Database Users

Androids energy efficiency?

Uhh, I cannot post this in development as I am still a newby :-(
However:
Hello,
I came from Symbian (Nokia C7-00) and liked the phone very much. Everything worked the way it should. (I was especially interested in office functionality.)
Now I bought a Galaxy Note and I really love the hardware.
But I discovered that it uses much energy and it doesn't like to sleep as often as it could. (I already returned to Android GB, which gives a better experience, but there still is room for improvement.)
1. Sometimes even though the phone simply lies around and does nothing, the last app that I forgot to close is hindering the CPU from sleeping. Why? The is no need.
2. At night I am used to turn the phone into flight mode. However I found out that this isn't the best thing for Android. In the morning, when the email app goes to push phase, the phone leaves sleep mode and seems to excitedly wait for the flight mode to get switched off. This uses *quite* a bit of battery!
These things seem strange to me. My impression is that Android is not really optimised for cell phones. If the screen is off, there is no need for CPU time, doesn't it? There is nothing urgent to do; everything could be done slowly; no hurry.
I guess the battery could last *much* longer if this would be improved.
Greetings,
corcov

corcovo said:
Uhh, I cannot post this in development as I am still a newby :-(
However:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which is handy, because this thread has nothing to do with development and thus saved you from some abuse!
Regards,
Dave
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

But I already know how to click the "thanks" button

corcovo said:
But I already know how to click the "thanks" button
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Doesn't matter.
Development, if you did not create IT, then it does not belong in development. Remember that. Otherwise you will get flamed.

Android is a mobile OS, so of course it is optimised for smart phones - not ordinary cell phones. Android acts like a computer and, if you keep a computer running Crysis 2 for example, it would burn more power than a computer just playing some music off of iTunes.
In terms of improving your battery, check your brightness. You can download widgets to adjust the brightness right from the home screens. I use these to set my brightness to its lowest whilst at home (perfectly adequate for night and indoor use away from sunlight) and turn it onto automatic when I go outside. This has saved my a bunch of battery.
If you are running a stock Samsung ROM, turn on power saving mode. I always leave it on and, frankly, I have no idea as to what it actually does. I haven't noticed a performance drop in the slightest, but if it saves a bit of battery it is worth it. Also, you could try Juice Defender or some other battery saving apps which work for some people - others not.
Finally, ensure you haven't left GPS, Bluetooth or WiFi on when not needed. Try downloading CPU Spy to check your phone deep sleeps, yet mine even without it ever deep sleeping gets around 16 hours of battery life which is still the best I have ever gotten on a smart phone. Bettery Battery Stats can show you wake-locks (apps that are keeping your phone active) also.

Brad387 said:
Android is a mobile OS, so of course it is optimised for smart phones - not ordinary cell phones.
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Click to collapse
I see. Well it might be a nice feature if one could add an "now be a cell phone"-option for energy enhancement, which means: if screen if off, sleep.
c.

