Google Now and Battery life???

[Azwizzard]

For those of you using Google Now, how is your battery life?

The reason I ask, is that this weekend I finally decided to give Google Now a try. I enabled it and played around a bit (set some reminders, etc.)

Normally I loose about 3% or so of my batter life per hour (if I am not using the phone at all). I noticed with Google Now active, I was loosing about 10% an hour.

I looked at my usage info and Google Services had suddenly been very active and used a LARGE part of my battery.

I turned off Google Now and my battery usage went back down to normal.

Just wondering if this was normal for Google Now?

 

[friedtators]

Now will be active while it gets to know you

 

[mysterygirl]

I'm using Google Now and haven't experienced any excessive battery drain. I've been pretty impressed with battery life.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[thegrants82]

I'm using Google Now and haven't experienced any excessive battery drain. I've been pretty impressed with battery life.

Posted via Android Central App

Same here.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[garublador]

For those of you using Google Now, how is your battery life?

The reason I ask, is that this weekend I finally decided to give Google Now a try. I enabled it and played around a bit (set some reminders, etc.)

Normally I loose about 3% or so of my batter life per hour (if I am not using the phone at all). I noticed with Google Now active, I was loosing about 10% an hour.

I looked at my usage info and Google Services had suddenly been very active and used a LARGE part of my battery.

I turned off Google Now and my battery usage went back down to normal.

Just wondering if this was normal for Google Now?

Yes, that is normal for Google Now. There have been tons of complaints about this since it came out on many different devices.

I found that disabling the Background location reporting, Location sharing and Location history along with disabling all cards that might use location fixed it but still allowed the cards that use your Gmail and search history to work. I haven't tried enabling just the cards and leaving that other stuff disabled, though. Other people, including thegrants82, have reported that the SnapDragon Battery Guru app seems to allow you to both use all the Google Now features and get good battery life, though. I'm on my last day of learning so it will be a few days before I have any decent results of trying that out.

 

[BruceyBB]

Yes, I've got the same issue here. Yesterday morning, after a full charge I've enabled Google Now (will tell you the reason later), at 8pm battery was on 1% and it died! Charged again before sleep to 100%. Killed all running apps, turned off WiFi and mobile data, enabled 'Power saving mode', albeit doing all these, this morning at 8am the battery was on 18%. When i've checked my battery usage graph in the morning it was draining battery for 42% only on "Dveice idle". That's ridiculous. Anyways I've disabled Google Now, including its location services.

PS: Ok, the reason that I've enabled Google Now, was that Android default Weather widget wasn't reliable in many ways, so it was only to use the weather card o Google Now. Does anybody have any comment on that? Is there a better alternative to the weather widget? I've tried Yahoo widget and it was awful too.

 

[nickgalaxys4]

I used Google now, and found that map is alway running to keep you up to date on traffic, so I turned off Google now and now my battery lasts for two days.

 

[SpookDroid]

Google Now constantly polls for your location (if you enable it) and THAT'S what drains your battery (GPS On or not, it still polls for your location). But that's exactly how it works it's magic. You may disable it like some posts suggest, but then what's the point of having Google Now, right?

In my case, Google Now is crappy crap on a cracker where I live (as in outside the US); the only information it gives me is really inaccurate traffic information, trying to send me home from work in the middle of the day (and don't tell me 'it'll learn eventually', I used it for a month), weather info and my calendar information. Since I have widgets for all that, and I trust Waze's information more, I eventually turned it off. And guess what? My battery life nearly doubled. LITERALLY.

BTW, if you decide to disable Google Now, REMEMBER to go to the Mapps app, go into Settings, and disable the "Automatically Report Location from this Device" option that Google Now, for some reason, leaves enabled.

 

[garublador]

Other people, including thegrants82, have reported that the SnapDragon Battery Guru app seems to allow you to both use all the Google Now features and get good battery life, though. I'm on my last day of learning so it will be a few days before I have any decent results of trying that out.

