Android Question FusedLocation battery use

[Rusty]

Is it better to leave FusedLocation running in a service, for example, if you are going to request the GPS coordinates every X minutes or so? (i.e. 15 minutes)
Or should I execute FusedLocation.Disconnect; terminate my application and restart it after the interval has elapsed?
My phone keeps notifying me that my app is consuming too much battery...
Thanks,
Rusty

 

[tigrot]

Hi Rusty, I'm asking the same question... I have an App running, when needed, the FusedLocation package. I thougth that it was optimized for power saving, but I don't think it does any power save...

 

[Rusty]

Hi Tigrot,
I too thought it would be better than full "GPS", and maybe it is, but it is eating my battery right now.
I hope to learn how to manage it better where we can save battery yet still get our location information.
Let's see what the forum suggests.
Rusty

 

[udg]

Hi, you may be interested in reading Erel's answers to a similar thread I started a couple of days ago.

udg

 

[tigrot]

In one APP after getting a fix I keep Fused... running for additional 1 minute after I get a fix then close it. I restart it after 10 minutes if I need other fixes. I have a 1/10 active time. This saves 9/10.

 

[Widget]

In one APP after getting a fix I keep Fused... running for additional 1 minute after I get a fix then close it. I restart it after 10 minutes if I need other fixes. I have a 1/10 active time. This saves 9/10.

I think it would be valuable for those people who are writing GPS apps that continually record GPS coordinates in the background, can do some battery testing to see how well their technique can optimize the power. I'm thinking if they could publish a 2 column table showing the technique used "Fused:1Min=On,9Min=Off" and Battery life: "4.3 Hours". And compare that to the Base Line, running the app in the foreground without any battery saving code implemented "Base Line Updated Every 10Min" "2.1 Hours". Then we can compare the 2 techniques to see the percentage that the battery life can be extended compared to the Base Line. The base line would of course check the GPS the same # of times, but without any power saving features enabled and running in the foreground.

What do you think?

 

[tigrot]

My app starts gps on demand. It's beta now. It's not simple to use as tester...