What changes occur in Power Saver Mode?

Matlock · November 15th, 2011, 05:28 PM

Other than the settings available under the Power Saver tab, are there any other changes that happen when Power Saver is activated.

I'm always impressed how long the battery lasts when in this mode. But never really had a thought to replicate it.

falconey · November 16th, 2011, 09:49 AM

I think the it's limited to the options you select.

jerofld · November 16th, 2011, 10:43 AM

It makes it so your screen turns off in 30 secs (or maybe 1 minute), turns off all vibrations (haptic feedback included), dims the screen, turns off animations, and I think it shuts down any radio not actively in use, or has been used in 30 seconds. Including wifi, even if you tell wifi to never sleep. That's including bluetooth, 3G, 4G, wifi, and GPS.

Matlock · November 20th, 2011, 07:44 AM

I tweaked the settings two days ago on the Power Saver settings to see which would be the most effected by un-checking it. I un-checked:

Disable Background Date
Vibrate Feedback

.. as you can see from the first image. I figured I would not get as a significant battery life as I have before, since those, I thought, were the main things killing it in the first place when Power Saver is not active.

Power Saver Mode is active at 30%.

Amazingly enough, it had no bearing on battery life at all.
As seen in the second image, from around 1:40AM to 6:30PM, battery stayed at a good 22%-23%. I was sleeping around this time, so I didn't turn my phone on, or use it in any sort of way.

Since the device was not being used, I know these were not in use.

Disable Background Date (Unchecked - still in use)
Disable Wi-Fi (left on at all times - WiFi at home)
Disable Bluetooth (phone not in use to use - Bluetooth turned off anyway)
Screen Brightness (phone not in use to use)
Screen Timeout (phone not in use to use)
Onscreen Animations (phone not in use to use)
Vibrate Feedback (phone not in use to use - Unchecked)

Overall, like I stated before, I'm impressed at how well the Power Saver manages battery life.

During this test, I do have Juice Defender Beta: Extreme active, with no Advanced settings altered. I've used the advanced settings, changed them to prevent everything from being active, turned on, used, ext. But can't get the same battery saving states as the HTC Power Saver Mode.

This is why I originally wondered if those settings (in the first image) may not be the only things changed in Power Saver mode.

Tonight, I plan on unchecking all the settings in Power Saver, and turning off Juice Defender Beta, and see what difference in the battery life is. And post back.

I'm not the type of person to always complain about Battery Life. I've owned an Android device since the G1 (trying to buy one off eBay for nostalgia); I know it sucks

.

Matlock · November 21st, 2011, 10:23 AM

Alright, I let the device do it's thing last night with ALL the Power Saver settings UNCHECKED and Juice Defender deactivated. This is the result.

The Power Saver once again activated at 30% battery life which was about 2:40AM. I had to set an alarm up with Tasker at this time to make sure my phone didn't shut down, just in case I got a phone call and/or text; so I could plug it in.

So once that was done, the device hit 27% then leveled off at 24% for almost four hours. Then for some reason it dropped down to about 15% within 30 minutes and leveled off until I awoke at 10AM.

My conclusion from these two tests is that there has to be something more going on than just the the alteration of the Power Saver settings to manage battery life after 30% or below. If there was an option to use Power Saver Mode at 100%, you bet your bottom dollar I'd be having that baby active at all times.

Unfortunately, I do not know anything about the mechanics of our Android OS, and cannot really get a full breakdown of each little thing to confirm my observation. I'll continue this little task off the record to see if it's consistent.

If anyone else has any insight to the cause, feel free to chime in.

Here is a Legend for what the colors represent. For those who do not know; I didn't.

Plot line represents phone/battery temperature - Green is Cool, Red is Hot
Green above the plot line - Screen is ON
Red below the plot line - WiFi is ON
Yellow below the plot line - APN is ON (Mobile Network)
Green at the bottom of the screen - Charger is ON

LBPHeretic · November 21st, 2011, 11:47 AM

It might be stopping syncing services during overnight hours to save battery power. That might explain the sudden drop because it finally allowed all of those services to sync at once and then probably turned them off again.

It would be nice if more insight was afforded from the manufacturer on what the Power Saver Mode does. I would prefer having control over what is shut off overnight or at times of low battery levels than letting my handset arbitrarily decide that for me.

Matlock · November 21st, 2011, 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LBPHeretic

It might be stopping syncing services during overnight hours to save battery power. That might explain the sudden drop because it finally allowed all of those services to sync at once and then probably turned them off again.

It would be nice if more insight was afforded from the manufacturer on what the Power Saver Mode does. I would prefer having control over what is shut off overnight or at times of low battery levels than letting my handset arbitrarily decide that for me.

From what I understand, HTC is pretty good at responding to use with our questions.

Any possibility we could get a head Phandroider to hit them up and see what we get?