Sometimes you are away from a charger and want to conserve what you have left, or are trying to run a resource heavy app without glitches (satnav) or trying to get a big update/download faster.
I thought we could post tips that either help with speed of the device or with saving battery - particularly if you know of apps or settings that slow the running down or eat battery.
I know these are quite obvious but I'll list some anyway to get us started
Turn these off for extra speed and batt :
Wireless General
GPS (you can leave location by network on for most stuff like weather apps)
Wifi - turning it off while you're out and about saves lots o batt. I also keep network notification off completely unless I'm in a new location looking for a wifi fix.
Bluetooth - set for off and undiscoverable
Mobile network - Set it to 2G for a big boost in battery life (and I've found, if the 3G is rubbish - I know, obvious, but I recently spent 20 mins moaning of no signal at all to send a tx at a gig, then realised I could flick to 2G and was away!!)
Data Sync
Google - You can turn of Auto sync and just sync manually when you choose
Background Data - Turning this off gives a huge battery boost, but gmail won't arrive in real time, so if you're expecting important mail don't turn it off.
On the sync option, if you know contacts and calendar are not changing that often you can uncheck these and sync manually every now and then
Apps that use Data Sync
Weather - check how often the app refreshes and set it to a longer time - some weather apps are by default set to refresh every 30 mins and this might not be needed most of the time.
Twitter and Facebook widgets and apps - again check the refresh periods, also notifications will Use batt more than no notifications.
Same probably applies for Exchange Sync but I don't use it.
Sound/Display - these things will save batt when you need it.
I think having Ring AND vibe will be more batt intensive, so maybe knock off the vibrate when you want to save battery
Keep Brightness low and lower screen timeout.
Turn off Auto rotation and animations and Notification Flash
Turning keypad tones off etc will save a bit too. It all adds up.
Turning Off TouchFLO
When running CoPilot, it helps to turn off wifi and some have reported that if you can toggle the Sense UI to the ordinary Android 3 screen home this helps too (Tho I've personally not had problems) To turn off Sense UI or Touchflo 7Screen home, you need to first go to settings-applications-manage applications and look for TouchFLO then clear defaults. After this, when you go to home, you'll be offered a choice of home or TouchFlo. To toggle back to Touchflo, press the home button again. To return it to default, just check the Use by default for this action, and then make your choice.
Post anything you've found to help or hinder speed, or to drain or boost battery life
Ta Dayzee xx
Is there a widget to switch from 3G to 2G?
no, that is not a setting that can be done on a widget. all the ones that are around and claim to do it just jump you straight into mobile settings so you can toggle it yourself in two clicks instead of four....
But there is the Mobile Network one - HTC built in - when that is turned off, you can still get calls, and send txts. I use this toggle to do that - also can you not set a shortcut to do 3g to 2g only using bettercut? I'm sure you can, because you have that option in settings and bettercut can make a shortcut to any settings toggle.
Dayzee
Edit - Bettercut doesn't work with Hero Well, certainly not for creating and adding a shortcut to a system setting - will let the devs know...
Is it my imagination or does having the people widget on a home screen makes the device a little sluggish?
Is anyone else using touchdown? Not sure if that is slowing my device down and using battery a lot too?
Toggle Settings is a good app for controlling Daisys suggestions above, taskiller or Advanced Task Manager are essential for closing unwanted apps.
Couple of notes about apps that close stuff down like Taskiller and Task Manager - they can slow your fone down immediately after an end all, as the apps that need to run like TouchFlo have to restart - which they do, all by themselves - but it makes the fone prone to laggyness and force closing if you try to open stuff straight after.
If you get one that allows exclusions (I know advanced Task Manager does but dunno on others) then exclude TouchFLO and you'll get less proba after close all.
Also there were reports that one of the Taskiller apps messed with the long press home functions. Not sure on this tho...
Dayzee said:
If you get one that allows exclusions (I know advanced Task Manager does but dunno on others) then exclude TouchFLO and you'll get less proba after close all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With Taskkiller you also have the option to exclude programs. It also has a widget you can tap to close all (except the ignored programs) The free version only allows two apps to be ignored. Exclude TouchFlo is a good suggestion.
