[zten]

Is it possible that the "Allow gestures while screen is Locked" could be draining battery? If it is enabled wouldn't the screen sensors need constant power supply even when not being used?
Just a thought.

I'm disabling mine for a week to see if it makes a difference when the phone is off.

Posted via CB10

[jasonyip33]

Yup it definitely is draining battery. That's why the flip shell is so popular because it can turn the phone on when you flip it open, so you can disable using gestures to turn on the phone.

[zten]

How does that work? I use a magnetic belt case thing but it doesn't turn on my phone when I pull it out l.

Posted via CB10

[nasi goreng]

How does that work? I use a magnetic belt case thing but it doesn't turn on my phone when I pull it out l.

Posted via CB10

What is your case? Otterbox? If yes the magnet is not strong enough since the bezel is about 5mm thick.

Work around is to glue a thin magnet on top of the original magnet.

Posted via CB10 on my zed10

[zten]

I am using the belt holster made by blackberry the leather one where you slide the phone in.

Posted via CB10

[toutounjiomar]

Has anyone tried this ? Does it really work ?

[zten]

In trying it for a week will report back.

Posted via CB10

[Arreat]

The power consumption of a touchscreen digitizer is in the nanoamp range. Leaving it on all day would only use one mA maximum. I doubt it is an issue.

[nasi goreng]

I am using the belt holster made by blackberry the leather one where you slide the phone in.

Posted via CB10

That's strange, anyway back on topic let us know how the test goes

Posted via CB10 on my zed10

[so crow]

Yeah will be very interesting to hear your thoughts after the test I will check back for more.

Posted via CB10

[zten]

I will let you guys know. I think it must have something to do with drain especially when the phone screen is off and the phone isn't being used.

Posted via CB10

[crohns]

I'm sure you will get longer life out of your battery, with Gestures turned off.

[zten]

It makes sense doesn't it.. but kind of defeats the purpose. But I'll do anything for extra battery .

Posted via CB10

[PedanticUser]

The power consumption of a touchscreen digitizer is in the nanoamp range. Leaving it on all day would only use one mA maximum. I doubt it is an issue.

This.

[zten]

I seriously doubt that especially since this device has touch on lense technology.


This.

Posted via CB10

[si001]

I am using the belt holster made by blackberry the leather one where you slide the phone in.

Posted via CB10

I'm using the same one, my phone turn off when I slide in, and turn back on when I slide out.

Posted via CB10

[zten]

I'm using the same one, my phone turn off when I slide in, and turn back on when I slide out.

Posted via CB10

Maybe my holster is broken

Posted via CB10

[John Vieira]

I used to have a Nokia N9 which also used gestures to unlock (a double tap in that case) and you can believe me when I say it makes no difference, I have already tested it.

He'll, the screen being led and not lcd is actually on all day (except in pocket) and even that was set up to drain very little power.

So no, the gestures wouldn't have any noticeable power drain.

Posted via TimeMachine

[zten]

But it doesn't make sense, in order for you to be able to swipe up and unlock it St any time means that the screen is actually always on just dimmed. This definitely has to have power otherwise you would have to press a button before swiping. So that means the screen even when dimmed is active meaning its consuming some power. It can't be consuming nothing. I'm talking about when the phone is locked and the screen is off. It still active and using power since it allows you to immediately swipe to unlock. This would mean that the screen even though it is in your pocket is still somewhat actively waiting for you to unlocked it using a swipe.

So even if you don't touch your screen for five hours, it was sitting there waiting ready for you to touch it. Because it doesn't know when you will come by and swipe to unlock. And to do this it has to always be on and consuming power.

Posted via CB10

[brmiller1976]

Theoretically, the other component that could cause related drain is the algorithm that waits for input and uses processor cycles to wake up the phone. If the algo is poorly written, it could result in a massive drain due to the processors being "fully on" while waiting for input.

Though to be fair, I've noticed (using Battery meter) that the big 2 watt+ drains happen during heavy interactions with data (even WiFi). It especially spikes when accessing and responding to notifications.

I'm on Verizon 10.0.9 if that makes a difference...

[zten]

That makes a lot of sense, I'm thinking with the lock gesture disabled the phone will waste less power when NOT IN USE.


Posted via CB10

[brmiller1976]

It would surprise me if BB overlooked something that big, though.

I'm thinking there's a problem with the power management software. There's clearly dynamic management in effect, since charging spikes to 4+ watts and drain can vary between -0.10 and -2.5 watts depending on activity. Makes me wonder if the power management software isn't properly controlling the radio or the processor to squeeze extra life out of the charge.

[peter9477]

But it doesn't make sense, in order for you to be able to swipe up and unlock it St any time means that the screen is actually always on just dimmed.

That's not the case. The capacitive touch portion is not directly tied to the display portion, so it's possible for the touch part to be active while the screen is completely off and not using any power. This is what happens in standby, by default.

brmiller1976 also mentions the processor... but there are multiple processors in the system, as there are in most complex embedded systems. In this case there's a separate touch controller, and it does the touch detection independently of the main CPU, then sends messages to it to describe what's happening (basically).

Possibly the option to disable the gestures while in standby actually means that the main CPU disables power to that touch controller entirely. As someone noted above, the actual power savings are probably very small, possibly not measurable in any simple test.

(I'm running a test now to see if I can detect the difference... I don't expect to be able to.)

[zten]

That's not the case. The capacitive touch portion is not directly tied to the display portion, so it's possible for the touch part to be active while the screen is completely off and not using any power. This is what happens in standby, by default.

brmiller1976 also mentions the processor... but there are multiple processors in the system, as there are in most complex embedded systems. In this case there's a separate touch controller, and it does the touch detection independently of the main CPU, then sends messages to it to describe what's happening (basically).

Possibly the option to disable the gestures while in standby actually means that the main CPU disables power to that touch controller entirely. As someone noted above, the actual power savings are probably very small, possibly not measurable in any simple test.

(I'm running a test now to see if I can detect the difference... I don't expect to be able to.)

What are you running a test with what are your methods?

Posted via CB10

[peter9477]

What are you running a test with what are your methods?

Using Battery Guru to report the power readings at two-minute intervals. Enable airplane mode, make sure nothing is running except Battery Guru. Put into standby. Wait a long time.

After 3/4 of an hour, I just woke it up and quickly checked the latest power reading... it was only 0.02W, which means it's probably too low for a direct power measurement to be useful here, though I haven't checked the more accurate CSV export yet. Nevertheless, I've just disabled gestures and I'll give it another hour that way and will do an initial comparison with the exported data.

More likely it will require going for several days with the device in standby and radios disabled the entire time, and using the drop in battery level as the metric. This has inherent inaccuracies as well but the power usage in standby -- and the effect of this gestures feature -- is so small that it's probably the only option. I doubt I can afford to relinquish my phone for long enough to perform this test any time soon.

Anyway, it's clear to me that the effect of the gestures feature is so small that a user who drains his battery in less than a day would, at best, have a very hard time noticing this. It's certainly less than a 5% effect, and I still say probably under 1%.