Tasker, Llama or Both? Battery Use Difference? - General Questions and Answers

I'm a coder and brand new to Android (obviously I'm not a mobile app coder.) Had my S3 for 3 weeks now. No MAJOR battery drain issues but I like to maximize it anyway.
I've got Llama setup to do stuff like turn Wifi off when I leave home and turn GPS off when I turn driving mode off. Lots of other actions/events involving account sync on/off, bluetooth on/off. GSAM last time I looked was giving me a 20-hour average battery life which is probably optimistic as I have been use the phone less than normal.
Anyhoo... I was disabling some location settings in Maps as I noticed Maps is getting triggered when not using the phone (probably mainly by Google Now trying to build my location history) and I thought, wouldn't it be nice if my GPS turned on automatically when I launched Maps and turned off when I closed it? Surprised Android doesn't have this option built-in. But seems only solution is Tasker?
So my question is, knowing Tasker is more complicated to use, are there some MAJOR other benefits that I most likely will discover to using Tasker instead of Llama? Or, if I really don't care much about the GPS auto-toggle, should I just keep life simple and stay with Llama? Is there a problem with using both - as in, will I get more of a battery drain running both or is one more battery efficient (the app itself) over the other?
-- add --
Duh, just saw the first condition in Llama is "Active Application" the problem is, I only want the GPS to turn on when I manually launch the app myself. I hope an app trying to use Maps in the background doesn't trigger the GPS on. Guess I'll find out.
My question still applies. I know you can do more in Tasker, but what MAJOR/COMMON things can you do with it that you can't with Llama?
-- add --
I forgot why this isn't possible. Google doesn't want to allow ANY apps to turn GPS on/off automatically due to privacy issues. Is there a setting to let the user decide this? Make me feel like they're treating me like an idiot!

Secure Settings
Have a look at Secure Settings its a brilliant helper app to Llama, it will allow you to do all the GPS settings.

So I have had this great debate for years now. I want so very badly to use tasker, but it just fails me. Profiles that have only a time context fire early, or not at all. I almost missed work once. Tasker seems to work wonderfully for most people but for me, across a Droid X, THunderbolt, Gnex, and now GS3 tasker is just unreliable. Profiles take too long to fire, if they fire at all and the battery drain is fairly significant despite we designed profiles and tasks.
Llama on the other hand does exactly what it is supposed to. Profiles fire quickly and accurately. Location profiles, compared to the nightmare task offers, are ridiculously simple. IF here DO this, WHEN leave DO that.
Llama is more reliable with better battery life, but does offer substantially LESS.
Here is my master solution:
I run all location and automation via Llama. BUT, I make tasker tasks for car menus, and extended tasks like security etc. Llama turns on tasker, then fires an "app shortcut" to a tasker task. Then Llama closes tasker.
All the best of Llama AND tasker, without having to run both simultaneously.

garvus said:
So I have had this great debate for years now. I want so very badly to use tasker, but it just fails me. Profiles that have only a time context fire early, or not at all. I almost missed work once. Tasker seems to work wonderfully for most people but for me, across a Droid X, THunderbolt, Gnex, and now GS3 tasker is just unreliable. Profiles take too long to fire, if they fire at all and the battery drain is fairly significant despite we designed profiles and tasks.
Llama on the other hand does exactly what it is supposed to. Profiles fire quickly and accurately. Location profiles, compared to the nightmare task offers, are ridiculously simple. IF here DO this, WHEN leave DO that.
Llama is more reliable with better battery life, but does offer substantially LESS.
Here is my master solution:
I run all location and automation via Llama. BUT, I make tasker tasks for car menus, and extended tasks like security etc. Llama turns on tasker, then fires an "app shortcut" to a tasker task. Then Llama closes tasker.
All the best of Llama AND tasker, without having to run both simultaneously.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do turn on and off tasker with llama?