Ce said:
With Taskkiller you also have the option to exclude programs. It also has a widget you can tap to close all (except the ignored programs) The free version only allows two apps to be ignored. Exclude TouchFlo is a good suggestion.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try TaskPanel, it's free and doesn't seem to have any restrictions in its exclude list. You can also add a memory threshold when TaskPanel should automatically kill applications (configured through a separate list). And finally, it registers itself as an ongoing task and starts up automatically.
TaskPanel ist great... Thanks for that Tip. Have it running in the Background and now it Kills processes that are not in my Exclude List everytime the RAM goes below 50Meg.
My Hero is now (almost) Lag-Free.
Full charge at 7am and at 5pm, battery still at 94%.
How?
Turn off background data.
jhericurls said:
Full charge at 7am and at 5pm, battery still at 94%.
How?
Turn off background data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Background data? As in what? Mobile network?
jhericurls said:
Full charge at 7am and at 5pm, battery still at 94%.
How?
Turn off background data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Surely that disables all the sync services etc which is really what the phone is all about!
Also the Market won't work unless background data is enabled... It will save battery but a said, many services won't work unless you update manually.
I switched this off when in France so I didn't eat up my roaming data bundle.
The Jones said:
Is it my imagination or does having the people widget on a home screen makes the device a little sluggish?
Is anyone else using touchdown? Not sure if that is slowing my device down and using battery a lot too?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ive also noticed this also with the people widget after i removed it as well as the Clock # 8 it severely reduced the lagginess of my Hero
Hi Dayzee & co.,
If you're looking for a good way to save battery power without having to turn wifi on and off manually, check out "Y5 battery saver"
Y5 - Battery Saver is an AndroidTM application which saves your battery by turning the Wifi off in locations where you have never been connected before. The application turns Wifi back on when you are back to known location. It will remember the locations automatically. All you have to do is turn the Wifi on and connect to the known Wifi network for the first time
Really cool, and works like a charm. Ok, you need to have your GPS turned on, but at least that one is useful everywhere you are (except inside buildings, fair enough)... whereas wifi isn't. Furthermore, wifi uses up more battery than GPS.
Concerning Advanced Task Killer (awesome!), you might want to check out this thread if you're sick of having to restart your phone each time you have to sync. In a few words: always put HTC sync in the Ignore list of the program. Unchecking it won't do.
Cheers!
Stop using Peep (set it all to manual update), remove the widget and start using Twidroid.
As well as a huge reduction in battery draw, you'll find your Hero is far more responsive than is ever was before.
The last few days my Hero has not been sluggish and the battery life has increased dramatically. Set to 30 mins update just like Peep was.
Here's my tip, that works really well, for me. I've tried a myriad of task managers, but finally settled for TaskPanel. It doesn't really matter what you use, I suppose, but I found it to be one of the clearest. Furthermore, advanced task killer's and taskillers "kill all" commands seemed to randomly kill the TouchFlo process as well, even though it was "ignored"...
I've come to the conclusion that cpu load rarely is a problem on this phone (in terms of finding a reason to possible lag), unless you are watching videos (which you probably won't, since it appears to be impossible to encode videos so they don't at least slow down a bit every five seconds) or listening to music.
Instead it's the amount of memory you have free for apps to use. I have no idea why, since I also live by the credo "memory free is memory wasted", so ideally my phone would have 5 megs of ram free and everything would work great. Now for some reason, my Hero desktop starts to lag substantially (as well as other gui-elements, such as long scrolling lists) whenever my memory goes below 40 megs.
I always hated the "favourite people" widget by Htc, so I closed it day one. Maybe that's why my htc experience has been pretty positive. I also closed the desktop widgets for SMS-messages and Mail, since they can't show MMS:es or HTML-mail and since they are both ridiculously slow at flicking from one message to the next. I also threw away the novelty clocks by Htc, since they animate too often and that slows down the interface while they are moving. Instead I opted for the iPhone-like clock "digital clock widget". Just don't force kill it, since it will stop updating and you will be stuck with a beautiful clock that shows the right time once every day.
