Android 4.3 + New Maps Location Services = Battery Drain?

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Anyone notice excessive battery drain with 4.3 and location services on? I seem to be draining 3-4% battery on average on 3G on my Nexus 4. I'm checking wakelocks and the most I can find is Gmail followed by Google+ for under 2 minutes.

Yet after 2 hours with only 1 minute of screen on time, I have 30+ minutes of wakelocks. The wakelocks in WLD just don't add up, so I have trouble figuring out what exactly it is....

Edit: To clarify I have location services ON in Settings, but in the Google Apps settings, I have location reporting ON as well as history ON. Since Latitude is dead, there shouldn't be a reason for my location to be continuously updated. This should only be updated for Google Now right? If I have my settings correct, it's quite disturbing that Google Now requires such battery drain.

I previously had Location Reporting to "Off" on 4.2.2, but maybe that's why I haven't been getting Google Now notifications for some time now.

Edit: Per this thread (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2406517) Android Device Manager is a huge culprit. But it's annoying how the settings are binary. Either your phone can be located or it can't be. Perhaps it'd be better if it was passive and the location was ONLY gathered if initiated through ADM online. What's the point of constantly updating my device location in the background?

 

[gorcorps]

I've always noticed battery drain keeping location services on, so I can't say it's 4.3 related.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

I can't help, Maps is broken in the nightly that I last flashed (CM10.2). I haven't really noticed it before though.

 

[Capt Caveman]

This weekend, driving using the Navigator with an usb cable plugged in from my vehicle to charge my N4, my battery still drained at pretty fast clip.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I've always noticed battery drain keeping location services on, so I can't say it's 4.3 related.

Certainly, but before Maps 7, location services wasn't that bad I found. It was Latitude that was bad. Now that they've canned it, they've messed with the Location reporting settings. There's two separate settings. I'm trying to replicate my Pre Maps 7 experience which should be everything ON, but Google+ Location sharing = Off, which is equivalent to Maps 6.0 with Latitude off, but location access on.

 

[soccerballtux]

new maps sucks
google now also sucks
now esp drains battery.
sure you didn't start using both at once?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

new maps sucks
google now also sucks
now esp drains battery.
sure you didn't start using both at once?

I've always used Google Now, but the Maps update was pretty recent. I'm also on 4.3 now.

I probably set my maps wrong with the new maps, but now I've corrected it to mimic my old Maps 6 settings and location settings that I previously used in 4.2.2.

 

[lothar]

I must be the only one that has not updated to Hangouts or the new Google Maps yet.

 

[magomago]

no issues here...4.3 on the nexus with updated everything.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Specifically this is what I'm talking about.

2 hours of online time, but 38 minutes of non deep sleep.

Of course I immediately wanted to look for wakelocks. Other than NLP wakelocks I couldn't find anything else that would really add up to 38 minutes. The rest are negligible.

I used WLD to try to figure out which app it could be... Not very helpful.

What about the standard Android battery screen? Ok. Google Services or Android OS

This 11 minutes of wakelock is probably correlated directly to the network location protocol wakelock.

But what about this 17 minutes?

Before everyone jumps on me for the bad reception I have, these 2 hours were from when I woke up, showered, got ready, drove to work, and pulled into the parking garage. The garage has terrible reception and therefore 0-1 bars.

 

[Apex]

What about the standard Android battery screen? Ok. Google Services or Android OS

This 11 minutes of wakelock is probably correlated directly to the network location protocol wakelock.

What version of Google Play are you on?

 

[Daniel Jones]

I usually keeps my location services OFF to save battery didn't noticed..

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I usually turns my location services OFF to save battery.

Right, but in 4.2.2 this wasn't an issue. Furthermore, with Maps 6.x, there were only 2 variables for location services. You turn the master switch on/off and then Latitude on/off.

Now there's more than that. I'm trying to replicate the 4.2.2 + Maps 6.x experience with 4.3 + Maps 7. I get that people are telling me to turn off "Location Reporting" in the Google Settings options, but then I'd sacrifice Google Now. Shrug. Before Maps 7, I don't recall having that option. Plus, all other apps still have location access even with Location Reporting off. Is Google Now and any other Google app responsible for THAT much battery drain?

What version of Google Play are you on?

3.2.25

 

[Apex]

3.2.25

Sorry, my bad, I mean Google Play Store, not Services.

My guessing the problem is either this:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/mobile/VoYaawQ88yI/YoPB46bOwGMJ

Or you're on a Google Play Store before 4.1.10 or 4.1.11.

 

[magomago]

mmm I almost never have wifi turned on which is probably why I'm not seeing the problem...assuming I have a mismatched version of Google Play services

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Sorry, my bad, I mean Google Play Store, not Services.

