ProShot Impact on Battery

[dougger1977]

Since the Portico update, the battery life on my 8X has been stellar using about 2% per hour. Today, based on the great reviews, I downloaded ProShot and in the last couple hours my battery has been discharging at about 4% per hour. I haven't been on it much since the download. I can't think of a reason that the two things should be related, but thought I'd ask just in case.

 

[Beau Beerlage]

Well, that is exactly what my thoughts are! My Lumia 920 with Portico update did, before I installed ProShot, about 3 or 4% during a night of sleep (let's say 7 hours). Since I installed ProShot, I miss between 15 and 20% of my battery after more or less the same time. Couldn't see it being related to eachother, but am thinking of removing the app now, to see if it really is draining my battery.

 

[Jealy666]

The ProShot developer(s) posts on here perhaps he/she/they can shed some light.

 

[Beau Beerlage]

I uninstalled the app yesterday, and after 7 hours of sleep, my battery went from 100% to 95%. So it seems as if ProShot was responsible for draining at least another 10% of my battery? I hope I am wrong because I really like the app and saw that it will be updated soon.

 

[Jaripi]

I have installed ProShot apps and I can not agree that it causes any extra battery drain ... but I have told many times here, that WP8 battery monitor is not really a good one - it gives easily misleading false information about the battery drain - if I see a battery drain, I check it by restart and in the most cases, a battery-% is higher after that (it needs sometimes a soft reset instead of restart, to have a proper battery-%) ... I think that the most of these claims that some apps is causing a battery drain, are false ones, because "not so well" working battery monitor of WP8 (it might try to guess your use) ...

EDIT: all battery apps show the numbers just like a battery monitor of WP8 too ... so they do not help you to find that out ...

 

[RiseUpGames]

Hello, I am the developer for ProShot. I am really surprised to hear this! I will definitely take a look into the matter, but off the top of my head I am at a complete loss as to what could be causing the extra drain -- ProShot does not make use of any background processes, and the app is suspended when the user navigates away from it.

I'll let you all know what I can find.

 

[Beau Beerlage]

Thanks for your answer. To be honest, I didn't expect ProShot to be the cause of my lower battery performance, because, as you said: it doesn't use background tasks and seems to close when I switch it off. However, as I mentioned before: before I installed ProShot, a night of sleep took me max. 5% off my battery. After installation (which came together with the Whatsapp update which I thought was causing the problems in the first place), these same nights took around 20%. After deleting ProShot yesterday and charging it completely, I woke up again with a batterylevel of 95% percent, as it was before installation. So to me it looks as if it has caused the problem: don't ask me how or why. Will do the same tonight and see what happens. After that I'll install ProShot again and see if it reproduces the 'problem'.

Besides that, only thumbs up for this great app!

 

[RiseUpGames]

Ok, I took a look at the code. I made a bunch of changes to the way I was handling timers (timers are used everywhere from timelapse to histogram to regulate certain processes and run asynchronous methods). I honestly didn't see anything anywhere that would cause a battery drain, but I've done a clean install of the updated version on my Lumia 920, and I'm going to let it sit for the next 7-ish hours to see how much the battery discharges. I'll check back in around 4pm PST.

 

[RiseUpGames]

Alright, I let it run for 7h 30min. I forgot to mention that in the old code, I wasn't properly releasing the accelerometer instance when you navigate away from the app. I have since fixed that.
I've literally scoured all parts of my code to see what else could be leaking or running when it shouldn't be, but have found nothing more.

I put my Lumia 920 in Airplane Mode, loaded up ProShot, took about 6 or 8 pictures, switched modes around, turned histogram on / off, etc. The phone was left to run with the system's camera as well as ProShot in the background. The battery drained 10% (from 50% to 40%) in the 7h 30min I let it sit, but since battery reporting in general is prone to inaccuracy, this is going to require more tests. I will do my best to run these tests over the next few days for comparison. I need to establish a base, add other programs to the background, etc. I'll report back in a few days with my findings.

Update #1: After a clean boot, I loaded up the new version (2.5) of ProShot, sent it to the background and let the phone sit from 7pm. The battery level read 37%.

It is now 3am and 8 hours later, and upon unlocking my 920 I was surprised to find that the battery level still read 37%.

Update #2: I let the phone continue to run in its current state overnight while I slept. Woke up, battery still at 37%. I think it's looking good now! The issue was most likely caused by not properly releasing the accelerometer. The fix will be coming in v2.5, which I will submit for approval once 2.4 is published (Tuesday ish?)

Thanks to dougger1977 for bringing this to my attention!

 

[Beau Beerlage]

Thank you for soo much looking into it! For sure something other developpers can learn from!

 

[TruPlaya187]

Wow!!!!!... To the proshot dev!!!! You rock!!!! Thanks from all of us to take that time to do your own testing and let us know!!!!!

 

[dougger1977]

Wow, thanks for such a thorough investigation! Glad I bought the app now for sure!

 

[Pardeep Jha]

I'm also having the same problem.. Proshot make the phone hot while clicking pictures. and my battery wen to 84% form 100% in 7 hours standby after installing proshot yesterday(with data connection off) earlier it used to drop to 97% from 100%. I bought the app yesterday after watching the reviews. but i can't sacrifice battery life. The same can be done in the native camera setting.

 

[Jaripi]

I'm also having the same problem.. Proshot make the phone hot while clicking pictures. and my battery wen to 84% form 100% in 7 hours standby after installing proshot yesterday(with data connection off) earlier it used to drop to 97% from 100%. I bought the app yesterday after watching the reviews. but i can't sacrifice battery life. The same can be done in the native camera setting.

It might be a false battery-% of WP8 battery monitor ... did you try to restart your cp and recheck your battery-% ?

 

[Pardeep Jha]

yes i did a restart... but the problem persist.. removed the app. as i think same can be achieved by native camera settings

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

Btw, as a temporary fix, if you're worried about this battery drain, you can do a reboot (let me know if you need support on how to do this, but it's your bog standard reboot), and this will force release the accelerometer, and also clear up any other rogue code that is running in the background. I'm gonna wait for ProShot 2.5 before I start using the app again as a result of this. If I don't start it running, then I aren't going to trigger the accelerometer. Thanks for your response and testing though RiseUpGames. The moderators will appreciate it.

 

[alllies]

Haha..posible that your using the app while asleep?