corcovo said:
1. Sometimes even though the phone simply lies around and does nothing, the last app that I forgot to close is hindering the CPU from sleeping. Why? The is no need.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are some legitimate needs for keeping the CPU from sleeping for a short period of time - such as finishing a sync operation (otherwise, the radio power spent beginning the sync is wasted). Unfortunately, some poorly written applications (Facebook for example) abuse the wakelock mechanisms and hold wakelocks when it is not justified.
2. At night I am used to turn the phone into flight mode. However I found out that this isn't the best thing for Android. In the morning, when the email app goes to push phase, the phone leaves sleep mode and seems to excitedly wait for the flight mode to get switched off. This uses *quite* a bit of battery!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is not something I have ever encountered myself. "push" relies on the server to trigger something - in airplane mode, this trigger can't happen.
These things seem strange to me. My impression is that Android is not really optimised for cell phones. If the screen is off, there is no need for CPU time, doesn't it? There is nothing urgent to do; everything could be done slowly; no hurry.
I guess the battery could last *much* longer if this would be improved.
Greetings,
corcov
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android is well optimized for cell phones - However, it assumes that third-party applications follow Google's recommendations for power management. Unfortunately, many of them do not. The number of IM applications which choose to use their own proprietary and poorly optimized network protocols (such as Skype, it's atrocious) as opposed to Google C2DM (optimized and efficient) is astonishing.
An interesting note was that I believe much of the focus at Google I/O was on reminding app developers that they need to play nice with the system and other apps.
There are some cases where there are device-specific nonoptimalities. Compared to most Nexus devices, Exynos devices have an absurdly long time to resume from wake (1000 milliseconds), and during that resume cycle CPU frequency is locked to 800 MHz and cpuidle is disabled. This is one of the #1 causes of power drain on our device. This is also exclusively a Samsung kernel/hardware architecture problem that does not affect the Nexus S (similar CPU, but completely different modem interface) or the Galaxy Nexus (different CPU/modem interface).
In the case of our device, the modem is hung off of the CPU on a USB bus - this makes for very long resume times.
Here are obvious reasons the CPU should occasionally turn on when the screen is off:
1) MP3 playback in the background
2) Handling of background syncs - e.g. when an email or Google Talk IM comes in, wake the CPU, handle it, and pop a notification sound, then go back to sleep. Normally, this means the CPU sleeps while waiting for an interrupt from the WLAN chipset or the cellular radio. Unfortunately, some apps drive incoming data to the device far too frequently. (See my above rant about Skype's network protocols being crap compared to Google's C2DM protocol.)
3) Handling of scheduled wakeups (alarms, calendar events, etc) - these are rare and almost never consume power
Most power drain is from item 2, with third-party apps frequently behaving extremely poorly compared to Google's own application suite and sync protocols.

Now this an extensive answer which is very informative and helpful for me since insights are always soothing. Love it. Thanks!

not much to add after Entropy, but if you feel the need to get some control over battery usage you could try betterbatterystats app (and the thread) to identify battery eaters, besides that, there are few apps to check what is going on with your system when it sleeps:
- CPU Spy to show cpu states time
- Autorun Manager or Autostarts to disable triggers causing apps like FB to run without reason (those which you will find with betterbatterystats)
- Battery Monitor Widget, to check battery current consumption (mA) - this app is generally not recommended, because Note's hardware does not report the actual current, so the readings are highly estimated and because when poorly configured it can drain your battery faster, BUT otoh with refresh rate set at 5 minutes or more, it can give you some approximate orientation on how much battery you lose (better than counting %/hour by yourself) at negligible battery usage
- also, if you feel the need to disable net and sync during night, you could automate it using "lama", which is free, and in my experience does not eat much battery by itself
- and last but not least, avoid taskillers, those apps may have adverse effect, i.e. self restarting apps (by the triggers mentioned above), will get killed then restarted and so on and so on, leading to much higher battery drain

Save your Note 3 battery.

Source: http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-note-3/862515-note-3-horrable-battery-life.html
1. Reboot daily, and do it when the phone is fully charged AND STILL ON THE CHARGER! Let it sit on the charger for a good five minutes so it goes through the whole boot process without taking any battery usage.
2. find the best (lowest) screen brightness you can live with and set that as your fixed screen brightness. Using Auto-brightness is NOT a good battery saver.
3. Active Apps Manager. I also put this right on the front screen. It's a little number inside a circle. The number is for how many apps are currently running in your phone's memory. The circle around the number turns colors from green to orange to red. If it's red then at least one of your running apps is using the cpu and therefore battery. If it's green then the apps are idle and not using much battery. You can press the button and it will show you what apps are open and what percentage of cpu is being used.
This little widget is invaluable in telling you which apps are notorious for using the cpu (and battery) even though you are not actively using them. It helps you understand which apps you need to kill off each time you use them. For instance I have found that almost all my news apps that have notifications activated will continued to run and eat battery. Also, my chess app, Chess.com. So now I just know to kill them off after I'm done using them.
4. Turn off wifi, bluetooth, gps, 4G, syncing and don't use any live wallpapers.
5. Enable Developer Options and check 'disable hardware overlays' and then 'enable MSAA' (automatically turned off on reboot)

Whats the point in having WiFi, Bluetooth, 4G if you're suggesting to turn it off?? Might want to think that part over again buddy lol

speedyjay said:
Whats the point in having WiFi, Bluetooth, 4G if you're suggesting to turn it off?? Might want to think that part over again buddy lol
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Click to collapse
Off when you are not using them.
Sent from Galaxy Note 3 SM-N9005

Thats too simple

thahim said:
Off when you are not using them.
Sent from Galaxy Note 3 SM-N9005
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Click to collapse
You can still have them on....but turn scanning off. Seriously dude, i think you need to get to know android a bit better.

speedyjay said:
You can still have them on....but turn scanning off. Seriously dude, i think you need to get to know android a bit better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hardware uses battery power, when its on, even when not using it or its not scanning.

thahim said:
hardware uses battery power, when its on, even when not using it or its not scanning.
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Click to collapse
No it really doesnt....how can it possibly use power when its not doing anything? With 4G and wifi on....i could easily get 2 days usage out of my device.

speedyjay said:
No it really doesnt....how can it possibly use power when its not doing anything? With 4G and wifi on....i could easily get 2 days usage out of my device.
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Click to collapse
ok, i don't know about this.

always on display?

Does anybody know of a method or app to add always on display? I tried an app from the app store and it worked well but killed my battery. Probably because it disabled doze and kept the phone awake... Anybody have any input on this?

That function doesn't work exactly perfectly on the Axon but I am using ACdisplay with some success. The always on thing isn't going to be exactly what you'd see on a Motorola device though. If you want the wave to wake feature as good as it gets, try ambient display through xposed but it's still iffy and ACdisplay has much better notification layouts imo.
This is one of the things that really bugged me about this phone at first, especially with the tiny, barely visible LED notification light. Not good synergy.

Always on Amoled Beta
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tomer.alwayson

howdid said:
Always on Amoled Beta
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tomer.alwayson
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried that one actually. I liked the idea but the power consumption was pretty crazy. Had to uninstall. Maybe others will have better luck.

What you need is a way to allow the CPU to go into deep sleep without turning the display off. I believe this is hardware dependant, though.
All recent moto phone have their own low-power CPUs specifically for ambient display and voice commands without requiring the CPU to wake.
Oneplus devices support gestures while the device is in deep sleep, but this is a hardware feature built into the panel, which is why these gestures are not customizable.
The problem with both of these is that they're hardware-specific, so unless ZTE has made provisions for always on displays, active display, off screen gestures, etc, theres going to be a pretty significant hit to battery when using apps that do these things.

xxBrun0xx said:
What you need is a way to allow the CPU to go into deep sleep without turning the display off. I believe this is hardware dependant, though.
All recent moto phone have their own low-power CPUs specifically for ambient display and voice commands without requiring the CPU to wake.
Oneplus devices support gestures while the device is in deep sleep, but this is a hardware feature built into the panel, which is why these gestures are not customizable.
The problem with both of these is that they're hardware-specific, so unless ZTE has made provisions for always on displays, active display, off screen gestures, etc, theres going to be a pretty significant hit to battery when using apps that do these things.
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Click to collapse
You can read on Qualcomms homepage about the 820 that it supports always on low power mode ....it is something the CPU can do ....look at Samsung's s7s they have the same CPU

howdid said:
You can read on Qualcomms homepage about the 820 that it supports always on low power mode ....it is something the CPU can do ....look at Samsung's s7s they have the same CPU
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Click to collapse
Sweet. I doubt the always on app uses whatever process the s7/g5 use to do this, is this something kernel related?

Thanks for the input everybody. If the Snapdragon 820 can support low power use like some of you suggested we may see this feature in cyanogenmod? (hopefully ZTE actually helps...) otherwise custom roms built on ZTE's base maybe. Although I doubt ZTE will add the feature to the rom in future updates.

xgerryx said:
That function doesn't work exactly perfectly on the Axon but I am using ACdisplay with some success. The always on thing isn't going to be exactly what you'd see on a Motorola device though. If you want the wave to wake feature as good as it gets, try ambient display through xposed but it's still iffy and ACdisplay has much better notification layouts imo.
This is one of the things that really bugged me about this phone at first, especially with the tiny, barely visible LED notification light. Not good synergy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've seen this app before. Might try it out.

Yes, glance plus
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thsoft.glance
It's awesome, plus your phone thinks it's on the lock screen. So you can shake whenever glance is active to turn on your flashlight.
Double tap to wake works WAY better.
Is also compatible with fingerprint unlock.
I use this on my Axon, haven't noticed any battery drain

MrWilsonxD said:
Yes, glance plus
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thsoft.glance
It's awesome, plus your phone thinks it's on the lock screen. So you can shake whenever glance is active to turn on your flashlight.
Double tap to wake works WAY better.
Is also compatible with fingerprint unlock.
I use this on my Axon, haven't noticed any battery drain
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't figure out how to get the fingerprint working!
When it's on, you can't unlock with fingerprint, you have to wait until the screen is fully black

amus76 said:
I can't figure out how to get the fingerprint working!
When it's on, you can't unlock with fingerprint, you have to wait until the screen is fully black
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you enabled these settings?

MrWilsonxD said:
Have you enabled these settings?
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Click to collapse
Yes and I havec to double tap ton open, the fingerprint is not working when glance is on screen

amus76 said:
Yes and I havec to double tap ton open, the fingerprint is not working when glance is on screen
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Click to collapse
That's strange! I haven't had that issue.. It just immediately unlocks for me.
I would try uninstalling, rebooting, reinstalling? + maybe another reboot? (I'm no tech expert.. But I'll reboot a phone till magic happens lol)

MrWilsonxD said:
That's strange! I haven't had that issue.. It just immediately unlocks for me.
I would try uninstalling, rebooting, reinstalling? + maybe another reboot? (I'm no tech expert.. But I'll reboot a phone till magic happens lol)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Still got the problem

amus76 said:
Still got the problem
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Have you activated it as a device administrator?

MrWilsonxD said:
Have you activated it as a device administrator?
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Yes, all autorisation
Maybe i'm expecting too much from this app, i want to unlock with the fingerprint directly when you get a notification instead of double tap and I don't think any app at the moment manage to do it
Thanks for the help

amus76 said:
Yes, all autorisation
Maybe i'm expecting too much from this app, i want to unlock with the fingerprint directly when you get a notification instead of double tap and I don't think any app at the moment manage to do it
Thanks for the help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's strange.. As I'm able to do exactly that.. Sorry man.

I am using this app. The clock goes away after showing for a few seconds. It seems to happen intermittently.

MrWilsonxD said:
That's strange! I haven't had that issue.. It just immediately unlocks for me.
I would try uninstalling, rebooting, reinstalling? + maybe another reboot? (I'm no tech expert.. But I'll reboot a phone till magic happens lol)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My fingerprint was working. Now its doing the same as yours. Its not working not double tap unlocks phone now.

screen dimming at 5%

Is there a way to turn off screen dimming at 5%. In some situations (like outside) I can't see anything. Obviously you can turn the brightness back up. But I want to keep it from turning it down automatically

Use macrodroid to setup a macro

hellot1M said:
Is there a way to turn off screen dimming at 5%. In some situations (like outside) I can't see anything. Obviously you can turn the brightness back up. But I want to keep it from turning it down automatically
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
disable auto brightness
:good:

Geeks Empire said:
disable auto brightness
:good:
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Click to collapse
Auto brightness is the devil lol. Ive never used it and it has always been disabled. Do you have another solution to keep brightness from reducing to ZERO when phone reached 5%

hellot1M said:
Auto brightness is the devil lol. Ive never used it and it has always been disabled. Do you have another solution to keep brightness from reducing to ZERO when phone reached 5%
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didn't you set any profile or didn't install any apps to automating this?

Geeks Empire said:
didn't you set any profile or didn't install any apps to automating this?
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Click to collapse
No. This has been an issue on every LG device I've ever owned. I took basicreece advice and set a macro. Just finished testing it out and it works. Apparently after further digging this is a firmware limitation and there is no way to prevent this from happening without flashing another rom. Unfortunately I have the Sprint variant so my options are limited. Probably swap it out for my essential phone.. just sucks. This basic feature is so annoying. Especially when outside

hellot1M said:
No. This has been an issue on every LG device I've ever owned. I took basicreece advice and set a macro. Just finished testing it out and it works. Apparently after further digging this is a firmware limitation and there is no way to prevent this from happening without flashing another rom. Unfortunately I have the Sprint variant so my options are limited. Probably swap it out for my essential phone.. just sucks. This basic feature is so annoying. Especially when outside
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've used tasker to create a profile that below a value of 700 in light detection it turns off the "AutoBrightness" and uses a fixed table. Above that the "AutoBrightness" is switched back on.
You can long press on profile, then use impost to get it into tasker.

