Hello all!
Since yesterday, when I updated the firmware of my phone, the GPS icon has been shown constantly in the notification bar. It did not use to happen before. I am afraid it might be draining more battery than needed but I don't want to turn off GPS completely as I wanted it to be "ready to use" whenever I need to use, for example, Google Maps.
Is there something I can do? How can I control which app's might be using GPS connection in every moment?
Thank you!
+1
Every once in a while I see the GPS icon light up for a couple of seconds without apparent reason. I have no auto geo locating widget or so running, which might be an obvious guess.
Edit: just noticed I had weather information enabled on the lock screen so that may be the cause.
Related
stock rom
If i leave gps on.... and all the apps i have that may use gps (travel, voucher etc) do not run in the back ground,
except google maps.... will this really drain random battery throughout the day.
The reason I ask this is when using google maps...i see the gps symbol on the top of my phone, but once i back out of it...the symbol disappears, and when i go back into it to resume what i was doing the symbol turns back on and the gps has to find my location all over again.
Hence I come to the conclusion that the gps is not 'always on' when you don't need or (given you don't have any dodgy apps)
Then I could turn off googles location sharing thing, because if I am correct you need that on if you want to use location services without gps?
SGS2 uses sirfstar IV
http://www.sys-con.com/node/1822443
http://www.csr.com/products/25/sirfstariv-gsd4t
This is a modern GPS chip, it don't think it uses much battery. I've always GPS on and I've no battery issues. And I agree that it seems that the chip is set to some kind of standby when not in use so turning off the GPS in the settings (or notfication pull down) seems more like a privacy thing than power related.
Thanks for confirming. Will now try leaving gps on and location services off and see what happens. sometimes gps on its own takes a few extra seconds to locate you...might be annoying with certain apps
If you refuse location sharing you will not be able to use WIFI positioning service, but can still use cell tower positioning if your GPS is off. Personally I never use WPS since WIFI use a whole lot of power so I always keep it off. There are situations where it's useful (i.e. inside downtown can't get a GPS signal), so you can decide if you want it or not.
I usually keep my GPS off too, since when I open maps I just want to look at map, I don't need to know my exact location (and use the extra power).
My Galaxy S2 GPS sucks the battery life when I keep it on. My partner keeps his Galaxy S2 GPS on and the icon only comes on when something like Maps loads but immediatly goes away when you you exit Maps. Mine seems to stay on all the time and I can't see any obvious process running all of the time (except Maps). I monitor the battery usage with a tool and GPS is certainly running my battery down far quicker than if I turn it off.
Anyone else experiencing the same?
marklyn said:
My partner keeps his Galaxy S2 GPS on and the icon only comes on when something like Maps loads but immediatly goes away when you you exit Maps. Mine seems to stay on all the time and I can't see any obvious process running all of the time
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the GPS setting turned on all the time, but my GPS only really turns on when I open an app that uses GPS, like Maps or Facebook. Just like your partner.
I actually want to keep it on all the time... like yours
Can you send me your /etc/gps.conf and /etc/sirfgps.conf ?
I'm not sure if that's what control this behaviour.
Noed said:
I have the GPS setting turned on all the time, but my GPS only really turns on when I open an app that uses GPS, like Maps or Facebook. Just like your partner.
I actually want to keep it on all the time... like yours
Can you send me your /etc/gps.conf and /etc/sirfgps.conf ?
I'm not sure if that's what control this behaviour.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I only had the gps.conf, not the sirfgps.conf file. Attached here.
I have to turn on GPS only when I need it for something and turn it off, otherwise it clearly drains my battery, in pretty quick fashion.
I had to rename it gps.txt to upload it.
Keeping GPS on is not draining your battery, because its realy turning on, only on application requests. Battery drain may come from some buggy app, which not close it GPS connection. You can easily see this by your GPS indicator. No indicator - no app using GPS atm - no battery drain, flashing indicator - GPS trying to lock ur position, indicator on - GPS is used and got lock on sattelites.
incident404 said:
its realy turning on, only on application requests
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there a way to keep GPS always on, independent of an application request?
