StreetComplete uses a lot of battery

[Rudloff]

Hello,

I am using a Fairphone 2 with Android 6.0.1. My battery is is 2-3 years old and does not last very long but it is way worse when I'm using StreetComplete 5.0. When I'm actively using the app, I lose ~30% of my battery in 30 minutes.
At first I thought it was mostly due to the GPS, but I disabled geolocation in Android settings and it still uses a lot of battery.

The strange thing it that in the battery report, most of the battery usage is not attributed to StreetComplete but to "other usages":

(You can see the battery dropping very quickly near the end, when I started using StreetComplete.)

[westnordost]

Is it the same if you disable GPS? Am 29. April 2018 01:36:57 MESZ schrieb Pierre Rudloff <[email protected]>:

…

Hello, I am using a Fairphone 2 with Android 6.0.1. My battery is is 2-3 years old and does not last very long but it is way worse when I'm using StreetComplete 5.0. When I'm actively using the app, I lose ~30% of my battery in 30 minutes. At first I thought it was mostly due to the GPS, but I disabled geolocation in Android settings and it still uses a lot of battery. The strange thing it that in the battery report, most of the battery usage is not attributed to StreetComplete but to "other usages":  (You can see the battery dropping very quickly near the end, when I started using StreetComplete.)

[Rudloff]

Yes, I tried to completely disable geolocation and it still uses a lot of battery.

[westnordost]

What is "autres utilisations" if you switch the smartphone to English? Did you try to google for what is behind this item?

[rugk]

He said:

The strange thing it that in the battery report, most of the battery usage is not attributed to StreetComplete but to "other usages":

(and DeepL also translates it to "other applications")

BTW, personally, I've never seen that entry in the Android battery usage – very strange it cannot attribute such a large amount of battery usage to an app.

[westnordost]

I asked not how one would translate it but how specifically it is translated in Android - so that one can google for it.

[Rudloff]

It is called Miscellaneous in English. The detailed view contains some explanation:

This article also has some useful explanations: https://medium.com/@dotandroid911/what-is-miscellaneous-battery-drain-in-android-how-to-fix-it-d6eb9035e513

[westnordost]

Phew, okay. I thought that the battery stats would be smarter. I.e. monitor the CPU usage of apps and calculate the battery usage of these apps based on that, etc.
Also, since the smartphone shows the connection strength of wifi and mobile to the user, it should be quite simple to put this into the calculation.

Anyhow, this leaves us (me) with no clue where this might be coming from. It is possible to monitor CPU usage with Android studio, might do that, but I don't think I will see any surprises.

[matkoniecz]

Is it possible that it was happening in area with poor network connection?

I never encountered it, but some people claimed to notice extreme battery consumption with phone attempting to use low quality or missing network connection (constant reconnecting).

It would fit that battery consumption was not attributed directly to Street implemented.

[Rudloff]

I already encountered the behavior you are talking about, but here it happened in a city with a good 4G signal.

I could reproduce the issue several times in the past days, it clearly happens when I'm using StreetComplete, the battery starts draining very fast (almost 1% per minute) and it stops when I kill the app.

[westnordost]

Also if it is in the background? Am 30. April 2018 10:56:49 MESZ schrieb Pierre Rudloff <[email protected]>:

…

I already encountered the behavior you are talking about, but here it happened in a city with a good 4G signal. I could reproduce the issue several times in the past days, it clearly happens when I'm using StreetComplete, the battery starts draining very fast (almost 1% per minute) and it stops when I kill the app.

[Rudloff]

No, only if the app is in the foreground I think.

Edit: I also tried to uninstall/reinstall the app and I can still reproduce the issue.

Edit 2: Actually, it uses less battery (but still a lot).

[westnordost]

I can reproduce it. It seems to be caused by the compass on the upper right corner. Will investigate.

[HolgerJeromin]

Good that the fairphone battery are out of stock. Otherwise i would have ordered a new one already :)

[westnordost]

It looks like looking for the compass was a red herring.

It is true that while the map is shown, even if not moved, rotated etc, 10% CPU is used continuously (as opposed to i.e. 0% when in the settings screen), so I guess this could be the reason for the battery drain. However, even if the compass is never updated, it changes nothing.

[westnordost]

It looks like most of the CPU time is spent in a GL thread, I guess the tangram-ES GL thread, more specifically, in the function eglSwapBuffers.

I checked if the existance of shader code in the map style may be the culprit. It is not.

I think I will ask in the tangram-es bugtracker for help.

[westnordost]

tangrams/tangram-es#1800

[westnordost]

fixed

[Rudloff]

Thanks a lot for investigating this!

[HolgerJeromin]

Could you push an update to play store? :)

[ENT8R]

In #1041 (comment) @westnordost said that he wanted to release an update today/tomorrow

[westnordost]

Tomorrow. I want to have #1039 and ideally #1037 sorted out first.