Rejected

:speech_balloon:

Low Accuracy Mode

Google Timeline has rough accuracy but is ridiculously battery efficient (doesn’t register on my battery report). It would be nice to have a lower-accuracy mode while moving around the mundane things and a high accuracy mode for interesting things (travelling, going out, etc), with the ability to switch back and forth between them. (This isn’t a dis on Arc’s battery efficiency!)

1 vote

Tagged as Suggestion

Suggested 24 June 2019 by user Sam Amin

Moved into Rejected 25 June 2019

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  • 24 June 2019 Sam Amin suggested this task

  • 25 June 2019 Matt Greenfield approved this task

  • 25 June 2019 Matt Greenfield moved this task into Rejected

  • avatar

    Hi! Thanks for the suggestion 😄

    Unfortunately I have to decline it, for a few reasons.

    The first reason is that reducing Arc’s location recording accuracy will not improve battery life. Arc’s recording engine is already extremely energy optimised, running at possibly peak efficiency, and uses the least amount of battery of the various subsystems of the app.

    Arc’s timeline recording detail is already achieved using about the same amount of battery as Google Timeline’s is. Reducing Arc’s accuracy wouldn’t create any energy savings.

    The majority of Arc’s battery consumption comes from its foreground time, when you are browsing the UI, viewing timelines, viewing summaries, details views, editing timeline items, etc. That’s where the battery consumption goes to. The location data and timeline recording itself is only a small fraction of the energy cost in comparison.

    The second reason is that Arc’s goal has never been low accuracy. Low accuracy recording is outside of the purpose of the app. Arc was designed and built to be the highest accuracy, highest detail timeline recorder available. Doing low accuracy or low detail recordings is not something that Arc has ever been designed to do - it’s just not what Arc is for. There are other apps that record daily timelines with less accuracy, and those other apps serve that purpose well enough.

    The third reason is that Arc already automatically adjusts its sampling frequencies and levels of detail in its recordings, depending on current battery level. If the battery level is low, Arc will record progressively less detail, automatically. (The same goes for thermal state - if the phone is getting too hot, Arc will automatically scale back its recording detail, to help the phone cool down).

    I hope that helps to explain!

    Cheers 😄 Matt

    25 June 2019