• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Device care app battery drain

  • Thread starter Thread starter OTARvashka
  • Start date Start date
O

OTARvashka

Guest
Hi everyone! Is it just me or anyone else having the same problem? Device care app (pre-installed one) drains battery like crazy. It takes 30-45% of the battery daily. I can leave my phone overnight with just wi-fi on and it goes down like 3% average per hour (no always on display). Same 30-45% of battery usage are shown under the settings app. Identical numbers. Apparently it's a native software issue.

My wife's S10+ has and older version of Device care app and it consumes around 10% daily. This is a crazy difference.

Does anyone have the same issue?
 
I'd like to be sure I understand what you are saying and seeing, and that when you compare with your wife's device you are comparing like with like. There are a couple of things that make me unsure:

1) you talk about overnight losing 3% per hour, in which case if your 30-45% refers to that then it means this thing is using 1-1.5% battery per hour. If your 30-45% is averaged over a whole charge cycle then what it means in terms of actual usage will depend on how heavily the phone is used. And is that 30-45% of total battery use, or 30-45% of the usage by apps (different things, since apps are far from the only things using power)?

2) when you say "same 30-45% of battery usage is shown under the settings app" what exactly do you mean? Do you mean that if you look in settings you see 30-45% of usage being attributed to Device Care (in which case what is the other thing that's telling you it's using this much)? Or do you mean that something else is telling you that Settings is using 30-45% of power? It's not clear to me, I'm afraid.

Different apps measure power usage in different ways, so you might want to try a third party app (e.g. GSam Battery Monitor) to get a second perspective on how the power is used.

Frankly if it were even averaging 10% of overall power use (with my usage pattern, where the phone is frequently used rather than left on standby all of the time) I would disable it. It's not a necessary part of Android, it's something Samsung added to their ROMs. I don't have any device which has this app, and haven't missed it or felt the need to find an alternative, so if I bought an Samsung and decided it was a significant power drain I'd just turn it off.
 
Hadron said:
I'd like to be sure I understand what you are saying and seeing, and that when you compare with your wife's device you are comparing like with like. There are a couple of things that make me unsure:

1) you talk about overnight losing 3% per hour, in which case if your 30-45% refers to that then it means this thing is using 1-1.5% battery per hour. If your 30-45% is averaged over a whole charge cycle then what it means in terms of actual usage will depend on how heavily the phone is used. And is that 30-45% of total battery use, or 30-45% of the usage by apps (different things, since apps are far from the only things using power)?

2) when you say "same 30-45% of battery usage is shown under the settings app" what exactly do you mean? Do you mean that if you look in settings you see 30-45% of usage being attributed to Device Care (in which case what is the other thing that's telling you it's using this much)? Or do you mean that something else is telling you that Settings is using 30-45% of power? It's not clear to me, I'm afraid.

Different apps measure power usage in different ways, so you might want to try a third party app (e.g. GSam Battery Monitor) to get a second perspective on how the power is used.

Frankly if it were even averaging 10% of overall power use (with my usage pattern, where the phone is frequently used rather than left on standby all of the time) I would disable it. It's not a necessary part of Android, it's something Samsung added to their ROMs. I don't have any device which has this app, and haven't missed it or felt the need to find an alternative, so if I bought an Samsung and decided it was a significant power drain I'd just turn it off.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply. All written out emotions, but now I will break it down.

1) Time between full battery charges is around 20-24hrs. I'm not a gamer or a heavy user.

2) When the phone stays overnight, I've noticed that in 2 hrs it goes down by 6-7%. I did several measures and it's same every night 2-3% per hour. I clean RAM before going to sleep, only wi-fi is on and no always on display. Tried to switch off wi-fi but it made no difference.

3) I tried to figure out what does drain the battery so fast and found out that 3 specific apps show identical battery consumption since the last full charge : Device Care , Settings , Find my device. I assume it may be an OS platform overall usage.

