aol,
Not sure how RaceChrono is setup but after running it this morning it was the second highest user of my battery today, right next to the screen. It wasn't reporting 100% correctly as it only showed active usage as 51s, but it did show keep awake as 8 hours, and GPS use as 5 hours.
Anyways, not sure how accurate the reporting is, bit I was supprised to see racechron having used so much power (or reported to) and figured you would like to know.
FYI, app stopped by going to home screen, from there the apps are removed from the running list frequently.
Comments
RaceChrono uses lot of power. Most power is used by the screen being turned on. Bluetooth radio and internal GPS (and the data transfer if map is being displayed) can use considerable amount of power too. RaceChrono also keeps the phone awake even though the screen is turned off, because it needs to collect actively all the data. So the CPU never gets any sleep. Altough the CPU on the phones is very efficient and RaceChrono never uses 100% of it.
RaceChrono doesn't use any power when not recording. But does when recording. So when doing long recordings, you need to plan how the battery will last the rest of the day. I usually run RaceChrono with screen turned on when I don't have the charger nearby, as the screen is the main reason for short battery life.
If you think there's something wrong, for instance RaceChrono keeping the phone awake even when not recording, please do report it to me. I'll fix if there's anything wrong :)
Sorry, wasn't clear.
I only lap timed for about 15 minutes and then escaped out of the program to the home screen (I use RaceChrono occasionally for standard "chore" trips like going to work, or taking the kids to a weekly thing).
I usually clear out my program list frequently, I was under the impression that in Jelly Bean this is the running program list, but I could be wrong.
The point I was intending to make was that for an little bit of usage I had a large amount of battery drain. As far as actual lap timing goes, yeah I expect a program like RaceChrono to burn through a charge quickly, but this wasn't a lap timing session.
Guess this could have gone in the problems thread, sorry, wasn't thinking when I typed my comment.
Did you stop the recording before escaping out of the program? The recording continues in the background until it's stopped manually (Back button + confirmation). This way you can collect data even when running other apps.
When RaceChrono is recording on background, there is a small clock icon on the status bar, and a "RaceChrono is recording" message on the notification center.
I now realize maybe there should be separate "stop" button on the timer view.... The difference between back and home keys is not entirely clear.