apps using battery

[iPodEater]

How can I figure out what apps are using up all of my battery. My phone doesn't stay charged nearly as long as it did when I first got it?

Thanks

 

[Peaches037]

Go to settings and open running applications. Forceclose the apps your not using. Hope that helps

 

[jefboyardee]

Wheres My Droid Power says what percentage things are using and
Fast Reboot will kill everything it can and tell you what it killed.

 

[chanchan05]

Killing or force closing apps won't help especially if you use those apps frequently, the phone will just restart the apps after a while, killing more battery than just leaving them alone. Using a task manager will also just make the phone "addicted" to the task manager, making it not function properly anymore without a task manager due to the phone taking to the kill processes.

It would be best if you just listed down the apps you have. ezPDF for example has a bug which forces the CPU to run at 100% killing the battery fast. I have no idea if they already fixed this.

 

[Crashdamage]

Check 'Settings > Applications > Battery use'.

 

[jefboyardee]

Killing or force closing apps won't help

I agree with that in theory, but wind up using killers for two reasons: (a)they do seem to provide more free memory, and (b) if they

 

[Kicksilver]

You don't need to kill anything in Android.

It's Linux, not Windows.

 

[rickaltman]

I think what our community needs is some best practices and good guidelines. For instance, what is the battery hit imposed by NFC? What is more hungry, 4G or WiFi? Should we always keep Bluetooth on? Where does screen brightness fit on the power spectrum? GPS and Location services?

I would be most grateful for someone smarter than I to speak with authority on the resources that are the most battery-draining so we can make informed choices.

And then, how great would it be to have an app that acts like Windows power profiles: Activate the high-performance profile when plugged in at home and then switch quickly to the high-efficiency profile when on the road. I'd pay real coin for something like that...


Rick A.
Pleasanton CA

 

[OfTheDamned]

How can I figure out what apps are using up all of my battery. My phone doesn't stay charged nearly as long as it did when I first got it?

Thanks

You can go to Settings > Battery or Settings > About phone > Battery depending on your phone and take a look to see what is using the most battery. It is important to note that this is just showing you what percentage each item is responsible for. The "screen" will always be at the top and Android OS, Phone Idle and Cell Standby will typically be up there too. You can select many of these to get more information as well.

Overall, it is probably one of three things that is consuming more battery power on your phone.

1) An app you have installed is not playing nice and is not shutting down properly or running in the background too much. You can check you apps to see which ones are set to auto update and adjust their times if needed (weather apps/widgets, facebook, Google +, Rss or news readers are big culprits). A live wallpaper is also an app that can cause a big decrease in battery life. Task Killers are another battery killer, if you are using one then it is probably a good idea to get rid of it. Anything that gets your CPU going will consume battery.

2) You are in an area that has poorer signal than you used to be. Poor signal will kill your battery faster than just about anything else. Check your signal out a few times a day and see if it is significantly different in any of the areas you go to on a regular basis.

3) You. If you are using the phone more than you used to or doing something different with your phone now then your battery life will be different. Are you streaming more media, playing games or surfing the web more than you used to? Anything and everything you do with the phone will use up battery even just turning it on.

As someone mentioned, listing your apps can be helpful sometimes. Plenty of members here have run into apps that just eat batteries and know what to avoid. Letting everyone know what you have on your phone can go a long way towards solving the problem.

Good luck.

I agree with that in theory, but wind up using killers for two reasons: (a)they do seem to provide more free memory, and (b) if they

 

[chanchan05]

I agree with that in theory, but wind up using killers for two reasons: (a)they do seem to provide more free memory, and (b) if they

 

[rab1412000]

Use betterbatterystats. Google it.

Basically look for wake locks.
There are certain apps that prevent the phone from going into deep sleep and this is usually what drains battery fastest.

 

[Crashdamage]

I agree with that in theory, but wind up using killers for two reasons: (a)they do seem to provide more free memory, and (b) if they

 

[Kicksilver]

Wifi uses WAY less power than any other radio.

Unless you're sitting below the broadcast antenna.

 

[rickaltman]

This has become an excellent discussion, many thanks to all. I so wish that I could turn my screen brightness down or go exclusively with dark screens and reversed-out text, but my north-of-50 eyes will hear nothing of it. I do it whenever I can (like on my home screens, where I can make the icons bigger) but cannot with my text or email apps.

Meanwhile, I will reiterate how great it would be to discover an app that allowed us to create power profiles:

HIGH-PERFORMANCE: Screen bright, 4G on, high-frequency alerts, Bluetooth on, etc.

LOW-POWER: Screen dim, alerts off, Bluetooth off, etc.

Create a Power folder, create icons for each profile, activate them with one touch -- rock star...

 

[Kicksilver]

I think Tasker app does that.

 

[NinerBikes]

You can go to Settings > Battery or Settings > About phone > Battery depending on your phone and take a look to see what is using the most battery. It is important to note that this is just showing you what percentage each item is responsible for. The "screen" will always be at the top and Android OS, Phone Idle and Cell Standby will typically be up there too. You can select many of these to get more information as well.

Overall, it is probably one of three things that is consuming more battery power on your phone.

1) An app you have installed is not playing nice and is not shutting down properly or running in the background too much. You can check you apps to see which ones are set to auto update and adjust their times if needed (weather apps/widgets, facebook, Google +, Rss or news readers are big culprits). A live wallpaper is also an app that can cause a big decrease in battery life. Task Killers are another battery killer, if you are using one then it is probably a good idea to get rid of it. Anything that gets your CPU going will consume battery.

