Collect battery life improvement tips for knowledge base
Locus developers spend a lot of effort to save every milliamp hour of power. We did reach optimization levels where complex solutions will only safe less than 0.1% batter life per hour.
But what is happen on user devices? Most of us don't know the tricks to save battery life and we waste up to 100 times more batter life then new locus optimisations will gain us.
We should collect tipps for better battery life to appreciate all the optimization effort of locus developers. Otherwise our careless handling of battery power will disrespect the optimisation effort.
There are even some important locus features to help improving batter life and most of us don't know about them.
I will start with the following tipps:
- benchmark battery lifetime with locus on custom roms. I got hugh margins across android versions. With full LCD power I got track recording times from 4 hours to 8,5 hours. Up to 100% Battery life improvement just by using a different rom! Unfortunately the older unsecure roms perform best
- Try to avoid using SD cards, they are rated around 200mW/h and sometimes they don’t get into a proper idle state (I didn’t prove how much % batter life gain could be expected here)
- Keep plane mode on and use offline routing, because some roms have problems to enter a proper mobile network idle state
- Disable wlan, nfc, bluetooth during navigation because you only rarely need them on tour
- try to reduce screen on time by using locus screen activation/deactivation features
- use sound alert or voice navigation to reduce screen on time even more
- Bt gps devices produce better signals with same amount of current like your internal gps because the have larger antennas then your phone. (BT communication signals take way less current then your phone gps and if you would, you can avoid locus track recording and track with an gps logger, locus can disable unused BT connection during screen off time to save even more power)
- Keep your system clean especially if you have an old android version. Older systems have better battery lifetime but worse background activity management. Which means a phone with many apps will lose the benefit of a small, old, but very efficient operating system. Maybe you should consider using a 2nd phone setup for offline usage without any installed apps. An old android system isn’t recommend anyway for online usage, which means it will make even more sense to setup a navigation only phone if you want to achieve up to 100% batterylife improvement by doubling your screen on time. By the way if you are alone, In case of an emergency it make sense to have 2nd phone anyway because you may break your exposed navigation phone during an accident.
Does anyone have any other tipps to add?
I like this idea 
On of the first points should be an effort based compareation, maybe as an introduction:
"Most of the following battery lifetime improvement tipps just save arround 10 to 30% battery life and take alot of effort to apply. Think about investing into a powerbank to get much more battery life before you spend your time on complicated battery runtime benchmarks."
On of the first points should be an effort based compareation, maybe as an introduction:
"Most of the following battery lifetime improvement tipps just save arround 10 to 30% battery life and take alot of effort to apply. Think about investing into a powerbank to get much more battery life before you spend your time on complicated battery runtime benchmarks."
"Magic One Click"
This feature saves work one to two hours per day!
Of course, it is also of great importance to save battery!
We search for and optimize ON / OFF display, GPS, etc. and you are trying to save minutes.
Here are hours!
"Magic One Click"
This feature saves work one to two hours per day!
Of course, it is also of great importance to save battery!
We search for and optimize ON / OFF display, GPS, etc. and you are trying to save minutes.
Here are hours!
Condor and his dream :).
Anyway, we have a small topic in docs already: http://docs.locusmap.eu/doku.php?id=manual:faq:locus_performance . It is more about performance, but it's close to battery saving.
Thanks for nice tips! I believe that Michal, who take care about our manual page, should improve this page to some "Tips for best performance & battery saving" and add useful tips we find in this topic in short & clean presentation. Michal? ;)
Jiří M. aka Menion
Condor and his dream :).
Anyway, we have a small topic in docs already: http://docs.locusmap.eu/doku.php?id=manual:faq:locus_performance . It is more about performance, but it's close to battery saving.
Thanks for nice tips! I believe that Michal, who take care about our manual page, should improve this page to some "Tips for best performance & battery saving" and add useful tips we find in this topic in short & clean presentation. Michal? ;)
Jiří M. aka Menion
I did my ROM Benchmark on 2D satellite view to monitor that nothing got turned off by Android power saving modes and did find out that older ROMs keep CPU on lowest possible power all the time which did result into a consistent current flow. Background services of newer ROMs ware not able to hold lowest possible power cpu power state and create a lot of spikes in current flow.
