I’ve been suffering from really bad idle battery drain on Android for most of this year. With B297 it seems so far that it’s finally solved for me. I’ve had ARC in the background since 9 am today and my battery is sitting at 87% at 1 PM. My screen on time is 1 hour and 22 mins and out of my battery usage ARC was responsible for 8%. This is on a Pixel 9 Pro XL. Previously if I let ARC run like this by now I’d be in the high 60s not the high 80s.
Has anyone else felt a difference on Android?
So idle drain is better, playback drain is still really extreme.
After doing some testing I’m seeing heavy power draw when resting on the Now Playing screen which @connor altered me to, validated with Accubattery. It seems that the GPU usage bug hasn’t been fixed yet.
· I'm having trouble with Roon ARC
· Other
ARC is destroying the battery on my phone. I'm on B298 Early Access and this has been going on for the better part of this year. @connor said that there was a high GPU draw bug on the now playing screen and some other stuff being looked into in the background but I'm not at a point where even listening to music will cause such severe drain that I have to charge my phone right away. I'm using a brand new Pixel 9 Pro XL and this is still an issue with the ARC client.
Not relevant, ARC clientside issue
Did a little bit of testing, something I noticed a while ago: I revoked the Nearby Devices permission and it may have made a difference when it comes to draw. I’m wondering if this may have something to do with my Pixel Watch being connected or some other Bluetooth devices such as my Pixel Buds Pro which I heard was being investigated internally.
I’m watching idle draw in Accubattery with ARC idling and it’s pretty low. I’ll keep an eye on it for a few days to see as idle draw can be intermittent.
As for draw during playback I did a direct comparison with Spotify and based on my test usage seemed to be identical. I think the playback draw I was seeing may have had more to due with playback over wireless Android Auto and less with Roon. I spent an hour with my Pixel Buds this morning at work and saw a 5 percent or so drop which isn’t bad at all.
B301 seems to be a lot better. I’m not sure if something else was addressed but I’m seeing much less drain now both idle and during playback.
I just figured out any sort of DSP that is applied will kill your battery while playback is occurring. Headroom management was on and turning that off caused drain to tank.