Which Motorola apps can be disabled? - Moto X Q&A

My wife has a Moto X on at AT&T MVNO. I'm wondering if some of the built-in Moto apps that are not necessary for typical operation can be disabled to improve battery life (she does mostly talk, text and occasional web surfing). The battery charge after 30 hours is 48% and Android OS was the biggest user at 30% which seems high. She was leaving data on (but apps will only update when wifi is on) because she gets regular MMS messages but I have turned the data off for now. Any suggestions (or direction to a thread where this has been covered) are appreciated.

You don't need any of them. Disable whatever you want. Tho I'd be sure exactly what you're disabling before doing it. Google anything you are unsure of. And I wouldn't touch anything that starts with com. Not necessary.
Tho, location services and sync (and the number of apps accessing them) are probably the main reasons android os is high....more so than moto apps.

Related

Stock Battery Performance "Fix"

History: as aprevious iPhone 4 user but long time android tablet user, I was less accustomed to battery consumption on Android phones. I was experiencing sleep usage (data on, WiFi connected to home network and good signal, Bluetooth radio on but not in use) of approximately 6-10% per hour. After reading battery life posts from other users on these and other forums, it appeared this was excessive. I had, after enabling these items (Google now, Google +) decided to disable them. But usage varied little. On screen time was about 3:40 or so. I had Google voice and Pandora installed. I was using built in email client, 3 accounts, fetching every 30 minutes including 1 @gmail domain account, what's app running, skype installed but not running or notifying. Battery usage stats indicated nothing excessive, Voice, What's App and Pandora had a process or two running along with WWF and SWF (notifications set for 1 or 2 hours) but batt stats did not indicate anything unusual with OS. Pulse, AP press, Flipboard installed but set to only sync/update when using the app.
First fix attempt: installed juice defender and set to aggressive. Battery use dropped to 3%/hr when left untouched for the hour. Emails weren't coming through regularly because of the JD and email client timing off sync. Installed K9 and set to 10 minutes fetch for all three accounts. Battery usage about the same for on screen. Better performance. Could get through 10-12 hour day with moderate use texts, emails, news apps (pulse clipboard ap) and a few pics. But battery drain seemed to be drastic when using apps and the unit started to drain when idle at a rate of about 4% (could be signal cell tower location cgange , etc). Overall acceptable but still "less" than when compared to forum posts and previous phone experience.
Second and present attempt: installed wugroot toolkit 1.6.2. Unlocked boot loader, rooted phone and installed custom recovery. Returned to stock. Rerooted and relocked. Installed no accounts on reboot. Installed Google account afterwards with same calendar and contact setting auto sync only. No Google +, no Google now, NO Google voice. No gmail. No pulse no clipboard no AP. Researched and installed Taptu in lieu of Pulse. Installed Aqua mail as email client for three email accounts(at least now I can change the account an email is sent from after beginning to compose an email!). Reinstalled Evernote, drop box, Google drive (manual sync for all three). Did NOT reinstall Juice Defender.
Battery use, when left untouched for an hour is almost NIL! (Still says charged) After 2 hours phone is at 98% or 99% when before it could be 82-88%. This is a revelation. 35 minutes of playing granny smith consumes 10% of battery, interpolation (all I can go on at this point) would mean almost 5 hours of constant screen use and less with standby time . WiFi, data, Bluetooth (not in use) enabled. NFC disabled and same settings as mentioned above.
Explanations: Google voice could be a severe drain, but I will not install yet until I am convinced it's innocuous as I am afraid an install and uninstall could "mess things up" with the OS. OR Google + and Google Now can not be installed and then uninstalled without leaving something running in the OS contributing to battery drain. OR pulse, flipboard and ap are not behaving well in manual sync modes.OR the wipe and reinstall via Wugroot has eliminated a bug from original factory setup. Regardless, the phone battery use appears in line with the positive experiences of those in these forums. I suggest, as much of a pain it might be, to give this a whirl if you are technically inclined. Please note all data will be wiped by this process and while I backed everything up via wugroot in case of a disaster scenario, I did not restore ANY data from those backups for the reflash of 4.2.1 and reroot, relock process.
Don't use juice defender, only does more harm than good.
Ace42 said:
Don't use juice defender, only does more harm than good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is actually a last resort for those whom are unauthorized, intimidated or unsure about reflashing the OS onto their device. Therefore, while it may do more harm than good on a device with little issue (i.e, no software apps or OS bugs), it actually helps those with such problems until they root out (couldn't resist) the source of the problem and move on. Again, reread my post as I discontinued its use after the reinstall of the OS.