Related

[Guide] Maximizing Android Phone’s Battery Life

General Guide to Maximizing Your Android Phone’s Battery Life
You’re no doubt reading this article because you’ve got a shiny new Android phone, but there’s just one problem: you’re so addicted that the battery runs out on a daily basis. Instead of putting the phone down, let’s maximize the battery life.
Saving your battery life isn’t rocket science—the general principle is to get rid of the things that are draining the battery the most, and trim down other things that you need to use, but maybe can tweak a little. Keep reading for the full explanation.
Use Android’s Built-in Battery Usage Screen
There’s a screen built into Android that most casual users probably don’t even know about, and it can tell you exactly what is killing your battery. Head into Settings –> About Phone –> Battery use to see what has been killing your battery life.
From this screen, you can usually see what apps are the worst offenders, and you will probably notice that the biggest problem—at least, the biggest one that we can fix—is actually the backlight on the phone. Personally I’d prefer to talk less to other humans, but that isn’t always an option!
Note: on my phone, I’ve already configured the backlight to not be very bright—normally that number would be a lot higher.
Adjust the Backlight to be Less Bright
Since we’ve already determined that the backlight is usually the biggest problem, you should probably adjust the settings. Head into Settings –> Display –> Brightness, where you can choose to automatically adjust, which usually works fairly well, or you can just turn the brightness down to the lowest acceptable level.
You should make sure that the screen timeout value is set to turn off quickly as well.
Disable Your Wi-Fi When You Don’t Need It
Wi-Fi can really speed up accessing data on your phone, but it can also be a big drain on the battery if you don’t need it enabled, especially when you are out and about… The phone will try and scan for a wireless network even though you may not want it to.
To enable Airplane mode, you can head into Settings –> Wireless & networks–> Airplane mode.
You can easily toggle the Wi-Fi on or off with a widget or shortcut—there’s a built-in widget included in Android phones, or you can use the AnyCut or BetterCut utilities to create your own shortcuts to directly turn them on or off without requiring a widget.
Disable Bluetooth if You Don’t Use It
If you aren’t using a wireless headset, there’s no reason to have Bluetooth running all the time, and you should probably cut it off to save the battery life. If you never use it at all, head into Settings –> Wireless & networks–> Bluetooth.
You can also enable or disable the Bluetooth when you do need it, using the power widget.
Use the Power Widget to Easily Toggle GPS, Bluetooth, Wireless, and Screen Brightness
Android includes a built-in Power Widget that can easily toggle these settings on or off—just long press on the background of one of your screens, choose Widget –> Power Control to add it to the screen. You’ll notice in this example screenshot that I’ve got my GPS enabled but I’m not using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth at the moment—the icon all the way on the right lets you easily toggle the screen brightness settings.
This is probably the simplest and easiest thing that you can do to save your battery without having to dig into the settings all the time.
Disable Apps that Sync Constantly
The built-in Email application (not the Gmail one, which uses Push technology) can suck the battery badly, because it syncs on a too-regular basis, especially when you have lots of accounts—each one of them is set to sync every 15 minutes. You’d be better off setting it up to sync manually, but if you want it to sync automatically, you should set it to sync less frequently.
Open up the Email application, head to your account, and choose Account settings –> Email check frequency from the menu. Change this to something more like an hour… or never. You can always hit refresh manually when you want to read your email.
The same thing holds true for other accounts, like Twitter clients, which are even less important to update all the time. For Seesmic, you can head into Settings –> Background Updates from the main screen. For the official Twitter app, the settings are similar.
The Facebook application polls automatically in the background, and you can customize the refresh interval for that as well—if you don’t need Facebook updating all the time, you should set this value as high as possible.
From the main Facebook screen—the one with the icons—head into Settings –> Refresh interval from the menu.
Disable the GPS Location Features
One of the biggest battery sucking features on my droid is the GPS… When I have navigation going, the battery dies far too fast, so I end up having to keep it plugged in the whole time I am driving. This makes sense… but what you might not know is that a lot of other applications use the GPS as well.
You can also change the GPS to use wireless networks, and uncheck the option for Use GPS satellites—this will make the GPS a little less accurate, but it will save your battery. Note that you probably want the real GPS enabled if you’re using Google Maps Navigation.
Additionally, you should turn off the geolocation features in your Twitter client, weather application, or whatever other apps that you really don’t need them in. If you want to keep it enabled, that’s great, just realize that it does drain the battery, so uncheck this option to help.
Use a Task Manager to See What is Always Running
It is a wise decision to have a copy of Advanced Task Cleaner or a similar application installed on your phone to help you kill applications that don’t need to be running, but more so that you can see what exactly is launching itself repeatedly in the background. You can setup an auto-kill list for applications you don’t use that often—make them cut off when you shut off the screen, or after an interval.
Note: If you’ve configured your application settings to not pull down lots of data or do checking in the background, it’s not quite as important to keep tasks killed all the time—that’s really what kills your battery, not having them sitting idle.
You can also configure advanced task manager to show you CPU usage for each app, which is a more useful meter than memory usage when it comes to battery life.
