CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaandroid
Brandon Amos
Brandon Amos

Reputation: 940

Retrieving Android Battery Metrics Every n Seconds [Efficiently]

I have found numerous sources for monitoring battery levels, but none of them describe how to check it at a fixed time interval. Suppose I want to check the battery every n seconds. What is the most efficient way to do this?

Currently, I create a BroadcastReceiver and register it in my service with a filter. I then use a ScheduledExecutor to "fetch" the information from the battery. If I understand what's going on correctly, the BroadcastReceiver I made receives all broadcasts from the battery rather at a dynamic rate as they come in, rather than the constant rate I want to check it at.

It appears that when I create the BroadcastReceiver, it receives an "initial" message with the current info. Would it be more efficient to create a receiver object every so often, receive this initial message, then destroy it every time I want to check it? Or, is there a different way that I haven't thought about?

Sources that I used for monitoring the battery, in case if anybody is interested:

Upvotes: 4

Views: 1517

Answers (1)

CommonsWare
CommonsWare

Reputation: 1007296

Suppose I want to check the battery every n seconds. What is the most efficient way to do this?

Unless n is measured in hundreds or thousands of seconds, you may well be the #1 consumer of battery life. Given your comment, I will assume that you really mean "every n minutes".

Step #1: Set up an AlarmManager schedule to invoke an IntentService every n minutes (preferably not with a _WAKEUP alarm type).

Step #2: In that IntentService, call registerReceiver() with a null BroadcastReceiver and an IntentFilter that is for ACTION_BATTERY_CHANGED. The return value will be the last Intent broadcast for this event.

Step #3: Do something with the data.

Upvotes: 2

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