I have several questions regarding battery life and syncing. I am concerned about this because one time Gmail used 91% of the battery life and I had to tinker with the settings to fix that (I don't remember what I did but I was sure to turn off autosync. Maybe I had to autosync less data)?
1. What is the difference between push, pull, and auto sync?
2. Does one of them constantly check if there is new mail, thus constantly draining unnecessary battery life? Does one of them only sync when an email arrives, thus efficiently uses battery life?
3. Is schedule sync battery efficient?
Basically, I looking to preserve battery life but also want an update on emails. I read somewhere that your phone is always sending a signal, regardless of whether autosync is on or not, and that it uses battery in that regard. Therefore, turning off autosync doesn't really save battery life (I'm pretty sure this is wrong). For syncing, I use Google Drive, FileSync, Gmail, Pocket, Google Keep, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit.
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I'm not new to the world of ppcs by any stretch of the imagination...but i have one question which has always puzzled me. How much strain does checking email every 5 minutes have on my battery? I have a gsm touch and can't seem to hold a charge for more than a day with very minimal usage. A typical day for me is 2 or 3 short phone calls and several texts..in addition to checking for new email every 5 minutes. Would I be correct in assuming that to check for email my touch is awakened from standby..thus causing the drain?
Js
You are correct, but also consider that when it connects to check email it is using the radio to connect to the network. So essentially you are having the radio on almost ALL DAY. Similar to a voice call all day. Battery is then drained by the radio usage to talk to the network.
does the same apply to a push mail setup?
well...am i essentially doing the same thing by having GPRS always on? In other words, is this going to drain my battery at the same rate whether i'm checking for mail every 5 minutes or every hour?
No it is not the same for Push email. Push email wakes the device and delivers the mail when there is some. As opposed to the device connecting and querying for mail, the device gets woken (sp?) up and gets delivered the mail for Push. Push is a much more effective way of getting your mail... I forward all my mail to my hotmail account which then gets pushed to my device via Windows Live.
Regarding the always on GPRS... yes and no. Yes you are connected and draining the battery but just being on doesn't use as much as actually pulling or sending data. The difference is negligible and really irrelevant. I would say that you turn off GPRS all the time if you are trying to save on battery life.
Make sense?
You may want to install Battery Status and turn on the current drain option. While a bit of a catch 22, considering the screen has to be on for you to see what the drain is, thus causing a higher than idle drain. At least you can get an idea of what your device is draining and see if changing settings makes a difference.
Link to Battery Status (not sure if this is the current version)
http://www.chi-tai.info/cs_BatteryStatus_XDA_Neo_WM5_iM_cs.htm
The other suggestion is to consider changing ROMs. I have a GSM Touch and the factory ROM was really poor on battery life. I have been using the Blue Touch ROM version 2.10 (not the newest version) listed in the Elf upgrade section. I can now go more than one day without charging the battery, with push e-mail activated.
I've observed unusually high battery drain when using the Samsung email app, specifically, with multiple push accounts. I thought i'd share the results of some battery usage testing as i haven't seen this issue addressed anywhere else.
Based on the results, GMail consistently uses the same battery no matter how many accounts are enabled. While the Samsung email app has a huge increase in battery drain when using multiple push accounts, and it seems to just get worse when more accounts are enabled.
While it's typical for most people to have 1 or 2 email accounts, i've seen a lot of people complaining about unusually poor battery life and thought perhaps this would be another issue to consider for those with multiple accounts. Right now i'm getting anywhere from 24-54 hours depending on usage.
I haven't tested this with any other stock or custom rom as it would take a lot of time, so the tests aren't conclusive. If anyone else could weigh-in and comment on any battery life differences they've noticed, that would be helpful.
