Battery Saving Tips

Updated: 8/13/2013

Part One - Do I need a battery saver?

Many users who load up their phones with a lot of apps, many of them free, will soon start to see their battery levels start to drop a lot faster than they did before.  Then they will download a battery saving app in an attempt to fix the problem, and many times will only wind up making things worse.  Many of the free ones will want to show you ads constantly, which may drain your battery even faster.  Some may trick you into keeping your Internet connections open all the time when the screen is on, under the guise of saving you battery when the screen is off.  In addition, there are a number of apps out there which are just viruses which users are being tricked into downloading through "scareware".  There is even one which is a known virus which you can still download at Amazon.Com last we looked.

Also, make sure you read our blog post on Recommended Antivirus And Privacy Apps which recommended Clueful Privacy Advisor from Bitdefender.  We had a perfect 100 Privacy Score in Clueful on our phone.  However, after downloading a very popular battery saver with a rating almost as high as Battery Notifier Pro BT, our Privacy Score in Clueful dropped from a perfect 100 to 46!  Just by installing this one app!

Many battery saver apps these days are also just task managers in disguise, which will turn off or stop all apps running in the background unless you specifically tell them which ones you don't want them turning off.  We are certain use of these so-called "battery savers" are why we are disappearing from users' status bars more frequently these days, and then we get blamed when the battery saver turns us off.  A battery saving app we tried from a well known manufacturer had a phone only mode which did this, but even worse, they falsely identified many of the apps on our phone including ours as being "power hogs".

And we hate to sound like a broken record, but it still shocks us today when we find very popular battery apps that want so many permissions.  One we found had over 30 permissions.  Do you really want a battery app having that much control over your phone?

If you want to know how much battery your "battery saver" is using, go take a peak at our post Least Battery Drain Verified Again! and then come back here for a battery saver I will mention in a bit that I do recommend for those users that need one.

Doing tests on our own phone using SystemPanel by NextApp inc., we found that keeping the Internet connections on all the time when the phone was just sitting with the screen on, drained our battery at about 6% per hour.  Turning off the Internet dropped the battery drain to 3% per hour.  When the screen turned off and it was put to sleep, battery use dropped to about 1.5% per hour.  So obviously to save battery you want to keep the Internet off and the screen off as much as possible.  Set your screen timeout to two minutes or less, and you will have solved half of the problem.

We still believe most people don't really need all those extra controls or an extra battery saver app running in memory constantly in order to save battery.  Just do number one in the list below and keep all your Internet radios off and only turn them on when you need them.  However, if you are one of those people who have to be constantly in sync with the Internet all day long, but don't want the battery drain associated with keeping the Internet on all day long, there is one battery saver we can recommend.  It's called BatteryFu battery saver by Toby Kurien.  It uses little battery or memory, and has just enough permissions to work properly.  Best of all, it's free and it has no ads.  It got many one star ratings when it first came out for being buggy with early versions of Android, but the bugs are gone now and the app has gotten mostly 4 star or above reviews for the past year.  If you really feel you need a battery saver, it's the one we recommend.

For most people who don't need constant contact with the Internet, it's easy enough to just make some simple adjustments yourself to save battery, and here are the tips we've found that we believe from experience help the most.


Part Two - Battery Saving Tips

Radios
1) Turn off all radios you aren't using
This means switching off the WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth and 3G/4G when you don't need them.  If you don't have an option to turn off 3G/4G, put the phone in Airplane Mode.  Turn off all the apps that are using GPS or location; many of them will keep using the GPS to determine where you are and feed you information based on your location.
2) If all signal strengths are about equal, to use the least battery use WiFi first, then 3G, then 4G.  If you have a strong 4G signal, 4G may be best not because it will use less battery, but because it can download more efficiently.

Display
3) No live wallpapers.  Darker wallpapers are preferable to light ones on some screens.
4) Put the screen timeout or sleep to the lowest setting that doesn't annoy you.  Two minutes or less is best.
5) Turn off auto-brightness and instead drop the screen brightness to 20%, or the lowest you feel it still looks good to you.
6) Get rid of excess screen widgets, or else severely limit how often they update.
7) Turn off unnecessary display animations  (Auto-rotate is OK).
8) If you have Power Saving options, turn them on and leave them on.  The only exception here is if you find your Android status bar is particularly dull and hard to read, then turn the power saving off for the screen only.

Notifications
9) Limit notifications.
Notifications are useful, but frequent ones tax your battery.  Be smart about which app notifications are enabled.  Make sure those apps that are always busy, like Twitter or Facebook, aren't always refreshing with new updates and notifying you of them.  With email, make sure you don't have notifications enabled for every new message.
10) Control background syncing
The more often apps sync, the more battery they use. And there are dozens of apps that sync: email, calendars, contacts, Dropbox, weather widgets, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Google Talk, and more.  Each app has its own settings, so go into each one and set the sync interval for the longest you can stand, or to manual or never for ones that don’t really matter.  Facebook can ignore what is set sometimes and turns automatic syncing back on by itself.  Likewise, Skype and Google Talk like to keep connections open and sync behind your back.  Sign out of them when not in use.
11) Turn off automatic updates in the Google Play Store
You can leave the Notifications option checked to have Google Play notify you when updates are available, but we found the reminders got annoying after awhile, and now we just check for updates once a week or so.  Download the updates when your battery has plenty left, and use WiFi when possible.  Or plug in your charger, and then download the updates you want.  Be sure to check to see if any updates have any added permissions.
Do a scan with Clueful when you are done to see if any privacy issues have changed.

