Android App that can tell me what specific program is eating my Battery

Perryg114

Senior member
Jan 22, 2001
768
4
81
I have an older Samsung SIII and it seems that the battery is being eaten by some app that won't shut off. All I get is Android system but I want to know what programs are using the Android system or some other resource and how much they are using. AT&T and Samsung push services have been culprits in the past. I think Google eats a fair amount as well. There are days I have over 50% battery left and others where it is dead before I get home from work. This is regardless of how much I use it.

This is the last Samsung phone I am going to buy. Battery life has always sucked on this phone even if I don't use it. It is too thin to hold in a full size male hand. It is like holding a bar of soap even with a case on it. What does having a thin phone do for you other than make it hard to use and have sucky battery life?

Perry
 

basslover1

Golden Member
Aug 4, 2004
1,921
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See if better battery stats works. It might need root access if you're on a newer build of android like 4.4+.
 

shimpster

Senior member
Jul 5, 2007
458
1
0
location services, fartbook, fartbook messenger...have u went into droid settingz and checked?
 

gorcorps

aka Brandon
Jul 18, 2004
30,739
454
126
See if better battery stats works. It might need root access if you're on a newer build of android like 4.4+.

this, if you're rooted

GSAM battery monitor is the best one. And its free.

this if you're not

The problem with no root access is if it's a phone/google service that's doing it you won't be able to track down what exactly is doing it (locations, media service, etc). It'll just come back as Android System. If it's an actual rogue app though GSAM should be good.
 

KentState

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2001
8,397
393
126
GSAM is good, but without root access Android System is all I can see. It's a work provided phone so not many options.
 

zCypher

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2002
6,115
171
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If you don't already have the screen to toggle apps permissions, download a program like App Ops - https://play.google.com/stor/app/details?id=com.findsdk.apppermission&hl=en

You probably have to be rooted for that too though. It's worthwhile. Becomes clear what's actually going on, and you can disable permissions for individual apps as you need. You'll discover by observing in there, what apps are using permissions that they don't really need and what not. Such as apps using the location services when they shouldn't be, or apps that are accessing the camera when they shouldn't be. happens all the time even with so called reputable apps, so best to check for yourself.

Even if you go in to your usual system/settings menu to disable location services, you're not actually disabling it for anyone but you. You'll discover that apps are still actively utilizing the location service even when you have it "disabled". Disabling the permission for that app seems to actually disable it. But you can also download other tools that can shut down active services individually for the google, facebook etc stuff. But you have to be careful about what you're disabling, since you can obviously break functionality that you do want if you're not careful.
 

Perryg114

Senior member
Jan 22, 2001
768
4
81
I downloaded OS monitor and I think my weather app was staying active and it was eating up CPU time. When I killed it, my battery life went to normal. I will try GSAM.

Perry
 

sm625

Diamond Member
May 6, 2011
8,172
137
106
It is usually the "system service" that goes crazy on my phone. Probably a bug in the NSA subroutines. It's beyond retarded that an OS with billions of devices on the market cant actually give any more information than that. It is like windows 98 all over again.
 
Oct 25, 2006
11,036
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It is usually the "system service" that goes crazy on my phone. Probably a bug in the NSA subroutines. It's beyond retarded that an OS with billions of devices on the market cant actually give any more information than that. It is like windows 98 all over again.

Just because you don't know how to get at the information doesn't mean it doesn't exist.