4) I'm on 7% battery charge now and total consumption by above mentioned apps is 49%. I think it's too much. My wife's S10+ as I mentioned earlier shows battery consumption in same apps in same conditions, only 8-15% consumption per charging cycle.

5) You can't disable these apps as it's a part of the system. And you can't reverse the updates either.


I know Galaxies aren't the best in power management. This is my 4th Galaxy. Maybe I'm paranoid but I think it should not happen. Does anyone have the same issue, or it's just me?
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_20200406-150116_Settings.jpg
    Screenshot_20200406-150116_Settings.jpg
    103.3 KB · Views: 447
  • Screenshot_20200406-150127_Settings.jpg
    Screenshot_20200406-150127_Settings.jpg
    104.4 KB · Views: 590
  • Screenshot_20200406-150143_Settings.jpg
    Screenshot_20200406-150143_Settings.jpg
    103.9 KB · Views: 327
If that is what it is telling you then 48% used by whatever amalgam is being reported as those 3 apps is too much (the "If" is because the way it is presenting this does not inspire confidence). The trouble is that different apps (including the phone's own monitoring) account battery usage in different ways, so without having the same device it's impossible for me to compare (my Pixel shows 0% usage by Settings in my current cycle, which is also not exactly true). And they don't always present things clearly, as you can see - my guess is that some mish-mash, possibly the total usage by the operating system, phone standby, etc, is all being presented as the usage for each of those apps. This is why I suggest installing some other battery monitor app and seeing what it says, because clearly your system settings are not breaking this down usefully.

I've never "cleared RAM" on any android device. There's no point: it actually increases power usage (stuff that would be pre-loaded and ready next time you use it has to be reloaded). Samsung's device care stuff was controversial when it was introduced precisely because it included crap like that, which they obtained from a company whose apps have since been banned from the Play Store (genuinely!). My advice would be not to bother doing that.
 
Probably you are right about the system consumption. I will try a 3rd party app to monitor the battery. Ram and closing apps ... probably makes sense.

My question is, how 2 phones with same OS show different consumption on the same apps?
 
They are different phones, and even from the same manufacturer with nominally the same OS in reality the software has to be built separately for the different models (almost all of the hardware components are different, and so there will be a lot of differences under the hood). They will also have different apps installed, there will be differences in usage, some different settings, so even 2 identical devices on the same software build, but used by different people, will not necessarily behave in the same way (though they are usually pretty comparable).
 
Interesting. I haven't noticed device care on the list of battery usage, though I admit to not looking for it either.

Device care is the service that controls battery usage if I'm not mistaken though, as well as ram stats and storage. Seems like it does a fair amount. I will look at mine at end of day and see where it's at. (just took it off charger)
 
I've found few S20 owners. All have same stuff. Apparently Device Care, Settings app , Find My phone app are all related to One UI and it's normal to see high consumption in the description for all of them. Samsung Galaxies were never good in battery life management, so this is the case.

Anyway my S20+ 2 months old stays alive for around 20 hours . It's not bad I guess
 
I have ZERO complaints about battery life, though, not being able to leave the house means charging during the day here and there, not even out of needing it, just because. If I don't, battery is kinda low around 11pm(ish)
 
I work on shift basis. Leaving to work at 5am having a fully charged phone, I come back home at 7pm . The phone still shows 30-35%. I stream music entire day via BT in the car and phone works all day on data, not on wi-fi. Again, it's decent I believe, not the best
 
OTARvashka said:
I work on shift basis. Leaving to work at 5am having a fully charged phone, I come back home at 7pm . The phone still shows 30-35%. I stream music entire day via BT in the car and phone works all day on data, not on wi-fi. Again, it's decent I believe, not the best
Click to expand...

A fair assessment. Only reason I charge during day right now is so is isn't cutting out super late at night.
 
I could not see the per app battery usage on my Galaxy S22.
However, when I click on the Battery Usage graph, the list of apps show up with the usage.
( Settings > Battery and device care > Battery > [click on the graph]
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom