Develop Bugs

Power Management

Hi,
I'm wondering some things to optimize my battery life, but couldn't find any answers so far:
1) When Wifi and APN both are ON, Wifi will get priority. But the APN-setting is actually still on. Will it drain the battery, or should I always turn APN off when Wifi has been connected?
2) I have set Ultimate Juice (or Juice Defender) to turn on APN every 10 minutes during 1 minute to check for updates. But when I turn off APN, Juice Defender can't turn APN on himself to check for updates. That means that I have to remain APN ON. Doesn't that drain the battery, or is Juice Defender turning APN off on his own way?
3) I noticed that when the screen is off in standby, Android will turn off Wifi and APN. People are saying you should turn off APN and Wifi when not in use, but since Android turns both off while screen is off/standby mode, what's the use of turning both off manually? I think you could even turn them on all the time since they will get turned off when the screen goes black.
4) e.g. You're in a situation without any internet access. Apps like the Friends Stream, or Mail want to check for updates every 5 minutes. the consequence is they can't update because there's no internet connection. Does that action always drain the battery some more?

wtf no one??

under the wi fi advanced settings.. you can set wifi to never sleep... this should mean that your not using the apn connection...

I think apps try to update and if they do not succeed, it will be cancelled. I doubt the apps will continously check for updates until they get a fix. Same with Weatherbug. I sometimes see Weatherbug last updated hours ago, even when I have had internet access for the past hour (I have set it to update every hour). That was when I had unchecked 'enable always on mobile data'.
There are options available for wifi under advanced menu to set it to always stay on, or shutdown after 15 mins of sleep.
There is also an option available to always have data connection on. This will keep data connection alive even if phone is set to sleep.

Do you mean "mobile data connection" everytime you call it "APN"?
There's WiFi and that; two ways to access the net which pull power. WiFi can be disabled quickly and easily through the widget. So can the mobile data network: http://yfrog.com/0ymobilewidgetp
Leaving it to 2G when you don't need 3G or when 3G reception is bad saves much power. I'll need to do more experimentation before I can answer your other qs with assurance.
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- Sent via my HTC Desire -

Program to disable 2G/3G data

I have a plan with 350 MB, but I overstepped it this month. So, is there a program with which I can totally disable 2G/3G data for certain period of time (until 22nd ) and to continue to use voice and WiFi?

Highl1 said:
I have a plan with 350 MB, but I overstepped it this month. So, is there a program with which I can totally disable 2G/3G data for certain period of time (until 22nd ) and to continue to use voice and WiFi?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do try APNDroid. Its free and able to do exactly what you ask!
Basically it will disable your 3G by changing the APN values and backing it up. Once you need to use 3G again, it restore the original values to your APN settings.
No reboot required! 3 to 5 secs is all it takes to disable/enable 3G

Great, just tried it. Thanks a lot. I only hope data connection won't start somehow by itself

Be aware that sometimes, when you uninstall APNDroid it can mess your APN values and you will have to re-enter them manually

iuzar said:
Be aware that sometimes, when you uninstall APNDroid it can mess your APN values and you will have to re-enter them manually
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can't say I encounter this.
You encounter this before? Perhaps you might want to let the author know so can fix it?

APN droid is perfect dont worry.
If you uninstall it with your connection off, you can fiz this by going to your apn settings from Settings>Wireless...>Mobile Networks...>Access Point names>the current apn>Rename it and remove the apndroid from the name.
Thats it.

I would recommend 3G Watchdog. It automatically switches to 2G when you reach previously defined data limit.

APNDroid didn't help, data connection was still turning on after WiFi wents off
But this helped
1. Type *#*#4636#*#* on your dial pad
2. Select "Phone Information"
3. Press "Menu" soft key
4. Select "More"
5. Select "Disable Data on Boot"
6. Reboot

I can also recommend to use '3g Watchdog' combined with 'APNDroid' (both free)
3g watchdog will let you set your monthly data allowance (350MB) so that it resets its counters at a specific date you set (i.e. the 1st of each month) You can then set 3g watchdog to turn off your data connection (via APNDroid) when you've used a percentage amount of data of your choice (i.e. 99%/100% of your allowance for that month).

