# Does Software drain Battery Life



## theFOoL (Mar 24, 2019)

Hi guys, 

So I'm doing a test here and came that apks on Android actually gives a huge loss of Battery Life where the Mobile Sites do not (like Facebook, Instagram, XDA Etc.) but me curious of what ya think... 

Here's my recent Screen of just using Mobile with the Default Browser from the S8+


----------



## Vya Domus (Mar 24, 2019)

Of course having several apps running will use more battery compared to just having a browser running, was there ever a mystery with regards to this ?


----------



## Countryside (Mar 24, 2019)

Sure it does drain if its an active software running on the background that's why i always keep unnecessary software closed.

There has been a quick advancement in hardware but unfortunately not in the battery department.


----------



## theFOoL (Mar 24, 2019)

Well I just found it interesting to  see how many actually use the Browser method rather then the APK side. Like right now of course I have Apks such as Facebook, Instagram running just to see the battery meter flop like always. What ya think about Palm OS? How was the battery life? Was it better then Android... Just curious


----------



## kastriot (Mar 24, 2019)

This is pretty dumb question, like asking "when you start your car does it drain gasoline from fuel tank?"


----------



## theFOoL (Mar 24, 2019)

kastriot said:


> This is pretty dumb question, like asking "when you start your car does it drain gasoline from fuel tank?"


LOL good one


----------



## chaosmassive (Mar 24, 2019)

even smallest led notification also drain battery, idk what are you trying to say


----------



## theFOoL (Mar 24, 2019)

Well I'll have to look into how much mah take from a tab from browser then the APK side


----------



## Mr.Scott (Mar 24, 2019)

You mean you haven't downloaded more battery capacity yet?
It's right under download more ram.


----------



## theFOoL (Mar 24, 2019)

Mr.Scott said:


> You mean you haven't downloaded more battery capacity yet?


Pshh what are you on sir? You can't. That's like adding more RAM on software side for windows in which those are viruses

Also like Mah on some batteries *Claiming it's 3200mah but look around back state like 3099/2999mah


----------



## Countryside (Mar 24, 2019)

How about an 18000mAh phone.


----------



## theFOoL (Mar 24, 2019)

Nah Nah I'm good. Seen it but way way too thick. Plus it has a MediaTek CPU though good at battery consumption it's just not like Qualcomm plus the camera's they use in their phones are terrible (I don't know why the cameras are bad on most MediaTek phones (mostly the cheap ones)


----------



## Mr.Scott (Mar 24, 2019)

Humor. 
Try it sometime.


----------



## Ferrum Master (Mar 24, 2019)

rk3066 said:


> Nah Nah I'm good. Seen it but way way too thick. Plus it has a MediaTek CPU though good at battery consumption it's just not like Qualcomm plus the camera's they use in their phones are terrible (I don't know why the cameras are bad on most MediaTek phones (mostly the cheap ones)



Rockchip is even worse.


----------



## theFOoL (Mar 24, 2019)

Yes but they don't offer phones... Just tablets and Android Boxes


----------



## Steevo (Mar 24, 2019)

Countryside said:


> Sure it does drain if its an active software running on the background that's why i always keep unnecessary software closed.
> 
> There has been a quick advancement in hardware but unfortunately not in the battery department.




We are about out of chemical storage technology advancements with batteries, the chemical bonds only contain X amount of energy per bond and we cannot go over that. I'm expecting more advancement in beam shaping to enable wireless charging and the few smaller nodes we have left in silicone to bring us mobile devices with 2 maybe 3 day battery life but not much beyond due to screen power use.


----------



## theFOoL (Mar 24, 2019)

Now far as screen size 5.8 is my Favorite Size. Just all these 6+ is beyond too huge. Can't wait for 7 inch phones aka like this

But But as long as the charging ability technology gets faster I'm OK


----------



## Bill_Bright (Mar 24, 2019)

kastriot said:


> This is pretty dumb question


 The only dumb question is the one not asked. Just because something may be obvious to some does not mean it is obvious to all. And just because some question might easily be found with a little homework with Bing Google, that still does not make the question dumb. The purpose of forums is to provide a place where people can come get answers to their questions, not be ridiculed for asking them. 

If this were so obvious, why do so many come to forums complaining their systems are running slow only to find out they have tons of programs starting with Windows, eating up their resources (which of course, consumes more power).
Fortunately, rk3066 took the high road. 