I know the performance FAQ, locus performance considerations should be on point 1 of battery safing checklist because I would expect large margins of battery life if I test a proper map rendering with complicaed vector styles and many overlayers. I didn't use map rendering for ROM benchmarking because there is no way to create reproduaceable test setups with real GPS data.
I did my ROM Benchmark on 2D satellite view to monitor that nothing got turned off by Android power saving modes and did find out that older ROMs keep CPU on lowest possible power all the time which did result into a consistent current flow. Background services of newer ROMs ware not able to hold lowest possible power cpu power state and create a lot of spikes in current flow.
I know the performance FAQ, locus performance considerations should be on point 1 of battery safing checklist because I would expect large margins of battery life if I test a proper map rendering with complicaed vector styles and many overlayers. I didn't use map rendering for ROM benchmarking because there is no way to create reproduaceable test setups with real GPS data.
@Falco
If I correctly understand you for repeated simulation, "Lockito - Fake GPS itenerary" is ideal.
@Falco
If I correctly understand you for repeated simulation, "Lockito - Fake GPS itenerary" is ideal.
Results for hillshade:
with powerfull devices like Sony Z3 Compact no battery lifetime change between hillshade off and on for navigation on a 10 hour long cycle tour simulation with 2500hm uphill and 2500hm downhill. Results are in margin of error, one run with 3% improvement and one run with 2% degration.
Results for hillshade:
with powerfull devices like Sony Z3 Compact no battery lifetime change between hillshade off and on for navigation on a 10 hour long cycle tour simulation with 2500hm uphill and 2500hm downhill. Results are in margin of error, one run with 3% improvement and one run with 2% degration.
I have another tipp:
- if you have to use screen lock because your screen does take false inputs because your display is sweaty. Clean the display because many phones will raise the cpu clock speed on touch to give user snappy experiences. For example all ROMs for my Z3 Compact do raise CPU speed from 300mhz to 1500mhz on touch.
I have another tipp:
- if you have to use screen lock because your screen does take false inputs because your display is sweaty. Clean the display because many phones will raise the cpu clock speed on touch to give user snappy experiences. For example all ROMs for my Z3 Compact do raise CPU speed from 300mhz to 1500mhz on touch.
And another tipp, inspired by @Condor powerbank temperature management setup:
- care about your battery temperture range. For example a cyclelist you will have to deal with to cold battery degration.
Benchmarks:
runtime with 30°C battery 8 hours (20°C ambient at home, 4 runs average)
runtime with 45°C battery 9 hours (35°C ambient in car, 3 runs average)
don't have benchmarks with 20°C because I would need to aircool it on my bike but didn't have reproduceable loads for benchmarking during tour
I guess arround 35 to 45°C is the sweat spot because everthing below has worse results and will matter more then most of the tipps and tweaks. But ambient temperature, airflow and insulation is much more difficult to adjust which means you have just to life with it and keep an eye on the other ways to improve batter life.
The problem of cyclelists: it's way to much airflow and the load of the CPU and battery is to low to heat it up. Even without any airflow on my testbench it does just add 10 kelvin. On cycle the battery is always dead even with air temperature and perform alot worse then on my testbench :(
Phones does work much better if you hold it in your warm hand.
And another tipp, inspired by @Condor powerbank temperature management setup:
- care about your battery temperture range. For example a cyclelist you will have to deal with to cold battery degration.
Benchmarks:
runtime with 30°C battery 8 hours (20°C ambient at home, 4 runs average)
runtime with 45°C battery 9 hours (35°C ambient in car, 3 runs average)
don't have benchmarks with 20°C because I would need to aircool it on my bike but didn't have reproduceable loads for benchmarking during tour
I guess arround 35 to 45°C is the sweat spot because everthing below has worse results and will matter more then most of the tipps and tweaks. But ambient temperature, airflow and insulation is much more difficult to adjust which means you have just to life with it and keep an eye on the other ways to improve batter life.
