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Do we really need battery saver apps?

THpubs

THpubs

Newbie
Do we really need battery saver apps for android ? I think even they take some battery juice for them to work right? Things like Battery Doctor and Due Battery saver only instruct us to close some apps to features like wifi gprs to save battery right?

If you are not rooted, they are useless right? Please correct me if I'm wrong :)
 
Rooting has nothing to do with battery.

An app that keeps wifi off until an app calls for it saves battery. Same with an app that keeps 3G/4G off unless called for. If they save more battery than they use (which is very little), and you're not bothered by the slight delay when you first go online, they extend the charge of the battery. Since I keep everything that I don't need turned off anyway, they wouldn't do me any good, but some people tend to leave Wifi, BT, GPS and everything else turned on all the time, and have a 15 minute screen timeout.
 
Im a big fan of DS (Deep Sleep) Battery Saver.
It without a doubt drastically improves standby (screen off) battery life.
Not sure if it requires root though....
.....description doesnt seem to mention root at a glance.
It has a toggle widget and i only turn it on when im gona be away from a charger for a long time.
Definately worth using if you use apps like facebook, g+...
 
I don't know that they are actually "needed" in most instances, but they do help, and many offer convenience beyond simple battery conservation. For example, I recently switched from JuiceDefender Ultimate to GreenPower Premium, both of which have location-based wifi control. They allow you to keep wifi permanently switched "on" yet be enabled only when you come in range of a known wifi network.

Also, I'm not sure I agree with the previous statement about battery conservation and root status being unrelated. Setting profiles to scale back the CPU under different scenarios can only be done with root, and it definitely conserves battery. Even though Juice Defender Ultimate has that ability built-in, I found it to be problematic (and it isn't as capable as SetCPU). Even with the slight overhead of running GreenPower and SetCPU, I measure a net gain in battery life.
 
Yeah i used to underclock to save power but it doesnt do much for standby life.
I just meant that i dont think DS requires root. I know Greenify does but i didnt like that so much. I like how DS wakes your apps and 3g for a minute every (X)hours to check for notifications :)
 
I find that my screen uses about 70% of the power on my phone. I don't think that a battery saver app is going to really make a significant improvement in battery life on my phone.
 
True mate.
You can underclock but i dont see the point in having a powerful phone and then throttling it.
im a heavy user so i have a lot of screentime use too.
Its just when im gona need long standby time that i turn on DS and it makes the battery last well over a day :)
 
Once upon a time, I made heavy use of apps like Juice Defender or Green Power. I eventually stopped because I found that their rigid schedules didn't always work so great for me (not to mention that some apps get straight-up pissed without data available, and can fall into a constant update-fail-retry cycle - keeping the device awake when it could otherwise be sleeping), and I didn't think the negligible difference in standby time was worth the inconvenience.

My current battery-saving scheme is as follows:

  • Snapdragon Battery Guru, which intelligently manages the synchronization schedule for apps that utilize the Google sync framework based upon how (and when, and where) you use those apps. For instance, it may allow Google+ to sync every 20 minutes because I frequently check that, but only sync Contacts a one or two times a day since that data rarely changes. It is also able to toggle Wifi status based on where I use it, and it has learned my charging routine so that it can provide an alert if it doesn't look like my phone will last from one charge to the next. The app is free and doesn't require root, which is awesome - but is only available for certain devices with certain Snapdragon-powered devices.
  • Greenify, which makes it easy to automatically suspend apps that might otherwise prevent the device from sleeping while they lurk unnecessarily in the background. I find this handy for a lot of games that want to stay in the background to receive notifications (which I don't want anyway), and for some apps that like to misbehave. Greenify is a great alternative to disabling apps that I don't regularly use, as I can still launch those apps on occasion without any issue; they just get effectively disabled once they've been out of the foreground for a few minutes. Greenify does require root.
  • FauxClock for managing the excellent Faux kernel. I don't use it so much for adjusting the clock speeds, but instead use the app to undervolt slightly, use a more intelligent thermal throttling scheme, and enable additional processor sleep states.
 
funkylogik said:
True mate.
You can underclock but i dont see the point in having a powerful phone and then throttling it.
im a heavy user so i have a lot of screentime use too.
Its just when im gona need long standby time that i turn on DS and it makes the battery last well over a day :)
Click to expand...

It's no really about throttling it. My cpu is conservatively set at 800mhz, consensus is that it has the same chip in a sibling (better) phone that's clocked to 1000... If anything you can undervolt the lower end, to save battery while keeping (or overclocking) the upper limit. Also you can set the threshold at which it won't use high CPU, like when it's down to 50%, whatever.

