Amid growing demand for good battery life, researchers, including an Indian-origin, have developed an app that reduces the energy consumption of smartphone devices without impacting performance. The finding published in the journal IEEE Access, suggests that the novel method can extend the battery life of smartphones for up to an hour each day. "The built-in multi-window feature released with the new Android Operating System allows users to have multiple windows and files open at the same time similar to a laptop, but this results in unnecessary energy drain," said co-author Kshirasagar Naik, professor at the University of Waterloo.
"We have developed an app which users can install on their devices and use to reduce the brightness of non-critical applications," Naik added. For the study, the app was evaluated in an experiment involving 200 smartphone users, who downloaded the software on their devices and used it while they had multiple windows opened. The researchers found that when the energy saving technique was used it extended their battery life by 10 to 25 per cent.
"What happens now is that you put the phone on a charger for the night and when you leave home the next day the battery is at 100 per cent, but there is a lot of behind the scenes computation and communication going on, and it drains the battery," said Naik. "By midday charge is reduced to 30 per cent. So, you need to charge the battery many times in a day, and from the user's perspective that is a big pain."
Due to the excess energy consumption, the phone becomes warmer and warmer while the frequent charging reduces the life of the battery. So, batteries that are meant to last for three years may have to be replaced in two years, the researchers noted.
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