[Q] Still chasing battery drain: Is it possible FingerPrint Unlock is part of it?

So having come from Verizon's Note 4 and averaging up to 24hrs on battery running pretty much the same setup as I do now on my T-Mobile Note 4 minus the "Root" & "Custom Rom" abilities. Otherwise, same apps, accounts, usage pattern, ect...
I am on an ongoing battle still after several complete wipes, different Roms including just running STOCK ANK4 and trying to figure out what is going on. Phone defect? Battery defect?
Anyhow, Ever since changing over to both the T-Mobile Note 4 & their service, my experience has been a rather miserable 14 to 18hrs MAX battery life and going from 4hrs screen on time to around 2 1/2 w/ T-Mobile.
Which now leads me yet to wonder something else. I believe I started using the "FingerPrint" security feature since switching to T-Mobile to unlock the device. Has anyone experienced a similar "Battery longevity" issue using said feature before I continue troubleshooting and chasing my own tail on this? Of course I will eventually test this theory anyhow, but figured I would throw it out there.
Also, Open to any suggestions.
Just some things I have already done along with the above mentioned:
- Utilized the App "Greenify" & donation full version to greenify many apps including "Google Play Services".
- Set up Profiles which I toggle via "PhoneWeaver" to turn off data when on Wi-Fi which consists of 90% of my day as I'm Wi-Fi connected both at home and work.
- Of course always turn off that option within Wi-Fi settings to untick "Always Scan".
- Went into "Google" app settings and turned off about everything I can find in there and it's now rather complex settings.
- Turned off most syncing of my 2 "Google" accounts to only one having anything other than Email Sync active such as the Calendar, Contacts, and Apps Sync. - Again, my 1 Google Account I only have set to sync Email and nothing else.
Sure I forgot some things I've tried but again, I am open to any/all suggestions. I admit, I bought my T-Mobile via Swappa. All seemed well as per their checklist of the obvious things to check regarding the phone's operation. Kind of stuck here now and wondering if my device is simply defective and/or the battery.
Also of note: Android System is always by far the largest contributor to my battery drain and exceeds even Screen-On time by around 10%. But then again, don't really know if that means anything or not since even before switching carriers and the transition from "JellyBean" to "KitKat" on my previous S4, Android System became a forever battery hog for me.
Just never had a top end device such as this in past years barely get me through a complete day: Work & Home time. I don't consider myself a heavy user. Barely even "Moderate" many days as I mainly text during my lunch break, otherwise phone is pretty much idle. And say 2 phone calls of aprox 20 min.s each during commute time. Yea, something just isn't right. :crying:
I have noticed 3 things that were hurting battery bad.
1.) Use the Google play services with the 030 extension. I get way better battery life on it 5% to 10% increase in battery life. Link below:
http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google...ices-7-0-99-1809214-030-android-apk-download/
2.) If you are not using maps or other location services turn your location off. Literally a 20%+ increase in battery from this alone.
3.) Toggle your NFC. Something in Android 4.4.4 sometimes causes your NFC to wake lock. If you turn it on then turn it off one time it normally fixes is.
I attached my battery stats below.
It with about 2 hours of screen on time.
Sent from my SM-N910T using XDA Free mobile app
ShrekOpher said:
I have noticed 3 things that were hurting battery bad.
1.) Use the Google play services with the 030 extension. I get way better battery life on it 5% to 10% increase in battery life. Link below:
http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google...ices-7-0-99-1809214-030-android-apk-download/
2.) If you are not using maps or other location services turn your location off. Literally a 20%+ increase in battery from this alone.
3.) Toggle your NFC. Something in Android 4.4.4 sometimes causes your NFC to wake lock. If you turn it on then turn it off one time it normally fixes is.
I attached my battery stats below.
It with about 2 hours of screen on time.
Sent from my SM-N910T using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply and suggestions! I just checked and I am currently running Google Play Services V 7.0.97 (1791429-030).
A couple things I have done meanwhile since my OP which have had "some" noticeable positive effects on my battery duration, yet still no where near what you have posted are:
Within "Google Settings" app:
- Account History ( I have "turned off or rather paused" ALL the Activity/Info/History settings here - All 5)
Regarding my 2nd, basically "Junk mail" Gmail Account:
- Now have ALL "Sync" turned off within, including the syncing of email, which I now simply check manually to update.
Greenify:
- Revisited, and added a bunch more apps and pretty much "Greenified" ALL Samsung related entries/services/ect...
So far I have increased to achieving up to about 3 1/2 hrs Screen time (Gained 1 hr) & a few more hours of real time battery longevity as I can now achieve close to 20hrs before needing charge.
Still feel I have some troubleshooting to go. Oh, I actually have the NFC Service "Greenified" to. So far haven't really noticed a problem with "Deep Sleep" either according to CPU SPY pro.
Yep, Have always had the Location Service to OFF, not even using the so called "Battery saving" selection with it. Such a pity to have to cripple such things but it's a trade off I guess in achieving a full day's battery vs.s using the features with this phone for some reason more-so than past devices it seems. At least in my case. :silly:

Looking to buy a 2014 Moto X. Thoughts?

Hey All,
Been a fan of this phone for a while. I am currently on a BB Q10 (which I like a lot), and I just feel like going back to Android. I love the fact that this phone comes stock with AOSP, but I will definitely root and optimize. I have owned Motorola, Samsung, and HTC. I love the quality that Motorola provides, and I really like this phone. I feel as though it is optimized for AOSP. I was leaning towards the HTC One M9, but the whole S-Off issue is pushing me away.
The only thing I am worried about is battery life. People who own this phone, could you comment on your experience with performance and battery life? What would you like changed about this phone?
Thanks in advance!
996
I personally have no issues with battery. I run rooted CM 12.1 with clean master only. My day usually goes from 8am wake up to 12am sleep. I usually find myself at 60-70% by noon with moderate to high usage. Before I go to sleep, I'm usually 40-50%. I bike to and from work and track that so my location settings are on high accuracy (most draining one). I'm a person who doesn't mind charging my phone every day along with my moto 360. Other flagship phones of comparable calibre might statistically have a higher battery life because of a higher mah, but I feel I end up saving a lot of battery life with the active display feature for checking notifications.
In addition, the apps that I typically use have high battery consumption rate like hearthstone (especially) and browsing a lot of gifs and vids using Reddit Now. In terms of performance, I get lightning fast animations and load speeds in CM (and I'm sure in stock as well). I average 52% RAM usage by allowing a few key apps like fb, fb Msgr, sleep for android, android wear, and mightytext autostart and run in background on my ignore list. If you have anything specific to ask, go ahead since I've used this phone 3 months on stock (bootloader locked and unrooted) as well.
Edit: I should also mention I am XT1095 pure edition. Also, I took the advice of someone and started using system profiles so that when I'm on WiFi at work, home, or place that I frequently visit, I have data connection automatically shut off. I've noticed a significant difference.
Sent from my victara using Tapatalk
hi doug,
please describe a bit more about the system profiles, what you use for it and how significant is that diff. Thanks!
miklosbard said:
hi doug,
please describe a bit more about the system profiles, what you use for it and how significant is that diff. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use systems profiles to save battery by having my phone automatically turn off the data connection when I am connected to a list of chosen WiFi spots. Doing this actually improves the battery a ton because normally your phone tries to maintain a radio connection even if you're on WiFi. This causes unnecessary drain on battery, especially if you're in an area with bad coverage. You don't actually need the radio connection to receive texts and calls, only MMS which most people send via fb or whatsapp/etc nowadays.
Back to systems profiles, I have 1 profile I call 'default'. My settings for default are simple. Whenever my phone disconnects from a list of chosen WiFi connections, my data connection is turned on. Its quite simple to set up. There's an option clearly labelled WiFi where you choose from a list of WiFi spots your phone has connected to. Once you've chosen the list, you set the option 'trigger upon disconnect'. Then, I have a second profile with the same WiFi spots chosen, but with two differences: triggers upon connection to chosen WiFi spots; and results in disconnection of data connection.
It makes a pretty big difference because I work in an office area where the reception is not always good so my battery sometimes drains like 20-30% unnecessarily trying to reestablish data connection (this happens with all phones). If you usually aren't in areas with bad reception, this trick still helps if you're on LTE connections. I think there's a certain bug with LTE connections and Google play services for lollipop in general where maintaining an LTE connection is quite draining on battery. I myself mainly use 3G cause I find it fast enough. However, everything above is only relevant if you are frequently connected to WiFi. Hope this answered some questions
Moto X (2014) Pure Edition
dougisthelamb said:
Hope this answered some questions
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It definately did, thanks
My only remaining question is what app you use for this? Tasker or llama or something else? I tried a some of these apps a few years back but then they were draining more battery than saving. Any suggestions there?
miklosbard said:
It definately did, thanks
My only remaining question is what app you use for this? Tasker or llama or something else? I tried a some of these apps a few years back but then they were draining more battery than saving. Any suggestions there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used to use both clean master and battery doctor. Now I only use clean master. When using clean master, make sure you give it root access and add all non essential apps to the 'block auto start' list. As well, close processes occasionally using either the clean master boost or the multi task window. Clean master is also really good for finding useless stuff that takes up memory for you to delete.
Moto X (2014) Pure Edition
Hey. Can you post screenshots of your battery graph with screen on time upon the end of your typical day?
I'd love to but I don't have enough posts to post outside links... Perhaps pm me and I can send them?
Moto X (2014) Pure Edition

