Duration of the battery when using Collect Mobile

Hi,

a couple of weeks ago I did some training on the use of Collect Mobile. Originally we were to use PDAs (no problems there with battery life, these gadgets have massive batteries), but the ones we have run Android 2.*, so we've switched to Samsung Galaxy XCover 2 smart phones (1700 mAh). To be on the safe side the teams carry a backup battery (5200 mAh) with them. The backup power supply can charge the phone on the go, no need to turn the phone off.

I was very positively surprised when it turned out that the phones discharged from 100% to approx. 40% in about 4 hours of continuous usage. Of course I advised the users to disable all unnecessary functions (Bluetooth, Wifi, Mobile data, etc.). On the other hand the brightness of the screen has to be increased when working outside.

Hope this gives you an idea.

The battery life varies significantly from device to device. You should find information the battery life in the specifications of the device.

Since Collect Mobile doesn’t require a network connection, you should see better battery life if you put your device in Airplane mode while collecting data. Lowering the brightness of the screen is also something that can significantly improve the battery life. This might be difficult in practice though, since you tend to need a fairly bright screen to be able to see clearly while outdoors.

When a field crew is out for a longer period of time, without access to an electrical grid or a generator, the size of the battery in the device is of importance. A smaller battery let the crew bring fewer spare batteries/external battery packs and lower the recharge time of the device. The battery life of the device is, on such occasions, of less importance. It is enough that one day of data collection can be done on one charge. The device can then be recharged during the night.

In general, devices with larger screens use more batteries, and usually come with larger batteries to offset this. On the other hand, the user interface in Collect Mobile is user-friendlier on a bigger screen. I believe that 7-inch tablets strike a good balance between battery size, screen size, and weight.