Live wallpapers waste battery and slow down cpu?

[Young_Bon]

Do live wallpapers slow you down? I notice when I am using one, It seems to make my phone lag a small amount.

 

[Cyber Warrior]

Yes. Live wallpapers use your phone’s CPU and GPU to render itself. So, it will decrease your battery life. Less than 2% in most case. The effect is so insignificant that there is no need for you to worry about whether to have one or not. However, there are some live wallpapers that give the battery a more significant beating than others. You can check how much battery your live wallpaper uses by going to Settings > About > Battery > Battery Use. If you see that it takes less than 5%, it’s absolutely ok.

 

[spectator52]

i always make sure i have a charger wherever i go so i don't need to worry about battery life

 

[julie524]

Yes. Live wallpapers use your phone?s CPU and GPU to render itself. So, it will decrease your battery life. Less than 2% in most case. The effect is so insignificant that there is no need for you to worry about whether to have one or not. However, there are some live wallpapers that give the battery a more significant beating than others. You can check how much battery your live wallpaper uses by going to Settings > About > Battery > Battery Use. If you see that it takes less than 5%, it?s absolutely ok.

Will it say "live wallpaper" or is counted as part of the "display" percentage? I've got a live wallpaper running now, but it's not showing what part of the battery usage it's taking up.

 

[Cyber Warrior]

Will it say "live wallpaper" or is counted as part of the "display" percentage? I've got a live wallpaper running now, but it's not showing what part of the battery usage it's taking up.

It does not show up as the "display". It will show up under the name of the live wallpaper. If its not showing up then its barely using anything. You could probably check at the end of the day when the battery is almost drained and see if its there. Ex...the smoke live wallpapers sometimes will show up as 2% or not even show up at all.
The biggest battery drain as you can see is the display. Lowering the brightness or keeping it set to auto will significantly increase battery life. I keep mine at about 30%.... enough to where the screen still looks good but is not too dark.

The other biggest drainer is the update intervals of Widgets/Apps. Ex.... you can set your weather widget to update every 3 hours instead of every 30 minutes.... stuff like that. Also turning off wifi/bluetooth/gps when not needed. If you have a poor network signal that's constantly searching for a connection.

There all little things but together they add up... so tweaking a few settings here and there will greatly help the battery.

 

[mikethemedic]

i always make sure i have a charger wherever i go so i don't need to worry about battery life

LOL i pictured myself with a bank of batteries in my back pack to power my android!!!!

 

[aaronkdr]

Yes. Live wallpapers use your phone’s CPU to render itself. So, it will decrease your battery life, The other biggest drainer is the update intervals of Widgets,If you want to save the bettry life you must use dark static wallpapers.

 

[greendaze44]

It seems like every since I updated to FOYO 2.2 my Captivate Battery gets eaten up. I done a few of the tweeks that have been suggested like lowering the brightness, setting the weather to not refresh unless I tell it to, making sure the "live ads" aren't running in the background, but to no avail. I leave home at 7:30am and have to charge it again by lunch time at noon. I carry my charger with me, but I don't wanna have to keep it hooked up to the damn charger all the time. That is why I have a cell phone, not a freakin land line! Duh!

 

[IceDree]

Does live wallpapers also effects the launcher ?
every time i use the Droid X live wallpaper (the eye) , ADW launcher restarts it self when i exit an app !

 

[phreddyl]

some live wall papers slow you down- I like the ADW launcher but find it buggy sometimes

 

[phreddyl]

launcher pro works smoother IMO

 

[dbareis]

some live wall papers slow you down- I like the ADW launcher but find it buggy sometimes

Like everything else live wallpapers use RAM (some significant amounts), if you are low in the first place this will cause significant performance impact and possibly random issues as Android closes apps.

If you want to save the battery life you must use dark static wallpapers.

Re: the "dark" part, this only helps on some screen types (AMOLED, not LCD etc which have back light).