I'm using APNdroid and 3GWatchdog together and they work great so far.
One thing you have to be careful of is if you are using a task killer. If it kills 3GWatchdog and then you use your data connection, the data you send or receive won't be added to the amount of data in 3GWatchdog.
So be careful with it, especialy if you set your task killer to autokill applications

I recommend data-on-demand. It's free and shuts off your 2g/3g automatically + post reboot without having to mess with the settings. When you want to start it back up again, just go into the settings and set it as turned on.

The best program to enable/disable 3G i recommend Smoda Widget.
You can find it free in the market

Battery Defender works greats for me.

Quick Settings.
It's on the market, one click to disable APn and wifi along with other things, ringer, brightness, bluetooth etc.

[Q] Power Efficiency Setting

Can someone please explain to me in details what's the effect of the "Enable power efficiency" setting in the phone please?. i.e. does it turn off wifi or background data? and if so how often then it turns itself on to update data etc..
I am still really confused

I think it moniters your batt ,when it drops under a certain % it auto shuts down those features which cause heavy drain ie wifi mobile network bluetooth and auto sync ,just gives you a little extra time if your not in a place were you can recharge.
sent from my rootin tootin Revolution 6.3.1 DHD

mutsc0 said:
Can someone please explain to me in details what's the effect of the "Enable power efficiency" setting in the phone please?. i.e. does it turn off wifi or background data? and if so how often then it turns itself on to update data etc..
I am still really confused
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As it self says, it will stop the auto sync for the applications like facebook, mail, google, HTC sense etc. when you are on device 3G mobile network. It has nothing to do with your wi-fi settings. Rather than using Auto Sync on your Mobile 3G network you can alternatively use "sync now" option in Widgetsoid app or plan when do you want to sync your data.

kaydee7902 said:
As it self says, it will stop the auto sync for the applications like facebook, mail, google, HTC sense etc. when you are on device 3G mobile network. It has nothing to do with your wi-fi settings. Rather than using Auto Sync on your Mobile 3G network you can alternatively use "sync now" option in Widgetsoid app or plan when do you want to sync your data.
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Click to collapse
So what's the difference with me turning off "Background data" manually?? If this is the case, this function is pretty much redundant.

its only automatic function. You can set which will be disabled when battery run low. you can fint it in options.

From what I observe at least with Desire HD & the recent 2.3.5 update, this option also affects the way device uses WiFi.
I do not know what exactly are the gradations of shudown for wifi physical or higher levels protocols, but apparently with this option enabled wifi is not so much "instant on" as it is without this option -- if the device is kept off ~10 (approx.) minutes and then switched "on", wifi connection appears only after some time.
Also (I guess as a result of the above), I observe that the device with this option enabled (being switched "off", e.g. during the night), brings up cellular data connection every ~40 minutes or so, I guess to service some data needs (this correlates with com.google.process.gapps activity). Apparently that's because it sees that wifi is really "off", and thinks it's more economic to use cellular data. I would say that average current draw does not change much due to that -- normal "always on" wifi does not take much power anyway.

Questions on monitoring and limiting data usage

I will be leaving my Verizon Unlimited Data Plan to go to AT&T plan since verizon doesn’t have service where I am moving.
I am not used to watching my data usage. Now I will have to when I move to ATT.
What’s the best way so when I am connected to WIFI on the Note 2 so it uses WIFI and nothing else? Do I turn off mobile data when on wifi? I have the Onavo app which I will restrict apps like YouTube and Pandora to wifi only so I don’t accidently get in trouble there. I want to make sure I don’t overlook anything and go over my data.

