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Hey everyone,
I know i've been asking questions ALL over the forum lately, but as a phone I have to use as a daily driver for some time, I wanted to hear some of your suggestions for ways to increase standby time when the phone is not in use. It's weird, because as I used some Nougat ROMS and a Sense ROM for some time now, my results were mixed bag and my phone was still eating battery even though I wasn't using anything.
Right now I do got the GPE firmware flashed, and atm using a sense ROM to see where battery life will take me the most. Any apps you people recommend so I can make the most of my device?
There is one thing what brought me the most juice of my battery back as if i had a new battery... Dont use gapps, use microG. If you configure it correct you will have the same functions as if you use gapps but without the waste of battery. There is a magisk module called nanomod microG since this exist its realy easy to use microG even for beginners. You dont need the full nanomod package, only microG and the patcher. You will have full access to play store also with paid apps, you will have contacts and calender synch, cloud messaging and location services by mozilla. The only thing that doesnt work is streaming to chromecast devices with apps that doesnt have it build in like youtube and spotify, those need gapps for streaming to other devices.
saturday_night said:
There is one thing what brought me the most juice of my battery back as if i had a new battery... Dont use gapps, use microG. If you configure it correct you will have the same functions as if you use gapps but without the waste of battery. There is a magisk module called nanomod microG since this exist its realy easy to use microG even for beginners. You dont need the full nanomod package, only microG and the patcher. You will have full access to play store also with paid apps, you will have contacts and calender synch, cloud messaging and location services by mozilla. The only thing that doesnt work is streaming to chromecast devices with apps that doesnt have it build in like youtube and spotify, those need gapps for streaming to other devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting. So with MicroG I can't use YouTube? Even by itself? And will you help me set it up?
1) Use an android 5.x rom (e.g. NuSenSeveN )
2) Install Xposed (Probably using the Xposed Installer app)
3) Install Power Nap
4) Consider also installing Amplify
5) Consider using the "Battery -> Power saver -> Data connection" setting in sense.
6) Enjoy your new battery life
Doing these things has gotten me through 4 days on 1 charge with minimal use. Albeit, you'll still go through the battery very quickly if you use something like Google Maps. Something else to keep in mind is that your battery life is heavily dependent on your cell reception. If I don't turn airplane mode on before going into a basement, for instance, the phone will kill itself in a few hours trying to find reception.
With Power Nap and Amplify it doesn't matter whether you have google apps and facebook - these xposed apps will block other apps from touching your CPU while the screen is off.
zeeBomb said:
Interesting. So with MicroG I can't use YouTube? Even by itself? And will you help me set it up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can use all apps on the device itself, just streaming to TV doesnt work. And yes i can help you with the setup.
1. Flash Rom of your choice
2. Flash Custom Kernel if you want
3. Flash Magisk
4. Flash nanomod microG
5. Boot into system (dont setup anything)
6. Reboot into recovery
7. Flash nanomod patcher (takes a few minutes)
8. Boot into system and open microG settings
9. Activate Device Registration, cloud messaging, saftynet and grant permission to deactivate Battery optimization
10. Tap on "UnifiedNLP Settings" in microG settings app and activate both (grant permissions as system ask)
11. Go into system settings and activate Location "high acuracy"
12. Go into microG settings and check if everything works
13. Setup your Google Account like allways on every Rom
There are some Roms like AIM Rom which support "Signature Spoofing", on those Roms you dont need to flash the patcher. On those Roms you need to grant a special permission for the play store app. Go into system settings, go into apps, tap an Google Play Store, tap on Permissions and grant permission for Signature Spoofing.
Sometimes you need to restart your device after Setup everything. That is just necessary if Play Store shows an error during first start.
saturday_night said:
You can use all apps on the device itself, just streaming to TV doesnt work. And yes i can help you with the setup.
1. Flash Rom of your choice
2. Flash Custom Kernel if you want
3. Flash Magisk
4. Flash nanomod microG
5. Boot into system (dont setup anything)
6. Reboot into recovery
7. Flash nanomod patcher (takes a few minutes)
8. Boot into system and open microG settings
9. Activate Device Registration, cloud messaging, saftynet and grant permission to deactivate Battery optimization
10. Tap on "UnifiedNLP Settings" in microG settings app and activate both (grant permissions as system ask)
11. Go into system settings and activate Location "high acuracy"
12. Go into microG settings and check if everything works
13. Setup your Google Account like allways on every Rom
There are some Roms like AIM Rom which support "Signature Spoofing", on those Roms you dont need to flash the patcher. On those Roms you need to grant a special permission for the play store app. Go into system settings, go into apps, tap an Google Play Store, tap on Permissions and grant permission for Signature Spoofing.
