topic Re: Does Smart Lock feature increase battery usage? in XPERIA archive

Does Smart Lock feature increase battery usage?

alex_ncfc — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 21:02:33 GMT

I've recently seen a notification come up in my status bar saying that I "seem to unlock my phone a lot at this location" (my home) and would I like to enable Smart Lock. I'd never seen this before so thought I'd give it a try. I decided to use the Smart Lock option which lets the phone unlock at a specific location, being where I live.

I thought this was great and it worked very well. The problem was my battery has started going down a lot since enabling it - I looked in location settings and notice that "Google Play Services" has "High battery use" next to it - is this because of Smart Lock being enabled? Is Smart Lock constantly scanning my location to see where I am or does it not work like this?

Would be interested to know if other people have any opinions on battery drain using this or whether I am imagining it.

Re: Does Smart Lock feature increase battery usage?

_alexdon_ — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 21:24:07 GMT

I think the battery drain is due to GPS being active all the time, not because of the unlock feature.

Re: Does Smart Lock feature increase battery usage?

alex_ncfc — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 21:26:27 GMT

Thanks for the quick reply.

Isn't GPS only "active" when the symbol is shown at the top in the status bar? It isn't there all the time, only mainly when I use my running app do I notice it. It is a handy feature not having to unlock the phone when I am in the house or nearby to it, but if it's going to eat up loads of battery then it isn't worth the hassle.

Re: Does Smart Lock feature increase battery usage?

_alexdon_ — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 21:30:58 GMT

If location is enabled, I think it's constantly searching for GPS. I suggest you try out other smart lock features, like on body detection.