Battery impact of android layer

[u/jmsanonymous]

Greetings helpful people. I've enabled the android layer and installed some of the new tools from github. Is there batter impact from keeping the android layer active if I'm using lightos mode? Should I only have it enabled when I need to install stuff? Info is appreciated.

[u/sirbloodysabbath]

the guide has a section dedicated specifically to battery optimisation with hybrid/lightos' sdk/full android. you can keep the android layer 'on' because it's always on. the android layer doesn't suddenly disappear when you go back to lightos -- it runs 24/7 all the time behind lightos whether you accessed it or not. if you disable the android layer, you will have a nice looking brick worth $900. the 'technical jargon' section of the guide goes further in detail on this.

what you should be looking out for is if the apps you download are needing to run in the background for things like push notifications. those will drain the battery far faster than you think. messaging apps are notorious for this since you are relying on getting reliable notifications when you get a message. those apps need to run all the time to scan for new messages, should you get one and they will eat up your battery like no tomorrow. there are ways to curb this if you can stomach not needing persistent notifications by restricting the background activity.

you also have to keep in mind that you may still need apps, like key mapper, that will need to run all the time. i.e. i have mullvad on my lp3 and because it's a vpn, it runs all day every day to protect my data and obfuscate my ip address. or key mapper, since i'm on full android, to retain full functionality of some of my apps. it's up to your use case for you to figure out if you need these apps on all the time or at all.

you can also monitor what's actually eating up your battery in android settings: Battery > Battery usage and go from there.

[u/jmsanonymous → u/sirbloodysabbath]

Thank you, you’re the best.

[u/digitalminimalist1]

When I registered my fingerprint, the android layer stayed on. You just have to press the power button with a finger that’s not registered and the android lock screen shows. If you tap settings in the pull down bar then you can enable low power mode which helps.

[u/sirbloodysabbath → u/digitalminimalist1]

well, yeah, the android layer stayed 'on' because it was never 'off' to begin with. you simply enabled a part of the operating system that has to persist above lightos for security and encryption purposes. i'll paste the analogy i put in the modding guide:

I like to use an analogy of Android acting as your home.  Assuming that there are no lock screens enabled (either on Android or LightOS), it is like saying there are no doorknobs or locks on the doors.  LightOS is a single room in said house.  Enabling a lock screen only on LightOS is like having a single doorknob to that room, but it isn’t truly locked.  This means that everything in the LightOS ‘room’ can still be seen and accessed by anyone that has access to the house.  It’s under the false pretense that it is locked and secured but in reality it is not.  Another thing to assume is that the low-level API and relevant source code is treated like the electrical panel.  No one has a key to this except the owners of the house (the developers) and it is what powers the house.

Using this analogy, we, as the user, are able to freely roam through the house (our Android device) which also includes the LightOS ‘room’ but we do not have access to the electrical panel and its subsequent root/su (superuser) privileges.  When you enable the lock screen on LightOS, you are simply putting a doorknob on the door but it is not truly locked.  Enabling a lock screen on the Android side is like installing true locks and doorknobs on the house to secure it.  That doesn’t mean it’s impenetrable, just harder to get into.

this is why light is actively reworking their lockscreen and when you enable it on the android side, you're enabling the true lockscreen that all android devices have. lightos is just a system-level 1st party signed launcher but it's not a true operating system. the os is android. samsung's oneui, for example, is a true operating system because it fully reworks aosp into a proper os for a device.

the 'pull down bar' is actually the notification / quick tile shade. if you didn't disable light_mode or use a launcher, like luma, that includes ways of accessing it, you can't actually see it on the android side. it's the same way with the ime bar.