Develop Bugs

How to turn gps on automatically when opening navigation?

As for those who don't know. There is an app out there called tasker. It allows you to program all kinds of tasks and conditions.
I used it in froyo to turn on my gps automatically when I opened the navigation app. However in gingerbread tasker no longer works. I'm reading that in cyanogen gingerbread roms tasker can still enable and disable gps.
Does anyone know anything about modding EI22 so that tasker will work with gingerbread on our epics the way it does in the cyanogen gingerbread roms?
Is there a patch or a piece of code that can be taken from the cyanogen rom to allow this on different roms/kernels?
Possibly is there an alternative to using tasker to get the gps to turn on automatically when navigation/maps is opened?
-Wizzle

Just leave GPS enabled at all times. GPS won't activate until a program needs it, and won't consume battery life while it's sleeping.

Isira said:
Just leave GPS enabled at all times. GPS won't activate until a program needs it, and won't consume battery life while it's sleeping.
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Click to collapse
Cool. I kinda thought that, but I wasn't sure. I guess ill need to turn off location settings for all the apps I don't won't to access gps. I appreciate the info. Thank you.
-Wizzle

Isira said:
Just leave GPS enabled at all times. GPS won't activate until a program needs it, and won't consume battery life while it's sleeping.
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Click to collapse
To go with this, if the GPS icon is on the toolbar (generally a bullseye/crosshair looking icon), you're using GPS and therefore extra battery--on the flipside, if the GPS icon is gone from the toolbar, then GPS is in standby and not consuming battery.*
* I'm not entirely certain that it consumes no battery when in standby, but it's certainly much less than when it's active. As long as you keep an eye on which apps you allow to use it and when, the battery drain is negligible--At least until you use Navigation and forget to plug it in! Then you'll damn near be able to watch the battery icon visibly tick down, and might could cook an egg on the back of your phone, it gets pretty hot!

If you running ei22 stock, I can leave gps on all the time and don't need to worry about battery. But if you put in the gps fix, careful.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

I hadn't noticed extra battery drain after flashing the GPS fix. I'll have to monitor that more carefully going forward...

jaytay said:
I hadn't noticed extra battery drain after flashing the GPS fix. I'll have to monitor that more carefully going forward...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The gps fix makes the phone constantly lock to all possible sats. Draining batts.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

[App]Tasker - Automate Your Phone

Tasker
I found this cool app Tasker. It can do functions defined by you on meeting the circumstances you have defined. Like, I have a profile of enabling GPS on openining of maps and disabling afterwards.
Description:
Automate everything from settings to photos, SMS to speech ADC2 prize winner. Total Automation, from settings to SMS ADC2 finalist!
* Triggers: App, Time, Day, Location, Hard/Soft State, Event, Shortcut, Widget, Timer,Plugins
* Actions: 200+ built-in, plugin support
* Tasks: loops, variables, condition
* Scenes: design your own screen overlays,dialogs even simple apps
Play Store Link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm&hl=en
Noob/Beginners Guide To Tasker:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1110775

This is illegal, if you cant buy an app dont use it.

It's a paid app
WORTH EVERY PENNY
I have automated mine to do the following
As soon as I enter my work car park, it drops the volumes, switches off WIFI
I leave my work car park, volume to max,
I enter home, WIFI on, Volume max
after 11pm - 6.30am everything on silent, wifi & data off
then when i scan my NFC tag in the car, switches on GPS, loads co pilot
re-scan tag, turns off GPS and closes co-pilot

winwiz said:
It's a paid app
WORTH EVERY PENNY
I have automated mine to do the following
As soon as I enter my work car park, it drops the volumes, switches off WIFI
I leave my work car park, volume to max,
I enter home, WIFI on, Volume max
after 11pm - 6.30am everything on silent, wifi & data off
then when i scan my NFC tag in the car, switches on GPS, loads co pilot
re-scan tag, turns off GPS and closes co-pilot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds cool
But mine is too extra complicated to share, I now have over 30
But the most i like is nightmode,
It make brightness 10/255 and opens an app screenfilter
It makes brightness extremely low and this all happens from 12am-3 am
IF YOU LIKE MY WORK, THANK ME BY THE BUTTON BELOW

Anyone knows what effect this has on battery life?