[Guide] All battery saver tips

In this thread I'll write (and add later) all the possible and effective ways to save more battery with this device, which has a pretty disappointing sot and doesn't last all the day. My aim is, though, to try explaining what's going on.
Since this is my very first guide thread expect a lot of changes in a short time.
Missing something? PM me or leave a reply here. You can discuss the various methods here as long as you're posting true tips
Let's start!
Little test
Can I hide text here? Nice
Battery Related Tips
Make sure your battery isn't dying Tip popularity: ultra Works: probably
All those tips won't really help you if your battery is faulty!
If you're like "I used to have 6 hrs SOT but suddenly I get 2 hrs on a 5 total" (extreme case) then you should directly buy a new battery (possibly the s7 Edge one) and replace it with the help of your friends
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Replace your battery with an s7 Edge one Tip popularity: not so much Works: possibly
Just by installing an original S7 Edge battery you're theoretically improving your device's long lasting capacity by 41% (because their size is 2550mAh vs 3600mAh)
Then you'll need to calibrate it. Please refer to this telegram group if you are in need.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Display Related Tips
Decrease Brightness more and more Tip popularity: ultra Works: how not!
You'll understand this more when you'll read the next 2 tips! Decrease your screen's brightness and install an app to go even further. Also, enable auto brightness at minimum. It's ok saving power but it isn't if this means having a black screen
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Black Themes Tip popularity: high Works: of course
This device features an AMOLED display.
If you didn't know, this technology gives you true black by shutting down the pixels on your screen!
Given this, you're actually saving power when your device is displaying pure black
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Grayscale Display Tip popularity: medium Works: possibly
By setting your device in grayscale mode you're removing colors (wow) and since our device still features that AMOLED technology you're more likely to save power because of darker colors forcing pixels to be almost black.
Don't think you're really shutting down the RGB leds! In fact you're lighting up them all, but with decreased brightness. This won't work well if you use apps with bright/white themes!
It could also save power because of the less data to process(not confirmed)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Disable Always On Display Tip popularity: medium Works: yes Explained by: Nikx97
You can't use AOD for long. That's true and Samsung knew why (other than marketing purposes) when our community asked louly for having it on our device.
Behind that, our display is different from the one mounted on s7.
What's different then?
Our display requires the cpu to be awake everytime, updating the screen or not, because there's no memory this display could use to just keep showing an image. From s7 and later, there's this memory that gets updated by the cpu every minute.
This surely ends up with a huge drain
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Software Related Tips
Reduce your CPU usage
Enable UPSM if you really need it Tip popularity: medium Works: of course
If your phone isn't rooted (I'd ask why are you even here) it will set up for you a black theme and set your device in grayscale mode, while decreasing brightness and disabling most apps. Then is up to you disabling wifi, bluetooth and setting it in airplane mode. I'd rather shut down my phone directly in this particular case
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't play intensive games Tip popularity: Ultra Works: overkill
If you're not playing games your CPU will be grateful to you and your battery too. There's not much to be explained.
Of course you can still play games. Just try to prefer simple ones instead of PUBG Fortnite Asphalt 9 The Sims Minecraft Gta Online etc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Set up your CPU governors Tip popularity: suggested only by developers Works: Overkill if set properly
First of all for this you'll probably need a good kernel. Not necessarily a battery kernel, a fairly customizable one would fit nicely (If you're using an S7 Edge battery and you're on Android 7.0, feel free to try my kernel, ask for LKernel here).
Here are the best settings from what I've tried so far (I'm going to explain also why)
You'll need to set (perhaps with the aid of Kernel Adiutor or MTweaks) POWERSAVE governor for LITTLE and CONSERVATIVE for BIG.
The aim of this is to force LITTLE to work more than BIG, because it uses less power and it is enough for off screen processes and whatsapp, telegram and also some games (such as 1010 or sudoku or 2048). If you want to go further with this configuration limit your frequencies: the lowest you can to 600/800mhz for LITTLE and the lowest to 1800mhz for BIG.
With this configuration, when LITTLE can't handle some tasks BIG comes in rescue and solves the problem.
Lazily but it does his work and, of course, use less power.
It is advisable going further with kernel adiutor's settings to save more battery. I'm probably going to post my settings file later
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's all I got time for today, maybe I'll add more in a week

Reserved. Just because I don't want people commenting "first!"