Location, location, location
12) Control location services
This might be under Google Maps - Menu - Settings - Location Settings, or Google Settings - Maps & Latitude.  Uncheck all of the following: "Report from this device" or "Location reporting", "Enable location sharing", "Automatic check-ins" and "Check-in notifications".

Battery Draining Apps
13) Eliminate unnecessary battery draining apps
We still feel the best battery monitoring app to eliminate apps that are draining your battery is the paid version of SystemPanel by NextApp, Inc.  It's relatively simple to understand once you get used to the menus, and it can monitor apps over hours or days while still taking up little battery itself while it does the monitoring.   We were able to eliminate some apps that we previously liked, but which we found were taking up over 3% of the battery each.  Another option but a bit more complicated is Battery Stats Plus by Root Uninstaller.  You can also share stats with other users of the app by uploading your stats to their website.  It can show you "draining apps" which are above a certain threshold which you can tweak (default is 1%).  One advantage over SystemPanel is they also have a fully functioning free version with ads.  However, once we bought the paid version, we think they go a bit too far still pushing their other apps for our tastes.


Things that in my opinion don't matter much, that others say you should turn off:
1) Haptic feedback
2) Vibration
3) HTC sense

Status Bar Number or Battery Widget?

When I got my first Android phone, I loaded my screen with free widgets.  A widget for this, a widget for that.  It didn't take long for me to realize my battery was draining quicker than it was before.  I then bought the paid version of SystemPanel to discover which apps were draining my battery the most.  I discovered that some battery widgets I had, while pretty, were definitely draining more of my battery than another app I had installed, Dmytro Shkil's Battery Notifier.   In fact, Battery Notifier was using next to nothing.  The more I tried other apps with battery levels in the status bar, the more I was impressed with Battery Notifier.  Dmytro would just say it was "lightweight", but since I ran tests with other battery apps, I knew it used less battery than the others.  Fast forward to today...

I can understand why someone would want an app like SystemPanel to eliminate the apps causing battery drain on someone's phone.  But why would you want a battery monitoring app running all the time if you want to use the least battery?  All those fancy screen graphs monitoring other apps have got to be using more battery if you ask me.

And while a simple battery widget may not use much battery, which screen do you put it on?  All of them?  Three of them?  And if you're watching a movie, or playing a game, or texting like mad or talking on the phone, why would you put a battery widget on your home screen out of view, when you could just look up and see the battery level you had left in the status bar?  And many apps that allow full screen will still allow you to swipe down to the extended notification area and tell you the current battery level without having to return to your home screen.

For me, a status bar number makes a lot more sense than a battery widget on my screen.
And since I got rid of my other battery monitoring apps, battery savers, and the fancy widgets, and just use Battery Notifier Pro BT, my battery life has never been better.
I often go for days now without charging my phone or tablet.

For my own battery saving tips, and why you should be cautious of battery savers,
see my post on Battery Saving Tips.

larryvgs

Recommended Antivirus and Privacy Apps

Malware
Just yesterday I was having a conversation with a security guard, and as soon as I mentioned Android, he said, "Do you know there are places you can go on the Internet where all the paid apps are free?  And I sadly replied, "Yes.  But do you think the people that offer these paid apps for free do it because they just think everyone should get free apps?  Or do you think it is more likely they alter it, and then give it to you for free so they can steal information from your phone?"  "Huh." was all he could say.

How serious is malware on mobile phones?  If you only download apps from the legitimate sites like Google Play, the risk of getting a virus is significantly lower to be sure.  However, sadly, I did find a known virus you can still download at Amazon.Com.  

Malware On Mobile Grew 163% In 2012, Infecting Around 32.8M Android Devices
Despite the somewhat alarming headline of the report above, if you follow the link above to a companion story, you will find that "mobile malware affects only one percent of apps."

So what's the real risk?  Well, almost all malware is showing up on Android these days, and the problem is not likely to get better before it gets worse.  And even though only 1 in 100 apps are affected by malware, how many apps do you have on your phone and where did you get them from?  Do you have at least one app from a "friend" who is sharing his app with you?  In that case, I'd say your odds are higher than one in a hundred.  Hopefully using one of the antivirus apps I've recommended below can help our users rid their phones of these risky and potentially dangerous apps.


Recommended Antivirus Apps
Bitdefender Antivirus Free, VirusTotal

With the dramatic increase in malware for Android in the past year, I recommended that everyone have an antivirus app on their phone or tablet these days.  I've tried quite a few of them, and I don't like to put an app on my phone that requires too many permissions, even if it is an anti-virus.  I also don't want them to be too complicated, and I don't want them to be expensive.  I also want it to be a name brand that has been around for awhile.  As you can imagine, this narrows things down quite a bit.  Most of the paid ones from known antivirus companies cost $29.95 a year.  Then I came across a new app from Bitdefender that came out just last month.  It's called Bitdefender Antivirus Free.

