Track Smartphone Usage and Reduce Battery Life With This Android App
I already know I’m addicted to my smartphone , and if you’ve ever absentmindedly reached into your pocket and turned on the screen without realizing it, you’re probably just as passionate as I am. These devices are so entrenched in our lives that it’s hard to say how often we check them, but a new Android app lets you dig into the data to find out exactly how much time (and battery life ) you are spending on a daily basis. …
The Phone Usage Monitor has two main functions. The first, called app usage statistics, makes it pretty easy to track how often you check apps on your phone. It can show you how much time you spend on Facebook and Twitter every day – perhaps even more than you think.
The second function of the app, device events, is a little more interesting. The Phone Usage Monitor can track all other uses of the smartphone, noting every time you turn on the screen, connect to Wi-Fi, connect to charge, etc. After a few days of tracking, you may notice that you keep turning on the screen for no reason or that your phone is trying to connect to public Wi-Fi networks (both are wasting precious battery life).
If you want super-granularity, Phone Usage Monitor is more than adequate for the task, but you might want to think twice before diving into the flow of information. The app can easily generate a new notification every minute – it just shows how often we all use our smartphones. Fortunately, it’s easy to choose which apps and activities you want to track and which ones to ignore.
Phone Usage Monitor is available for free on the Google Play store with an upgrade to an ad-free version for $ 1.99. The app is in an early stage of development, so it may be unstable. You can find out more on the XDA-Developers forum, where this was first announced earlier this month ( 11:22 am – App development info has been updated).