this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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Privacy

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As the title say, I have 2 android phones , both factory reset and logged in with google accounts. Checked the dns logs on both-

Phone 1 connects to google server but is minimal

Phone 2 is going bonkers, connecting to google server , xtracloud server etc.

Phone 2 battery drops 5% in a hour and phone 1 doesnt drain at all.

Which bring me to the conclusion that phone battery draining has something to do with google accounts as phone 1 google account has fake name and details but other has real name and also a phone number linked to that account.

Please feel free to correct me. Thanks

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Here's my little experiment:

  • Fairphone 4, brand new, totally stock Fairphone OS, a few resource-light apps installed, light use for a week: 23 hours of use time from 100% to 20% battery on average.

  • Wiped the same Fairphone 4 after a week, installed CalyxOS (deGoogled Android), reinstalled the exact same apps and used the phone the exact same way for a week (I still do in fact...): 44 hours of uptime on average.

I know with 100% certainty that literally the only difference between week #1 and week #2 was that the phone didn't spend its time constantly reading the sensors and sending surveillance data to the mothership.

So there ya go: even if you're mad and you're a fan of Google's dystopia, the extra load on the system does come with a significant performance pricetag.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This is very interesting, makes me wanna share my experience too, in my case between 2 different custom ROMs, but with the same phone:

  • Lineage OS for microG but without device registration, cloud messaging and safety net disabled

  • /e/OS which is essentially lineage os for microg + tracker blocker but with all the device registration, cloud messaging and safety net enabled

Both are rooted with magisk.

e OS would consume MUCH more battery compared to my previous installation of Lineage, so i was wondering if those microG settings can actually change this much, or if pheraps it is the tracker blocker or something else.. Another difference is that e/os has a more recent Android version than the version of LOS for microg i was using.

Was your Calyx install clean or it had Gapps or microg or something similar?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Just MicroG.

I have another cellphone with vanilla LineageOS on it and it too saw a dramatic battery life improvement, of the same order as the almost doubling I see with the Fairphone. I don't think MicroG makes much difference.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Check the Google settings. If one of them is constantly recording your position, that'll drain battery rather quickly.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Telemetry. Welcome to Android.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I've been raving mad about this exact shit for years.

I'm not a developer, but I remember how long pre-smartphone would last with little 500mAh batteries. Even after 3g and into 4g connectivity and well after the proliferation of less efficient Bluetooth a phone would last anywhere from 3-14 days between charging.

Now every phone has 3,000-4,000mAh batteries and, besides 5g, the wireless standards have become significantly more efficient.

The only notable offset is the big touch screens, but even those have gotten more efficient, and seems not to matter because standby time is still trash now too.

I doubt there's a continous A/V feed to servers, but 100% our phones are always listening for keywords/phrases locally and then sending "relevant" data back for ads, on top of the always on location tracking.

It's hilarious that phones cost as much as they do, considering how unwieldy and low screen-time they've become, on top of the idea that we're paying to be tracked.

[–] WhoRoger 2 points 1 year ago

I'd guess different setups both of the phones and accounts. For example if one has enabled Google location in settings, and stuff like location sharing isn't disabled, the phone will be pinged much more often. Same if you have office documents on cloud, synchronisation with phone book and stuff like that.

And yea it makes sense that an account that's more active is of more interest to ping more regularly. Maybe also for security too. Tho I don't know if it has to be an actual conscious decision by the designers of the systems or just some AI algorithms doing it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Are they 2 different phones? Different phones behave differently

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are those 2 phones the same model?