Sleep Cycle App Killing Battery?
April 18, 2011 7:10 PM   Subscribe

Sleep Cycle app on iphone 4 - does it kill your battery?

I'm not talking about how much battery it uses while you're sleeping. I keep it plugged in all night while it's working. I mean does it deplete your battery overall because it's always "working" through the night? I wonder if my reduced battery during the day is due to using Sleep Cycle every night. Thanks.
posted by grak88 to Technology (4 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
In my experience, yes. The days that followed the use of the app during the previous night always saw a battery that drained more quickly. (I'm prepared to admit confirmation bias on this.)
posted by heathergirl at 8:02 PM on April 18, 2011


I am on a 3GS if it makes any difference, but I haven't noticed much of a change since using Sleep Cycle.

I did, however, go through and take a look at all the battery saving variables I could a while ago. I have had fairly decent battery consistency and longevity on my phone after setting my brightness very low, my auto-lock time as low as possible, my spotlight indexing just to apps, my email checks to 30 min or more, and so on.

Once you have done as much of that sort of thing up front, then you can start noticing battery hogs. For example, I have a game called Orbital that I would play every now and then and easily go through a 1/3 of my battery that I could directly assign to that game.
posted by This_Will_Be_Good at 8:35 PM on April 18, 2011


Your phone stays on for the duration, so it probably is killing the battery. I think the usual recommendation is to keep your iPhone plugged in while using the app.

A heads up on sleep tracking apps—they're almost always a con. Have a look at some of the App Store reviews.

Take your iPhone, open Sleep Cycle and put it somewhere the accelerometer won't detect any movement, like on a table. In the morning, you'll see a beautiful sleep chart.
posted by henryaj at 8:52 AM on April 19, 2011 [1 favorite]


I just used SleepCycle last night; woke up at 7:30am it is 1PM and I have 90% battery (wifi on all day)

As far as what henryaj mentions; I wonder if it is a defective phone or accelerometer because some nights I even wake up within the "wakeup" window and if I move even a little bit the alarm goes off as it should have ... It's function is to wake you up when you are in your lightest sleep (when more movement is detected) and it does that job, the graphs are recording movement all night... Setting a phone on a table will give you beautiful horizon (or a straight line) art ...
posted by MrBCID at 9:52 AM on April 19, 2011


« Older Need "Weird" Sci Fi book recommendations   |   If you owned an Italian restaurant, what would you... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.