It doesnt waste battery that much, why dont.you try it and see battery stats
IF YOU LIKE MY WORK, THANK ME BY THE BUTTON BELOW

rickythefox said:
Anyone knows what effect this has on battery life?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Was thinking the same. Any partial/wakelock issues caused by the program constantly assessing the environment. As it happens I am thinking of using the program to reduce battery drain and shutting down WiFi when out of range of home networks but if it's negated by the situation above it seems pointless for my needs.
Any one care to comment?

I've been using Tasker for a couple of years accross 4 different devices now (X10i, DHD, TF101 and GS3). I have a lot of profiles set up to do various different things and I can honestly say I've never seen a noticeable effect on battery life.
That said though I don't use the GPS location state at all. I imagine that particular state would drain battery pretty quickly. I use the WiFi Near state a lot though and, as I've said, never really noticed a detrimental drain on the battery.
I suppose it depends on what you do with it but overall IMO it's a very well written app. Extremely useful too.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Waiting for app sale. The price is slightly higher than what I'm prepared to spend, especially because there is a free alternative from Microsoft called on{X}: http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/05/onx/

SunjinSak said:
I've been using Tasker for a couple of years accross 4 different devices now (X10i, DHD, TF101 and GS3). I have a lot of profiles set up to do various different things and I can honestly say I've never seen a noticeable effect on battery life.
That said though I don't use the GPS location state at all. I imagine that particular state would drain battery pretty quickly. I use the WiFi Near state a lot though and, as I've said, never really noticed a detrimental drain on the battery.
I suppose it depends on what you do with it but overall IMO it's a very well written app. Extremely useful too.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep! This is what I was hoping to use it for too. My betterbatterystats has identified my Wifi as the one real drain on what is still a very good battery life. So although I could turn it off myself I just know I will forget to turn it back on at home and would like a program to do it for me. BUT if one negates the other it's not worth the effort.

Greedyfly said:
Yep! This is what I was hoping to use it for too. My betterbatterystats has identified my Wifi as the one real drain on what is still a very good battery life. So although I could turn it off myself I just know I will forget to turn it back on at home and would like a program to do it for me. BUT if one negates the other it's not worth the effort.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well your WiFi has to be on to use the WiFi Near state. You could potentially combine it with a Time state too though. Just for example you could have Tasker turn WiFi on for 1 minute once an hour to check for your network(s) then either turn off again if no network detected or connect and remain on if a network is detected... if that makes any sense!
It would save battery compared to leaving WiFi on all the time.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

What effect does it have on, I have a task to turn of Wi-Fi during 10am and 1pm; but I try to turn on Wi-Fi during this period. Will it automatically turn it off again, or allow me to continue to use Wi-Fi?

SunjinSak said:
Well your WiFi has to be on to use the WiFi Near state. You could potentially combine it with a Time state too though. Just for example you could have Tasker turn WiFi on for 1 minute once an hour to check for your network(s) then either turn off again if no network detected or connect and remain on if a network is detected... if that makes any sense!
It would save battery compared to leaving WiFi on all the time.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perfect sense. Thank you.

T__ said:
What effect does it have on, I have a task to turn of Wi-Fi during 10am and 1pm; but I try to turn on Wi-Fi during this period. Will it automatically turn it off again, or allow me to continue to use Wi-Fi?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It will allow you to continue to use it. That sort of profile works as a toggle based on the time state so at 10am it will turn it off - but only at 10am. If you were to turn it on again straight away it would stay on until you either turn it off manually or another profile kicks in which is set to turn it off again. The same goes for anything else such as ringer/silent/vibrate, mobile data, GPS etc.
@Greedyfly: you're welcome
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

You guys can try Llama...does the same thing and cost nothing....i am using it for couple of days and it is good.

