Ways to decrease app's battery drain on Android?

[mh1983]

Hi all,

I'm new here, so go easy.

First off, love the app on my LG P500 running CM 7.2, so much so that I have a low-cost prepaid data feature, made Fongo my primary number, and bought the Canadian texting package through the app. Love the functionality and having a lower cell bill, so want to extend my thanks to people at Fongo for that.

One thing I'm not impressed with is how much this app drains my battery. I have to recharge daily to keep the phone up and running; in the morning if I'm at 100%, I'm down to 50-60% by bed time (typical usage is ~10 min of calls and 3-4 texts). 90% of the time I'm on my home WiFi and when I step away I switch to 3G (rarely make a call or text on this connection).

For some context: I'm by no means an advanced user, but I definitely tinker with my phone (hence running CM 7.2) and try to optimize it as best as I can. I don't allow unnecessary apps to run in the background. I put the phone in airplane mode wherever possible (going to bed, for example), keep brightness low, turn off connections I don't need, etc.

Also, I previously ran a battery saving app (pre-Fongo, I could go for days and days on standby without recharging), but I read somewhere that these apps can cause Fongo/other VoiP apps to constantly attempt to reconnect to WiFi or data.

Since removing the battery saver, ironically my battery life has improved, but I'm not happy that I have to recharge daily. Mind, it's not the newest phone/battery so I realize it's a bit long in the tooth, but as said before, the battery life was recently worlds' better than it is now.

I'm wondering if any seasoned users have any tips or tricks to improve overall battery life while on Fongo. I like that Fongo has a slew of settings, so am wondering if enabling/disabling anything in particular would help. Any tips are greatly appreciated!

I keep the app up to date, so I'm hoping the devs will continue to look at ways to improve the app's footprint on our phones and optimize it further.

Thank you again for all the hard work on this app!

[mh1983]

Hmmm, no response. But I did hear back from Fongo support. Thanks to them for the timely response and excellent feedback and troubleshooting suggestions.

In case it helps others: I've determined that the WiFi lock setting is draining the battery. Unfortunately I can't seem to get around using this setting; I've tried to disable it and the incoming call reliability goes down considerably, even if I check the "Never Sleep" option in my Android settings (2.3.7 Gingerbread, by the way. I think this might be a known bug.) All I've done otherwise is recalibrate my battery, but doubt that helped much.

Will likely keep things the way they are and get an extended battery at some point. Just wondering, though, if there's a way to reduce the power of the WiFi lock? (Ie. is there an advantage to using a third party app that can create a WiFi lock over the Fongo setting?). Anyone?

Thanks, everyone!

[mh1983]

Another thought: I figured that leaving WiFi on/lock rather than having it constantly sleep and reconnect would go easier on the battery?