Google Hangouts Running in the Background

Question

Google Hangouts Running in the Background

Hi all,

I've had my 6S Plus for about 10 days now, and as I'm sure you all do when you get a new iOS device, I've been obsessive about battery usage, mostly to see how much better the new one is over the old one. In keeping an eye on usage, one thing I've noticed is just how much Google Hangouts runs in the background even with Background App Refresh turned off. It's the main way I communicate with one of my best friends (he lives in Cali, I live in Missouri), but he's really the only one I chat with on there, everyone else I message with iMessage. I do have notifications for it turned on (since it's a messaging app), but again no background app refresh, and today the stats look like this:

14 minutes on screen
1.6 hrs background
11% total battery consumption over the last 24 hours
Time since last full charge: 15h30m Standby; 5h11m Usage, 65% battery remaining.

I've checked to make sure, and I am running the most recent update of the app (6.1.0, released 11/30). Does anyone have any thoughts or advice? Have you run into similar problems? Do I have to just suck it up?

Thanks!

-Rob

iPhone 6s Plus, iOS 9.2

Posted on Jan 6, 2016 12:50 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Mar 1, 2017 4:58 AM in response to allGodsglory

just realized if you go in to hangouts "settings" from the app list in settings, rather than directly into ios background app refresh, there is ANOTHER background app refresh choice for hangouts........

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Answer 2

Jan 6, 2016 2:26 PM in response to redsoxshamrocks

11% for 24 hours isn't unusual. I've had a similar conversation with another user today; Background App Refresh is not the same as responding to Push notifications, which are technically not background refresh. Hangouts is receiving push notifications, and processing them.

I'm envious of your usage; 65% after 15 1/2 hours is fantastically good battery life. The best practice is to charge your phone overnight, every night, with iCloud backup enabled. That way the phone will automatically back up each night, so the most you can lose if you have to restore it is one day's worth of data. And you will have a fully charged phone every morning.

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Answer 3

Jan 6, 2016 2:30 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thanks for the reply! The 15 1/2 hours standby is a little inflated because I charged up to 100% before bed, unplugged it, and put it on power save mode overnight to see how it would use the battery just sitting there. Most of the time I let it charge on my bedside table overnight. I am happy with the battery performance overall, but I just felt like 1.6 hours of background activity was pretty high, considering my email and other services that receive push notifications don't consume that much power.

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