So basically, my formula for a fluid hero experience is:
* Check your free memory with TaskPanel every now and then. If it goes below 50, prepare for slowdown. If it goes below 40, go on a killingspree.
* Register TaskPanel as an "ongoing service", so it shows up in your notification drawer. Now, if you can see your notification drawer (which you can't in the browser), then instead of clicking home to close stuff, open TaskPanel (or whatever) and kill the app you are about to stop using.
* With multitasking comes responsibility. Odds are, if you ever owned an iPhone, this is something you were *****in and moanin about. "Gimme multitasking, gimme!". Well now you've got it and so, learn to use it. Everything that is slow, badly programmed or a resource hog has gotta go, unless you really really need it. Beautiful clock animating slowly? Too bad! Ditch it.
Somebody said Android wold be very good at managing resources by itself and that sounds reasonable. However, I read numerous comments about people finding this to not be the case. Maybe in version 2.0. But for now I'm stuck killing of processes myself. It works for me and makes my UI snappy. And I can keep 3-5 apps running at the same time (that are my own choices, not mandatory apps that come with the UI) without problem. I regularly have babbler, androidirc, taskpanel, market, ebuddy, redditisfun running at the same time without problem. Just kill off apps you are not going to use for a long time.
Ok, sorry to be rambling, but this is my take on the situation. It might get resolved with the Hero update or with the 2.0 version of Android. Don't know, but until then, we need some tools and wild speculation won't solve anything. If you made it through the whole message, I would appreciate your comments - especially any positive experiences you have from "letting Android do its own cleaning". It sounds a little fishy that it would be bad a first, but after about a week, things will get really snappy? What if I boot my phone? Will I have to wait a week again for things to become fast?
-JJ
Speed and battery boosting Tips
Dayzee said:
Sometimes you are away from a charger and want to conserve what you have left, or are trying to run a resource heavy app without glitches (satnav) or trying to get a big update/download faster.
I thought we could post tips that either help with speed of the device or with saving battery - particularly if you know of apps or settings that slow the running down or eat battery.
I know these are quite obvious but I'll list some anyway to get us started
Turn these off for extra speed and batt :
Wireless General
GPS (you can leave location by network on for most stuff like weather apps)
Wifi - turning it off while you're out and about saves lots o batt. I also keep network notification off completely unless I'm in a new location looking for a wifi fix.
Bluetooth - set for off and undiscoverable
Mobile network - Set it to 2G for a big boost in battery life (and I've found, if the 3G is rubbish - I know, obvious, but I recently spent 20 mins moaning of no signal at all to send a tx at a gig, then realised I could flick to 2G and was away!!)
Data Sync
Google - You can turn of Auto sync and just sync manually when you choose
Background Data - Turning this off gives a huge battery boost, but gmail won't arrive in real time, so if you're expecting important mail don't turn it off.
On the sync option, if you know contacts and calendar are not changing that often you can uncheck these and sync manually every now and then
Apps that use Data Sync
Weather - check how often the app refreshes and set it to a longer time - some weather apps are by default set to refresh every 30 mins and this might not be needed most of the time.
Twitter and Facebook widgets and apps - again check the refresh periods, also notifications will Use batt more than no notifications.
Same probably applies for Exchange Sync but I don't use it.
Sound/Display - these things will save batt when you need it.
I think having Ring AND vibe will be more batt intensive, so maybe knock off the vibrate when you want to save battery
Keep Brightness low and lower screen timeout.
Turn off Auto rotation and animations and Notification Flash
Turning keypad tones off etc will save a bit too. It all adds up.
Turning Off TouchFLO
When running CoPilot, it helps to turn off wifi and some have reported that if you can toggle the Sense UI to the ordinary Android 3 screen home this helps too (Tho I've personally not had problems) To turn off Sense UI or Touchflo 7Screen home, you need to first go to settings-applications-manage applications and look for TouchFLO then clear defaults. After this, when you go to home, you'll be offered a choice of home or TouchFlo. To toggle back to Touchflo, press the home button again. To return it to default, just check the Use by default for this action, and then make your choice.