It has the same antivirus protection as their Bitdefender Mobile Security & Antivirus, but without all the extras.  If you decide you want the extras and want to upgrade, Bitdefender Mobile Security & Antivirus has a 14 day trial period, and is only $9.95 a year.  Bitdefender has always had one of the best detection rates for antivirus software and PCMag.Com gave Bitdefender Mobile Security & Antivirus their Editor's Choice award this year.

But the reason I really like Bitdefender Antivirus Free is because of how lightweight it is, and because of how few permissions it needs compared to the other name brand antiviruses.  It uses definitions in the cloud, so you need Internet access to run a scan, but it also scans much faster than the others in my opinion.  It also has options to scan storage, and to automatically scan all new apps, and that's about it.  But if you want something lightweight and simple that isn't going to slow down your tablet or phone, this is it.

A great backup antivirus app that also is totally free is VirusTotal.  VirusTotal checks the applications installed in your device against VirusTotal (http://www.virustotal.com).
It will inform you about malware (virus, trojans, worms) on your phone by having your applications scanned by more than 40 antiviruses, flagging any undesired content.  Please note that VirusTotal for Android does not provide real-time protection and, so, is not a substitute for any antivirus product, just a second opinion regarding your apps.


Spyware / Privacy
How serious is spyware on mobile phones?  Well, believe it or not, as far as privacy is concerned, it seems Apple phones are worse than Android phones.
iOS apps leak more personal data than do Android apps

In a study of the top 50 free apps on both Apple and Android, 60% of the Apple free apps tracked users' location whereas 42% of the Android free apps did.  What's even worse is a majority or 52% of Apple free apps had access to a user's contacts and addresses, whereas only 20% of Android free apps did.  But how do you know if you have one of these apps that accesses your contact list?  Well, you could take the time to look up each app on your phone and scroll down to read the list of permissions for each app, or you could use Clueful.


Recommended Privacy App
Clueful Privacy Advisor

For users concerned about their privacy, another app from Bitdefender that I highly recommend is Clueful Privacy Advisor which is also free.  Bitdefender says "Clueful doesn't show you clues based on the permission only.  It provides clues resulted from a static analysis of the binary and the auxiliary file part of the application packet, without running the app, and clues resulted from a dynamic analysis: the normal execution of the app."

AndroidPolice, one of my favorite sites, recently did a review of Clueful.
Bitdefender's Clueful Spots Privacy Leaks, Keeps Your Apps Honest

Many times I'm wary of "sponsored reviews", but in this case I agree with everything that's said.  Clueful reads each app's set of permissions and which SDKs they may be using, but it takes this approach a step further, as each app's activity is checked in Bitdefender's labs (i.e. the cloud), and a detailed report of what the app is capable of doing is provided to the user.  It's then up to you to decide if the app should be allowed to do what it's doing.

I especially liked this next part of the review, which verifies what I have been warning our users about some Android battery apps out there...

"Once you've found the applications that make you shake your head in disgust, a tap of the name will tell you why Clueful gave it the ranking that it did  For example, there is one "high risk" app on the Nexus 7 we used to test the application, and naturally, we want to know why.  Turns out it's not so pretty.  We actually weren't aware that BatteryDash was using Airpush.  Thankfully, we were able to uninstall the app directly from Clueful.  You can also share your findings and publicly shame potential privacy spies, which is actually a nice touch.  Immediately after removing BatteryDash from the system, the Privacy Score jumped by 29 points.  Instant gratification!"

After the first scan of my HTC phone, it had a Privacy Score of 70 out of 100, and my Samsung tablet had a privacy score of 59 out of 100.  I had only a few moderate risk apps on both my phone and tablet, but after uninstalling just the updates to some factory installed apps, both devices now showed a perfect privacy score of 100!  I suspect Clueful therefore only is able to test the apps you yourself install or update, and not the apps which come pre-installed with your phone or tablet, because I've read some not very nice things about the Facebook app that is still on my phone, factory version or not.  But I can always disable the Facebook app again if I choose to.  

As I mentioned in my Battery Saving Tips blog post, I suggest that to save battery, you should never have apps auto update.  You can have Google Play notify you about updates if you choose, but do the updates yourself.  Always be sure to check to see if any permissions have been added.  Google Play will have "NEW" next to added permissions.  If you decide to accept the added permissions and do the update, and even if no permissions have changed, do a scan with Clueful afterwards to make sure nothing privacy-wise has changed.

Also, e-mail me at larryvgs@gmail.com and let me know if you've come across some particularly bad app thanks to Clueful, (especially if it's a battery app).  Even if achieving a perfect 100 is not possible unless you uninstall updates for many of your pre-installed apps as I have, Clueful Privacy Advisor is still a valuable tool to see what those apps you install yourself are capable of.