[Q]Are Widgets Battery eaters ? - Desire HD Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So since I have 6 screens I have adorned them with widgets as follows:
1.Mail
2.SMS
3.Music
4.Calendar
5.Shortcuts
6. Power saving widgets
None of these widgets are auto-updating or need internet.
My question: Are widgets eating power even though they have nothing to do with transmitting data ?

Install another widget, current widget that is and find out!

andyharney said:
Install another widget, current widget that is and find out!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the current widget. With and without any widgets (the ones that i have) is a very variable performance. So cant draw any conclusions from there.
From a performance perspective, speed and ram is much better without any widgets.

mjehan said:
I have the current widget. With and without any widgets (the ones that i have) is a very variable performance. So cant draw any conclusions from there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can use current widget or better System Panel to see how much current or processor resource each individual widget is using over a given period. That will answer your original question.
In short some barely use any battery power and some use a lot.
Sent from my HTC HD so may contain typos, bugs and, if the battery lasts, pearls of....(battery 0%)

I have 5 screens running with various widgets and don't find excessive battery consumption. Like someone said, depends on the widget, but with current widget I find I'm still only leaking maximum of 4ma on standby.
Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk

Related

Big Clock for Lockscreen

Hello,
I need a BIG digital clock for my lockscreen. Is there any out there esp for Visually impaired people??
Thanks a lot in advance
Well by default the time shows up pretty big but incase you want a bigger clock try Widget Locker. It's available in the Android Market. You can customize your lockscreen including how big you want the time to be displayed.
What he ^^ said.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App
Is there still no way to just add a big clock to the lock screen?
All searches for this turn up people recommending Widget Locker. But reading the reviews indicate heavy resource use, slowing down system, inconsistency between WL and home screen, etc.
Not to mention having to pay for something I need because of a visual impairment. Good grief. There are free apps to show you what shaking boobs look like, in case you haven't seen that.
I've tried LockBot but that's been flaky for me on the Samsung Fascinate. Freezing after entering password; sometimes not locking the device at all; etc. Too bad. It's all that's really needed. Activate the device, see the time and date. *See* the time and date.

[Q] Which weather app do you use?

I am currently back on the stock weather widget for my ion, but I have been trying out others. I really like the stock one, although I wish it would find you with GPS, and follow your location etc. It's just clean and simple..just looking to see what others ones may be good as well.
personally i dont use one, not even stock..its a waste of data and consumes ram plus if it's using GPS then it keeps waking up your phone which leads to battery drain..
I use the stock one on my XS.. I don't really care about the weather info displayed on the widget.. It's just for show on my homescreen coz it looks good there...
Jackmax32 said:
I use the stock one on my XS.. I don't really care about the weather info displayed on the widget.. It's just for show on my homescreen coz it looks good there...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude you made me laugh with your shameless sincerity
I use the stock widget for normal current stuff...and the weather channel app for radar. I used to use accuweather's app, but they completely rearranged it and it gets an update every other day because of bugs...and its slow as shat now. The weather channel app is much better currently imo...
in either case though...i've never come across one weather widget that looks as good as the one included with Sony's skin. I never use the widgets included with any weather app, as they're not even close haha. Just wish the stock widget could follow you, rather than having to put up multiple widgets for different areas...
the stock seems to be the best one out there but i noticed that the readings it gives, are totally wrong. I mean the weather was like cloudy and it was showing sunny, the other day. So i've removed it. Also i agree with Jackmax32, idc about the weather, it is only good for the eyecandy (showing off)