Post anything you've found to help or hinder speed, or to drain or boost battery life
Ta Dayzee xx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
turning off allmost every things,then what reson to have a smart phone and spend 600$ for the device better, turn off your hero and keep in the pocket and turn it back on to use...keep in pocket with power off till next use.this is not the sulution .turning off everythings ........rether go with motorola razer v3.
I still don't see the point of using task managers and killing tasks. I just let the OS manage everything for me.
My Hero run very well indeed since I worked out that Peep was a real battery and resource hog.
I've just been for a 4 mile walk and used My Tracks to track the walk, Twidroid, Browser hot linked from tweets in Twidroid, answered a phone call and responded to a number of texts.
Looked at My Tracks a number of times to see what it was doing and to look at the satellite map. I like to point out things on the phone screen to the kids that they can see in real life - geeky but they think its cool.
Kept checking on how fast we were walking etc...
So screen was active quite a bit.
All over the space of 1hr 15mins with the GPS running all the time.
Hero never lagged once, battery used was around 10% (at a guess, maybe 12%).
Overall very impressed.
Hi people!
I've been seeing this icon for a while now and i would definitely like to know what it is and what it does.
sometimes like after a soft reset it's gone but then it just sits there...
[I have an image but i'm not allowed to post it 'cause I am a newb if a mod reads this, please remove the restriction so i can clarify things ]
please look at my account album to see what i mean for now
the icon basically is a square with what appear to be just random on and off pixels (maybe some kind of connectivity thing?)
but when the icon is gone, the spot where it's supposed to be just stays open, like, the other icons don't move to the right...
Does anyone know what this is?
Thanks! Pio
Maybe...
Based on my experiences, this could possibly be: -
1) The data connection icon being 'greyed out'. I had this twice, once when I went to my new network and they didn't provision data, and the other time when I forgot to pay my bill and they cut me off (!).
2) Something corrupting the volume icon. I had this once but couldn’t find out what caused it. It solved itself when I installed the Mystic Systems Dual Volume cab. Sorry, but can't find a link for it at the moment (at work).
EDIT - See foot of post #18 here: http://www.pocketpc.ch/htc-hd2-interface/74151-volume-changer-looks-like-win-3-1-a.html
Don't think that's it
thanks for the fast response Yorkshire Yellow
Going from your options I've enabled WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, data connection etcetera, and I can see all the icons that Should be there, but still also the square..
I now have these icons:
Bluetooth (idle) - GPS (No sats) - WiFi (Connected with internet) - 3G (full connectivity) - The strange icon - and the 1-100% battery icon
however i do notice that I don't have a sound icon.. but I don't recall ever having one at all (have also tried muting the sound r going to vibrate mode but this doesn't affect the appearance of the icon at all..
I'll look for the app you suggested and try it out! thanks!
..
What is the difference between installing that cab and just turning the "Use single volume for ring/system" slider off in sound and display settings?
that at least doesn't work
I am noticing some problems with my s3 after the official jellybean update. It feels like it has been rushed to the phone. For example it doesn't have the quick reply feature in the notification window. It does for missed calls but not for messages. This is one the most anticipated features for me. Also when watching you tube and you don't want the screen to rotate it now does. I want to lock the rotation so I only get the small video at the top when my phone is on its side. It worked before jellybean update. Also auto brightness has changed. When auto brightness is selected you can manually turn it up with the slider in the notification window and it disables auto brightness and changes to what you set on the slider. Now on jellybean you have to uncheck the auto brightness box and then slide. Little features like this are starting to make me feel like it has been a massive rush to get jellybean on to the s3 which is ironic seen as though it took long enough. I have the international i9300 model s3. Is anybody else noticing the problems I have stated? Does anybody know a way of changing/getting the features? Thanks.
