asksven

BetterBatteryStats

sven — 2011-08-17T23:47:01+01:00

BetterBatteryStats

BetterBatteryStats is a replacement for the missing Wakelock stats in Gingerbread. Wakelocks are an important aspect when it comes to finding rogue apps / battery drainers so I decided to replace that missing part. BetterBatteryStats is of course no battery drainer itself (remember the theory about changing the conditions when measuring?). In order to achieve that BetterBatteryStats relies on the non-public API of Android's battery service (details on this weill be made available shortly).

Even if designed to fill a blank in Gingerbread BetterBatteryStats runs under Froyo.

Downloads

BetterBatteryStats is available for a fair price on the Android market
get sources from GitHub

Changelog

2011-08-17 v0.8.1: Clean-up after app validation, added logging for analysing canvas/display density problem on EVO 3D / Desire HD
2011-08-16 v0.8.0: New graphics/icons courtesy to xda-dev member nobnut, #15 the 100% of wakelocks can now be selected between total time, awake time, (awake time - screen on)
2011-08-07 v0.7.0: #3 titles of stat types are now speaking, #4 graph bar added to stats, #14 Added menu option to open GB battery history, Added stat type (speaking) to dump, Better haptic: long running operations are threaded
2011-08-01 v0.6.1: Fixed “Since” not being displayed in “Custom Ref” (#13), Wakelock count not being shown (#12), Error message regarding state not being saved (#11)
2011-07-31 v0.6.0: Added menu option “refresh”, added possibility for user to set his own “custom” reference (#10), added option to dump stats to a file (#9), added total time since the stat is running to the main screen controlled by preferences (#7), implemented percentages in wakelocks (#4 partially)
2011-07-25 v0.5.1: More information about Package/Programm, code was profiled
2011-07-24 v0.5.0: Added “Other Usage” stats
2011-07-22 v0.4.0: Added preferences for default selection, removed Network Usage due to non resolved issue #1
2011-07-19 v0.3.1: first public version

android

[Draft] How to optimize battery time with BetterBatteryStats - created

sven — 2011-07-31T22:17:53+01:00

[Draft] How to optimize battery time with BetterBatteryStats

This document describes a systematic procedure to optimize battery life on your android phone. Different tools will be used to proceed, among other BetterBatteryStats when it comes to pin and get rid of unnecessary wakelocks.

In order to be successful there are a few rules to follow:

don't change too much at a time
keep track of your results
proceed in iterations
don't change the reference
monitor your phone regularly to detect any negative changes

The structure of the document follows the steps on how to proceed:

Find out what keeps your battery draining
Detect hot spots
Define a plan of action to get rid of the hot spots
Implement the plan
Verify the results
Go back to 1. as often as required (but not more, don't get obsessive)

At the end of document I've added a summary of the tools I have used in this how-to.

0. Thanks

1. Find out what keeps your battery draining

2. Find out what keeps your battery draining

3. Detect hot spots

4. Define a plan of action to get rid of the hot spots

5. Implement the plan

6. Verify the results

7. Repeat

Don't get obsessive with battery drain and stop when you have reached a battery life you are happy with. Of course there is always space for optimization but we don't want to get perfectionist.

8. Summary of the tools

BetterBatteryStats - created

sven — 2011-07-19T21:55:14+01:00

BetterBatteryStats

BetterBatteryStats gives Gingerbread the so useful battery statistics (especially wakelocks) that were enabled by Spare Part under Froyo. I have just released the first public version 0.3.1.

android

Android projects

sven — 2011-07-19T17:29:19+01:00

Android projects

Legacy projects

These are a few open source projects I've been working on.

CryptLIBOpenPGP

CryptLIBOpenPGP is a collection of Pascal routines and classes that implement the OpenPGP packets. It compiles and has been tested (and will be maintained) for Delphi.

This library is freely available with source code. It can be freely used and distributed conformingly to the terms of the General Public Licence (GPL). Version 1.0

Version 1.0 implements packets types 1, 2, 9, 13. Basically these packets were ncessary to implement sfoPGP, an OpenPGP packet analyser.

CryptLIB

Crypt_LIB is a collection of Pascal routines that implement cryptography. It compiles and has been tested (and will be maintained) both for Delphi and GPC.

This library is freely available with source code. It can be freely used and distributed conformingly to the terms of the General Public Licence (GPL). Version 2.0.1

A fix was made to MD5 for compiance with the RFC Version 2.0

Version 2.0 implements Blowfish and Blowfish CBC with random init. vector, ElGamal, ISAAC (RNG) and LargeIntegers (library for large integer artihmetics)

SChatBUDDY 3.0

SChatBUDDY is an application based on Crypt_LIB. It provides a user interface to crypt text and clipboard support to transfer text from/to a Chat program like ICQ or IRC.

SChatBUDDY supports public key encryption (ElGamal) so there is no need for transfering cleartext sesion keys.

SChatBUDDY is freely available as source code or compiled application. It can be freely used and distributed conformingly to the terms of the General Public Licence (GPL).

Sniffer for OpenPGP (SfOPGP)

sfoPGP is now available with source code

LedEffects - Added GitHub repo for sources

sven — 2011-07-04T16:23:48+01:00

LedEffects

LedEffects is an Android service designed to manage notifications:

Led Effects for different events
Notifications
Vibration
Sound
LedEffect has a night scheme to turn off viration and sound in certain timespans

Originally it was specifically designed for XDAndroid or any other Android distro running on linux-msm.

It now has been extended to handle more phones (e.g. my unrooted HTC Desire).

Supported effects are:

incoming call
SMS
Mail (K9Mail is supported)
charging
IM (XtreMePP is supported)

Downloads

The sources are now available at Github LedEffects is also available at SlideME and AndAppStore

Changelog

2010-04-05 v0.6.1.1: fixed a bug preventing the sleep effect to be applied properly after changing it in preferences
2010-04-07 v0.7.0.0: added sound and vibration option for each effect and mute setting for specific timespans
2010-06-27 v0.9.0.0: added support for multiple devices (Desire)
2010-06-28 v0.9.0.1: bugfixes: the sound checkbox is taken into account properly, the player is terminated properly (timed or when e.g. a call is responded)

Recommendations

LedEffects rely on the concept of Broadcasts to receive events from the system or from other apps. For that to work apps must have been designed for that.

email: the default email client (gmail and email) are poorly designed and do not care about the surrounding world. On the other hand devs of K9-Mail have added broadcasts to their architecture and LedEffects of course support those.
IM: neither the gtalk client nor any other IM client I know of (fring, ebuddy, nimbuzz) care broadcasting. That's one of the reasons why I develop XtreMePP, an open XMPP client.

android

Fixed SpareParts for Gingerbread

sven — 2011-07-03T17:21:29+01:00

Fixed SpareParts for Gingerbread

Some may have notices that trying to access “Battery History” in SpareParts on Gingerbread Force Closes. The reason is detailed here.

com.android.settings.battery_history.BatteryHistory

is not “known” under Gingerbread anymore and was replaced by

com.android.settings.fuelgauge.PowerUsageSummary.

I've fixed the apk for anyone interested.

Unfortunately this does not provide the so helpful statistics (especially wake-locks) anymore but shows the battery stats with graph as available from Settings → About → Battery Usage.

android