[Android General] Oswald Boelcke:
Purpose: To share my personal experiences how I achieved an enhancement of my battery’s life, privacy and security.

INDEX:

Post #1 - General Statements, ROM and Kernel.

Post #2 - Privacy Measures and Considerations.

Post #3 – Better Battery Stats.

Post #4 – Greenify.

Post #5 – Amplify.

Post #6 – Power Nap

Post #7 – AppOpsXposed

THE BASICS:

Please read the XDA Forum Rules provided by @

MikeChannon

; from my personal point of view a definite MUST READ for everybody who intends to post on XDA or to contribute to this great site. Other MUST READ's I certainly recommend to everybody who wants to "breathe" what I believe the spirit of XDA is, are the following posts:

Forum Etiquette by @TheByteSmasher,

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=16682226&postcount=2441 by @zelendel, and last but not least

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=2031989&postcount=44 by @kyphur.

Do me the favour and really inhale what I just linked above!

Disclaimer:

Your device requires to be rooted, and in most cases that the Xposed framework is installed, too.

I am not responsible for any damages to your device if you follow any of the suggestions or my experiences provided in this thread.

If you do your warranty is now void. I am not responsible for bricked devices, dead SD cards, thermonuclear war, or if you’re getting fired because the alarm app failed. Please do some research if you have any concerns about features mentioned in this thread before flashing anything! YOU are choosing to make these modifications, and if you point the finger at me for messing up your device, I will laugh at you.

Whatever you do, before you do it ensure you save a NANDROID backup. If you don’t know what this means you’d probably rather discontinue further reading. Alternatively, you might want to start reading this and then return: What is?Boot loader,custom roms, CWM, modem, kernel?? by @esimon311.

Background: In December 2015, I got a used SGS 3 LTE that was running on CM 10. Immediately, I started to search for others ROMs especially on XDA (actually my first contact with this fantastic forum), thoroughly read the OPs and the subsequent posts, flashed and tried a few of them, till I've ended up in the configuration I'm now using for nearly nine months (details are available in the hidden part of my signature). I'm extremely happy, and my phone completely fulfils my requirements and desire; thanks to @rodman01, the dev of "my" ROM, I certainly don't need a different phone.

I'm quite "paranoid" in regard to privacy i.e. I don't and won't ever use things like FB, Whatsapp etc., and I’m not having experiences with them. Privacy is also my main driver to have my devices to only carry a minimalist suite of Google (“pico” and even some of that crap uninstalled) because I only use Play Store (unfortunately, some of my favourite apps incl. their betas are only available there) and broad location. If I'd get MicroG to run on my device Google had already been totally eliminated.

Desired End State: A device, which runs in a well-balanced ratio between battery endurance or drainage and performance specific to my objectives.

Criteria for Success: Battery lasts at least for 36 hours while all functionalities in regard to the objectives are applied; no unintended or random reboots occurring; no frozen screen.

Own Centre of Gravity: Maximum privacy.

Objectives:

Phone calls 24 hours per day, 7 days a week (24/7).

Text messaging 24/7.

Email reception and transmission 24/7.

Email and messenger encryption.

No “social networks” at all unless provider fulfils all privacy requirements.

No “messenger” except “Signal” but Signal 24/7.

All what can be accessed via a (slim line) browser, will be accessed via browser but not via dedicated applications.

If possible and achievable, no use of any Google “tool” or service.

If possible, no use of Chinese or Russian “products” or from any other country of “similar quality”. If unavoidable to use such a product, no WiFi, mobile data, or VPN access at all; all private or confidential data will be spoofed.

Control of access to private or confidential data like contacts, calendar, location, telephone number, IMEI etc. Spoofing as access control is acceptable.

Control of permissions only via ROM tools.

Control of broadcast receivers, services, wakelocks, and alarms.

Battery endurance of at least 24 hours.

Scenario: Remote location close to a national border with low 4G and 3G reception, even GSM reception occasionally weak and weather depending. No gaming at all.

Initial Steps: As stated above at background, I quite intensively and thoroughly scanned XDA for a ROM that could suit me; reading at least all the Ops but screened the respective thread, too. I finally but quickly found my desired one with [ROM][6.0.1][i9305 OFFICIAL] Resurrection Remix® M by @rodman01 in April 2016; it became my daily driver, and I’m using it till today.

Very fast, I concluded that performance of my phone might be enhanced by replacing the stock ROM kernel by a custom one i.e. I commenced the same search for a suitable kernel as I did for the ROM. Please be aware that kernel totally depend on the device and highly on the ROM. Read extremely thoroughly through the respective OP of the kernel you’ve in mind and get a clear indication if the kernel is really suitable for your device and your ROM. Even then, there might be more than one version available (as it’s the case for my current kernel); simply try, which one runs the best on your phone but also study the thread – others might have already shared experiences.

Next step was to experiment with the kernel settings especially the governor, governor and GPU frequencies and under-voltage. It became a try-and-error process including frozen locked screens and unintended reboots but the result was worth the torture. I was able to find kernel settings in accordance with my objectives especially improving the battery duration. I found the following thread extremely helpful in working out “my” kernel settings: [REF][GUIDE]Most up to date guide on CPU governors, I/O schedulers and more! by @Saber. If you search the thread of my kernel but also the Q&A section of my ROM you’ll certainly able to find some of the experiences I tried to share. Attached is a zip-file with screenshots of my current kernel settings.