Android is pretty smart... if you are connected to wifi, mobile data simply won't be used. (One exception is MMS - which must transport over the carrier data network - but usually doesn't count against data allotments.)
In addition, new versions of android (such as jelly bean that the note2 has) allow you to set up limits for data usage. If you go into Settings, the 3rd item in the list is "Data usage." That option allows you to see what is using mobile data, allows you to set up your billing cycle (so you can monitor how much you've used for the current cycle), lets you configure a "warning" level (so if you reach that level of mobile data usage, the phone generates a warning message) and a hard limit (if you reach the hard limit, the phone prevents any more mobile data usage.)
As an example, I have a 3GB plan with a billing cycle that starts on the 15th. I configure the data usage stuff with a billing cycle that starts on the 15th, turn on the "set mobile data limit" and configure the red value (limit) to be 3072MB (same as 3GB) and the yellow (warning) to 2560MB (2.5GB)

I know about the data usage settings. Never dove into it though. I'll have to play around and see what works for me.

There's an App called My Data Manager that does what you want & it has more options than the built in data usuage of JB.

RMXO said:
There's an App called My Data Manager that does what you want & it has more options than the built in data usuage of JB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats true - I used to use it quite often and for quite a long time but the amount of memory space it took up on my Xperia Neo was just too much for what it was worth and so I had to remove it - these days its probably not too much of a problem but app size is still worth considering.
The reason I'm searching here is to try and figure out how to set the limits for Data in Jelly Bean - while searching I worked it out anyway so I'll put the answer here......
1) Open "Tools"
2) Select "Data usage" (in the WIRELESS & NETWORKS section) normally at the top of the menu
3) Turn on "Mobile data" by sliding the button to the right - then a popup will ask if you want to accept the charges etc - click Yes
4) Once you've done this a "Set mobile data limit" selection should appear - tick the empty tick box
5) then next to Data usage cycle - select the drop down and select "Change cycle..." - if this is not there hit the back button to exit then select "Data usage again in quick succession
6) Select the start day of your data cycle and then select "Set"
7) Now the Graph should show 2 colored bars - the red one being the max limit you can set by sliding it up and down and the yellow/orange one is the warning indicator you can also set by sliding it up and down.
In theory the warning should somehow let you know if you've reached your warning limit - (I've not reached the limit yet to see it) and when the upper limit is reached it should disable your data - but again I've not had this happen.
Once your done you can either select the back button to exit or you can slide the Mobile data switch back to the left.

Data usage

My data usage has been rising. the day my data renewed, it instantly went up to 10 mb of data used in an hour.

If you go to Settings > Data Usage, you can see which applications use data on your phone. As the notice says, what is shown on the phone is the data measured by your phone, and your mobile provider may account for data usage differently. Still, it may help you pin point which apps consume most of your data. You then may want to delete the apps in question if you don't use them a lot, find replacement apps, or limit data usage for these apps to WiFi only -- to access this capability, an additionnal app will be needed; try searching the Play Store for this kind of tool.

I had the same issue but found the my wifi setting was to turn off in sleep mode, you can adjust this in your settings, it helped to change it to never turn off. Also, in the hidden wifi menu, make sure your wifi is set to on, you can access this by going to your keypad in the phone and typing *#0011#. Staying in wifi as much as possible is great, also, use your data toggle.

Alexandre-P said:
If you go to Settings > Data Usage, you can see which applications use data on your phone. As the notice says, what is shown on the phone is the data measured by your phone, and your mobile provider may account for data usage differently. Still, it may help you pin point which apps consume most of your data. You then may want to delete the apps in question if you don't use them a lot, find replacement apps, or limit data usage for these apps to WiFi only -- to access this capability, an additionnal app will be needed; try searching the Play Store for this kind of tool.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While looking at the list of apps using the data, you can tap on the ones you don't want running data in background. A detail menu comes up, at the bottom there is a check box to disable background processes on mobile network.
sent from my S3 Sammy Bean.