I'm not sure if it's BatteryGuru (I doubt it is) but for the past few weeks I've had Google Now on with all cards enabled, location reporting and location history enabled, but the rest disabled in Maps settings, and my battery life has been much better. One thing I did do was uninstall updates for Maps and that seemed to help with no real down side. I'm not sure what specifically I did to get better battery life, but it's probably some combination of Now being less active after a "learning" phase, BatteryGuru not letting all apps wake up the processor all the time and uninstalling the updates from Maps.

I have no idea how much it drains overnight because I leave my phone plugged in at that time and while how much it drains is interesting information, there isn't really a good reason not to charge at that time.

 

[STARGATE]

I normally have Google Now active and Snapdragon Battery Guru. But haven't check on battery life.
I'll check and report back.

Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away

 

[Reformed IOS User]

I normally have Google Now active and Snapdragon Battery Guru. But haven't check on battery life.
I'll check and report back.

Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away

Battery Guru shuts down google now until you do a google search

 

[STARGATE]

I did a factory reset last Friday.
Battery guru isn't install this time, and I think I'm saving more battery without it!

Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away!

 

[Almeuit]

I did a factory reset last Friday.
Battery guru isn't install this time, and I think I'm saving more battery without it!

Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away!

That's how I feel about battery saving apps... They do more harm than good in my opinion .

Sent from my T-Mobile HTC One using AC Forums.

 

[rjkgr]

So is the battery pack the best for S4 or is external chargers?

 

[STARGATE]

So is the battery pack the best for S4 or is external chargers?

Which ever you feel more comfortable with.
It's all about personal preferences.

Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away!

 

[rjkgr]

wait? but i mean for battery its about the same then?

 

[paintdrinkingpete]

For those of you using Google Now, how is your battery life?

The reason I ask, is that this weekend I finally decided to give Google Now a try. I enabled it and played around a bit (set some reminders, etc.)

Normally I loose about 3% or so of my batter life per hour (if I am not using the phone at all). I noticed with Google Now active, I was loosing about 10% an hour.

I looked at my usage info and Google Services had suddenly been very active and used a LARGE part of my battery.

I turned off Google Now and my battery usage went back down to normal.

Just wondering if this was normal for Google Now?

Google Now constantly polls for your location (if you enable it) and THAT'S what drains your battery (GPS On or not, it still polls for your location). But that's exactly how it works it's magic. You may disable it like some posts suggest, but then what's the point of having Google Now, right?

In my case, Google Now is crappy crap on a cracker where I live (as in outside the US); the only information it gives me is really inaccurate traffic information, trying to send me home from work in the middle of the day (and don't tell me 'it'll learn eventually', I used it for a month), weather info and my calendar information. Since I have widgets for all that, and I trust Waze's information more, I eventually turned it off. And guess what? My battery life nearly doubled. LITERALLY.

BTW, if you decide to disable Google Now, REMEMBER to go to the Mapps app, go into Settings, and disable the "Automatically Report Location from this Device" option that Google Now, for some reason, leaves enabled.

Yup, for me it's really bad because I work all day in an office where I get crappy cell reception (and it's an internal office, so no GPS either), so every time it would try to update it was draining my battery substantially.

 

[STARGATE]

Yup, for me it's really bad because I work all day in an office where I get crappy cell reception (and it's an internal office, so no GPS either), so every time it would try to update it was draining my battery substantially.

So disabling Google Now will actually help you by saving battery. I disabled it a while back and I haven't really pay attention but I've notice my battery lasts about 2-3 extra hours, at least.

Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away!

 

[downtown3641]

My battery life is fine with Google Now enabled. I lose about three percent of battery per hour when not using the phone. If you have poor reception, that will cause the battery to drain faster. But, that would be the case with any app that pulls data.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[garublador]

It's my understanding that the recent update to Google Play services may have helped reduce how much battery Google Now takes. I'm testing it out now but after one day it seems to take noticeably less battery than before, but still noticeably more than having it off.