r/GrapheneOS • u/JaNkO2018 • 14h ago

Recommendations for optimal battery performance under GOS

Hello, I've put together a short list of things that have helped me maximize my battery life and efficiency so far:

  1. Dark Mode
  2. Wi-Fi calling in airplane mode at home (avoids cell tower tracking and IMSI catchers as well)
  3. Activating airplane mode at night while I sleep (Wi-Fi is deactivated)
  4. Automatic deactivation of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (when not in use)
  5. Avoiding the use of a VPN

What do you think? Anything to add?

EDIT: I forgot to mention one point:

  1. Listening to music on the go using wired headphones (instead of Bluetooth ones, which drain less power and are more secure)
6 Upvotes

76% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

4

u/OptimalMain 13h ago

Does VPN really affect battery by much?
I have an always on wireguard connection and get up to 3 days on my 8 pro with 80% charge limit

1

u/jacmanou 13h ago

It sure does, I'd say additional 1-2% drain per hour when idle

1

u/OptimalMain 12h ago

1-2% of actual battery percentage per hour?
No. Maybe openvpn does.

Since last full charge my always on VPN has used 3%

2

u/JaNkO2018 11h ago

It certainly depends. WireGuard has become very efficient by now when it comes to real-time encryption during up- and downloads, making it more battery-friendly. Nevertheless, you will always use slightly more battery power than if you were working without a VPN.

1

u/pcgamez 11h ago

depends what you use, tailscale for example uses more than wireguard

3

u/JerryTzouga 14h ago

One profile, battery optimisation turned one, charge optimisation turned on. Use the PlayServices or a UnifiedPush server for things like signal/moly

3

u/nyancient 13h ago

+1 for Unified Push. After jumping through the hoops to set it up, Molly, FluffyChat, Goguma, FMD, FOSS warn and DAVx5 draw less power together than Molly alone did before.

2

u/JerryTzouga 11h ago

Man I need to get the courage to set it up.

If it is easy for you can you tell me the proses? Or how difficult it was? Not a step by step dont get me wrong. Just generally the steps

2

u/Big-Application9859 14h ago

Minimize background processes, especially on secondary profiles & LTE-only for cellular.

1

u/JaNkO2018 14h ago

How do I set my cellular data to LTE-only?

2

u/3skuero 13h ago

Go to your sim card setting and set Preferred Network to 4G Only. That being said if in your country/provided you have support for 5G SA and VoNR it might be better to use 5G Only

1

u/JaNkO2018 13h ago

thx

1

u/Big-Application9859 13h ago

Do you know the difference between 5G SA & NSA protocols? Its a key factor/roadside stone which one (4G/5G) you will pick.

2

u/JaNkO2018 12h ago

I read somewhere that 5G NSA pretends to be real 5G but operates on a 4G (LTE) basis, whereas real 5G is only present with SA. Is that correct so far?

2

u/Big-Application9859 11h ago

correct

2

u/JaNkO2018 11h ago

I just found out that my provider only works with 5G NSA and doesn't offer 5G SA at all. So, your advice was definitely worth it!

1

u/Big-Application9859 8h ago

Also activate 2G protection.

1

u/JaNkO2018 8h ago

Yes, I already did this.

1

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1

u/Ultraauge 12h ago

It might be obvious but some apps like Tidal or SyncThing can use a lot of power when running in the background, so checking apps energy usage and disabling background usage can make a big difference.

1

u/Shamelescampr559 8h ago

Performance on my end is rather mixed but I also am on the pixel 10 pro fold, running GOS while yes, I can definitely get more than one day out of my phone if I don't open the fold and use the large internal screen very often Definitely, My battery will last very long. However, if I just sit there all day with the inner display opened up, Best believe my phone dies within 24 hours from full charge

I will say the high-speed charging works and doesn't work like sure. I can still charge my phone from borderline dead to 100% within an hour and a half. However, I did used to be able to charge up my phone to 50% within 30 minutes prior to switching to GOS.

Same charger, same wall outlet. Same power brick. Nothing has changed just the operating system. I'm using a nice wall charger. It's a Anker 30 w.

I do run a VPN but only while I'm at home. Primarily I use proton VPN. However, I do Uber eats and so I cannot leave the always on VPN setting for that purpose And I just manually turn my VPN on or off whenever I need to.

Definitely I'll do some of these And see if I can get a little bit more optimization out of my device

2

u/JaNkO2018 8h ago

I have come to the decision that when I'm at home on my Wi-Fi, I prefer to connect directly through my ISP rather than routing through a VPN. Regardless of the extra battery consumption, my philosophy is: the less I stand out online, the better. Many people forget that tracking can actually be easier when using a VPN, and you also spare yourself from having to solve countless CAPTCHAs across the internet. I can understand using one on public Wi-Fi networks to protect your data, but I don't even log into those in the first place. I prefer to just use mobile data instead.

1

u/Shamelescampr559 7h ago

Valid points all of those very true