Daniel Gultsch

4 months ago

Daniel Gultsch
4 months ago

I installed #Signal and #Conversations_im on a clean install of #GrapheneOS on my Pixel 4a and measured the battery impact. The results are shocking!

Both messengers had only one contact: my regular phone.

I used my regular phone to send messages to the Pixel 4a (which was not used for anything else over the course of the experiment).

I always sent the same message via Signal and #XMPP (mixing up which app went first). In total I sent ~32 messages in intervals of 10mins to a few hours.

Battery usage stats from an Android phone. The battery is down to 10% after 20 hours since last full charge.

Signal has consumed 95% in that period and Conversations 5%

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in reply to Daniel Gultsch

مسعود

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

Truly shocking.

What push mechanisms are you using for Signal and for Conversations?

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MattJ

Unknown parent 4 months ago

I wonder if this is related to the bandwidth/power optimizations that XMPP clients/servers support (e.g. CSI) or just general app bloat.
@masoud

@مسعود

in reply to Daniel Gultsch

This is in line with my experience with signal. I have revoked all battery optimization permissions and essentially allow my phone to insta-kill it once it goes to the background. I don’t receive messages unless I open it, but my battery last eons longer.

in reply to Daniel Gultsch

adb

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

I did some tests in the past as well and I remember #Conversations was one of the best apps on optimal battery usage, great work Daniel! 👌

#conversations

in reply to Daniel Gultsch

Remus

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

Do you plan to make experiments with element, too?
I would expect Conversations to perform a lot better since matrix is known to be more heavy on ressources but i mention it because it feels like an obvious direct competitor

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iamreinder

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

That seems quite significant. I have looked into hosting my own XMPP server in the past. I like the idea of a small non-bigtech chat platform for my inner circle. Unfortunately, the biggest challenge is to get people to switch their conversation with you over to a different app.

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床井一郎

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

So I suspect Signal has a wakelock problem as they haven't tested extensively on devices without Play services? The battery drain is running at almost constant speed.

Conversations is great. There's not much to modify/customise before getting it to run on my devices.

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yetzt

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

you have to disable "mine bitcoin" in the settings. /s

in reply to Daniel Gultsch

Sandro

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

Signal is probably not testing/optimizing for phones without Play Services.

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Ichthyx

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

btw molly a signal soft fork have unified push support. So we can use correct software (Conversions) as a notify provider 👍

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Râu Cao ⚡

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

While you're testing with GrapheneOS, maybe you could check if it keeps the connection open for longer when the phone is locked. Since a couple of months or so, I see 0 connections in the widget when unlocking my phone after a while, but then it reconnects quickly. However, the battery savings settings are the same as before and I don't know why it would disconnect otherwise.

in reply to Daniel Gultsch

Moritz

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

It's a well known problem: github.com/signalapp/Signal-An…

Signal consumes half of my battery (no google services or microG) · Issue #9729 · signalapp/Signal-Android

I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates I am submitting a bug report for existing functionality that does not work as intended I have read https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/...

^GitHub

in reply to Daniel Gultsch

Norbert Tretkowski

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

Known issue since years...
github.com/signalapp/Signal-An…

Signal consumes half of my battery (no google services or microG) · Issue #9729 · signalapp/Signal-Android

I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates I am submitting a bug report for existing functionality that does not work as intended I have read https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/...

^GitHub

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Râu Cao ⚡

Unknown parent 4 months ago

I meant more like leave phone untouched for at least a few hours, then check.

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Râu Cao ⚡

Unknown parent 4 months ago

Ah OK, thanks.

in reply to Daniel Gultsch

Marek

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

Mhh, Signal always keeps a connection to their server open for push messages. Maybe try Molly (Signal fork) with UnifiedPush and use Conversations as UnifiedPush provider.

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n00b0ss

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

I use the @mollyim fork and it looks like that it does not use that much battery

@Molly

in reply to Daniel Gultsch

Marcus Adams

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

I wonder if it would be any better if you used the play store version and microG. That's what I'm using on CalyxOS and while my notifications from Signal are less reliable than Conversations, battery usage isn't too bad, though it is worse. Here's my top contenders right now. I'm using the F-Droid version of Conversations.

A screenshot listing my battery usage.

- Wireguard
- Signal
- Conversations

This entry was edited (4 months ago)

in reply to Daniel Gultsch

pixelschubsi

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

Signal needs to keep active and send regular pings to keep the WebSocket connection open. This is not a technical requirement of WebSockets, but stems from Signal using the latest advanced cloud technology on their servers which cuts the connection if it doesn't see active payload traffic.

in reply to Daniel Gultsch

Iak

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

interessant. Ich kämpfe auf meinem #grapheneos auch seit einer Weile mit dem Akkuverbrauch von #signal. Schade, dass in #younohost seit dem Update auf #debian 12 nicht mehr automatisch ein #XMPP Server integriert ist. Das war schon ein sehr bequemer Weg für Laien wie mich, unfallfrei, unkompliziert und günstig einen solchen zu klicken und pflegen.

#xmpp #debian #signal #grapheneos #younohost

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meejah

Unknown parent 4 months ago

@masoud A big part of the reason centralized push-notifications (aka "Google Play Services") exist is for battery optimization.

You could of course just let Signal use Play Services on graphene if you like.

My experience is different (although I only have Signal, not matrix). My refurbished 7a with GrapheneOS and no Play Services at all in the owner profile lasts easily two days. (That said, it'll mostly be on WiFi while I'm at home -- so possibly the difference is that?)

@مسعود

in reply to Daniel Gultsch

Jona Joachim

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

I don't know why Signal eats so much battery but they probably don't run a lot of tests without GCM since that is their main platform. On a degoogled phone, you can use Molly with unified push. Molly is a fork of the official Signal client with very little changes. It works very nicely and UP is a great framework. You can even serve the Signal notifications through Conversations since it works as UP provider

in reply to Daniel Gultsch

CryptGoat

in reply to Daniel Gultsch 4 months ago

I have had exactly the reversed scenario at times: Conversations draining like crazy while Signal was just fine. Sometimes the other way around. Never found an explanation. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