GPS Power Consumption on Mogul

[rbadh91]

hey guys...with all the talks bout gps going on...i thot bout checking on how much battery gps chipset consumes vs having it off. I know few people wanted to have it ON all the time to use program like sprite terminator track the position of the phone if its lost or stolen.

I have used acbpowermeter and it shows gps uses more than twice the power. This test does not include running a gps program like tomtom or iguidance...just astrogpslauncher to turn the chipset on.

attached are 2 gif images showing the power consumption overall;
One w/ GPS off and the other w GPS ON

In both test i had to have the screen ON with brightness in the Exact middle in settings.
Test Results
W/O GPS
Avg consumption: 80mA
5 Min consumption: 6mAh

W/GPS
Avg consumption: 197mA
5 Min consumption: 17mAh

[CromDubh]

though I know the gps would consume more power...for me its wanting to know what is the more power efficient...running the internal gps...or having to have bluetooth on so I can use my bluetooth gps

[aph]

Can you test one with just GPS Today running? It's supposed to consume a lot less battery

[vetvito]

^ Don't see how as it is still running GPS.

[rbadh91]

ok guys...i wasnt running a gps software...but i had primed the gps (gave power to the gps chipset) using astrogpslauncher...i just wanted to know how much more power is the chispset using than not having it on at all.

@aph - i doubt it will use less battery...as it would still b accessing the chispet (using same power that astrogpslauncher is).

@CromDubh - i dont have a bt gps unit...but you can use acbpowermeter and find out...and please post results for others.

[scoobdude]

i would assume the power consumption would be different due to the bluetooth being a lower power radio (max 30 feet) and also depends on the program (google maps will d/l map pieces while other will read them off the card requiring one less wireless data transfer).

So if you were going to test BT vs AGPS can i recommend using one of the programs read from card AND then another set using google maps or something similiar?

[defaultdotxbe]

well the thing about GPSToday is its supposed to use less battery because its not constantly running the gps, it just powers it on every few minutes to get a fix on your location, so its not always running like with astrolauncher

[gbenj]

i donwloaded acbpowermeter and it working fine, i just wanna understand how to use it and what it means...any clarification?

[rbadh91]

i donwloaded acbpowermeter and it working fine, i just wanna understand how to use it and what it means...any clarification?

ok...some things you want to know...thers a RESET button...and theres the pause/resume button

if u want to do a comparison; i wud recommend some things
1 - have a stopwatch on you...there is no timer on the program itself except for the graph
2 - i would recommend u disable power saving like "Turn of screen after xx Seconds" in backlight settings; and "turn of ppc after xx mins" under power (otherwise you will be pressing the buttons which can interfer with true data

start the program; get the stopwatch ready; run whatever program you want to run and hit the reset button on the acbmeter

try it few times and u'll know exactly what to do

i use a program called dotpocket to take snapshot its pretty kool proggy

[gbenj]

ok...some things you want to know...thers a RESET button...and theres the pause/resume button

if u want to do a comparison; i wud recommend some things
1 - have a stopwatch on you...there is no timer on the program itself except for the graph
2 - i would recommend u disable power saving like "Turn of screen after xx Seconds" in backlight settings; and "turn of ppc after xx mins" under power (otherwise you will be pressing the buttons which can interfer with true data

start the program; get the stopwatch ready; run whatever program you want to run and hit the reset button on the acbmeter

try it few times and u'll know exactly what to do

i use a program called dotpocket to take snapshot its pretty kool proggy

but what do the two lines mean?

[rbadh91]

but what do the two lines mean?

the dark one is the average the other one is current at that point; if u run the program and while its going, you press a button; that will make it spike a bit, launch a program; it will spike higher, close the program it will go lower

[Asphyx]

I still say your not going to get a real sense of how much power the GPS Chipset itself consumes until you test it in the following way....

Test 1 (Control) - Turn location setting to 911 Only (disabling the GPS chipset from listening to the radio, collecting data and reporting it.)

Test 2 (Chipset enabled) turn on Location without running any primer program to see if the location on setting actually consumes more power... There should be a difference but a minimal one. The Chipset itself does not require a lot of power. In fact you might find that the chipset was always on it's just that there was no software to communicate with it until now. (you would have to find a rom that support both new and old radio to prove it though) Location would in that case only control communication to and from, not the chipset itself.

The problem with the method being used so far is you can not tell how much of the power is being used by the chipset and how much is increased proc load of the program due to the fact it now has data to process. Just the power to update the screen alone with the incoming data will make the power usage spike and that spike has nothing to do with what the chipset is eating on you The Data has to go through the Proc eating power. your also driving the serial ports with the program on as well so it can receive data...All of these drains make up this 87mA difference. It's not all chipset.

When the final official radio is released I bet you won't need this primer program to enable the chipset. And then you'll have a more accurate test of just how much power the chipset uses without clouding it with processor, serial and screen refresh cycles adding their two cents to the number.

I think the chipset has always been on and it's just that there was never the programming to talk to it under the old radio driver. the new radio has issues opening up a communication port to the chipset properly under 3.27 radio and that is the only reason why the primer is needed to see that the chip is working. Under normal circumstances (and at some point official radio driver) turning the location on would automatically open that port for communication to any program who polled it. My guess is that just isn't happening in the beta. Should happen whenever it is finally stable and official.