Battery preservation strategy

I've been thoroughly impressed with battery life on the Moto Z as a result of normal use. Less so with idle battery consumption. That is, after installing my full complement of apps (including facebook and twitter), I did a few tests by going too bed on a full charge, and found that 7 or so hours later, it had burned down 15-20% doing nothing overnight!
I installed gsam batter monitor since the stock one is kind of useless. This provided a lot of valuable info, which is basically that Twitter is a huge hog, Facebook surprisingly isn't, and google play services also seems to be spinning its wheels a lot when I'm doing nothing. But most of my juice was going to powering the wifi radio.
Android M has a setting to turn off wifi when the phone is sleeping. I was reluctant to do this at first because I figured my apps would just start wasting my data instead. However, you also have the ability to selectively limit apps' ability to use cellular data when running in the background. In an app's settings you can click "Data Usage", then "Restrict app background data."
I did this for all the apps that gsam identified as being the wifi/battery users. And frankly there are almost no apps that I actually want using data when I'm not using the app itself anyway, except SMS and gmail. (I wish there was a way to just say "actually shut this app down when I close it", so I could activate it for most apps!)
Anyway -after doing this, I activated the setting to turn off the wifi radio when the phone was sleeping.
Result? 2% battery drain overnight, and minimal cellular data use. Amazing.
(Btw - I also uninstalled the twitter app and just put a link from chrome on my desktop. The web mobile app is very good anyway and I'm not much a twitter addict so this is a fine alternative that is a lot less intrustive for me).
jamtre said:
I've been thoroughly impressed with battery life on the Moto Z as a result of normal use. Less so with idle battery consumption. That is, after installing my full complement of apps (including facebook and twitter), I did a few tests by going too bed on a full charge, and found that 7 or so hours later, it had burned down 15-20% doing nothing overnight!
I installed gsam batter monitor since the stock one is kind of useless. This provided a lot of valuable info, which is basically that Twitter is a huge hog, Facebook surprisingly isn't, and google play services also seems to be spinning its wheels a lot when I'm doing nothing. But most of my juice was going to powering the wifi radio.
Android M has a setting to turn off wifi when the phone is sleeping. I was reluctant to do this at first because I figured my apps would just start wasting my data instead. However, you also have the ability to selectively limit apps' ability to use cellular data when running in the background. In an app's settings you can click "Data Usage", then "Restrict app background data."
I did this for all the apps that gsam identified as being the wifi/battery users. And frankly there are almost no apps that I actually want using data when I'm not using the app itself anyway, except SMS and gmail. (I wish there was a way to just say "actually shut this app down when I close it", so I could activate it for most apps!)
Anyway -after doing this, I activated the setting to turn off the wifi radio when the phone was sleeping.
Result? 2% battery drain overnight, and minimal cellular data use. Amazing.
(Btw - I also uninstalled the twitter app and just put a link from chrome on my desktop. The web mobile app is very good anyway and I'm not much a twitter addict so this is a fine alternative that is a lot less intrustive for me).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just got the phone a couple days ago. I appreciate the info here. I have also read that if you just turn wifi to 2.4 GHz only that it will keep the battery drain from happening. I don't use twitter or facebook so don't have to worry about those. Google play services has been a problem since marshmallow. If we could root we could use something like Amplify to stop all the wakelocks, but root is getting hard to come by on these new phones.
I noticed on Gsam that my phone will sleep well for a while, then the "held awake" category starts to take off. I have to reboot to get it to doze again. I have agressive doze and doze on the go activated in Greenify. Not sure what gets it started, but it would be nice to be able to kill it off without rebooting.
I bought a USB C to regular USB and have been charging without the Turbo Charger and the battery is doing so much better.
I was getting frustrated with the battery performance.
Sent from my XT1650 using XDA-Developers mobile app

