A team of researchers from Purdue University and Microsoft has discovered that up to 75 percent of app-related battery drain in Android can be caused by ad-serving processes. Led by Abhinav Pathak, the team developed an energy profiler named EProf, which is able to perform fine-grained analysis of the battery use of any Android app, separating each thread inside and recording its energy use. The team tested five popular Android applications including Angry Birds, FreeChess, and the New York Times app using a HTC Passion (Nexus One) running Android 2.3.
In testing Angry Birds, Pathak recorded energy usage for one level of gameplay, and found that less than 30 percent of the app's battery drain was caused by the game itself. The other 70 percent was consumed by the uploading of user information metrics, location, and downloading and displaying of adverts. Pathak notes that although the user profiling occurs only once, new adverts are displayed with each level, causing similar battery drain to occur throughout gameplay.
In FreeChess — a game downloaded over 10 million times — the team started a game and profiled a 33-second period. The test yielded similar results. with around 70 percent of battery drain being caused by ad-related processes. It wasn't only ad-serving apps that wasted battery life on non-essential functions, however, with both the native browser and the New York Times app expending around 15 percent of their total usage performing user tracking.
Pathak explained to us that the team's objective wasn't to expose any particular app or advertising agency for using too much energy, but rather to develop software that can help developers and advertisers to improve the efficiency of their software. Android ads don't have to consume so much energy — they're just poorly coded at the moment, the study suggested. The team plans to release the EProf tool for free under an open-source license soon.
Update: Abhinav Pathak has just reached out to let us know that his team is currently working with Microsoft Research to bring the EProf tool to Windows Phone, in addition to expanding its research on energy efficiency.
Comments
Sorry, but my Galaxy Nexus’ battery issues don’t lie with the apps, LTE, or OS for battery issues. The screen is constantly 60%+ of my battery drain.
By t3lancer2007 on 03.19.12 4:11pm
“75 percent of app-related battery drain”
I believe they’re referring to power consumption by a particular app, rather than the system overall.
By ricequackers on 03.19.12 4:13pm
Of course. But I was just referring to my own battery usage concerns. I though AMOLED saved battery lol.
By t3lancer2007 on 03.19.12 4:24pm
Unless you’re displaying black text on a white background. Then it’s the other way around.
By isights on 03.19.12 4:27pm
I think it honestly depends on what the App displays as black, or dark grey. I’ve noticed that the clock, when set to dim, jumps into a dark grey instead of the actual black I have on my background.
By t3lancer2007 on 03.19.12 4:30pm
Good point, although every little bit counts. 3g is also going to consume quite a buy of power — probably the main reason for that 70% power usage increase.
By GrizzlyAd on 03.19.12 4:15pm
LTE uses a tiny amount of battery life with my phone, but I don’t do too much streaming.
By t3lancer2007 on 03.19.12 4:23pm
If I stream a movie over LTE for about an hour, I lose about 25%-30% battery life on droid razr maxx.
By Aoyoc on 06.11.12 2:34pm
it’s a nice screen, minus the temperature shift cast (thanks samsung). and the high battery drain might be worth it if things like the compass worked at least some of the time. [hijack] i’ve been thru 3 galaxy nexuses myself, and none of them work with google maps street view compass mode or sky map. calibrating sometimes fixed the problem, but as soon as the screen shuts off it’s back to square one. [/hijack]
By TheDarkIn1978 on 03.19.12 4:17pm
I honestly have had few, if any, problems with my Nexus other than the screen draining my battery.
By t3lancer2007 on 03.19.12 4:26pm
I don’t trust the battery statistics (at least on 2.3.4), because I can play Draw Something for 45 minutes straight and be nearly completely out of battery, and the phone doesn’t even show that app as using any. It shows all the power usage as “Display”.
By wicketr on 03.19.12 4:46pm
Do you need a board whacked over your head?
By kulanapan on 03.19.12 5:25pm
Do you need a new sarcasm detector?
By toomuchcoffee on 03.19.12 6:28pm
Where does Draw Something ‘display’ its content again? ;)
By Zertz on 03.19.12 6:16pm
I have been using Android since 2008 and with my personal usage I have always gotten 24 hours of battery life but with the Galaxy Nexus (HSPA+ model) I get 48 to 72 hours!
By jdog25 on 03.19.12 5:27pm
WTF? Do you not use your phone? I only get 19-20 hours with about 1-2 hours of actual usage (the rest being idle time).
By gonintendo on 03.19.12 7:56pm
I check email, send text, talk for a little bit, updates apps, check twitter. I don’t rely on my phone all day because I’m siting in front of a computer and I have 3 phones, one personal cell, one work cell and one office phone. My main point on my comment above is that I haven’t really changed my habits in 3 years and I get a lot more battery life on my Galaxy Nexus.
By jdog25 on 03.20.12 12:12am
I have just upgraded from a HTC Desire to the Galaxy Nexus, and so long as I’m not using the 4g, using the exact same daily usage I get the same as you, about double battery life.
By tylerbrainerd on 03.20.12 1:14am
I could also not use my phone all day and get fantastic battery life, but alas, I actually use my phone.
By t3lancer2007 on 03.20.12 4:10pm
I see that you don’t get my point so I’ll explain it another way. If I used my phone all day long because I didn’t have a life and a job and only got 6 hours of battery life on my old phone then I would still be getting double my battery life with my Galaxy Nexus at 12 hours. It doesn’t matter how much you or anybody uses the Galaxy Nexus they will still get double the battery as their previous Android phones. I was getting the same battery with my last 4 phones the G1, Google Ion, Nexus One, and Nexus S.
Good day sir.
By jdog25 on 03.20.12 9:20pm
I can get a whole day’s worth of normal usage out of my GNexus. If I’m on it a lot, I might have to charge it in the evening. And that’s running stock. With a custom kernel, I wouldn’t have to charge it at all during the day.
By kulanapan on 03.20.12 12:14am
Never trust the built in battery breakdown Android provides. It’s someones attempt to guess, and it’s not actually measuring independent power draw across all the components it shows. I’m really not sure why it’s there.
All it took for me was 4 days of device ownership to realize how fake the data was. I had a bundled app keeping the radio and CPU busy, and the app never showed in the list. Even keeping the phone screen off for a good 6 hours, then checking battery drain resulted in the OS blaming the display.
By drakino on 03.19.12 7:00pm
Something is wrong with your phone then. Or you’re using an OEM kernel that’s misrepresenting stats. Moto’s tend to do that. The Nexus does an accurate job of reporting battery stats. I’ve never second guessed its metrics.
By kulanapan on 03.20.12 12:15am
It’s still a guess on any Android phone. None of them actually monitor power draw of the components it claims. Even Engadget (pre Verge exodus) noticed the same, on a completely different device:
Perhaps on the Nexus it’s better about really monitoring “Cellular radio was active for X minutes, meaning Y power draw” compared to others. But from what I can tell, all that screen on Android has done is make people always assume it’s the screen resulting in the major battery drain. While potentially trie in many cases, it’s often a red herring when searching for the real reason.
By drakino on 03.20.12 4:30pm
The only thing that could possibly draw more power than the screen, in a normal use case, is the cellular radio, and that would only happen if one was talking on the phone for several hours a day.
By kulanapan on 03.20.12 9:30pm