Improve widget battery usage
I love Calengoo's monthly widget. However, it drains the battery drastically.
After adding the calendar widget, the battery level dropped 22% after only five hours! All the radio functions were off and phone was not used at all for that period. This is significant considering that I usually get 7 days of battery lifetime.
I prefer widgets that allow using manual update only. That way I can use it as a snapshot of what needs to happen today. If I want to refresh it, I can do it manually (usually after making adjustments in the calendar). This has a significant impact on the battery lifetime.
So, I'm back to using Pure Calendar Widget as it updates every 12 hours and helps the battery stay alive for 7 days. With current Calengoo's implementation, it would be around 24 hours or so.
Please, at least allow manual update only (when clicking some part of the widget). I love how the widget looks and combines tasks and events. That is a killer feature but the widget is currently useless for me, considering how much battery drain it causes.
Cheers!
I think I was nevertheless able to improve the battery usage of the month widget with version 1.0.31 so I will close this idea now.
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Alen Siljak commented
After the restart, the app seems to stay within 16-20 MB range in the past two days. Just done the first Sync from within the application (after the restart) and will see if that changes anything.
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CalenGoo uses an internal cache to speed up the display of days. It is automatically cleared every time something is changed, so it shouldn't grow too large. 102MB seems to be a lot. I will also watch it myself.
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Alen Siljak commented
Hey, another quick update. With 1.0.33 (also could be from earlier) CalenGoo tops the CPU/battery usage list overnight, with no use, and battery fully charged just before.
Also, Android started reporting "low memory". CalenGoo app grew to consume 102MB just before I restarted it. It was usually in the 20+ range in previous versions.
I'll monitor to see if this behaviour persists.
Cheers -
Great, thank you for testing it again! :-)
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Alen Siljak commented
CalenGoo's battery usage is (as per Wheres My Droid Power report) well into 0.0x% now. This is way less what it used to be. Considering I'm now using the widget while I did not previously, this is a great result.
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Alen Siljak commented
That's great news! Thanks.
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I will try to improve the battery usage of the month widget soon, I think I can make it better check if there are really changes that have to be displayed.
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Alen Siljak commented
http://alensiljak.blogspot.com/2011/03/zeam-launcher-improves-battery-life-on.html
With Zeam Launcher and CalenGoo monthly widget the phone used only 5% for the day (in comparison with usual 15% when on TwLauncher)!
These are great results so I'm taking my points back :) and considering this request now irrelevant. If anyone complains about the same issue - have a look at Zeam Launcher and replace your default home screen! It is free. -
Alen Siljak commented
Quick update:
I am trying out Zeam Launcher instead of the default TwLauncher on Galaxy S. So I added CalenGoo monthly widget for a test similar to the last case, listed above. After fully charging the battery, I left the phone lying for five hours with all the radio off. This time, the battery was at full 100% after that period!
Will continue monitoring the battery drain and my usage for the next couple of days. So far I conclude that either there have been improvements in the latest versions of CalenGoo or different launchers communicate with widgets in different ways.
However, this is very good news. I will post update(s) for the next couple of days. -
Alen Siljak commented
I'm referring to the monthly widget here, btw.