Question Google Play Services

Hi all
I found my Google Play Services run in background about 12 hours a day, this cause an huge battery drain. I tried some fixes but it's not helping. Never had problems with this in any brand or model.
Can someone point me to the right path?
Thanks
Joao
I have the same issue, currently it's almost 2 days background and almost 11% battery drain. I usually get similar results ~5% battery drain per day.
On my S21U looking at a week’s battery usage, Google Play Services has used .7 to 1.4% per day with daily background usage varying between 11 and 23 hours. Active usage is consistently zero every day though. So I am not seeing any battery issues from Google Play Services. How does this compare with your daily Google Play Services battery usage history for the previous week?
Only disabling sync for accounts I can get more 8 to 10% battery, unfortunately. It's strange because as I said never had this problem before in any brand or model including Samsung.
Turn off Mobile background data and go to battery and turn off run in background. If you want to monitor what is going on there is a few tools you can use and some apps are better than others at honoring your selection but it can also cause problems for other apps that are in the background ie music/video players so keep that in mind. download pcapdroid and glasswire it will tell you a lot about what is running at what time of the day and where the data is being sent if you use wireshark to look at the pcap file. start with what i suggested with turning off the two options for each app after you observe the usage of the app and you will thank me later. My battery drain is minimal at idle, overnight it is 2% for a 12 hour period and most of that is email which i don't want optimised and allow to run in background
For me the option to turn off background usage is greyed out. Is there any way around this?
For Google play services itself you can't but if you turn of everything else you will see major improvements. There are a few others you can't turn off but don't worry.
Just disable it. Enable when you need it.
Most times it's not needed at all.
Disable all cloud crap unless you use it.
Google Transport is a prime offender, disable it.
Turn off Google Firebase and all feedback including Samsung, carrier feedback if any.
Use Karma Firewall to block Android Services, Playstore and Google Play Services if disabling it isn't getting it
Karma Firewall uses almost no battery, no ads, a great clean app. Unfortunately it's logging feature doesn't work on high security Q/11.
Thanks for nothing Google...
If you disable google services you will find a lot of Google products stop working. I would not advise doing that. Plus you can only disable with Root or something like Adhell using Knox license.
If you use the tools i suggested you will see a significant battery life improvement without any adverse affects to the usability of your phone. Sure you can disable everything under the sun but some things are needed. I have about 137 apps/bloat disabled and phone runs perfect without any hiccups.
Also using a FW to block a service will not improve battery life per say and the FW itself uses battery and RAM along with system resources to operate. It also uses your VPN so if you need to truely use a VPN you give that option up, ie VPN based ad blockers. The requests will constantly occur from the app when it times out or it is blocked. You are better off disabling it if you don't want to live in the google echosystem or care if some apps work or not.
arf8 said:
If you disable google services you will find a lot of Google products stop working. I would not advise doing that. Plus you can only disable with Root or something like Adhell using Knox license.
If you use the tools i suggested you will see a significant battery life improvement without any adverse affects to the usability of your phone. Sure you can disable everything under the sun but some things are needed. I have about 137 apps/bloat disabled and phone runs perfect without any hiccups.
Also using a FW to block a service will not improve battery life per say and the FW itself uses battery and RAM along with system resources to operate. It also uses your VPN so if you need to truely use a VPN you give that option up, ie VPN based ad blockers. The requests will constantly occur from the app when it times out or it is blocked. You are better off disabling it if you don't want to live in the google echosystem or care if some apps work or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gmail, Playstore and Gmaps are the only useful Google apps. Google Play Services can easily be enabled as needed.
Otherwise it's a data sucking battery hog that needs a good kick in the head.
I've had it with Google's endless big sister bs.
And... Firewall blocking with Karma Firewall does improve battery life if you block the apks I mentioned.
For the last 12 hours this is how much battery Karma used...
GPS supports a lot more than just google products.
There is no free lunch you FW still consumes battery and you are not seeing the system resources utilized by the FW.
Not going to argue about this, do as you wish.
arf8 said:
GPS supports a lot more than just google products.
There is no free lunch you FW still consumes battery and you are not seeing the system resources utilized by the FW.
Not going to argue about this, do as you wish.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try it, it's easy enough to undo if it's problematic.
Google Play Services was literally polling the internet 4 times every minute at idle. Unacceptable.
jtlivio said:
Hi all
I found my Google Play Services run in background about 12 hours a day, this cause an huge battery drain. I tried some fixes but it's not helping. Never had problems with this in any brand or model.
Can someone point me to the right path?
Thanks
Joao
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You must have some bug or some special telemetry option turned ON somewhere.
Never seen this kind of behavior.
I wonder if anyone has ever analyzed what normal behavior is on an Android phone where the user turns off all telemetry options that they can.
nixnixnixnix4 said:
You must have some bug or some special telemetry option turned ON somewhere.
Never seen this kind of behavior.
I wonder if anyone has ever analyzed what normal behavior is on an Android phone where the user turns off all telemetry options that they can.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did. Tried everything including disabling Firebase. Transport Services runs a lot even when toggle off. Finally package block it.
Disabling Google Play Services is the only thing that gets it on my N10+ (Pie).
blackhawk said:
I did. Tried everything including disabling Firebase. Transport Services runs a lot even when toggle off. Finally package block it.
Disabling Google Play Services is the only thing that gets it on my N10+ (Pie).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You ever try just setting your WiFi connection as Metered?
nixnixnixnix4 said:
You ever try just setting your WiFi connection as Metered?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wifi is always disabled.

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