Use cache cleaning schedule app, undervolt (& overclock ;)), whittle down the automatic brightness settings beyond the set conservative values (if your rom has that setting), use apps that dim and/or tint the screen when you don't need it bright. Turn off data / 3g / location settings etc when not needed.

I have a deep distrust of all these miracle 'wonder' apps I think they exist to serve ads more than anything.
 
Mr. Lucky said:
I don't know that they are actually "needed" in most instances, but they do help, and many offer convenience beyond simple battery conservation. For example, I recently switched from JuiceDefender Ultimate to GreenPower Premium, both of which have location-based wifi control. They allow you to keep wifi permanently switched "on" yet be enabled only when you come in range of a known wifi network.
Click to expand...
WiFi Location Toggle does that without the complications of 'battery saver' apps. I've found all battery savers to be unnecessary - or worse. Some are worse than others, but unless you have special, unusual, specific usage requirements they are not productive.
 
I'm currently trying on Battery Doctor and DU Battery Saver on ICS and I noticed that DU Battery charges my phone faster during fast charging mode (to 80%).

But I also noticed that on full charge (100%), Battery Doctor shows a longer life on my battery (25 hours) as opposed to DU Battery Saver which only says 18 hours after full charge.

Do these apps control the current going to the battery during charging or are they just nice graphics to entertain you while you wait for your phone to charge?
 
Gundam168 said:
I'm currently trying on Battery Doctor and DU Battery Saver on ICS and I noticed that DU Battery charges my phone faster during fast charging mode (to 80%).

But I also noticed that on full charge (100%), Battery Doctor shows a longer life on my battery (25 hours) as opposed to DU Battery Saver which only says 18 hours after full charge.

Do these apps control the current going to the battery during charging or are they just nice graphics to entertain you while you wait for your phone to charge?
Click to expand...

I haven't used either of those apps, but looking at their Play Store descriptions doesn't give me anything to suggest that they are able to directly control the charging current - even the "professional charging" (lol wtf?) or "unique 3 stage charging" of Battery Doctor just look to be pretty interfaces for the built-in charge management. The actual charging characteristics are actually managed at the kernel level (or even lower, as the battery has its own circuitry). Some kernels include a "fast charging" option which increases the current the phone will attempt to draw from a charger, but that's not something that can be done by an app alone.

As for the time-to-empty or time-to-full estimates, they're just that: estimates. A good app will monitor battery drain for a number of full cycles and use that information to guess at how long a battery charge should last. These apps (from what I can tell, at least) don't appear to do that; instead, they just guess - which explains the wide variation between the two.

I see that they both also talk about task-killing, which is a huge red flag to me. I personally wouldn't use either of those apps on my phone.

Instead, if you're looking for an app to monitor your battery usage (and provide estimated charge/discharge times) I can recommend both Battery Widget Reborn and GSAM Battery Monitor. If you want to control unwanted/unneeded background processes, Greenify gets my vote.
 
If you watch what settings you use / what applications runs on your device an app to extend battery life is useless. Of course, the opinions are divided. It may be useful in some situations but it sure won't be able to do wonders
 
I strongly recommend Battery Dr. also. Have it installed on Android Tablet and iPhone and the difference is notable on both!! Just to give you an idea, went from charging the iPhone daily to every other day now and the same with the tablet. It's free and doesn't require rooting. Vin.
 
funkylogik said:
Im a big fan of DS (Deep Sleep) Battery Saver.
It without a doubt drastically improves standby (screen off) battery life.
Not sure if it requires root though....
.....description doesnt seem to mention root at a glance.
It has a toggle widget and i only turn it on when im gona be away from a charger for a long time.
Definately worth using if you use apps like facebook, g+...
Click to expand...

does not require root.
 
Agreed:DS does not need root but if you are rooted it has extra CPU control :)

I like it as I can forget to disable things like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth etc so it takes over for me :O)
 
A simple test would be to charge thephone full...... Do a full day of no data. Turn off 3g/4g, wifi, blue tooth, and gps.
Then go all day and see what battery does. Then the next day use like 3g/4g.
You will probably notice quite a big difference in battery life vs hours on.

I can say for a fact that 3g and most anything that uses the data drains the battery in a very noticeable difference. Granted not huge, but a VERY noticeable difference.

That's why I use ds battery saver. It turns off data when the screen is off.
 
I feel we must need the battery saver app..

1 Auto function to turn of Sync
2 Different Mode to save battery
3 Keeping eye on Battery Volt
4 Testing the battery every few month once
etc...
 
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