Does Smart Lock feature increase battery usage?

[alex_ncfc]

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.

[_alexdon_]

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

[alex_ncfc]

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. 

[_alexdon_]

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.