Share My Creation Optimus Battery Saver

I have made my first Android App and uploaded to the market!
It's a battery saver app, it can make you last to 2x times your battery! It took me about a month to develop it (I'm a software developer, but never made programs for android, B4A was my first approach to develop complete android apps).
I have to say that B4A its really a very powerfull tool to develop android apps (I had try to start with Java and the Android SDK and its was very difficult to understand), It took me about 2-3 days to just make some toys apps, about 3 weeks of develop with lot of testing, and a week for a beta test.

The main idea of the app is to turn on/off the wifi and data connections with a frequency that you can choose.
There are some modes:
-Night Mode: You can set the hours in which you go to sleep, to turn off the connections during those hours. When the night mode ends, it will start synching again with the given frequency.
-Super Saving: You can set the limit of minimium battery porcentage in wich you want to stop synching. For example you can put 20% battery for no more synching, until you plug your phone
-Rush Hour: You can set the hours in which you want to have more frequent updates, and choose a new frequency. When the rush hour ends, it will go back to the standard frequency
-Weekend: you can set your weekend with a new frequency, and set new Night times hours

This is the free version:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=socialnetis.optimusfree

This is the Full Version:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=socialnetis.optimus

 

[sorex]

Excellent, I tried a few off these and they are either

full of ads
crashing service so it doesn't work without noticing it
unreliable even if the service still runs
too complex to tweak right
having other useless features

so I was about to create my own, so you safe me some time here while my 2do list is already long enough

this one looks plain and easy in all aspects, I'll give it a try.

 

[sorex]

Installed this and the only issue I see is that those time controlls are in spanish even when the rest is all in english, even when reselecting english as language in the settings.


Also the on-off is setting is not really clear.

I thought it was on because it displayed on, but in fact is was off and it means pressing the button now turns it on.

Maybe better to use one of those on-off slider switches
or 2 buttons next to each other where 1 is enabled(colored) and one disabled(grey) ?

 

[socialnetis]

Hey, thanks for the feedback!
I'll change the dialog labels as soon as possible (probably tomorrow, today I'm having a very busy day).
About the On/Off button, Yes I know is a little confusing, I'll work on that too.
The on-off slider button was the main idea, but it's a little bit long, and I have some problems with the long labels like "Super Saving" in some devices with small screen (algo, some languages, like portuguese, have really long words) and the label with collide with the on-off botton if is too long.

I'll continue adding some functionalities in the next weeks.

There is a little issue though: One of the main ideas when you turn on the screen is to turn on the connections until you turn off the screen. When the screen is off, the connections turn off too. The problem is that when you want to make a VOIP call (like in skype), when you put the phone in your ear, the screen will go off, and so the connections (and will cut the call).
So, I'll have to make some white-list or I'll have lots of complains I guess..

 

[sorex]

Indeed, but I'm not using any fancy tools like skype so I'm happy like it is now

In the full screen version the bottom menu gets covered with an ad tho.

Not sure if this is a bug, but I've set the night setting from 18:00 - 08:00.
It's now 22:31 and the wifi get turned on when I unlock the screen.

Or is this period to skip that 10 minutes frequency to enable wifi again?

If so how long is wifi enabled when the phone is in locked/idle mode?

 

[AllyAndroid]

Installed this and the only issue I see is that those time controlls are in spanish even when the rest is all in english, even when reselecting english as language in the settings.


Also the on-off is setting is not really clear.

I thought it was on because it displayed on, but in fact is was off and it means pressing the button now turns it on.

Maybe better to use one of those on-off slider switches
or 2 buttons next to each other where 1 is enabled(colored) and one disabled(grey) ?

I was going to post the same thing last night but didn't get a chance to.

A couple of other things, I wasn't aware that there was any settings until Sorex mentioned it, because the ad covers it up on my Droid 4.

I would also add a couple of additional settings:

1. Allow the user to choose between time based on 24 hours or time based on 12 hours with AM/PM.
2. Allow the user to turn off the notification on top.

 

[sorex]

>2. Allow the user to turn off the notification on top.

Actually, that's how figured out it wasn't on.

I found it odd that an icon appeard when I turned it off

and it's usefull since you can access the settings via that icon in the notification area.

 

[AllyAndroid]

Actually, that's how figured out it wasn't on.

I found it odd that an icon appeard when I turned it off

and it's usefull since you can access the settings via that icon in the notification area.

The same here but I can't stand to have anything in my notification bar. It makes me think I have something that needs to be handled, like read a text or email.

 

[socialnetis]

Indeed, but I'm not using any fancy tools like skype so I'm happy like it is now

In the full screen version the bottom menu gets covered with an ad tho.

Not sure if this is a bug, but I've set the night setting from 18:00 - 08:00.
It's now 22:31 and the wifi get turned on when I unlock the screen.

Or is this period to skip that 10 minutes frequency to enable wifi again?

If so how long is wifi enabled when the phone is in locked/idle mode?

It's not a bug, but I hadn't think in your case. The idea is that everytime that you unlock the phone, you have internet connections even in the night mode. But during the night mode, it will never turn on the connections when the phone is locked.
In your case, its seems that you just don´t want internet connections at all (I don't think that you really sleep 14 hours a day).

When the phone is locked (and not in night mode), the wifi is turned every frequency-minutes for 1:30 minutes. I have tested in some devices and the time between you turn on the wifi, and the time that actually connects to a router, is about 8-30 seconds. So the idea is that you have 30 seconds to connect and 1 minute to synch.
Also, if you enabled data, after the wifi is on it will see after 1 minutes if is really connected to a router, if not, it will change to data connections for 1 minute.

 

[socialnetis]

I was going to post the same thing last night but didn't get a chance to.

A couple of other things, I wasn't aware that there was any settings until Sorex mentioned it, because the ad covers it up on my Droid 4.

I would also add a couple of additional settings:

1. Allow the user to choose between time based on 24 hours or time based on 12 hours with AM/PM.
2. Allow the user to turn off the notification on top.

You can acces to the settings via the physical menu button of the phone, I though that it was going to be obvious, but apparently it is not.

1. I don't think that this is really important, is just to set an hour, and time based on 24 hours is more universal.
2. The idea of the notification is to let you know that Optimus is really on. You can open like a intermediate widget with the notification. (Also, there is a real widget, that is just a button that opens the intermediate-widget)

 

[sorex]

I also got confused about this "rush hour" setting.

I interpret it as rushing home from work or being blocked in a traffic jam

so you don't want any sync'ing at all while driving

it's all minor things, but the app works great.

it's Sunday now and I haven't charged since I installed this last thursday or friday and it's still at 70% (ok, i'm not using it much just for some email that only sync's once an hour but still... I was about to buy a new battery since it drained on a day mainly due to 3G I guess this disables it when i'm home and uses wifi instead)

 

[AllyAndroid]

You can acces to the settings via the physical menu button of the phone, I though that it was going to be obvious, but apparently it is not.

Thanks, I see it now. Thought I had tried it before but most not have.

1. I don't think that this is really important, is just to set an hour, and time based on 24 hours is more universal.

I think this is very important. The majority of Android app downloads come from the United States (aprox. 50%) and they still use the 12 hour time frame. The Android phones in the US are set by default to 12 hours but there is an option to change it to 24 hours if needed.

I'm just offering a tip and not saying that you need to change your app. My job at work is to test apps and be a bridge between the end user and the programmer. Sometimes what the end user wants and what the programmer gives them are completely the opposite.

 

[sorex]

an hour ago the app (or background service) crashed for some unknown reason.

first time since 3 weeks I guess.

I had to open the app again, turn it off and back on to get that icon again at the top of the screen.