Disable or Remove Applications That You Aren’t Using
Once you have identified the application that you don’t want running all the time, check in the settings to see if it can be removed from running in the background. Some applications will give you an option for notifications that can be turned off if you don’t need them, making the application not check in the background so often.
It should go without saying, but we’ll say it anyway—you should remove the apps that you don’t need anymore, especially the ones that are draining your battery as determined from the android battery panel or task manager. Head into Settings –> Applications –> Manage Applications and then you can click the Uninstall button for an app.
Disable Home Screen Widgets You Don’t Need
If you’ve got loads of widgets that are pulling data from the web, that means they are likely pulling down data in the background all the time. You should try not to go overboard with these, or remove the ones you don’t actually need.
Disable Animated Wallpaper
Yeah, that sweet animated wallpaper doesn’t help your battery any. Get rid of it for a small extra battery savings.
Use APNDroid to Kill Your Entire Data Connection When You Don’t Need It
If you’re using a phone that’s on the AT&T or T-Mobile networks, you can use the APNDroid utility to kill your data connection entirely with a simple widget. It doesn’t work on Verizon phones in my testing. It’ll disable the data but still allow regular calls and SMS.
Keep the Battery from Getting Too Hot
One of the quickest ways to kill a battery is to leave it out in the sun—try and keep your phone somewhere that isn’t too hot whenever possible. You’ll end up needing to replace the battery a lot quicker if you don’t.
Additional Notes
There’s a number of other things you can do to extend your battery life a bit—one of which is to use a rooted phone and install the Autostarts utility, which you can use to keep applications from launching themselves automatically. Since this isn’t something you can do on a stock phone, we’re not covering how to do it here.
You can also use an application called Tasker to automate certain actions, like turning on or off the GPS or Wi-Fi when you launch a particular application, or scheduling a time of day to make sure that Wi-Fi is disabled. Lifehacker has a great guide to using Tasker to automate your phone, and they also explain how to use a configuration to scale back data usage at night.
Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/25319/complete-guide-to-maximizing-your-android-phones-battery-life/
Other battery tips that useful for you^
1. Things You Should Know About Lithium Ion Battery
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1168036
2. Advanced Tricks for Saving Battery (it Works)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1189755
<<< Please click on "Thanks" if you found this post helpful, your thanks are very much appreciated >>>
Thanks, very usefull information
As an addendum.
If you have an OLED device, apps with black backgrounds are much more power efficient. Therefore, switching your background wallpaper to something darker will help battery life.
Screen size is a major factor too, smaller screen, more power efficient.
I do 2 days with my S2, easily.
The list should get a better layout, but the provided information are good - thank you!
Another option for editing the syncing in applications are to go into your main settings, the accounts & sync. There it should list he apps that sync and you can change them from there rather than finding each app individually.
Mh, I only see a list of the connected accounts but no list of apps.
Sticky This!
Nice clear guide
One issue I have now is with Sense 3 ported onto an original HTC Desire.
It has a bigger memory footprint than the stock Sense 1, and the memory cleanup function seems too aggressive, causing it to flush & reload too often, causing big CPU use.
Is there a way to tune memory `harvesting` to be less aggressive for specific apps in stock Gingerbread ?
You could try this app:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.rs.autokiller
Yeah - I'm aware of the various task-killer 3rd party apps.
In my experience they often tend to lead to greater battery consumption as they over-ride the already pretty efficient gingerbread memory management.
I was hoping for a setting inbuilt to GB to just set residence priority higher on the single Sense task.
tune memory `harvesting` to be less aggressive
kuraikaze said:
Nice clear guide
One issue I have now is with Sense 3 ported onto an original HTC Desire.
It has a bigger memory footprint than the stock Sense 1, and the memory cleanup function seems too aggressive, causing it to flush & reload too often, causing big CPU use.
Is there a way to tune memory `harvesting` to be less aggressive for specific apps in stock Gingerbread ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can try out "autokiller memoery optimizer". It is a tool to change the value in the android underneath "low memory kill level". Maybe your current "low memory kill level" is too high (e.g. 250, means android will close your app when ur RAM is below 250). You can set it lower so android won't kill your apps too soon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It fine tunes android systems inner memory manager to keep your device fast over time.
- As a side effect it also lowers battery consumption.
- At certain free memory level (e.g. 250mb), the android os will automatically close those apps not in use (according to original android os logic)
copy from another thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1189755
Very useful thanks for the info...
Thank you
Thanks.
Nice guide. Thanks.
Thanks
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Thanks for this info. I have noticed that on my phone there is no direct way to close applications. Some application close when I use my back button but a lot just stay in memory. I would assume pressing the home button while an application is open will push it to the background. There seem to be no universal close button for applications other than using some application?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
I doubled my battery life with this info. good stuff
thank you for your information,,, i will try it and hope it can solve my phone with battery problem,,,