I want to control it on/off manually
I leave GPS on all the time. Only works when apps request / need it. No battery life issues for me.
Sent from my GT-I9100
Hey guys, I don;t really use GPS on my Galaxy Player 4'', but I have notices that it will all the sudden display the GPS icon in the notification area even when it is off. I have disabled GPS and the "Use wireless networks" option, but the icon will appear at least once a day and won't disappear until I reboot the device. It just keeps blinking over and over until I reboot the device.
I have noticed it drains my battery way to quick when that icon appears (uses about 10% when the deviced is locked), which is crazy because it uses about (2%) battery power when it is locked during the night and the player does not shows that GPS icon in the notification area. I have killed pretty much every single application I have been able to kill to find out what app is trying to use GPS, but the icon won't go away no matter what process I kill. I use juicedefender and it has really improve my battery life, but when that icon appears, my device still will waste about 10% battery power even when it is locked with no apps running. Cannot explained why this is happening.
Has any of you had this problem?
Thank you
Try reseting to factory default, my batttery life on galaxy 4.0 is incredible.
I've had the same problem on my 5.0. I figured out it was an app that was constantly trying to get a gps signal. Simply going into the app and the exiting out seems to solve it however. It still happens but going into the app and exiting out helps. I would try to figure out which app is constantly trying to connect and if you don't use it very frequently uninstall it.
Dampfire said:
I've had the same problem on my 5.0. I figured out it was an app that was constantly trying to get a gps signal. Simply going into the app and the exiting out seems to solve it however. It still happens but going into the app and exiting out helps. I would try to figure out which app is constantly trying to connect and if you don't use it very frequently uninstall it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Difficult to pinpoint this app.
Do anybody know any way to log what app is using (or trying to use) GPS?
I noticed this happening today. I have my notification bar hidden, so not sure how often this happens. I could make it go away by turning on GPS and GPS Test, then back off. I checked for apps that might be trying to find a location in running services, killed a couple "maybes", but the icon kept blinking. Only app I installed today was Simple Calendar Widget, but didn't see anything in it's options that would be pinging location...
I have Power Tudor that shows how much juice apps are using while you monitor them, the only app there that looked like it could be was something like "system_1025" or something like that.... nothing I could find to stop it.
Dampfire said:
I've had the same problem on my 5.0. I figured out it was an app that was constantly trying to get a gps signal. Simply going into the app and the exiting out seems to solve it however. It still happens but going into the app and exiting out helps. I would try to figure out which app is constantly trying to connect and if you don't use it very frequently uninstall it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
tcat007 said:
I noticed this happening today. I have my notification bar hidden, so not sure how often this happens. I could make it go away by turning on GPS and GPS Test, then back off. I checked for apps that might be trying to find a location in running services, killed a couple "maybes", but the icon kept blinking. Only app I installed today was Simple Calendar Widget, but didn't see anything in it's options that would be pinging location...
I have Power Tudor that shows how much juice apps are using while you monitor them, the only app there that looked like it could be was something like "system_1025" or something like that.... nothing I could find to stop it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also use Simple Calendar Widget, but I don't think it's the reason.
Did you use Samsung Dive recently? I did, in order to test the ring, lock and location service provided from within Dive. The service running on device tries to establish a GPS connection even if GPS is disabled. I didn't make a location trace, only a simple location test.
After reboot GPS icon do not show up any more ...
Looks like Google Latitude might be the culprit. Try opening it and signing out of that service. Also go into "Settings" --> "Location and security" and uncheck "Use Sensor Aiding". Once I turned those off the GPS Notification went away.
What does sensor aiding do anyway? Sure doesn't help the Compass!
I had the same issue with my HTC ONE M8 I did the same process as you. Went into my settings found my battery usage and saw what was draining my battery. It was groupon. So I force stopped the app and the GPS notification went away.