@ rk3066, any time you tell any electronics to do more, it will consume more power. If that source of power is a battery, it will drain the battery faster. Visiting sites like Facebook is running 1 program or app - your browser. That uses resources (processor, RAM, storage, etc). And utilizing resources takes power. Running other apps at the same time takes more resources. How much depends on the specific app and this can vary too by many things, such as the amount of animation on the screen, how often the app must reach out (tranmitters are big power eaters) to get more data, and more.

Here are some good tips to increase spartphone battery run time.


----------



## hat (Mar 24, 2019)

Of course. A bunch of apps running in the background is going to drain battery, and also slow down your device. That's why apps like Greenify exist, but I stopped using it because it would shut down a bunch of stuff like my email and weather, so these things would never update unless I checked them manually. It's better, if you can, to not have a ton of apps installed, and the ones you do have installed, check the settings in that app and see if you can't limit how often they update.


----------



## Countryside (Mar 24, 2019)

Steevo said:


> We are about out of chemical storage technology advancements with batteries, the chemical bonds only contain X amount of energy per bond and we cannot go over that. I'm expecting more advancement in beam shaping to enable wireless charging and the few smaller nodes we have left in silicone to bring us mobile devices with 2 maybe 3 day battery life but not much beyond due to screen power use.



Yeah as long as there are Lithium-ion batteries there won't be major advancement in battery life.


----------



## Bill_Bright (Mar 24, 2019)

If folks would simply look up and stop talking, texting and facebooking, their battery charges would last for days too.  What a concept.


----------



## Countryside (Mar 24, 2019)

Bill_Bright said:


> If folks would simply look up and stop talking, texting and facebooking, their battery charges would last for days too.  What a concept.



Times change i wonder did someone say stop looking at that paper.


----------



## Bill_Bright (Mar 24, 2019)

Countryside said:


> Times change i wonder did someone say stop looking at that paper.


LOL Good point. But at least when done reading, they put it down. And not many (there were always moron exceptions) read the paper while driving.


----------



## dorsetknob (Mar 24, 2019)

Software consumes CPU cycles which consume power
More software running = more power used 

IN human terms
living in temperate climate = 4500 calories a day
living in Arctic climate = 10000  calories a day
living in North Korea =1500  calories a day


----------



## Aquinus (Mar 24, 2019)

dorsetknob said:


> Software consumes CPU cycles which consume power
> More software *running* = more power used


If software is installed and it's not running or doing any background services to surface things like push notifications, then it shouldn't impact battery life because it's not doing anything. If it's doing anything, it will negatively impact battery life. I think that's an important distinction to make.


Bill_Bright said:


> If folks would simply look up and stop talking, texting and facebooking, their battery charges would last for days too.  What a concept.


My iPhone 7 was last fully charged 24 hours ago, it's at 77% right now. That's the power of not using your phone 24/7. That's also with things like Facebook and other applications that do push notifications still being turned on. So much power is wasted to just to illuminate the display.


----------



## AsRock (Mar 24, 2019)

Countryside said:


> How about an 18000mAh phone.



FAIL no headphone socket.


----------



## John Naylor (Mar 24, 2019)

Well, if we speak literally .... software does not use battery life.   It's the hardare that is needed to run the software that uses battery life.   But since ya can't use one without the other ... for all intents and purposes, while software wont burn battery life  just sitting there, when you run it, the battery life is eaten.  I think what you might be wondering is "Does software burn battery life even when I'm not using yet.   Any app that "phones home" will be doing tasks without your actively using the software and that burns battery life.

When I had the Treo 650 (best phone I ever had) ... I charged the phone once every week.  And I could swap batteries in 2 seconds.

The deficiency in today's phones is that for many, they have ceased being phones and are now simply "entertainment devices".  The weekly notification screen that pops up should be simplified with just two categories:

Time spent on productive activities = 09 %
Time spent on mental masturbation = 91%


----------



## hat (Mar 24, 2019)

Aquinus said:


> My iPhone 7 was last fully charged 24 hours ago, it's at 77% right now. That's the power of not using your phone 24/7. That's also with things like Facebook and other applications that do push notifications still being turned on. So much power is wasted to just to illuminate the display.