The problem of cyclelists: it's way to much airflow and the load of the CPU and battery is to low to heat it up. Even without any airflow on my testbench it does just add 10 kelvin. On cycle the battery is always dead even with air temperature and perform alot worse then on my testbench :(
Phones does work much better if you hold it in your warm hand.
On of the first points should be an effort based compareation, maybe as an introduction:
"Most of the following battery lifetime improvement tipps just save arround 10 to 30% battery life and take alot of effort to apply. Think about investing into a powerbank to get much more battery life before you spend your time on complicated battery runtime benchmarks."
On of the first points should be an effort based compareation, maybe as an introduction:
"Most of the following battery lifetime improvement tipps just save arround 10 to 30% battery life and take alot of effort to apply. Think about investing into a powerbank to get much more battery life before you spend your time on complicated battery runtime benchmarks."
Results for Vector:
Openandro Maps MTB Theme vs raster map on 2 devices Z3 Compact devices
10 hour run: 10-13% less drain without vectore map on magnified tiles map with zoom level 12
But you need an external SD card to hold maps as tiles for zoom level like 16. Will an SD card map consume more power then realtime CPU rendering? Maybe sd card read only doesn't consume much? Only one way to find it out https://sourceforge.net/projects/mobac/
Results for Vector:
Openandro Maps MTB Theme vs raster map on 2 devices Z3 Compact devices
10 hour run: 10-13% less drain without vectore map on magnified tiles map with zoom level 12
But you need an external SD card to hold maps as tiles for zoom level like 16. Will an SD card map consume more power then realtime CPU rendering? Maybe sd card read only doesn't consume much? Only one way to find it out https://sourceforge.net/projects/mobac/
There is one thing which is a little bit difficult to understand.
All my messurements are based on 10 hour runtime.
Which means if my device is running 10 hours with no CPU load and vector maps will decrease the runtime by 1 hour, it will be only 10% decrease but does acutally consume 1000 % more CPU power.
For example my BT sequence tuning test did only save 5 to 10% (2nd run is still running to tell if it is 5% or 10% because I have up to 5% messurement errors and need multible runs to get correct numbers) but did actually improve BT consumtion by 30% which will get very usefull if you have less demanding work on your phone (no internet, medium screen brightness, no interaction with other apps). I did exect 50 to 90% less BT power because I did reduce data amount by factor 10 but this didn't happen.
But I still guess 10 hour runtime target is a good common baseline. If you have more runtime you would benefit much more from the safings. Otherwise many people are working with less then 10 hour screen on time and need to turn display off to be able to at least record the whole planed track.
There is one thing which is a little bit difficult to understand.
All my messurements are based on 10 hour runtime.
Which means if my device is running 10 hours with no CPU load and vector maps will decrease the runtime by 1 hour, it will be only 10% decrease but does acutally consume 1000 % more CPU power.
For example my BT sequence tuning test did only save 5 to 10% (2nd run is still running to tell if it is 5% or 10% because I have up to 5% messurement errors and need multible runs to get correct numbers) but did actually improve BT consumtion by 30% which will get very usefull if you have less demanding work on your phone (no internet, medium screen brightness, no interaction with other apps). I did exect 50 to 90% less BT power because I did reduce data amount by factor 10 but this didn't happen.
But I still guess 10 hour runtime target is a good common baseline. If you have more runtime you would benefit much more from the safings. Otherwise many people are working with less then 10 hour screen on time and need to turn display off to be able to at least record the whole planed track.
I'm starting to lose in your analyzes...
They are very scientific. (The problem is also my English).
Not just me, we need simple answers - the result.
Example:
The Vector map has less power than the Raster.
External GPS (BT) consumes XX% more.
Determine GPS consumption (approx.). According to this, we know how much you can save on automated GPS On / Off.
What is the difference in the display 80% or 100% (In the summer outside we could even survive to 80%) Is that important? How much.
And so on...
Such answers and results are enough for us.
We can all understand.
Thank you for all.
I'm starting to lose in your analyzes...
They are very scientific. (The problem is also my English).
