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Comment by jcal93 | Hacker News Reader

I stood one of these up last year to play around with it. It works flawlessly but the Android app destroyed my battery life. If that has gotten better, it's probably a fantastic solution for DIY real-time push.

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I guessing that is because it wants to work without google play services so it needs to keep a connection to the server. This is similar to how signal works when run without gApps.

I don't have problems with battery life running Signal without GApps or MicroG.

Same. I don't see how a connection to random server X should eat more battery compared to Google.

I think the difference is more that each app has to maintain its own connection (more connections, more drain). Seems like gotify could remedy that though.

TIL. How does Signal sends push notifications without GCM?

Just like how google services handle push notifications on your phone: a persistent connection.

Without GCM though, every app needs to maintain a separate connection, which drains more battery.

That's why we need more alternatives to GCM, like UnifiedPush.

I've been using it for over a year now and it hardly uses any battery on my phone (Huawei Mate 10 Pro, Android 9, app is whitelisted from all battery optimization). It's so low in fact that it often doesn't even show up on the usage list, and if it does its 1-2%.

Have been using it for a year and a half, it uses nearly no battery. On both Android 10 and now with Android 11.

I've used it for a couple of years with no noticeable impact on battery life. (Motorola phones).

Same thing for me, 10-20% daily battery was for Gotify...

(Android, Samsung S20+)

6.5% on my Samsung A40, Android 11. Third higher app after Firefox and WhatsApp which have more active time but much less background time.

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