Detecting apps that drain your Android smartphone’s battery

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The first thing a person does once he buys a new smartphone is download a number of apps. Of course, smartphones are meant for downloading apps, games, and much more. But enjoying these apps may cost a lot of battery loss, which the user may not like. It is crucial for Android users to know more about the apps that cause an excessive loss of battery. Mostly people think that the fast draining battery problem is due to the mobile’s hardware, but they don’t realize that there could be some apps that cause the battery to drain quickly.

There are various apps that are available for download for all Android users and one does not need any computer or mobile education for the same. Though every app is designed to enhance the user’s experience, there could be some apps that hamper the performance of the phone’s battery. This happens because the app is either poorly designed or has gone rogue. It is important to detect these apps in order to save the battery of the phone for a better performance. Also, the poor performance by a few apps that cause loss of battery should not be mistaken for the mobile’s hardware problem. Following are some of the useful diagnostic apps that help the user determine the battery draining apps.

• GSam Battery Monitor

 
The GSam Battery Monitor App can be easily downloaded from Play Store and you do not need computer or mobile education. This app features a number of tools that the user can use to conveniently manage the battery of a smartphone. Till the time this app runs on any Android phone, it will keep detecting things like phone signal, the rate of battery consumption, the temperature of the battery, etc. The app also gives a clear summary of battery usage depending on various categories like Wi-Fi, calls, messages, screen time, etc. It is free, but the Pro version can be downloaded by paying for it.

• Wakelock Detector

Android users must have the Wakelock Detector App in their phones. All Android phones are designed with a built-in battery manager that dims the screen’s light, turns it off and finally puts the CPU to rest. However, there could be some apps in the phone that have wakelocks that prevent the CPU from sleeping or resting. So, it is important to detect the apps utilizing wakelock. This app looks at the wakelock usage history of the device to detect apps that prevent the phone from resting. It can also check how often the apps utilize wakelocks. Once the user finds these problem areas that use wakelock very frequently, they can easily close or uninstall them. Also, one should know that wakelock is a crucial part of Android operation, so only those apps that keep using wakelock for a very long time should be deleted. The apps that use wakelocks for a short period can be retained.

• Watchdog Task Manager

Although this is an old 2012 app, it is very helpful. It is designed to identify the rogue apps. It acts as a monitor that keeps an eye on the various apps in the phone to see the CPU usage. Every time it detects a spike in the CPU usage, it instantly alerts the user. You can then decide if you wish to keep that particular app or not. The Watchdog Task Manager features a white and black list. The blacklist option is a paid feature. All the apps in the blacklist get automatically killed if they exceed a certain CPU threshold. Also, the paid version of the Watchdog Task Manager eliminates all the ads.

Android users can download these apps easily from Play Store. They can check out and try the ones that work the best for their phone. If the battery issues don’t get resolved even after using these apps, then it is the mobile’s hardware problem that requires battery replacement.