Not just me, we need simple answers - the result.
Example:
The Vector map has less power than the Raster.
External GPS (BT) consumes XX% more.
Determine GPS consumption (approx.). According to this, we know how much you can save on automated GPS On / Off.
What is the difference in the display 80% or 100% (In the summer outside we could even survive to 80%) Is that important? How much.
And so on...
Such answers and results are enough for us.
We can all understand.
Thank you for all.
OK
The solution (used by all Geocachers) is powerbank more than 10,000 mAh.
Without it, it is not going to be buoyant.
In my case, an auto-refrigerator with a supply of frozen cubes. To be able to charge the mobile at least to 40-50%
Thank you for the nice discussion and your advice and tests.
Stefan - Condor
OK
The solution (used by all Geocachers) is powerbank more than 10,000 mAh.
Without it, it is not going to be buoyant.
In my case, an auto-refrigerator with a supply of frozen cubes. To be able to charge the mobile at least to 40-50%
Thank you for the nice discussion and your advice and tests.
Stefan - Condor
I have an idea, we could use mA/h values instead of % values.
I just need to recalculate my benchmark results. For example if somebody does read "tile maps instead of vectore theme could save 30mA/h" it would be more clear what anybody could expect.
The only problem is that I can't use real time values from current sensors. I did already find out that these current sensores are very inaccorat, at least at my Z3 Compact. For example for many of my 10 hour runs I got overall battery capacity result from 1900mAh to 2300mAh which is not less then 20% failure! And we can't messure 10% improvement if current sensore values are up to 20% wrong :(
And because I don't know if my old battery does have 1900 or 2300mh (but runtime did only change by 0-5%), That means I can't provide absolut values like:
Z3 Compact does use 200mA/h for internal GPS and medium brightness but 140mA/h without GPS. But I can tell based on the missing runtime that we have an gap of 50-60mA/h
Warning: all these mA/h of this example are fake and should just ilustrate the problem of current messurement.
And one more funny story, I did just find out that 2 of my 4 Z3 Compacts (I have 3 compleate ones and 1 spare motherboard) does have a broken GPS unit (no satelites after 20 minutes), didn't even notice that because I use always BT GPS :D Properly a worn out antenna pin, a common issue of this model.
I have an idea, we could use mA/h values instead of % values.
I just need to recalculate my benchmark results. For example if somebody does read "tile maps instead of vectore theme could save 30mA/h" it would be more clear what anybody could expect.
The only problem is that I can't use real time values from current sensors. I did already find out that these current sensores are very inaccorat, at least at my Z3 Compact. For example for many of my 10 hour runs I got overall battery capacity result from 1900mAh to 2300mAh which is not less then 20% failure! And we can't messure 10% improvement if current sensore values are up to 20% wrong :(
And because I don't know if my old battery does have 1900 or 2300mh (but runtime did only change by 0-5%), That means I can't provide absolut values like:
Z3 Compact does use 200mA/h for internal GPS and medium brightness but 140mA/h without GPS. But I can tell based on the missing runtime that we have an gap of 50-60mA/h
Warning: all these mA/h of this example are fake and should just ilustrate the problem of current messurement.
And one more funny story, I did just find out that 2 of my 4 Z3 Compacts (I have 3 compleate ones and 1 spare motherboard) does have a broken GPS unit (no satelites after 20 minutes), didn't even notice that because I use always BT GPS :D Properly a worn out antenna pin, a common issue of this model.
I did already compare tiles maps with vectore maps based on Openandro MTB theme.
@Locus Team, do you have any statistics about used vectore themes? After I did 6 runs for me any my MTB Theme requirements I would like to add one or two common used vectore themes to my benchmark marathon.
I did already compare tiles maps with vectore maps based on Openandro MTB theme.
@Locus Team, do you have any statistics about used vectore themes? After I did 6 runs for me any my MTB Theme requirements I would like to add one or two common used vectore themes to my benchmark marathon.
