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TASKER looks like it kills your battery life.

H

Hand76

Guest
I just got Tasker yesterday (usually use Settings Profile) but thought I would give Tasker a go but this thing really killed my battery life.

I used a few location based settings and even after putting down GPS checks every 300 seconds (5 minutes) my battery life was dropping like crazy.

When I checked my battery stats Tasker was always using up 10-12% + of my battery life.

Can anyone else confirm if this is happening to them?
 
lmao, way to read mike1

anyway, i tried tasker but found that even with everything setup it would be "checking" for the various situations more than anything costing you CPU cycles and battery life.

For me:

GPS is on, its not using battery unless i actually am using an app so to me is pointless to have something checking if it needs to be on or not.

WIFI is managed perfectly by Y5, shuts wifi radio off and on as needed.

3G - on all the time, i use my smartphone as just that, i want my data now and not on intervals

Bluetooth i manage myself

there were a few other settings that i used it for but again they werent going to save hours of battery life or anything so i didnt see the point. I use my phone alot and still get good enough battery life and i always have a charger around if needed anyway.
 
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I use Tasker and it doesn't impact battery life at all. If you're using GPS to trigger events, then that's going to suck battery life, but that's true of any app that uses GPS that way. If GPS is always on it's a battery drain. Disable Tasker and leave GPS on for a day and you'll see the drain. I've got wi-fi triggers in some of my tasks and I find it doesn't drain the battery any more than it does to just leave wifi on all the time. If you don't use any tasks that require wifi or GPS, then it won't hurt your battery life at all.
 
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Disable Tasker and leave GPS on for a day and you'll see the drain

That's actually not true.

GPS only runs (when you see the icon) and an app requests it. For instance once you enter into Google maps it starts up but once leaving Maps it shuts down.

I also use an app called Settings Profile that works just like Tasker and changes my profiles by location and it does not consume as much battery as tasker.

Only problem is System Profiles doesn't have an option to shut off 3G when I go into work and that is what I wanted Tasker for. (Because I work in a really bad reception area and 3G kills my battery)
 
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That's actually not true.

GPS only runs (when you see the icon) and an app requests it. For instance once you enter into Google maps it starts up but once leaving Maps it shuts down.

I also use an app called Settings Profile that works just like Tasker and changes my profiles by location and it does not consume as much battery as tasker.

Only problem is System Profiles doesn't have an option to shut off 3G when I go into work and that is what I wanted Tasker for. (Because I work in a really bad reception area and 3G kills my battery)

Do you work a standard job where you're at the office during a set period of time M-F? If so you can easily set up a profile that says from M-F, 8-5, turn 3G off.
 
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Do you work a standard job where you're at the office during a set period of time M-F? If so you can easily set up a profile that says from M-F, 8-5, turn 3G off.

No thats the problem I work a rotating schedule and every other week it gets pushed up by a day.

I will prrobably play with the settings more but when you guys (using Tasker) check your battery stats what % is Tasker using?
 
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I've been using Tasker for months as well and my 1750 battery will last more than a day. I would think that GPS polling for location every five minutes is whats killing you battery. Have you installed OS Monitor to check CPU load? Typically, Tasker while enabled will show a load of 0-2% which isn't really a battery killer.
 
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I have a few location based profiles and they dont seem to be a problem. You could set up a task and create a single button widget for it. Then you could just push the button when you get to work.

Another option is if you plug the phone in your car charger, you can set up a profile that pops up a menu when you unplug. That menu will say "Which profile do you want" and allow you to select your profile (at work, at home, out of home.....) where each menu selection is a different profile.

(Quick tip) Always name and save your tasks so you can use them in other profiles if you need.
 
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Tasker was draining my battery pretty fast. I only had the Find Phone profile deal. To stop the GPS from coming on every 5 minutes, open Tasker > Menu > Preferences > Monitor and edit the GPS Check seconds. Default is set to 600 seconds or 10 minutes. I only use the GPS to locate my phone if it is lost or stolen so I placed mine at 9999 seconds.

If you have GPS set functions ie; different profiles or apps you want started at different locations, you may not want to modify the GPS check times as it will not auto check the location to see if the phone has moved.
 
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Again I don't know how "Settings Profile Full" does it...but it finds you by location without killing your battery and I never see the gps indicator come up. :) Which confuses me on how it works...but it works. :)

Maybe it goes by cell phone towers instead or something?
 
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Tasker was a battery hog for me too, when I had GPS on all the time, since it would check my location every 5 minutes or so via GPS. Instead I turned GPS off, and now it's significantly better.

I believe there is a way for me to leave GPS on (so I don't have to toggle it for maps/whatever) and have Tasker determine my position with only towers, but I haven't figured that out yet...
 
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Again I don't know how "Settings Profile Full" does it...but it finds you by location without killing your battery and I never see the gps indicator come up. :) Which confuses me on how it works...but it works. :)

Maybe it goes by cell phone towers instead or something?

IIRC, one of the settings for GPS is for the timeout. This tells Tasker how long to get a fix before shutting of GPS. I have mine set for 30 secs. There is also an "All checks" setting that the GPS setting is going to use when the phone is asleep. I would make sure that's not too low. Use the question mark buttons on the tasker preferences screen to get additional details about the settings.

FWIW, i think Setting Profiles Full used cell triangulation because it never got an accurate location reading for me because of the poor cell reception at my office.
 
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FWIW, i think Setting Profiles Full used cell triangulation because it never got an accurate location reading for me because of the poor cell reception at my office.

I have poor reception inside my job as well but I set the range a little longer so that Settings Profile picks up my job location before I enter the building.



BTW Can Tasker work the same off of Cell Triangulations to save the gps???

Edit: I see Bing had the same question.
 
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Tasker was a battery hog for me too, when I had GPS on all the time, since it would check my location every 5 minutes or so via GPS. Instead I turned GPS off, and now it's significantly better.

I believe there is a way for me to leave GPS on (so I don't have to toggle it for maps/whatever) and have Tasker determine my position with only towers, but I haven't figured that out yet...

It can, but I haven't had a lot of luck with it. To be fair I spent all of about 30 seconds screwing with it though.
 
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It can, but I haven't had a lot of luck with it. To be fair I spent all of about 30 seconds screwing with it though.

I've found what works better for me than triangulation is to look by Cell Tower. Instead of being by location it is by State and then by Cell Near. You can grab which cell tower you are connected to, at my office its constantly switching between two towers so I have two listed. You just add the State, Cell Near and click scan, it will figure out what tower you are connected to and then you have no location systems working to find your location.
 
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I just got Tasker yesterday (usually use Settings Profile) but thought I would give Tasker a go but this thing really killed my battery life.

I used a few location based settings and even after putting down GPS checks every 300 seconds (5 minutes) my battery life was dropping like crazy.

When I checked my battery stats Tasker was always using up 10-12% + of my battery life.

Can anyone else confirm if this is happening to them?

Yeah, a complete waste of time and senseless waste of processor power resulting in less battery life overall.
 
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