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Comment by jre | Hacker News Reader

It should be doable to build an Android app that turns data on every X minutes. Does such a thing already exist ? Does it really help with battery ?

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Yes, and yes. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gyagapen.c...

It essentially disconnects data when screen is off (the algorithm is a bit more complex, but that's the basic idea). Especially in areas where my phone passes between 2G/3G/noSignal often, I see much improved battery life.

JuiceDefender does this. It can also disable Bluetooth until you start to make a call, and other tricks. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.latedroid....

This is one of the major things that JuiceDefender on Android phones did, though the app has apparently been abandoned (last updated more than 3 years ago). I suspect that there are newer apps doing the same things, at least on rooted phones.

Sony Xperia devices have a Stamina mode that turns off data and wifi right after the screen is turned off. Big difference in battery life if one is not really interested in push notifications, etc.

+1 for this, my z3 compact with stamina mode on lasts almost a full week(!) even though i do a few calls, check emails, browse a bit etc. Performance while using it actively is still 100%, so not like many other lame battery saving modes that reduces the frame rate to 1fps and brightness to 0.01% making the phone unusable.

Only drawback is that background downloads get canceled when the screen dies but i don't have any downloads outlasting my active usage sessions anyway so i don't care really. Many people wouldn't like missing the push notifications from the mailbox but for me that is just another good reason to activate it.

Tasker can do it, but it might require a rooted phone to be able to toggle the mobile data setting.

Personally, I tried to get it to do a "turn data on when I have the display on, otherwise turn data on every X minutes/hours", but handling all the corner cases was difficult.

Plus, programming in the Tasker UI is fiddly.

According to this [1] StackOverflow answer there is no API support for enabling/disabling mobile data, but it can be done using reflection. Process requires CHANGE_NETWORK_STATE permission.

[1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12535101/how-can-i-turn-o...

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