We would need to use watt instead of amps for accurate definitions, but because it's more easy to calculate with mA/h we need to do some math. Normally you would just use the rated voltage of 3,7 but because Android doesn't use the full range of the battery we need to calculate with 3,8v (Actually average voltage over all my readouts during drain from 4,35 to 3,3v is 3,83v)
Now a small storry about my latest test results
I did try to make my life easier by using tools which “calculate” power consumption of system components. All of them are fake because the values would be able to achieve with my battery.
I know how these tools work. They of only the following data:
If you map the Hardware information with the states of the system processes you could calculate power consumptions.
And Now I will tell you what did happen on my Z3 Compact, the app didn’t know it very much and did use some common values for power consumption.
For example, the app did look for LCD 4.6 inch and got me the following power consumtion map:
287mw for 0% (was set with tasker to get below 9%)
900mw for 100%
Let’s think about the 287mw, battery does have have 10.500mW/h if you drain it from 4.35 to 3.0. Which means around 10000mW/h for 4.35 to 3.0
If you don’t have any mainboard, the LCD alone would drain that in 35h, which can’t be true because I get over 40hours with LCD and mainboard.
Let’s check the current flow to prove that apps who display display power consumption are fake, 287mW ~ 75mA which is just wrong because the real power management device told me around 36 to 40mA current flow including mainboard.
Summary: don’t trust power consumption values of subsystem level. They are just interpolated based on active time, state and known devices/technologies
We would need to use watt instead of amps for accurate definitions, but because it's more easy to calculate with mA/h we need to do some math. Normally you would just use the rated voltage of 3,7 but because Android doesn't use the full range of the battery we need to calculate with 3,8v (Actually average voltage over all my readouts during drain from 4,35 to 3,3v is 3,83v)
Now a small storry about my latest test results
I did try to make my life easier by using tools which “calculate” power consumption of system components. All of them are fake because the values would be able to achieve with my battery.
I know how these tools work. They of only the following data:
If you map the Hardware information with the states of the system processes you could calculate power consumptions.
And Now I will tell you what did happen on my Z3 Compact, the app didn’t know it very much and did use some common values for power consumption.
For example, the app did look for LCD 4.6 inch and got me the following power consumtion map:
287mw for 0% (was set with tasker to get below 9%)
900mw for 100%
Let’s think about the 287mw, battery does have have 10.500mW/h if you drain it from 4.35 to 3.0. Which means around 10000mW/h for 4.35 to 3.0
If you don’t have any mainboard, the LCD alone would drain that in 35h, which can’t be true because I get over 40hours with LCD and mainboard.
Let’s check the current flow to prove that apps who display display power consumption are fake, 287mW ~ 75mA which is just wrong because the real power management device told me around 36 to 40mA current flow including mainboard.
Summary: don’t trust power consumption values of subsystem level. They are just interpolated based on active time, state and known devices/technologies
Now I have found cool things, I found a proper study with real test probes
http://www.cse.iitd.ac.in/~dahiya/col862/Presentation%202%20on%20An%20Analysis%20of%20Power%20Consumption%20in%20Smart%20Phones.pdf
And for more recent devices:
http://ssrg.nicta.com/publications/nicta_full_text/7044.pdf
And here a full list of publifictions:
http://ts.data61.csiro.au/projects/energy-management/
I did use these documents to confirm my test results.
Before you read these values, calculate how much mA/hour does is your current setup need to get a feeling for the possible improvements. For example I could get 16 hours Navigation out of 2700mA which is only 170mA average load. And Power users with a lot of mobile network usage do have 800 to 2000mA average load.
LCD: an Z3 Compact does use around 1200mW (320mA) for 550cd/m³ brightness. Power consumption could be very progressive. Brightness from 100 to 80 could save half of the display consumption. And 100 to 90 could save a third in extreme cases. A Z3 Compact isn’t that progressive, but it still save 190mW (50mA) for with 90% and 340mW (90mA) from 100 to 80% But I need to confirm this values because it’s based on only one device.
