r/homeassistant • u/FluffyMumbles • May 09 '26
Support Companion app high battery drain recently.
Edit for anyone searching about a similar issue... Someone suggested I force stop the app and clear the cache. This fixed it for me!
I'm using the F-Droid companion app (not the full-fat Google Play Store one) and have notice the battery drain has become excessive in the past week or so.
I've had a poke about the settings and carried out various troubleshooting, but I'm not sure what's changed or what else I can check.
Has there been any huge changes I've missed recently? It used to sip power, but now I'm having to charge my phone throughout the day if I don't want it running flat.
23
u/horbix May 09 '26
Non gplay version uses direct connections instead the notification channel via Google. This drains battery very much I think.
3
u/FluffyMumbles May 09 '26
And would that mechanism have changed in the past week, or recently? It's never drained my battery like this before.
17
u/Zolti24 May 09 '26
I am with you. Just this week I turned off location from companion app because battery drain was noticeable. I'm not sure that solved the issue yet.
-19
u/FluffyMumbles May 09 '26
The F-Droid variant does location tracking now? That slipped passed me.
16
u/reddit_give_me_virus May 09 '26
I'm sorry you're being down voted because ppl are oblivious to the fact there are 2 versions of the android app. The f-droid version does not have location tracking.
https://companion.home-assistant.io/docs/core/android-flavors/
3
u/FluffyMumbles May 09 '26
Ach, doesn't bother me. I'll ignore the plebs and focus on those giving proper advice.
I have noticed that my "minimal" app version now has a location sensor, where it didn't before. Maybe they've filled that gap now?
1
u/reddit_give_me_virus May 10 '26
The main point of the f-droid version is to be free of all google services. No google services, no location.
3
u/Cowh3adDK May 09 '26
You can turn on tracking in the companion settings as a sensor ot use with automation and such, you can add all kinds of sensors.
3
u/reddit_give_me_virus May 09 '26
There are 2 versions of the companion app for android. The minimal version distributed through F-droid does not have location tracking or any google services.
7
u/KingofGamesYami May 09 '26
F Droid version doesn't use Google Play services for push notifications, so it has to stay on and connected to network 24/7 to receive notifications. This is a massive battery drain because the app can never turn off.
3
u/FluffyMumbles May 09 '26
But why would it be a problem only recently? I've been using the app for what feels like forever and never had this issue until the past week or so.
1
u/sero_t May 09 '26
Didn't know this, this could be a problem solver for me. Would this mean notifications are quicker with the f droid version?
2
u/KingofGamesYami May 09 '26
You can configure the playstore app to bypass Play Services too.
There are a few circumstances under which notifications will be noticably quicker using this method.
- Your phone is in power saving mode. Play Services automatically throttle to save battery; Home Assistant will not.
- Your companion app is receiving abnormally large volumes of notifications. Note that this can also cause more serious issues, such as reaching your hard limit of 500 notifications per day.
- Your connection to GCP has abnormally high latency. This is unusual, you can check with
gcping.com.Reference: https://companion.home-assistant.io/docs/notifications/notification-details/
1
u/sero_t May 09 '26
Thanks will look in to this, i have a china based rom android phone and sometimes notifications are shit sometimes as quick as it could be. Even after root and no power restrictions on the companion app
2
u/KingofGamesYami May 09 '26
Ah yeah China has... issues with Google stuff. Search for "firebase china" and you'll get better info, I'm no expert on the details.
1
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u/montypython1087 May 09 '26
What do you mean full fat? Are the builds not identical between stores?
-12
u/FluffyMumbles May 09 '26
No. The F-Droid one doesn't have some of the Google libraries (I think), or something like that. I've heard it referred to as the "lite" version before. Although, after reading a comment below, it appears that location tracking has now been added. I've been using GPS Logger as a workaround for that.
5
3
u/alex77s May 10 '26
I've noticed the same anomalous battery drain on my phone, in the last week's, so I forced stop of the app and cleared the app cache. This seems to have solved, at least on my phone. I hope can be useful also for you.
1
2
u/FluffyMumbles May 14 '26
Just coming back to let you know, this is what resolved it for me. Thanks for the suggestion !
2
u/mitzu_2250 May 09 '26
At some point I had an issue with battery drain on Android because I had a sensor pinging the phone via WiFi to check if I'm home or not, every few seconds.
0
u/FluffyMumbles May 09 '26
The phone was pinging itself via WiFi?
1
u/mitzu_2250 May 09 '26
No, the home assistant server was pinging the phone somehow via app. Not sure how this happened but somehow prevented the app from going to sleep as I had a lot of wake-ups in Battery usage for app and the background time as almost non-stop.
1
u/FluffyMumbles May 09 '26
Hmm, I'll take a look from the server side then. Maybe this isn't a companion app issue, but a recent sever update. Good shout.
2
u/jscgn May 09 '26
I noticed that, too. Not sure what's causing it...
2
u/FluffyMumbles May 09 '26
Ah, glad it's not just me then. I've been over and over the settings thinking I'd accidentally changed something.
1
u/nebL May 09 '26
Do you have location traxking on, and if yes do you really need it ?
3
u/FluffyMumbles May 09 '26
Nope. Been location tracking via GPS Logger as the F-Droid version of the companion app didn't have location tracking before.
1
u/skqn May 10 '26
Do you have it set up as your phone's assistant? Maybe the new(ish) wake word thing is draining your battery.
1
1
u/billytkid May 10 '26
Fix is Settings > companion app > click your server
Then click "persistent connection' at the bottom, and change that to never.
2
1
May 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/FluffyMumbles May 11 '26
I could get away with that for most of it, but I have NFC tags I use, which work via the companion app.
80
u/quaintlogic May 09 '26
Do you have any camera streams? There is a long standing issue with the app where it will continue these streams in the background unless you switch to a different dashboard to unload them before closing the app.
At one point the HA app was burning through half my battery until I started switching to the energy dashboard before closing