Please be aware that not all kernel come with the same types or number of available governors. Some come with a dedicated control tool, some use the tool e.g. provided by the ROM; and as this would be off-topic and isn’t important to me, some offer different sound control like “boeffla”. Unless you’re on AGNi like me with its own AGNi Control application or on another kernel with its own control tool, I’ve very good own experiences with a tool called [APP] [4.0+] Kernel Adiutor by @Grarak. From my point of view, besides the marginal ROM settings to decrease battery drainage, installation of the right kernel and manipulation of its settings were the first major step to enhance my battery’s life!

Soon, I realised there are two versions of my ROM available, the “regular” one but also a so called “Sammy version” (for those who are interested, the differences are explained in post #3 of the above linked Resurrection Remix thread). I converted to the Sammy version and was impressed; first, how smooth my device performed “on Sammy” but second and more important to me that battery charging was much faster.

Nonetheless, if required I'm tweaking my system by tools like [APP] [4.0.3+] L SPEED Android tweaking APP by @Paget96 and keep it clean and tidy by [APP][1.6+] SD Maid - System cleaning tool by @Dark3n. SD Maid additionally offered me the possibility to easily control the “autostart” behaviour of my installed applications; however, there are certainly other tools available for this purpose e.g. My Android Tools that I'm also mentioning in post #2 for another reason.

Please be advised that for all somewhere in this thread mentioned applications or tools, I personally started using them with the recommended settings in their OPs if available i.e. you must thoroughly read them but eventually commenced to experiment with different settings until I achieved the results I wanted. This certainly also applies to the use of e.g. different governors or other kernel settings. I collected some of the guides and tutorials, which were very useful and supportive to me, in post #3 of this "How-to...". This whole thread is meant in conjunction with the SGS3 but some parts might be helpful even for your device.

EDIT (2016-11-11): If you experience WiFi drops you might be interested in experiences that @Wood Man is sharing with us, and he gratefully allowed me to quote him regarding WiFi drops that occured to him several times. It never happened to me because my setup was (just by accident) always different; however, if WiFi drops occur to you please have a look at this post. The explanation is so reasonable and makes so much sense from my point of view. Thanks very much to Wood Man for sharing his knowledge. I do mention this issue in this OP as I assume that these type of connected inteferences might even lead to a higher battery drainage in turn.

Last but not least a few words regarding Xposed – I apologise to the multiple XDA users who already know for covering this here but just by monitoring all the Xposed threads I’m convinced a lot of guys just don’t know. The Xposed framework in available in different versions pending e.g. on the brand of the device or its architecture, on the ROM respectively the Android SDK or if systemless root is used. I refrain from quoting all the different Xposed threads at this point; simply search the Xposed forum by yourself, and you certainly find the framework suitable to you. In the hidden part of my signature you can retrieve the Xposed version I’m using.

We talked about ROMs and kernels, now let’s mention the other key players for my satisfying battery endurance but as stated you certainly need Xposed:

BetterBatteryStats, Greenify, and Amplify, and PowerNap. EDIT (2016-11-11): Please refer to post #6 (about PowerNap) why I "removed" PowerNap.

I tried all of them, it worked out for me, and I'm continuing to use them; however, that what I stated in the paragraph above applies for them too: Comply with the recommendations and develop it further till you are satisfied.

EDIT (2016-11-19): If interested how I made my system GApps free, please check post #54.

Remarks:

If a donation option is available please consider to take advantage of this chance as you not only occasionally get a better capability but you're supporting the dev and the development.

None of the mentioned apps has got permission granted to the internet, and all are spoofed by XPrivacy. I'm pretty cautious regarding applications if so much power has been made available due to root and Xposed, and I always take their origins into consideration (a reason why I don't update my SuperSU anymore and continue to use SuperSU v2.76).

Occasionally, it's required to post you logs on XDA, and quite a few guys have problems with attaching files to their post; me too. In such a case, I suggest to try a different browser; I can only post all allowed attachments via Microsoft Edge and Chrome. FF, IE and Chrome doesn't allow for whatever reason; they even don't provide any possibility to select a file for upload. I have no experiences with XDA Labs. EDIT (2016-10-18): I don't know what changed a few minutes ago but I'm now able to use Chrome for the upload of files. Weird! Another option is to upload e.g. to http://hastebin.com and to post the link.

Now, you know more or less what I did to achieve a really good battery life.

ATTENTION: In accordance with my objectives

No so called "social network" applications (e.g. Whatsapp, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or how you name them) at all are installed on my devices i.e. you couldn't find any settings/limitations regarding them.

All my described settings/limitations are in that way that no push notifications at all are allowed (because I want it this way). Every wakelock and alarm connected to Google Play Services (GPS) is somehow limited; not one is unlimited. Quite a few services of GPS and/or Google Services Framework (GSF) are disabled. Edited because all devices are GApps-free.

If you just copy my settings without any reflection do not wonder that all of your push notifications are (even extremely) delayed. If you require anything of above you need to play with your system yourself.

The following posts provide you with details of all the applications I use to monitor and to limit the drainage of my battery.

CREDITS: To everybody who I mentioned in this OP or the subsequent posts. If I forgot someone I apologise. Please let me know in this case or if you want to be more prominently given credit; I'm happy to immediately follow such a request!

Off topic comments are allowed as long they are generally related to the overall topic, are in the general interest of the followers of this thread and add value to the thread. The ultimate decision rests with me as the OP!