CPU: use android battery monitoring to hunt for services which use to much CPU time, if you just look at locus alone you won’t find much improvements. You don’t need to disable hill shade on recent devices, we can’t measure any benefit. You could may try to benefit from a tile map, but don’t use online maps. Ana offline tile map could save you around 100mA
GPS: an Samsung S3 use 400 to 450mW (105-120mA) stop your track recording and turn your display off on each break which is longer than 1 minute because locus could disable GPS if it does not record and does not display your position. And set your location service configuration to “device only” Some GPS devices try to compensate the small antenna by putting 1000 or even 2000mW into it. Make sure to use devices with reasonable sized antennas, for example an external devices connected over BT would need less power for GPS + BT signals because it could have a much more efficient antenna.
BT GPS: We still use old BT Versions for example 2.0 for GPS Communication. BLE isn’t useable for GPS because NMEA did got removed from the lightweight protocol and everything need to be reinvented.
Testing Is still in work. Don’t know if 45mW(12mA) for Audio BT is the same like BT GPS because it does sound way do good.
There is maybe a possible improvement by reducing number the NMEA sequences. But not if this is really using only 12mA
Now I have found cool things, I found a proper study with real test probes
http://www.cse.iitd.ac.in/~dahiya/col862/Presentation%202%20on%20An%20Analysis%20of%20Power%20Consumption%20in%20Smart%20Phones.pdf
And for more recent devices:
http://ssrg.nicta.com/publications/nicta_full_text/7044.pdf
And here a full list of publifictions:
http://ts.data61.csiro.au/projects/energy-management/
I did use these documents to confirm my test results.
Before you read these values, calculate how much mA/hour does is your current setup need to get a feeling for the possible improvements. For example I could get 16 hours Navigation out of 2700mA which is only 170mA average load. And Power users with a lot of mobile network usage do have 800 to 2000mA average load.
LCD: an Z3 Compact does use around 1200mW (320mA) for 550cd/m³ brightness. Power consumption could be very progressive. Brightness from 100 to 80 could save half of the display consumption. And 100 to 90 could save a third in extreme cases. A Z3 Compact isn’t that progressive, but it still save 190mW (50mA) for with 90% and 340mW (90mA) from 100 to 80% But I need to confirm this values because it’s based on only one device.
CPU: use android battery monitoring to hunt for services which use to much CPU time, if you just look at locus alone you won’t find much improvements. You don’t need to disable hill shade on recent devices, we can’t measure any benefit. You could may try to benefit from a tile map, but don’t use online maps. Ana offline tile map could save you around 100mA
GPS: an Samsung S3 use 400 to 450mW (105-120mA) stop your track recording and turn your display off on each break which is longer than 1 minute because locus could disable GPS if it does not record and does not display your position. And set your location service configuration to “device only” Some GPS devices try to compensate the small antenna by putting 1000 or even 2000mW into it. Make sure to use devices with reasonable sized antennas, for example an external devices connected over BT would need less power for GPS + BT signals because it could have a much more efficient antenna.
BT GPS: We still use old BT Versions for example 2.0 for GPS Communication. BLE isn’t useable for GPS because NMEA did got removed from the lightweight protocol and everything need to be reinvented.
Testing Is still in work. Don’t know if 45mW(12mA) for Audio BT is the same like BT GPS because it does sound way do good.
There is maybe a possible improvement by reducing number the NMEA sequences. But not if this is really using only 12mA
External NMEA GPS Recorder with Bluetooth will save a lot of overall energy because they use proper antenna designs.
My example consumes 31mA GPS + 12mA Bluetooth slave (GPS Logger) + 14mA Bluetooth master (Phone). This does save 50% overall (50mA) and it does save 90% on the phone (90mA)
This won't just save power, it will give you much better GPS accuracy.
Here some details for my example:
I did modify a QStarz QT 1300 GPS and replace the 320mAh with a 560mAh LiPo. (https://fotos.mtb-news.de/p/2261402)
560mAh is enough for 18 hours without BT, which means just 31mA for GPS including writing NMEA data to flash.
Or 13 hours including Bluetooth: 12mA Bluetooth + 31mA GPS and flash write. 12mA for BT make sense because it match to the result of the study.
