1 page.title=Monitoring the Battery Level and Charging State 2 parent.title=Optimizing Battery Life 3 parent.link=index.html 4 5 trainingnavtop=true 6 parent.link=index.html 7 previous.title=Optimizing for Doze and App Standby 8 previous.link=doze-standby.html 9 next.title= Determining and Monitoring the Connectivity Status 10 next.link=connectivity-monitoring.html 11 @jd:body 12 13 <div id="tb-wrapper"> 14 <div id="tb"> 15 16 <h2>This lesson teaches you to</h2> 17 <ol> 18 <li><a href="#DetermineChargeState">Determine the Current Charging State</a></li> 19 <li><a href="#MonitorChargeState">Monitor Changes in Charging State</a></li> 20 <li><a href="#CurrentLevel">Determine the Current Battery Level</a></li> 21 <li><a href="#MonitorLevel">Monitor Significant Changes in Battery Level</a></li> 22 </ol> 23 24 <h2>You should also read</h2> 25 <ul> 26 <li><a href="{@docRoot}guide/components/intents-filters.html">Intents and Intent Filters</a> 27 </ul> 28 29 </div> 30 </div> 31 32 <p>When you're altering the frequency of your background updates to reduce the effect of those 33 updates on battery life, checking the current battery level and charging state is a good place to 34 start.</p> 35 36 <p>The battery-life impact of performing application updates depends on the battery level and 37 charging state of the device. The impact of performing updates while the device is charging over AC 38 is negligible, so in most cases you can maximize your refresh rate whenever the device is connected 39 to a wall charger. Conversely, if the device is discharging, reducing your update rate helps 40 prolong the battery life.</p> 41 42 <p>Similarly, you can check the battery charge level, potentially reducing the frequency of—or 43 even stopping—your updates when the battery charge is nearly exhausted.</p> 44 45 46 <h2 id="DetermineChargeState">Determine the Current Charging State</h2> 47 48 <p>Start by determining the current charge status. The {@link android.os.BatteryManager} 49 broadcasts all battery and charging details in a sticky {@link android.content.Intent} that includes 50 the charging status.</p> 51 52 <p>Because it's a sticky intent, you don't need to register a {@link 53 android.content.BroadcastReceiver}—by simply calling {@code registerReceiver} passing in 54 {@code null} as the receiver as shown in the next snippet, the current battery status intent is 55 returned. You could pass in an actual {@link android.content.BroadcastReceiver} object here, but 56 we'll be handling updates in a later section so it's not necessary.</p> 57 58 <pre>IntentFilter ifilter = new IntentFilter(Intent.ACTION_BATTERY_CHANGED); 59 Intent batteryStatus = context.registerReceiver(null, ifilter);</pre> 60 61 <p>You can extract both the current charging status and, if the device is being charged, whether 62 it's charging via USB or AC charger:<p> 63 64 <pre>// Are we charging / charged? 65 int status = batteryStatus.getIntExtra(BatteryManager.EXTRA_STATUS, -1); 66 boolean isCharging = status == BatteryManager.BATTERY_STATUS_CHARGING || 67 status == BatteryManager.BATTERY_STATUS_FULL; 68 69 // How are we charging? 70 int chargePlug = batteryStatus.getIntExtra(BatteryManager.EXTRA_PLUGGED, -1); 71 boolean usbCharge = chargePlug == BatteryManager.BATTERY_PLUGGED_USB; 72 boolean acCharge = chargePlug == BatteryManager.BATTERY_PLUGGED_AC;</pre> 73 74 <p>Typically you should maximize the rate of your background updates in the case where the device is 75 connected to an AC charger, reduce the rate if the charge is over USB, and lower it 76 further if the battery is discharging.</p> 77 78 79 <h2 id="MonitorChargeState">Monitor Changes in Charging State</h2> 80 81 <p>The charging status can change as easily as a device can be plugged in, so it's important to 82 monitor the charging state for changes and alter your refresh rate accordingly.