Tasker. Is it really worth it?

So I just noticed Tasker is consuming 18% of my battery life. Which begs the question, is it really worth having if the whole reason for having it is to save battery life by disabling services not being used. Is that what everybody else is seeing for battery consumption?
That's quite a bit. What are you having Tasker do that could drain battery? Toggle something? It could be that it isn't toggling whatever correctly due to HTC's implementation and might be causing a huge wake lock. If you can track it down, you may want to shoot it off to the dev to investigate.
i love tasker, but like mentioned, it depends on what you are having it do.
tasker isnt just about conserving battery life, its about automating your phone.
I have 4 profiles for work, home, leaving work and a hotspot location I tend to go to. The work profile turns off my volume and turns my wifi off. Home does the opposite. Leaving work turns just my volume back on and the hotspot location turns on my wifi at that location.
If there is a better way to implement this, I'd surely like to know. I'm a newcomer to android.
Sounds simple enough, and definitely something that Tasker excels at. Not sure why it's eating up that much battery though. Probably best to have it create a debug log and shoot it off to the dev.

[Q] Help with Tasker

Hey everyone, first I'm not really sure if this belongs in a Tasker forums. Seeing as I use a N5, I figured it could also go here. Anyway, I've been having some problems with Npl wakelocks. I downloaded wakelock terminator with xposed and it seemed to have helped, however something didn't seem right as my battery was draining the same amount as when the wakelocks were happening. The only time I wasn't having the drain was when location was set to device only, which makes sense.
I'm completely new to tasker. I've watched a few tutorials and I've messed around with it a bit but with not much luck. I wanted to do one of two things. Either have location set to battery saver/high accuracy when the screen is on, and have it set to device only when the screen is off. Another option is to have it set to battery saver/high accuracy when google now/maps is open and device only the rest of the time. I feel like this shouldn't be that hard but I messed around with it and got no where. Anyway, what are your guys' opinion about this strategy and would anyone be able to help me with implementing these tasks. Thanks!
I wouldn't go the route of using tasker for your problem. And I would ditch that xposed module for wakelocks too. I run rooted with xposed on high accuracy at all times. My battery life is great. You need to find the source of your battery drain and eliminate it. Don't look for a bandaid fix using tasker. My guess is you have some rogue app killing your battery. Give us a list of all your apps, or delete them all, and install them one by one to track down the culprit. Also, are you running stock Rom and kernel? What other mods do you have?
Lokke9191 said:
I wouldn't go the route of using tasker for your problem. And I would ditch that xposed module for wakelocks too. I run rooted with xposed on high accuracy at all times. My battery life is great. You need to find the source of your battery drain and eliminate it. Don't look for a bandaid fix using tasker. My guess is you have some rogue app killing your battery. Give us a list of all your apps, or delete them all, and install them one by one to track down the culprit. Also, are you running stock Rom and kernel? What other mods do you have?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can run the phone as normal today with location and everything on and post my BBS log after. Basically, when I'm at home the battery is great. However, ever since updating to the new google search app I've been having extreme wakelocks from the Npl whenever I would leave my house. Which is why I found a thread on xda that was talking about that exact wakelock. You're right though. I'm going to get rid of the app because it seemed weird. The wakelocks weren't showing up on BBS but I feel like it didn't get rid of them. Who knows though, maybe you're right and it is something else that's draining the battery which is why the wakelock app didn't help.
Anyway, I'm running stock ROM/kernel with xposed. I use greenify module, appOpsX, snapshare, gravity box, and gesture navigation module. With gravity box I just use custom quick settings, smaller nav bars, some status bar mods like the day and double tap to sleep. However, again I have had the same GB mods since before the drain. I use a pebble however I've never had a drain from that and I've been using it since Dec. Most of my apps are greenified including facebook, instagram, as well as all my music streaming apps. A lot of the google services I don't use are disabled like books/magazines/movies. I have snapchat, but I don't use it too much, and facebook messenger that I don't greenify. When I check GSam stats though, android system and kernel take the most battery, followed by music players if I was streaming music that day. The rest of the apps are way down the list.
I posted in the battery thread asking if anyone had the same problem with the wakelocks after having the latest google play services. I noticed mine is still 4.3 for some reason so I might just update manually from androidpolice and see if theres a difference. But yeah, I will keep this updated with todays logs.
Try this. Use titanium backup to uninstall Google play services and Google search. Then launch maps, and reinstall both from the play store.
PsychDrummer said:
Another option is to have it set to battery saver/high accuracy when google now/maps is open and device only the rest of the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is what I ended up doing. You will need the secure settings plugin for tasker.
Set up a new profile for application "Maps".
When on, launch task GPS On (Secure settings, configuration GPS enabled)
Exit task, launch task GPS On (Secure settings, configuration GPS disabled)
I used the app factory to create an app for this, and use that on my N5 and my second phone too. Works great. Enables GPS when I launch Maps for navigation, and switches to battery saving when I exit Maps
PsychDrummer said:
I can run the phone as normal today with location and everything on and post my BBS log after. Basically, when I'm at home the battery is great. However, ever since updating to the new google search app I've been having extreme wakelocks from the Npl whenever I would leave my house. Which is why I found a thread on xda that was talking about that exact wakelock. You're right though. I'm going to get rid of the app because it seemed weird. The wakelocks weren't showing up on BBS but I feel like it didn't get rid of them. Who knows though, maybe you're right and it is something else that's draining the battery which is why the wakelock app didn't help.