To compare, here are examples of 3 Z3 Compacts after 7 hour runtime, as you see signal strength could vary from device to device:
And that’s a QT1300 (the weakest device you could possibly get) on the same place:
Just think about it, the device has such a good antenna that it will only need 30mA for GPS to get perfect results.
Remember, Smartphone GPS would use 3 to 6 times more energy to get a barely useable signal.
Another pro is the possibility to record a track without your smartphone. It will use 31mA for track recording and your smartphone would use 120 to 300mA for display off track recording which is 4 to 10 times more.
You could just get any external device, it doesn't matter, everthing will be way better then your phone because even a tuned keychain destry the phone GPS performance.
Off Topic:
I did tell that 2 of 4 Z3 Compact ware broken in my last commend, that wasn't true. The GPS is just to week to get any signal indoor. It need to be in a room near a window.
External NMEA GPS Recorder with Bluetooth will save a lot of overall energy because they use proper antenna designs.
My example consumes 31mA GPS + 12mA Bluetooth slave (GPS Logger) + 14mA Bluetooth master (Phone). This does save 50% overall (50mA) and it does save 90% on the phone (90mA)
This won't just save power, it will give you much better GPS accuracy.
Here some details for my example:
I did modify a QStarz QT 1300 GPS and replace the 320mAh with a 560mAh LiPo. (https://fotos.mtb-news.de/p/2261402)
560mAh is enough for 18 hours without BT, which means just 31mA for GPS including writing NMEA data to flash.
Or 13 hours including Bluetooth: 12mA Bluetooth + 31mA GPS and flash write. 12mA for BT make sense because it match to the result of the study.
To compare, here are examples of 3 Z3 Compacts after 7 hour runtime, as you see signal strength could vary from device to device:
And that’s a QT1300 (the weakest device you could possibly get) on the same place:
Just think about it, the device has such a good antenna that it will only need 30mA for GPS to get perfect results.
Remember, Smartphone GPS would use 3 to 6 times more energy to get a barely useable signal.
Another pro is the possibility to record a track without your smartphone. It will use 31mA for track recording and your smartphone would use 120 to 300mA for display off track recording which is 4 to 10 times more.
You could just get any external device, it doesn't matter, everthing will be way better then your phone because even a tuned keychain destry the phone GPS performance.
Off Topic:
I did tell that 2 of 4 Z3 Compact ware broken in my last commend, that wasn't true. The GPS is just to week to get any signal indoor. It need to be in a room near a window.
Beside the night mode, one can use the blank, dark map. There is also the black & white theme mentioned here http://forum.locusmap.eu/index.php?topic=5729.msg47918#msg47918
Beside the night mode, one can use the blank, dark map. There is also the black & white theme mentioned here http://forum.locusmap.eu/index.php?topic=5729.msg47918#msg47918
Power bank tuning: if your power bank get's hot you are wasting capacity.
- try to change charging speed by using other power bank ports
- try to change charging behaivor in android (but try to avoid slow charging at home, for example condition based slow charging profile with tasker)
And now more crazy stuff:
I did figure out that some Quickcharge 2.0 compatible devices could take not only specified 5V and 9V but would accept any voltage between 5 and 9 volt! Why is that great? Normally you need a DC to DC converter to convert power bank battery voltage to 5 volt and then in the phone it does get converted from 5 volt back to battery voltage. If you want to squeeze everything out of your power bank batteries, you could baypass one of the two DC to DC circuits if you device is able to handle it.
Currently I do check how well build the circuit of my Z3 Compact is to figure out if it is more efficient to bypass my selfmade powerbank DC to DC circuit https://www.aliexpress.com/item/DC-6-24V-12V-24v-to-5V-USB-Output-Charger-Step-Down-Power-Module-Mini-DC/32692500351.html
To be honest, it is scarry to put anything from 7.0 to 8.4V of my two NCR18650B direct on USB. I do messure my efficiency results by current over time with an USB tester (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/8-in1-QC2-0-3-0-4-30v-Electrical-power-USB-capacity-voltage-tester-current-meter/32812273461.html) which is able to handle 4V to 30V which will cover even quickcharge 4.0+
Don't forget to label your overvolted USB ports, because they are not backward compatible with 5V USB anymore ;)
Power bank tuning: if your power bank get's hot you are wasting capacity.
