fast

No issue with slowness.

never have any issue whatsoever with the finger-scanner.. a note though, when doing the finger scan input you have to really press you fingers (up to five fingers) really good so that it'll recognize your fingers the next time you use it :silly:

No issues so far, works well!

mine is fine too, really nice and quick

FOD performance in custom roms

Hi, I want to unlock the bootloader of my 6T and try some custom roms because I'm bored of OOS, but how's the fingerprint performance in general? I was watching some videos and the speed seems to be slow, also I have seen a little strange behavior, for example: on the ambient display, when the guy put his finger over the sensor, the brightness decreases a lot (sometimes the screen seems completely turned off) before the unlock, and there doesn't seem to be any kind of animation.
I'm very interested in this because Google's Face Unlock is too slow, so fingerprint unlock seems to be the method to use with custom roms.
Thanks!

onliner said:
Hi, I want to unlock the bootloader of my 6T and try some custom roms because I'm bored of OOS, but how's the fingerprint performance in general? I was watching some videos and the speed seems to be slow, also I have seen a little strange behavior, for example: on the ambient display, when the guy put his finger over the sensor, the brightness decreases a lot (sometimes the screen seems completely turned off) before the unlock, and there doesn't seem to be any kind of animation.
I'm very interested in this because Google's Face Unlock is too slow, so fingerprint unlock seems to be the method to use with custom roms.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fingerprint is fast enough. Not nearly as fast as OOS but almost there if you pick the right ROM and Kernel Combo. e.g AOSiP and Latest Illusion Kernel. The Screen Dimming and No Animation are known bugs which have no fix yet. Personally I prefer the Screen Dimming. When you unlock via FP in OOS the entire screen goes to Max Brightness whereas in Custom only the FP Icon does so. No Animation is a bummer but not sure if we will get some anytime soon.

I'm running skydragon and use the FOD. It seems to be close to stock as far as performance. Doesn't work very well when in direct sunlight....really the only issue I've experienced and it's a small one.