Anyway, I'm running stock ROM/kernel with xposed. I use greenify module, appOpsX, snapshare, gravity box, and gesture navigation module. With gravity box I just use custom quick settings, smaller nav bars, some status bar mods like the day and double tap to sleep. However, again I have had the same GB mods since before the drain. I use a pebble however I've never had a drain from that and I've been using it since Dec. Most of my apps are greenified including facebook, instagram, as well as all my music streaming apps. A lot of the google services I don't use are disabled like books/magazines/movies. I have snapchat, but I don't use it too much, and facebook messenger that I don't greenify. When I check GSam stats though, android system and kernel take the most battery, followed by music players if I was streaming music that day. The rest of the apps are way down the list.
I posted in the battery thread asking if anyone had the same problem with the wakelocks after having the latest google play services. I noticed mine is still 4.3 for some reason so I might just update manually from androidpolice and see if theres a difference. But yeah, I will keep this updated with todays logs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just run device only all the time, like everyone else does. It's a problem with Google's code, and the same bad coding is clearly seen throughout their entire app lineup.
Lokke9191 said:
Try this. Use titanium backup to uninstall Google play services and Google search. Then launch maps, and reinstall both from the play store.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What would that do though?
jj14 said:
This is what I ended up doing. You will need the secure settings plugin for tasker.
Set up a new profile for application "Maps".
When on, launch task GPS On (Secure settings, configuration GPS enabled)
Exit task, launch task GPS On (Secure settings, configuration GPS disabled)
I used the app factory to create an app for this, and use that on my N5 and my second phone too. Works great. Enables GPS when I launch Maps for navigation, and switches to battery saving when I exit Maps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! So, how would I set this up using device only/high accuracy? I'm also super new to tasker so if you don't mind I might PM you asking for help.
Aerowinder said:
Just run device only all the time, like everyone else does. It's a problem with Google's code, and the same bad coding is clearly seen throughout their entire app lineup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I actually like to use maps and google now. However, I don't actually need the location on when I'm not using either of the two services which is why I wanted to setup tasker.
It'll change them from being system apps to user apps. This has solved nlp wakelocks for many others experiencing the same problems.
PsychDrummer said:
Thanks! So, how would I set this up using device only/high accuracy? I'm also super new to tasker so if you don't mind I might PM you asking for help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure.
It isn't that hard - install the secure settings plug in first, and when prompted, give it Superuser access. Then, create a new profile in tasker - call it whatever you want. Set up the profile for the application "Maps"
When Maps is launched, set it up to fire a new task (I called it GPS On) - this task just enables the GPS setting in the secure settings (under third party plugins)
GPS on -> high accuracy
GPS off -> battery saving mode
Set up an exit task (I called it GPS Off) - this turns the GPS settings in the secure settings off.
I can send you the apk if you want (but you don't really know me, so you probably shouldn't use an apk from a stranger! lol!), or you can try to import this attached xml into tasker (rename the file to remove the .txt extension - filename will be AutoGPS.prj.xml) - the xml option should be safe.
I haven't tried importing an xml, but it should be fairly straightforward (Save profiles in /sdcard/tasker/profiles and then, in tasker, long press the profiles "tab" and "import"). Before doing this, backup your existing profiles in tasker, just in case. Also, make sure you have secure settings set up before you import this.
jj14 said:
Sure.
It isn't that hard - install the secure settings plug in first, and when prompted, give it Superuser access. Then, create a new profile in tasker - call it whatever you want. Set up the profile for the application "Maps"
When Maps is launched, set it up to fire a new task (I called it GPS On) - this task just enables the GPS setting in the secure settings (under third party plugins)
GPS on -> high accuracy
GPS off -> battery saving mode
Set up an exit task (I called it GPS Off) - this turns the GPS settings in the secure settings off.
I can send you the apk if you want (but you don't really know me, so you probably shouldn't use an apk from a stranger! lol!), or you can try to import this attached xml into tasker (rename the file to remove the .txt extension - filename will be AutoGPS.prj.xml) - the xml option should be safe.
I haven't tried importing an xml, but it should be fairly straightforward (Save profiles in /sdcard/tasker/profiles and then, in tasker, long press the profiles "tab" and "import"). Before doing this, backup your existing profiles in tasker, just in case. Also, make sure you have secure settings set up before you import this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool, thanks I will give it a try. And it would be the same if I want to have location on when using google search/now?
PsychDrummer said:
Cool, thanks I will give it a try. And it would be the same if I want to have location on when using google search/now?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it should be. But in my experience, I haven't found Google Search/Now really requiring high accuracy GPS level location for any of the features yet. It gets by fine with just battery saving mode. So, I only enabled this for the Maps application.
Actually, now that I think about it, I don't know how you'd enable it for Google Now - since it runs in the background to notify you about upcoming events. Since you aren't launching Google Now most of the times, I don't know how you'd set up Tasker to enable the high accuracy GPS for that (and it is possible that Google now using active GPS may be part of the battery drain issue - I don't know for sure)
jj14 said:
Yes, it should be. But in my experience, I haven't found Google Search/Now really requiring high accuracy GPS level location for any of the features yet. It gets by fine with just battery saving mode. So, I only enabled this for the Maps application.