- try to change charging speed by using other power bank ports
- try to change charging behaivor in android (but try to avoid slow charging at home, for example condition based slow charging profile with tasker)
And now more crazy stuff:
I did figure out that some Quickcharge 2.0 compatible devices could take not only specified 5V and 9V but would accept any voltage between 5 and 9 volt! Why is that great? Normally you need a DC to DC converter to convert power bank battery voltage to 5 volt and then in the phone it does get converted from 5 volt back to battery voltage. If you want to squeeze everything out of your power bank batteries, you could baypass one of the two DC to DC circuits if you device is able to handle it.
Currently I do check how well build the circuit of my Z3 Compact is to figure out if it is more efficient to bypass my selfmade powerbank DC to DC circuit https://www.aliexpress.com/item/DC-6-24V-12V-24v-to-5V-USB-Output-Charger-Step-Down-Power-Module-Mini-DC/32692500351.html
To be honest, it is scarry to put anything from 7.0 to 8.4V of my two NCR18650B direct on USB. I do messure my efficiency results by current over time with an USB tester (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/8-in1-QC2-0-3-0-4-30v-Electrical-power-USB-capacity-voltage-tester-current-meter/32812273461.html) which is able to handle 4V to 30V which will cover even quickcharge 4.0+
Don't forget to label your overvolted USB ports, because they are not backward compatible with 5V USB anymore ;)
I did start with benchmarking Mobile services (2G, 3G, 4G) with live tracking and did search for large consumers. I was surprised how efficient a controlled system could use mobile services. You can use mobile internet the whole day without a power bank.
Mobile Internet connection: power consumption is highly dependent on the signal strength of your service and the transmitted amount of data. In Summary the target should be: transfer as less data as possible and work with large datasets only if you have a good connection. It is possible to draw from 190mW to 4000mW (50mW to 1000mA) per hour which means here could be the most important component to improve battery life. In some cases even more important than display brightness. You need at least Android 5 otherwise you can’t manage internet connection based on active app.
Here an example how an optimized setup could perform: (only 50mA to 200mA for internet)
70% Screen Brightness always on, BT GPS, Locus Vector Map, Locus Live tracking 60 seconds interval and Mobile Internet from 2G up to 3G
Optimized System in worst case: Bad Service, barely available connection with 0% to 20% Signal of 2G
Optimized System in best case: Great Service, with 80% to 100% Signal of 3G (HSDPA)
I did start with benchmarking Mobile services (2G, 3G, 4G) with live tracking and did search for large consumers. I was surprised how efficient a controlled system could use mobile services. You can use mobile internet the whole day without a power bank.
Mobile Internet connection: power consumption is highly dependent on the signal strength of your service and the transmitted amount of data. In Summary the target should be: transfer as less data as possible and work with large datasets only if you have a good connection. It is possible to draw from 190mW to 4000mW (50mW to 1000mA) per hour which means here could be the most important component to improve battery life. In some cases even more important than display brightness. You need at least Android 5 otherwise you can’t manage internet connection based on active app.
Here an example how an optimized setup could perform: (only 50mA to 200mA for internet)
70% Screen Brightness always on, BT GPS, Locus Vector Map, Locus Live tracking 60 seconds interval and Mobile Internet from 2G up to 3G
Optimized System in worst case: Bad Service, barely available connection with 0% to 20% Signal of 2G
Optimized System in best case: Great Service, with 80% to 100% Signal of 3G (HSDPA)
I have done some more test without auto-brightness, and indeed the B&W theme and the Night mode save between 1 and 3 points on the remaining % battery on my 30 min tests (eg -2 instead of -5%) depending on the brightness (tested at 10 and 100%).
I have done some more test without auto-brightness, and indeed the B&W theme and the Night mode save between 1 and 3 points on the remaining % battery on my 30 min tests (eg -2 instead of -5%) depending on the brightness (tested at 10 and 100%).
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