[Q] First LG Phone / A Few Questions

Forgive me Moderator, this is a few questions, but I am not familiar with what would be 'a question' if it is not, please feel free to change. Thx
This is my first LG phone. I am not sure if I have some questions because of that, or because of the specific phone, or due to the screen size.
1. What is the fitness app all the way to the left screen?
It is not in the widget list or app list. Is it just LG Fitness?
2. I want to use the native launcher for a change, it appears so much better than TWiz. But I do like my 4x1 widgets to span the whole screen. Can you widen the widgets to do that? Or would that require a 5x5 screen which LG's launcher can't do
3. If I were to use Nova, I suppose the answer to #1 above would answer this, but if that LG Fitness is the same app, I could place a widget for that on one screen, provided it has one. What is the best fitness app with a widget?
4. I have a big selection of wallpapers. In the past I would normally use PicSpeed or Backgrounds HD to set the wallpaper normally selecting wide. I am a little confused as one of the apps I am using, with one size wallpaper I have (either 1980x1020 or 2550x1420) when set on the homescreen flickers a little, then the screen itself, not the home buttons or notification bar, turns black. I set it again, with what app I can't figure out and whether I select full screen (wide) or just normal, something fixes it? Any idea?
5. Lastly, I had read that the screen on the LG is wonderful, may take a little of the battery, but also that it is a little dim. Well I agree.
But it was a LOT dim when my battery is at 14. As much as I thought I knew, maybe I don't let my phone get that weak, but even with the battery saver off, it appears that Android has a built in mechanism to lower the brightness at some point. Would that be correct? And I use Brightness Toggle Widget app. Weird but on all other phones, it was in sync with the phone - when I would change it on the widget, the phone would change. When I would change on the phone, the widget would change. Can someone shed light on that. Do some apps just not update or work on certain phones. Is there a better app to use a widget where you can set the brightness at selected interval %'s
Thanks to anyone who has any ideas or answers to any questions
Eric
eric0668 said:
Forgive me Moderator, this is a few questions, but I am not familiar with what would be 'a question' if it is not, please feel free to change. Thx
This is my first LG phone. I am not sure if I have some questions because of that, or because of the specific phone, or due to the screen size.
1. What is the fitness app all the way to the left screen?
It is not in the widget list or app list. Is it just LG Fitness?
2. I want to use the native launcher for a change, it appears so much better than TWiz. But I do like my 4x1 widgets to span the whole screen. Can you widen the widgets to do that? Or would that require a 5x5 screen which LG's launcher can't do
3. If I were to use Nova, I suppose the answer to #1 above would answer this, but if that LG Fitness is the same app, I could place a widget for that on one screen, provided it has one. What is the best fitness app with a widget?
4. I have a big selection of wallpapers. In the past I would normally use PicSpeed or Backgrounds HD to set the wallpaper normally selecting wide. I am a little confused as one of the apps I am using, with one size wallpaper I have (either 1980x1020 or 2550x1420) when set on the homescreen flickers a little, then the screen itself, not the home buttons or notification bar, turns black. I set it again, with what app I can't figure out and whether I select full screen (wide) or just normal, something fixes it? Any idea?
5. Lastly, I had read that the screen on the LG is wonderful, may take a little of the battery, but also that it is a little dim. Well I agree.
But it was a LOT dim when my battery is at 14. As much as I thought I knew, maybe I don't let my phone get that weak, but even with the battery saver off, it appears that Android has a built in mechanism to lower the brightness at some point. Would that be correct? And I use Brightness Toggle Widget app. Weird but on all other phones, it was in sync with the phone - when I would change it on the widget, the phone would change. When I would change on the phone, the widget would change. Can someone shed light on that. Do some apps just not update or work on certain phones. Is there a better app to use a widget where you can set the brightness at selected interval %'s
Thanks to anyone who has any ideas or answers to any questions
Eric
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1 its like a page and can be got rid off
2 yes you can
3 dont know
4 i think zedge would work for you
5 the screen does not dim unless you have battery saver on
hope that helps
jaythenut said:
1 its like a page and can be got rid off
2 yes you can
3 dont know
4 i think zedge would work for you
5 the screen does not dim unless you have battery saver on
hope that helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank You first of all. Yes, sort of. Not that new, I don't give myself credit. LOL But thank you very much
1. I knew it can be gotten rid of etc, but I am unlike most, I like it. It can't be had in other launchers can it? The best I could find was using a shortcut to a Nova Activity which can find a lot of hidden things there. Works well, as an app though, not a widget
2. How can you widen them to full screen in the LG Launcher, if you would be willing to share. Thank You
3. Refers back to #1. Thank You
4. Thank You
4. It does help as far as getting the proper size wallpapers. I guess my problem is finding out which apps work, not to find them, but to set them on the phone, that you are not downloading from Zedge and are a different size, probably smaller. But I'm not able to pinpoint the problem any more than 'probably smaller' Some work fine, some don't
eric0668 said:
Thank You first of all. Yes, sort of. Not that new, I don't give myself credit. LOL But thank you very much
1. I knew it can be gotten rid of etc, but I am unlike most, I like it. It can't be had in other launchers can it? The best I could find was using a shortcut to a Nova Activity which can find a lot of hidden things there. Works well, as an app though, not a widget
2. How can you widen them to full screen in the LG Launcher, if you would be willing to share. Thank You
3. Refers back to #1. Thank You
4. Thank You
4. It does help as far as getting the proper size wallpapers. I guess my problem is finding out which apps work, not to find them, but to set them on the phone, that you are not downloading from Zedge and are a different size, probably smaller. But I'm not able to pinpoint the problem any more than 'probably smaller' Some work fine, some don't
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2. You can't resize widgets on the LG Launcher, you need Nova for that, I'm pretty sure.
you can expand widgets
It depends on the widget themselves. If the developer allow resizing it can be resized, but if not then it can't.
Example PayPal doesn't allow resizing while Eye in the Sky does.