Actually, now that I think about it, I don't know how you'd enable it for Google Now - since it runs in the background to notify you about upcoming events. Since you aren't launching Google Now most of the times, I don't know how you'd set up Tasker to enable the high accuracy GPS for that (and it is possible that Google now using active GPS may be part of the battery drain issue - I don't know for sure)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually wanted to keep the device on "device only" location instead of battery saving. For Google now I wanted the traffic card, but I would only need it if I physically open google now. I don't really need the notification.
PsychDrummer said:
I actually wanted to keep the device on "device only" location instead of battery saving. For Google now I wanted the traffic card, but I would only need it if I physically open google now. I don't really need the notification.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To keep device only, you should use Location mode (in secure settings) and set it to Device only or whatever you need, instead of GPS.
Note that "Device only" still uses active GPS and "This mode may use more battery power and take longer to determine your location" (Ref: https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/3467281?hl=en)
The traffic card still works on "battery saving" because it uses cellphone triangulation, and shows you the traffic in your vicinity, and based on your destination.
jj14 said:
To keep device only, you should use Location mode (in secure settings) and set it to Device only or whatever you need, instead of GPS.
Note that "Device only" still uses active GPS and "This mode may use more battery power and take longer to determine your location" (Ref: https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/3467281?hl=en)
The traffic card still works on "battery saving" because it uses cellphone triangulation, and shows you the traffic in your vicinity, and based on your destination.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know, I have always used battery saving. The problem is that with battery saving, I'm having these extreme wakelocks and Google is constantly searching for my location which is what I think is the cause of the drain I'm having. I'm going to use my phone today by just using device-only location and see how the battery lasts. It should be much better since I'm hoping the phone will be deep sleeping longer. Basically, when I take my phone off the charger in the morning and I'm still at home for the first 2 hours of the day the standby time is great. It usually goes down 1-2% in those 2 hours even if I use the phone a little. However, once I leave the house is when I get constant wakelocks from location services and the battery stats to deplete a lot faster. I mean, I can still get through a day just because I don't use the screen a lot. I tend to only use about 1 hr 30 min on a regular day but I just want to play around with settings to see what works.If I can get the same standby time throughout the day that I get within the first two hours when im at home that would be great.
PsychDrummer said:
I know, I have always used battery saving. The problem is that with battery saving, I'm having these extreme wakelocks and Google is constantly searching for my location which is what I think is the cause of the drain I'm having. I'm going to use my phone today by just using device-only location and see how the battery lasts. It should be much better since I'm hoping the phone will be deep sleeping longer. Basically, when I take my phone off the charger in the morning and I'm still at home for the first 2 hours of the day the standby time is great. It usually goes down 1-2% in those 2 hours even if I use the phone a little. However, once I leave the house is when I get constant wakelocks from location services and the battery stats to deplete a lot faster. I mean, I can still get through a day just because I don't use the screen a lot. I tend to only use about 1 hr 30 min on a regular day but I just want to play around with settings to see what works.If I can get the same standby time throughout the day that I get within the first two hours when im at home that would be great.
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That's strange. With battery saving mode, I get no wakelocks, which with device only or high accuracy, I used to get a lot of wakelocks by the location services.
But yes, no harm in trying out the options. Tasker+secure settings should be able to set up the battery saving or device only (as described above)
jj14 said:
That's strange. With battery saving mode, I get no wakelocks, which with device only or high accuracy, I used to get a lot of wakelocks by the location services.
But yes, no harm in trying out the options. Tasker+secure settings should be able to set up the battery saving or device only (as described above)
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You get Npl wakelocks? So far I haven't gotten it and that's the wakelock that usually keeps my phone awake for 2 hours or so. basically, I think the way it works is that the device only setting uses more battery when using apps that use location such as maps but when the apps are not in use it uses no battery on location.
PsychDrummer said:
You get Npl wakelocks? So far I haven't gotten it and that's the wakelock that usually keeps my phone awake for 2 hours or so. basically, I think the way it works is that the device only setting uses more battery when using apps that use location such as maps but when the apps are not in use it uses no battery on location.
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No. Ever since I switched to battery saving (and tasker toggling to high accuracy when I use maps), I have no location based wakelocks (no NPL wakelocks)
jj14 said:
No. Ever since I switched to battery saving (and tasker toggling to high accuracy when I use maps), I have no location based wakelocks (no NPL wakelocks)
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Interesting, I've been having the opposite. I even took a screen shot of the wakelocks on the stock battery app where when the screen is off there's a huge amount of individual lines for awake (of course this is backed up by BBS). However when using device only the awake and screen on match almost perfectly.
PsychDrummer said:
Interesting, I've been having the opposite. I even took a screen shot of the wakelocks on the stock battery app where when the screen is off there's a huge amount of individual lines for awake (of course this is backed up by BBS). However when using device only the awake and screen on match almost perfectly.
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Not sure why the difference, but regardless, as long as the individual 'fix' works, that's all that matters