They were definitely to busy with the Note II, I mean come on at least give their flag ship the same/some of the features that a bigger version of the S3 has... That sexy multitasking should have been on the initial jelly bean update.
94% to 77 % in 7 hours.
WIFI : On , PSM off
Most power and wakelocks were by Kernal.
Normal?
I'm on LJ4, stock kernel?
I've not got a clue what you're on about?
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
I know what you mean. The note got great features like the multi window. Apparently that's coming before the new year but I highly doubt that. Are you noticing the same problems I am? Another problem I found is when screen goes off after inactivity you used to be able to press the home button a moment after it goes off and it would turn the screen back on leaving you at the page you was. Now the home button takes you back to the home when you press it. It's annoying you have to go back to the app.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
eggman89 said:
94% to 77 % in 7 hours.
WIFI : On , PSM off
Most power and wakelocks were by Kernal.
Normal?
I'm on LJ4, stock kernel?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me too, my problem is the battery with jb lj4
I think there is a few little niggles but overal its pretty much the same.
The autobrightness don't disable automatically now when you adjust the slider as you can now actually adjust the autobrightness brightness, Not sure why though.
Google Now - leaving it active at the mo, but not really found any usefullness from it as yet. The Time home feature is ok, would be good if it actually showed the route I take home - Via motorway, rather than the route through city center which i don't take!!
The new notifcation bar - its ok, nothing major. Expect a bit of all these features will improve over time as well once apps get proper updates. Some work but don't have full functionally - Songpop has no notifications now for example.
Battery Life - I did find that my normal phone use on ISC which included about 50/60 mins worth of calls etc wi-fi left on all the time but only actually connected to wi-fi at home (just 2G & 3G at work) i would have about 55/60% battery life left by the time i got home from work, on Jelly Bean - with the same useage i had about 40/45% left. I am now back to the same as before on ISC, but i didn't disable google now or anything just turned Wi-Fi off when left home and turn it back on when home - results was 55/60% battery remaining a as on ISC. Seems that the Wi-Fi drains when not connected - either it keeps on searching which it might not of done on ISC or its the Google Now doing something (Does say improve location by keeping wifi on - does this even if not connected!!) - Least this way i can still use google now and see how it improves its tags overtime.
I am now using a App called WiFi Timer to automatically switch Wifi on and off when i leave/get home.
Love that it now has voice downloaded so you can text etc with no data connection - find its more accurate now as well!
Never had the small vids on Youtube when rotated phone so not sure about that. Take it disabling autorotate doesn't do this?
Good and Bad
My experience is as follows:
Good:
Sheer speed, no perceivable lag.
A problem I had with only half the SMS notification tone being played (before it cut off) has gone away.
Bad:
Battery drain terrible even when idle. Turning off Google Now, Location Services and Samsung Push Notification fixed this.
When I activate Smart Stay, the screen does not want to turn off 80% of the time - even when I'm not looking at it.
When I wake the phone using the home key, it exits the app I was in. Previously, this would wake the device and return you to the current app (after unlocking). I have a partial work around using the PreHome app; this way the app is still visible underneath the PreHome dialogue box and I just need to press Back to get to my app again.
Widgets, seem to refresh less regularly, particularly Messaging and Gmail widgets which seem to hardly even refresh when I want them too.
Of No Consequence:
The red charging led is a little dimmer when charging.
Overall:
The speed benefits outweigh the niggles - just!
Dan
ohyesman said:
I am now using a App called WiFi Timer to automatically switch Wifi on and off when i leave/get home.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No need for an App. You can do it inbuilt.
Go to Wifi, Menu button and Advanced
eggman89 said:
No need for an App. You can do it inbuilt.
Go to Wifi, Menu button and Advanced
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep i know, but this app is far better as it lets you setup different profiles for mornings, evenings & weekends etc which the inbuilt one don't. :good:
root?
i may just root my phone as i really am not happy with this jellybean update, nothing has really improved for me, if i root it and install a rom like codename all the features like quick reply would be there right?
