is this impossible?

[aweber1nj]

I can't think of a way to do this, I'm guessing it's pretty-much impossible, but I thought "It's a Friday, maybe I'll throw it out there..."

So to waste everyone's time (sorry again), here's my situation:

I'm finding that battery life with my D2G is just fine if I leave all the radios off. So although I'd prefer to leave them all on all the time for features and functions, and I would settle for just the wifi and/or BT on, I don't think it's gonna happen.

So can anyone think of a way for my BT to auto-enable/disable when I get in the car? I understand that if I remove my phone from the holster and put it into a car-dock, I might eventually get Tasker to detect the magnet and enable BT (it does not yet). But I usually leave my phone on my hip, and I feel like I shouldn't have to always remember to enable/disable BT on a phone as "smart" as this. It should either have the necessary battery life to leave it enabled, or it should have a way to do it.

Coming from two BB's (apples-to-oranges, I know) that would run wifi and BT 24x7 without needing more than a nightly charge, this is just a total "culture change" for me to adjust to.

Any constructive thoughts out there?

Thanks,
AJ

 

[takeshi]

You need to do some more digging into this. With all radios off you haven't specifically determined what is using up your battery. BT in my experience doesn't really use up much more simply from turning it on. Apps that heavily use data, frequent polling of pull accounts, actual use of the GPS receiver (not just leaving it on) and the display are some of the more common battery hogs but I wouldn't just assume that any of these are your problem without looking into your specific battery use first. There are a lot of threads here and on other Android forum sites that you can reference to help determine what is specifically killing your battery. The battery info screen is a good start but there are also apps to help you determine this. I don't have names or URL's handy off the top of my head.

Even without any knowledge or tools you could specifically disable BT and monitor battery life throughout a day or more to determine the impact. Once you've done that you could also cycle through the other radios but this method won't help if it turns out that your data connection is chewing through your battery as you'd then need to determine which app(s) or features are causing this.

Tasker's one way of doing what you're asking but, as you've mentioned, it needs some sort of context to determine how to turn BT off and on. Have you used the Docked state as the context in your profile for turning BT off and on? I don't have a car dock but I do have a multimedia dock at home and Tasker's never had an issue with using the Docked state in my profiles.

In any case, unless you're always using BT I wouldn't suggest charging down that road. Definitely determine what's eating your battery and address the worst offenders first rather than randomly -- well, to be fair, somewhat randomly in your case -- making changes.

Coming from two BB's (apples-to-oranges, I know) that would run wifi and BT 24x7 without needing more than a nightly charge, this is just a total "culture change" for me to adjust to.

FWIW, I leave WiFi, BT and GPS on 24x7 on my Droid and I typically don't need more than just a nightly charge. Heavy browsing, GPS use or playing too much Angry Birds will, of course, change things. Even on the BB using the GPS receiver would chew through the battery.

 

[aweber1nj]

So two things:
1) I've only had the D2G a few days, but I left BT (only) enabled one business day and the battery was at 15% after 5hrs. Another day, only WiFi was enabled and it was similar: I got about 6hrs. Yesterday I left all radios off and at 8hrs I was at 60% -- remarkable difference just by disabling radios, and not changing any running apps or usage-patterns on the phone. To me, this shows the radio(s) sucking the power down themselves.

2) I noticed in Tasker there was a context for Docked, but not an "event". Have you been able to trigger actions based upon putting your phone into-and-out-of a dock? That would be a partial solution.

I would love to leave WiFi and BT on 24x7. GPS I wouldn't mind enabling ad-hoc.

Thanks for the reply.