Results:
Baseline reference over 12 hour period
6% usage - background data disabled
8% usage - background data enabled. only email syncing disabled
GMail app over 12 hour period
9% - 1 push account enabled
9% - 2 push accounts enabled
10% - 7 push accounts enabled
Samsung email app over 12 hour period
10% - 1 push account enabled
17% - 2 push accounts enabled (2x more than GMail)
54% - 7 push accounts enabled (5x more than GMail)
Testing conditions:
-All tests were performed overnight over a 12 hour period with the LCD off and untouched.
-All tests were performed twice and the battery usage averaged out between the 2 results.
-All tests used gmail accounts.
-Push was enabled in samsung email app using exchange account with 'm.google.com'
-Background data and auto-sync enabled. Data/3g/hsdpa enabled.
-Wifi disabled.
-GPS disabled.
-Battery freshly calibrated.
-Serendipity 5.x with speedmod k13c and jk4.
I would agree although I don't have the stats. I had corporate email (exchange account) on my Captivate, and when I deleted that account, the battery lasted much longer.
Similarly anecdotal evidence here. I removed my Gmail account from the Email app (actually I just told it not to sync my Gmail account), using Gmail for that. I still have a corporate account but I set it to NOT push during off-peak hours. Since making those 2 changes my battery life, especially overnight, has pretty much doubled.
It would make sense that you see this. The gmail app only has to go to the google servers and request any new emails while the email app has to go to each place/server individually
Sent from my SGH-I897 using XDA App
Still, it's good to know that those with multiple gmail accounts could save a lot of battery life by simply switching to the GMail app. Those with corporate accounts are out of luck though.
I had a horrible battery drain related to the email app in Perception. I found the AOSP email app and installed it and my drain went away.
Might be worth a look for people experiencing email related battery drain.
You could always have Gmail manage your other email accounts like I've seen others do.
I've checked the forums but still theres no answer on what exactly is and what exactly it does, its pros and cons of the 'Enable always-on mobile data'
I would like to know what exactly is that option what sort of apps get affected cause right now gmail still working for me with that setting off. The thing is some people claim better battery life some people claim the opposite.
Anyone knows official use for it?? anyone? I started to test the battery life on it to see if it helps in the event it doesnt I would say the mytouch 4g is the worst phone ever.... i hardly get 10 hours of battery life with the phone just sitting on the desk...
cruzantis said:
I've checked the forums but still theres no answer on what exactly is and what exactly it does, its pros and cons of the 'Enable always-on mobile data'
I would like to know what exactly is that option what sort of apps get affected cause right now gmail still working for me with that setting off. The thing is some people claim better battery life some people claim the opposite.
Anyone knows official use for it?? anyone? I started to test the battery life on it to see if it helps in the event it doesnt I would say the mytouch 4g is the worst phone ever.... i hardly get 10 hours of battery life with the phone just sitting on the desk...
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'Always-On' Data tells your phone to open a data connection whenever one is available in your area, not just whenever you need it ('On-Demand' Data). If always-on is activated, your apps can connect and sync data in the background, unbeknownst to you. I got caught with it on my first phone bill, and it ended up costing me a good few hundred dollars. There are a few things you can do to help:
Settings > Accounts and Sync is your best friend. You can choose what accounts sync what data, and how often. The less you sync, the less data is used and the less time your radio spends transmitting (hopefully boosting your battery life a bit). You can also disable background syncing completely here, but that means you will have to manually sync your GMail, Facebook, Twitter etc.
As far as your battery life is concerned, under Settings > Location there are two options to 'Use wireless connections' and 'Use GPS satellites'. Having both of these ticked will use much more battery. Definitely untick 'use GPS satellites' and if you don't use any location-based widgets (like HTC weather) or services (Footprints etc), turn the other one off too. That should give you a bit more than ten hours
Let me know how you get on! Good luck!
juzz86 said:
'Always-On' Data tells your phone to open a data connection whenever one is available in your area, not just whenever you need it ('On-Demand' Data). If always-on is activated, your apps can connect and sync data in the background, unbeknownst to you. I got caught with it on my first phone bill, and it ended up costing me a good few hundred dollars. There are a few things you can do to help:
Settings > Accounts and Sync is your best friend. You can choose what accounts sync what data, and how often. The less you sync, the less data is used and the less time your radio spends transmitting (hopefully boosting your battery life a bit). You can also disable background syncing completely here, but that means you will have to manually sync your GMail, Facebook, Twitter etc.
