A new tool named Hush was made by Purdue researchers to help Android users in extending their smartphone or mobile device with the problem of their apps and tasks eating up their battery life. Even if Android phone users were to kill tasks and apps all the time, there will always be background resources that continue to run even though these might not be needed most of the time. These hidden background tasks are usually the main culprit for the fast discharge rate of many smartphones and tablets with the Android OS.
New Tool Named Hush to Silence Android Apps for Longer Battery Life
What Hush does is it prioritizes apps that the Android mobile user uses a lot and stops those that have been rarely used. The tool will not only stop the app but also all of its background resources. This leaves the mobile phone or the tablet with more RAM to work with and it creates lesser stress on the battery life. The researchers of the Hush tool stated that it can save around 16 percent of battery life. While it is not particularly huge, it is still very useful especially in dire moments. Interested people can download the tool to test it out for themselves via its Github page. However, it should be noted that it is still far from its polished completion. Hence, there may still be some bugs that may still need fixing.
Charlie Hu, a Purdue professor of electrical and computer engineering, stated that the phone hardware should go into a “sleep” state when the screen is turned off. This should then drain close to zero power levels when it comes to the battery’s life. The apps should then be able to “wake up” periodically once the screen is turned on once more to do useful things such as check for brand new notifications. But afterwards, the apps that have just “woken up” should go back to sleep if the user does not have any more use for them at this time.
Current phones do not let these apps go back to sleep entirely, and thus would put more stress on the battery and also let the smartphone or tablet use up more memory.
With Hush, simplicity is at its finest as it is a simple tool that will leave a definite and lasting impact. Apple, Google, and other mobile device manufacturers are currently developing similar features for their own gadget lines so it will not be surprising how something similar to this tool will turn about in today’s market. But for now, this tool by Purdue researchers is a great way to save up on battery life.