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Doesn't this constant use of GPS drain the battery? On every Android-based smartphone I've had ( two! ) I've only enabled GPS and network-derived location when

Doesn't this constant use of GPS drain the battery? On every Android-based smartphone I've had ( two! ) I've only enabled GPS and network-derived location when I need to navigate, otherwise the phone shuts-off in a few hours.

mdpye 13y ago
Network derived location does not represent a meaningful extra power draw. GPS involves a separate radio system (rx only, admittedly) and is only active when something actually requests your location...
- dingaling 13y ago
  Interesting re: the GPS usage, thank you. I would have thought that the process of repeatedly acquiring the satellites and establishing the fix on demand would have been quite an overhead, though. /me goes to read more Network location does require wifi to be permanently active, which for some reason seems to be a magnitude more power-hungry than 3G. So most folk I know turn-off wifi when not interactively using it.
_mulder_ 13y ago
I believe it keeps GPS positioning to a minimum, relying primarily on network-derived location data. At least judging by the granularity (or lack of) the route data, which causes my commute to work to look most confusing. Secondly, and this in my opinion is a bug in their algorithm, when I'm at home it frequently switches to my home location and a location about 10 miles away. The only reason I can see for it to do this is it's predicting my location based on my cell site location (phones know which tower they're connected to, Google must know where all these towers are). And my normal cell tower is 5 miles away (right in the middle of my two "locations"), so clearly the algorithm has determined I'm 5 miles away from a cell tower, but can't make up it's mind in which direction. It needs tweaking to remove data points when I suddenly cover 10 miles in a second, over and over.
- chrisrhoden 13y ago
  Do you have another device at home?

mdpye 13y ago

Network derived location does not represent a meaningful extra power draw. GPS involves a separate radio system (rx only, admittedly) and is only active when something actually requests your location...

dingaling 13y ago
Interesting re: the GPS usage, thank you. I would have thought that the process of repeatedly acquiring the satellites and establishing the fix on demand would have been quite an overhead, though. /me goes to read more Network location does require wifi to be permanently active, which for some reason seems to be a magnitude more power-hungry than 3G. So most folk I know turn-off wifi when not interactively using it.

_mulder_ 13y ago

I believe it keeps GPS positioning to a minimum, relying primarily on network-derived location data. At least judging by the granularity (or lack of) the route data, which causes my commute to work to look most confusing. Secondly, and this in my opinion is a bug in their algorithm, when I'm at home it frequently switches to my home location and a location about 10 miles away. The only reason I can see for it to do this is it's predicting my location based on my cell site location (phones know which tower they're connected to, Google must know where all these towers are). And my normal cell tower is 5 miles away (right in the middle of my two "locations"), so clearly the algorithm has determined I'm 5 miles away from a cell tower, but can't make up it's mind in which direction. It needs tweaking to remove data points when I suddenly cover 10 miles in a second, over and over.

chrisrhoden 13y ago
Do you have another device at home?