[Q] Which is better for performance: one big widget or many smaller widgets?

Hi all,
From a processing overhead and memory standpoint, I was wondering if it's better to have one big widget or many smaller widgets. I have a big widget that has a lot of functionality, but I've noticed that it tends to make my phone (Galaxy Note 3) jumpy, especially in things like games. If I remove the widget from my home screen, everything smooths back out. I know that Zooper takes all of the widget elements and renders them as a single unit, so I didn't know if maybe it would help smooth things out if I broke the widget up into smaller ones. Or would that just make it worse?
Thanks,
Jeremy
Sorry to hi-jack but have a similar question
Is it would be better to have one app, say zooper or UCCW taking care of all my widget or many app, Zooper, UCCW, simple calendar, beautifull widget. And in addition, one big widget or many small... would be on a lg g3.
Any hint?
Well I found that one big widget does a few things.
Multiple widget configuration:
First. A bunch of small widgets have redraw issues (widget disappears then redraws on the screen and reappears) Especially if widgets overlap.
Second. It becomes a nightmare for hotspots to not overlap.
Third. There's quit a few issues with which widget to keep up front and which widget to move to back. (Becomes a juggling act getting everything just right)
One big widget with lots of modules:
First. Way easier to make a apk for playstore.
Second: Very little redraw issues.
Third. Way easier to make multiple different colored versions of the same screen.
Fourth: Can get very confusing to yourself and others if you didn't name the modules as you went along.
Fifth: if you share your creation, the end user will need to change there background to add close as possible to your widget color, because there will be some type of margin somewhere on that screen, even if set to none.
So in conclusion, I find better performance with full screen pages. It makes my life easier. Plus list glitches from redraw.
Of course your milage will very though.
thinker5555 said:
Hi all,
From a processing overhead and memory standpoint, I was wondering if it's better to have one big widget or many smaller widgets. I have a big widget that has a lot of functionality, but I've noticed that it tends to make my phone (Galaxy Note 3) jumpy, especially in things like games. If I remove the widget from my home screen, everything smooths back out. I know that Zooper takes all of the widget elements and renders them as a single unit, so I didn't know if maybe it would help smooth things out if I broke the widget up into smaller ones. Or would that just make it worse?
Thanks,
Jeremy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As someone who cut down from over 30 individual Zooper widgets to 9 large-ish ones, I'll have to say that I strongly prefer fewer larger ones. Previously, Nova often crashed and notified me it was due to any one of the 30 or so Zoopers which had crossed the limit of my device.
Furthermore, as @sandman7793 says quite rightly, redraws are a pretty major issue whenever booting up or switching between apps/homescreen pages.
In addition, it is much easier to manage large number of modules in fewer widget than jumping to and fro between several smaller ones to copy a slight adjustment you may have made to one of them. Simply put: fewer widgets, fewer hassle.
Thanks for the info. Guide me in one direction. As for battery life, one better than the other, since you tried both ways?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Free mobile app
ere1nion said:
Thanks for the info. Guide me in one direction. As for battery life, one better than the other, since you tried both ways?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly, it's a bit hard to tell. I never tested Zooper in isolation for its effect on battery life. However, based on the performance improvements with fewer widgets, including decreased redraw issues and just fewer homescreen widgets to power at any one time, I'd say fewer widgets of little variety probably has better battery life (although, the effect may be minimal to none at all).
Is it possible to have one widget cover the entire screen? I thought 4x4 was the biggest available.
Also, is there a way of combining two widgets into one? For example, I have a 4x1 weather widget and a 4x3 weather bitmap icon which, by the sounds of it, would work better as a single widget.
TheStretchedElf said:
Is it possible to have one widget cover the entire screen? I thought 4x4 was the biggest available.
Also, is there a way of combining two widgets into one? For example, I have a 4x1 weather widget and a 4x3 weather bitmap icon which, by the sounds of it, would work better as a single widget.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is possible to have one widget over the entire screen, but it may depend on your launcher. Some launchers, like Lightning, Nova and Themer, allow for easy resizing of widgets to be as big or as small as you want. The best way to do it is to place a new Zooper widget on your home screen, and before you tap it to start editing it, resize it to the size you want. Then when you go into edit mode, Zooper will pick up on that size and behave accordingly. For example, I have a 6x5 and a 6x3, neither of which are available options when dropping a new widget initially.
As for combining widgets, I haven't found a good way of doing that yet. I think you'd have to create a new widget, import the one with the most elements into it, and then manually create the rest of the elements from the other widget and configure them. An alternative may be to export the .xml for both of them to a computer and add the two together there. This way you should at least be able to get all of the elements into one widget, but then when you load it into Zooper, you'll need to move the elements around because they'll probably overlap at that point.
Other than that, if someone knows of a better way, I'd be happy to hear it.
Referring back to my original question that kicked this thread off, thanks to everyone for your input. @sandman7793 especially had some great points, which I really appreciate. I've done some more digging, and it looks like some of my performance issue was actually related to Greenify rather than Zooper. I was seeing jumpiness in things like games because I had them under my list of apps to forcibly keep hibernated. Oops. Once I figured that out, everything is working smooth again.

