Chat apps are battery hogs

[ammarmalik2011]

Has anyone noticed how massive a battery hog are chat apps? Even the latest WeChat drains battery like **** when you're actively chatting with someone? I'm wondering if it's related to the OS or the app.

 

[HNNNNNGHHH]

Has anyone noticed how massive a battery hog are chat apps? Even the latest WeChat drains battery like **** when you're actively chatting with someone? I'm wondering if it's related to the OS or the app.

Since applications like WeChat, Viber, Kik, Skype, etc. use cellular data bands or WiFi (if connected and available) constantly to update information at a secondly basis, it is expected that such applications drain a sizable amount of battery power, so it's the application that uses up the battery pretty fast.

 

[ammarmalik2011]

Since applications like WeChat, Viber, Kik, Skype, etc. use cellular data bands or WiFi (if connected and available) constantly to update information at a secondly basis, it is expected that such applications drain a sizable amount of battery power, so it's the application that uses up the battery pretty fast.

Except that this doesn't happen on iOS or Android. Using whatsapp or wechat on my Lumia 920 for some time makes the phone really hot.

 

[David Best]

apps that are always connected and getting updates will always use drain the battery life but the hot battery is a problem that some L920 users have had...to be on the safe side you should pop in to a Nokia center and ask them about it

 

[TechAbstract]

Kakaotalk doesn't eat much battery at all.

 

[abhishek8605]

I don't think it's the app. I am pretty sure it's the vibration of new messages that eats up battery. I did a test. Put all my group chats in whatsapp on silent, and left my phone uncharged overnight on wifi. The next morning I had like 60+ messages from various whatsapp groups, and my battery had drained 5% over 9 hours. That sounds like a good idle drain to me.

So, when I started heavily chatting with one person, my battery started to drop much quicker. Why? Well, it's not possible to "mute" individual chats, so everytime I get a message from someone it vibrates and if it keeps going on, the battery drains like crazy. So I believe it's the vibrator. They need to include a feature where all chats should be allowed to be muted.

 

[ninjaap]

Yes, I think its the notifications, more specifically toast, that's doing most of the battery draining. I've noticed this with FB and Twitter app.

 

[ammarmalik2011]

Guys I'm talking about serious battery drain here. Last night I was chatting with someone on whatsapp (note that when whatsapp is opened, the background audio isn't running) and my phone was on charging. After about 30 minutes of chatting I noticed that my phone had charged 1% only. Because whatsapp was draining a lot of battery.
And the 2 days that I used wechat I noticed around 15% battery drain after 10-15 minutes of chatting.
On iPhone 4S I could chat on whatsapp for hours and hours through out the day.

 

[ammarmalik2011]

I don't think it's the app. I am pretty sure it's the vibration of new messages that eats up battery. I did a test. Put all my group chats in whatsapp on silent, and left my phone uncharged overnight on wifi. The next morning I had like 60+ messages from various whatsapp groups, and my battery had drained 5% over 9 hours. That sounds like a good idle drain to me.

So, when I started heavily chatting with one person, my battery started to drop much quicker. Why? Well, it's not possible to "mute" individual chats, so everytime I get a message from someone it vibrates and if it keeps going on, the battery drains like crazy. So I believe it's the vibrator. They need to include a feature where all chats should be allowed to be muted.

Because when the app isn't running the messages are being retrieved through push notification service, which hardly consumes any battery