2) You are in an area that has poorer signal than you used to be. Poor signal will kill your battery faster than just about anything else. Check your signal out a few times a day and see if it is significantly different in any of the areas you go to on a regular basis.

3) You. If you are using the phone more than you used to or doing something different with your phone now then your battery life will be different. Are you streaming more media, playing games or surfing the web more than you used to? Anything and everything you do with the phone will use up battery even just turning it on.

As someone mentioned, listing your apps can be helpful sometimes. Plenty of members here have run into apps that just eat batteries and know what to avoid. Letting everyone know what you have on your phone can go a long way towards solving the problem.

Good luck.




Going into A and B of you post:

A: In Android free memory is wasted memory. If you phone is running properly then it will fill up most of your RAM with apps that are waiting to launch. If you kill all your tasks then the only thing you are doing is freeing up that memory for the moment, then the system will refill it with apps again. This uses up more CPU and drains the battery faster. It is also important to understand that an app in memory isn't necessarily using any battery.

B: There isn't a "task killer" installed in Gingerbread. There is an "active task manager" that is designed to stop running apps if a problem were to arise, but it wasn't a task killer that could blindly go in and kill everything. As far as them being "nasty" I wouldn't go that far, but I would call them unnecessary. Task Killers were around in the early days of Android when 1.5 and 1.6 didn't handle running applications as well and the phones had very little memory, but they have been pretty pointless since Froyo. If you read anything on how Android actually handles memory and/or applications then you understand they are a waste.



The big battery eaters on an Android phone are the screen and data.

The screen is the typically the number one power consumer on an Android phone. It typically accounts for the largest draw. Screen brightness is one of the ways to limit the amount of power the screen consumes and I have seen many people comment on keeping the screen at about 40% with auto-brightness off as a solid battery conservation technique. Another, for phones with AMOLED displays is to use a black background as it requires less power with these screens to show black than any other color. Live wallpaper is another thing to avoid if you want longer battery life. The screen will continue to consume power as long as it is on though.

Signal can really be the biggest battery killer though. Your phone will try to get signal at all cost. If you are in a bad coverage area or an area with poor 4G/3G signal then it is a good idea to go ahead and turn data off while you are there. This isn't too much of an issue if you are just driving through, but if you work or live in a poor coverage area then Wifi is your friend. Since your phone will constantly try and search for signal you can almost watch the power drain when in a poor coverage area. In fact turning off data on most phones will give you longer battery life than any other measure you take to conserve power. With data the power consumption will always be less with Wifi than it will with 4G or even 3G. 4G is a known power hog for most phones. A solid Wifi signal requires much less power than a 4G or 3G signal.

As for the other things you mentioned, I generally turn off Bluetooth when I am not using it. I have no idea how much of a battery drain it is, but if I am not going to be using it I have no need to leave it on and test it out. GPS is a different story because it only uses the battery when the icon is in the notification bar. If the icon isn't up there then an app isn't using it and your not burning battery. Location services are running majority of the time and are not a significant enough hit on battery life to really be concerned about. NFC is similar. I don't know if it is running all the time or off when away from a tag, but I leave it on and never seen a solid power draw off of it in the battery information.

Hope that helps.

Is there any way this can be made a "sticky" in a consolidated version?

Short version: anything that uses radio waves to send and receive is a battery consumptive use. Blue tooth, wifi, 4G, 3G, phone calls, GPS, all use the antenna to send signals... just not sure the order in which they suck the most amount of juice, highest to lowest.

Volume on radio, speakers, headphones, etc... turned down is less draw.

Anything that keeps your screen lit up brighter than it needs to be, or for longer than it needs to be before it times out, is another consumptive use.

A PowerMiser App would be helpful... run full juice when charging, less backlight when inside, etc.

 

[tcat007]

Power Tudor seems to do a good jobs of letting you know which apps draw the most power (how wifi/3G effect power). Only turn it on for 5-10 minutes to monitor, and it won't be a drain.

 

[jefboyardee]

The upgrade from Froyo to Gingerbread is very worthwhile and you should do it. Why haven't you already?

Best explained in a thread from that other forum, called Reject Gingerbread. For reasons within, I

 

[RyanB]

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.zomut.watchdog

Watchdog Task Manager works by monitoring your CPU, and alerts you when apps exceed the threshold the user sets, with the option to kill that app. I've seen Amazon's appstore get greedy and really hog the processor. There's also a lite version.

 

[jefboyardee]

Watchdog Task Manager works by monitoring your CPU

Tried it before and it bothered me, now I have to try it again and find out why.

 

[RyanB]

Why did it bother you?

 

[jefboyardee]

Why did it bother you?

As I said, I have to try it again and find out why, but as I recall, it was reporting a must-have-can’t-uninstall app -- Clipper Plus -- as misbehaving. I’ll let you know later.

 

[RyanB]

You can "whitelist" apps, so they're ignored

 

[funpig]

"Power Tutor" will show you the exact amount of joules used by each app (with or without display). When I find two apps which do the same functions (eg. Astro and ES explorer, AVG and Zoner), I run both at the same time and then check Power Tutor to see which one uses more battery over the same period of time. I then delete the more power hungry app. It is much more precise than "Wheres My Droid Power" and you can reset the start and finish at any time.

 

[jefboyardee]

You can "whitelist" apps, so they're ignored

Can we whitelist Carrier IQ?