</p> 83 84 <p>The {@link android.os.BatteryManager} broadcasts an action whenever the device is connected or 85 disconnected from power. It's important to receive these events even while your app isn't 86 running—particularly as these events should impact how often you start your app in order to 87 initiate a background update—so you should register a {@link 88 android.content.BroadcastReceiver} in your manifest to listen for both events by defining the 89 {@link android.content.Intent#ACTION_POWER_CONNECTED} and {@link 90 android.content.Intent#ACTION_POWER_DISCONNECTED} within an intent filter.</p> 91 92 <pre><receiver android:name=".PowerConnectionReceiver"> 93 <intent-filter> 94 <action android:name="android.intent.action.ACTION_POWER_CONNECTED"/> 95 <action android:name="android.intent.action.ACTION_POWER_DISCONNECTED"/> 96 </intent-filter> 97 </receiver></pre> 98 99 <p>Within the associated {@link android.content.BroadcastReceiver} implementation, you can extract 100 the current charging state and method as described in the previous step.</p> 101 102 <pre>public class PowerConnectionReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver { 103 @Override 104 public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) { 105 int status = intent.getIntExtra(BatteryManager.EXTRA_STATUS, -1); 106 boolean isCharging = status == BatteryManager.BATTERY_STATUS_CHARGING || 107 status == BatteryManager.BATTERY_STATUS_FULL; 108 109 int chargePlug = intent.getIntExtra(BatteryManager.EXTRA_PLUGGED, -1); 110 boolean usbCharge = chargePlug == BatteryManager.BATTERY_PLUGGED_USB; 111 boolean acCharge = chargePlug == BatteryManager.BATTERY_PLUGGED_AC; 112 } 113 }</pre> 114 115 116 <h2 id="CurrentLevel">Determine the Current Battery Level</h2> 117 118 <p>In some cases it's also useful to determine the current battery level. You may choose to reduce 119 the rate of your background updates if the battery charge is below a certain level.</p> 120 121 <p>You can find the current battery charge by extracting the current battery level and scale from 122 the battery status intent as shown here:</p> 123 124 <pre>int level = batteryStatus.getIntExtra(BatteryManager.EXTRA_LEVEL, -1); 125 int scale = batteryStatus.getIntExtra(BatteryManager.EXTRA_SCALE, -1); 126 127 float batteryPct = level / (float)scale;</pre> 128 129 130 <h2 id="MonitorLevel">Monitor Significant Changes in Battery Level</h2> 131 132 <p>You can't easily continually monitor the battery state, but you don't need to.</p> 133 134 <p>Generally speaking, the impact of constantly monitoring the battery level has a greater 135 impact on the battery than your app's normal behavior, so it's good practice to only monitor 136 significant changes in battery level—specifically when the device enters or exits a low 137 battery state.</p> 138 139 <p>The manifest snippet below is extracted from the intent filter element within a broadcast 140 receiver. The receiver is triggered whenever the device battery becomes low or exits the low 141 condition by listening for {@link android.content.Intent#ACTION_BATTERY_LOW} and {@link 142 android.content.Intent#ACTION_BATTERY_OKAY}.</p> 143 144 <pre><receiver android:name=".BatteryLevelReceiver"> 145 <intent-filter> 146 <action android:name="android.intent.action.ACTION_BATTERY_LOW"/> 147 <action android:name="android.intent.action.ACTION_BATTERY_OKAY"/> 148 </intent-filter> 149 </receiver></pre> 150 151 <p>It is generally good practice to disable all your background updates when the battery is 152 critically low. It doesn't matter how fresh your data is if the phone turns itself off before you 153 can make use of it.</p> 154 155 <p>In many cases, the act of charging a device is coincident with putting it into a dock. The next 156 lesson shows you how to determine the current dock state and monitor for changes in device 157 docking.</p> 158 159 160 161 162
