how to improve battery life

[Dilip]

Hi All

I love aqua mail pro,  so much better than Kaiten.  I'm using a Galaxy Note 4,  on Lollipop.

I wanted to ask what I could do to improve the battery life.  Seems that Aqua is the highest user when i view my battery usage.

I have 2 accounts using PUSH.   My folder sync 250 messages at a time.  For mobile i've set the download limit to 64KB per message only.  However, what could I do to improve battery life?  What should i do with the imap-push keep alive setting?  would making that to 'none' be better or making it to the maximum time be better?

any other tips to improve battery life would be appreciated (but not lowering my messages sync),  and I must use push.

Thanks!

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Please check system settings -> battery, and click into AquaMail

Do you see:

- A reasonable "keep awake"

- And a really high "mobile radio active"?

If you do, please see this:

https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=165558

[Dilip]

Hi Kostya,  thanks for your reply.   Yes in fact thats exactly what I see and i did read your other posts about this matter.
I was just wondering if there were any small tweaks I could do to my imap settings to improve things slightly.

There is a function called 'imap keep alive',  should this be set to 0 minutes,  or set at 15 minutes for better battery consumption?

I've also set my fetch mail frequency to 2 hours.  And I only have 2 folders on push.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

The bug has such horribly humongous impact that any "small tweaks" are irrelevant.

I made a test app that only uses the network for 1-3 seconds every 15 minutes -- and yet the system keeps the mobile radio in "high power" for 5 minutes each time.

That's wrong by a factor of 150 (or thereabouts). Too much to balance out from the app's side.

[chris3g]

i'm not convinced this is anything other than a reporting bug.

I did some tests

on wifi, mobile radio active time does not increase and aquamail does not display high on the usage list.
with wifi off, mobile radio active increases rapidly and aquamail is always listed as top consumer.

Yet, observed standby battery drain is very low and actually slightly better on mobile data than wifi. I typically see 0.8% / hour on wifi and 0.5%/ hour on mobile data on my S6, that is of course without any other usage and the screen off.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Well, my personal everyday phone is affected, and it drains pretty fast (when I'm on mobile data).

And there are comments in the bug report about very noticeable, very short, total "lifetime" after charging.

On the other hand, yes, it could be a bug in how it's reported, and may explain why Aqua's affected so much (with multiple network connections, one per account at least... if each connection is counted).

I already made a test app for this, perhaps it would be worth making it open multiple connections at a time, to see if the reported %% becomes higher.

And yet, if this is just a simple reporting bug, not sure why 1) it's not fixed yet and 2) there are no comments at all from Google people.

One way to explain it is that the bug is somewhere between Android code and low-level cell modem code which they get from Qualcomm and other chipset manufacturers. But that's just my conjecture of course.

[Dilip]

I really do hope google will get this bug fixed soon.   Although the radio active time is very high,  I haven't noticed that much of a battery drain.

I have a question about the push mail keep-alive,  should it be kept at None,  or at 15 minutes to conserve some battery?

[mikeone]

I really do hope google will get this bug fixed soon.   Although the radio active time is very high,  I haven't noticed that much of a battery drain.

I have a question about the push mail keep-alive,  should it be kept at None,  or at 15 minutes to conserve some battery?

Please read this explanation from Kostya:
http://www.aqua-mail.com/forum/index.php?topic=2148.msg8045#msg8045

[Kostya Vasilyev]

>> I really do hope google will get this bug fixed soon

So far the haven't -- there are reports that it's still present in the "M preview" (Android 6.0 "in development").

>> Please read this explanation from Kostya

You can try 15 minutes, but I don't think it's going to make any difference.

[Trailerman]

I'm using the free version of Aquamail and about to buy the Pro version.   I'm currently testing battery usage on 3 or 4 different email apps, and am not seeing unusual loads with Aqua, but wonderef if there was any news on the battery drain issue that has been discussed here and on other threads?

I have a Galaxy S6 Edge+ and originally saw terrible battery life, but it's improved dramatically since I turned mobile data off when not in use.  I'm guessing this relates to the issue under discussion here.

Thanks for any updates or feedback.

Jules

[Fcasoli]

Aquamail is not battery killer, I use energy saving to save battery but not related to this email client. Galaxy S6 have not a big battery, so you must must hope in continuing improvement of the firmware.


Phone: Galaxy Note 4
Watches: G-Shock Gulfmaster, Rangeman,  GW-M5600

[Kostya Vasilyev]

If you're asking about the infamous "mobile radio active" (or "total connection time" as Samsung calls it) --

-- that's an Android system code issue, and has to be fixed by Google.

Google said it's fixed in Android 6.0, but not released and probably won't be until we see the final version (it's not in the latest "preview" of 6.0). So we only have words at this point, no real confirmation.

Assuming it is really fixed:

How / when / if it trickles down into the already released 5.* firmwares (Samsung, Sony, LG, HTC...) and especially what it means for last year's models -- remains to be seen.

[Trailerman]

Thanks for the feedback. 

FWIW, Aquamail is showing the lowest battery usage of the 4 mail clients I've been testing for the last 24 hours, all setup with the same email account and the same mail-checking frequency.

Jules

[tmoody]

Thanks for the feedback. 

FWIW, Aquamail is showing the lowest battery usage of the 4 mail clients I've been testing for the last 24 hours, all setup with the same email account and the same mail-checking frequency.

Jules

Same here. In the course of a day, TypeMail had about twice the battery percentage as Aqua, and that was seemingly due to a LOT more mobile radio time, since Aqua actually burned more CPU time. I got similar results comparing with MailWise. Those are the only two I've tested.

[nadir husain]

with some folks recently lamenting poor battery life is it true that "cloud based " apps consume less battery (all other things being equal) or is it just a myth exploited  by proponents of that style of app ? if true , would love to hear the logic/reasoning behind it.