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How to maximize battery life during navigation/gps

jason arthur taylor

jason arthur taylor

Lurker
If I use the maps application, my device gets very hot and shuts down. I have to use a dedicated GPS device.
As an aside, something is very wrong here. For one thing, my dedicated GPS device lasts 12 hours on tiny battery, yet if I am using GPS on my phone dies 4x faster (in 3 hours), yet it has a much larger battery.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, I need to know what settings to maximize battery life while still having some minimal location (GPS or wifi or cell or combinations thereof) resolution. What is the setting?

There are three options
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See another thing wrong? Wifi and mobile networks aren't separated out. That is really insane, since the assisted GPS chip inside uses cell towers and GPS data. Anyway, which of these three options enable guided navigation in most navigation apps and maximizes battery life? Obviously, battery saving should be it, but I have my doubts and for three reasons. For one thing, I tried it, and google's maps app complained and didn't operate (as I recall) or I think required my using high-accuracy before my phone shut down due to high temperatures. Another tip off is the os mods imply that the battery-saving option may really entail uploading a lot of data to google. Surely that uses some electricity.

I am thinking of trying tomtom so see if it doesn't require wifi. Anyone have experience to see if using a non-google navigation app helped?

There is also a location setting in chrome. Is that going to change anything?
 
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Thom said:
Welcome to android Forums.
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Thanks!
Thom said:
What device are you using?

... Thom
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This is a normal question, but, actually, I'm the OP, and you'll note from the picture I'm wanting to have a general discussion. We have three devices running jelly bean, kit-kat, and lollipop, and I can return all of them, so if you could offer any personal experiences for any androids you've used, that would be best for me and other readers also worried about battery life using guided navigation.
 
My experience with GPS apps on mobile phones is that they use a lot of battery life. I am currently using a Galaxy S3 with an extended battery. I just plug mine into a car charger whenever I'm driving as I use a GPS map almost all the time while driving. Even with the car charger, the battery drains a bit whenever I use it. I do play music via BT from my phone to my car's audio system as well, so that is also contributing to the battery drain.

I've also used a Nokia N97, HTC Desire Z and an iPhone 5S running a GPS app. The Nokia and HTC also drain very fast while using GPS. The iP drains at a slower rate. Of these phones, the battery life on the iP is the best, especially using GPS.

The only thing I would suggest is to use a car charger while using GPS. That will greatly extend the battery life of your phone while using GPS. I don't know about overheating. All of my phones heat up a lot when using GPS. If you have music on your phone and like to play it over your car's audio system, perhaps investing in a separate device for music will take some load off the phone you are using for GPS.
 
As an aside, something is very wrong here. For one thing, my dedicated GPS device lasts 12 hours on tiny battery, yet if I am using GPS on my phone dies 4x faster (in 3 hours), yet it has a much larger battery
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I don't see anything wrong. Don't compare a phone to a dedicated gps....compare it to phones.

Three hours battery life wind navigating on gps without charging sounds normal too me for my smart phones.

My routine is:
1-use cigarette lighter charger whenever navigating long distances (as above)
2-direct air from my ac vents onto the phone while charging to keep it from alarming on high battery temp
 
'Battery saving' mode won't give you a reliably accurate location for navigation, you need to have GPS on - hence Google Maps difficulty.

For static location the least accurate is mobile network geolocation followed by wifi geolocation with GPS the most accurate, however, indoor GPS reception is by no means guaranteed.

When navigating in the car, same as Stuntman and electricpete, I always use the car charger and apps which allow on-device map storage which means I can switch data off (both wifi and mobile).

My main use of GPS navigation is for hill walking in which case I'm usually out of range of the mobile network and always out of range of wifi so go into Airplane mode to reduce battery consumption to a minimum, although I believe there are some devices that will not run GPS in Airplane mode.

I can't say I've ever had serious overheating.

My devices are HTC M7 and M9.
 
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I forgot to mention that my battery temperature alarm is self imposed...I set it up in gsam at 120F. I'll usually get the alarm on my s4 if I navigate fire awhile while charging without ac. Other phones may act differently and others may not have similar alarms.

Good point about data....that's another thing that adds to battery usage.
 
I am thinking of trying tomtom so see if it doesn't require wifi.

The TomTom GO Mobile app does not require Wifi for navigation, just GPS. I use the "GPS Only" location mode on my Samsung Galaxy SIII. I always plug it into a 2.1 amp car charger when travelling any distance. I haven't measured battery drain over time using the TomTom app without connecting the charger but would guess that three hours would be about the limit.

My experience with using the "GPS Only" location mode is that well behaved apps turn off the GPS radio when the app is closed hence battery drain is minimal except when an app is actually using GPS. I usually leave "GPS Only" location mode turned on except when an app leaves the GPS radio on after shutting down. Then I have to turn location off to reduce battery drain.
 
With regard to phones vs. dedicated GPS devices, I believe that most phones use A-GPS. It uses WiFi to assist in finding your location. If you turn the WiFi off, it may save some battery life, but it may cause the app to be less accurate or take longer to get a lock on your position. WiFi does not use a huge percentage of the power when using a GPS app on your phone. The biggest battery drain on a phone is the screen. I expect that the GPS app itself would also be a huge battery drain. WiFi would use a small fraction of power in comparison.
 
I use waze for my GPS and for routes where I need to travel for 20 minutes or more on the same road, I just turn off the screen to save battery life. The app sometimes crashes though, leaving me in the dark
 
Stuntman said:
With regard to phones vs. dedicated GPS devices, I believe that most phones use A-GPS. It uses WiFi to assist in finding your location. If you turn the WiFi off, it may save some battery life, but it may cause the app to be less accurate or take longer to get a lock on your position. WiFi does not use a huge percentage of the power when using a GPS app on your phone. The biggest battery drain on a phone is the screen. I expect that the GPS app itself would also be a huge battery drain. WiFi would use a small fraction of power in comparison.
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Umm.. How in the WORLD are you gonna even be ABLE to use WiFi for location if you're DRIVING SOMEWHERE!? No. Really.. Serious question. [emoji89]
 
You're right, a-gps uses data, not wifi for communication.

I seem to recall in some situations Google can use wifi to help improve location services (especially the city) because it knows the location of a lot of those wifi's. That's a different thing....looking at what wifi networks are present, not communicating over wifi
 
electricpete said:
You're right, a-gps uses data, not wifi for communication.

I seem to recall in some situations Google can use wifi to help improve location services (especially the city) because it knows the location of a lot of those wifi's. That's a different thing....looking at what wifi networks are present, not communicating over wifi
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Thank you Sir. I was genuinely perplexed
 
electricpete said:
You're right, a-gps uses data, not wifi for communication.

I seem to recall in some situations Google can use wifi to help improve location services (especially the city) because it knows the location of a lot of those wifi's. That's a different thing....looking at what wifi networks are present, not communicating over wifi
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MLSS said:
The wifi pings any router or tower it can find and it helps triangulate your location.
It doesn't connect to a wifi source it just pings nearby access points.
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Thanks, for the info. It's been a while since I read about A-GPS. I know it uses additional data sources other than just the satellites to get a fix on your location.
 
jcinc1 said:
I use waze for my GPS and for routes where I need to travel for 20 minutes or more on the same road, I just turn off the screen to save battery life. The app sometimes crashes though, leaving me in the dark
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Waze has been crashing a lot on me the past month. I have opened a problem report with Waze. The latest Waze app has a debug mode. You can turn it on and if it crashes, you can launch Waze and send the debug log to Waze for analysis. Best to open a problem report with them with a description and time of the crash.
 
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