Device manufacturers must provide a component power profile in
/frameworks/base/core/res/res/xml/power_profile.xml.
To determine values for power profiles, use hardware that measures the power being used by the device and perform the various operations for which information is needed. Measure the power use during those operations and compute the values (deriving differences from other baseline power uses as appropriate).
As the goal of a power profile is to estimate battery drain appropriately, power profile values are given in current (amps). The Android framework multiplies the current by the time for which the subsystem was active and computes the mAh value, which is then used to estimate the amount of battery drained by the app or subsystem.
Devices with Bluetooth, modem, and Wi-Fi controllers running Android 7.0 and higher can provide additional power values obtained from chipset data.
Devices with heterogeneous CPUs
The power profile for devices with CPU cores of heterogeneous architecture must include the following additional fields:
- Number of total CPUs for each cluster (expressed in cpu.clusters.cores).
- CPU speeds supported by each cluster.
- Active CPU power consumption for each cluster.
To differentiate between active CPU power consumption and supported CPU speeds for clusters, append the cluster number to the name of the array. Cluster numbers are assigned in the order of CPU cores in the kernel device tree. For example, in a heterogeneous architecture that has two (2) clusters with four (4) cores:
- cluster0 consists of cpu0-3
- cluster1 consists of cpu4-7
The Android framework uses these CPU core numbers when it reads statistics
from the sysfs files in:
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu<number>/cpufreq/stats.
Example of cluster CPUs and speeds:
<array name="cpu.active.cluster0"> <value>200</value> <value>300</value> <value>400</value> </array> <array name="cpu.speeds.cluster0"> <value>600000</value> <value>800000</value> <value>1200000</value> </array> <array name="cpu.active.cluster1"> <value>400</value> <value>500</value> <value>600</value> </array> <array name="cpu.speeds.cluster1"> <value>800000</value> <value>1200000</value> <value>1400000</value> </array>
Power values
The following table describes available power value settings. To view the sample file in AOSP, see power_profile.xml.
| Name | Description | Example value | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| ambient.on | Additional power used when screen is in doze/ambient/always-on mode instead of off. | around 100 mA | - |
| screen.on | Additional power used when screen is turned on at minimum brightness. | 200 mA | Includes touch controller and display backlight. At 0 brightness, not the Android minimum which tends to be 10 or 20%. |
| screen.full | Additional power used when screen is at maximum brightness, compared to screen at minimum brightness. | 100 mA-300 mA | A fraction of this value (based on screen brightness) is added to the screen.on value to compute the power usage of the screen. |
| wifi.on | Additional power used when Wi-Fi is turned on but not receiving, transmitting, or scanning. | 2 mA | - |
| wifi.active | Additional power used when transmitting or receiving over Wi-Fi. | 31 mA | - |
| wifi.scan | Additional power used when Wi-Fi is scanning for access points. | 100 mA | - |
| audio | Additional power used when audio decoding/encoding via DSP. | around 10 mA | Used for DSP audio. |
| video | Additional power used when video decoding via DSP. | around 50 mA | Used for DSP video. |
| camera.avg | Average power use by the camera subsystem for a typical camera app. | 600 mA | Intended as a rough estimate for an app running a preview and capturing approximately 10 full-resolution pictures per minute. |
| camera.flashlight | Average power used by the camera flash module when on. | 200 mA | - |
| gps.signalqualitybased | Additional power used by GPS based on signal strength. This is a multi-value entry, one per signal strength, from weakest to strongest. | 30 mA, 10 mA | - |
| gps.on | Additional power used when GPS is acquiring a signal. | 50 mA | - |
| radio.active | Additional power used when cellular radio is transmitting/receiving. | 100 mA-300 mA | - |
| radio.scanning | Additional power used when cellular radio is paging the tower. | 1.2 mA | - |
| radio.on | Additional power used when the cellular radio is on. This is a multi-value entry, one per signal strength (no signal, weak, moderate, strong). | 1.2 mA | Some radios boost power when they search for a cell tower and don't detect a signal. Values can be the same or decrease with increasing signal strength. If you provide only one value, the same value is used for all strengths. If you provide two values, the first is used for no-signal, the second value is used for all other strengths, and so on. |