Review AutomateIt

AutomateIt is an Android productivity app that you can get for free on Google Play. We will review AutomateIt, because it is unique and outstanding app that can automate some of the everyday processes you do with your Android device. Practically, the goal of the app is to help you with the daily tasks. Automate will make your smartphone to automatically perform them.
The basis of the app are the rule-based triggers (events), which trigger certain actions. The triggers can be different: run the application, arrive at a specific location, battery percentage, turn on/off silent mode etc. Based on the triggers, the smartphone performs specific actions, such as turning off the wireless connection, turning off the screen and similar actions. The easiest way to show you how the app works is to show you how to do it.
One of the most simple rule is definitely turning of the Wi-Fi, depending on the battery condition. The smartphones or tablets can use AutomateIt to turn off wireless Wi-Fi when the battery drops below 40%. You can save battery power, without the need to manually control your mobile phone. Another interesting rule is based on the apps. If you want to use certain app in portrait orientation only, you can turn off this app to rotate the display. If you read a book in the Kindle app for example and the screen dims too soon, you can extend this time.
We must stand out that the number of triggers and actions in AutomateIt are various. Additionally, you can assign different rules depending on the received SMS messages received calls, whether the phone is for charging, the GPS or Bluetooth are turned on and many others. AutomateIt is relatively simple to use, even though all descriptions of the triggers and actions can confuse you at first glance. But you will understand and use the simpler rules with no problems whatsoever.
Review App Android

