How Android Doze Works and How to Set It up to Save Battery Power
Your smartphone does so much that it’s impossible to get through the day on a full charge. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. Introduced in Marshmallow and enhanced in Nougat , Android Doze reduces battery drain when you are not using your phone. Here’s how it works and how to get the most out of it.
Android Doze prevents apps from draining your battery while you’re not using them
In Android, applications have the ability to use a so-called ” wakelock ” to prevent your phone from going into a power-saving deep sleep mode. This deep sleep mode usually works when your phone screen is off, but it can interfere with some apps. For example, if you’re using a fitness tracker, you don’t want your phone to turn off GPS or accelerometer just because your phone is in your pocket with the screen off.
Basically, this is a good concept. Apps make your phone work when they need to and let it sleep when they don’t. However, this is a problem where every developer thinks that their app is important enough to keep your phone on all the time. This is why apps like Facebook kill your battery even when you’re not using them .
Doze helps solve this problem by periodically blocking alarms and turning off network access if your phone is not used for a while. It will then periodically allow applications to register during “maintenance windows” from time to time (these windows appear less often the longer you do not use your device). Depending on which version of Android you have, Doze works differently under certain conditions:
- Android 6.0 Marshmallow: In this version, Doze is activated if your phone’s screen is off, if it is not connected to a charger, and if the phone has been stationary for a while. In this state, all wake-up interlocks are disabled and network access is disabled until the maintenance window expires. For example, instead of having Facebook Messenger keep your phone awake all the time, it will only have to check for new messages every few minutes.
- Android 7.0 Nougat: In Nougat, Google has added a lighter version of Doze that activates if your phone’s screen is off and not on the charger, even if it’s moving. In this mode, wake-up is still allowed and the phone will still search for GPS or Wi-Fi signals, but cellular access will be disabled outside of service windows. This will still allow things like your fitness tracker to keep monitoring your activity, while not allowing Facebook to drain your battery.
If you don’t do anything with your phone, Doze will still do its job. It runs almost invisibly in the background. Sometimes you get multiple messages at once, rather than within a few minutes, but for the most part, there is no noticeable change. However, you can customize it to prioritize certain apps or squeeze a little extra battery life out of your phone.
Choose which apps can ignore naps to receive important messages
By default, only the most important services like Google Play Services in Android can ignore Doze. If you’re not getting messages from an important app – or conversely, if you want to suppress an app that’s draining your battery a lot – you can tweak which ones are suppressed or push Doze. Here’s how:
- Open the Settings app on your phone (pull down the notification panel and tap the gear in the top right corner, or find Settings in the app drawer.)
- Tap Battery.
- Press the menu button and select “Battery Optimization”.
- Tap the drop-down menu at the top of the screen and select All Apps.
Here you can see a complete list of applications installed on your phone. Most should say “Optimize Battery Usage” by default. These applications are affected by Doze. If you want one application to stay connected at all times, such as your messaging application at work, click on it and select Don’t Optimize. From now on, this app will always be able to receive messages or access the network, but it may drain your battery.
Use apps like Greenify to make naps even more aggressive
The drowsiness itself is already pretty strong. However, some third-party apps can make it even better. If you’re on Android Marshmallow, Greenify offers a huge leap over core Doze functionality with Aggressive Doze. It can activate Doze in minutes, not hours, and it can work even when you are on the move. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work in Nougat, but most of Greenify’s aggressive features are part of Android 7.0 anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. To get started, follow these steps:
- Download and install Greenify . (Don’t worry, root is not required for what we do.)
- Launch the app and click the menu button in the upper right corner, then click Settings.
- Click Aggressive Dose (Experimental).
- Turn on the Aggressive Doze switch at the top of the screen.
- (Optional) Turn on Doze on the Go to activate Dose even if the device is moving.
If you don’t do anything else with Doze or Greenify, it will significantly increase battery life over time. However, Marshmallow users can go even further with the root Doze Settings Editor app. This allows you to adjust settings such as the distance your phone can move before disabling Doze. You can also choose one of the preset profiles to customize your phone’s battery settings without having to do all the work yourself. Again, Nougat users aren’t thrilled right now, but Doze’s built-in enhancements should make up for that.
Doze is a huge boon for your phone or tablet’s battery. Even if you don’t bother setting up at all, using Android Marshmallow or Nougat should help you squeeze out another couple of hours. However, if you need to squeeze a little more power out of this battery, these settings should help.