Indian_dil said:
You guys can try Llama...does the same thing and cost nothing....i am using it for couple of days and it is good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Tasker can do wonders...but it requires you to be some kind of Tasker-scientist to get things done. I recently discovered Llama as well. It's free and simple but capable.

Yeah Tasker does have a reasonably steep learning curve admittedly. By no means insurmountable to most though.
I suppose it depends on what/how you want to automate. Tasker is very powerful but not so simple. Llama is free and easier to use but no so powerful.
Both are good automation solutions. Locale is another one to check out.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

I've been using Tasker for the best part of a year now, awesome piece of software. Negligible impact on battery life and it's astoundingly powerful. A few examples of profiles I currently use - detects headphones/bluetooth headset and reads any text and who sent it, useful when cycling or out on the bike. Disables screen lock when at home, I use the phone as a control for my media centre so it remains unlocked at home and turns the screen on as soon as the handset is picked up, controls a variety of connection states according to location and time.
These are just scratching the surface. On top of this I've had direct dealings with the dev on a couple of occasions, genuinely nice bloke who does his damndest to solve problems as quickly as possible. All in all, this and Titanium backup are by far the two most useful pieces of software I've bought:good:

wind0zer said:
+1
Tasker can do wonders...but it requires you to be some kind of Tasker-scientist to get things done. I recently discovered Llama as well. It's free and simple but capable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But Tasker is better, even if its complicated
Thats the reason i gave a link to a noob friendly guide
Press the "Thanks" button below if I've helped.

I love tasker even if it drains my battery(but it doesn't)
Press the "Thanks" button below if I've helped.

[Q] Maps Draining my Battery - What to Do

I just got my first Android phone and its a Galaxy Nexus running Jelly Bean. The first two days I was getting around 4-5 hours of battery life and then started reading up on this forum and did a bunch of suggested changes like turning off NFC, location services etc. Also, downloaded Juice Defender and now the battery life is around 7 hours. My usage is very minimal and I was thinking the battery life should be much better than this. When I look into my usage, it seems Google Maps is eating out all my battery life. I have turned off all possible location services to stop this but nothing seems to work.
I have attached some of the relevant screenshots also from my device.
Any advice on how to get this sorted is much appreciated. Thank you.

Isn't there a location setting within the maps app that you should turn off? Or have you already done so?
Go into maps and look in settings if you are logged into "latitude". If so, then log out of it.

dannejanne said:
Isn't there a location setting within the maps app that you should turn off? Or have you already done so?
Go into maps and look in settings if you are logged into "latitude". If so, then log out of it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have done that too

Why don't you just kill maps when you don't use it???
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

qtwrk said:
Why don't you just kill maps when you don't use it???
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do kill the map. In fact, I make sure to kill all apps after I am done using them but somehow it still pops up. I have a doubt that there might be some other app that is keeping my maps awake but I am unable to detect any.

rishi3211us said:
I do kill the map. In fact, I make sure to kill all apps after I am done using them but somehow it still pops up. I have a doubt that there might be some other app that is keeping my maps awake but I am unable to detect any.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What you can do is root the phone and then install Titanium Backup and freeze maps. Then it will never be able to start again.

Why does GPS have to reacquire when switching from one GPS app to another?