Sometimes you need to restart your device after Setup everything. That is just necessary if Play Store shows an error during first start.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This would work on apps like smapchat too? How much extra SOT do you think I'll gain from this?
zeeBomb said:
Hey everyone,
I know i've been asking questions ALL over the forum lately, but as a phone I have to use as a daily driver for some time, I wanted to hear some of your suggestions for ways to increase standby time when the phone is not in use. It's weird, because as I used some Nougat ROMS and a Sense ROM for some time now, my results were mixed bag and my phone was still eating battery even though I wasn't using anything.
Right now I do got the GPE firmware flashed, and atm using a sense ROM to see where battery life will take me the most. Any apps you people recommend so I can make the most of my device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me personally, I use greenify with root on my device. I kill much of application that run on background ( mostly FB and FBM) but would kill battery due to YouTube background playback. But while phone sits, it helps out a lot on my end
zeeBomb said:
This would work on apps like smapchat too? How much extra SOT do you think I'll gain from this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All apps are working no matter which app. What i said was ONLY related to streaming to TVs. I cant tell you hom much sot you will get but play services suck about 10-15% of your battery and microG is about 1-3%.
saturday_night said:
All apps are working no matter which app. What i said was ONLY related to streaming to TVs. I cant tell you hom much sot you will get but play services suck about 10-15% of your battery and microG is about 1-3%.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is truly amazing. Thank you for helping me out...does AICP support signature spoofing too?
zeeBomb said:
That is truly amazing. Thank you for helping me out...does AICP support signature spoofing too?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AICP doesnt support it, you need to flash the patch there. But i would recommend not to update every nightly only if there are some heavy changes. Because some apps like whatsapp need to register for cloud messaging and you need to clean install those apps everytime you flashed an update+microG. And espacily whatsapp doesnt notice that the registration for cloud messaging is gone after an update of the rom. Also you need to flash microG with every rom update and setup everything in microG again.
saturday_night said:
AICP doesnt support it, you need to flash the patch there. But i would recommend not to update every nightly only if there are some heavy changes. Because some apps like whatsapp need to register for cloud messaging and you need to clean install those apps everytime you flashed an update+microG. And espacily whatsapp doesnt notice that the registration for cloud messaging is gone after an update of the rom. Also you need to flash microG with every rom update and setup everything in microG again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, I got everything to work but my "system grants signature spoofing permission" and "UnifiedNlp do not have Location to test Geocoder" is off. How to fix
zeeBomb said:
Okay, I got everything to work but my "system grants signature spoofing permission" and "UnifiedNlp do not have Location to test Geocoder" is off. How to fix
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, wait a few minutes until it finds your location
saturday_night said:
Hmm, wait a few minutes until it finds your location
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay. Is it normal to have the WIFI to turn on and off repeatedly? Do I need to have location set on high 24/7?
zeeBomb said:
Okay. Is it normal to have the WIFI to turn on and off repeatedly? Do I need to have location set on high 24/7?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wifi isnt related to google services or microG. And no you dont need to have location active all the time, if you dont need it just disable it.
Hello Everyone. It's been a week since i first tried out MicroG, and all is well! Battery life is improved as I don't drain as much as 20% on light usage throughout my days when I'm busy. Definitely a great way to get the best out of the aging M7. Thank you @saturday_night for helping me set this up, and @Watercycle for helping with some additional stuff!
If anyone's still got a modded Bionic laying around, you might appreciate microG over GApps on this aged phone's limited hardware.
Now, I've found that flashing Nanolx microG doesn't work. However, I'm here because I'm cross-pollinating from the Amazon Fire 5th gen forums, where user Ziona made microG packages specifically designed to work for Nougat. These zips do work on the Bionic.
Find the Nougat signature spoofing patcher and basic microG (no Play Store) zips here.
(Optional) The patched Play Store zip here.
To avoid errors with the Play Store, set up microG with proper permissions and flip on Google device registration, Google Cloud Messaging, and Google SafetyNet, then set up the Google account from the Play Store.
I don't expect this will get much attention, but since I found it, I figured I'd share anyhow. Enjoy!
Is there an existing flashable gapps package without the implemented Covid-19 api?
Not required. The api is only used if an app is installed makes use of it. Without a Covid 19 Tracking app the api is dormant therefore not activated or in use. And will be so small the size difference of Gapps installs will be negligible.