[APP][2.x-5.x] [APK] BATTERY SAVER ULTIMATE

Overview
Battery Saver Ultimate application provides the best power settings to saves the battery time of your device or your tablet. Whenever the battery runs low or goes too much down, just tap the power saver app to turn on the saving mode.
Battery savers help you to switch off all the extra functions like WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, sound and other energy consuming apps on the device. The app will notify when the power gets down in percentage and it even shows the charging stages.
Charging Stages:
Free Battery Saver Ultimate app regulates the manner in which your device is charged with a Unique 3 Stage Charging system to ensure you get the most out of your battery and reminds you not to over charge.
Types of Mode :
1. Saving Mode: (Use in lowest Battery Status)
Device Brightness set to 10%
In Activate WiFi of the Device
Stand By time to 15 seconds
2. Sleep Mode: (Use when you sleep)
Turn Off Call & SMS and turn ON the Flight Mode
Set Vibrations Off.
Airplane Mode.
Sound Off and mute media sound too.
Brightness set to 10% or minimum level.
3. Customized Mode
You can Customize app usages as your need to save Battery Power.
Can adjust the battery saving setting freely depend on your need and usage.
Can adjust WiFi, Bluetooth, vibration, sound, device brightness, synchronization and stand by time.
Features and Requirements
Accurate battery remaining time
Shows Standby Time.
Accurate charging remaining time
Schedule power saving modes for work/class/sleep and more!
3 Stage Charging system 1. Fast charge 2. Continuous Charging 3. Tickle Charging.
Wifi/Data/Bluetooth/GPS/Flight Mode toggle!
Brightness control!
Shows Battery Health, Current Battery Power in mAH, Temperature, Voltage and Battery life status.
Interesting app. I installed it on my tablet. Look up how it will work. Pity that application is not in material design...
Can I say dodgy app here full of ads and nothing as you say it is. Gives me to play games and full of ads. Avoid
Looks very Good though
Full of ads, nothing like advertised. Avoid.
mr_stax123 said:
Looks very Good though
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Please state more
i want to prevent apps to auto start to save battery and ram, which app should i use, grrenify or autorun manager or any other?
First, you need not concern yourself with free ram on an Android device. Android manages resources better by itself. As for the apps that launch on startup, you can got to menu>settings>apps and select the "running" tab to show you exactly what is really running. Then, the easiest way is to uninstall the app in question.
Automated task killers do nothing but cause more problems than they can potentially solve.
You might find this thread enlightening.
mr_stax123 said:
i want to prevent apps to auto start to save battery and ram, which app should i use, grrenify or autorun manager or any other?
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Click to collapse
The task killer discussion gets old. I think there is risk of oversimplifying both sides. ie on one side people want to treat it like pc...not correct. On the other side people seem to imply any discussion of memory management considerations is irrelevant/rejected because "android will handle it all"....which is not always entirely correct either. The latter may be closer to the truth especially for new devices, but there is still room for middle ground. Not all programs are equal, some launch "services" which takes priority over other app processes. Too many of those services can eventually crowd out cache and slow your phone down. Maybe most people with newer phones will never get there, but there are still people with older phones (including the op for all we know) and also some folks with new phones who (if they listen to the oversimplifications) may get carried away on the number and type of apps they install over the life of their phone
---------- Post added at 12:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:43 AM ----------
Even so, killing off those services is not the answer. If an older phone has too many running services so it taxes it's resources then it's either time to uninstall some or get a device that can handle it. If it's a problem with the app itself hogging resources, then let the developer know and find an alternative.
If you try to tow a boat with a bicycle, the answer isn't to throw away the boat's engine to make it lighter. Similarly, a task killer may make the phone's performance improve briefly, but over time it will make things worse. And it fixes nothing.
An app preventing another app from "auto-starting" is a task killer. Look at it this way: The phone boots up and runs it's processes. The auto-start blocker detects an app it doesn't want to run, so it kills it. Now, depending on what app it is, the phone may call for it again and thus running it later, which defeats the purpose of an auto-start killer, unless that app is a task killer which again kills said flagged app to keep it killed.
The way to properly manage an app you don't want to have enabled on the phone at bootup is to disable the app on the system manager (newer phones have it AFAIK), freeze the app via Titanium or similar apps, get into the app settings and disable certain features like auto-sync and set everything to manual.
However, the OP did not specify what phone and which apps. It may be apps which the phone requires to run at some level, like Maps (which several apps call for), or maybe the apps he is seeing are just RAM cached, which really don't matter at all.
Adjusting with app settings is preferred if you can, but does not always solve the problem (I referred to wakelock/battery drain problem with a certain version of Maps on my previous phone ... many people we having the same problem at the time and the only way to stop it was to block the app from starting as indicated in link below, or else to freeze it). Freezing has the disadvantage that you cannot run the program easily (requires you to launch TiBu to thaw the program). If you have blocked the program from autostarting, then it does not start at boot or other automatic time, but it remains available to manually launch the normal way (clicking the program icon). At that point (if it's a program like Maps), it will probably stay running until next reboot. It was my preferred solution when maps was giving me wakelocks and battery drain on my phone. Maps didn't run automatically on boot and never started until I manually started it. After that point I could live with the battery drain or reboot
Rom Toolbox Pro is a great app with many features and of course, there's an auto start manager that allows you to disable various receivers off the apps that start on boot. There's also a freeze/deep freeze feature as well. Great app

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