| bluetooth.controller.idle | Average current draw (mA) of the Bluetooth controller when idle. | - | These values aren't estimated, but taken from the data sheet of
the controller. If there are multiple receive or transmit states, the average
of those states is taken. In addition, the system now collects data for
Low Energy (LE) and Bluetooth scans. Android 7.0 and later no longer use the Bluetooth power values for bluetooth.active (used when playing audio via Bluetooth A2DP) and bluetooth.on (used when Bluetooth is on but idle). |
| bluetooth.controller.rx | Average current draw (mA) of the Bluetooth controller when receiving. | - | |
| bluetooth.controller.tx | Average current draw (mA) of the Bluetooth controller when transmitting. | - | |
| bluetooth.controller.voltage | Average operating voltage (mV) of the Bluetooth controller. | - | |
| modem.controller.sleep | Average current draw (mA) of the modem controller when asleep. | 0 mA | These values aren't estimated, but taken from the data sheet of the controller. If there are multiple receive states, the average of those states is taken. If there are multiple transmit states, specifying a value for each transmit state is supported starting in Android 9. |
| modem.controller.idle | Average current draw (mA) of the modem controller when idle. | - | |
| modem.controller.rx | Average current draw (mA) of the modem controller when receiving. | - | |
| modem.controller.tx | Average current draw (mA) of the modem controller when transmitting at different RF power levels. This is a multi-value entry with one value per transmit power level. | 100 mA, 200 mA, 300 mA, 400 mA, 500 mA | |
| modem.controller.voltage | Average operating voltage (mV) of the modem controller. | - | |
| wifi.controller.idle | Average current draw (mA) of the Wi-Fi controller when idle. | - | These values aren't estimated, but taken from the data sheet of the controller. If there are multiple receive or transmit states, the average of those states is taken. |
| wifi.controller.rx | Average current draw (mA) of the Wi-Fi controller when receiving. | - | |
| wifi.controller.tx | Average current draw (mA) of the Wi-Fi controller when transmitting. | - | |
| wifi.controller.voltage | Average operating voltage (mV) of the Wi-Fi controller. | - | |
| cpu.speeds | This is a multi-value entry that lists each possible CPU speed in KHz. | 125000 KHz, 250000 KHz, 500000 KHz, 1000000 KHz, 1500000 KHz | The number and order of entries must correspond to the mA entries in cpu.active. |
| cpu.idle | Total power drawn by the system when CPUs (and the SoC) are in system suspend state. | 3 mA | - |
| cpu.awake | Additional power used when CPUs are in scheduling idle state (kernel idle loop); system isn't in system suspend state. | 50 mA | Your platform might have more than one idle state in use with differing levels of power consumption; choose a representative idle state for longer periods of scheduler idle (several milliseconds). Examine the power graph on your measurement equipment and choose samples where the CPU is at its lowest consumption, discarding higher samples where the CPU exited idle. |
| cpu.active | Additional power used by CPUs when running at different speeds. | 100 mA, 120 mA, 140 mA, 160 mA, 200 mA | Value represents the power used by the CPU rails when running at different speeds. Set the max speed in the kernel to each of the allowed speeds and peg the CPU at that speed. The number and order of entries correspond to the number and order of entries in cpu.speeds. |
| cpu.clusters.cores | Number of cores each CPU cluster contains. | 4, 2 | Required only for devices with heterogeneous CPU architectures. Number of entries and order should match the number of cluster entries for the cpu.active and cpu.speeds. The first entry represents the number of CPU cores in cluster0, the second entry represents the number of CPU cores in cluster1, and so on. |
| battery.capacity | Total battery capacity in mAh. | 3000 mAh | - |
Low Energy (LE) and Bluetooth scans
For devices running Android 7.0, the system collects data for Low Energy (LE) scans and Bluetooth network traffic (such as RFCOMM and L2CAP) and associates these activities with the initiating app. Bluetooth scans are associated with the app that initiated the scan, but batch scans aren't (and are instead associated with the Bluetooth app). For an app scanning for N milliseconds, the cost of the scan is N milliseconds of rx time and N milliseconds of tx time; all leftover controller time is assigned to network traffic or the Bluetooth app.