Beautiful Widgets using too much battery

I've only got three widgets of theirs I am using, but the phone constantly warns me a about high battery usage. For God's sake it's not even animated and just shows a clock and the weather forecast.
Anybody run into this?
Sent from my SM-N976V using Tapatalk
Try changing the clock skin or any skin u are using.
I use the clock with transparent clock theme transparent background and have no issues.
Sent from my SM-N975U1 using Tapatalk
My battery usage for Beautiful Widgets is 0.3% with 11min active and on for 6hrs 59min.
I use Ace Black Chrome for the clock face and Sence Chrome for the weather Icons. Update weather is set at screen turn on or every 2 hours.
I'll admit, I have been asleep for the last few hours but that doesn't seem high to me.
How often does your weather update as this would be, to my mind (apart from the weather animations and background which are off) the highest hog of battery on my setup.
My signal strength is also good which may affect things too...
ultramag69 said:
My battery usage for Beautiful Widgets is 0.3% with 11min active and on for 6hrs 59min.
I use Ace Black Chrome for the clock face and Sence Chrome for the weather Icons. Update weather is set at screen turn on or every 2 hours.
I'll admit, I have been asleep for the last few hours but that doesn't seem high to me.
How often does your weather update as this would be, to my mind (apart from the weather animations and background which are off) the highest hog of battery on my setup.
My signal strength is also good which may affect things too...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks but the app hasn't been updated since 2016. I looked around the app store for about an hour last night and couldn't find anything I liked as much. Do you ever get warnings about Beautiful Widgets using excessive battery? I am on the fence but I may go back to it and try tweaking things more... But still want to keep hunting in the app store first... Would rather not use software from 2016 that is on a device I use so heavily that costed me upwards of $1,500... (10+ 512GB 5G)...
Sent from my SM-N976V using Tapatalk
I used those widgets in the past for a while, and yes, I stopped using them because excesive batt drain, I switched to zooper widgets
winol said:
I used those widgets in the past for a while, and yes, I stopped using them because excesive batt drain, I switched to zooper widgets
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Zooper has also been abandoned.
Try KWGT.
(Beautiful Widgets also gave me excessive battery drain, but have no problem with KWGT.)
tsells said:
Zooper has also been abandoned.
Try KWGT.
(Beautiful Widgets also gave me excessive battery drain, but have no problem with KWGT.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I will try it
KruseLudsMobile said:
Thanks but the app hasn't been updated since 2016. I looked around the app store for about an hour last night and couldn't find anything I liked as much. Do you ever get warnings about Beautiful Widgets using excessive battery? I am on the fence but I may go back to it and try tweaking things more... But still want to keep hunting in the app store first... Would rather not use software from 2016 that is on a device I use so heavily that costed me upwards of $1,500... (10+ 512GB 5G)...
Sent from my SM-N976V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haven't ever gotten warnings about excessive power usage with beautiful widgets and I've used on all my phones for as long as I can remember...
No problems here...
Just checked again, phones has been on ALL night as I worked backshift and Beautiful Widgets isn't even listed on the battery usage list AT ALL... Phones been on for 10h 36m with 64% battery left, screen on time was 3h 59m.
Battery usage isn't optimised for BW so can't tell you why yours seems to eat up battery...
KWGT is a good way to go. A bit of a learning curve so I suggest watching some youtube videos but once you understand how it works you'll very easily be making some seriously customized home screens. I loved it so much I went ahead and paid for the Pro version after just using it for 30 min.
I had the same thing. The app by default is in the optimizing list of applications for battery savings. To disregard the notifier, in the optimization list, tell the.phone not to try and optimize Beautiful Widgets.