The only way to get rid of it is to delete Google Play Services. That's how they snuck it in. On Android Pie it's simple. Just debloat via ADB using pm list packages prompt and voila! it's gone. On Android 10 it works the same EXCEPT none of the google apps, firefox, instacart, or anything like that will WORK. So you can de-google all you want - they've baked it into everything. It's something I'm struggling with now since I was forced to upgrade.
Hello,
Regarding to this blog post https://www.huaweiblog.de/news/huawei-push-benachrichtigungen-ohne-google-anleitung/ you can use microg only for Push notifications.
But when I enable microg, no Apps register for Push. And after an reboot of the phone MicroG is resettet.
Has anyone the same Problem?
In my experience, after install microg, setting etc. you just wait some while (10 minutes to 1 hour) to make it registered.
Had this happen to me. Only thing that worked was resetting the phone and setting up again.
Worth pointing out that while MicroG is a nice workaround solution, it's no terribly reliable and can be prone to disconnecting every now and then and so you'll miss notifications sometimes. Also, there's many many apps that refuse to work with it.
I think the older version of MicroG works better than the new ones.
IntroductionAs the title says. We'll remove as many google things as we can. We'll replace missing functionality with microG.
This is not meant to be an extensive guide. Just a quick write up of my experience de-googling the device.
I bought this device without doing much research and was a bit bummed when I realized there's no custom ROMs for it. One unofficial build of lineage is on here, but a little known feature, called the phone app, did not work for me, so that wasn't an option. I used it with google for a while but I wanted control of the device back. I didn't find many comprehensive tutorials on how to do this without using custom ROMs, so I thought I'd make a quick and dirty one.
What's the goal?
Remove google services from the Nord CE 5G without installing any custom ROM
Get full microG functionality (all the checkmarks)
Replace sync functionality for calendar, contacts, photos, etc with NextCloud.
What's not the goal?
Fully pass safetynet
Get special google functionality such as chromecast and google pay
Verify play store purchases
Who is this for?This is basically for me 2 days ago. You have some experience messing about with android, but you don't really know what you're doing most of the time.
What you need
Oneplus Nord CE 5G already rooted with Magisk (I won't explain how to since there are plenty of guides)
A file manager with root access. I use fx file explorer
f-droid
Step 1: Disable all google things (or as many as you would like)There are ways to fully remove google apps over adb, but I wasn't sure if this whole thing would work and moreover, I couldn't be bothered. I took the simple and safe way out and recommend you to to the same. Just go to [settings -> apps & notifications], then disable google play services and all other google apps you want to remove. Surprisingly I was actually able to fully uninstall google play services after disabling it.
I disabled every google app on my phone, but you can pick and choose. Some might not work as expected.
Step 2: Install microGUnfortunately there are too many apps that depend on some part of google play services to function, even if they have nothing to do with google. Luckily people have recognized this problem and we have migroG, which aims to replace at least the basic features of google play services.
This is where I started to be confused. When visiting https://microg.org/download.html you'll see a bunch of apk's without much explanation. I was under the impression you'd have to install this as a system app or something, but apparently not. You can just install the apks using the normal installer. I also though you'd need to install all of these, but you really only need Services Core. It seems it has all the others baked in. You can choose to install this through their f-droid repo as well as explained on the microg page. Choose your poison.
Step 3: Making sure microG actually worksAfter installing microG, you'll have an app called microG settings. It has a fun little button on top called self-check and if you click it you'll see a bunch of boxes, only some of which are checked. This is where the fun starts, because we will start to increase the number of checked boxes.
PermissionsSome of these boxes are just permissions that are missing. So we jump to [settings -> apps and notifications -> microG Services Core -> Permissions] and grant all of them (or some). We also want to allow microG to always run in the background, so in app info we also click [Advanced -> Battery -> Battery optimization] and select Don't optimise. OnePlus' battery management is the absolute worst so let's hope that will do what it says.
Account and device registrationmicroG allows to register a google account. This will allow you to use google login in apps like youtube. My personal goal is to not use any google service in the long run so I skipped this.
Google device registration means that your device will be registered with google. I enabled this to get access to google cloud messaging. Some apps need this for notifications. If you leave this off, I believe microG does not talk to google at all.
Signature spoofingNow we're missing some checkmarks related to something called signature spoofing. I don't fully understand it, but it's basically the ability of microG to act as if it is the real play services (or any app to act as if it's any other app). By default this is made impossible because of obvious security risks. There are many ways of getting signature spoofing to work, and therefore plenty of ways to get lost in the weeds.