As far as your battery life is concerned, under Settings > Location there are two options to 'Use wireless connections' and 'Use GPS satellites'. Having both of these ticked will use much more battery. Definitely untick 'use GPS satellites' and if you don't use any location-based widgets (like HTC weather) or services (Footprints etc), turn the other one off too. That should give you a bit more than ten hours
Let me know how you get on! Good luck!
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I got kinda confused here. Your saying that settings -> Wireless & Networks ->Mobile Networks -> Uncheck Enable always-on mobile data
By turning it off you get less data consumption per month?
More battery life?
Any dissadvantage?
By your post I assume that if its uncheked then apps wont sync? right now i still receive my gmail and stuff.
100% correct. Turn it off and you'll have to sync your apps manually, but less data and more battery
If you're using email set up with push, this option has to remain on. Otherwise, after a certain amount of time (5 min on most htc's), the data connection is severed and your push will no longer work.
And yes, there is greater battery drain with it on, and higher data usage.
Could not understand why my new device was burning through it's battery like it was a desktop computer. I can't remember where but I stumbled across the application OS monitor and took a look to see anything untoward.
Well I have an exchange email server that I use to sync all my contacts/calendar and emails.
It would appear that the inbuilt google mail app tends to CONSTANTLY drain power whilst it is set up, I did have push mail activated and it was set to do background data et al.
Removing this has fixed my battery drain issue and I'm now using Touchdown to manage my email exchange, with push mail activated and having no such problems at all!
I'm not suggesting that everyone switches to Touchdown but it is definitely worth trying a different client if you are having problems with poor battery performance!
Hope this helps someone as it was REALLY beginning to annoy me, not even lasting a night out!
Did Google show up under your battery use?
hah2110 said:
Did Google show up under your battery use?
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Not quite sure what you mean? OS monitor showed the system using a few resources every now and again but mail was using 30-40% almost constantly draining the battery!
Also found that leaving WIFI enabled uses VERY little battery and so I've kept that alive so that the current mail app I'm using doesn't poll and get no connection all the time (personally what I think was happening is due to me living in the middle of nowhere there was no signal and so it kept polling until it could find a signal which was using up resources).
I noticed that, after Google pushed out their update to include additional Account syncing options (App Data, People details, etc.) that the auto-sync is much more aggressive. Where I used to be able to get through an entire day, I now find myself at 20% battery after just 10 hours.
At first I thought this may be an issue with my Viper 3.2.7 + ElementalX 6.5 setup, so I did a clean flash and ran the stock kernel for a day, with no change. I flashed CleanROM 6.5 today and it's still exhibiting the same behavior.
To be more specific, "Google Services" shows up as >50% of the battery usage when I look in Settings>Power>Usage.
Anyone else been seeing this?
i've had way worse battery life after updated to a cm10.1 build from a week or two ago
and my google services is much higher up in my battery stats than normal, so you may be onto something
me too
Yes, it started for me yesterday. Android OS taking >50% battery, typical, but Google Services now taking >35% battery. Full battery drain in 12 hrs, normally can last 36 or more. I too noticed the new sync options, and disabled App Data and People details. Hopefully that will help, but I doubt it.
Running CM 9 on an ATT Samsung Galaxy S2 (US version, not skyrocket).
I disabled all new syncing options as well, with only Gmail, Calendar, and Contacts synced. With this configuration, my battery only lasts 12 hours on Clean Rom 6.5, whereas it used to last >20
There isn't really anything we can do from the user end. I guess we'll have to wait for some ROM that uses a less aggressive sync strategy?