iPadOS SecuritySpy settings to use less battery power?

pinkoos
pinkoos
in SecuritySpy

Hi @Ben

I finally got around to mounting an iPad to keep an always on view of one of my camera feeds

It's an older, used iPad (iPad Air 2) and I don't really know what condition the battery is in

It will always be plugged into power, but I'm still wondering if there are any settings I can tweak, either in the SS Mac app or the SS iPadOS app, that will still provide the live camera feed but use less power?

I guess I never realized it before, but keeping a camera feed always on causes constant network activity, as evidenced by the little spinning wheel next to the wifi icon on the iOS/iPadOS device

And, with that constant network activity comes constant battery drain/power usage

Of course, this is to be expected and no fault of SS, but I just didn't realize it before

Thanks

Comments

  • Ben
    Ben

    There are no particular settings in the SecuritySpy app to reduce power consumption - the main tasks that the app has to do are video decoding and display, but both are handled in special hardware modules in the iPad's processor and so are highly optimised. Yes, there needs to be constant network transfer but this doesn't use much power.

    If the iPad will be always connected to external power, you don't have to worry about this. Just make sure you are using a power adaptor that supplies a minimum of 12W (i.e. one designed for iPads and not one of the little 5W ones for iPhones). In this case, the amount of power supplied will be greater than the power required to run the SecuritySpy app, and so the battery won't need to be used.

  • pinkoos
    pinkoos

    Thanks @Ben

    I had this one laying around

    24W Dual USB-A Wall Charger + Lightning to USB-A Cable | Belkin

    So have been using it. I was surprised to see that it still charges the iPad pretty slowly - I thought it would charge must faster since it's 24W

    However, I just looked up the specs and I guess each port supplies 12W, for a TOTAL of 24W

    I guess with SS running all the time, maybe I'd be better off with one of those Anker (or other brand) chargers that supply 20W via a single port...I think all of those may be USB-C on the charger end

  • Ben
    Ben

    As far as I can tell, the iPad Air 2 doesn't support more than 12W charging input, so even with a more powerful charger you won't get faster charging. Once the battery is charged, the full 12W from the charger can then go to running the iPad, which should be enough to continuously run the SecuritySpy app.

  • pinkoos
    pinkoos

    Just looked into this and you’re correct - no fast charging love for my Air 2

    Things seem to have stabilized now though

    Without SS running the iPad charges to 100 without issue

    With SS running, however, it gets up to about 97-98 and just stays there

    Wonder if since it doesn’t reach 100, if it continues to use power to keep trying to charge the iPad fully to 100

  • pinkoos
    pinkoos

    By 'power' above, I meant the house electricity

  • Ben
    Ben

    It's curious why the battery level doesn't go above 98 in this situation, since there's clearly enough power coming in from the power adaptor to run the iPad without the battery's help (if there weren't, you'd see the battery charge continue to deplete). But, I think you can rely on the iPad's power management system to handle things in an optimum way and I don't think you have to worry about the battery charge not reaching 100%.

  • pinkoos
    pinkoos

    Yeah thanks I’m just going to leave it alone for now, as long as it’s working then I’m not going to worry about it

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