My guessing the problem is either this:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/mobile/VoYaawQ88yI/YoPB46bOwGMJ

Or you're on a Google Play Store before 4.1.10 or 4.1.11.

4.3.11. Yeah it could be the problem described there. However, I did some digging in XDA and some guy found that a magical solution would be to uncheck the Location Reporting based on Wifi and Mobile Data.

However, that to me is more of a temporary measure. It's like solving a pipes leak issue by turning you water main off. Well obviously by turning off location services that pretty much every app uses, you will get close to no battery drain. In doing so, you would be neutering your network based location services which renders most weather widgets useless, Google Now useless, etc. etc.

Edit: 4.3.11 not 4.1.11 whoops.

 

[Apex]

4.3.11. Yeah it could be the problem described there. However, I did some digging in XDA and some guy found that a magical solution would be to uncheck the Location Reporting based on Wifi and Mobile Data.

However, that to me is more of a temporary measure. It's like solving a pipes leak issue by turning you water main off. Well obviously by turning off location services that pretty much every app uses, you will get close to no battery drain. In doing so, you would be neutering your network based location services which renders most weather widgets useless, Google Now useless, etc. etc.

Edit: 4.3.11 not 4.1.11 whoops.

Err, yeah, I fatfingered that, 4.3.11.

 

[ponyo]

I've not noticed a difference in battery drain with my Galaxy Nexus. Stock everything. Have you tried going back to stock?

 

[EagleKeeper]

The location services is also used in the background to determine traffic flows for the maps.

You do know about that traffic jam due to an accident 3 miles up the road. Lucky you because of the location service that other people have on their android, you know about the jam; there is an exit in 1/2 miles.

 

[Anubis]

i noticed the huge battery drain after the last big google maps update, for me it was actually worse prior to upgrading to a 4.3x rom

GPS is constantly looking for a location and a lot of times never finding one. Really screws up weather aps,

 

[cgramer]

I've not noticed a difference in battery drain with my Galaxy Nexus. Stock everything. Have you tried going back to stock?

I've had major battery drain on my Verizon Galaxy Nexus since the update to 4.3 (via CM 10.2 nightlies). I'd love to try stock 4.3, but there's no factory image for it yet (for toro) and I don't know how to build it from binaries.

I'd also miss my 5-row, 5-column home screen layout if I went back to stock.

I'll keep updating to the latest nightlies and see if the folks at CM fix things.

 

[Red Storm]

Are you running a custom ROM? I ask cause that other poster had that data issue and it ended up being the fault of the custom ROM.

 

[soccerballtux]

The location services is also used in the background to determine traffic flows for the maps.

You do know about that traffic jam due to an accident 3 miles up the road. Lucky you because of the location service that other people have on their android, you know about the jam; there is an exit in 1/2 miles.

http://www.511ga.org/
they scrape these
which comes from traffic cams

additionally they do the cell stuff
but they scrape these
because of this,
I want teh now off and saving me battery

 

[soccerballtux]

OP this is what pisses me about the googles, they do random crap with updates impossible to see what's going wrong
specifically how they changed the location services so that you either
1. enable GPS access for google whenever google wants it, or
2. disable GPS access for google all the time.
no option for, "only when I am actively running maps because you need to stop sucking my battery"

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

http://www.511ga.org/
they scrape these
which comes from traffic cams

additionally they do the cell stuff
but they scrape these
because of this,
I want teh now off and saving me battery

I think those sites get data from traffic sensors, no? For local roads its a mix of cameras and phones.

I do wonder WHICH option you have to check so that Google gets traffic information from you. Does Mobile Data/Wifi location data mean Google gets traffic data?

1) That's quite a lot of data gathering. Back on Maps 6, the battery difference between Latitude and no latitude was night and day. I'm not sure how much data they collect without Latitude, but it's probably not much--probably not useful enough for traffic.

Latitude on the other hand....

2) Let's not forget that battery would be shit if its so easy for Google to collect that much traffic data. Or is it just shit for a few users? (i.e. Latitude users)

3) What about those with mobile data limits. I'd imagine that collecting traffic data would eat up your data plan too. Every time people say "it's just a few bytes here and there" well it adds up.

I dunno. I'm tempted to say Maps 6 was only really able to get useful information from you if you used Latitude or actively had Maps open and was navigating. Even with Latitude I have suspicions because unless they use a GPS to constantly ping you, they can't get reliable speed information?

Are you running a custom ROM? I ask cause that other poster had that data issue and it ended up being the fault of the custom ROM.

I started with stock 4.3 with root at first and this problem was already apparent last week. I spent this whole weekend studying it more, but by Sunday, I moved to a custom ROM. Let's not pin it on the custom ROM so soon as this seems to be a widely reported issue online