The method I used is as follows
Install LSPosed zygisk release module using Magisk Manager.
There are zygisk and riru releases. I don't know what these are. If you can't find zygisk in your magisk settings (gear icon top right), you probably need to install riru and use the riru release.
Now navigate to /data/adb/lspd/ and you'll see a file called manager.apk. Install it and open the app.
Now click the download button on the bottom left and search for fakegapps. After clicking it you can click the up arrow on the top right to go to the website. Here you'll find an apk that you have to install.
back in the LSPosed manager, click modules -> FakeGapps. Enable for microG Services Core. It is recommended not to enable any other apps.
Now signature spoofing related features should work.
LocationAfter all of this, location in OpenStreetMaps wasn't working and I thought there was no way to get it working.
It turns out I was just an idiot...
Apparently microG takes FOSS seriously enough to give you a choice of location backend. Simply search f-droid for "nlp" and you'll find a bunch of different options. I used one called Local NLP Backend Location since I see no reason for my location service to communicate with any server. After installing, you can enable the provider in microG location settings.
Step 4: Getting back some functionalityPlay store appsNow we would all like to ditch the play store altogether, but it's just a little too convenient. Luckily there is the Aurora store, which allows to download google play apps without the google play store. If you also install Aurora Services through Magisk, it will be as convenient as the real play store.
Cloud syncingI like to be able to cloud sync photos, calendars, contacts, and notes, so I'd like a solution that is tied to google. I've found that nextcloud works quite well for these purposes. NextCloud is an open source cloud solution with plenty independent providers and the ability to host yourself. I made an account at thegood.cloud, but will probably create my own host at some point.
The nextcloud app can take care of syncing photos and files from your phone.
To synchronize calendars and contacts, there is an app called DAVx5 from f-droid. This app allows you to log into your nextcloud account and you can tell it to sync your contact and calendar. This app is based on the open DAV standard, which is supported by most calendar and contact apps.
To synchronize notes over nextcloud, I use an app called Quillnote. This was actually how I discovered nextcloud in the first place.
ConclusionThis whole process was a lot less painful than I anticipated at first. There is some lost functionality but most things really work fine. Lots of apps will start bothering you and send notifications that they are broken without play services, but I have not seen any of them have any issues. The notifications can be turned off, but unfortunately only one by one.
Updates will probably be a pain since you'll have to go through this whole process again, but who's really expecting major updates for this phone anymore?
Security is likely compromised but not to an extent I'm worried about.
Notnearlynovel said:
IntroductionAs the title says. We'll remove as many google things as we can. We'll replace missing functionality with microG.
This is not meant to be an extensive guide. Just a quick write up of my experience de-googling the device.
I bought this device without doing much research and was a bit bummed when I realized there's no custom ROMs for it. One unofficial build of lineage is on here, but a little known feature, called the phone app, did not work for me, so that wasn't an option. I used it with google for a while but I wanted control of the device back. I didn't find many comprehensive tutorials on how to do this without using custom ROMs, so I thought I'd make a quick and dirty one.
What's the goal?
Remove google services from the Nord CE 5G without installing any custom ROM
Get full microG functionality (all the checkmarks)
Replace sync functionality for calendar, contacts, photos, etc with NextCloud.
What's not the goal?
Fully pass safetynet
Get special google functionality such as chromecast and google pay
Verify play store purchases
Who is this for?This is basically for me 2 days ago. You have some experience messing about with android, but you don't really know what you're doing most of the time.
What you need
Oneplus Nord CE 5G already rooted with Magisk (I won't explain how to since there are plenty of guides)
A file manager with root access. I use fx file explorer
f-droid
Step 1: Disable all google things (or as many as you would like)There are ways to fully remove google apps over adb, but I wasn't sure if this whole thing would work and moreover, I couldn't be bothered. I took the simple and safe way out and recommend you to to the same. Just go to [settings -> apps & notifications], then disable google play services and all other google apps you want to remove. Surprisingly I was actually able to fully uninstall google play services after disabling it.
I disabled every google app on my phone, but you can pick and choose. Some might not work as expected.
Step 2: Install microGUnfortunately there are too many apps that depend on some part of google play services to function, even if they have nothing to do with google. Luckily people have recognized this problem and we have migroG, which aims to replace at least the basic features of google play services.
This is where I started to be confused. When visiting https://microg.org/download.html you'll see a bunch of apk's without much explanation. I was under the impression you'd have to install this as a system app or something, but apparently not. You can just install the apks using the normal installer. I also though you'd need to install all of these, but you really only need Services Core. It seems it has all the others baked in. You can choose to install this through their f-droid repo as well as explained on the microg page. Choose your poison.