I purchased an iOttie car mount for the Note 2 (pretty awesome I might add) and decided to stick a Tec Tile to it (directly under the NFC antenna) so that when I place the phone in the mount, a series of things occur...Media volume 15, Ringer volume 7, CarHome Ultra launch, and Disable Wifi. I programmed the Tec Tile using NFC Task Launcher.
Everything seems to work just fine on the initial read, but after some time (it varies and doesn't seem to hold a pattern), the NFC tag will re-read and start everything over (the screen is on the whole time, btw). Then it will do it again, and again at various times. I can't figure out why it keeps re-reading the tag over and over again at various times.
Additional info:
4.1.1 stock rooted via exploit
Multi-window mod
Brightness nod
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Jamie
I don't think you will have much luck placing a tile where your phone rest. It will attempt to read it over and over again. I ended up placing a tile on my dash. I hit the tile on my dash on my way to my dock in my car.
Thanks. That's what I did as well. However, just wondering why NFC keeps reading a tag on a random basis with the screen on the whole time. There must be some trigger or time-out internally. Oh well...the workaround works.
vortmax said:
Thanks. That's what I did as well. However, just wondering why NFC keeps reading a tag on a random basis with the screen on the whole time. There must be some trigger or time-out internally. Oh well...the workaround works.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know I found out that WidgetLocker (at least, since I apparently hadn't set it properly so the home button didn't unlock it) didn't properly "lock" my phone, so when I had this setup myself, and I'd turn the screen on, it toggled the tag. Because apparently screen on means the NFC reader turned on as well. Possibly when your screen refreshes it was doing the same thing?
Hello,
I recently rooted my Galaxy s7 and there has been one annoyance I haven't been able to figure out despite exhaustive searching. When I turn on GPS, no matter the mode, I get a location consent dialog every time. I have been unable to find a solution that addresses this directly, and there is no module on Xposed for it. There is another dialog box that appears if I want to be in power saving or high accuracy mode, and this is to improve location accuracy by sending anonymous data to Google (agree/disagree). In order for me to be able to use high accuracy GPS this must be agreed to. There are two modules in Xposed that address this, but they bar the user from being able to use high accuracy and power saving location modes in so doing, as it defaults to GPS only if you don't agree to the prompt. I have looked on gravitybox and XTouchWiz and have found nothing that fixes this problem. GPS only is insufficient for me because it has a lot of trouble finding my location and I would rather sacrifice battery life (and privacy) in order to have fast, accurate GPS. I am using a simple Tasker task to auto enable/disable GPS for certain apps, but if I choose high accuracy I have to agree to the improve location accuracy dialog every single time I open these apps. At this point, I think I will have to just leave high accuracy mode on all the time and hope it doesn't completely ruin all of the progress I've made since rooting on the battery front... If anyone has feedback or guidance I would be tremendously grateful.
BUMP
Mrpookie said:
BUMP
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
?
I WISH!
Absolutely depise the redundant unnecessary questioning every time location is required...
Why on Earth is it this way???
Would loce to get a module that enablesbhigh accuracy and kills it when not required
What you can do, which i will likely do, you can automate touch events with tasker.
cantenna said:
I WISH!
Absolutely depise the redundant unnecessary questioning every time location is required...
Why on Earth is it this way???
Would loce to get a module that enablesbhigh accuracy and kills it when not required
What you can do, which i will likely do, you can automate touch events with tasker.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just have Tasker switching between battery mode and high accuracy right now
Totally avoids the popup
Sucks that we can't turn location OFF and back on without this annoying AF popup tho...
Someone has to be able to get rid of it
Mrpookie said:
I just have Tasker switching between battery mode and high accuracy right now
Totally avoids the popup
Sucks that we can't turn location OFF and back on without this annoying AF popup tho...
Someone has to be able to get rid of it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Still ask me to click agree with tasker and no touch events here
cantenna said:
Still ask me to click agree with tasker and no touch events here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Posting SS of my main tasks that toggle the GPS
Note the ones with the grey bar on the left are OFF. They are from the old configuration where I would get the popup. (Or just old, etc) ignore those
JPS variable is my own thing, ignore that