I last charged mine... 2 days and 16 hours ago, and I'm at 75%. I usually charge mine about twice a week. Now, my Galaxy s4, on the other hand... something was wrong with it. I'd have to constantly have it plugged into a charger just to get through a single day. It would even completely drain a ~2200mah battery bank. On top of that, it would randomly die while at ~40% battery, and when I tried to restart the phone, it would survive long enough to get to the main screen where I could see 2% battery or something before it died.


----------



## Bill_Bright (Mar 24, 2019)

Aquinus said:


> So much power is wasted to just to illuminate the display.


Very true. Also if BT and wifi are enabled, but you are not using them, power


----------



## hat (Mar 24, 2019)

Bill_Bright said:


> Very true. Also if BT and wifi are enabled, but you are not using them, power


GPS too. And it seems to be always working, to some degree, even if you're not using google maps or something. I once got stuck on the side of the road for a few near a Dollar General, and I got something in my notifications area "how was Dollar General?"...


----------



## Bill_Bright (Mar 24, 2019)

hat said:


> and I got something in my notifications area "how was Dollar General?"...


LOL - I have used similar examples showing how our privacy is non-existent with our smartphones when people complain about W10 privacy. The sad part about our cell phone carriers is they can tie our locations (and everything else we don on our phones) to our real names, home addresses and billing information.  

But to your point, if not completely turned off, our cell phones are just in standby mode and all sorts of stuff is still going on.


----------



## Regeneration (Mar 24, 2019)

Android does a terrible job with real-time process reporting. Some apps drain the battery. Especially, those that remain active in the background. By rooting, you can disable system apps you don't use, and with Greenify, you can monitor/suspend 3rd party apps.


----------



## Aquinus (Mar 24, 2019)

hat said:


> GPS too.


Good point, but I actually get surprisingly good battery life when the GPS is going, but when the screen is off. In fact, the battery barely drains when I'm using GPS and Spotify strictly through my Airpods. I think people really underestimate how much battery that the backlighting on a display will consume. I'll roast through the battery if the display is on and lit for any extended period of time.


----------



## theFOoL (Mar 24, 2019)

What about those Apps that monitor battery life like Accu?


----------



## hat (Mar 24, 2019)

Aquinus said:


> Good point, but I actually get surprisingly good battery life when the GPS is going, but when the screen is off. In fact, the battery barely drains when I'm using GPS and Spotify strictly through my Airpods. I think people really underestimate how much battery that the backlighting on a display will consume. I'll roast through the battery if the display is on and lit for any extended period of time.


Oh sure, screen is always the worst offender. At least, for anyone who is on their phone a lot.



rk3066 said:


> What about those Apps that monitor battery life like Accu?


That's also going to drain the battery, as it is actively monitoring other apps to see how much battery they drain. On the upside, if your battery dies a lot, such an app would help you find the culprits.


----------



## Aquinus (Mar 24, 2019)

rk3066 said:


> What about those Apps that monitor battery life like Accu?


Is it an app and is it running? If so, it uses power. There is no magical app that doesn't consume power when it's running. How much power depends on the app and the phone.


----------



## natr0n (Mar 24, 2019)

Use power save mode perhaps.

Also less crap running uses less power.


----------



## theFOoL (Mar 24, 2019)

It's an App off the Play-Store and phone is the Samsung S8+ on Verizon


----------



## hat (Mar 24, 2019)

The phone itself is part of it, largely because of the battery, and to a lesser extent, the SoC. If the phone is more efficient, it will use less power, making the battery last longer. And, of course, the bigger the battery, the longer it will last. A hypothetical 50mAh battery would die very quickly. It's the same reason my Samsung 30Q batteries (3000mAh) last longer than my old Samsung 25R (2500mAh) batteries in my Kanger KBOX Mini. However, the 25R would last longer if I vaped at 20w (less apps running) than if I vaped at 40w (more apps) while using the 30Q, because I am placing less load on the battery, even though it's a smaller capacity.

All apps, when active, consume battery power. This includes actively using them, or if they're in the background somewhere (like my weather app). That's what apps that monitor battery life do. They monitor even apps in the background to see how much battery power they're consuming.


----------



## Bill_Bright (Mar 25, 2019)

Aquinus said:


> In fact, the battery barely drains when I'm using GPS


That actually makes sense because GPS uses radio "receiving" technologies. And receivers use just a tiny amount (a few µ watts or less) of power compared to cell phone transmitters which can use up to a full watt.


