1. jalba3's Avatar
    Hello. I just updated my poyn on my 8900. I was wondering if I always allow poyn to access GPS does it remain on even after I close the program? I go to advanced options under GPS and location services says its on after closing the program. Will this drain the battery?
    D

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    03-09-09 06:45 PM
  2. aristile's Avatar
    If you leave your GPS on it will drain the battery on. However, I leave mine on all the time and it doesn't seem to be a significant drain to me.
    03-09-09 07:00 PM
  3. pwerry's Avatar
    Hi Folks!

    Usually we try to save the end user the headache of implementation details but there seems to be significant confusion about this topic.

    Here's an explanation of how Poynt's GPS module works:

    1. When Poynt launches, it starts up the GPS chip.
    2. While your GPS chip is warming up and scanning the sky for satellites, Poynt tries to get a cell-site locate from a cell-site location provider.
    3. If the cell-site locate is successful your dot will turn blue.
    4. When the GPS chip connects to the Global Positioning System and you start getting real GPS locates, your dot will turn green. This can take up to 2 minutes (but empirically it is much less in the most common scenarios).
    5. During the time when your GPS chip is scanning the sky is when the most power is consumed. After the first lock (dot turns green) the battery consumption is greatly reduced.
    6. Poynt will keep your chipset "hot", meaning you won't have to scan the sky again and again, thus saving battery power.
    7. If you background the app, Poynt will keep the chipset hot for 2.5 minutes and then shut it down after that.
    8. If you close the app, Poynt will shut down the chipset immediately. Subsequent restarts will require a sky scan again if the gps chip is cold (occurs roughly 20 seconds after the chip is shut down).

    Some special notes:

    - BlackBerry Maps does not need to be installed for any 3rd party app to use the GPS chip on the device.

    - We have tested the battery life in a number of different scenarios with Poynt, and the most battery drain we've seen is total drain after leaving Poynt in the foreground for an entire work day (14 hour period).

    - When Poynt was left running in the background, the battery drain was seen to be the roughly the same as when it was closed.

    Hope this helps!
    03-10-09 04:18 PM
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