Why is Google Services using so much battery and data?

[AC Question]

Hello,

I have a quite new LG G Flex 2. Now I have been having problems with Google Play Services using quite a lot of a battery life and data. It is not one of the crazy cases like I've seen on the internet where it used over 2 gigs, it's around 15 MB each day and in the battery summary it's on the first place with 42% of battery consumption.

I have tried resetting to factory settings twice, the second time I have not installed a single app, just downloaded the updates. What could be causing this? I live in the Czech Republic, but my phone language is English, is it maybe possible it's trying to download some update, that isn't available here and that's causing this?

One of my friends has the same device and he hasn't experienced any of these issues. I still have about 5 days to return the phone and get my money back.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

One more thing, the battery life is not that bad, it certainly doesn't feel like it's using that much battery, but still, this shouldn't be happening and it's quite worrying.

 

[DenverRalphy]

The likely culprit is you have an app that's abusing the use of Google Play Services while it's in the background. The best solution would be to track down which app is the culprit, and adjust any of the app's settings to tone down the use (if the app developer hasn't provided those settings, consider uninstalling/replacing the app). In my experience, 3rd party weather apps are often guilty of this.

Or you can go to Settings -> Data Usage -> Google Services -> Toggle "Restrict Background Data" to On. However, that will limit other apps as well that depend on Google Play Services when there's no WiFi available.

 

[Oggy Shopov]

Hi, 42% does not necessarily mean that there is an excessive battery use by Google Play Services. These percentages represent how the total battery usage since last time the phone was plugged into a charger* is distributed between all the apps that were running. In other words if the has been on battery for 30 minutes and you mostly had Google Play open (or you didn't have it open, but it was downloading updates), then the usage makes perfect sense.

If you are still concerned you can disable automatic updates and keep Google Play closed for some time, while you are using other apps. I expect that you will see negligible battery and data usage from it.

*sort or

 

[DenverRalphy]

Hi, 42% does not necessarily mean that there is an excessive battery use by Google Play Services. These percentages represent how the total battery usage since last time the phone was plugged into a charger* is distributed between all the apps that were running. In other words if the has been on battery for 30 minutes and you mostly had Google Play open (or you didn't have it open, but it was downloading updates), then the usage makes perfect sense.

If you are still concerned you can disable automatic updates and keep Google Play closed for some time, while you are using other apps. I expect that you will see negligible battery and data usage from it.

I don't know that the Google Play Store app is the culprit. The data consumption from Automatic Updates is reported as Google Play Store data, not Google Services.

 

[Filip_Vesely]

This all happens when the device is idle. Say I charge it in the evening, unplug it and in the morning like 20% of the battery is drained, 30% or so by Google Play Services and like 10MB of data is used. All while I'm not using the phone, it's just idle.

As for your theory with 3rd party weather apps, I have no apps other than the ones that came preinstalled installed.

As I said, on my friends device it does not happen and since I can still return now, I want to sort this out rather than regret this later.

 

[Filip_Vesely]

Oggy Shopov: I only have auto-updates over WiFi, but this happens even on mobile data. And as DenverRalphy has pointed out, it's not included under Google Play Services.

 

[chanchan05]

It's pretty new, so you may have stuff still syncing in the background. You can try an app that regulates sync times.

 

[Filip_Vesely]

Well it's been over 5 days, you think it's still syncing?

 

[DenverRalphy]

As for your theory with 3rd party weather apps, I have no apps other than the ones that came preinstalled installed.

I only mentioned 3rd party weather apps as a common cause. It could be one of the stock apps (or widgets) that periodically pulls data via Google Play Services, depending on the settings. I don't know how your device is setup, so couldn't begin to guess where to start looking. Though now that I think of it... Google Now can chomp quite a bit depending on your Google Now settings (some people have every feature of Google Now turned on), so that might be worth looking at.

 

[Filip_Vesely]

OK, I'm going to disable Google Now (I don't even use it) and see what happens. Thanks for the advice.

 

[B. Diddy]

Do you have Facebook or other social media apps installed? Those might also be using Google Play Services.