High "Idle" battery drain

peabrain

I installed GOS as soon as I got my Pixel a few days ago with sandboxed play services with all the permissions turned off (network, sensors etc.). I use WiFi ₇₀% of the time with cellular forced to 4g only.

Idle battery drain is abysmal. Just this morning, I woke up with a different of ₁₀% loss over the span of about 7 hours. I have been trying to pinpoint what is causing this, but battery manager is not useful. The "Idle" being the highest percentage (23% 1 day 3 hours), is quite vague and not giving any clues as to what is happening.

Surely it is not normal to have over 1% drain per hour?

wojon

peabrain 10% loss over the span of about 7 hours

Seems about right to me. Like I said, the drain is the same for me. I doubt you can reduce that.

BluishHumility

peabrain I installed GOS as soon as I got my Pixel a few days ago with sandboxed play services with all the permissions turned off (network, sensors etc.).

peabrain Is it possible that Google play services is sucking the life out the battery? It is not even allowed to connect to the network.

peabrain After removing sandboxed google play, it seemed the high idle battery drain was fixed. Overnight drain become more reasonable at about 3%

This is somewhat alarming. What causes GPS to continue consuming resources if it has no permission to do anything? What on earth is it doing?

Is there any way to further disable GPS, beyond just turning off all permissions?

evalda

My experience is similar - around 10% battery discharge over night. But I think it's actually not bad at all considering some things are always running on the background.

mythodical

My average has been 4-7% loss overnight on my Pixel 7, and that's while running Signal, K-9 Mail, Syncthing, and Etar/DAVx⁵ as background services without Play Services. I also use only one profile.

I was experiencing unexpectedly poor battery performance while actively using the device when I had the 90Hz refresh rate enabled, but since reverting to 60Hz even active performance has been excellent.

wojon

mythodical That's interesting to know. I have almost the same software setup, same phone. While being connected to WiFi and 4G at the same time, my phone loses 1%-2% over night. So if you lose 4%-7% your nights are either really short or your phone uses less battery than mine does. With an 8h sleep I lose around 14%.

Surprisingly, it seems to me the screen itself, or browsing, or watching some movies doesn't use a lot of battery.

peabrain

mythodical

Is it possible that Google play services is sucking the life out the battery? It is not even allowed to connect to the network. Or could that be the issue?

mythodical

wojon it certainly could be due to less sleep at times :)

I believe that cellular and wifi signal type and strength can also have a direct effect on battery consumption, which can make small differences much harder to pinpoint.

mythodical

peabrain I can't really say from experience, but others here have said that WebSocket-based notifications will typically use more battery than delivery via a shared Play connection (e.g., many individual connections vs. one app connection providing all notification deliveries). Perhaps that depends on how many WebSocket-dependent apps are running and whatever other services Play is providing, I don't know.

wojon

mythodical Well, who needs sleep anyways. ;)

In my experience - turning off radio and wifi reduces battery drain significantly. It is known that the chips used in google pixel are not as energy efficient as qualcomm chips. There's not a lot one can do.

On a sidenote - the european union finalized a new law. Soon all smartphones will have easily exchangeable batteries again. Maybe starting with Pixel 9. Let's see what this new law brings us then, battery-life wise.

mythodical

wojon since you mentioned having a similar setup, I'm curious if you've added battery exceptions for Signal or K-9 Mail. I haven't, but I've seen it mentioned here before.

In my experience, the Alarms and reminders special app access has been enough to start apps at boot and keep them running throughout the day.

The only apps that I've unrestricted for battery optimization are Syncthing and DAVx⁵, because they prompt to do so, and Etar...I'm still testing if this last one is necessary, but I've been been overly cautious of missing appointment notifications.

wojon

I have not granted any battery exceptions. In my experience this is not needed for Signal or K9. Also, my calendar app does not have battery exception set and works well. So you might try removing that.

Dusk7066

+1 here. The weirdest thing to me is that when I used the same apps and config on a Pixel 6 it was a better experience, with even more battery than the stock rom and both profiles. But I tested it on September. Maybe in a few months this could be fixed idk

peabrain

After removing sandboxed google play, it seemed the high idle battery drain was fixed. Overnight drain become more reasonable at about 3%, although it does mean that a bunch of my apps no longer work. There was nothing to indicate that it was even an issue.

peabrain

The drain was so bad at one point with play services that one night drained almost 25%

newbie24689

FWIW, "Lift to check phone" is set by default; ISTM that an active individual could have his screen activated in his pocket many times during the day. (Of course how long it stays on is a configuration option).

Also, I presume everybody physically shuts down his screen after use, rather than waiting for it to time out.

peabrain What kind of device are you using?

spiral

newbie24689

newbie24689 in my experience with Lift To Check Phone, the screen is completely off when I pull the phone out of my pocket and tapping the screen does not activate it. Every time I pull phone out of my pocket I must press the side power button to activate the screen, ergo I do not think the screen is regularly turning on inside a pocket.

My idle battery drain overnight with P6a has been crazy too, 20-25% while on wifi, only Owner profile active with no vpn

peabrain

Pixel 7. I had tried turning off "Lift to check phone" and "Tap to check phone" as part of my testing too. That made no perceivable difference in drain.

newbie24689

FWIW the heaviest battery user on my P7 is "Phone idle". This was the case even before I installed a physical SIM a couple of days ago.
Sigh.......I'm guessing I need to test:

Going into Airplane mode at night (hope I remember to turn it off in the morning :-) )
and/or
Stopping "phone services" over night.
and/or
Additional tests?

So the questions are:
a. Has anyone already run these kinds of tests? If so, what conclusions please.
b. Any suggestions for additional "phone" tests?
............TIA

wonder75

newbie24689 The standard way to monitor app wakelocks on rooted devices is the app "Better Battery Stats". I am unsure if it would work on GOS though. Maybe worth a try. It's on F-Droid

newbie24689

Thanks for the suggestion, wonder75
BBS and GOS didn't get along - regurgitation after trying forbidden (rooted) assess.