What's going on here is that the phone is putting the app to sleep to save battery, but every now and then, the app wakes up and attempts to update any conditions like weather. The phone doesn't like that it's doing it on its own and thinks it some kind of rogue app, so it warns you.
The Widgets themselves do not drain battery. I have been using this since "Jellybean".
I decided to re-"tweak" Beautiful Widgets and give it a try. Seems to have done the trick, using almost no power at all.
But, I have another problem now - and a very odd one too. The widgets have a display showing the next alarm. It is off by 5 minutes. Meaning, if I set the next alarm for 6 a.m. the widget shows that the alarm is set to go off at 5:55 a.m. but if I set the alarm for 7 a.m. it shows that the alarm is set for 6:55 a.m, and so on. It is always off by 5 minutes. The alarm works well & rings when it should but the widget always shows the alarm is set five minutes before it's actually set.
I did some digging and other people have experienced this problem on Android pie with Samsung phones for any widgets you install that show the time of the next alarm. People have discovered that other applications on the same phone sometimes cause this if they both use the clock. But I have no way of telling which application. Has anybody run into this or heard of this? Wiping the dalvik cache, wiping the cache for beautiful widgets, reinstalling the application blah blah blah all that stuff doesn't make any difference. WTF?
Sent from my SM-N976V using Tapatalk
KruseLudsMobile said:
I decided to re-"tweak" Beautiful Widgets and give it a try. Seems to have done the trick, using almost no power at all.
But, I have another problem now - and a very odd one too. The widgets have a display showing the next alarm. It is off by 5 minutes. Meaning, if I set the next alarm for 6 a.m. the widget shows that the alarm is set to go off at 5:55 a.m. but if I set the alarm for 7 a.m. it shows that the alarm is set for 6:55 a.m, and so on. It is always off by 5 minutes. The alarm works well & rings when it should but the widget always shows the alarm is set five minutes before it's actually set.
I did some digging and other people have experienced this problem on Android pie with Samsung phones for any widgets you install that show the time of the next alarm. People have discovered that other applications on the same phone sometimes cause this if they both use the clock. But I have no way of telling which application. Has anybody run into this or heard of this? Wiping the dalvik cache, wiping the cache for beautiful widgets, reinstalling the application blah blah blah all that stuff doesn't make any difference. WTF?
Sent from my SM-N976V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I may have some info here. I saw a note posted by a dev who has a similar app.
He/she stated that newer versions of android changed the api for system clock access and anyone who has widgets needs to update their code.
Not sure if it applies to this situation, but seeing you're referring to the clock/alarms and it's an older app..... It might.
Compusmurf said:
I may have some info here. I saw a note posted by a dev who has a similar app.
He/she stated that newer versions of android changed the api for system clock access and anyone who has widgets needs to update their code.
Not sure if it applies to this situation, but seeing you're referring to the clock/alarms and it's an older app..... It might.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you... Can you tell me where you saw that? It's confusing that it happens with ALL widgets with the Samsung clock but works fine with the Google clock... Ugh!
Sent from my SM-N976V using Tapatalk
tsells said:
Zooper has also been abandoned.
Try KWGT.
(Beautiful Widgets also gave me excessive battery drain, but have no problem with KWGT.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using KWGT but my time is not updating in widget, i have to click it to make it update. Using on a poco x3 global. What could be the reason?
No trouble with my few widgets.
Lol, must have some bad ones that are siphoning off all their user data

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