Widgets and battery life

[Yde]

Hi,
I've only had my n7 for a few weeks as I live in Europe, and was wondering about the battery life not being as good as promised. Even with light low, bluetooth/GPS off, wifi off when standby, I have only been able to squeeze out about 5-5,5 hours on-screen time, mainly browsing, emails and light gaming. My battery consumption always shows the screen as the main sink.

Now I tried removing some widgets, just weather and a custom clock(actually replaced with the stock one) , and already I'm seeing improvement. Got 2 hour 15min onscreen time, and battery is at app 70%.

Is it normal that widgets use this much battery life?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[a1kemist]

Possible, depending how often you let them check for updates.

You should try this app called cpu spy. It's free and it allows you to check if your device is going into deep sleep or not. If it's not going into deep sleep, then something is keeping the device awake and draining the battery. Then it's just a matter of picking each widget off and seeing which is the culprit.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bvalosek.cpuspy&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDMsImNvbS5idmFsb3Nlay5jcHVzcHkiXQ..

 

[Yde]

Sv: Widgets and battery life

I think it's mainly when I'm using it actively its using more battery. I leave it at home during the day, and it uses maybe 2-4 percent only.

I got better battery, which made me look at my widgets

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[anon(847090)]

Yes, widgets do drain a lot of battery but it also depends on how frequently the widgets get pooled for updates.

for example gmail widget dont take a lot of battery. they get pushed less frequently.

 

[natehoy]

I don't think 5 hours of actual screen-on time is all that bad, overall. I get maybe 6, and close to 5 when I'm playing cpu-heavy apps.

Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt

 

[paul-c]

Five and a half hours of screen time sounds about right. That's roughly what I get out of the Nexus 7 if the screen is on the whole time. I hardly ever point to widgets being the reason for big battery drain, it's almost always the screen.

Sent from my Panasonic ELUGA

 

[anon(924308)]

5 hours is about what I get, web browsing and such. but I'd rather have my convenient widgets than an extra hour of battery life.

dl a screen dimmer app--when you're inside or in low-lighting situations, I find that you can go a lot dimmer than the minimum without having to strain your eyes. If screen glare is a problem for you, buy an anti-glare screen protector (slightly degrades screen resolution, but I read on my commute so I prefer no glare).