Step 3: Making sure microG actually worksAfter installing microG, you'll have an app called microG settings. It has a fun little button on top called self-check and if you click it you'll see a bunch of boxes, only some of which are checked. This is where the fun starts, because we will start to increase the number of checked boxes.
PermissionsSome of these boxes are just permissions that are missing. So we jump to [settings -> apps and notifications -> microG Services Core -> Permissions] and grant all of them (or some). We also want to allow microG to always run in the background, so in app info we also click [Advanced -> Battery -> Battery optimization] and select Don't optimise. OnePlus' battery management is the absolute worst so let's hope that will do what it says.
Account and device registrationmicroG allows to register a google account. This will allow you to use google login in apps like youtube. My personal goal is to not use any google service in the long run so I skipped this.
Google device registration means that your device will be registered with google. I enabled this to get access to google cloud messaging. Some apps need this for notifications. If you leave this off, I believe microG does not talk to google at all.
Signature spoofingNow we're missing some checkmarks related to something called signature spoofing. I don't fully understand it, but it's basically the ability of microG to act as if it is the real play services (or any app to act as if it's any other app). By default this is made impossible because of obvious security risks. There are many ways of getting signature spoofing to work, and therefore plenty of ways to get lost in the weeds.
The method I used is as follows
Install LSPosed zygisk release module using Magisk Manager.
There are zygisk and riru releases. I don't know what these are. If you can't find zygisk in your magisk settings (gear icon top right), you probably need to install riru and use the riru release.
Now navigate to /data/adb/lspd/ and you'll see a file called manager.apk. Install it and open the app.
Now click the download button on the bottom left and search for fakegapps. After clicking it you can click the up arrow on the top right to go to the website. Here you'll find an apk that you have to install.
back in the LSPosed manager, click modules -> FakeGapps. Enable for microG Services Core. It is recommended not to enable any other apps.
Now signature spoofing related features should work.
LocationAfter all of this, location in OpenStreetMaps wasn't working and I thought there was no way to get it working.
It turns out I was just an idiot...
Apparently microG takes FOSS seriously enough to give you a choice of location backend. Simply search f-droid for "nlp" and you'll find a bunch of different options. I used one called Local NLP Backend Location since I see no reason for my location service to communicate with any server. After installing, you can enable the provider in microG location settings.
Step 4: Getting back some functionalityPlay store appsNow we would all like to ditch the play store altogether, but it's just a little too convenient. Luckily there is the Aurora store, which allows to download google play apps without the google play store. If you also install Aurora Services through Magisk, it will be as convenient as the real play store.
Cloud syncingI like to be able to cloud sync photos, calendars, contacts, and notes, so I'd like a solution that is tied to google. I've found that nextcloud works quite well for these purposes. NextCloud is an open source cloud solution with plenty independent providers and the ability to host yourself. I made an account at thegood.cloud, but will probably create my own host at some point.
The nextcloud app can take care of syncing photos and files from your phone.
To synchronize calendars and contacts, there is an app called DAVx5 from f-droid. This app allows you to log into your nextcloud account and you can tell it to sync your contact and calendar. This app is based on the open DAV standard, which is supported by most calendar and contact apps.
To synchronize notes over nextcloud, I use an app called Quillnote. This was actually how I discovered nextcloud in the first place.
ConclusionThis whole process was a lot less painful than I anticipated at first. There is some lost functionality but most things really work fine. Lots of apps will start bothering you and send notifications that they are broken without play services, but I have not seen any of them have any issues. The notifications can be turned off, but unfortunately only one by one.
Updates will probably be a pain since you'll have to go through this whole process again, but who's really expecting major updates for this phone anymore?
Security is likely compromised but not to an extent I'm worried about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In the lineageos thread there is one version of LOS without gapps however its security patch is outdated. I also believe that LOS fan edition doesn't come with gapps by default though I have yet to try that rom.
Fisuxcel said:
In the lineageos thread there is one version of LOS without gapps however its security patch is outdated. I also believe that LOS fan edition doesn't come with gapps by default though I have yet to try that rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes and I did install it previously but the phone app stopped working and overall it was a bit buggy for me. Not everyone seems to have this issue so you might want to give it a try.
Doesn"t seem to work on OOS 12
At microG Service Core install I think I must be missing something, it tells me the package is already installed, though I've deleted correctly the com.google.android.gms package (and of course almost everything related)
I've reinstalled the Play Services and Services Framework from Google for now to make my phone work again until a solution is found