- Nov 21, 2012
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In my ongoing attempt to squeeze every last bit of battery life out of a charge, I've been experimenting with every little tweak I can find. I have a Samsung Stellar (running 4.1.2) and they blessed it with a beefy battery (2100mh), but me, being me, I want to get the thing as efficient as I can. Basically this all revolves around getting this thing to sip as little juice as possible when its sleeping while still managing to let me know when I get an important email. I got a nice strong Wi-Fi at home, and my work has APs all through the building, so I get a good signal there... and, with few exceptions, my phone's in 4G when I'm schleping back and forth to work.
Some observations:
Google Location services is a voracious little beastie... If I have that on, it'll wakelock like crazy... if you use it and have your Wi-Fi set to flip off when sleeping, it's location wakelock will do its darnedest to keep that from happening. Disabling Google's location services solves that, but the drawback there is that some apps, like Google Now, use it for some of its neat content. Why Google Now can't poll GPS or allow us to set the location update interval, I don't know. And Auto Sync is GLS's little buddy... when that's on, it'll keep that Wi-Fi radio one as best it can. If I disable both, the phone will sleep (and Wi-Fi drop out) more reliably.... but with Sync off, gmail won't update. I can deal with losing some of the bells and whistles in Google Now, but I want to get notified if I get an important email.
My ideal scenario was this: When my screen is on, only power up the data path (Wi-fi or Mobile) that is applicable to my location (Llama does this pretty well). When I turn off the screen, disable Mobile Data, Wi-Fi and Sync so the phone goes into a deep sleep as quickly as possible AND STAYS THERE. Every so often flip Mobile Data or (if available) Wi-Fi, do a quick email sniff, then go back to bed. I tried this, using Llama to handle the grunt work, and it worked GREAT, battery drain all but flatlined when the screen was off. That is, until I ran into an odd quirk in my phone's Wi-Fi where it wouldn't hold a connection after it's been toggled like that a bunch of times. Figures.
So I am trying a myriad of combinations, playing "Chase the Wakelock".
So I'm opening the floor to discussion if anyone has any success stories.
And these are things that I am trying to figure out:
If I'm connected to Wi-Fi, from what I've read, the Mobile data powers down...so it doesn't use any juice and there is no need to disable it. Is that true?
If there are Wi-Fi networks in range, but none of them are known, how much power does the Wi-Fi use just sitting there, sniffing for APs?
If there are NO Wi-Fi networks in range, how much power does Wi-Fi use?
Is the ConnectivityService wakelock only applicable to the Mobile Data connection?
Some observations:
Google Location services is a voracious little beastie... If I have that on, it'll wakelock like crazy... if you use it and have your Wi-Fi set to flip off when sleeping, it's location wakelock will do its darnedest to keep that from happening. Disabling Google's location services solves that, but the drawback there is that some apps, like Google Now, use it for some of its neat content. Why Google Now can't poll GPS or allow us to set the location update interval, I don't know. And Auto Sync is GLS's little buddy... when that's on, it'll keep that Wi-Fi radio one as best it can. If I disable both, the phone will sleep (and Wi-Fi drop out) more reliably.... but with Sync off, gmail won't update. I can deal with losing some of the bells and whistles in Google Now, but I want to get notified if I get an important email.
My ideal scenario was this: When my screen is on, only power up the data path (Wi-fi or Mobile) that is applicable to my location (Llama does this pretty well). When I turn off the screen, disable Mobile Data, Wi-Fi and Sync so the phone goes into a deep sleep as quickly as possible AND STAYS THERE. Every so often flip Mobile Data or (if available) Wi-Fi, do a quick email sniff, then go back to bed. I tried this, using Llama to handle the grunt work, and it worked GREAT, battery drain all but flatlined when the screen was off. That is, until I ran into an odd quirk in my phone's Wi-Fi where it wouldn't hold a connection after it's been toggled like that a bunch of times. Figures.
So I am trying a myriad of combinations, playing "Chase the Wakelock".
So I'm opening the floor to discussion if anyone has any success stories.
And these are things that I am trying to figure out:If I'm connected to Wi-Fi, from what I've read, the Mobile data powers down...so it doesn't use any juice and there is no need to disable it. Is that true?
If there are Wi-Fi networks in range, but none of them are known, how much power does the Wi-Fi use just sitting there, sniffing for APs?
If there are NO Wi-Fi networks in range, how much power does Wi-Fi use?
Is the ConnectivityService wakelock only applicable to the Mobile Data connection?
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