----------



## Aquinus (Mar 25, 2019)

Bill_Bright said:


> That actually makes sense because GPS uses radio "receiving" technologies. And receivers use just a tiny amount (a few µ watts or less) of power compared to cell phone transmitters which can use up to a full watt.


Sure, and in context the backlighting on the display could easily be up to a half a watt depending on the screen size and brightness. The radio isn't necessarily going 100% of the time, but the backlighting is if you're looking at your phone... unless you're just admiring the design of your phone and not using it.


----------



## R-T-B (Mar 26, 2019)

AsRock said:


> FAIL no headphone socket.



Meh, I gave up on it when I realized how shitty all phone DACs are.


----------



## AsRock (Mar 26, 2019)

R-T-B said:


> Meh, I gave up on it when I realized how shitty all phone DACs are.



 That's bound to be, average joe don't care about DAC quality.. It's sad that some company made a phone that would be considered pretty dam large and fail not even putting a headphone socket on it.

Personally i dislike all these smartphones it's making people dumber. But people keep falling for the stupid shit like sheep. Kinda like how people say they care about privicy and still use google.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Mar 26, 2019)

Applications loaded into the memory but not executing anything will not use any extra power (DRAM uses a more or less constant rate of power).  Execution (making transistors flip) is what fundamentally causes wattage to rise.  Loading an application is an example of execution (invokes NAND and minor CPU activity).

Think of transistors like grains of sand.  The more grains of sand that are moved in a given second, the more power it requires to do so. Power is also translatable into heat so if you're doing something on your phone and it's making it hot...that's directly proportional to how much your battery is draining (literally the power source for the heat).


----------



## R-T-B (Mar 26, 2019)

AsRock said:


> Personally i dislike all these smartphones it's making people dumber.



It's not the phones doing that. 

They are only a window into what people actually consume via them.  You can't blame them anymore than you can blame video games for gun violence.  They are tools that do what they are told.  People look up dumb shit, they reap what they sow.


----------



## Bill_Bright (Mar 26, 2019)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Think of transistors like grains of sand. The more grains of sand that are moved in a given second, the more power it requires to do so.


Or you could use the more applicable analogy and think of transistors as "gates" since that is the accepted terminology. When the gate is "closed" current can flow along the fence line (circuit) and right through the gate to the other side. This represents the binary "1" (also called a "high"). 

When the gate is "open", no current can flow so you have a "0" or "low". The state or position of that gate equals 1 "bit" of data. 8 gates equal 1 "byte" of data. 

In electronics circles (and classrooms) when the gate is opened and closed, it is called a "flip flop".  

It takes power to "flip" open and then more power to "flop" close the gates. Unless told to change, the gate just sits in the state it was last set. That is, it does not have to be "refreshed" and if the data (bits and bytes) don't change (1 to 0 or 0 to 1) there is no extra drain on the battery needed to hold that gate open or closed.


----------



## John Naylor (Mar 26, 2019)

1.  I suggest going into settings and turning off 24/7 location services for all apps  and using the "Use location services only when using this application".   I wonder how many criminals get nailed each day when law enforcement looks at their phones ..."I see you were at 7-elevem at 3:07 when the store was robbed".

2.  It's more, than whether an app is on or off.   For example, if your GPS is functional say when you look at compass and it shows longtitude and lattiture, that's a low power usage.   Buyt when using your GPS to provide driving direction with screen constantly on and moving as you drive as well as spitting out verbal directions and beeps for red light cameras etc, yeah you are probably using more powert han any other app on your phone.  Also don't forget to turn your map directions app off after you get to your destination ... BTDT and didn't have enough juice to drive home/

3.   Also must remember that maybe you could drive 2 hours with that new phone and your directions app when the phone is new, might be 1 hour whgen phone is 2 years old.   Hope someone brings back a phone with detachable batteries.

4.  Finally ... make sure to calibrate your better about every 30 dischrage cycles .... if you charge you battery 3 nites in a  from from 70% 60% and 70% (30-40-30 = 1 charging cycle), you will find yaself in a position where ya look at phone and it says 35% and 2 minutes later it's dead. If ya google "how to calibrate iPhone battery" or "how to calibrate iSamsung Phone battery" you will get shorter versions of this

https://batterycare.net/en/guide.html


----------

