Widgets/Battery Drain?

[joe_5962]

Anyone know if having 3 screens full of widgets, that's including home screen drain battery. Every time I check my battery status and see whats using most battery it says display. Phone set to cut off after 30sec.Wondering if it would be better to remove all widgets on 2 screens and just keep home screen.

 

[Jude526]

Icons don't eat the battery use. Android is powerful and the screens are very intense colors. Display does use more. Since GB I have better battery life. I use 3 screens.

sent from my Thunderbolt....and the thunder rolls !

 

[FrankXS]

Really, it depends on the Widget/app. Some have a setting to continue to update even while not active. You can often turn that off so they only update while you are using them. Some, you can't turn off -- just depends on the app.

Every time I load an app or Widget, I look for just such settings to determine if they are gong to run in the background or not. If I can't turn that off, I usually delete them.

Two of the Widgets that come standard on the TBolt (Facebook and Friendstream maybe? -- I forgot now). Anyhow, I noticed they would be active even when not being used. Especially if you just flicked by that page, they would try to logon (I never gave them my credentials so they couldn't actually log on -- but they would try).

I've eliminated all Widgets except the single Widget (SIMI clock/weather) on my home screen -- [HERE]. This appears to use much less battery than the original HTC clock/weather Widget. I only have two screens with any icons at all. My home screen and one other with a few apps that I use frequently (not Widgets). Oh, and Google Search (I guess that is a Widget -- but not active until you type into it).

My battery seems much better after I eliminated unnecessary Widgets and unnecessary/unused screens. Bottom line though is that you just have to manually check each Widget/app to see what settings are available to control background operation.

Just my experience.

-Frank

 

[Jo5329]

I shut my GPS off when at work or at home - that saves my battery a lot. I too have several full screens and the battery doesn't drain near as much with the GPS off.

Just my experience

 

[anon(394005)]

I've noticed that most simple widgets (ones that don't have settings) don't activate/update until you change to the screen they're on. As an example, I have Internet bookmarks on the screen to the right of home, the HTC battery widget on the screen to the left, and the Calendar widget on the screen to the left of that. All appear to only update once swiping over to their respective screens. Other more active widgets (Friendstream, Mail, Messages, etc.), one's that do have sync settings, are more active potentially using more battery. In that case, it is better to get rid of them if they're not being used or to tweak their settings to maximize battery life.

 

[robrecht]

Yeah, the clock & weather widget and other widgets that are set to frequently update tend to use battery. Weather animations are cool, but like any live wallpaper also uses up the battery. With 4G, I find that updates are real quick when the app is opened so an updating widget doesn't seem necessary. Besides, many weather apps provide more useful information anyway. How many times a day do you need to be reminded that its cloudy out?

Thanks, Robrecht