CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidbackgroundandroid-activity
ssk
ssk

Reputation: 9255

Good Practices for running Android App in the Background

I have a VOIP app that I would like to always run in the background to make it responsive to incoming calls. Reading through some forums I found running the app in the background would cause a battery drain.

Are there good practices that I should follow so as to run the app in the background?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1385

Answers (3)

Andrew Hannon
Andrew Hannon

Reputation: 21

There are many smart VoIP applications that use Push Notification feature. That will not eat up as much battery, but you must have a consistent internet connection. One such option is Axvoice. Check out their apps at: http://www.axvoice.com/support/mobile-voip-applications.html

They will also run in the background like other apps, but the difference between Axvoice and other apps is you can reduce battery consumption because it will not be communicating with live servers all the time. Please have a look at this: http://www.wikihow.com/Save-Battery-Power-on-an-Android

Upvotes: 2

CommonsWare
CommonsWare

Reputation: 1006644

Reading through some forums I found running the app in the background would cause a battery drain.

It is more that having something run all the time increases your opportunity to drain the battery.

Are there good practices that I should follow so as to run the app in the background?

Being a VOIP app already violates some of the "good practices". For example, you will need to (try to) have a service that runs forever, to maintain your open socket connection to the VOIP server. And, depending upon how your networking is set up, you might need to try maintaining a WifiLock, which will drain the battery.

Generally speaking, then, you just want to make sure that your service is doing as little as possible except when a call is in progress. For example, while you may need to send packets over to the VOIP server periodically to keep your connection alive, try to do that as infrequently as you can.

Upvotes: 3

John P.
John P.

Reputation: 4388

Use a Broadcast Reciever. It is documented here

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/BroadcastReceiver.html

A BroadcastReciever will execute it's code when the specified broadcast is broadcasted through the system. In other words when you receive a call the system sends out a broadcast saying that there is an incoming call. If your receiver is made to pick up on that broadcast than it will react. Think of it like the Android system is broadcasting a lot of different radio stations and a BroadcastReciever is like a radio. You can set it to pick up whatever broadcast you want and execute some code when it does.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions