Mobile Phone Battery usage - Any News??

[Chris Thorpe]

@Corjan-Meijerink I can't believe my little Google pixel 2 is using 5 miles worth of my ebike battery, that's quite a lot of power usage, especially as I let the bike do most of the work . It does get warm too.

[Leen Hoek]

@Chris-Thorpe Thanks for sending me this thread. I made some adjustments and next week I will try them out. I'll keep you posted if it brings any improvements.

[Paul Smith b]

@Corjan-Meijerink I have seen your comment that HERE were working on the battery usage last year but I had the same issue this week. From reading other comments do I take it that if I use the TomTom map the battery usage may be better??

[RetiredWingMan]

@Paul-Smith-b the Tomtom can be used for planning route but the MyRoute-app always uses Here for Navigation.

[Erik 35]

This is really a point
the battery consumption is almost unacceptable.
Last week, while riding 4 days Tracks in the Eifel, I decided after lunch to continue riding with the Tomtom go Ride app.
because even with my phone on the charger the battery drained so quickly that I was afraid it would otherwise Die halfway through the day

[Paul Smith b]

@RetiredWingMan ah I see thanks. So clearly won’t make any difference to battery usage !

[Paul Smith b]

This post is deleted!

[Paul Smith b]

@Erik-35 yes that’s exactly what happened to me, my phone went dead halfway through the day. So I lost both the use of my phone and my satnav via my CarPuride unit. Luckily I was able to get some charge at my lunch stop but it’s really not good enough!

[Robert Smith 2]

@Paul-Smith-b Agree, I never use MRA, have gone back to Waze. The battery usage is a massive flaw and has been going on for far too long.

[Marinus van Deudekom]

@Paul-Smith-b if you use Carpuride why would you leave thé screen of your phone. Put it in thé trunk and connect it to a usb power source and save a lot of battery time on your cell

[Marinus van Deudekom]

@Robert-Smith-2 Yeah since Waze is the app to use if you want to navigate a planned route. NOT NOT NOT

[Robert Smith 2]

@Marinus-van-Deudekom Lucky I also have a Garmin XT and Beeline Moto for my bikes then. The point is, if you're going to sell a nav app, ensure it is usable and doesn't run the phone battery flat. That is pretty basic stuff and its not like it hasn't been a year since the issue arose.

[Marinus van Deudekom]

@Robert-Smith-2 It's not that basic stuff as you say. If you have your phone on a good USB powersource it still takes a lot of power but it will keep running. If you run it without a power source any nav app will run down.
The team is doing it's best to solve the problem with Here and that is exactly the problem they work for MRA en are depending on the folks at Here to get it solved. It has improved a lot but yes there'sstill work to be done.
Meanwhile smile and keep enjoying driving

[Paul Smith b]

@Marinus-van-Deudekom that is what I am now doing but it does seem to be a flaw with the MRA programme with it’s battery usage far higher than other similar apps?

[Marinus van Deudekom]

@Paul-Smith-b like its been said a lot. The problem is not MRA but Here and Corjan is doing his best to get it solved.

[M. Schrijver]

When navigating. Do not trust only on your phone battery. Make your phone is connected to a powersupply.
Every navigation app drains your battery. One more than the other but every app does.

That said. I totally acknowledge the battery usage. But somehow on my trip in Scotland MRA did not drain my battery not a single day.
Outside temps during the day where around 12 degrees (celcius).
Every day my battery stayed on 100% and the phone remains cold.
Possible cause. Lack of roads in Scotland and therefore less screen rendering needed.

[Rajp]

Curious why Scenic.app doesn't suffer from this excessive battery drain whilst MRA does - both apps use HERE maps

Thoughts?

[Lynchy67]

@Rajp

Not every one has this issue.
My personal preference is not to use the voice prompts as I prefer to visually focus on the route line.
It is mentioned by the Dev's that having Voice Notifications enabled can be the cause of the battery drain.

[Rajp]

@Lynchy67 but I'm comparing like for like, I use both voice and visual, online navigation and online maps - in both apps, and Scenic doesn't drain battery half as much as MRA.

The issue exists for everyone, just because you disable some features doesn't mean the issue isn't there, you're just not being impacted by it

[richtea999]

@Rajp said in Mobile Phone Battery usage - Any News??:

Curious why Scenic.app doesn't suffer from this excessive battery drain whilst MRA does - both apps use HERE maps

Thoughts?

Merely a theory, but MRA uses Flutter rather than native code which I've noticed isn't necessarily as quick/efficient. That's because there's an extra layer of code to 'detach' the Flutter code from the native UI elements.

The second possible reason is that Flutter tries to redraw only the parts of the screen that have changed (as does any decent OS/library), but it's very easy to code that poorly and end up redrawing stuff that doesn't need to be refreshed. Been there, done that! If the HERE API hasn't finely tuned the redraw logic (which admittedly takes time, skill, and a sh*tload of testing), then there will be CPU cycles and battery being used unnecessarly.

Pure guesswork, though, that theory.