All of a sudden today, when unlocking my phone, I've seen this message pop up on the home screen for like 2 seconds. I figured it was just a random fluke and powered down but then when I went to click on refreshing my weather widget which is always set to the same zip code, it happened again. This widget is set to manual refresh, I have to click it to get an updated forecast. Then it happened again a few minutes later after simply unlocking the screen like it was doing earlier.
I've had Network Location services for wifi and gps turned off for a good 3 weeks or so. I only activate those on an as-needed basis. I don't use any apps that acquire my location (weather, facebook, etc.) I have the bear minimum apps running in 'Running Services' and I'm running the configuration in my sig (UnNamed, Entropy's DD, ICScrewd Theme). Any ideas what's going on?
does it happen every time you refresh the weather widget?
if it does I would try a different widget, just to see whether it goes away.
I just had GMail do this to me this morning (when I tried to refresh - I have that set to manual). I turned on location services (wifi and GPS) and let it get my location, then turned them back off. That seemed to take care of it. Might be a cookie based kind of thing - I loaded a new ROM yesterday and hadn't let it get a lock yet.
I just remembered that I updated Google Maps yesterday via the Market. I think that's the culprit. I can't see any setting though which I can change to disable automatic updating. I've gotten this message now like 3 times this morning.
Ive temporarily turned on Location Services for wifi/GPS but I prefer them off as I get much better battery life with them disabled.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda premium
This seems to be happening to me more and more. Cannot pinpoint the culprit.
is this still an issue for anyone? It certainly is for me
Hi guys! This is my first post here. Also i'm not native english speaker
Ok, right now i own a Galaxy Player YP-G1, rooted it with SuperOneClick like a week ago looking for a way to make battery last for longer time. Actually i've got good results after installing SetCPU and doing some reseach about how to config it.
However i still have a problem related to the GPS radio. It keeps turning on even if i disable it in the status bar and in the device's configuration menu. I've realized this GPS thing drains battery toooooo much and haven't found a way to force it to stay off. Always turns on by itself whatever i do.
Tried to disable autorun on all apps that used GPS localization with Gemini App Manager, still turns on...
I'd like to know if there's a rooted way to keep tgis guy off. Yesterday it turned on in the morning and even having used the music player for less than an hour the battery died extremely fast! and another days that it has stayed off battery has lasted until late night. It has to the the GPS.
Please guys help me, i've had univ courses of java and matlab so i have some idea of what i do when programing, so if it's necesary to write some lines i think i could handle it, maybe. Even better, if there's an app out there that fixes me this issue it would be even better.
Thanks !!!!
Up?
As per my knowledge, battery doesnt drain if you turn on gps and leave it like that forever. Battery drains are observed only when any app like google maps or apps like facebook use gps to set location. It might be your misconception about battery drain while gps turned on.
I would like to give an advice to use pdroid for custom roms. Pdroid is an app that enables you to change permissions of installed app so that you can disable any app to access gps location. This saves hell of battery.
Sent from Hell!!
Well I found an app that so far has kept GPS off since i installed it: GPS Toggle Widget (root)
(can't post the link for being noob )
I'll be updating if it really works in a few days
BTW thanks .xxx. !!!
I've had this issue for a while now, but I'm wondering if it's just me or if this is something common.
Every once in a while, my Player (5.0 US) will show the GPS trying to acquire a signal icon, but it won't go to lock. I've been in places where I have good GPS signal normally, and it will stay that way for hours.
To add at my confusion, it sometimes comes up even if the GPS is turned off. In these cases, I've turned on a GPS reporting tool, and it can see that I've got a good connection with several satellites. I turn the GPS officially on, and it gets the lock (thanks to the program). Close the program and the GPS goes dormant again.
The only thing I can remotely think of is Google location services trying to pin point where my wifi is, but that doesn't explain why it can't get a lock.
Anyone else seen this or know what it is?
Hi there,
I have exactly the same problem as you. GPS is turned off but its symbol is flashing in the notification bar. I noticed this problem tomorrow morning wondering why my battery is low although I charged it yesterday afternoon.
Are you using gingerbread?
Sorry for the late reply. Yes, stock setup right now