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Help live wall paper kills battery life

Tony N.

Tony N.

Member
I noticed that the live wall paper are slowing htc sense down along with eating up battery. Just wondering if anyone else here experience the same thing.
 
You can check the battery usage and it will tell you what % of battery was used by the live wall paper. I am using the silhouette live wall paper and it only takes up 2% of the juice that's used.
 
could possibly be because i was also using the phone heavily at the time, but earlier today put the water live wallpaper on and lost about 10% battery over an hour time period. seemed to start dropping drastically after setting the LW. could it also be because of how detailed the wallpaper is?
 
tommy_ed said:
could possibly be because i was also using the phone heavily at the time, but earlier today put the water live wallpaper on and lost about 10% battery over an hour time period. seemed to start dropping drastically after setting the LW. could it also be because of how detailed the wallpaper is?
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The more the CPU has to process the worse for the battery. The water live paper is probably one of the biggest battery hogs since the water ripples are generated by user touches. So the more "complex" a live wallpaper is, the more battery it will drain.
 
Make sure it's on your ignore list if you're using a task killer.

I had the same issue until I did that. I suspect it's because starting the program takes more juice than keeping it in the background.
 
stevo324 said:
The more the CPU has to process the worse for the battery. The water live paper is probably one of the biggest battery hogs since the water ripples are generated by user touches. So the more "complex" a live wallpaper is, the more battery it will drain.
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That's a very simplistic analysis. CPU load is just one aspect. Since the only dynamic input is screen touchs (there will be no added drain from the touch sensor when it's not being touched). And there is a huge distinction between something being visually complex and computationally complex. Just because something LOOKS complicated doesn't mean its computationally intensive.

I'm not sure that water one would be all that bad. Certainly it would not help your battery life to play with it constantly, but I'd be surprised it would be that harmful (I'll play with it tomorrow, just to make sure.).

I'd be alot more careful with any that use other sensors that aren't normally on (as much). For example, anything that used the accelerometer would probably be a larger drain. The input would constantly be changing, requiring CPU time, and I suspect that it would be probing the sensor a lot more than the home screen normally would (if at all in Sense ui).

Probably the worst live wallpaper, battery wise, is "Shake them all". Fun/hilarious to play with, but I'd stay away from it as a day to day wallpaper.

EDIT: after about an hour of average use (a lot of interneting, and a lot of splashing) on the water wallpaper, and live wallpapers is at 2% of battery usage (and I'm still at 94% of charge). Based on the battery use I got yesterday, I'd probably cost you 10 minutes of use.
 
May I suggest one for you guys to check out, Starfield.

It reminds me of the oldschool windows 95 screensavers but it runs very well and looks great too. It doesn't seem to suck up much battery juice either.

But of course a live wallpaper will use more battery life than a static wallpaper...that's common sense. Just some live wallpapers use more than others, so test some out. I love live wallpapers and will gladly sacrifice 5% of my battery for it.
 
Alot of it depends on how well the live wallpaper was written, how many frames per second it was coded at (ie how many times they paint the canvas) and also how much interaction the wallpaper has. for example live wallpaper can access everything from GPS to the accelerometer to the clock etc... so the more of those functions it makes use of the more battery it will eat. also it would have to be coded correctly so that is pauses correctly and stops running when something else is in focus... ie you have mail or some other something open so that you can't see the wall paper. if they didn't code that piece correctly live wallpaper will chew through battery even when you can't see it. also you need to pause not stop the paper otherwise when you go back to the home screens it will have to reload the images into memory causing lag where a pause never lets it unload from memory which is a big deal because although fast pulling images from storage isn't as fast a I/O procedure as you would think it is.

A company i do some contract stuff with is working on 4 or 5 live wallpapers as kinda a side thing and the requirements are pretty clear. 1. wallpaper must create no or nearly unoticiable lag to the system, 2. battery drain must be as minimal as possible (less than 2% of total day awake time) 3. it must be cool.

needless to say the first couple of live wallpapers did not meet the first two requirements but the code now is getting really effecient which means the focus is making something unique and attractive but not overly intrusive.
 
Proph said:
A company i do some contract stuff with is working on 4 or 5 live wallpapers as kinda a side thing and the requirements are pretty clear. 1. wallpaper must create no or nearly unoticiable lag to the system, 2. battery drain must be as minimal as possible (less than 2% of total day awake time) 3. it must be cool.

needless to say the first couple of live wallpapers did not meet the first two requirements but the code now is getting really effecient which means the focus is making something unique and attractive but not overly intrusive.
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sounds sweet, be sure to start a thread for us when these become available! :D
 
Polar clock doesn't use much battery doesnt show up in battery usage. It looks nice too

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk
 
I use the NexusMod Live Wallpaper and I haven't noticed any difference from when I was using photo wallpapers. Battery lasts just the same for me.
 
IcedTC said:
May I suggest one for you guys to check out, Starfield.

It reminds me of the oldschool windows 95 screensavers but it runs very well and looks great too. It doesn't seem to suck up much battery juice either.

But of course a live wallpaper will use more battery life than a static wallpaper...that's common sense. Just some live wallpapers use more than others, so test some out. I love live wallpapers and will gladly sacrifice 5% of my battery for it.
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I used this one for awhile and I didn't notice any slower performance or battery drain. I just got bored with it, I use the nexus load and background everyonce and awhile but I like my basic black pattern that I've got now
 
ChiTownJim said:
I used this one for awhile and I didn't notice any slower performance or battery drain. I just got bored with it, I use the nexus load and background everyonce and awhile but I like my basic black pattern that I've got now
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Good call, definately have to switch it up. But yeah I feel no slow down ever and no battery drain either.
 
For everyone with a battery hogging Live Wallpaper, SUBSTRATE is awesome. I stopped using it because I don't really care for a live wallpaper, but it is no hog on the battery and the bundle comes with about 6 or 7 customizable wall papers.
 
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