General Nerdy tech question here, but I can’t seem to find a clear answer online anywhere.
It’s well known that enabling location sharing permissions on the OS drains battery more than having the location feature turned off by the OS. Presumably, it uses up extra hardware (radio equipment?) to connect to get GPS data in an ongoing manner, uses the processor more, writing to storage sometimes, apps updating the data to their server/the cloud constantly, etc.
So my question is, if you are already using location/GPS sharing, say, to have Google Maps track your location so your family members always know each other’s location, then it’s already polling that location data constantly, right?
So if you are already using location data, does it really make a difference to the battery if you allow MORE apps access to the same location data? For example, if a person already tracking everywhere they go with Google Maps shared location and Timeline features now allows the Wyze app to track their location for rules and automations (or other apps as well, say give Microsoft Family Safety App access to location data, or Snapchat or any other number of apps that track location), it seems that adding the Wyze App and a few others shouldn’t make a significant impact to the battery since location is already being polled constantly by another app anyway.
The location-specific hardware is already turned on and being used, and logically that same polled data is not being polled MORE with more apps, the OS should only need to get that data once and then just share the SAME data to multiple sources, so the battery use differences seems that it should be negligible in the case of adding Wyze and other apps to location permissions (which were already being polled constantly), right? I mean, granted it will use a little battery from allowing Wyze or any other added apps to use the processor intermittently, and some data to update their server intermittently, but presumably this impact is negligible in comparison with location being on in the first place.
So a person who first has location features turned off through the OS decides to turn them on just for Wyze to use it, will notice a dramatic difference on their battery. But someone who already has another app constantly polling their location anyway, then also gives Wyze permission to use it, would not notice much of a difference at all. Is that correct? It seems this would explain why some people seem to report a noticeable battery impact and others seem not to notice much difference at all. Is this why?
Summary:
- So, 1 app using location is a big impact/difference compared to having it turned off
- But 2 or 3 or more seems like it should be a negligible difference compared to just 1 (shouldn’t make a huge difference to allow more if you’re already constantly polling location with another app anyway).
Can anyone confirm if the above is accurate, and if not, can you elaborate and explain why?