Jellybean 4.1.1 & 4.1.2 CM ROM
With GPS turned on, switching from one GPS app to another it takes about 20 seconds for the app to relocate itsself. The GPS has to go thru the entire reacquire sequence.
It seems GPS (even if its turned on in settings) really only gets turned on and off when an app requests it forcing it to reacquire.
IMO the GPS should be turned on all the time if its ON in the settings.
Whats the point of the on switch if its not really on? If thats the case eliminate it. The app can handle GPS location ON OFF

Hemidroids said:
IMO the GPS should be turned on all the time if its ON in the settings.
Whats the point of the on switch if its not really on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's crazy talk, do you have any idea what leaving GPS on all the time would do to battery life?

pfmiller said:
That's crazy talk, do you have any idea what leaving GPS on all the time would do to battery life?
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Click to collapse
I leave mine on all the time. Of course I know which apps use it and I set them up accordingly

adrynalyne said:
I leave mine on all the time. Of course I know which apps use it and I set them up accordingly
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Click to collapse
No, you have it enabled all the time. I do too, but it's only on when your apps are using it. You seem to understand that, but that's not what the OP is talking about.

pfmiller said:
No, you have it enabled all the time. I do too, but it's only on when your apps are using it. You seem to understand that, but that's not what the OP is talking about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You say potato...
You knew what I meant

I agree. I don't like that when you find a place in Google Maps and then Navigate to it, the GPS has to reacquire. There should just be a 10-20 second delay between closing a GPS app and the GPS actually turning off. Something like that.

clobber said:
I agree. I don't like that when you find a place in Google Maps and then Navigate to it, the GPS has to reacquire. There should just be a 10-20 second delay between closing a GPS app and the GPS actually turning off. Something like that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't even need to keep it on. If it knows the last good fix was only 5 seconds old then it should use that as a pretty good start for your current location.

Completely agree open up maps, to look for something forgot the name go to google now... and waiting... just leave it on for 10 damn seconds i can live with 10 minutes less battery life

pfmiller said:
That's crazy talk, do you have any idea what leaving GPS on all the time would do to battery life?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hemidroids said:
The app can handle GPS location ON OFF
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Actually in the previous version of Maps I was pleasantly surprised to notice that the hand-off from maps to navigation did not release the GPS lock.
I am not sure if they changed it back but my point being - hand-off from app to app can clearly be done more intelligently but again in the case of Maps we know that Navigation and Maps are the same app essentially so may be it was easier to do it.

The app already does handle turning GPS location on and off, that's not what the GPS permission toggle is for.

Searching using GPS... the source?

This is driving me nuts!!! Since a few days ago every time I'm away from home at work, I get GPS blinking notification with ongoing message of "Searching using GPS..." while it's draining my battery like crazy. I'm not a noob, My phone is very light on apps, Google Now is disabled, Google location service is disabled, only one weather app and I disabled using GPS in there. Tried using GSam Battery Monitor to see if I can narrow it down - no help. Switched from 4G to wifi, still nothing. Of course I can turn GPS off for a problem to go away since i only use GPS in the car. But the problem is that I had my Note 2 for 3+ months and never had this issue before. Plus, I haven't installed any new app in at least 2 months. No life wallpaper, no fancy widgets that drain your resource, no social medial connection what so ever. All stock, not rooted. Using Nova Prime launcher, and a few widgets like Smooth Calendar, Circle Launcher, Rings Digital Weather Clock (with weather disabled), Fast Boot widget, Widgetsoid, Zooper Widget, and Android Weaither (GPS disabled).
That all that I have. Any idea how to resolve this?

Maps. Look in my guide to minimize the drain caused by it. But the best solution is to disable gps.
Sent from my GT-N7100

UtkarshGupta said:
Maps. Look in my guide to minimize the drain caused by it. But the best solution is to disable gps.
Sent from my GT-N7100
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you mean the link in your sig? and btw, where do you access Location Settings per your guide? ... never mind, found Location Setting under Maps. Just disabled "Report from this device". Maybe that will help it?

Yep
Sent from my GT-N7100

UtkarshGupta said:
Yep
Sent from my GT-N7100
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Funny that I had all that map stuff disabled, and it was still searching for GPS. But as soon as I stepped outside of the building where I work - it stopped. So something was trying to update location through GPS and could lock into the signal, thus searching and draining battery. Only happens in the building where I work. I guess the easy solution is to toggle GPS on/off. But still, would be good to find a source of which app or service is doing that pinging...

Try better battery status
Sent from my GT-N7100